August 2022

 Last week was so much fun!  My sister (and co-author!) Laura finally moved back to the States from their army assignment in South Korea.  They had some down time before her husband starts his next assignment, so they came on a big family tour that included a stop here in Phoenix!

The five cousins had a blast playing together, and Laura and I decided we absolutely had to craft something while we were together.  After much deliberation, we decided to recreate the wreath we saw here.  We made sure to take pictures along the way so you can make one too.  

Supplies needed:

Wreath form (we used 14 inch green foam wreaths)

Sheet music (thrift stores or ask your friends!)

Spanish Moss

Hot glue/glue gun

Ink pad (optional)

Scrapbook paper

Faux pearls or pearl beads (optional)

Estimated time-  Several hours.  Maybe more.

**Note** It helps a lot if you have a craft cutter such as a Silhouette to save you some time, but you certainly could just trace and cut a bunch of circles.  Here we go!

1. You need a large pile of semi-circles.  I don’t even know how many we used per wreath- maybe 100?  We cut ours on the Silhouette Cameo.  We made a 4.5 inch circle, then inserted a cut line across the center.  This gave us two semi-circles.  My sheet music was slightly larger than a piece of paper, and I could get three of these cut circles per page, or six semi-circles.
(I would just like to add how much, as a former music major, it PAINED me to cut up perfectly good sheet music.  But, most likely, I will never again perform a flute concerto.  Even though I spent hours practicing that music.  Hours.  Anyway…. at least this way  I am using it instead of the music wasting away in a closet.) 2.  Ink the curved edge of each semi-circle.  Make sure you can see ink from both the front and back.

3.  Create your petals as follows.  First fold over the left side of your semi-circle to the middle.  Put some glue on the front of that side, then fold the right side of the semi-circle on top of the left and press together.  Pinch the bottom together, run a thin line of hot glue along the bottom back, then press it to your wreath form.

(By the way, we worked in stages.  We cut all the semi-circles and inked them, then glued all the petals at once.  Then, we glued them to the forms.)

4.  Add petals all around the wreath.  I slightly overlapped mine as I added each petal.  Continue adding petals until you have three rows of petals.

Here’s Laura’s after two rows.

And here it is with all the petals finished.

5.  Glue spanish moss over any visible part of your wreath form, making sure to slightly cover the bottom edge or your petals.  The easiest way to do this is just slather a whole bunch of hot glue on the wreath form, then press a wad of spanish moss onto the glue.  Repeat until you can’t see any of your wreath form.  It looks ugly and messy and you’ll be worried about screwing it up.  Just keep going.  It will look great in the end!  

Trim up any unsightly pieces of moss, and it should look like this.

6.  We used the 3D Paper Rose shape from the Silhouette Store to create our paper flowers.  Simply cut,

and roll from the outside in (starting at that little tail).
Keep it tight, then let your roll spread out a little as you glue it on to the base.  We chose fall colors for the upcoming fall season.
Add pearls or pearl beads to the center of your flowers as desired.

7.  To hang, simply hot glue or staple a ribbon loop to the back of your wreath form (not pictured).

Here are both of ours, side to side.  Isn’t it funny that we did the exact same project and came up with slightly different results?  Laura’s petals lie a little more flat, and mine are a little more rounded and front-facing.  She ended up with more wreath to cover, hence more moss.  I love them both!
I can’t wait to hang mine up along with my other fall decor!

Laura’s off to visit more family around the great Southwest.  She’s weeks away from getting her craft supplies out of storage, so you might not hear much from her in the next few weeks.  It sure was a lot of fun crafting with my sister in real life!

I am linking this up to 

Craft-o-Maniac- Monday Link Up Keeping it Simple- Motivate Me Monday Sugar Bee Crafts- Take a Look Tuesday Someday Crafts-Whatever Goes Wednesday Somewhat Simple- Strut Your Stuff Naptime Crafters- Friday Favs I Heart Naptime- Sundae Scoop Weekend Wrap-up

Quite awhile ago, I found this great idea for a chore chart on Pinterest. 

It’s “uploaded by user”, so I can’t give any credit for the idea.  If you know who it belongs to, please let me know!

**UPDATE!  I found this chore chart at this link, though I’m not 100 percent sure it is the original.  Check it out.**

Anyway, I knew I had to make these for my kids.  This summer, to start off our day right, I have given my two older kids “morning jobs” to do.  They are pretty simple, but it makes sure we start off the day with a {mostly}clean house.

I designed these doorknob hanger chore charts using a template from Microsoft Publisher.  They have tons of free online templates, which makes it easy to create all sorts of projects!

For the background and embellishments, I simply imported pictures from my digital scrapboking files.  I chose one digital paper for the background, then imported elements that coordinated.

I used a cute font for the names and “to do” area, but left the rest blank.  Then I printed them and broke out my handy-dandy laminator so they’d last awhile.

In the original idea, the creator wrote the jobs on clothespins.  I decided to use a dry erase marker instead so I can change the jobs as needed.  We use the clothespins to check off the jobs.  They simply switch them to the “done” side when finished.

My kids think these are awesome, and hurry to get their “jobs” done each morning.  I’m kind of loving it!

I’m linking this up to some of these parties.  Come join in!

I am a busy mom with a 21 month old boy who doesn’t like to sit down, and I’m 4 weeks away from giving birth to our second little baby!  As if that wasn’t enough, we are working on fixing up a 1902 Victorian house into our “forever home”.  You can see all of the progress on my blog and on my Instagram (follow along using #FixingUp1902 to see how far we’ve come!)

While I’m not rehabbing this house, I’m busy trying to eat healthy and cook well for my family:

Grilled Chicken & Spinach Salad with warm roasted corn, tomato and zucchini sauce

And I just love using my little budget to make fun areas in our home, like this DIY art center I made for my little guy: I love being a part of The Handmade Hangout – I hope you stop by my blog and follow along with all of my crazy adventures!

We’ve teamed up with some of our best bloggy friends to offer you entries into our Candy Canes and Cash – $500 Giveaway. The more ways you enter the better your chances of being the BIG giveaway winner. Plus, along the way, you’ll also be delighted to discover amazing posts about all things holidays from this group of talented bloggers. We’ve got ways to save, crafts to make, ideas for decorating, ways to de-stress, helpful apps, mouth-watering recipes, tons of gift suggestions and just about anything else you’ll need to make life easier for you this season.

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