claudelle69@hotmail.com, Author at Yearning to Create

Indoor Snowballs

A Facebook friend of mine posted a picture of a bucket of snowballs she had bought for her family. (If you Google search Bucket of Snowballs, you can see what I mean!)

I saw her picture and instantly knew that my family would have a lot of fun with something like that. So of course I started thinking, “How can I make that?” The snowballs kind of had me stumped though because I wanted something light that could be thrown at anyone at no risk of injury, but I’m not much of a sewer and I didn’t know how to sew spheres and didn’t have time to learn right then, so . . . I kind of put that project in a dark recess of my brain to be recalled at some future time.

Then, one day, a few weeks before Christmas, I was in a dollar store (busy place just before Christmas!) and I saw some small plush baseballs. My mind instantly recalled the recessed snowball project and I knew that these baseballs were perfect. I emptied the shelf – all eight of them. Then I went to the isle of containers and found a suitable snowball bucket.
Then there were only two things left to do:
– spend about five minutes total snipping the red stitching off the balls so they wouldn’t look like baseballs anymore
– painting the word Snowballs on my bucket. I just free-handed it and painted it on with regular craft paint.

And this is what it ended up like . . .

Oh, I painted a few snowflakes on as well.

Doesn’t look like a baseball anymore – snowball all the way!!!

Vinyl lettering would have been perfect for labeling the bucket too.

I gave this to my family on Christmas Eve. No one needed pajamas this year so we opened this instead. I had taken Lee (my 14 year old) into my confidence and she wrapped all the snowballs individually for me. So on Christmas Eve, dad got to unwrap the bucket and the rest of us opened snowballs (except Mac – she opened her new pair of pink Princess slippers!). So we were all armed and he wasn’t!!! Dad got bombarded with snowballs and of course a big snowball fight followed. We even used the wadded up wrapping paper if we didn’t have a snowball nearby.

Here’s a Christmas morning photo – can you find the bucket? Dad seems to get pelted a lot!!!

We’re still having lots of fun with them – the novelty hasn’t worn off at all. Snowballs are always flying by. And I’m happy to report we haven’t had a single human injury – the bird did get knocked off someone’s shoulder once, but it fluttered to the ground with no problem! I’m thinking that I’m gonna have to be on the lookout for more plush baseballs – I think we need another bucket in the family room!!!

Beaded Curtain Tiebacks

Beads can make beautiful curtain tiebacks. It’s true! Especially if you use beads that have sentimental value to you (like Grandma’s old costume jewelry that you would never wear!)

So I went and chose some very sentimental bracelets from the dollar store. (Actually, I was just looking for colours I liked.)

Now, I thought this was brilliant . . .

. . . I packed up my beading supplies . . .

. . . and divided up the beads, to work on my project in the car! I had two daughters playing in a softball tournament, and I knew there would be some time between games where I could do some crafting (it was either that or Sudoku!).

The center console and my lap made the perfect work station (be sure to sit in the passenger seat so you don’t have a steering wheel to deal with!).

I just tied my string to a starting ring and started beading.

No pattern was the pattern, with a small pearl between each larger bead.

When I was finished with the beads, I simply tied a ring to the other end. I was almost finished the second one, and then the games began again. (This was the tournament where my daughter on the pitchers mound got hit in the eye during the final game – check her out here. And this was six days before her high school graduation!)

I finished the last two at home and aren’t they pretty!

Final step was to attach a little nail or hook to the window casing and tie back the curtains.

So much prettier than just hanging! Now they just hang at night.

This is an alcove off the master bedroom – a little room I really love! Right now it’s purpose is to be my baby’s bedroom – my baby who is two and a half! Someday it will just be my sanctuary!

And there she is – sitting there reading in her lovely little alcove – with the lovely new beaded curtain tiebacks!

Spring Wreath

Made myself a springy little wreath the other day and it only took a few minutes – yay!

Dollar Store flowers, grapevine wreath and a glue gun is all I needed.

I cut my flowers into small stems and placed them around my wreath.

Let the gluing begin – and yes, I burned my fingers! But that doesn’t bother me much anymore since I learned the trick: touch your earlobe with your burning finger and the sting immediately disappears. Your earlobe absorbs the heat – it’s the neatest feeling! Tip: remove the hot glue from your fingers first or your fingers might get stuck to your ears!

There we have it – easy little light and springy wreath.

Wreaths are great!!! Check out my Pinterest board called Wreaths.

How to Use Household Items as Wedding Decor

With seven daughters, we often get comments like “Hope you’re saving up for those weddings!” Well I am here to tell you that you can still have a beautiful wedding without spending a fortune. I was able to find some great deals in thrift stores and off the local buy and sell, and with a little paint and effort and imagination, turn some things into wedding worthy items. Add a few borrowed items, and items from around the house and voila, the decorating is done!

