What do you get when you.......

......take a piece of Tin Foil, a scratched CD (I don't even know if there is anything on it), a Cemetery Vase, a bunch of Mini Balls (and 1 regular sized ball ornament), a glue gun and a woman on a mission????

THIS:

Here are the steps in photos. They are pretty self-explanatory but if get lost between step 1 and step 3, Holla!!

(just 1 little tip: remove the tops of the ornaments.)

I gotta get back to Tree-Makin'. I told you it was going to be Tree-pa-looza around here. Just you wait and see.

We've Only just Begun..............

Ha! Try to get that song out of your head!!! It's gonna take awhile.

As promised last year (sometimes I actually KEEP my promises) I have begun my Christmas decorating. I LOVE how my house looks at Christmas but it is really a lot of work. Being able to enjoy it for only a few weeks is kind of a bummer. So last year I said I was going to start the day ofter (<----typo...but I'm leaving it because it makes me sound like I have an accent) Halloween. I know there is another holiday before Christmas but 1.) I don't need one day a year dedicated to Give Thanks. I do that (and eat, too) repeatedly EVERYDAY!  2.) Hob Lob has had their decorations out since July....so it is definitely OK....right?!?!

Seriously...they came out with guns a-blazin' 5 months before The Season!!!

On with the show here.....


In my last post (found here) I told you about King Bee and I and our little business venture. Since that began, I have been running from my craft room like it was the plague. Not to mention that it resembled The State of Emergency post from the past....found here. Every time I walked into the craft room, I found myself kicking around the all the "stuff" I needed to be making and getting very frustrated. And as the song goes "If your heart ain't in it.....". I'm getting off topic here.

Since I had to go on a shopping spree craft shopping for our craft day last Sunday, I also wanted to pick up a few things I have wanting to add to my Christmas decorations. This year's theme in my house is going to be "Trees". Glitter Trees, Tinsel Trees, Ornament Trees, Big Trees, Little Trees and more Trees.

I grabbed some tinsel garland and poster board from the Dollar Tree and then headed on to the Hob Lob store that celebrates Christmas in July. There I found some mini tree toppers to spruce them up and make them just perfect! You could definitely use an old ornament or make a topper but I was working with limited patience so I just bought a few.

I gathered my goods and hit the floor.

I rolled my cardboard in to a cone shape. Once I got the shape I liked, I taped it. My cones are about 2 ft tall. (I rolled them long ways.)

I did have to trim a little off the bottom so it would sit evenly on a flat surface.

Then, starting at the point of the cone, I put a little bit of Hot Glue at the tip and began winding the tinsel around the cone. When I got to the end of the piece, I dabbed a little bit of hot glue to the cone and pressed the tinsel on. Then I would pick up the next tinsel piece and start where the other one left off. I repeated this until the cone was covered and became a Tree. It took 4 of the 9ft (i really don't think they are 9ft) Dollar Tree garlands to cover 1 cone.

The mini tree toppers I got had a less-than-desirable wire cone at the bottom like the bigger toppers do so you can sit it on the top of a tree limb. (yes the $ says 2.99 but I got them for 50% off.)

That didn't work for me. So I broke that part of, very carefully so I didn't ruin the topper. I glued one of those alligator clips to the back of the topper so I could clip it into the center of the cone so you couldn't see it's attachment.

Viola'...for the living room....

and for the dining room......

At $6 bucks a tree, you better bet I'll have these things everywhere.

I have big plans for the light fixture and those newly made Knock-Off  Pottery Barn candle holders (for the cost of 1 in the catalog) you see in the middle of the table.

I also whipped up another Ornament Wreath to match the Silver and Red Dining room theme for this year. ('cuz I've got ornament balls everywhere!!!)

Now it's your turn, little bees. Show me what ya got!!

I crawled out from under my rock....

Hey y'all. What's been happening? Me? Well, I've been all over the place. King Bee and I started a little business that has completely consumed our life. We both still work full time as well so that has left very little time for anything else. When we do have a free minute it is usually spent grocery shopping or cleaning my house. The latter is usually given up due to lack of energy and sleep deprivation. I'm not complaining. I am incredibly thankful for all that we have been able to accomplish and all of the support we have been given to make this endeavor a success.

Last weekend I took time to get the girls together for a Craft Day. Since KB had to go out of town for work, I thought this would be perfect since several of our crafts had to do with Glitter. (you remember our 1st craft day, right? If not, you can read more about that here.) Thanks to the wonderful invention of Pinterest, the "Crafty Bs" now have access to all sorts of crafty goodness so, long gone are the days of we all do 1 craft for Craft Day!! This past Sunday we had a bunch of excitement.

I didn't get pictures of everyone's individual crafts, well, some I did (I hate it when I do that!!!) so I'll use the photos from Pinterest that we used for inspiration.

