New Toppers!

Hey everyone! With this nice spring weather here it's really gotten me in the mood to get some things done that I've been putting off forever. Well that and the fact that I've been feeling so much better the last 2 months. I had bought one extra curtain panel last year when I redid the living room and knew that I could make a topper for both door with just one panel. Well a year later I'm getting that done and here they are. One curtain panel and some chocolate colored ribbon and I'm done with that project and can mark it off my endless TO DO list. Mr. Candy Creek liked them as well. He said that they looked great.....he paused while admiring them and said "they are girly but look great".  Men!...that's all I could think....Men! I realize I'm outnumbered here 2 to 1 but gosh I really was trying to make the living room more "guy friendly" aka "manly"! I suppose had I used a camo printed fabric and maybe some jute rope instead of ribbon that wouldn't of been "girly" at all then right? I'm just thankful that my husband noticed them. My son walked right by them and never even noticed they were there. So I'm not going to get to upset that Mr. Candy Creek noticed but referred to them as girly. Would I be pushing it to far as to say that maybe they are a bit sophisticated?
Ya'll have a great night. I'd like to turn in early tonight because my body just isn't getting the hang of this new time yet.

A great giveaway at Notes from a Cottage Industry!

Hey everyone! Please hurry and go to Tracey's blog and sign up for her fabulous giveaway. I know that you all will be thrilled to see what she's offering. I know that I am. I so need 2 of those things that she's giving us for FREE! So good luck to you all and here is the link for you to click.
http://www.acottageindustry.com/a_cottage_industry/2012/03/march-give-away.html

Something new I've been taking classes in....

 If you've been following me for a while now then you all know that I've been wanting to learn to paint for a long time now. So I started taking classes here locally. And these 4 paintings is what I've done so far. I really enjoy it, it's been loads of fun and very relaxing for me. So for the month of January this is what I was doing...January and part of Feb of this year.

 Lighthouse with waves crashing moss covered rocks

 Snowball egret

Pot of flowers.
I pretty much had to stop there with these because we had 3 deaths in 2 1/2 weeks that started on Valentine's Day. So it's been pretty stressful around her but things are slowly starting to get back into a routine again and I'll get back to practicing my painting again and will be taking more classes but right now I have to focus on the projects that have been staring at me entirely to long. So those will get done first before I go out and buy ANYTHING else for more projects. I do know that I have some big projects coming up. Like my son's bedroom and would love to get our guest room/craft room painted this year. And yes ladies it's just about time for some serious spring cleaning. So I have loads of things lined up to get done. I promise that I'll do my best to try to take before and after pictures for you and then sit down and share them with you all. So just keep dropping back by.

Don't throw away those glass sauce jars!!

 Do you use a specific brand of spaghetti sauce? If so, don't throw those glass jars away! USE THEM! I happen to use Bertolli sauces (and add to the sauce to spice it up a little more) but I've been saving my jars ever since I saw a post on pinterest where a lady did this very same thing. It's super easy to do as well as you can see. You just remove the labeling and then I painted my lids black and added some ribbon and a little embellishment.

I needed a better way to store my ribbons that I use for scrapbooking so that I could get to them faster. But you don't have to just put ribbons in them......if your a crafter think about buttons, beads, metal embellishments, paper flowers ect ect. and these wouldn't be just good for crafters...if you have limited room on your kitchen counter...think of making these jars for to store your flour, meal, sugar, coffee, tea. OR popcorn, rice, beans. The uses are endless but the best part of all is that this project is pretty much free! Hope you get inspired to start saving your jars as well to give them new life and you'll have a trash to treasure of your own!

Wedding Album with a touch of Country...

 Hi Everyone! First off should I say Happy New Year to you all?? WOW! I'm so sorry...here it is March and this is my first post for this year. It's not like I haven't been doing things. I've just neglected you all by sharing with you. So I'll be doing some makeup posts over the next few days.
 I actually made 3 of these albums using Laura Dennison's pattern from Following the Paper Trail. I didn't do them all alike but have already given the other 2 away and forgot to take pictures of those.

 This is how I decided to do my little flowers on the binding of the book. It's a little different from how Laura did hers. Please scroll on down to see the rest of the album.

After making 3 of these at one time. I'm not sure that I'll ever want to make another one because they were so time consuming. But once they were complete I can see how all that time was well worth it.
I have another post that I'll go ahead and post tonight and will look at what else I've forgotten to share with everyone. Have a WONDERFUL night everyone and come on back soon to see what else I've been doing.

Our Winter Wonderland Christmas...(inside)

 I decided to only do one tree this year thinking that it would make things faster and much easier on me. I had forgotten the little fact that when I go changing things like this it actually takes me longer because I have to think things through more plus I made those previous decorations this year as well but I'm done now and am happy with everything. I knew I wanted to use the white Christmas tree that I had been using in the kitchen this year as well as my vintage Shiny Brite Christmas ornaments in the pretty robins egg blue color and so since I started thinking that then the snowflake thing just kind of took off from there and our Winter Wonderland started coming together.

 I didn't use all of my snowmen this year...only a few ones that went along with the colors...or came close..

 In a fix for a table centerpiece? Fill a bowl full of ornaments...I'm sure you have all seen this many many times before.

Hope that you all are having a wonderful Christmas season thus far.....

Another easy Christmas decoration..

 If you all look back in prior years where I've shown my Christmas decorations you'll see a picture of these books but they were with gold ribbon. Well since I changed my colors for the living room this year then I simply changed out the ribbons for this as well and added some silver bells and snowflakes.

These were hardback books and I simply tore the hard covers off of them and wrapped the ribbon around and added some embellishments. Now how fast, simple easy and inexpensive is that? Happy Crafting and Decorating!