Rolled Paper Flower Wreaths

The husband has finals next week, which means this week has been a pretty hefty study week. Luckily, my friend Lindsey found these awesome rolled paper flower wreaths to keep me busy making while Pete studies. She even took me and Emery to Hobby Lobby (a 25-ish minute trip one way) to get sweet paper for it! We started making them together at her apt (conveniently about a 2 minute walk up the road) a couple days ago and today I finally finished mine.

It turned out a little crazy with all the different patterns and different sizes. I don't think I ever quite mastered the leaf making. But, nonetheless, I LOVE IT. Soooo pretty. And guess what? It was cheap! Lindsey procured some foam tubes from Home Depot for $1 and we duct taped them into a circle form instead of buying a real wreath form. And my paper cost just a few dollars. The only other supplies included some hot glue for the flowers and fabric scraps to cover the tubing!

Right now Pete is lookin' at my mess with a worried face, saying "uhhh...there's a lotta glitter over here." 

Hahaha.

Guess I should go clean up my mess...

Our Little Owl

Can I just say that I LOVE all things homemade? 

It's been so fun to get homemade blankets, headbands, toys, etc. from family and friends. I treasure these things so much knowing that people spent time and effort to create them especially for Emery.

 Check out this adorable little hat that I got in the mail yesterday: 

 SO CUTE.

Thanks mom!

Valentine's Day, NCLEX, and Marriage

For months leading up to Valentine's Day, I'd been dreaming of pink and red crafts, red velvet cupcakes, chocolate sugar cookies...and the list could go on (like to this or this).

However, when Valentine's day finally came around, I hadn't made any of the above listed items. In fact, I felt lucky to simply snag a package of 99-cent metallic heart confetti from the grocery store. Oh well. At least I learned something: warm and fuzzy Valentine's Day type feelings don't exactly envelop you the day before you take NCLEX. So don't schedule it for February 15th.

I spent V-day day studying, trying to relax by taking walks outside, doing laundry, grocery shopping, and failing miserably to nap. But the day wasn't completely terrible! Pete and I planned and made a nice dinner together: grilled garlic chicken atop whole wheat pasta with homemade alfredo sauce, garlic rolls, salad, and green beans. We finished our V-day with a nice Family Home Evening which included video-chatting with Brian and Ashley, a nice pre-NCLEX blessing for me, and an early bed-time. 

The next morning, although he slept even worse than I did, my sweet husband not only woke up early with me, but drove me to the NCLEX testing center in Draper and back home after the test. I think it cut my anxiety in half to have him chatting with me the whole way there---encouraging me and also distracting me from my anxiety. Walking out of the testing center to him (and the post-test treats he snagged for me) was even better. I was so grateful that when he could have slept in on his morning off work, he chose to do something he probably viewed as very simple, but something that was a great service to me.

Hopefully in the years to come, Valentine's Day will be a more relaxing, fun holiday. Because of this year, I also hope it will serve as a reminder to me of what love and marriage is all about---giving to and serving each other. Perhaps this will prompt me to have more important V-day (and everyday) aspirations in addition to an extravagant mass of pink and red crafts/food :)

"Some think of happiness as a glamorous life of ease, luxury, and constant thrills; but true marriage is based on a happiness which is more than that, one which comes from giving, serving, sharing, sacrificing, and selflessness."

-Spencer W. Kimball, Oneness in Marriage, Liahona, Oct. 2002

(Oh...and I passed NCLEX:)

No-Sew Table Runners

Once Fall turned into Winter and my cute, seasonal table runner was put away until next year, I was missing the added color on my now bare kitchen table. I really wanted another table runner, but alas, I have no sewing machine (and if I did, many more of my crafting adventures would turn into crafting disasters---I'm not a good sewer). Then I found this tutorial on making no-sew table runners: http://www.atypicaltypea.com/2010/12/14/no-sew-table-runner/

No-Sew! Perfect! I used "Stitch Witchery" which I assume is similar to the iron-on adhesive the tutorial used. I caught JoAnns on a great sale, and since these were really easy to make---I made two. 

I would probably be a bit embarrassed to have someone who is a sewer (like my mom) examine these too closely---my "hems" aren't the straightest and attaching the lace was a fun experiment. If you can, use a little bit heavier, non-see-through color of cotton fabric because of the no-sew nature of these. 

All in all, I was really happy with the results! This was an easy way to add some color to my apartment.

This one lays much better on the table because it was a heavier fabric than the yellow one below.

I still like this one too though! Putting one on top of the other makes it look a little nicer :)

Pumpkins, a table runner, and more cookies...

For our Relief Society Opening Social, we decided to have lunch, play a game, and then do some fun Halloween/Fall Season crafting. We painted and glittered pumpkins as well as frosted spider-web cookies (sorry to post more spider-web cookies...I just love them, and these turned out much better than the ones a few posts back).

I used to think my ward calling as Relief Society Meeting Coordinator (formerly Enrichment Leader) was stressful, but lately it has turned into a great excuse to do fun creative things instead of doing homework.

(find out how to make these here. Super easy and so fun!)

We spray painted some pumpkins gold and some pumpkins white and left some natural. Then we used acrylic paints and stencils to do all kinds of fun designs on them---lettering, polka dots, etc.

(thanks again, Mom, for the cute table runner!)

We glittered tiny little pumpkins. You just paint Elmer's glue on, dump glitter on it evenly and shake off the unused glitter. Then you let it dry for a while. Some women did orange pumpkins and then glittered the stem green--so cute! I'm sad I didn't get any pictures of the little glitter pumpkins, but this pic that I found through google is what they looked like: