I'm Back...and My Favorite Projects of 2010

I'm back!  I love when blogs do a favorite's post at the end of the year because I don't see every post that everyone does and I get to find a lot of fun projects that I didn't see before so I thought I'd share some of my favorites. 

 

 I love how McKinley's nursery turned out, it was technically done in 2009 but oh well!  I'm afraid I can't claim most of the work.  My little stinker, McKinley, was born super early so I didn't have a chance to do much before she surprised us with her unexpected early appearance, luckily my mom and sister came to the rescue (because you know I couldn't possibly live without having a cute nursery!) ;0)

I loved this ruffly skirt made from an old t-shirt...too bad kids grow so fast, this has been too small for a long time!

 

 These necklaces were quick, easy and cheap.  Just my kind of crafting!

What little girl doesn't love a doll to squeeze?

You can't have too many accessories...right?

I love my dollar store painted frame holding a flower from my wedding bouquet.

I loved learning how to shir on this little dress.  It made me shirrr crazy!

Easy and cute hair accessory organizer.

I had to throw in a recipe here.  This is a good one. I don't think I ever cared what my syrup tasted like until I had Buttermilk Syrup...yummy!  Believe me.  You are going to be sorely disappointed with your bottled stuff from this point forward.

 

Sweet little, I scream for Ice cream onesie and matching hair clips.

This project was one of the most fun.  I loved planning McKinley's first birthday party.  So fun!

Thank you to everyone who visits my crazy little blog!  My camera is fixed and I should be back in business again.  I ran out of time and only got around to making one handmade gift this year and didn't even get a picture of it since I didn't have a camera.  My family however, made some incredibly cute things that I'll have to share with you tomorrow.  I also have all the pictures I needed to show you of my mom's kitchen redo so you should see that soon.  I have a crafty to-do list a mile long and a garage full of junky furniture to redo so hopefully you'll stick around for the ride and maybe I'll actually get some stuff done!

Wordle Subway Art

Have you discovered Wordle? It's a website where you can make subway art for free and you don't have to be all tech savvy or anything to use it?  I made this one in a couple minutes.  I'm not actually going to use this one for anything, but I just wanted to try it out.  

This website would be perfect if you're into Subway art for seasonal decorating.  Wouldn't it be fun to make a Christmas themed one and put it in a frame? 

Make sure you check out the FAQ section before you do it.  It explains how to make one word larger than the other and how to save it.  It's super simple....SWEET!

Christmas Card

Here is a Christmas card I made last year.  It's almost embarrassing to post cards on here because I am not into scrapbooking at all, so mine are never anything too fancy compared to some of the one's you see out there.  I did however break down and buy a stamp and some glitter stuff (what's that stuff called, embossing?) for this one because I couldn't resist the thought of a sparkly snowflake!

I just can't get into scrapbooking.  If I scrapbooked, I think it would take me all day to make one page and I would spend a small fortune on each page so I just don't do it!

I'm hoping to make a few more cards this year to make up for my lack of handmade gifts.  I know, can you believe it? I have a craft blog and I am not going wild with making everybody something handmade.  Hopefully a few things will get done at least...we'll see.

Origami Gift Box

This is a little gift box I made last year.  It just takes two, 12x12 sheets of paper and a little cardstock and some ribbon to finish it off!  It's the perfect size to to store homemade caramels or something yummy.  Go here for the tutorial!

I will be linking up to some of these places check them out for more fun ideas.

More Cards

 Here are a few more cards I've made recently.  This congratulations card I made up using a floral design I found online (sorry, I don't remember where) and some more felt flowers I made using some scraps. 

Here is a card for a new baby.  I got the design idea from Julie Cameron of Paperhearts.  She used stamps for hers but once again, I am cheap so I just found some cute free fonts online, like I did last time.  She has some incredibly cute cards on her site that you should go check out.

Card Swap

I am in a card swap with a couple of friends.  Every month we pick a theme for a card and then we rotate houses and get together and eat good food and swap cards.  Basically it's just an excuse to get together.

  Here are a few random pictures of cards I've made lately.  Before I ever had this blog (which if you haven't noticed wasn't long ago) I still took pictures of just about everything I made to send to my mom and sister who live hours away.  We still craft "together" even though we don't live close.

I don't really do anything fancy because I am cheap and don't like paying for stamps!  I usually just use things I already have like little scraps of felt and ribbon and then I pick something to match from my massive paper supply.

I also like to find cute free fonts online.  My favorite free font website is Dafont.com.  You can find lots of good stuff on there.  KevinandAmanda.com also has a bunch.  Happy crafting!

McKinley's First Birthday Party

We had McKinley's birthday party on Saturday.  I tend to go overboard on things like this as you soon will see! I used one of my mom's die cuts that she uses for her invitations to make the petal wrap for McKinley's birthday invites.

Don't judge my lame rhyming skills!:) I know a phone call works just the same as the invitation, but where's the fun in that! We had a ridiculous amount of good food! I mean ridiculous.

There were yummy chocolate cupcakes with a vanilla cream filling and strawberry cream cheese icing. We also had lemon cream cupcakes with a lemon icing (not my favorite, they were a little dry and very heavy for a cupcake, I should've stuck with the good stuff...chocolate!). I told you I tend to go overboard. I was up till the wee hours of the morning Friday night cooking, and baking and cooking some more!



I also tried making a fondant cake for the first time. I made marshmallow fondant (tastes better than the store bought stuff in my personal opinion and it's cheaper) using this recipe and tutorial from Make it and Love it and it was pretty easy! Just melt a bag of marshmallows and knead in a bag of powdered sugar and some shortening and you're good to go!



I did however make the fondant a little on the dry side so it cracked a bit but it wasn't anything a few flowers and polkadots couldn't cover up!

I also had to try making some of the infamous hanging flower pom pom decorations you can find the tutorial here. I already had all the stuff to make them so yay for free decorations! I think they're cute enough to be in a little girls' room year round. I would put them in Kinley's room if they matched.

McKinley was excited to discover she got to eat an entire cake!

I think she liked it!