Last Summer Project!

Today I’m going to share with you my spring/summer wreath that I made 3 years ago while pregnant with Little Man. I thought it would be a good “last hurrah” for Summer project.
It’s a fun little Pinwheel wreath! I didn’t take any ‘how-to’ pictures because I made it pre-blogging days but I did do a little Photoshop action to show you the basics!
First Here’s the wreath:

Cute huh?

Ok here’s the supply list:

• double sided scrapbook paper cut into 5x5 inch squares (or 3x3 or 4x4 or 6x6 etc. whatever size you want!) (or if you can’t find double sided do what I did- glue two pages wrong sides together, let dry then cut into your squares)
• foam wreath (must be the Styrofoam or foam…NOT the straw ones because you need to paint it)
• acrylic paints or spray paint in your color of choice
• brads or other round paper fasteners
• hot glue gun & glue
• sting for hanging
• small hole punch

Directions:

• Paint your wreath form completely. Let dry. (obviously do one side first, let dry then do the other & let dry) You paint it because you will see it from the side since the pinwheels only fit on the front of the form.
• Tie your hanging string around the wreath.
• Take your squares and cut in from each corner towards the center but don’t cut all the way through! Stop short of the center.  Like this:

• Next you will take every other corner and fold it into the center (without creasing it into a triangle…just pull the corner to the center gently) Like this:

• Punch a small hole in each corner that you pulled to the center. Also punch a hold in the center (or just use a pencil to make a small hole) Insert a brad or other paper fastener through each corner that is pulled in & the center and then open it up in the back of the pinwheel to secure.  You could also just hot glue the corners to the center and not use a brad. I just like the ‘finished’ look it gave.
• Next take your painted wreath form, lay it flat on a table and arrange the pinwheels on top in whatever pattern you like. I overlapped mine a little.
• Lift up one pinwheel at a time and hot glue the back of it to the wreath. Repeat until you get all the way around the wreath.
• Find the string you tied around the form earlier and hang your new creation! Fun & Summer-y!

How fun is that? And pretty cheap too! If you used browns/greens/yellows you could make one that is more fall like, same with red/green for Christmas'-y and one with different shades of white/creams would be beautiful for Jan./Feb./March. Although I have to say I love the spring summer ones the best because that’s when you use actual pinwheels :)
I hope you’ll share yours with me if you make one!!
Have a Happy day,



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What I Did This Weekend-Blueberry Edition

I’ve decided to start a Monday blog post (soon to become a linky party so get writing your posts!) called: What I Did This Weekend (or WIDTW for short…kinda.).
You can have words or not but it must include pictures! Kind of like “Wordless Wednesday’s” but I can’t be quiet so sometimes I’ll add words!
So without further blabbering from me here is my very first “What I did this weekend.” Today is the Blueberry Edition!
Military Man, Little Man, Miss E, myself and our friends (a family of 3) went to my family camp, “The Cottage,” for the weekend! It was relaxing and fun and everything it always is when I’m at the Cottage. I’ve been going my whole life…every summer! It is hands down- magical. really truly. It’s not much in the way of fancy or ‘in style’ but it is beautiful living at it’s best: Simple. Focus on Family. Food. Fun.
Here is the view from the deck (and yes that is Military Man doing a little fishing early Saturday morning):


Here is the view of the deck (my late grandfather, Papa, built) and it’s colorful chairs (many of which my Daddy made!)

Saturday afternoon we drove over to my (late) Grandparents house (my uncle stays there now) and picked some blueberries…well we started out picking then went and got the blueberry rakes because it’s faster! I wish I had pictures of that for those of you who have never seen a blueberry rake…I guess you could just Google it?!
We raked 4 boxes in about 10 minutes.

Then I got my little ‘set-up’ going to pick through them. Otherwise known as cleaning the blueberries. It takes some time but is relaxing when there is nothing but the sounds of screen doors slamming, kids laughing and the waves lapping the lake shore. It’s a favorite activity of mine.

