Cute Turkey Candleholders

Hello! If any of you are still reading this blog, I apologize for being AWOL for so long. This has been a really hectic fall for our family and for me especially. I took on some extra commitments that are filling a lot of my time. I was just thinking recently that I miss making stuff and posting about it. Today I am sharing a turkey craft that I did with my youngest son on Sunday. I found the idea for this craft on the Family Fun website. CLICK HERE for a link to the actual craft. I changed a few things from the one on FF. I did not have wooden beads so I used brown pom-poms for the head of the turkey. I used yellow cardstock for the beaks and red felt for the wattles and googly eyes for the eyes.

My little 5 year old took the photo below of me cutting some tissue paper into squares. I thought he did a great job, so I wanted to include it.




Here are the supplies needed. I bought the clear glass votive holders at Dollar Tree for $1 each. We made five turkeys so we can give them to a few people at our family Thanksgiving dinner. We will keep one for our family, of course! You also need Mod Podge, a foam brush, and tissue paper in fall colors. If you are a local reader of the blog, I found a package of fall-colored tissue paper at Kally's General Store. LOVE that store!

I spread a layer of Mod Podge onto the sides and bottom of the votive holder using the foam brush and then my little guy adhered the tissue squares all over it.

Then I covered the whole thing with another layer of Mod Podge and let it dry.

The final step was adding a pom-pom head, cardstock beak, googly eyes, and a felt wattle using a hot glue gun. Tissue paper strips folded in half and twisted at the bottom were then hot-glued to the back of the votive holder to make a tail. It is hard to tell in the photo, but I put a battery-operated candle inside. It looks really pretty when it's glowing. These are so fun and easy to make. Wouldn't Grandma love to receive one of these on Thanksgiving day........especially if it was handmade by her precious grandchidlren? Of course she would! So go do it!

Fall Craft Idea: String a Leaf Garland

I can't believe I haven't posted here for over a month. Needless to say, the beginning of the new school year has been VERY busy for me. Today I wanted to write a quick post to share an idea to do with your children this fall.

First, go to Dollar General (or your local dollar store) and buy a package or two of fall silk leaves. Unless you are planning to make a HUGE garland, one package should be plenty.



Now get some pretty fall ribbon and cut it to the length you want for your garland. If you are doing this with young children, I would recommend using only a 2-3 foot length. If you are making a garland that you will hang up you can skip the next step. However, I wanted to make one as a stringing activity to put in my Montessori classroom. Since it would be used over and over by many children, I folded over the ends of my ribbon and sewed a button over the fold. This will make it sturdier for little hands to string and will prevent the end of the ribbon from fraying.



Next, fold your leaves in half and cut a slit in the middle as shown below.

Give your child the ribbon and a pile of leaves and let them string the leaves onto the ribbon. This is great for developing their fine motor skills.

My five-year-old loved stringing the leaves onto the ribbon. He wanted to hang it up right away. The one in the photos is the one I'll use in my preschool classroom. However, we have a TON of leaves left over so I will have him make another one that we can hang up to decorate our home for fall.

This gives you an idea of what the garland looks like with the leaves on it. So pretty for fall!

Happy Fall, Y'all! (I know it isn't officially fall yet, but fall is in the air here in the Midwest and I LOVE IT!!)

I'll try to drop in here again soon and update everyone on what we've been up to.

"give thanks" pillow

OK.........I've been hinting around about a few projects in the works and I finally buckled down last night and stayed up late to finish one of them so I could post it. Since I've started the new running program I haven't been staying up very late but today was a rest day so I made an exception last night. My inspiration for this project was some burlap monogram lampshades I saw over on Rhoda's blog a while back. I thought it was a great idea and I love doing freezer paper stencilling. Immediately I could envision how cute it would be to do a "give thanks" pillow on burlap with my boys' handprints decorated like turkeys and that is what I decided to try to do.

In case you are unfamiliar with freezer paper stencilling I decided to make this a detailed step-by-step post. If you aren't interested or already know how scroll down to see the finished pillow.

First I found a font I liked and printed out the words "give thanks" in a Word document using landscape orientation. The font I used is called Kristen ITC. I just kept enlarging the font until it pretty much filled up the entire 8 1/2 by 11 inch space. My font size was probably about 200 although I can't remember exactly. I also used bold typeface. Once I had it how I wanted it (I also had to adjust the margins to make them as narrow as possible) I printed it out. I then placed the copy underneath a piece of freezer paper (shiny side down) and traced it onto the printer paper with a pen. See photo below.

