Valentine Wreath Revisted & A New Favorite Movie!

Yesterday was day 5 of Allison having the flu so we decided to have a lazy Saturday. Curtis rented Disney's Brave movie for the family to watch. I'll admit, I stink at watching a movie at home . . . especially one that I didn't pick out. It's not that I don't want to watch it, I just usually fall asleep. So, in order to try and stay awake. I decided to do a craft while the movie was playing.

Our Mom's craft group made the Ragamuffin Heart Wreath 4 years ago for a craft. My original wreath has faded over time since my front door gets full sun during the day. It was time to replace it. However, I still love the wreath and decided to make another one instead of finding a new Valentine wreath for my door. Lucky for me, I had bought extra supplies when we made the original ones so everything I needed was on my craft shelves. It also came with a bonus . . . the fabric was already cut into the strips! Yay! 

Click here for the original post with all the details for making the wreath yourself. This wreath is the second most popular post on my blog and has received over 20,000 visits so far! Amazing! I am truly blessed to have been able to touch that many people with my little old blog!

 

 The Disney movie didn't last as long as I needed to complete my wreath and after it was over my family left me in the family room by myself. Thanks, family!

Since my wreath wasn't done, I decided to throw in another movie while I finished my wreath. 

A friend had surprised me with a gift bag of goodies at our last craft group and it included "The Help" which I had not seen yet. OH. MY. WORD. Can I just say, it was EXCELLENT???? Seriously, I had always wanted to see it but never got the chance. Shame on me!

It is honestly now added as one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE movies!!!

If you haven't seen it, you must rent it. NOW!As I said previously, a friend presented me with a gift bag of goodies. Look at all the fun stuff she included in the bag! She is too kind! This is a friend who is a sister-in-law to my best friend. I didn't know her on a personal level until we started Mom's Craft Night Out over 4 years ago. 

Yes, we make pretty things during our craft time and have a lot of fun doing it. However, the friendships and the time I spend with an amazing group of women are what I cherish the most!

Those few hours a month are truly good for my soul!

Have Fun!


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The Moms Get Cozy!

In case you were wondering why I didn't post about Mom's Craft Night Out for last month, we did a repeat of the glass holiday blocks and the name boards for Christmas presents. So since you've seen them before, I didn't think it was necessary repost them.

This month's Mom's Craft Night Out was a "Bring Your Own Craft" night. I gave some suggestions and then you could do what you wanted to do.

Most of the Moms worked on those great no-sew fleece blankets.

I transferred over my addresses into a new address book.

Susan D. sorted through pictures trying to get ready to make a scrapbook for her son's graduation in 2011.

Cindy B. worked on crocheting a pretty yellow prayer shawl.

Here are the Moms with their finished blankets. From left to right are: Nancy, Sandy, Nettie, Dawn and Susan C.

Make sure you click on the picture to get a better look of the blankets. They all turned out so pretty! If you are interested in making one, here is a great tutorial on how to do it.

Here's Susan C. finishing up some business by picking next month's craft night and helping my Allison with her Girl Scout Cookie sales. A BIG THANKS to all the Moms for helping Allison out with that!

Have Fun!

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The Moms Get A Little Frosty!

Last night was another exciting, relaxing and fun "Mom's Craft Night Out!"

I can't even begin to tell you how much I enjoy spending this time out every month. Not only do we get to be creative and snack on some yummy snacks but we get to spend a night out with some great women! I highly recommend to all of you Moms out there to set aside time every month to get together for a Mom's Night Out. You could plan a craft night like we do or if you aren't crafty, try something else. Some of my suggestions are a night of board games or cards, or a classic movie night complete with movie popcorn & candy, or with Christmas around the corner, you could get together and help each other bake cookies. The possibilities are endless. I promise you...you will not regret taking the time to put something together for yourself and your friends. You deserve it!

Okay, now onto this month's craft!

As you can see by the picture below, we made snowmen families. Aren't they adorable? They weren't hard to make but they did have a lot of steps. I found the inspiration on a blog somewhere when I was surfing a blog party. I wish I could find where I got the inspiration so I could give proper credit. You see I have a bad habit of saving just the pic in a craft document and forgetting where it came from. The craft that I make isn't ever exactly the same because, as always, I have this odd need to put my own twist on it.

I don't have step by step instructions this month because I was just enjoying myself so much that I didn't take a whole lot of pics. Dawn suggested that we video tape ourselves one time to share. OH MY! I'm not sure that I want everything that happens at MCNO to be on tape for the world to see! Now, now! Don't get the wrong idea about us! We are a nice bunch of Moms but when you accidentally stick your finger in high temperature hot glue, a not-so-nice word might just slip out of your mouth too! Just ask Susan D. ... she did it three times last night! No...not the naughty word...THAT she did only once but the hot glue on the finger....yup, THREE times!

We used a gloss craft paint on our snowman and it really gave them a nice shine. Here's Susan C. putting on the final coat of paint on her snow family.

