Book Page Valentine Banner

Happy Monday!  Hope your weekend was spectacular.  We enjoyed 70 degree weather on Saturday,  Sunday started out at 70 and it poured rain all day, and today it's 30 with sleeting rain.  Welcome to winter in Nashville.  The poor birds were so confused, they were just singing their little hearts out on Saturday.  I wanted to tell them not to fall for it, it isn't spring yet - just one of those cruel tricks that the weather gods play on us sometime.  I am sure they realized it by last night.  Poor little birds.

Now for a reminder - Valentine's Day is one month from today.  That's right ladies and gents, one month from today.  So I guess you know what I spent time doing over the weekend.  You guessed right!  It was time to make some Valentine decorations.

There is still a huge pile of book pages from my wreath making project so it was natural to use some of those.  I had 4 sheets of Valentine scrapbook paper that I bought last year and never used, and there was the $1.00 felt heart garland I found at the Dollar Tree last week.

This garland is really cute with lots of felt heart hooked together with little rings that allow you to slip the hearts right off if needed.  The only problem is the hearts all hang sideways because of the way the garland is made.   I know, what does one expect for a dollar?  But, they are nice and uniform in size, the garland is 9 feet long and I didn't have to cut out any red felt hearts!  I did have an idea in mind for these hearts.

To make my garland, I figured I needed 10 of the book pages.  I put all ten pages together, folded them in half without creasing them and "dovetailed" them with a pair of scissors. (That means to cut at an angle from the corner to the middle of the page.  I do it with ribbon mostly).  Dovetailing will make the pages look like this one on the bottom.  By doing them all at the same time, they will all be cut exactly alike.

Next, I cut out hearts from the scrap book paper in two different sizes.  I decided which ones I wanted on which pages, mixed and matched the designs, glued the hearts together, and then glued the hearts on each page.

Using a piece of sisal twine the length of the mantel with just a little allowance for some "swag", I hot glued the tops of the pages to the twine, spacing the pages out so there would be room for some of the red felt hearts between each page in the banner.

I took the garland apart in groups of 3's and 2's and hooked the rings over the sisal twine so that the hearts would hang down instead of sideways.  Ta dah.  Done.  How easy was that?

The two glittered hearts on the mantel came in a package of 5 hearts of different sizes from guess where?  Yep, the Dollar Tree.  Lots of glitter and no cutting.  I just leaned them against two votive cups on the mantel.  Done!

I love easy projects that are colorful, did not cost much and make me happy.  Perhaps this will give you an idea for a Valentine project for your home, school room or Sunday school room.  You can buy an entire used book if you need pages for next to nothing at a used book store, or perhaps you have one at home that you can use.  Some colored paper, sisal twine, felt hearts, and you can have an entire banner for just a few dollars.  That is my kind of price!

Tomorrow, I will share some other projects with you that are fun and easy.  After spending years working in a flower shop, Valentine's Day was NOT my favorite holiday for years and years due to the stress of meeting everyone's expectations.  Now, Valentine's is fun again and everyone needs to know they are loved.  Don't forget!  One month.  Go.

Everyday Donna

Things to Remember:

The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.   Margaret Atwood

Thanksgiving Mantel

Happy Hump Day one and all.  It is countdown to Thanksgiving and it is one week from tomorrow.  One week, 7 days.  Are you ready?  I am working on all preparations since my mom and sister will be here this weekend from our home town and we will celebrate Thanksgiving with them on Saturday.  Next week will be just Nashville family.

This is such a tricky time of year because not only do we have Thanksgiving to celebrate, but I am also mid Christmas preparation - making gifts and decorations which sort of takes over the entire house.  There is glitter everywhere, glue, paper, ornaments, and the kitchen table is piled high with every manner of crafting equipment.  I do have a craft desk in the back bedroom, but there is not enough room to do everything in there, so the kitchen table makes up the additional space I need.  Do you have that issue?  Not enough space?  It really gets perplexing at times.  I hate cleaning off the table every night when it's dinner time, but that's just the way it has to be.  Everyone finishes dinner with glitter on their face.  The guys love me for that.

For our mantel this year, I reused the banner I made last fall and the beautiful glittered trees that I bought.  To make it look different, I added 6" burlap ribbon, white lights, lots of small white pumpkins and colorful gourds and candles.  It looks so inviting and warm and it makes me happy.  Needless to say, the day after Thanksgiving, it all comes down and Christmas replaces these decorations.  Although, I am considering keeping some of it for Christmas and changing out the gourds and the banner.  I especially love the burlap ribbon.  What to do, what to do?  Every day at this point, I change my mind.  Nothing is written in stone until the fat lady sings as they say.

The picture above was taken at night so you can see how lovely the lights look.  Here is the same picture in daytime.

Our living room tends to be dark this time of year because of the covered porch that shades the light coming in the windows.  So, I have been leaving the lights on all day and through the evening.  I really like the ambiance it gives the room.