The next step was the most tedious and probably took me about 30 minutes. I did it while watching TV. Using nail scissors I carefully cut out the insides of all the letters from the freezer paper. Make sure when you do this to cut out the middles of your letters and don't discard them as you will need to iron them on during the next step.




Once all the letters were cut out I ironed the freezer paper (shiny side down) onto a big piece of burlap. Use a dry iron for this or the freezer paper will get wrinkly. Be sure to carefully iron on the center of your letters with open middles. Check to be sure all edges are adhered securely to the fabric.




Next, using a paintbrush (sponge ones are great for this) tap fabric paint inside all the letters until they are covered as shown below. You may need to add another coat. I usually do this one right after another instead of waiting for the paint to dry between coats. I'm impatient like that.




You will need to let the paint dry for several hours (I usually do this after the boys' bedtime and let it dry overnight). Once it's dry, carefully peel off the freezer paper to reveal your image. This is my favorite part of freezer paper stencilling. It always looks so good when you peel off the paper. I was a little leery of how this would turn out on burlap as I've only ever freezer paper stencilled on knit jersey fabric. It worked like a dream!!

Since I wanted to add the hand turkeys I painted the boys' hands and fingers with the fabric paint and stamped them on either side of the words. This didn't work so well and I had to go back with a paintbrush and fill in the paint quite a bit. I then used more fabric paint to add a bead, wattle, eye and legs to the turkeys. I am bummed about how the black paint for the eyes spread out. I think I was using old paint and it was pretty runny. :0(

This one is my little boy's hand.

And my big boy's hand.

I finished the painting about a week ago and last night I finally headed down to the craft room to sew the pillow. I just cut an even rectangle around the painted part and then used that as a template to cut a second piece of burlap for the back. I sewed the two sides together (paint side out) leaving a very wide margin all around so I could trim it afterwards. I left a hole a few inches wide and stuffed the pillow full of polyester fiberfill. Then I sewed up the hole. It was pretty easy to do this even though the pillow was full of stuffing. The final step was to trim all the edges evenly (eyeballed it) and then fray the edges to give it a fringed trim. The stitching line stops the fraying so I just pulled out strands until I was really close to the stitching. I LOVE the fringed trim. It's just about my favorite part aside from the hand turkeys. Oh.......and I also love how the saying turned out. OK............I just love the whole thing. It's fun when an idea goes from your head to reality and looks as good as or better than you imagined it. This will be a fun keepsake to pull out and display each November.

Here's a close-up of the fringed corner.

If you like this idea but are intimidated by the sewing part think of how cute this would be just done up on burlap, fringed, and hung on a dowel instead of being made into a pillow. You could also frame it. Many possibilities. When I bought the tan burlap at Hobby Lobby I also bought about a yard of red burlap. (Burlap is really inexpensive by the way.) I thought it would be very cute to make some little red pillows with "ho ho ho" stencilled on them for Christmas. So........that's on the to-do list too. A burlap pillow (or burlap in a frame) with a monogram would make a great, easy and inexpensive Christmas gift. Your children could help out with the painting and stuffing part. I have a lot of burlap left and am already thinking of more project ideas. Fun, fun, fun!!

Thanksgiving Story Bracelets

I just wanted to pop in quickly to tell you to head over to my other blog to read about a Thanksgiving story bracelet project I did with my preschoolers today. It would be a fun one for you to do with your own children, grandchildren, nieces/nephews, etc. at home. Read all about it here. I did this at home with my boys a few years ago.

Hopefully I'll get my act together and finish up a few more Thanksgiving projects I've been (sort of) working on so I can post them.

My Halloween treat

When the boys and I went to my parents' house to trick-or-treat on Halloween night my mom surprised ME with a paper bag labeled "Happy Halloween" and "Merry Christmas". I was surprised and delighted to find a little autumn teapot and two matching teacups inside. I had seen this at my favorite local thrift store and had left a shameless hint about it in this post. Just like with the chicken quilt, my mom came through! Thanks, Mom!! I love them so much!





The lid of the teapot has a cute little acorn-shaped handle. So adorable!!

A few things we've been up to

A week or so ago I headed down to my craft room and dusted off my sewing machine so I could make a Halloween pennant banner for our home. I had bought a pack of charm squares (pre-cut 5 inch squares in a coordinating variety of fabrics) at a quilt store this summer but had not been able to find them. When I was hiding the candy corn treat bags I made for the boys I found them! It didn't take me long at all to get this festive little banner stitched up. I just picked several squares that I liked (all different), folded them in half diagonally and ironed them. Then I placed the folded edge into the crease of some orange double-fold bias tape I had on hand and sewed it all together using a straight stitch. Easy peasy! I also made one with just fall fabrics that I'll hang up now that Halloween is over. Below you can see the Halloween one.