As you can see I take a cookie sheet and two ceramic pie plates. I prop the cookie sheet up on one so that the berries run down to the bottom and the leaves stay at the top and then when I get a good bunch cleaned I place them in the other pie plate so I can continue. I pick off all the stems and leaves and bugs then into Ziplocs they go. This week I’m making blueberry everything I think!
So that’s what I did this weekend- how about about you? Tell me in the comments this week and next week I’ll have a linky up so you can do your own post!
Have a Happy Day,

Dr. Seuss Baby Shower

My sister is expecting a baby in early September so this past weekend my mom & I threw her a Dr. Seuss themed baby shower!
First were the invitations, I made them on Photoshop Elements using clip art images and cute wording found on the web. The font used is called “Grinched” and can be found here for free.


So I got there early to decorate (red & white balloons, streamers- not pictured) and I used my new Silhouette SD to cut out some vinyl words for the walls (again using that Grinched font). I also printed out some images from the web of Dr. Seuss books.



I also made some of Martha’s tissue paper pom poms in red & white and hung them over the food table.

And lastly I made a cake! I love making a cake (probably because I eat the extra cake/frosting….shhhhh)! I made a Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat, Hat cake. The brim is a red velvet oval cake with cream cheese frosting and the stacked part is yellow cake with butter cream icing.

Here’s a little secret for you….I did the whole cake using 3 boxes of yellow cake mix, but I just add in other ingredients to make it red velvet & make the yellow cake taste like homemade! I do make my frosting from scratch and usually make my cakes from scratch too but hey- I just had a baby so I’m entitled to take short cuts right? right.
Here is what I do to turn regular yellow box cake mix into red velvet:
Add 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder to the dry cake mix.
Add all your liquids (substitute buttermilk for any water/milk the mix calls for- I make my own buttermilk by adding 1 tablespoon of white vinegar to 1 cup of milk and letting it sit about 5-10 min) then add 1 tablespoon of red food coloring (about the whole vial if you buy those little ones), a teaspoon of distilled white vinegar and a teaspoon of vanilla.
That’s it! Now you have red velvet cake batter! I use this recipe for cream cheese frosting (She also has a from scratch red velvet recipe in that post too)
For the yellow cake I follow this cupcake tutorial for doctoring the mix. (If you Google ‘doctoring cake mix’ or some similar term you will come up with all kinds of ways to make store bought mix taste terrific!)
For the butter cream frosting I again use Bakerella. I used to use Wilton’s but I don’t like using veggie shortening because it always seemed to be a ‘finicky’ frosting because of it. It tastes great though…I just go for easy & un-finicky!
So there is my family Dr. Seuss baby shower! Hope you liked it!
Have a happy Day,

I’m Hosting the Chic Click Carnival!

Hi all! Last week I entered my link into the Chic Click Carnival and I won! So this week I get to host! Welcome to all new readers and welcome to all my SITS Girls! After you link up please take a look around and if you like what you see please become a follower or subscribe (over there on the right sidebar---->) Again welcome & have fun at this week’s Chic Click Carnival!!

Chic Click Carnival

This is not simply a linky party, the purpose of the "Chic Click Carnival" is to introduce yourself and one fellow peep you found using the Visit Our Peeps widget. All submissions are competing to be the host of next Thursdays click carnivalwho will receive hundreds of new visitors. There will be two additional winners, one for the giveaway and one for a Free 6 Month subscription to the widget. This weeks judge is Cindy from Skip To My Lou. * If you would like to giveaway a product over $50 and be featured, let us know.

Last Thursday's Winners

• The Host for the Chic Click Carnival this week is Creative Kristi {{high fives!}}
• Bloggy Blog Designs winner is Charm Bracelet Diva
• Visit Our Peeps winner is Simply Created

How To Play

All are welcome to link a post to win a fabulous prize from a Visit Our Peeps widget Mom-preneur. Contest ends Thursday at midnight. Entries for this carnival need to incorporate the following or it will be removed:

• A brief introduction of yourself, don't forget to link to your favorite post.
• "My favorite peep of the week" you found using the Visit Our Peeps widget with a link to their blog and/or shop.
• Visit Our Peeps widget inside the post for people to find their new peep. Here is the code:

<script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.chicchickmedia.com/feed.asp?s=200" type="text/javascript"></script>

The Three Prizes

Friday, Cindy will pick three Linky participants randomly.

1. Grand Prize: One winner will be next weeks host of the Chic Click Carnival. 2. Another winner will receive a FREE 6 month membership to the Visit Our Peeps widget. 3. The third winner will receive a Life-Squared Wax Baby Hands & Feet from Julian & Co, a $129 value.

