Paint in My Hair

Ignore the Burlap Wallpaper

I had a great time decorating for our church Christmas party.  I love having a project like that to ruminate about while I'm falling asleep at night.  The challenge--a minimal budget, over 300 guests and a giant, not-so-pretty room.  

I found these striped tablecloths at Oriental Trading Company.  Perfect.

We used the felt circle garlands for runners on the non-striped tables.  That was Tara's idea--much cheaper than center pieces and they don't block your view.

I learned from some clever friends in St Louis that hanging stuff from the ceiling is key to distracting from the basketball hoops and burlap wallpaper.

I ordered these cardboard cake circles online.  They were already white so we cut a sun shaped stencil to cover the white and spray painted them with red and aqua spray paint.  It was actually pretty easy--a whole lot easier than hanging them up.

Cookies and Cocoa adorned Santa's Sweet Shop.  Those peppermint cutouts were also from Oriental Trading Company.  

To make these trees, I used hot glue to wrap fabric around some foam cones.  I attached the buttons with hot glue too.  Easy peasy.

The party was a hit.  I'm still trying to catch up on house work.  Decorating for a party is just way more fun.

Felt Circle Garland Tutorial

We are making these circle garlands to decorate the church for a Christmas party.  We wanted aqua and red circles, but apparently there is an aqua felt shortage.  I ordered some on line, but when I got it it was baby blue.  So I went to three different fabric/craft stores.  Nothin'. When I got home the mania really set in.  Must have aqua felt.  NOW!  I did have some spring green wool felt and some blue food coloring.  It would have to do.  I boiled some water and vinegar, added the food coloring, threw in the felt and in 5 minutes I had beautiful hand dyed AQUA felt.  FYI--The baby blue felt was acrylic and you can't dye that.  I know cause I tried :-) 

I wanted to incorporate this CUTE red and white baker's twine.  And I wanted the garland strung on something stronger then regular thread.  So I used an old trick of threading the bobbin on my machine with the twine (regular thread on top) and sewing straight through the garland.  It is so easy!!  A friend helped me make a little video tutorial.

 

 Ahhh. Do you here the sweet sounds of children in the background?  Afterward we went up to see what the commotion was about.  They were throwing the Fisher Price baby Jesus around and shrieking in delight. Hmmm.  

Every year I wrap the paintings on my mantel.  It's so cute and CHEAP.  Ikea has this perfect red and white striped paper.  I sewed up some simple stockings from my Poppy fabric and we are feeling quite festive now.  

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a lovely holiday.  My brother came down with his family and my sister came up from Florida.  Everyone pitched in and we managed to get everything on the table.  Five pies for 9 people, so we had a pretty solid pie to person ratio.  My SIL wound together the red berries for a very pretty centerpiece. It'd be great for Christmas too.  

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was visiting my mom's cousin Margaret.  She has a small farm and the kids LOVED it.  Grant is crazy about tractors.  (I just love to hear him say excavator and mini-loader).  So he was in heaven.  In fact, he pretty much ignored the horse and dogs and just wanted to climb this bad boy the whole time.

Yes, he's got a bandit mask again.  He did leave it home when he went to school this morning.  But he did NOT leave his cape at home.  Oh well.  We can break him of that in Kindergarten.

Grant did leave the tractor for a quick snuggle with his sister on the hammock.  But not for long.