First up, The "BeWitchy Jars"

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These cute little things have opened my mind to glitter crafts once again. I loathe nothing more than a glittered up bauble shedding it's sparkles all over the place. This taught me that if you put the shiney little bits INSIDE your bauble, it miraculously stays off my floor!! Hallelujah!!!

Next, the Googly-Eyed EEK Frames!

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Don't let this little booger fool you. This thing SUCKED! Yes, the idea is simple but the logistics are maddening! 250 plastics eyes glued onto a picture frame with HOT GLUE. Save yourself the time and just go ahead squirt the HOT GLUE directly onto your finger tips. There. Now you will have the 60 minutes of my life I'll never get back but with all the war wounds. Done.

Then a few of us whipped up these cute little Shadow Boxes. There are 2 versions:

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via queen bee

I liked these. Supa EASY and Supa FAST! These are not budget friendly. If you catch a sale it will still run you about $20 for this little 8x10 box. But it's different and self contained and I like that!!

One Crafty B decided to try her hand at the Witchy Tulle Wreath but in a Christmas theme. No pictures exist of this attempt. She got a really good start but as a novice with the Beast that is Tulle, she fell victim to over-tulleing and ran short in supplies and was unable to complete her project. 

Another Crafty B found a steal of a deal on a faux pumpkin and got her craft on with the Pumpkin Door Decor project.

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These turned out great. This might have been the best craft of the day!!!

WE had a good time. Lots of good food and conversation. Some even got to learn how to use the Cricut. take a look.

It was nice to catch up with y'all. I've missed blogging. I doubt if there are many of you still around but if you hung in there, I've got lots of goodies I've been working on since I'm on home lock-down with STREP throat. Stay Tuned!!!!

Duh!

Um, yeahh! It's been awhile. So long that when I signed in to write this, EVERYTHING has changed with my BLOGGER. This just looks weird!! What happened??

So, I decided to take the summer off from the Blog. It wasn't really planned. I just finally ran out of things to say. No, REALLY!....I told you miracles happen everyday! :) We spent a lot of time traveling and working our freakin' tales off. I'm exhausted and feel like I need a week in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no phone or TV and cut off from the world. I'd most likely hibernate and sleep the week away. It's my favorite and given the choice, I'd choose sleeping over eating and reading any day.

Moving on.....................

I don't know if you guys have messed with this stuff much but I have become addicted to it.

What is it??? It's called Geo-Mesh.And it's so freakin' easy to work with!! Seriously. There are some great video tutorials on the web but basically, you just pin sections of this stuff to a wreath form and you get this:

This was my 1st try! No experience necessary!!!

So now I'm on a mission to find a whole bunch of this stuff for cheap(er) and wreath it up!!!

Voluntary Torture, Part II

That's right. TORTURE! I had my second of TEN tattoo removal appointments last Tuesday. This one hurt worse that the first and has blistered. I am keeping gobs of ointment (say that word 3 times and see if it makes you feel nauseous too) on the area and a bandage over it as directed. Aside from looking "STOOPID", I am OK now. This is the latest treatment in pictures.... Enjoy!

 OUCH!

I "SEW" Did It!

Let me preface this story by admitting that 1) I have never sewn. 2) Owned the sewing machine you are about to see for SIX years before I took it out of the box. 3) Three years later, I had my mother-in-law come from GA and thread the darn thing for me. 4) After staring at it for another year, I finally got up the courage to give it a whirl. And SUCKED at it!!!

Now that you know a little bit 'o history, I can begin my tale.

On my home the other day month, I stopped in Target to see if they had any of those 2-ply placemats with a snazzy little design on them....and they did.

These are part of the Calypso brand they have right now. The bestest part about them, besides from being Aqua, is that these sweet-thangs were only $2.99 ea! That's right. No typo. So, I got two.

I have seen, around BLOG Land, how these incredibly clever women, with sewing abilities, would take these type of placemats home, rip open one side, stuff it with pillow stuffing and sew it back up. CA-uuute! But since I was clueless as to how "drive" my sewing machine, I just kept looking at them with envy and lust. After months of obsessing over the idea, I thought I would at least try to make them myself BUT use my BFF, HEAT BOND, instead.

Once I got home and stared at them for a few weeks, I decided to throw caution to the wind and see if I could do it the RIGHT way...you know, with a real-live sewing machine. So, I searched the house for some pillows to steal the stuffing from:

Sliced the pillow open on the end it was originally stuffed (you can see a definite difference in the seam to know where that is):

Took the adorable placemat of my liking and sliced it open on one end (doesn't matter which one):

Removed the pillow guts and transplanted them into the, now open, placemat cavity:

Held my breath as I approached the dreaded sewing machine....and put the petal to the metal:

Ta-Daaaaaaaa:

Down-right GENIUS, I tell you.

I'll be heading out to Target at 9:00am sharp tomorrow morning to snatch up all I can find. Who wants pillows???? (j/k, ....i'm keeping the pillows for myself. I have a small pillow fetish.)