Go Big Blue!

Just in time for the SEC tournament, a University of Kentucky wreath.

First I bought a pack of white coffee filters and an individual pack of blue fabric dye.  I filled my kitchen sink with water, added the blue dye, and then put in 50 (out of 100) coffee filters.

Once they'd soaked for a while, I took them out and laid them in my garage on newspaper to dry.  I didn't want to lay them directly on the ground for two reasons: (1) I didn't want them to get dirty and (2) I didn't want to turn the garage floor blue.  It didn't take them long to dry, but when I picked them up I realized some of them (not all) had absorbed some of the ink from the newspaper.  Didn't see that coming.

I was now ready to start making my wreath but realized a small problem.  By soaking and drying the coffee filters, I had smoothed out the "ruffly" edges.  Since the plain white ones hadn't been soaked and dried, they were still ruffly.  So, I stopped, filled the sink with warm water, and soaked the plain white ones in plain warm water.  After these had dried, I was ready to go.

I started twisting the filters and hot gluing them onto the wreath, alternating between blue and white.  After I had covered the whole wreath, this is what I had.

Next, I printed the letters U and K in a font I liked in Word, cut them out and traced them onto some white cardboard.  Using the white cardboard letters, I traced that onto white felt.  Then I used blue thread and stitched the white felt onto the white cardboard.  This part sucked.  It's not easy to sew cardboard and my fingers hurt from pushing the needle through and then into my finger.  After much putting it down and picking it up, I finally finished the letters and hot glued them onto the wreath.  This is the final product:

We love it!!!  It is now hanging on my front door for the duration of March madness.  Go big blue!

P.S. Joey and I's alma mater, Morehead State University, won their tournament, the OVC, to get into the NCAA tournament, too.  So we'll be rooting for both of them.

Rainy Day = Crafty Day

This past Sunday was totally yucky here so we stayed inside in our pajamas all day and covered the kitchen table in crafts.  As soon as the kids see me settle in at the kitchen table and start pulling out craft boxes they grab their stuff and come running.

I had a few goals for the day.

1.  Make the Easter wreath I've been planning.
2.  Make St. Patrick's Day pins so none of us get pinched for not wearing green.
3.  Make hairbows!

The kids had the following goals:

1.  Make a mess.
2.  Have fun.

Lucky for them, I was okay with their goals.  They started out creating things using our various supplies, but when Logan saw me get out the felt, he just had to have some.  He requested maroon, yellow, and blue for the Washington Redskins and the Kentucky Wildcats.  This is what he ended up making:

See the UK sign at the bottom?  He cut the letters out of white felt and outlined them in blue.  He was excited about the game they were playing later that afternoon.

Oh, and did you notice the thing on his head?  He found some ribbon and attached the feathers for a cool head...thing.  I don't know.  But you know that as soon as she saw it Grace had to have one, too.

This is them mid creation.  They were funny.

My first task was to make some St. Patrick's Day pins.  I had seen the idea out in blogland so I created my own version.  I Googled 'Shamrock template' and found one that would work.  Then I traced three different sizes onto some green felt.  (The one that inspired me used three different shades of green, but I only had two, so I just used one to keep it looking uniform.)  I then glued the three felt shamrocks together and added a jewel/bead thing (actually left over from my sorority days in college) to the middle.  Then I glued a pin on the back.  Here's the finished product:

I am really pleased with how they turn out and the kids are excited to wear them, so it's a win.

Next, I worked on my Easter wreath, but it's still in progress, so I'll blog about that later.

I then made a few hairbows and pins for Grace and I.  This is an obsession that began around Christmas and I'm trying to remember to take some pictures of all I've made so I can write a blog about that, too.

I then made everyone take a break from what they were doing (because by now they'd wandered off) and we did something fun!  Clean the living room!  It was a big hit.  While cleaning, I came across a Hello Kitty ring Grace had gotten at some birthday party and decided that I might be able to make a Hello Kitty hairbow for her.  You see, she has become obsessed with Hello Kitty.  I bought her a Hello Kitty coloring book and she'll sit for hours coloring in it.  But no jumping around the book.  She started at page one and is going page by page coloring them all. 

Anyway, after the cleaning excitement died down I went back to kitchen table and got to it.  Now, I'll just warn you that since I've kicked off this whole "crafty" thing I've basically made things by stealing other peoples ideas.  This was made using my own ideas.  And here it is:

Again, I am really pleased with how it turned out.  And I think it's really weird she doesn't have a mouth.  Oh, and I posted it on Facebook to see if anyone could tell what it was and my sister immediately got it right.  So, I glued a hair clip on the back and gave it Grace.  Now I just have to wait for a day she "feels like" wearing it.  Oh yes, Miss Opinionated.

Anyway, that was my Sunday.  What started out as rainy, windy, and gross turned very productive.