JULIAN & Co. jewelry is about love for families, was created by a fashion forward mom when she couldn't find a baby bracelet small enough to fit her premature son, Julian. Each piece is handcrafted and personalized to order.

Color Inspiration Party!

Hi all! Ok this is a post that was spur of the moment (well the party part!) and I’m super nervous I’ll be the only dork showing up to the un-cool party. So help me out ok?
I’m going to put a linky at the bottom of this post for you to link up any post you have that has to do with color and/or inspiration. I’m pretty flexible on what that means so as long as you are not linking to YOUR linky party or to a giveaway/store/business I’m cool with it!
All I ask is that you put my button somewhere on your post so that people can come back here and find (and link up!) to the party too!


<a href="http://www.creativekristi.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee112/Kilikikd/Blog%20pictures/party-button.jpg" border="0" alt="Creative Kristi Color Inspiration"></a>

If I get enough response this might just become a weekly thing! So link up! And as always: If you like what you see consider becoming a follower so you won’t miss a thing!
Alright here is my color inspiration this week. These are things that caught my eye and I decided to take pictures of them!
First up:
Sewing Thread- spools and spools of sewing thread! Green, yellow, pink, purple, blue!




*sigh* the scrumptious colors get me every time!
Continuing on that same train of thought I have spools of ribbon!

And lastly the most beautiful aqua/turquoise/blue cake stand! This is what I got with my gift certificate to Burlap & Blue that I won from the Shabby Nest’s giveaway.









How gorgeous is that?!?

Ok now it’s your turn! Link up some inspiration for me!
Have a happy day,

Chic Click Carnival

I’ve decided to participate in the SITS Girls “Chic Click Carnival” this week!
If you are new here let me tell you a little about me. I am 26 years old, married to my first boyfriend (we dated for a year at the age of 14 & then went our separate ways for nearly 10 years before meeting again & getting married) who is in the military- I refer to him as Military Man, Handsome Hubby, Hubs, etc. We have two beautiful children: Little Man who will be 3 at the end of this month & Miss E who will is 5 weeks old this week. We all live in Maine with our black lab, Lady.
I started this blog in 2008 as a way to keep myself busy while Military Man was deployed & since then it has become a hobby for me and I love it. I have been referred to as a “little Martha” (as in Martha Stewart) my whole life because I was always making something, always coming up with new ideas, etc. I just decided to start sharing my crafts, renovations & frugal ways with whoever wanted to read about them because honestly…sometimes my family just doesn’t get the utter excitement I have about fabric or finding an awesome new craft tool!
I know you all do or you wouldn’t be here! ;)
So my favorite post so far is the 2nd one I wrote about painting my countertops…so far this has been the wildest thing I’ve done in the name of frugality & craftiness. I think my husband is a keeper because he didn’t bat an eye when I told him I was painting the countertops!
So since this is the Chic Click Carnival I’m supposed to share with you a new peep I found using their widget below. I found an amazing Etsy shop called Copper Creek Design and she has some amazing jewelry that I think is so beautiful….like these earrings for example.
Anyway that’s a little about me & my family and what I do here at Creative Kristi.
Thanks for stopping by and please go find a new peep for yourself by clicking the widget below!



Happy Monday to you all,

Red, White & Blue!

So I had this idea last year, even went and bought the paint…then Hubs told me that he did not think Little Man would let me paint his foot & place it on a piece of paper over and over and over again. So I gave up (because in my mind Little Man would let me if I had Hubs helping me and obviously that wasn’t going to happen).
Let’s fast forward to this year and I’m glad I waited because Miss E gave it a whole new ‘cuteness’ factor! She is only 3 weeks old so I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded me painting her while she was asleep but I went the easy way with her and just traced her hand onto cardstock & cut it out to make a template.
Little Man loved doing this and is so proud of it! He is excited to show some friends that are coming over on the 4th, his flag!
So here is my quick, fun & cute 4th of July craft that I did with both my kids (by myself- Hubs was at work!) and now will have to have framed because it’s just. so. darn. cute. I want to keep it!


What do you think? The top two rows of ‘red’ need to have a heel & toes respectively added that would ‘go’ off the edge of the paper to ‘finish’ the row but other than that I love it! I thought about touching up some of the red on the footprints that didn’t come out so clear but I’m not sure…thoughts?

