plant a tree

                             This "tree" was a bit bonsaish for me, but it worked.

For the past couple of yrs I have kept an inspirational "tree" in my house. Well, it's not really a tree. It's actually cool branches that I find, put in a decorative container, and hang with sachet ornaments that I make.  I think that every home should have some sort of fun or silly thing in the decor.

I did have a little trouble finding branches just like I wanted in our new city. Where we used to live there were lots of woods with trails and it was easy for me to find cool branches and other things such as abandoned bird nests, etc...Our new neighborhood in South Florida is a little more limited so I'll have to be more creative and I will try not to "borrow" anything from the neighbors yards.;)

If you are wondering what are in the sachets... I usually do one of two things. I either fill them with dried herbs from my garden, especially rosemary. Rosemary is so great and has such a wonderful strong scent. I also usually add a complimentary natural oil of some kind to the herbs.  The other thing that I do is use organic buckwheat hulls (I have an abundance of these) and I scent them with natural oils. I like cinnamony stuff, vanilla,  and orange oils.

                         Here are some pictures of some that I made in the past....

One time I had a tree filled with different owls that were all sewn with earthy tones. I placed this "tree" in an old clay pot that had peely green paint on it.  I used green moss on the top of the pot around the "tree" trunk, which was very nice and covered up the green foamy stuff that florists use.

                        This next one was my favorite and I wish that I still had it. :(

   You could make an awesome "tree" that is totally filled with peace signs, symbols, doves and call it a PEACE tree.

Another idea would be to make a FAMILY TREE. Make a special ornament for each member of your family.  The ideas are endless....

t- shirt weaving weekend

I just ran across this craft idea that was shared on another blog that I follow. Is this cool or what? All you need are a bunch of old t-shirts and a hula hoop. The process looks very much like the potholders we all made as kids. Well, I made as a kid anyway.;)

Here is a link for full instructions
http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/hula-hoop-rug-995304/

Have a great weekend and do something creative with your family. <3

crazy notion

Last week while going through all of my wools scraps hoping for a spark of inspiration, I came across this old jacket (which is not wool). I had a crazy notion to turn one of the sleeves into a purse.

Here's how it turned out.. (Elizabeth is my model)

more crafting with magazines

I thought it would be fun to share some other fun things that we've made with old magazines.

These are frames that I made using recycled frames and magazine rolls. The larger one has a drawing that Clarissa did when she was in middle school at Northwest Florida Ballet Academie. She thinks it's silly that I framed it, but I LOVE to frame things that the kids make and I think she did a great job on this one.:) The other 3 are photos of all my girls.

I actually found these letters at a store that I used to love to frequent in Destin. They were honestly much cheaper than it would have cost me to make them. They are wooden letters that have been decoupaged with magazine strips.

Here they are all together

Here are a couple of more things that we have made using old magazines...

changes and botox

Today we are traveling home to Georgia for a wedding. It will be the first time we have left our new town since moving down to south Florida from the panhandle. Moving down here was such a sad and crazy whirlwind. Bob got the job, which we were very thankful for. He loves his new job and I am glad. It has been a long while since he loved his work.

My Grandaddy passing away, literally in the middle of our move, was hard for me. I loved him so much. He was the best grandfather that anyone could have asked for. Truly, he was. I always knew how much he loved me.

Adding to this, it was very hard for me to move from Santa Rosa Beach. I'm never sad when we move from anywhere. I've always shared Bob's gypsy spirit in that I love new experiences, new places, and making new friends. New adventures. This time, however, I'm sad to leave such a beautiful country beach town where everyone knew everyone. I guess I am really a small town girl at heart and it didn't hurt that it was the most beautiful small town you can imagine.

I know that rarely anything in our lives is an accident and I know that we are where we are for a reason. There is such hope in knowing this and for that I am thankful.

For those of you who know me, I feel a bit like a fish out of water in a town where the majority of the woman carry designer bags (that I think are godawful tacky), wear an inch of makeup over their overly botoxed faces, and always wear heels. I'm the only flip flop wearing free spirited Mama I've seen so far, but I'm owning it dangit.

Here's a picture of my Grandaddy at Christmas with my niece Mary Emma...

way behind on the blogging

So yeh, I'm way behind on my blogs. I'm going to try to do better and be more faithful with it. I want to start sharing things, ideas, and whims that I do for fun home decor around our house. That, along with being more faithful to show my latest creations and such. Here are a few things that I have made lately that are for sale in my etsy shop. I hope you like them. If not, just pretend you do.;)

These are so easy and so much fun to make. All you need are colorful pictures out of recycled magazines (you can also just use pages that are black and white only filled with writing and that will look fab too) a recycled tin can, glue mixed with water, a paint brush, and a long wooden skewer.

Also, makes a great vase!

Now, here is a fun banner I made to help welcome the spring. I love to make banners using recycled sweaters that I felt using the washer and dryer.

Christmas Owls

I so wish that I got a picture of our crazy, huge, Griswald Christmas tree that we had this yr. It was hilarious! I think that it was country and kind of  beautiful though. We totally did a Griswald this year and went out to the woods and cut down a massive cedar tree. Of course, we do this every year, but NORMALLY at an actual cedar Christmas tree farm.  This year we went seriously old school and went to the for real woods. Clarissa decided to call it a Christmas bush. The other kids followed suit. It really did kind of look like a huge 10 ft Christmas bush shoved in a corner to hide it's almost naked backside.;-)  We had much fun singing "Oh, Christmas Bush, Oh Christmas Bush..."


I wanted to share a few of the things that I made for some people for Christmas. For my nieces I made some recycled cashmere owls that I stuffed with organic cotton. Zoe and Hazel requested pink and blue. The owl pillow with the crazy mushroom pillow was requested by my oldest daughter Madeline. He's pretty crazy but cute, I think. I also gave some other owls away to other nieces that I had already made and I made a pillow for my mom. Hers was one of my circle pillows with warm cranberry as the base with other warm fallish colors. Forgot to get a picture of it, but she was happy with it.:-)