Here are a few things I found . . .

First item:

This little bench came from our local Facebook Buy and Sell group. The bottom part was all dark burgundy so all it needed was some paint in the right colour (Grey Morning – leftover from my laundry room). I left the top natural, just the way it was. Her colours were teal, lime and light yellow, with lots of earth tones thrown in too.

See it there peeking out behind the flowers? We placed the bench up on the food table, with the lamp on it to help illuminate the food. Three beverage dispensers were on one side, and the platters of food were on the other. It divided up the 18 foot long table (three six foot tables) very nicely! I had a 19 foot lace tablecloth that was from my little sisters wedding that I just kept packed away because we all figured we would have the next wedding in the family – and we did. Speaking of the tables, notice how one is taller than the other? There was no way we could get those tables even, so we had to put a little block under the leg of the bench and place that brown tile in front of it. The tile was a gift to the bride and groom from their stake president.

Choose your Love – Love your Choice.

The big flower arrangement also came from the Buy and Sell. I just took out the coloured flowers that didn’t match and rearranged what was left.

Our second reception had a slightly different arrangement, with my Willowtree figurine added in, and some Scrabble tile messages – check that out here. The lamps belong to the bride and there were four of them used in various locations at the reception.

Next item:

This little bench seat with the lift up seat also came from the Buy and Sell.

My original plan was to paint it white and antique it, but I literally ran out of time. From the time the ring was on her finger, we only five weeks and six days til the wedding day!!! Lucky for us, the groom asked our permission about a month before that, so we were already working on things before the official engagement. So all we had time to do with the bench was give it a good clean and re-upholster the seat in a matching wedding colour (fabric came from a thrift store!). Our bride said she was perfectly happy with it in its natural colour, and besides, it was going in the hallway!

This is how it ended up looking. The teal blanket came from my living room and the Mr. & Mrs. pillows came from my bedroom (check them out here). The little chest and flowers came from Michaels – always with a 40% or 50% off coupon. The little chest was on the end of season clearance shelves and cost me something like $1.77. My favourite little white ampersand came from Walmart, but I already had that too!

The bench greeted you as you came down the hall. To the left was a spot for gifts, and to the right was the entrance into the reception. I made those spindles from old stair railings. They were perfect for directing “traffic” – just like what you’d see in a bank or movie lineups, only prettier!

The gift area, featuring the first gift, and a handmade quilt by Aunt Diana over the couch. The bench did its job well and maybe I’ll tackle painting it this summer – then for sure it will be ready for our next wedding!!!

Last item:

I didn’t take a before shot of this radish picture in an ugly reddish brown frame that I found in a thrift store – but trust me, it wasn’t a pretty picture! I dismantled the picture and tossed the poor radish. Painted it, using my leftover Grey Morning paint again, then sanded and distressed the edges. We printed a favourite photo in black and white, and that was it. The perfect picture to hang over their favors table. We wanted a matted picture so the bride could write a message on it.

Here’s the wedding favors table. The table came from my dad – he used to have it in his storage room and they were shocked that we made it wedding worthy! The table runner and baby’s breath came from the thrift store. The green, yellow and blue baskets were already owned by the bride, and the wreath and holder were from my dining room – check the wreath out here.

The finished frame – so much better than radishes! The happy couple now have this hanging in their apartment, without the words though. Pictures are a great way to decorate – prints are very inexpensive and it’s amazing what you can do with old frames and spray paint.

Hope this has given you some ideas! If only I knew what colour schemes our next six weddings will be!!! In the meantime, I’ll keep my eyes open for any other treasures that could become wedding worthy!

Scrabble Tiles for Wedding Decorating

I saw this idea on Pinterest using Scrabble tiles as a wedding decor.

Check out the image I pinned here.

Elle liked the idea and so we decided to do it at her wedding.

Our church Cultural Hall has four little white shelves on the walls – they’re for holding hymn books. To decorate them we used a mason jar with a gold chair sash tucked inside it with the edges hanging out. The four bouquets from the bride and bridesmaids worked perfectly in the jars, and the Scrabble tiles sent out perfect little loving messages. We left the unlit tealight candle out in front and turned them on before the reception started and tucked it into the mason jar.

With the candle in place – they were adorable!

We made two sets of Time and Eternity and two of Together Forever.

(Yes, we had to borrow another Scrabble game!)

J-L, our photographer, played around with the tiles and took some cute ring shots too!

At our second reception, we didn’t have the little white shelves on the walls, so we simply put our Scrabble tiles on white routered pieces of wood and placed them in various places . . .

. . . photo display table,

. . . wedding favors table,

. . . food table.

This display was on our long food table, separating the drinks from the food.

We loved our Scrabble messages! And so did the guests – we received some rave reviews on such a simple little added touch!

