Colorful Christmas Mantle

I like color, fun, and bright in the house during Christmas. Using glitter present garland, stocking holders, regular garland, and some fun picks I was able to create this mantle display. Of course, the wreath is from a previous year that matches well.

Magnetic Chalkboard

As I am sure you have all seen the oil drip pan magnetic board is all over Pinterest at the moment. I thought it was a good idea but I am not a fan of the bright silver hanging on a wall. After a lot of thought, I came to the decision to paint the pan with chalkboard paint. What an amazing deal to have a huge magnetic chalkboard for the kids for under $30!

Here are some examples floating around from Pinterest at the moment. You can click the picture and it will take you to the original source.

I set about on my project. Laying the oil drip pan flat on our outdoor table, we painted 3 coats of the chalkboard paint and let dry for 24 hours (it was in the sun also, so I am sure it dried pretty quickly). Afterwards, I brought it inside and hung up with no damage 2 way tape to the wall. I was a little skeptical it would hold but so far so good and it feels pretty sturdy. I kept staring at the board thinking it needed something else. Digging through our stash of paint, I discovered a paint sample 1/2 pint I bought in the oops paint section a while back (it was 50 cents and who can resist that?!). Taping off the edges of the pan with painters tape (I only use the green tape now!) and set about to paint the edges. I am very happy with the finished product, and so are my kids!

Oil Drip Pan - $10 at Walmart
Chalkboard Paint - $15 (for a lot more than I used so this can be used for several other projects)
Painters Tape - $0 (already had)
Paint - $0 (already had)
  TOTAL - $25

Fun Fur Spring Wreath

The beautiful fun fur Spring time wreath! I saw this over and over and over again before I finally decided I needed to do this! The original post was all in another language but here is the link. I bought the wreath and 2 full rolls of fun fur. I was a little disappointed that my local craft store did not have any plain green fun fur but this turned out even more eye catching with the spring color stripes. This wreath turned out awesome, but I need to warn that it takes a very long time to wrap. When I finished up two full rolls and at least 90 minutes later, the fun fur covered about two thirds of the styrofoam wreath! Quick thinking led me to taking some ribbon I already had laying around and alternating pink and purple around the remaining part of the showing green styrofoam.

I had also bought some artificial daisy flowers and some clusters of fake eggs to put around the wreath. Here is what the flowers looked like.

Note, there is wire on the back so you can easily wrap around the wreath. The fun fur does a good job hiding wires.

For the eggs, I just pulled each cluster of 3 apart and stuck the pick into the styrofoam. I do want to also say that I made the cute little flag that is on the original wreath that says, "barefeet welcome". I used a toothpick and wraped a piece of paper around it, cut into a triangle, and wrote the above saying in marker, then wraped scotch tape around it to stick together but also to laminate it. Well, within a month it had faded to this. I suggest using a sharpie if you decide to do this.

Good luck with your wreath! If you decide to do it, it is a lot of work but I think completely worth it! I get tons of compliments when people come over!

Ice Tray Crayons

I've seen this quite a bit on pinterest and have been saving up the broken crayons. I finally found silicone ice trays at Ikea for $1, so though it was the perfect time to try it out!

The hard part was taking the paper off the crayons, my nails got a bit messed up, and I eventually used a kitchen knife to to score the paper and peel it off. I had my son's break up the bigger pieces and put they in the trays. Then we put them in the oven at 200 degrees, it took about 10-15 mins. I checked them after a few mins, and had to add more crayons once it melted a bit. I think I put some non-crayola crayons which we got from a restaurant, and those did not melt as well.

After taking them out of the over, we left them to cool. I used only the star mold, and when I popped out the crayons some of the tips broke off. I should have used the heart molds, which I also bought but I was saving them to make jello jigglers. The kids didn't mind that a few were broken, and enjoyed coloring with them!

Peep Wreath

This inspiration comes from Tried and True's blog. When I set out to do this peep wreath, I thought it would be inexpesive and beautiful. I let my 4 year old help out while my little ones napped. She had a good time until she realized she was not going to be allowed to eat the marshmellow goodness. I did let her pick one to eat though, it was blue if you are curious.

Supplies: 3 packages of peeps, toothpicks, and a styrofoam wreath. I used the green wreath as it was cheaper than the white ones, for some reason.

We started by piercing the peep with a toothpick and trying to stick it in the wreath. This was easier said than done. The toothpick was going through the peep instead of the styrofoam! So quick problem solving lead to me sticking the toothpick in the stryrofoam first and me and my 4 year old then placing the peep ontop. This worked much better for us.

When we finished we were left with a mostly filled peep wreath. There were way too many gaps for me though.

I stared at it for a day before raiding my craft bin and found a bag of feathers. Perfect! A few hot glue gun dots and a pencil to help push the feathers where I wanted them, and I was left with a beautiful, compliment worthy wreath! I just tied the ribbon around the wreath in two places, pushing it between the still soft peeps. Mission accomplished!

And for those wondering.....
It has been up for a month and no I have not had an ant invasian with it (knock on wood!)