Crafts

Arabella has a love of all things crafty, kind of like her Mama. So it's no surprise that her teacher always tells us when they have their choice of free play, she rocks the crafts table. Yesterday she made this amazing domino necklace and her teacher said that she showed a lot of patience in her ability to wait until after school to wear it. They didn't want it to get accidentally broken at recess because she knew it would break Arabella's heart.

She is so proud of this necklace and I can't say that I blame her. She loves jewelry and what's better than making it yourself?

Rainy Day Fun

Not too long ago I found some leftover goodies from Aunt Erika and decided we needed to have something fun to do on such a gloomy day. Our first adventure ended up rather wet once Bubba started splashing in the water. But they had fun, so I suppose that's all that matters.

A Very Crafty Christmas - Scrollwork Ornaments

Adam is a great woodworker. When he manages to find the time with our hectic schedules he loves working with his scrollsaw. So for Christmas his major contribution was finding and creating wooden ornaments. To give you an idea of what goes into one of these beauties, below you'll find a collage of the pre-work he has to do; from placing the patterns on the wood, to pre-drilling each and every tiny little hole. All of that has to be done before he can even begin scrolling. He's great at what he does!

Filigree Angel

Filigree Butterfly

Filigree Christmas Tree

Spun Glass Ornament

Spun Glass Ornament

Spun Glass Ornament

Spun Glass Ornament



3D Snowflake




3D Snowflake

I can't really pick a favorite out of these amazing ornaments. I do, however, favor the filigree angel and the round spun glass ornament with the bow.



Electric guitar



I'm really impressed with the way this guitar turned out.



Angel Puzzle

Adam also made this angel puzzle for his mom. She's very difficult to keep together for standing purposes, but a very neat piece of work indeed.

A Very Crafty Christmas - Marshmallow Gun

My nephew isn't a hard guy to please, after all when you're 9 just about anything will satisfy you. I contemplated making him some Squeaky-Clean Monster Puke, but we went with Marshmallow Guns instead. And I must admit I spent hours on end having fun with them myself. I'm still finding marshmallows. :o)

A Very Crafty Christmas - Tutu & Matching Hair Bow

When it came to my nieces I wasn't hard pressed to figure out what I wanted to do. I am already in the business of making hair bows and what better to go with them than matching tutus.

Abby was happy!

Brooklyn loved her tutu, just wasn't happy she had to stop & pose.

Demi loves her new tutu.

A Very Crafty Christmas - Homemade Pepper Jelly

When it comes to men it is difficult to determine what you could make that a man would be happy with. Time after time it has been determined that the one thing you can't go wrong with is food.

Adam and I have a special recipe that he has made since we were dating. It's a recipe that I had but never thought to make. Being that he loves to grill he was all about it. Part of the recipe calls for Hot Pepper Jelly. Unfortunately at the time we "discovered" our recipe we had a very difficult time trying to find pepper jelly in retail stores locally. After a trip to Iowa we learned from Aunt Ginny that we could just make it ourselves. And that's how we became experts in Homemade Pepper Jelly and Adam's infamous Peppery Grilled Turkey.

Recently Adam has discovered that he can even inject the turkey with the liquid baste and it is even more scrumptious than we ever thought possible. I'm telling you this recipe is to die for! And I'm even willing to share the recipe with you. I used a recipe card set from Shabby Princess to make the recipe card, gift tags and jar labels.



The jelly up close



 

A Very Crafty Christmas - Glass Tile Pendants

Being that we have two little ones and one income we had to get creative this year when it came to giving gifts to our family members. So I took to the interwebs and used ideas I found and suggestions from my December Mamas. I am so proud of what we did that I'm going to share all of our goodies with you...

First I made Glass Tile Pendants for the females in the family.

The picture isn't doing a wonderful job at showing this piece off. It reads "Spring" accross the top.



For a twist I turned this tile diagonal.





I love how striking the red appears under the glass.



Finding a "black" pattern for my sister proved difficult, but I think this one hit the bullseye.



I've got nothing but love for this deep purple pendant.





I must say finding something pink and green for my sister was a little trying but I'm please with the way this one turned out.

After making the pendants I had to figure out a way to wrap them. So while at Hobby Lobby one time I checked out the clearance aisle and found these great little wedding favor boxes. They were the perfect size and the bows were already applied. Of course to add my own little personal touch I made very teeny tiny gift tags for each person. The box measures 1.5"x1.5".