Dallas Arboretum Fall Festival Pictures

Today. UGH.

I am sickly. This morning I felt ok.. maybe not the best but I could make it. Then around 2pm I didn't want to get off the couch. It went downhill from there.

You know there are days when you should really just relax and not try to do too much. That was today. But I did too much and it came back to bite me in the butt.

I decided to make pumpkin pancakes for lunch but they bombed. They were raw in the middle so I decided to make pumpkin muffins with the remaining batter. Those bombed too. Then I overcooked some homemade dinner rolls that I had made this morning. Luckily I tasted the gravy that I was cooking for dinner before I served it and found that it was nothing but salt.  I should have just ordered take out.

So now there is nothing more that I want to do but lay in bed and let the NyQuil take me away. So that is next on my agenda. Right after I show you some cute pictures from this weekend. 

Don't worry... there's plenty more where these came from.

The Ruffle Wreath - Tutorial

 

I know ruffles are starting to go out of style and burlap is all the rage. But.. I had this idea for a wreath and I love it. I don't know care if it's in or out... it's currently on my front door.

I thought I would share a little tutorial with you just in case you wanted to be sooo last season as well. Vintage is cool.

To begin... I had two colors of fabric in my garage that I got on clearance this past spring. It was a very bright yellow and orange fabric with dragonflies on it. It was too bright for fall and dragonfly's don't scream fall. So I simply tea dyed the fabric to downplay the colors a little and I knew the ruffles would hide the dragonflies. It's very easy to tea dye fabric. Simply boil a few tea bags in a pot and then add the fabric for five minutes or so until it's the color you want. Dry the fabric to heat set the dye and you're ready.

(the strip of fabric in the middle is the dyed fabric)

After I had the colors I wanted, I simply tore the fabric into strips to give the edge a more ragged look and ruffled the strips on my sewing machine. Doing ruffles on a sewing machine is extremely easy. First set your tension pretty high, 5 or 6, and set your stitch width as far as it will go. Then just feed your fabric through your machine and it will ruffle. I ruffled 8 strips of each color. You may need to do a bit more depending on the width of your strips. My strips were about 1.5" wide and 36" long. I used a little more than a 1/2 yard of fabric per color.

First I covered a Styrofoam wreath form with an old brown fabric that I had stored away. It's just simply hot glued on in random ways. It's not pretty but it's going to be hidden. Of course I forgot to take a picture of that part but here's the wreath form sans brown fabric. Helpful huh?...

Then I just started glue on the ruffles using a hot glue gun. Easy. I alternated the colors as I went.

See the brown fabric now? You really need it because there will be gaps between the ruffles. If you don't cover the wreath form than you will see the white Styrofoam.

Keep going until your entire wreath is covered. Of course I didn't calculate the rows of colors vs. actual wreath size so I would up with two yellow rows right next to each other. No biggie for me because I plan to cover it up with two acorns that I made out of scrapbook paper and a window valance.

 Beautiful. Love it.

Now let's make it better...

First I cut two acorn templates out of foam board and grabbed some textured scrapbook paper.

Then I found my ugliest gold window valance which was a hand me down from my dad. Don't judge.. this is what happens when you're young and broke.

 Now we're older and not as broke so I don't know what my excuse for still having it is. I'll work on that and get back to you.

I used the valance material for the base of the acorn and the scrapbook paper for the top.

cute huh?

To finish the wreath, I simply glued the acorns onto the wreath and then hung it using braided hemp cord since I can't find my wreath hanger.

And when it's finished.. this is what it should look like..

Painting with kids

I finally found time to craft today! but it was for the 5 and under crowd. Oh well, that's my life and I love it.

I'm going to share a simple fall painting project with you for kids and then a few tips for painting with kids.

Ready?

First we'll make a maple leaf print. This is a great way to help children learn that red and yellow make orange. 

Print or draw a maple leaf on a piece of paper and crease it down the middle of the leaf before you start painting. This will just make it easier to fold later on.

Next have your children paint it all yellow.

Then let them put dots, swirls, streaks, etc.. of red paint.

To finish it, just fold it in half and rub the back of it. To add in an extra element I let my kids rub the back of it with a plastic baby spoon. This was simply to make it more of a process for them.

Finally you open it up and your leaf will have beautiful fall colors.

This is a great project for all ages.  Today I did this with a 5,4, and 2 year old. I actually think the two year old's turned out the best and she did it completely by herself.

When we were done with that project, I still had a lot of tempera paint mixed up so I brought out the cookie cutters and let them do fall stamps using cookie cutters. Also a great project for any age. Well, I let Princess Newbie try it and she just wanted to eat the paint. That's ok.. we all eat a little glue, paint, dog food, etc.. along the way right? please tell me that I'm not the only one....

Tips for Painting with Kids

1. Add a little amount of dish soap to the paint. This will help the paint come out of any clothes or off of tables.
2. Save all the little plastic containers that you can such as butter tubs, marinara tubs, to go containers. Then you can use these to fill with paint for them. They are usually low and squatty which will lead to less spills and you can simply toss them when you're done. The faster you can clean up, the less time they have to do stuff while you're not watching. Not that my kids would EVER do that.
3. Use little foam brushes sometimes instead of paint brushes. It's a nice change for them and again since they are so cheap, they can just be tossed. I'm not on any environmentalists good side tonight, that's for sure.
4. Don't walk away from the table to refill your coffee. Little sisters start to look a lot like the paper after mommy's been gone for too long.
5. Invest in a few primary colors of powdered tempera. It's actually really cheap but comes in a huge jar. You can use it for so many projects. The nice thing about powdered tempera is that you can mix it to whatever consistency you want. Mix it thick for a paste to cover cardboard or use it really thin in a water gun (mixed with dish soap) and have a paint gun war, the old fashioned way. I just called that old fashioned and that's how we did it when I was in high school. Man I'm old.
6. Mix the colors from primary colors with kids.
7. don't worry about the end result. I have tried to make adorable things with them to serve a particular purpose but they have the most fun when they use every color possible and it looks more like an army tank than a Christmas ornament. It may matter to use but it does not to them! and that's what counts. My kids don't tell me how to do my art (most of the time) so I try not to tell them how to do theirs.

Have fun painting (the paper, not the baby sisters)