DIY Easter Wreath

Hello! Welcome to my blog! I wanted to make a festive Easter display in my kitchen, but I did not want to buy anything. I am striving to be a minimalist these days by using what I have in my craft room collection instead of the tantalizing idea of buying new things. 

I had a foam wreath on hand and some moss. I laid the moss on the wreath and wrapped wire around it to secure. It took a bit of fussing to fill in all the holes. I left the very back moss free. 

 Adding decorations were tricky as I did not want to buy anything. I needed to get creative. I had made paper bunnies and carrots the previous year for another project. I found a printable bunny shape online to use as my pattern, sewed it and stuffed it a little - and the carrot is a version of the bag with a twist , just skinnier and green paper stapled on top. 

I stuck a push pin into the back of a wood sign that  my hubby made me for my birthday. I am happy with the results! What can you find in your house to decorate with this year?

Happy Easter!

DIY Paper Birch Easter Basket

Hello! Welcome to my blog! I made some cute little paper birch Easter baskets. I made them out of white poster board/card stock and then wrapped them with birch wrapping paper. I purchased the wrapping paper from Winners/Home Sense. I love the beautiful paper that is found there sometimes.

You can make these any size. I liked the size that came from an 8x10 piece of poster board.

After making the box, wrap a 3" wide strip of paper around it. Adhere with glue of choice.

If you want the handle to match, wrap that with paper before gluing onto the basket. I glued my handle on before I wrapped it with paper but it would make for a cute effect if you put in on top and put a brad in there. 

They turned out pretty cute. For the finishing touch I added Easter tags FOUND HERE that I put on with pop dots.

Happy creating!

Free Easter Tag Printables

Hello! Welcome to my blog! I am wanting to make some paper birch baskets and needed to make some tags to go with them. I made some adult tags and tags that would work to give to kids as well. Come back in a few days to see how they go with paper birch baskets!! Click HERE for the pdf file. Thanks for stopping by!

Easter Plates

Hello! Welcome to my blog!! Just a quick post today showing the custom plates I made for Easter. These were made with contact paper and put on a glass plate, and then on a charger.

I made the "He Lives" word art on my computer....

 And I found this adorable art from the French and Sparrow blog.

Click here for the tutorial on how I make the plates.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Easter!!

Scripture Easter Goodie Bag

Hello! Happy Easter!

I wanted to make some goodie bags that had something to do with the true meaning of Easter. I used a glassine bag. The first item in the bag was a print out of lyrics from the song - "He is Risen".

Then I made three paper eggs that had a scripture on the front and a quote on the back. I did add some thin Lindt wrapped chocolates to the middle of the eggs and glued the front and back of the eggs together.

I put all the contents in the glassine bag, folded the top down. I made the bag topper out of a doily, folded in half and I glued on some paper flowers I made from scrapbook paper and book paper. I stapled the topper to the bag. I printed out the tag in cream card stock (it is hard to tell with the picture)

Thank you for stopping by! I wish you all a happy Easter!

I am also sharing one of my favorite songs about the Savior which fits this season called

"Oh Lord, My Redeemer" by Jeff Goodrich.

Easter Candy Bouquet

Hello! Welcome to my blog!

A new craft passion of mine has been making candy bouquets. With Easter coming up, I knew this project would be a lot of fun with the variety of candy available, and of course the lovely colors that go with this season. 

I have been using empty bean cans for my bases as they are frugal and I love to creatively recycle. I prepare the base by putting a few rocks in the bottom of the can and I pour some plaster over them to secure. Then I glue a styrofoam ball on top of the dried plaster. I added grass to fill the can. Then I added prepared skewers to the styrofoam ball, rearranging them until I got the look I wanted.

Click HERE to see the candy bouquet I made for Valentine's Day.

The phrase and the chocolate bunnies were cut out with a Cricut using the Create a Critter cartridge.

I am going to have to make a few more of these. They are fun to make and even more fun to give away. Thanks for stopping by!

Fresh Eggs Wood Sign

Hello! Welcome to my blog!

My mom recently gave me a rusty egg basket. I found the cutest natural plastic eggs at a dollar store. Thank goodness for Easter time. The egg basket was pretty lonely on the shelf that I put it on, so I painted a sign to go with it. 

I found a scrap piece of 2x12 that was a perfect for this project. I painted the wood white. To make a stencil - I cut out the letters on my Cricut with the Story Time cartridge. The corners were from the same cartridge. After letting the paint dry I power sanded over the whole sign.

Included in the above picture are paper carrots (click here for tutorial) and 

a door corner shelving unit (click here for post).

Thanks for stopping by!

Linking up to....

Burlap Bunny with Pattern

I decided to go on the "cute" side for my spring wreath this year. I decided to make a burlap bunny. This is how I did it....
1. I made a pattern, and cut out all the pieces in burlap.
2. I machine stitched all the corresponding pieces together leaving an opening in each piece to add stuffing. I did the ears first so I could sew the ear bottoms in the seam when I sewed the body together.  I stitched all openings closed, and stitched the remaining body pieces to the bunny.
3. I stitched black bead on for the eyes, brown felt for the nose and added other facial features with paint. I chalked pink in the ears, arms, feet and cheeks. I frayed the burlap a bit.