Still finishing up the final coats but do you notice what is in the middle of the table? Yes. We can never have too much chocolate on craft night! What's that you ask...where's the other Moms? You do know that Moms are the best multi-taskers, don't you? The other Moms were practicing that skill while the paint dried. They were just to the left around the kitchen island feasting on the yummy snacks our snack hostesses brought this month.

Such concentration!

It's looking good, Susan!

Here's Susan giving her snowman's hat a little bit of fringe.

The group shot is in two pics this month because we didn't have a photographer. Well. We actually did but he was in his bed sleeping since he is recovering from having his appendix out the day before.

Left to right is Kelly, Nettie, Susan D., Sandy, Susan C., Me and...

...here's Dawn instead of me in this pic.

It's a Snowman Party!

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The Moms FALL into Fun!

Finally! My post on our "Mom's Craft Night Out!"

As you can see, we made pumpkins! It was not my original idea. I found the idea on "It's a Daisy Day!" website and put my own little twist on it. As you can see, she made fall pumpkins for her craft. We did too but we painted both sides and added jack-o-lantern faces on one side. When Halloween is over, all we have to do is twist the ribbon, raffia and wire around that's on the stem and we've extended our decor through Thanksgiving! Gotta love a dual purpose pumpkin!

See. Here's the other side!

Okay. I get caught up in the night and forget to take pictures of everything but here are some pics from the night with the directions thrown in!

First we painted all the sides of the pumpkins except the bottom with craft paint. These pictures show really orange pumpkins but they aren't that orange. They look more like the first two pics. We used 2 X 4's for the pumpkins and they are cut in 6", 8" and 10" lengths. Thanks Curtis for cutting them...we all appreciate it!

Hanging out while we wait for them to dry. Usually at this time we are snacking on the treats our Snack Hostesses bring but we did that before we even started. We had some catching up to do since our group had the summer off from crafting.

Applying a second coat.

After the two coats of orange were dry, we painted the faces on them. This was a stressful time for some of the Moms but they ALL turned out so cute!

Once all the paint was completely dry, we took sandpaper to all the edges of the blocks. We also did a light sanding over the front and the back (right over the faces) to distress them a little.

We took floral wire and wrapped it around a pencil to make the curly part of a pumpkin vine. We then stretched to spring to elongate it and make it look not so uniform.

Okay, here's where I stopped taking pictures so there are no visual aids for the next steps. Anyway, they are really easy and I'm sure you can figure it out!

We hot glued (with a big old glob of hot glue) the 2" natural wood stems on top of the blocks. They are about a nickel size in diameter. Curtis found us some awesome branches on the ground (so no trees were harmed in the process...this makes my "green" daughter very happy) in the woods at his parents' house and cut them for us.

After the hot glue was set, we tied a piece of torn fabric, 5-6 strands of raffia and the curly wire onto the stem and ta da! We have pumpkins!

Here we all are with our pumpkins! Thanks Stephanie (Susan C.'s) daughter for taking our pics! Left to right are: Kelly, Susan C., Dawn, Sherie, Nettie, Sandy, Me (Cindi) and Susan D..

A little artsy shot from Steph...she wanted to highlight the pumpkins but I think she highlighted my double chin! Thanks Steph!

Here are our final projects. I think I missed taking pics of some but aren't the ones I did get sweet?

Have Fun!

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The Moms Name Their Families!

A couple of Saturdays ago the Moms got together for this month's "Mom's Craft Night Out." This month we made name boards. I know I say this all the time but I loved this project and our craft time together. I think it's the creativity of doing the project combined with the fun we have of just getting together for time for ourselves. If you are a Mom, then you know what I'm talking about. Some of us desperately need the time to ourselves.

Here is my board. I still need to put another coat of sealer on it. It was raining that day and I was afraid to go overboard with it.

Right now I put it on the top of my wall unit. It will be moved above a picture of the three of us when I redecorate the family room. Also, please don't look at my dust...I haven't been up there in a while!

Here are the step by steps. I hope you enjoy the pics.

Here's the table set up ready to go. We are outside sanding the boards.

The boards are 8 x 24 x 1 inches. Curtis, the sweet love of my life, cut and routed the boards for me. Thanks honey! We just sanded the edges a little to smooth out the routing.

Such concentration!

Painting the boards with their color of choice.

I loved all the colors. It was hard to pick one!

We let the first coat dry.

The final coats. We did 2-3 coats for complete coverage.

We gave the last coat ample time to dry.

Now it was time to prep the vinyl lettering. We use credit cards to rub over the letters to make sure they are adhered to the transfer paper.

The next step is to pull the backing off of the lettering and keep it on the transfer paper.

Next we lined it up...

...to get it perfectly straight. After we were happy with where it was, we rubbed it to adhere the vinyl on the board.

We then carefully pull the transfer paper back leaving the vinyl.

We took them outside and sprayed them with a sealer. Here are close-ups of them while they are drying.

Here we all are with our boards:

The Chaffee wives...left to right are Nettie, Dawn and Susan C.

The Non-Chaffee wives..top row from left to right are Susan D. and Cindy B. The bottom row left to right are Me and Kelly.

Have Fun!

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