Fall Wreath

Fall may not be in the air quite yet, but I am very ready for it. Fall projects have been all over Pinterest lately. Making this wreath has me in the mood for fall.... Plus, the Febreeze fall and winter scents probably aren't helping. My house officially smells like cranberry downstairs. But I digress, here is the link to my inspiration for my wreath below.

See I told you I am all ready.

For this project you will need:

- An MDF wreath frame: I found mine at Michael's in the floral section.

- Twigs: you can either find these outside or purchase them. Michael's has them in their floral section for fairly cheap.

- Burlap (or just plain fabric): I found the burlap at JoAnn's for $3.99 a yard and they had a huge selection. Pick whatever colors appeal to you. I got a quarter yard of each color.

- Hot glue gun and A LOT of hot glue: I'm serious, this whole wreath is held together by the hot glue so make sure to stock up.

- Any other embellishments you would like.

I started by breaking (or cutting) my twigs into pieces about 6 inches long. Glue all of these around the MDF frame. I found it was easiest to put some glue onto the frame and then put sticks on. Space these as you would like.

Put your twig wreath to the side because now comes the fun part... Making the rosettes.

First you will need to cut circles out of some scrap fabric. However big you cut your circle is how big your rosette will be. Cut your burlap into sections about 1 inch thick and 24 inches long. Again, use your judgement on this depending on how you want your flowers to look.

Step 1- tie a knot on one end of the burlap. Glue this to the center of your circle.

Step 2- begin twisting the fabric and spiralling it around the knot. Use glue every now and then to hold it in place.

Step 3- continue the twist and spiral process until you have covered your whole circle and only have a small piece of burlap left. The tighter you twist the burlap the tighter the rose will be. So, if you want a rose with more "fluff" to it, don't twist it as tight.

Step 4- flip the rose over and glue the end of the burlap down.

Voila, you have one rosette. Continue this process until you have enough roses to go around the whole MDF frame.

At this point go ahead and grab your twig wreath again. Make sure that you have as many twigs as you want glued down. I added some fake white flower/ball type things I found at Michael's. Begin gluing the flowers down around the frame, placing them how you would like.

After about 15-20 glue sticks to should now be done... I told you it was a lot of glue. But, I do have to say I am really proud of this wreath. I love the way it turned out and the burlap and twigs are perfect for fall.

Tomorrow (or this week) I am going to post some more fall and Halloween decorations I am working on... I did mention I was obsessed with both of those things right now right? But anyways, more decorating and tutorials later :)

 

 

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Pure Craziness

The hubby is off in LA for work. We shipped him off on Saturday. It seriously feels like it has been so much longer. I miss him already. :( But good news, I booked a flight to go visit next week.

I leave my house Monday evening to go visit my sister and do more quiet book stuff. Then Thursday morning I start my long day of travel. I can't wait for my trip. Another vacation... I am one lucky girl. This time I will be laying on the beach in Santa Monica. Super excited for some Bubba Gump Shrimp Co :)

Anyways, I got some more quiet book pages done. These ones are for Lexie's learning book. They are all ideas from my sister and I and no patterns were used.

Cute right? I'm pretty proud of them. The balloon one could easily be made into different shapes. It's a great one because it uses fine motor skills and color matching. The next one is a bead counter. It has shape beads, so animal recognition could also be used. It also shows the number and dots to reinforce the number three different ways. Next is a number matching and then a pizza for her to make. The pizza is mostly just for fun because she loves pizza :)

Back to the craziness though. Over the weekend was the Oregon International Airshow out in Hillsboro. Friday night we went up to the local park to watch the show and the fireworks. Coco was not so sure she loved the fireworks so she cuddled in my sweatshirt.

The next day was insane. I took my husband to the airport and then we had record breaking temperatures here in Oregon. It reached 102. For real, that is just not even okay. We don't do that here in Oregon. The heat was terrible, but I was at my sisters with no AC and sewing all day. Ugh. We got through a lot of the quiet books.

Sunday we were back at the quiet books. It was hot, but not as hot as Sunday. It is finally cooling back down here.. I am a 70s and 80s kind of girl.

I think that it all I can rant about right now. The craziness is slowing down and I am gearing up for my next vacation!

 

 

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Quiet books

Quiet books have been all over Pinterest lately. My sister Megan is heading to Michigan soon for a family trip and friends wedding. Two kids and a long flight.... Some sort of entertainment is needed. Her and I thought making some quiet books would be a great idea. Well, the books were a great idea if someone else made them or it wasn't 102 degrees without an air conditioned house.

But, all that aside, we almost completed two in two days. We used patterns from Imagine Our Life. This women is absolutely insane and makes the cutest books ever. I seriously don't know how she does it. A few times my sister and I were cursing at her because she made us jealous. But, all our hate towards her aside, she is amazing. Her patterns are easy to follow and her blog gives amazingly detailed pictures of all her pages. I wish I could be as cool as her.

The first page we did was the sandcastle. It turned out great and had minimal hand sewing. The cutting was also really quick. This one was really simple to customize with colors and beads.

Next was the cupcake page. Now, cutting out the pattern should have been our first clue. This one was tedious. A LOT of hand stitching went into this one. But, the adorable oven that opens up to reveal cupcakes and all the other small details make this one a winner.

The road one is something that we just whipped up on our own. The only pattern I used was from her camping page for the brown bear. Megan is supposed to be sewing a little parking lot with pockets for the cars to go in and I am thinking about another car or two.

In honor of Lexie's first airplane trip we made her the airport page. It has a truck to move the bags from the airport to the plane. A helicopter that can be moved around. A small plane that flies on a string. The airplane had one area that opens up to put the bags in. We ended up adding another opening on the plane so that Megan could sew in a vinyl pocket and put a family picture in there for Lexie.

We kept telling her she was going to go on an airplane soon and her response was "I too big". It was really cute. Hopefully, she will enjoy her first flight! She will have two really cool books to keep her entertained on the trip.

This page was by far Lexie's favorite. She has an obsession with green monsters, especially Mike Wazowski. Since the book is for her, we decided to do something special. We made a Mike and girl Mr Potato Head- ish page. This was one of our creations and we had so much fun making it. We cut out some circles, blew up a picture of Mike to make the arms and legs, then sewed on the eyes... Well one eye for each. For the girl, we added some yarn hair. Her favorite outfit for mike was the pink polka dot tie. We made ties, skirts, lips, and mustaches. I think we are going to have to make more clothes for this page because she loves it so much.

We still have plenty left to do but the rest of the pages should be much more simple to make... But I'll let you know after we actually make them. Stay tuned for more quiet book pages through the next week or so.

 

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