Thank You Heart

I mentioned in my last post that Shaun's father has recently passed away. We've been off work the past couple weeks on bereavement leave, but our bosses at work (we work at the same place) sent us flowers on the second day we were gone, so of course I wanted to make a Thank You card for their kindness.

This is what I made:

This was a card that was available in the "Make it Now" projects from Cricut called "Thank you from the many colors of my heart". (I believe it is user submitted because I could not find a link to the image, but here is the card on Pinterest.) I changed it somewhat but it has the same feel. And you can't see it, but the heart does have texture.

Had I known that we would have taken the full two weeks' leave, I would have mailed it. Oh well, we'll just hand deliver it when we return. At least I am getting it shared sooner rather than (six months) later...

(How to Make) Yarn Wrapped Valentine's Wreath

It's almost Valentine's Day! You know what that means?! An excuse to put hearts everywhere (not that that I needed one) and a chance to make some fun crafts!

For me, that fun craft was a wreath. I decided a while ago that I wanted to make a Valentine's wreath, but did not know what. I am very into wreaths lately all of a sudden-which is actually pretty random because I never use to care either way for them before. (And I still need to share both my Halloween Wreath and my [second] Holiday Wreath from last year.)

After trying for a while, and failing, to find a heart-shaped wreath form for the project, I finally decided that I would just go ahead and make a round one. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, so bought some hearts and flowers stuff, and decided I really liked the idea of a yarn wrapped wreath, so that's what I went with. I made this in about 2-3 hours a couple weeks ago.

I am really pleased with how this turned out. I just love how it's so simple, but at the same time, so charmingly perfect.  We joked that it looks like a little life preserver, and Shaun called it a "LOVE Preserver". So now that is its official name in our house.

If you would like to make one, too, here's how I did it. I am sure most of it is self-explanatory, but just in case:

1. Gather up your supplies.

You'll need:
-A Styrofoam wreath form (I found this small one at the dollar store back when I made this wreath, and just grabbed a few-it's about 9 inches across)
-Yarn in color(s) of your choice
-Things to decorate the wreath if you choose (not pictured)
-Hot Glue Gun and Hot Glue

2.  Decide on a pattern for your yarn.

You don't have to mark on the Styrofoam like I did, but I did find that it helped me keep it (mostly) even sectioned and to make it easier to remember what I was working on. I actually made the yarn balls because one of my colors was tangled and after I got it sorted out, I made this size ball, and it turned out to be just about perfect for my project, but this is not necessary if you don't want to-you can just cut long lengths of yarn to work with at a time.

3. Hot Glue the edge of the yarn to the back of the wreath, and then wrap the yarn around the section for that color.  Make sure to keep the yarn tautly wrapped around the wreath so it stays in place.  Remember to hot glue the end down once you get to the end of that section.

4. Do this a few hundred (or thousand?) times... Seriously, it looks nice, but does take a while. Your wreath  will start to look like this:

5. And then this...Yay, you're getting so close! You could even stop here if you like just the yarn-wrapped look.

6. Hot Glue any decorations you'd like to use onto the wreath where you like. (No Pictures for this step.) For mine, I used hearts that came in a roses stem that I found at the dollar store-one from each of my red and pink-and for the leaves and the curly-cues, I took off of some of my Christmas floral picks. (The nice thing about those types of things, they weren't specifically Christmas related so YOU can decide what you do with them.)

And.... Voila! You have an adorable yarn wrapped wreath to enjoy!

Mine is currently on my cubicle wall at work so it can bring me joy and be showed off. It does its job well, and everyone who walks by has told me it is really cute or that it turned out well. So I am pleased.

Here it is on our wall with a cute sign I got from Michaels about a year ago:

What Valentine's Crafts are you working on? (Or probably have finished by now...)

5th Anniversary Ornament

After looking all over stores and Amazon for a special ornament to commemorate mine and hubby's 5th Anniversary throughout this year and not finding anything, I decided to make something-I just didn't know what.

I was thinking that I wanted to make a heart-shaped version of either the Glitter Ornaments or Paint Ornaments, but I was unable to find any heart-shaped glass ornaments to fill, so that plan was out the window as quickly as it was in my head. I did, however, find a cardboard base ornament that could be decorated, so decided to make something with that. So I made this cute little ornament- a sweet memory and decoration for a sweet price of less than $5:

Isn't it adorable? Even though it's not a complicated thing, hubs and I really love it!

Here it is on the tree:

I love that you can see it clearly from even across the room. :)

(And yes, we have stockings for our stuffed animals....)

And I learned some useful information as I was experimenting while working on this: when painting things made out of cardboard base like this, Paint by itself takes forever to cover the surface without streaks or cardboard showing through. But paint + clear glue (which is what I had, I'm sure white glue that dries clear works, too) = magic. I did it as an experiment just because, but it drastically reduced the number of coats needed and the time spent working on it versus paint alone.  So, if you're ever painting cardboard, maybe this trick will work for you, too.