State nail art

I was really struggling to come up with gifts for Josh for his birthday this year  He had been just plain spoiled the last few years and gotten all his dreamed about electronics so there wasn't anything he really wanted. SO I opted for the first time to do homemade.

Here is the blank board.  I bought a 2ft by 2ft board at Home Depot and had them cut it in half for me.

Then tape down your stencil I printed mine here.

Then paint your base whatever color you like

I ran into the a little problem when I got to the coast because I couldn't include the Outer Banks and the coast line so I opted to pretend like the OB were the actual coast.

Then cut out the heart around the region you want to highlight.

Sorry these are sideways. Once they are in their are in.  I chose to paint the heart a different color just for fun.  You don't need to do that.

Then hit your finger a million times nailing in hundreds of little nails. Seriously.  It will hurt.

Then wrap and unwrap and wrap and unwrap.  It you want to avoid all the unwrapping then count how many h=nails you have all the way around your outline and then divide it by the number around your heart so you know how many times you will need to wrap around each heart nail. 

Sorry for my shadow.  My dining room has terrible light.

On the wall.  I was surprised it came out so well and since he hung it up I assume Josh really did like it and wasn't just telling me that.

Price Breakdown:

Wood: for a 2ft by 2ft board I paid $6.47 I used half on this project

One bottle each of black and green acrylic paint:$.59 each

One ball of fine crochet yarn :~$3.00

Finishing nails: $1.59

Total: $9.00

Peacock Tree

Isa and I found these really cute glittery balls in the Halloween clearance and had to get them. I love those shades!  We opted to do a peacock themed Christmas tree rather than try a Halloween craft. We just aren't really into Halloween decorations around here. 

You'll also need to pick up a cardboard tree form in whatever height you want. Then glue in whatever pattern you like. 

And glue...

And glue...

And glue...

You get it.

I hope.

This is where it takes kind of a jump because I of course forgot to take pictures while i was designing.  In my defense, I never know if I like until I get it on and then I don't want to take the decorations off just for a pictures.

I wanted the green ones to wind down the side which I love.  Here are the feathers.

Twisty top ribbon.

The back with bows.

Finished tree with topper.  This is easily my most flashy Christmas decoration but I love it! I think I will add another feather later.  Odd numbers and all that.

Price Breakdown:

Tree Base: $2.50

Multicolored balls: $1 per pack, I bought 3 but only used 2

Peacock feathers: 2/$1.79 with 50% off sale

Ribbon: $.98 with 50% off sale

Hot glue:$2.99 for bulk bag but I already had one so I'll call it $1 of glue

Total:$8.27

Felt Crowns

How could I not want to make these?  That little girl is adorable!

Choose your felt.  I let Emmeline pick mine.  Can you tell?

 Make yourself a template.  I just free handed mine and then fixed any problems that became apparent after I cut it out.

 I really wish I could have come up with a better way to pin it down and not have the pattern move but sadly I did not.  There was no way I was going to try that iron on wax paper from the pine cones.  That was the worst. Leave a little tab on one end to glue behind when you wrap it around

You'll need little felt circles for the points.  Just make them any size you want.

 Just wrap it in a circle and hot glue it together.  Then glue one circle per point. If you don't want to see the back of the point you could do one on each side but I didn't care.  That was Isa's favorite part.  The little purple part is the leftover part I ended up with after I had cut out the purple crown. I hated to see it go to waste so I used it as trim.  For leftovers that were bigger I made smaller crowns.  

To attach the headband I cut out a small square and then laid the headband on it and then glued around the edge of the crown (on the inside)  leave a space so the headband can move (don't glue the headband to the felt), that way you can adjust where the crown is worn on the head.  After the glue has dried trim around the outside of the crown to trim the square round. 

Some finished

My princess.  This is one of the leftover pieces.

 Some Christmas princess elves :)

Just a Girl and Her Pony

Emmeline has been able to do therapeutic riding for several years now and it had been amazing.  She really loves it and it's adorable to watch.  She is getting so big! Here are a few pictures from her last lesson of the season.

When she started I had to hold her up so she could reach the girth buckles.

 Leading her pony

 This is called 2 pointing.  This is the first season she did it without someones hand between her hand and the fur.

 She is doing much better leading Eeyore all be herself.  She is really asserting her independence.  

 More than a little proud of herself.

 Man she loves that horse! Petting his stripes is her favorite.

Taking him back to his breakfast.

 Here she is at her first session.  So tiny and chunky!

 Loved it from the start.  Such a tough determined girl. You can really see how much she has grown comparing her leg length in this picture and the 2 point one.  Man, she is huge!

Sun Catchers and Cake Plate

Here is what I wanted to do originally.  What kid doesn't love melting plastic right?

Many of the crafts I do the girls can't help with but this one was perfect to let them do whatever they chose.  It was great.  Both of them really enjoyed it.  Emmeline was meticulous for the first 4 and the rest were random.  She does the same thing coloring.  She is very careful for the first few minutes and then realizes this will take forever and scribbles the rest.  Isa was a little more patient.

Our beads

They had to get everything organized first.

We traded pans part way though so each girl got to round and heart shapes.  Notice Emmeline's nicely lined up and color matched hearts.

These were her next ones

Then I added this for me.  I don't have cake stand and I really want one.

I opted to go totally random to get a kind of confetti look.  I figured we would use it mostly for birthdays. I used a dollar store pizza pan for the mold.

 After you lay them out however you like then you bake them at 400 degrees for 25-35 minutes.  

Just let them cool completely in the pans.  You might hear some popping and cracking noises but it's all fine.  They wont break.  Also, you don't need to grease the pans or anything.  Once they cool they slide right out.

Cake plate glued on base.  I used a candle holder I liked form the .99 store.

Side note.  If you want to do the sun catchers make sure you use the translucent beads so the sun can shine through.  We got some small regular beads for more detailed things that weren't doing to be hung in the window.

I got the beads over time using 50% off coupons at Michael's.  They have the best price I could find on the translucent pony beads. $5.99 for a pound but then only $2.99 with coupon.  We bought 3 kinds but didn't use even half.  I'll say $9.00 for beads though since I had to buy that much. $1 or the pizza pan and $1 for the candle holder. Totaling $11.  Well, $12 if you count the super glue.  Super fun kids craft.