Butterfly Mobile

I was working today and was asked to post some tutorials on all the fun crafts that I have been doing lately.

Supplies:

1x 10" metal hoop (like what is used for making dream catchers.)
120x Glass beads
card stock scrapbook paper (enough to cut 80 butterflies with punch)
needle and thread
1.75" butterfly punch
4x 8" pieces of 3/4" ribbon
hot glue gun & glue
craft knife or paper scorer

Directions:

Step 1: using butterfly punch cut 80 butterflies its better to cut a few more just to practice.

Step 2: I used a craft knife but a scorer would be perfect. Score two lines one on each side of the butterfly's body and bend the wings. Do this to 1/2 of the butterflies.

Step 3: Put glue on the body of the butterflies that were NOT scored and attach the scored butterflies lining them up so they look like one butterfly flapping it's wings.

Step 4: Take your needle and thread and tie a knot around your first bead.

Step 5: pull the thread through the center of the first butterfly and put a dot of hot glue on the top of the butterfly. The bead should be on the colored side of the paper if you are using one sided paper, and the glue dot on the opposite side. drop a bead onto the needle and thread so it rests on the hot glue knot another bead about an inch above the butterfly and another one an inch above that, and repeat. at the end of this step you should have 4 butterflies on 4 x 9" and 6 butterflies on 4x13" pieces of thread. (each thread should end with one bead floating an inch above the last butterfly.)

Step 6: Take one of the 4 butterfly threads and wrap it around the hoop until the floating bead is 1" away from the hoop. Put hot glue on the thread on top of the hoop to keep in place. Repeat this step opposite the first one and 1/4 the way around the hoop on both sides.

Repeat the previous step with the 6 butterfly threads in the middle of the 4 butterfly threads.

Step 7: Attach the ribbon the the same basic way the threads are attached, but cover the glue with ribbon and wrap it again covering the glue again making the ribbon point towards the cealling because that is how the mobile will hang.

Step 8: Sew together the ends of the ribbon make sure it hangs level.


Here are a few pictures of the one that I made... I think it turned out rather well.

 




 

I um yeah...

I am feeling a bit down today. This weekend has been a really good one but as of about an hour or so ago I just got really down. I feel like all I do is cook and clean... I don't even have a fully stocked kitchen. I am working on it though! Every week I am buying something new this week was a hand mixer... and some wonderful photos that I am actually designing my kitchen around. Next week I think I am going to get mixing bowls. Depending on our tax return I am getting my knives and/or my pan set...

I feel like I am always cleaning. I know people say that a clean house is pretty much impossible when you have children but I hate that I am so sick of my house being messy all the time. I feel like I am so far from the person I used to be. I didn't want to be that person forever but I didn't think I would be so far from it... I don't know what I want. And I don't know how to get what I want when I don't know what it is that I want... I feel lost and confused. I feel ugly and unimportant. I am also so sick of winter I could die!

So here is my rant for the day sorry it was so... Blah.

Trying to be a Christmas photographer.

I was playing on the floor with my daughter the other night and decided that the Christmas tree was really pretty and I wanted to take some pictures I don't really have a great camera but I think they turned out ok.

They aren't much but I think they are pretty I hope you enjoy!

Its been awhile...

I haven't written since Thanksgiving while fun it was very hectic the time frame I was given was cut an hour short that day after I had planned everything down to the drive time to get the turkey to the location while it was still hot. So needless to say I was being rushed the whole time by people that weren't even at my house. But the food was good and my original time frame was what happened to fall into place and it wasn't entirely my fault!

The Olivia party! It was so much fun. There were a lot of kids in my house, and it took me about a week to clean it all up. Sadie got a lot of books for her birthday which is wonderful because she loves books. We go in her bedroom to play and she has to go to the book shelf and pull off her favorite books and "reads" them. Oh and her cake pictures turned out so cute! She got cake EVERYWHERE! I have decided that I want to learn to decorate cakes...

I have decorated a tree but have not really put up any other decorations we meant to buy new decor this year but we ended up having to buy a new car and throwing all of our money at that plus my wonderful mother loaned us some money to get out from under our last POS car. The loan has still not gone through but we have our fingers crossed and really hope that it goes through on Monday.

Our anniversary is coming up fast luckily my wonderful mother that we owe quite a bit of money to is letting us have awhile to pay her back so we get to have a pretty decent anniversary this year. I am not really sure what we are going to do but I'm sure it will be fun whatever it is...