Have a great weekend everyone! Happy 4th of July! Special thanks to my Hubby & all of our military friends for keeping our nation free everyday! Love you all!


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The Shabby Nest: Frugal Friday

Easy Pretty Burp Cloths

So I hope you all will let me go all baby crazy on you for a post or two. I will be 38 weeks prego tomorrow & am in full on "gotta finish making things for the baby" mode.  Today I want to show you how I made some burp cloths that are BIG (because seriously those little ones they sell in the stores don't do crap) and aren't fully covered in fabric (I've seen tutorials where one entire side is covered in fabric or there is a strip down the middle and fabric doesn't absorb as well as the diaper they are covering).
Anyway, I wanted to use those cheap-o Gerber cloth diapers they sell everywhere (12 pack of the kind you need pins and diaper covers to actually use as diapers) as burp cloths but of course I wanted them to be CUTE while retaining their absorb-abilty (is that even a word?).

Easy, Pretty, Functional Burp Cloth tutorial:

Here's what I did:

Supplies needed:
1 cloth diaper, large-ish scraps of fabric (fat quarters are great for this- you'll get approx. one burp cloth out of every fat quarter), iron, pins, scissors, sewing machine & some sort of measuring device.

Step 1: You WILL need to iron your diaper. Trust me. when you take one out of the package you will see this. You might as well iron your fabric too while you are at it.

There nice & ironed!!

S

Step 2: Lay your diaper out & position your fabric wrong side UP on top. Determine how much of a 'wrap around' you want. Mine was about 3" so I put my fabric 3" away from the edge. (See how I oh-so-accurately measured it? It's a BURP cloth people- RELAX your perfectionism!) Ok now you can pin your fabric to your diaper if you want or just pick it up and put it on your sewing machine (guess what I did....).

Step 3: Sew a straight stitch from one side of the diaper to the other. This is just to secure the fabric to the diaper at your 3" line.

Step 4: Leave your diaper where it is and just flip your fabric over. Iron to make a nice crisp hem/seam/whatever.

Step 5: Flip the whole thing over (diaper and all)

Step 6: Your fabric will be wider (or it should be...did I not mention that? hehe hopefully you read the whole tutorial BEFORE starting to sew!) than your diaper on the sides so you need to fold down & iron the little side pieces to get that hem that was created on the front of the diaper when you flipped the fabric over and ironed. See that picture up there? Not perfect! Just fold and iron. Seriously.

Step 7: Fold in the sides & iron them.

Step 7: This is where it gets hard to explain. Take the bottom raw edge of your fabric and fold it up bring it up around the back of the diaper. See the arrow? That is my seam from the front. I had a large piece of fabric so I just folded the fabric back on itself until I saw the seam. I ironed the fold. (If you pre-measured your fabric- or measured at all -you can just skip the next couple steps until I get to the sewing again haha)

See? All ironed and the fabric is about 1/2 inch higher than the seam. (That is the wrong side of the fabric facing up because it is pulled around from the front of the diaper then folded back on itself-make sense?)

Step 8: Un-fold the fabric and cut along the ironed crease which should be 1/2 inch right above the front seam-make sure you are only cutting fabric & not the diaper!

Step 9: Welcome back if you are a pre-measurer and skipped those last few steps! Fold the raw edge of the fabric under (the opposite direction) Iron it under & pin in place, line up your hem with the seam!

Step 10: Put your fabric wrapped end of the diaper into your sewing machine as shown above. You will start topstitching at the left top corner and sew up the side of the diaper. When you get to the corner (I'm coming up to it in the picture above) ....

Step 10a: Stop with your needle down (see arrow in picture above? it's pointing to my needle being down still), lift the presser foot....

Step 10b:Turn your diaper (arrow in above picture is still pointing to the needle but now the diaper is turned), put the presser foot back down and keep sewing down the fabric. Do the same thing at the next corner until you reach the right hand corner. There is no need to sew along the bottom where the fabric wraps from the front of the diaper to the back because it's just a fold not a seam. You can if you like though.

Step 11: Repeat steps 1-10b for the other end of the diaper. You're done! Make a bunch!

 Aren't they cute!? These make great baby shower gifts or you can also do this with plain dishcloths to dress up your kitchen or give as gifts! (See not just for babies!)

Have a good weekend!




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