On Friday evening the boys and I cleaned out and carved our jack-o-lanterns. Here you can see the boys pulling out the pumpkin guts. I forgot to take an after picture to show the finished jacks. This year I used those little battery-operated LED candles instead of real candles. I love those......so much safer. For Halloween my oldest son who is 8 dressed up like a Patriot (the Revolutionary War kind, not the football kind) and my youngest son who is 4 dressed up like a racecar driver. We had great Halloween trick-or-treating weather. A little chilly but not too cold.......a full moon and a clear sky. I'll have to do another post about a great treat that I got on Halloween night.

Halloween Crafting.......I love it!!

You know, it's been a while since I've created anything. I really get a great sense of satisfaction when I make something. So I'm feeling pretty good right now since I've managed to create a few fun new things this weekend. This morning I woke up and read my Google reader and saw these great Jack-o-lantern jars on Chasing Cheerios. I immediately decided that I wanted to make these with my two boys today. I had one jar and my mom had one.........so once I picked up the extra one from her after our morning basketball game (with my youngest son) we were good to go. These were really easy and fun to make. Please see the tutorial on Not So Idle Hands for details about how to make these. I added green curling ribbon to the tops to make pumpkin vines but otherwise I followed her tutorial pretty much exactly. I didn't have any black tissue paper so I just printed the faces through the links on her blog and cut them out and Mod Podged them right onto the jars..........just the printer paper. It worked fine. I stuffed my candy corn lights into them and they look really cool on our "harvest" shelf.



(Sidenote: I hadn't "discovered" the Not So Idle Hands blog until today. I love finding new blogs. I am really wanting to try her tutorial for making your own gummy candy.)



The Jack-O Jar on the left is my youngest son's. He really didn't do any of it. He wanted me to do it all. He chose the face he wanted but I did the work. The other one is my oldest son's jar. He is 8 and did most of it himself. I just smoothed out the Mod Podge a little for him and put the face on.






The other thing I created this weekend was candy corn treat bags to give my boys for Halloween. I don't usually give them anything for Halloween, but I saw this tutorial on The Crafty Crow and thought these bags were so adorable I couldn't resist. They were SO easy to make. I plan to fill them with candy corn along with a little honeycomb pumpkin. I found these little honeycomb pumpkins at my favorite local thrift store for 50 cents each. When I was little I loved those fold-out honeycomb decorations. Since my mom was a teacher it seemed like she had a lot of these in her classroom. I don't think they're sold much anymore. I was happy to find these and I think my boys will love them.

(Sidenote: In addition to finding the pumpkins on my thrift outing, I got 2 "new" pairs of shoes for fall/winter for $17 total. I would have had to pay more than that for one pair if I had bought them new. I was really excited to find those bargains. I also saw a teapot with autumn leaves on it and a matching teacup that I LOVE. I've seen it several times in that store but so far haven't been able to bring myself to buy it. If it's there the next time I go in.........maybe I'll splurge on it. It would look great on my baker's rack.........and I would love to use it during the fall to hold my tea. Sorry for digressing.)

Umm.....it's still fall, right?

That's what the calendar says anyway. I think Mother Nature is pulling a fast one. We woke up this morning to about 2 inches of snow. My boys were VERY excited and have already been out playing in it this morning. It's a strange juxtaposition of two seasons in our area today. Just before I started typing this post I went back to my bedroom to check on my boys..........there were loud noises that warranted a quick peek. As I listened to them explaining that they were taking turns being the "tiger" and the "deer" while wrestling each other on my bed......the unmade bed with a pile of laundry to be folded.........I looked out the window and saw fall leaves slowly drifting off one of our trees while light snowflakes gently fell. It was a really cool sight! Below you can see the snow on our little maple tree in the front yard..........fall colors still evident beneath the white stuff.



This is the scene that awaited our chickens this morning. They are lucky to have a covered chicken yard so they don't have to get into the snow much. However, when I opened their pop door so they could go out, they were quite uncertain about venturing out. Just a few minutes ago I noticed that a few had finally decided to go outside.



While I was out with the boys earlier I checked in on the cooped up chickens and found three of them on the shelf (where I DON'T like them to be)..........



And the other two were just hanging out. Although "she" hasn't started crowing yet, it's become pretty obvious that Dixie is a rooster.