How to Make a Chalkboard from a Cupboard Door

Before my daughters wedding, I was scrounging around in the garage, looking for stuff that we might be able to up-cycle into something wedding worthy. Well, I found a cupboard door!

I painted the outside edge in my leftover laundry room paint (Grey Morning by Behr), which happened to match her wedding colours perfectly! I sanded the edges a little and distressed them with my tube of Burnt Umber Oil Colour (best and easiest way to distress anything!)

The middle part I painted with chalkboard paint – two coats. Super easy!

The result was a chalkboard!!!

This was the perfect way to greet our wedding guests as they came through the doors. And it was perfect for pointing out which way they should go.

This was our practice set-up at home in our unfinished basement. Looking at it now, I realize it was quite the recycling project – old cupboard door, old chair, old topiary, old spindles – all up-cycled to become . . .

. . . the perfect wedding entryway!

Now my plan is to either hang it horizontally above a window or door in my house, or vertically on a narrow wall. Since it’s a chalkboard, I can make it say anything I want! And I can take it down and use it again as a welcome sign. It’s already had “Welcome to New Beginnings” written on it. It also fits very well in a small easel – the kind you would use to hold a 12 x 12 tile – which is how we propped the chalkboard up for New Beginnings.

I think this old cupboard door is loving it’s new life!!!

Missionary Christmas Stocking

The most exciting thing happened!!! My second daughter decided to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

She was called to serve in the Mexico Mexico City Southeast Mission for a year and a half. For the first six weeks of her mission, she was in Provo Utah at the Missionary Training Center (MTC), where she learned how to teach the gospel, and began learning how to speak Spanish. We took her to Utah on December 11, so she was going to be spending her first Christmas away from home in the MTC. It was an awesome experience for her!

Once I realized she’d be gone for Christmas, I started thinking about the first package we’d send her – a Christmas one. I wanted to make her a memorable stocking, yet a humble stocking, and this is what I came up with.

It actually turned out super cute and now I want to make one for everyone in my family, with different quotes/scriptures on them.

First step was to choose what I wanted it to say. For a missionary “Called to Serve” was a pretty good choice! But I was also debating using her favourite scripture “Trust in the Lord” (Proverbs 3:5).

I got my artistic daughter to write out the words and I copied them in pencil on to the drop cloth. Yes, the stocking is made from a drop cloth (what you throw on the ground to protect your floor while painting!). That’s pretty humble fabric!

Then it was simple embroidery in dark brown floss over the letters.

I lined my stocking with the green plaid fabric because I didn’t want the embroidery floss to get snagged when Santa stuffed the stocking.

I lined up my fabrics and sewed them together, overlapping the green over the front of the stocking at the top.

Then with the right sides together, I sewed my stocking together.

I added some gathered eyelet ribbon and a piece of jute string to hang it with.

The final touch was this light brown ribbon/lace trim.

Love how it turned out – and it didn’t cost me a cent. Made it all from stuff I already had.

Santa stuffed it full before shipping it off to her.

Our missionary unpacking her Christmas package – it got to her before Christmas!

Next Christmas her companion is going to have to fill it!

Our missionary’s first Christmas, with a Charlie Brown tree.

Perfect for one who has been Called to Serve the Lord!

Flat Missionary Advent Calendar

My daughter Min is serving as an LDS missionary in Mexico City for 18 months. I wanted to send her an advent calendar to help her enjoy the Christmas season. Shipping to Mexico isn’t the easiest thing, so I wanted an advent calendar that would fit nicely into a large envelope, rather than a package. Another brilliant missionary momma (Teri) had this great idea to make one out of baseball card holders. So I borrowed her idea of the card holder to make my version of an advent calendar.

Mac holding the finished product.

These are the three separate page protectors for baseball cards. Each page has nine slots. I just cut Christmas scrapbook paper into the right sizes and copied a scripture advent calendar on each one. This advent calendar is based on one that was printed in the New Era magazine in December 1989 called Come, Let us Adore Him: A Live Advent Calendar. I just copied the scripture reference and the hymn. If you click on the picture, it should enlarge it enough to be easily read.

This is the advent calendar we do at home every Christmas, so I thought it would be nice if our missionary was reading the same thing as us each day.

The back side isn’t looking to fancy to start with . . .

Also in each little pocket I included a gospel picture. Where possible, they correlated to the scripture of the day. So the idea is that she puts the gospel picture in the front of the pocket of each day once she’s read the scripture.

By the time Christmas arrives, she’ll have a page of lovely pictures of the Savior and other gospel items that she can have up in her apartment all year (or at least until June when she comes home!)

I tied jute string at the top. But the knots were a little bulky and made my package bigger. If I was doing it again, I’d use a smaller string, or ribbon or yarn that wouldn’t make the postal workers need to measure my envelope!

To attach the three pages to each other, I simply used clear packing tape and taped across the back side of the pages. Worked great – holds it tight and is still easy to fold up to pack into that envelope, and later, into her suitcase!!!

