Happy New Year!!

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Brilliant! :)

Have a GREAT weekend!

Merry Christrmas!

As we pause to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we wish you a blessed holiday reminiscing about old memories and making new ones with family and friends!

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

Button and Pearl Bead Bracelet Tutorial

Good morning! I've been busy with Christmas preparations, so I haven't had much time to craft lately. I have been in a jewelry making mood, so I thought that I would show you the button and pearl bracelet that I recently finished:

This is actually a really simple project, and comes together pretty quickly, so if you need a last minute stocking stuffer or two, this would fit the bill nicely!

Let's get started! You'll need the following items for your bracelet:

• several buttons that you like
• jump rings
• pearl beads
• a lobster clasp 
• jewelers pliers
• fabric tape measure

Measure your wrist and then lay out the buttons that you've chosen so that they will be a little longer than your wrist. Carefully open a jump ring and add a button to each side, (I used a pink button and a blue flower button). Before closing the jump ring, add two pearl beads and then carefully close the jump ring.

Continue the process until you have a string of buttons, pearl beads and jump rings long enough to wrap around your wrist, ending with a jump ring on each end of the bracelet.

Add a lobster clasp to one of the end jump rings as shown:

That's it!! Now your bracelet is ready to wear or give as a gift! This would be a fun present to make using various heirloom buttons from a grandmother...a lovely treasure to place in a Christmas stocking!

Have a wonderful week! We're on the final countdown to Christmas day! :)

Blessings,

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Silly Saturday

Have a great weekend...only 6 more days until Christmas!! :)

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Silly Saturday

Wishing you a fun and relaxing weekend!!

Christmas Card Display Board

Good evening! Christmas will be here before we know it, so I spent most of the weekend in the kitchen making apple butter and Christmas jam to give to friends, family and neighbors. (Click HERE and HERE for those recipes.)

I did work on another little project this weekend as well:

It's a little framed chicken wire display board to showcase a few of the Christmas cards that I receive each day. I started out with a wood frame and then painted it red. My hubby stapled chicken wire to the backside of the frame and then he helped me out by spray painting several wood clothespins with white paint. He simplified this process by clipping each of the clothespins onto a piece of cardboard before giving them a couple of coats of paint. (He is such a smarty!)

Once the clothes pins were dry, I drew on little snowman faces and then tore scraps of gingham and homespun fabrics to tie on as scarves:

I'll also be adding some of these snowman clips to bags of baked goods and other gifts! (A magnet could be attached to each clip as well, so that they could be attached to a filing cabinet or fridge.)

These would be a fun project for kiddos to make, once a parent spray painted the clips. :)

Have a WONDERFUL week!

Blessings,

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Silly Saturday

HAHAHA!! I wonder how many husbands would do this when stranded at Hobby Lobby with their wives??? ;)

Seek and Ye Shall Find Framed Art Tutorial

Good evening, friends! This post is going up later than I had originally planned because I got busy and didn't get everything typed up until now.

A while back while rummaging through the clearance stuff at Hobby Lobby, I came across a cool antique-reproduction door knob plate marked down to just $1.00. It was missing the glass knob part, but I knew that I could end up making something neat with it, so I bought it. Hobby Lobby sells glass knobs too, so I used my 40% off coupon and got it for about $4.00.

Here's what I ended up making with it:

I think it turned out so pretty, and it looks great in my guest room! Here's how I put it all together:

Start off by gathering all of your supplies. I purchased the plain wood frame at 50% off at Hobby Lobby as well, so it ended up being $2.00. I had some paper flowers, lace, scrapbook paper and other embellishments on hand, so I laid those out to see what I liked best:

I ended up changing my mind about the original flowers that I had pulled out of my stash to use, and ended up going with 3 burlap flowers that I had bought at Hobby Lobby on sale for 50% off as well:

Begin by tracing the shape of the frame onto scrapbook paper and cut it out:

Glue the paper onto the wooden frame using a 2-way glue pen or Mod Podge, and allow to dry. Once dry, carefully sand the edges with an emery board and sponge brown ink over the paper to give it an aged/antique look:

Using a scrap of coordinating lace, tie a pretty bow and glue it to the upper right-hand corner:

I cut the burlap leaves off of the flowers and then glued them to the lower right-hand corner of the frame. I used the wire picks that I cut off the back of the flowers to make curly stems. (Just wrap the stems around a wooden pick and carefully slide off; shaping how you like and then gluing to the frame around the flowers.)

Because the door knob and plate were SO HEAVY, I ended up having to use some of my husband's JB-Weld to attach it to the frame so that it would stay adhered. (It took 24 hours for the JB-Weld to dry, but that's okay because that baby is on there to stay now - LOL!) Although you don't see it in this photo, I also attached an antique skeleton key to the lower part of the plate using large Glue Dots that I carefully shaped to the edges of the key.

I found and printed the inspirational Bible verse, (Matthew 7:7), from the internet, and cut it out to fit into the hole of the frame. So, this pretty project cost me about $10.00 to make! Here's another look at my finished project, showing the skeleton key that I attached:

Thanks so very much for dropping by my blog today! Have a FANTASTIC Friday and a WONDERFUL weekend!!

A Little Christmas Decorating Idea...

Good morning, friends! I hope that you had a very happy Thanksgiving! Ours was nice and quiet, here at home with just Mike, Justin and I, as my guys did some deer hunting in between feasting. (Yes, they even hunted in all the rain we got - lol!)

So while my fellas were out of the house hunting, I began putting up Christmas decorations. While decorating the top of my piano with a few snowmen, I had an idea! I have an old church hymnal, so I turned to "O Little Town of Bethlehem", tied a pretty red bow and added some berries to mark that page, and then placed it on the music stand on the piano...so simple and pretty!!

I love how cute this little display turned out! If you don't have a church hymnal, you can purchase or download sheet music with a Christmas hymn and decorate that before adding it to your music stand as a decoration.

Thanks for dropping by today. Be sure to check back later this week for a tutorial on how to make a cute and inspirational frame for yourself or to give as a gift!

Have a WONDERFUL week!

Quote Sunday

Silly Saturday

If you're spending the weekend scooping up "Black Friday" sales, be safe and have fun!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you a wonderful day spent with family and friends! Thanks for reading my blog...when I count my blessings, I count you! :)

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