Well I should probably hit the hay... maybe do some light cleaning first... 

Happy Thanksgiving

Prepping food for the big day! The one day a year that it is socially acceptable to stuff your face until you have to loosen you belt.

I have been dealing with a sick baby all week and been totally stressed about it. She is acting totally normal until she decides that she has had enough and then she is just done. There is no consoling her she just cries for about 10-15 min... I guess its better than having a baby with colic. I was super lucky and she is a very, very content child she only cries when she needs something she has a smile on her face 3/4 of the time, even when she is sick. So the crying just makes my heart break.

So while I have a sick child my thanksgiving responsibility has been greatly reduced. The past 3-4 years I have cooked and hosted thanksgiving at my home. This year I am cooking the turkey, green bean casserole, and the main vegetable. I'm not even hosting... its a little odd but I am thankful for the extra time with my little family. This is my daughter's first thanksgiving and I am so happy that she is just the right age to have fun with it.

While I love the holidays they seem to be a time of odd decisions for my little family. Along with the normal thanksgiving, Christmas, and new years, we have princess' birthday and our wedding anniversary. Bad planning on our part maybe... but I am still enjoying it... it just takes a lot more planning in the finance department...

Well happy thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you holidays are filled with family, warmth, and love!

Feeling Crafty...

Tonight I was feeling crafty. I went to Hobby Lobby last night and bought some ingredients for some crafts. Some that I had been meaning to do and just haven't gotten around to; and some that I never intended but I saw something and I decided I needed to do it.

I bought the stuff to make my daughter a bow holder thing for her birthday. This is one of the things that I have been planning on doing for a long time and just haven't had the time or the stuff at the same time. To make the holder I needed about a 12" long wood plank, scrapbook paper that matched her room, ribbon, paint, and mod podge.

Here is how I made it:


1: I painted the wood because it had a decorative edge that would have made it really hard to cover in paper. Wait for paint to dry before moving on.


2: trace the shape of the plank on to the side of the paper that is NOT the side you want to use; Cut out the shape.


3: Working quickly cover the surface of the plank with mod podge and place the paper on the podge. Let it sit for about 3-5 min.


4: Cover the paper with podge. This will give you the nice clean finish on the paper. Let it dry and you can decorate with stickers, rub on decals, vinyl, really anything you want.  GO CRAZY!


5: The ribbon is what you actually connect the bows to so this is vital. Depending on how many bows you would like to store this changes. On mine I did three 1/2 yard ribbons hanging. Cut the ribbon double the length you want hanging. Sew together the ends so its a loop.


6: Once again this is personal choice. I chose to sew a straight line across the ribbon every 1-1/2 inches so if the bows slid they had their own little compartment that they would still stay in.


7: Attach the ribbon to the wood. I used a simple staple gun and it worked like a charm.


8: Be Proud! You made an incredibly cute bow holder. You can hang it by connecting a picture hook or even ribbon to the plank.

I also made a tissue paper poof to hang from the ceiling at my daughters birthday party I have 2 of 6-7 done now. Just FYI the soft tissue paper does NOT make good poofs. If it had, I would have had 2 done instead of just one.

Were do I want to be?

I think the main reason I started this blog was to sort though what I want in the future.

I work a typical 8:30-5:00 job. I work for the same company as my wonderfully smart video game playing husband... He loves what he does. He is a programmer. Its like he speaks a million different languages that I have no comprehension of at all. ($admin = "MYSQL USER NAME";)Yeah I have no idea what that does. He is very fluent in programmer. While I can pick out a few words here and there but mostly his side of the office just confuses and bores me. ANYWAY! the point of that rant is I want to find that love for something. I would like to do something that I can have the freedom to go outside on warm days and just lay in the grass. I want to be home with my baby girl that isn't going to be a baby for much longer.

I love being creative and obscure. I started a scrapbook for my daughter that I was planning on giving her for her first birthday. I didn't think I would like it as much as I do. Every new page that I do I find different elements that look so great together. But what I have noticed the most is how much I love photos. I have always loved taking pictures and going on adventures. With Christmas just around the corner all I have asked for is MY camera. I want a Nikon d90 it is not the lowest end SLR but its not the high end either I think it would be great for practicing and perfecting what I really love doing. I think what I would really like to do is photography and event planning.

Over the next year I think I am going to practice and take some classes. Maybe I can figure out how to get what I want out of life. But for right now I am going to concentrate on my baby and my husband and all of our events these next two months. We have a birthday, an anniversary, and all of the other family holidays.