I also tucked a little Christmas quote or story for her to read in each day too. I was planning to put a balloon in some of them too, with Christmas messages for her to blow up and get, but forgot to do it when the family was all together. We’ll save that for another package.

And there it is. I mailed it on September 22 in hopes that she will have it by December 1st.

Simple, inexpensive, but fun for my missionary!

(Edited to add: She finally received it on January 19 – too late for Christmas this year, but it can be used forever!)

Mr. and Mrs. Pillows

I saw some Mr. and Mrs. Pillows on Pinterest (just search for it and a bunch will pop up) and I thought they were pretty cute. We have a king size bed now and needed some new pillows. These are perfect – we never forget which side of the bed is ours!

My first task was to make the stencil. I printed off my Mr. and Mrs. in the font and size I wanted.

(Oh – these instructions are perfect for people without fancy machines that easily make stencils for you! lol)

I used a permanent marker to trace my letters on the shiny side of the con-tact paper. It’s Rubbermaid brand – stuff you’d line your cupboards with.

Use your trusty exacto knife to cut out your letters and voila – you have a stencil!

I made my pillow covers out of drop-cloth fabric (so many uses for that stuff). I just did a simple envelope style – cut a long rectangle and fold the ends in. Pin it and sew up the sides. I didn’t even need to hem the edge you see – I used the finished edge of the drop-cloth!

My pillow forms came from a thrift store at less than $2 each. It’s so easy to slide into the fabric envelope.

With my pillows made, it’s time for the letters. I peeled the paper off the back side of the stencil and placed the sticky side down exactly where I wanted it.

And then I painted it – use your stencil brush and use small amounts of paint so it doesn’t seep under the edges of the stencil. I should have put a book under the fabric so I could be painting against a firmer surface – the pillow was too soft!

In order to fancy the pillows up a little, I bought some piping to put along the seems. This was the most expensive part of my project at $0.69/meter – and I needed three whole meters!!!

Don’t you love my method for applying it? I glue gunned it on!!! Actually, this was just my way to hold it exactly in place. I did loosely stitch it on too. Doesn’t it just give the pillows a little boost?

There’s how much of the three meters I had left. First I asked for two meters, and as the salesperson had her scissors open and was ready to cut, I yelled “Wait! You’d better give me three meters.” Great estimate!!!

I’m really loving my new pillows!

Maybe next I’ll need to make an ampersand pillow!

There they are! I wanted my Mr. and Mrs. big enough to easily be seen, but not too overpowering in size.

This is how they usually look – with my bear Mason instead of the ampersand. My two-year old loves to jump and Mason is much softer for when she bonks her head.

Loving my new pillows – and especially loving the fact that both of them together cost me less than ten dollars! And . . . I still have my Mr. and Mrs. stencil!!!

Basketweave Fabric Table Runner

A while ago I pinned a basket weave quilt pattern that I saw here at honeybear lane. I thought she did an awesome job and I wanted to try it. I decided to start small so it would be easier to handle – besides, I needed a little runner for a corner cabinet.

This was fun and so quick and easy! The part that took the longest was choosing the fabric! I cut the fabric into strips – can’t even remember what size I did. I think it was 1 1/2 inch wide strips, and obviously the lengths varied as you can see.

I securely pinned each strip to my batting piece which was actually just a piece of a dropcloth – it was just to add a little weight to the project so it was perfect.

So first I laid down my bottom piece (right side out), my dropcloth piece, and then pinned my strips through it all.

Then I pinned my first piece to be woven and just took it through the strips.

And then I just kept adding more and more strips and wove them though, pinning securely at each end, and sometimes in the center.

I love that you can see how it’s going to look as you do it.

There it is – all woven and pinned.

Next step was to sew up and down every line. Yes, you’re going to get poked a few times – wear gloves if you must!

The sewing lines as seen on the backing.

And there it is, all sewn with the edges trimmed – how easy is that?

I think the frayed edges add to it’s charm!

It needed an edge though so I just cut a thin strip, diagonally sewed pieces together to make it long enough, and then ironed in a fold line.

(The other day my 20 year old daughter approached me looking all thoughtful and asked, “Mom, what’s the opposite of ‘irony’?” I thought she had been studying or something so I started wracking my brain to try to be of some help to her. “Um, let’s see, opposite of ‘irony’ , um . . .” (as I’m trying to recall my grammar lessons from so long ago). And then I admitted defeat. “I’m not sure Elle,” I humbly answered. “Do you know?” Then she got the cutest sheepish little smile and said, “Yes, ‘wrinkley'”. And then she scampered off giggling, leaving me standing there, shaking my head, feeling more than a little bit foolish! And even more so when I tried the same joke on one of my other daughters, and she knew the answer!)

The iron thing made me recall that little incident!