Making Valentines. Yipee!

It's that time of year again where everything gets to be pink and red and glittery with no excuses. Here are some of the things we have been creating around here this month in 

honor of Valentine's Day.  

First off, we used melty beads to make heart necklaces. We got the wooden beads at the dollar store. 

For the kids' classmates we made sticky felt valentines. I found the pieces at Hobby Lobby and Michaels. We attached them to chevron bags that I found online here and added a couple of pieces of candy inside each bag. 

Finally, we have had a blast just making regular old Valentines. I've left out a bunch of supplies in the studio and the kids have worked in there almost every day for the last week, creating until their hearts are content. Just the way it should be!

I'm signing off with two of my favorite phone shots of the week. The first one is a window display I spotted in Decatur. I love the paint brush heart. The second is my little valentine clown all dressed up for clown day at school today. 

Happy Crafting! And Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Valentine Afternoons

I love Valentines. It is really one of my favorite holidays because I love red and pink, I love glitter, I love cards, I love words, and I love making Valentines. So this year we had not one but two Valentine Card Making Lunch Parties. The first was with our friends and the second with members of our family.



I found this cute apple idea on Pinterest. And got the vintage looking paper plates, napkins, and cupcake picks at Hobby Lobby. I set out all kinds of papers, stamps, beads, glitter, etc for the craft time.




FRIEND TIME!!!


FAMILY TIME!!!


I got a bit smarter after the first party and changed the tablecloth to a vinyl wipe down one from Walmart.
Now this is a craft table that is being well used. Chaotic and Messy and Beautiful and Inspiring.

It's A Pirate Life For Me

It's birthday season around here. We have more holidays and birthdays in May than we can count in our family. My kids have birthdays 5 days apart and this year we celebrated with a Pirate themed bash. Our first mission was the invitations. I dressed the kids in their pirate gear and took them to my favorite wall. It is a hot turquoise brick wall with yellow trim and pipes that is a building salvage supply store on Howell Mill. Here are some shots from our shoot:

Here are our invitations. I made them on Photoshop and then had them printed at Costco as 5X7 photos in matte finish. They are a real deal at 39 cents a piece.


We decorated our place and anxiously awaited our big day. I made a pirate map for the wall, served Pirate Booty in small single serving bags, ordered cupcakes from Publix and dressed them up with Pirate flags I made with wooden skewers and pirate themed scrapbook paper.



I finally found a good use for those red and white striped paper straws, made Bloody Pirate Punch (a half and half mixture of Berry Juicy Juice and Ginger Ale), decorated with wooden pop guns I found at World Market, scattered Playskool pirate figures all around, and made a Goldfish Pirate Ship with more of the scrapbook paper and wooden skewers.


It's a good thing we did not give out a prize for best costume because we would have never been able to decide. We are thankful for all our friends and family for outdoing themselves on their costumes and coming to celebrate our kids.


The guests were entertained coloring skulls and pirate boys that I found at Michaels in the paper cutout shapes. We all made compass necklaces with wooden beads and compasses I found at Hobby Lobby. And we played Pop Up Pirate which is a fun game of luck and surprise for little ones. It was a perfect party, full of chaos and joy, just like a kid's party should be!