* I sewed an extra "insert" ear piece to the ears with scrap burlap after I stuffed the ears. It adds dimension but it is not necessary*

I attached the bunny to a twig wreath by threading wire through the bottom of the bunny and securing the wire to the twigs.

If you would like to try making this bunny - the pattern is below. Right click, copy and paste into your favorite computer program and resize to fill the page. Print and cut.

Thanks for stopping by!

Collection of Easter Crafts

To start my Easter crafting juices this year I thought I would look back at what I made last year. 

1. Baking Soda Robin Eggs - these were fun to make, and so much cheaper than buying them in the store. The baking soda clay is the nicest home made clay I have made - and I like the idea that it air dries. 

CLICK HERE to go to the tutorial.

2. Cardboard Bunny - I love this bunny. It is made out of cardboard, scrapbook paper and mod podge.

CLICK HERE to go to the tutorial.

3. Easter Egg Pillow - This pillow is made out of old wool sweaters. 

CLICK HERE to go to the tutorial.

4. Spring Sign - The letters are made out of homemade cardboard letters and fresh moss I collected.

CLICK HERE to go to the tutorial.

5. Felt Easter Bunny Treat Bag - a fun little treat bag to make.

CLICK HERE to go to the tutorial.

6. Carrot Favor Box - This is my version of the Stampin-up Carrot favor box.

CLICK HERE to go to the tutorial.

7. Treat Bag Made from an Envelope - Everyone has got to try this at least once - I had no idea a bag could be made from an envelope. The graphic is from Graphics Fairy.

CLICK HERE to go to the tutorial.

8. Chocolate Easter Egg Bowl - Using a water balloon as a mold, these chocolate Easter egg bowls are perfect to put other treats in.

CLICK HERE to go to the tutorial.

Now that I have done inventory of last year's projects - I am on to the new ones. Stay tuned and thanks for stopping by!

****I have been made aware that I did not put a link for the flower tree***
Here it is...
Pastel Flower Tree

Easter Favor - Carrot Box Tutorial

My friend shared with me a project she made from Stampin Up. It was a cute little carrot box. I loved it...

Then thought I would give this box another try with a little different look. I found some orange-ish paper in my stash. I printed out the carrot box template that I found at THIS LINK. My carrots are not as big - I printed two on one 8 1/2 x 11 page.

I had some butterfly orange - ish paper and I also had some orange paper that I stamped some flourishes on. I forgot to take pictures of that - oops. Remember my shamrock? I stamped the cut out carrot like that using a brown and a red. After stamping I scored the lines, folded and hot glued the carrot together.

Here is the carrot I stamped flourished with. 

Here is the butterfly paper one. I inked the edges of both with brown ink.

I changed up the top by cutting off one of the flaps - gluing it to the other and folding it down because I wanted the box to be easily accessible. I also punched a hold and inserted some raffia....

and then I tied a knot in the raffia and hot glued that knot secure.

So there is my spin on the Stampin' Up Carrot Box.

Treat Bag Made From an Envelope

Here are some treat bags I made for Easter, that are made from an envelope. I went to a Stampin' Up party and this was one of the crafts they did. I did end up buying the stamp roller that they used with this particular craft, but I thought I would do a "try"al for an Easter craft. So here are the instructions on how I made an envelope treat bag with a computer graphic printed on it. 

Seal a 5 3/4" x 8 3/4" size envelope. Cut the envelope to fit your printer to and 8 1/2" instead of 8 3/4".

Find the desired clip art and size it on your computer. I got my clip art from the Graphics Fairy blog. There are a ton of wonderful graphics on there and she even has some crafts ideas you can make with the graphics.

Test the graphic on a piece of scrap paper by drawing the shape of the envelope on the paper to see if you have it square and the right size. The graphic needs to be about 1 1/2" away from the sides of the envelope. If you use a graphic that is rectangle, you can use the straight lines for folding lines. If this is the case, the graphic needs to be 1 inch away from the sides. 

Print the graphic on to the envelope. *The envelope should fit the width of the paper slot. Do not put it to the side - I learned the hard way - paper jam.* 

Also make sure the opening jives with the way you want your graphic. I forgot about checking that but got lucky and didn't have any upside down graphics.

Fold the two sides over, about an inch. Open up the sides and fold up the bottom, the same measurement. Press the folds to make a good crease.

Stick your hand inside the bag.  Work at getting all the creases into a nice square fold. Each fold now needs to be turned the opposite way- the fold lines are there as a guide. Again crease the folds to make them crisp.

Get the bottom flat and work the envelope until you get two triangles sticking out each end- you will glue the triangles down soon. 

The sides have three creases - push the middle crease towards the center (or inside) of the bag. 

 Once the bag is all square and the creases are crisp, fold triangles to the bottom of bag and glue.

 Finish the bag to your liking.

Of course you don't have to print a graphic on the envelope - you can stamp it, add stickers, or how about some flowers? The possibilities are endless. 

Happy treat bag making!!