On another note...........I was thrilled to arrive home from work yesterday to find a package addressed to me. I was mystified to see that it was from my mother-in-law as I wasn't expecting anything from her. I was so surprised and happy to find a ceramic hen and chick inside. And even more pleased and touched to find out that she had hand-painted it just for me. Thank you SO much, Donna! I love it and I love you. You are so thoughtful. Here is the sweet little hen perched on my baker's rack. I love the little chick on her back and her wing angled protectively over it.

This has become our latest family treasure. What a talented mother-in-law I have!!

Finally, I'm sorry for not posting over here. I didn't realize it had been so long until I started this post. I've just been so busy with school and the boys that I haven't gotten around to posting over here very often. Hopefully that will change and I will make time to write here more. I like having this place to document what we've been doing. Hope you all are having a great fall!

More signs of Autumn

Today my little boy and I had the day off from school. We were very busy all day but had a good time together. We had a shopping outing and among other things we picked up a bag of various little pumpkins at.........Home Depot! We were going there to buy some more spray paint so DH and I can finish the fort this weekend. When we were headed in I spotted the bag o' pumpkins and had to get them. I have been wanting to get some mini pumpkins to put on top of the pair of candlesticks I bought a few weeks ago at Goodwill. The candlesticks were $2.99 each and look great topped with the white pumpkins. I have seen some really cute home decor using mini pumpkins on some of my favorite frugal decorating blogs. One idea is to adhere letter stickers to three little pumpkins and then line them up to spell "BOO". I may do that with some of my little orange pumpkins.






For now, the rest of my pumpkins from Home Depot are nestled in a wire basket that a very kind friend gave me last year. (You know who you are........thanks so much!) When my oldest son got home today and noticed the pumpkins he said, "Wow! It looks like we're getting ready for fall and Thanksgiving around here!" He's right!! I love fall decorating. I also got 4 fall cloth napkins and a fall candle at Kohls today, but I didn't take a photo of them.

Autumn is (almost) here!!

I love fall. It is practically my favorite season although I love the seasonal changes we have here in the midwest. In the past I haven't decorated a whole lot for fall. Mainly that is because I didn't have many decorations. I am kind of frugal and have a hard time bringing myself to spend money on decorations for my home. I would never pay full price for home decor........I think it is priced ridiculously high in most stores. I have a lot of Christmas decorations, but most of them have been given to me. Over the past year as I've become more immersed in the blog world I have been very inspired by several frugal decorating blogs. It's amazing what great looks you can get without spending a lot of money. During the summer I took several little trips to Goodwill and my favorite thrift store in addition to hitting up several garage sales. As a result I have many new fall decorations to use this year. I have added a bunch of them to my baker's rack (also a summer garage sale find) and I love how it looks now all decked out for autumn. Today I'm going to share with you some of my new decorations.



Here is a full view of the shelf.







On the top shelf is a tray from Goodwill, a pumpkin teapot from Goodwill (59 cents), a green teapot (birthday gift from DH a few years ago) and a garland that I bought at a garage sale for 50 cents.






This shelf has a checked plate ($1 at a garage sale) on a black stand (thrift store) with a thrift store basket filled with another 50 cent garage sale garland. The little white pitcher is from Goodwill for 59 cents.








This shelf has a metal basket (thrift store) that I'm hoping to fill with rolled up fall napkins or placemats. I might have to sew my own.........haven't found any I like yet. The metal AUTUMN sign was $3 at a garage sale and the metal pumpkin was 99 cents from Goodwill.





The bottom shelf has a fabric pumpkin that I bought MANY years ago at a craft show, leaf garland from a thrift store or garage sale (I can't remember), yellow metal bird from Hobby Lobby and a little leaf dish I just bought today at my local thrift store.

I hung a little fabric HARVEST wall-hanging that I made several years ago above a shelf in the dining area. I'm experimenting with this, but I think I will leave the candy corn lights up. I just bought them today at my fave thrift store for $3.50.

Close-up of the candy corn lights. I am thinking of picking up another strand to hang in my Montessori classroom this season.

This weekend I finally hung up my chicken quilt. It looks awesome! Thanks, Mom and Dad!! On the shelf below it I put a metal platter that I just bought at the thrift store today and another fabric pumpkin that I also bought today at the same store.

Here's a close-up of the platter and pumpkin.

I would still love to find a few chunky candlesticks to hold some mini-pumpkins. I'd also love to find some autumn "filler" for some glass candle holders I have. My sons are getting old enough that I think they would leave lit candles alone, so maybe I can start to enjoy candles again. Even safer, however, are those little flickering LCD candles. I love those too! How do you decorate your home for fall?