The center of the mantel is anchored by this lovely mercury glass candle holder that is round and beautiful and reflects the light in an awesome way.  You can see the burlap ribbon snaking across the mantel and it helps diffuse the glow of the lights.  The beautiful little copper candle holders came from TJ Maxx and they hold tea lights.  Don't  you love the little gourds which their crazy stems?  They add a lot of texture and color to the vignette.

Here, you can see the lights in the bottom of the "tree" and more of the gourds and candle holders on the mantle.  I made the candles by stamping tissue paper with a stamp that looks like French handwriting.  Then, you wrap the tissue paper around the candle and heat it with a blow dryer (or heat gun if you have one) until the tissue paper adheres to the candle.  They are really beautiful.

There are also several more mercury glass candle holders on the mantel.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE mercury glass and TJ Maxx has lots to choose from for a very reasonable price this time of year.   The clear candle holder also came from TJ Maxx and I paid $2.00 for it in the clearance section.  ALWAYS look in the clearance sections for bargains!  The tall clear candle holder in the picture above also came from the clearance section for $3.50.  My kind of price.

I had already taken all the pictures above when I added my Harvest angel candle that I made.  It looks so lovely on the mantel right at the left tip of my big white star.   Have I told you how much I love stars?  Yes, I know - about a thousand times, but I do love them so.

Here is the mantel from further back which shows some of the other decorations at this end of the living room.  It sort of makes me sad when things look just the way I want, and know that next week, it will all change.  But then again, there is the challenge of rearranging and making everything look different.  It is my decorating A.D.D. I guess.  I like changes.  Really, I do.  Do you like making changes or do you like things to stay the same?

Everyday Donna

Things to Remember:

I approach decorating like life, it's all about changes and accepting them when they happen.  Nothing ever stays the same.

Spring Banner Made With Kites

What are the things that take you back to your childhood in springtime?  For me, it's jump ropes, hula hoops, jacks, roller skates, marbles, bubbles, pin wheels and kites.  Remember playing on the playground at recess when you could bring your jump rope to school?  Everyone lined up waiting their turn to enter the rope being turned by two playmates, chanting all the rhymes.  "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around.  Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch the ground."  I have spent hours untold jumping rope.   I have probably roller skated around the world - twice.  Hours were spent mastering the hula hoop and all the tricks that could be done with it.  Those were the days when you spent every possible moment playing outside.  There were no video games, we made up our own games.  We didn't spend all our time in a car going from this team to that lesson to another team.  We played whiffle ball and kick the can in our back yards until dark.  We caught fireflies and headed home when we were called.  I have to say, those were some awesome days.

One of the things I loved to do most in the springtime on a nice windy day was to fly a kite.  When I was a child you could buy a paper kite for a dime and a ball of string for a dime.  That twenty cents could make for an entertaining day.  All you needed was a good brisk breeze which didn't cost anything.  There is something so amazing about watching a kite lift into the air with it's beautiful tail swaying in the wind, sailing above the ground tethered to the earth by only one thin line and you acting as the anchor.  Letting the string out so it could go higher, pulling it back in to keep it from spinning out of control.  Beware of kite eating trees!

A kite can be a simple diamond shape made from paper, two sticks, a tail and a string.  That's it.  And yet, that simple paper kite can soar with eagles.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to do that?  Soaring above the earth on a beautiful spring day, going where the wind would take you in the glorious sunshine, floating in the breeze, letting your mind drift - if only.  No, we are the one holding the string on the ground, but that is okay.  We can imagine the glory of sailing like that kite.

I wanted to make a spring banner for my mantle, so I bought four "fat quarters" in colors that I liked together.  When I sat down to make it, I realized I didn't want pennants, I wanted kites.  Nothing is more representational of spring to me than kites.  So I made a pattern and cut out kite shapes.  They are 6 inches long and 5 inches wide, cut in a diamond shape.  Then, I put ModPodge on the front and let it dry, then on the back and let it dry.  This gave it some body.

Now a diamond shaped kite has to have cross braces made of some kind of thin wood.  To represent that I used some silk cording I had bought for jewelry making.  I drew perpendicular lines with a pencil to make it easier to follow.  I used hot glue to place the cording.

As a crafter, I have all kinds of supplies on hand and I was very fortunate that this cording worked very well with my fabric.  I ran a bead of hot glue down the vertical line and placed a piece of cord on the glue and then did the same with the horizontal line.

Diamond shaped kites have a tail to keep them stable when flying.  The tail is string with fabric or rags tied on it.  I didn't want to use string because it would be too limp.  I wanted to be able to "shape" the kite and the tale, so I found some 20 gauge wire that I had from Lowe's.  Perfect.  I cut 12 inch pieces, one for each kite.

I used my needle nose pliers to twist the ends into curly cues like this.

I made two turns on each end.  That way I would be able to hang one end on the rope I used on the mantle and the other end would be long enough to make the tail.  I then ran a bead of hot glue down the back of the kite and hung the kite on the wire using the top curly cue.

To make the ties on the tail,  I used different colored ribbon that I already had and cut 1 inch pieces of it, 5 pieces for each tail.  I put a little dot of hot glue in the middle of each piece and pinched it together to make it look like a bow.  I held it until it dried and then hot glued each piece to the wire.  Love the way they look!

