Yarn-Covered Initial & Military Crafts

For my aunt's birthday I wanted to make her something special and personal. I was thinking about her interests and I came up with an idea! She loves to crochet so I decided to wrap her initial in yarn. Her name is Rebecca but for as long as I can remember I've called her "Beautiful Buck"...also her last name starts with a "B". I found the wooden letter at Michaels for $2.99 and I got the yarn there as well. I got the burlap to make the rosette at Hobby Lobby in the fabric section and I already had the pearl embellishment. You can get these in the beading section at either of those stores. You will also need a glue gun. This was very time consuming...I think I wrapped the letter in yarn for 3 straight hours. The curves can get a little tricky. The whole time I was secretly wishing her last name started with an "I". Heh. I love the way it turned out. It's pretty self-explanatory but here are some pics:

Here's a good tutorial on how to make the rolled burlap flower:

http://jonesdesigncompany.com/flowers/rolled-fabric-flowers-tutorial/

I just hot glued the pearl in the middle and voila!!

Next, my father-in-law came to me about a month ago and said he had a craft for me to do. Of course I was excited!! He had a lot of war medals and a Purple Heart (pretty cool) that were his great grandfather's and he wanted them framed. I got a shadow box from Michaels (it was originally like $30 but I used coupons and got it down to $18). It already had a gray background. I matted the picture of his grandfather with black and white scrapbook paper and attached it with pearl-ended pins at each corner. I also matted the Purple Heart with purple and white scrapbook paper. I did some measuring to space the medals perfectly. I attached them by hot gluing the pin-part at the top of the medal to the base then using a glue dot to secure the metal part to the base. It stayed very well. It was too much trouble to actually attach them with the actual pins so that's why I used glue. So glad he loved it!

Happy crafting!

Bachelorette & Bridal Shower Decorations

As most of you know, I'm getting another SISTER!!! Throughout my whole life I've begged my mom for a sister (I may or may not still beg her on occasion). When I married Matt I was so excited to finally get one (and husband too, of course)!! I have loved having a little sister in his sister Anna. We have grown so close in the past year and it's like we've always been related. We were both so excited when Matt's twin proposed to our perfect little Asian Barbie, Juliet. We love her so much and we are so excited to have her join the Hedgepeth family on August 11. Less than 2 weeks!!

Here is a little blog post about some of her wedding festivities and what we did to prepare for them.

 First, her Bachelorette party! We had a lot of fun. We surprised her and went to Paint a Piece. After that we ate at Pete and Sams then went to my house for a lingerie shower and to watch our all time favorite movie, Bridesmaids. Here's how I decorated my house:

For the table I used some flowery bedazzled stickers to set around the centerpiece (my cupcakes) and I used cardboard letters to spell "Jules" (her nickname).

The banner I actually made for her shower later that week, but I thought that it could be used twice and it wouldn't hurt anyone.  Here's what I used:

I got the blank white banner at Hobby Lobby already made for $4.99 and it was exactly the amount of triangles that I needed and saved me a lot of work. I got the gray and white fabric at Premier Fabrics and covered each triangle with it. I used paper from Hobby Lobby to go on top of the fabric. I also got the cardboard letters at Hobby Lobby in the banner-making aisle. They were 50% off so they were pretty cheap (I forget exactly how much). I had to get 2 because I needed a lot of "E's". I tied some pink and gray ribbon to the ends of the banner for a little somethin extra. It was so easy to make!

Another thing I made for this little party was pink punch!! I saw it on Pinterest. It's just Sprite, raspberry sherbert, and pink lemonade. It was so yummy and so easy to make. 

Here are a few pics from the night!

A few days later Matt's mom, 2 grandmothers, sister, and I hosted a bridal shower for her. These decorations were so fun to make.

Mrs. Paula (Matt's mom) found this adorable fabric at Premier Fabrics and we based all of the decor off of it.

The first thing I made was the banner, then the milk bottle vases. I saw it on Pinterest and fell in love. We found the bottles at Ross and TJ Maxx. They were about $1.99 a piece.

I got this paper puncher at Michaels (with a coupon it was like $6) and got pink and grey papers to make the medallions with. I already had a circle cutter amongst my craft supplies. I used brown raffia to tie them to the bottles. I also got a tiny hole puncher at Michaels to punch tiny holes in the paper. I wrote "I do" on them with a scrapbooking pen.

The next thing I made was this picture/initial plaque. I got the wooden plaque at Hobby Lobby for $3 and the "H" there for #3. I painted the plaque gray then sanded it a bit. I painted the "H" white and hot glued it to the plaque. I then Mod Podged my favorite engagement picture of there's (after rounding the edges) to it. I got a little eisle for it to sit on at Michaels.

The next thing I made I got inspired to do a la Pinterest. I found this big frame in my attic (I found it on the side of the road a few years ago...shhhhh). I painted it gray then wrapped pink ribbon and rope around it and secured it using my staple gun. I found some foam core board in my craft room and I covered that with the fabric and stapled it to the back. I got little clothespins from Hobby lobby and ta da!! It's a photo display board! I got their engagement pics, rounded the edges, then matted with with rounded gray scrapbook paper to make them sturdier. In the center I wrote "Mike & Juliet August 11, 2012" on scrapbook paper and then did the same thing with the gray paper. 

Lastly, I made tissue balls!! These are really easy to make, but pretty time consuming. Here's where I learned:

http://designdazzle.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-make-pom-pom-tissue-flowers.html

Pretty cool!! I got the tissue paper at Hobby Lobby for 99 cents a package. Each package makes one ball. I decided to go with the silver, light pink, and dark pink. I made 3 of each color. You're also going to need pipe cleaners. We used Command hooks to hang them from the ceiling by clear sewing thread (I got 3 packages of 3 hooks each at Michaels for about $9 total). The hooks come off leaving no residue so I definitely recommend them when hanging.

To make the table all different heights, we used cardboard boxes under the fabric. It added a lot to the table, I think. Mrs. Paula got the beautiful flowers in the milk bottle vases at Costco. One bouquet was all we needed for 5 bottles. I even had enough extra to make Jules a corsage using things I found around their house. Here are some pics of the final product:

Hope yall enjoyed!!! The festivities aren't over yet!!

Wedding Memorabilia

This is a quick post on a wedding memorabilia craft I made this week. My grandma loves garage/estate sales and loves a good bargain (much like me). She's always looking for things that I can redo because she knows that I can't get enough of it. She found a shadow box (it came from somewhere like Kirklands I presume) with glass purses in it for $1 and knew that I would love to rip it apart and recreate it. And that I did! For about 2 weeks I thought about what I wanted to do with it. I searched Pinterest up and down looking for a shadow box idea that I liked, but I couldn't find one. Then I had an idea!! I recently made a first dance craft so why not make a father-daughter mother-son dance craft? This is actually an idea that I came up with on my own. 

Here's the before and after:

I painted brown streaks on the white frame to make it more interesting. I decorated it using scrapbook paper, buttons, pictures, and rolled fabric flowers. I wrote "How sweet it is to be loved by you" on little pieces of paper and ripped around the sides to give it more character. I just love that song. You can never go wrong with James Taylor.

It was a lot of fun to make and I love how it turned out.

Here are some other wedding memorabilia crafts I've made:

I hope you enjoyed!