Subway art three variations

I sort of jumped hard onto the subway art bandwagon recently.

I made this

and this

and now my latest creation is this

I used the same technique as I did here with the layer of book pages mod podged on the canvas with vinyl letters on top.

Then I sanded it down to give it a cook vintage look to it

So what do you think?  Which one is your favorite?

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Bead Christmas Wreath

Last year, I featured this wreath from The Joy is At Home

I was inspired to make a silver bead wreath this year and kept my eyes peeled for the materials at garage sales this summer.

Suzy made hers a little different than mine, and she had an awesome mirror to put hers on.  I made mine to sell at a craft bazaar, however, I wasn't going to be sad if it didn't sell.

Here's how I did it. 

I spray painted a large foam wreath silver and took some of those long Christmas garland beads that I bought at a garage sale.  Mine were vintage and came in a box, but this is what they look like...just to give you an idea.

I started wrapping them around sort of at an angle and using hot glue to hold them in place.

Each string of beads was 9 yards and I used 7 boxes of them.  

I couldn't find any of that gorgeous blue ribbon so I stuck with silver.  I think it turned out amazing.  However, I wish I had a mirror like Suzy did to put it on.  

Keep your eyes peeled after Christmas for those 90% off sales on these beads.  

My grand total for making the wreath was less than $5 but it looks like a million bucks and it sold before the craft bazaar even started!

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Lunch wraps and reusable storage bags

I have three kids in school full time.
All three kids bring their lunch to school nearly every day.

A few years ago, I realized how much waste we were making just with our lunches alone, so I made some reusable lunch wraps and storage bags for the kids.

I'm amazed at how well they hold up after being used nearly.every.day.

The kids have never accidentally thrown the bags away and since the bags come home, I can see what they ate and what they didn't.

I also love that I am not running to the store as often to pick up Ziploc bags and baggies.

Know what my favorite part is?

The sandwich wrap also acts as a place mat on those dirty cafeteria tables.

Want the tutorial?  Go here.

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Thanksgiving turkey trot with custom t-shirts on the silhouette

Last month, I gave you a preview to show you what I was working on and gave you a sneak peek at this little onesie.

For the past five years, I have been starting my morning running in a local Turkey Trot 5k.  The kids started joining me the past few years, and thankfully, we have a very active family, so I thought it would be fun to start an annual Teodoro Turkey Trot fun run 5k.

I used the silhouette machine to bust out 24 t-shirts in various sizes from newborn to adults XL.  Because really, what's a race without a t-shirt?

This is the whole gang before the run.  We had a few out of town cousins, and several sickies, but I was pleased with the turnout and we had such a great time.  The rain even held off until literally minutes after the finish of the "race".

I was able to score some free racing bibs from a local race organization to make our run seem just a bit more official.

All lined up at the start line ready to run!

Most impressive participant of the day goes to this new family of three.  Just two weeks after having their first baby, Brett and Kate showed up with their sweet babe Trevi.

Isn't she sweet?!

Grandpa and Isabella ran their 2nd 5k together and it's fun to see them enjoy the sport of running together.

My oldest son finished first and was a bit exhausted after his efforts!

My youngest son ran almost a mile of it, before making the transition to his bike.  Here we are running towards the finish.

The winner!

Such a fun family tradition that I am excited to continue for years to come.  What are your Thanksgiving traditions?

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Guest post-Christmas Advent Calendar

I am so excited to get to introduce all of you to my friend Grace.  Grace is an amazing photographer who is based in Montgomery, AL.  She's a mom of four sweet kiddos, and I am proud to call her my friend.  Grace mostly blogs about photography (you will drool!), but this past week, she blogged about an advent calendar that she made for her kids in celebration of Christmas.  I just had to share it with all of you.  Welcome to Holy Craft Grace!

I’ve been wanting to build some new traditions for the holiday’s for awhile now and this year I actually did something about it.  I LOVED having Advent calendars when I was a kid, it was such a fun way to count down the days until Christmas. So I started from there.

I wanted to do something with my own kids that put the focus on preparing ourselves for the true meaning of the season.  After some thought (and a cruise through Pinterest!) I came up with my own version of an Advent calendar.   Look what some envelopes and stamps can get you. . .

(The first Sunday of Advent this year is November 27th which is why it starts with that date/number.)

I already had the linen/barnwood hanging up in the foyer (something I had custom made from the AWESOME people over at CHARLESTON HOUSE FRAMING & GALLERY) so I decided to put my holiday spin on it and use it as our background for my envelope calender.  Each envelope has a slip of paper in it with something to do – donate to the food bank, make cookies for friends, give compliments, cut out snowflakes.  I had to keep in mind our *very* hectic schedule when filling the envelopes, but I think we should be able to accomplish each day’s task.  There is a mix of ‘giving’ tasks and ‘fun family time’ tasks.  In the Sunday envelopes there are short children’s prayers each child will take turns reading while we light our advent candles.  And December 6th is the Feast of St. Nicholas so I put his story in to read and celebrate.

I am so happy with how it turned out and think the kids are going to love it too…they already want to start opening the envelopes!    The whole project  was probably under $20 (I already had the envelopes, twine and ‘backboard’) and I can see just stringing the envelopes inside an empty frame.

I just love the simplicity of this advent calendar, and the oodles of memories that will be made from the activities.  Thanks Grace for dropping by.  

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Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!  Be thankful today and every day.

 Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus1 Thessalonians 5:18

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Book page wreath

Do you guys remember the bird book that I made a few months ago?

When I cut the circle out 

I was left with a ton of book page circles that looked like this.

I kept them because I knew I could use them one day.

Well, that day came, and I made this book page wreath with them.

I started out with a foam wreath and my circles and a lot of hot glue

I folded each of the circles into a triangle like this

Then I glued them on around the wreath

And this is the finished project.

I think it turned out pretty cute.  

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Book page wreaths

I love the few weeks leading up to Christmas and all of the local craft bazaars in the area.  I go to as many as I can and love finding new ideas and soaking in the creativity of other people.

I only do one craft bazaar a year and I split the booth with a friend.  I find that if I start doing numerous bazaars and crafting like it's my job, then it feels like just that, a job.  I like it to be fun.  One a year is my limit.

This year,  I made a few book page wreaths. 

I had two different variations.

The actual wreath base

and the foam circle base.  You can see that in the wreath below the insides are all filled in.

I like them both.

How about you?  Do you have a preference?

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Styrofoam twine Christmas tree

While I like to celebrate the holidays one at a time, I did break my rule and made a Christmas craft before Thanksgiving.  What can I say, my glue gun was on fire last week!

I started out with a Styrofoam tree that I bought at a garage sale for 50 cents. I bought the ball of twine (at where else?) for 50 cents too.  So the grand total of the project was around $1.  I used a couple of hot glue gun sticks, so that factored into the cost.

 

I put the tivo on to something mindless (probably The Biggest Loser) and glued away.  I wrapped the twine around twice.

This is what I ended up with.

I stuck it into a galvanized bucket and added a felt flower, but I'm not sold.  I think I like it better just plain.

 What do you think?

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