After I made 9 kites for the mantle, I placed them on a piece of lavender colored nylon rope that I had and hung the kites on it, spacing them out until I was happy with the look.  I hooked the end of the top curly cue through the rope so it wouldn't move, then bent the kites in different directions to make them look like they were flying in the wind.

Next, I cut 6 inch strips of the fabric used to make the kites and tied them on the line in a random pattern so they looked like the tail of a kite.

Oh, they make me so happy!  They say springtime and childhood memories and the joy of a perfect spring day.  If you look closely, you will see the paper pinwheels I made also.  We'll talk about those later!

Now, I want to go buy kites for all our grandsons and take them out to an open field and spend the splendor of a perfect spring day with them flying kites.   That would be quite a memory.  


Everyday Donna

Things to Remember:

Imagination is the highest kite one can fly!  Lauren Bacall

A Festive Fall Banner For Your Home

It's Friday and the first day of Fall!  What a great end to a week that simply flew by.  Perhaps it's because this has been fall project week here at the "Little Yellow Cottage."  Today, I finished the mantel and am  very happy with the results.  My project for today was creating the banner on the front of the fireplace.  It was so easy to make and adds such a festive look to the living room.

Remember, I am in my burlap phase, so today I used natural burlap for my pennants.  This is such an easy no-sew project.  Although I do sew and could have made these by sewing them over the sisal string, I made them with hot glue to show you how you can make this without threading a needle.

All you need for this project is some burlap in the color of your choice, a hot glue gun and glue sticks, artificial fall leaves, small pine cones, berries and artificial acorns (unless you have access to real acorns), some  small rocks, and a moss roll from the Dollar Tree.  This is a strip of moss on a web backing that can be cut and glued to most anything.

The first thing I did was measure a piece of sisal string on the mantel to know exactly what length I needed.  Next, I created my pattern for the pennant.  I drew a 12 inch square on a piece of brown craft paper.  Mark the center of the bottom line which would be at 6 inches.  Take a ruler and draw a diagonal line from the top two corners of the square to the center point on the bottom line.  You have your pennant shape.

Cut out the pennant along the lines you have drawn.  This pennant will have a 12 inch top which is rather large for indoor use.  I carried this pattern piece over to the fireplace and held it up to determine the size that I would want to use.   I made a crease on the edge of the paper where I wanted the top to be for the size pennant needed.

The pennant had to be cut down, so I folded the top over a straight edge, in this case a ruled, and creased it along the top.

Now, all you have to do it cut it straight across and you have the size pattern piece needed.  No drawing and re-drawing of patterns.  This can be reduced to a tiny little pennant if that is the size needed -  simple and easy.

Next, I folded the burlap and pinned the pattern on to start cutting my burlap pieces.  You can minimize waste by laying the pattern one way when cutting, then turning it the opposite way to cut the next piece.  This leaves practically no waste to the fabric.

I cut 12 pieces of  burlap for the banner that I would use across the front of the fireplace.  It is better to have a few extra than to find youself short and have to go back and cut more.  Next, I covered the table to protect it from any hot glue that might seep through the porous burlap.  I took my first piece of burlap and starting laying out pieces on it to get the look I wanted.  Each pennant I made is different, but you could make yours all the same if that is the look you wanted.

Here are some close-ups of a few of the finished pennants.  I  would lay down a leaf or two, some pinecones or acorns, until I'd get the look I wanted.   Then, I would glue them to the burlap. 

The pennants can be decorated an any way you choose.  After I finished all 12 pennants, I began gluing them over the sisal string.  First, I found the center of the string and marked it with a pin.  I laid the finished pennants out in the order I wanted them to hang on the twine.  I laid the first pennant face down on the table and placed the twine about 1/2 inch down from the top.  I ran a bead of hot glue along the top edge of the pennant and turned it over the twine and pressed it down.  Be sure and use something besides your finger to press the edge down because the glue is hot and may seep through the burlap resulting in a burn. 

 Next, I placed another pennant piece on the other side of center and followed the same procedure.  I used my finger to space the pennants so they would be equidistant apart.  I continued gluing until I had 10 pennants on the banner and had just enough twine left to tie the banner to the mantle.  That left two extra pennants which was great.  I found another place to use them.

I placed a clear push pin in the center of the mantle and one on each end.   I took the banner to the mantle and hung the center over the push pin and tied each end to the other push pins.  Finis!  (done)  I had to stand and look in admiration, it was just what the mantle needed,

The top of the mantle is decorated with gourds, pumpkins and Indian corn.  There are also some adorable paper doily pumpkins.  (There will be a DIY for these next.)  Now, were are all ready to settle down for an enjoyable autumn in our new home.  It has been a long time since was have had "firsts" in a home and it is rather exciting. 

This is a fun and easy project for any weekend crafter.  The banner can be hung anywhere you would like and adds so much color and pizzazz to a room.   What a fun way to welcome fall into your home.  What do you plan to do to decorate for fall?  

Everyday Donna

Things to Remember:

Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal." ~ Pamela Vaull Starr