watermellon

This is just about the best thing I've learned this summer.

My family loves watermellon and I hate cutting it up, trying to keep it from rolling around, it always makes a huge mess, and I feel like I wasted a lot of it. So I saw this in Martha Stewert...

Cut the two ends so that you can stand it up then shave of the sides and there you have a it, just the inside of the mellon! it's so great!

ENJOY!

tent

This was a really fun quick project, for anyone that has kids you should make this!

I saw it in Pottery Barn Kids and thought why would anyone pay this insane price when all it is is a couple sticks and fabric? it cost me just under $10. and a few scraps of fabric I already had.

Supplies:

7 2x2's any length, mine are all about 4 ft.

a few nuts and bolts

some fabric for the cover, I just pieced a bunch of canvas scraps that I had together.

and a handy husband who has the day off, or if you like to use a drill go for it!

1st step: make the ends that will cross as the opening, this is where we used the bolts/nuts so it could open and be closed for storage.

2nd: screw the bottom slats and the top one just sits in the X's

3rd: paint if you want and put your fabric on! my kids love it!

Rag Wreaths

My sisters and I got together to make rag wreaths for the 4th of July.  They are really simple to do.  I would suggest this as a group activity and have everyone bring different patterns of fabric to share.  Plus, that way you have someone to chat with while you are tying all those knots!

First cut strips of fabric in the different colors you would like in strips of 1"x7".
We chose patterns of red, white and blue for the 4th of July.

Next, bend a wire hanger in to a circle.

Then you tie the strips of fabric around the hanger, as my sister Noelle is doing.
(And she is so excited about it as well.)

Ta da!  The final product!

she wore flowers in her hair...

now I will have that song in my head all day and think of dumb and dumber! ( I hope I'm not the only one remembers that haha)

a cute girl in my ward made these little felt bows, so I had to give it a try...

what you need:

glue gun, felt, clips, scissors, needle/thread

cut some circles, they can be as big/small as you want. start with 1 for the base and pinch the middle of the other circles and attach them to the base circle with your glue gun, the more circles you put on the cuter. Once you get going it makes sense. I didn't do very many on this one and I wasn't very happy with it. but I love my white one(you'll see it later...)

this one was a lot easier. cut out a row of petals, keep them attached to one another. then stitch across the bottom then gather into a flower. on this one I cut out 4 small circles and pinched the middle to make a cute center for the flower, I LOVED it! and it helped to have an amazingly cute model!

there are endless ways to put these together, SO FUN!

now there is peace

I made this little prayer chart for my kids in hope of peace and happiness! (does that really exist?)

Every meal and every time we go to bed the issue of who gets to say the prayer is just out of control and the whole being reverent part is smashed to the ground by the time we're done.

SO this is what I came up with totally simple, just grabbed some paper that I had and ta da!

And then there was peace... for a bit

Decoupage Eggs

I'm posting about a craft I actually haven't done yet, but I plan on doing for Easter.  I figured if I posted about this after Easter, it wouldn't be very useful.  I think these little decoupage eggs would be so cute in Easter baskets or by each plate at Easter dinner.  The instructions are found here.  Since I haven't made them yet, I don't really have any tips, but it doesn't look too complicated.

(Here's the follow up, I did make the decoupage eggs and posted on my blog how they turned out.  I thought they were really cute, but too much work to just have them broken open again!  Ha, oh well.)

Felt flowers wreath remake

I made a wreath for Valentine's Day with felt flowers a couple months ago, glued the flowers on a grapevine wreath, and hated it. It was huge and bugged me every time I looked at it. And it took probably 5 hours to complete, which only made me like it even less. Something that takes 5 hours should look amazing, right? SO... I decided to redo the wreath. And now I love it! Took the flowers off, wrapped a styrofoam wreath with felt, then glued all the flowers on it. It's much smaller and much more full. And now I only have to wait 10 months to hang it up : )