Simple Shelf Decor

Wine bottles wrapped in jute twine and embellished with a burlap flower and a burlap bow. The flower thingys in the bottles I purchased at Walmart forever ago!  This is a such a simple, VERY inexpensive project...just requires hot glue and willingness to get burnt by the hot glue!

  

Please ignore how dusty my shelf is!  Egads! 

 This is a shelf in our living room. The photo is of our little angel boy, Rowan. Just for interest, I like using hardcover books without their dust jackets to play with the heights of things when displaying.

And the little frame says, "Because someone we Love is heaven, there is a little bit of Heaven in our home."   It came from Hallmark with another saying in it...when I say that saying online somewhere I KNEW I had to change them out!  It is perfect for us!

Below is the Inspiration photo...I plan to do the "L-O-V-E" thing and do some color variations with the bottles later...I could make it say "F-A-L-L" OR "T-H-A-N-K-F-U-L" or "H-OM-E".  Trust me this was just the beginning...I've got lots more twine and lots more desire to empty some wine bottles!  :)

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Party!

Ok this is late...as always, but time flies when you are having fun...or doing laundry....either way, it is late.

We had a fantastic joint birthday party again this year.  For stress factors we kept it small...just family and close friends.  In keeping with our literary theme (last year we did The Very Hungry Caterpillar), this year we went with a family favorite, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr.  So fun and so stinkin' easy!

The invite I designed.  Email me if you would like a custom invite designed for your party! laceyruhge at gmail dot com

 

Above it the embroidered applique shirt I made for Rylan for the party.

The Palm Tree Favors

 I got the plastic tubes from this Ebay Shop . The green foam I had on hand.  

I cut palm leaves(or something kinda like them) from the foam and hot glues them to the lid of the tube.

Then I filled the tubes with M&Ms.  You could fill them with just brown m&ms or even go with a mix of hot pink, bright orange, and bright green, but I went with the easier cheaper route and just bought a giant bag of regular colors. 

 Later Hayden and I put self adhesive foam letters on the leaves.  I found the letters at Office Max....But I am positive you can find them at a better price somewhere online.  I was in a pinch and couldn't wait for shipping.

 They made a nice simple center piece for the dining table.  I also threw magnetic letters I already had around to add to the theme.  HINT: Give these to the kiddos as the LEAVE your house.  Otherwise you will have M&Ms everywhere!

Each family went home with a paperback copy of the book and a package of magnetic letters.  I got the books from this Ebay Store. Each book was only $4+ combined shipping.  A benefit to having a smaller party is that you can afford to give great favors!

 The Entertainment

 Every bit of decorations came from the Dollar Tree!  They had an enormous amount of palm tree decorations!  Can't go wrong with the Dollar Tree!  I had several of these palm trees up and had more of those foam letters available for the kids to decorate the trees!  It went over pretty good with the littlest ones.

For the bigger kiddos we did several rounds of coconut bowling!  This went over VERY well and was easy-peasy to prepare!

 The Cake!

I spent a few days with the cake preparations.  I bought premixed gum paste from our local craft center.  4 days before the party I got to work on the gum paste pieces...  Gum paste starts out like play-doh and after a day or so it dries as hard as a rock.  You want it completely dry before you do anything with it.

 I was feeling too stingy to buy the whole alphabet set of cutters so I free handed them...they are not the prettiest, but it worked. :)  I colored the gum paste with the gel colors I had on hand.  I was surprised as heck to find that I had brown coloring...why or when I bought that I have no idea!  I did have the round cutter for the pink polka-dots.

 I had gum paste leaf form from Hayden's jungle party a few years ago...so that is what I used for the palm leaves.  A helpful hint for making leaves is to let them dry on a curved surface...like this bowl or a rolling pin.  When they are completely dry they will keep the curled shape

For the trunk of the tree I used some cardboard and tape and made a crooked tree trunk form and then covered it in a thin layer of gum paste I colored brown.  I then used a knife to texture it a little bit.

 

Three days before the party I used green colored royal icing to "glue" the leaves onto the tree trunk...I also used a few pieces of floral wire stuck through the leaves into the trunk for a bit more security.


Two days before the party I baked the cakes let them cool.  I did a three layered 9in cake and a two layered 6in cake.  After they were cooled I did a buttercream "crumb coat".  This more or less seals in all the crumbs and keeps the cake from drying out as fast.  It also allows you to even out any surface imperfections.

 The day before the party...I began putting the cake together.  I don't have a many (or any) process pictures here because I was apparently in the zone and forgot to take any. So I will try to explain sans pictures...

• I mixed up my buttercream frosting using the crisco recipe.  I colored it.  I frosted each cake using this AWESOME "Viva Paper Towel" method.  I do not own a paddle smoother thingy so I just used my hand and it worked ok....but the paddle would be great to have.
• After each cake was frosted I worked on stacking them.  I measured how tall I needed my wooden dowels to be.  I marked them and had the husband cut them with a handsaw.  Below is a picture of the wooden dowels I used...I think they are 1/4 inch dowels.  I got them in the cake isle.  I also got this plastic tier separator.  You can see the bottom of the tier separator has the circlar thingys where the dowels fit in.

 

• I lightly put the separator on the top of the bottom cake and let the circular thingys imprint the icing.  I removed the separator and then knew where to place the dowels. I pushed the dowels into the bottom layer and then put the separator in place.  And then I carefully put the 6in top cake on top of the separator.
• I then did my decorative blue boarder and it covered up any hint of the separator.
• Then I placed my gum paste polka-dots, letters, and coconuts.  There was really no rhyme or reason to their placement...other than I saved the R & H to put up top the tree(the birthday kiddos' initials).
• I then measured and placed a dowel into the top layer of the cake that stuck out a few inches.
  
  
  

This is the dowel that the coconut tree would fit over...and give the tree stability.  I moved the tree down the the garage because it was cold down there and I was assured no one would bother it there....and there would be no cars being parked in it while the cake was in there.  (The garage had just been thoroughly cleaned!)

I grabbed my royal icing and "glued" the R and the H to the top of the tree.  I used the paper towel roll to hold them in place while the icing dried. Royal icing, much like gum paste dries VERY hard.

The finished product:  Except for a few not so perfect places in the frosting I was Extremely happy with it!  I had never made a two tiered cake before and it was pretty easy when all was said and done.  The hardest part was the tree, not the layers.  LOVE IT!

 Thanks for reading!

Homemade Donuts!

I have been seeing these homemade donuts come across my Pinterest the last few weeks.  My mama must have been cool before her time, because she used to make these on quiet weekend afternoons when my four siblings and I were growing up.

Here's what you need... 

• a tube of homestyle refrigerator biscuits.  Any size or brand works.
• Vegetable oil 
• Sugar
• a 1/2 inch or a 1 inch round cutter (optional)

My mom would do all the frying...we would cut the raw biscuits.  We used an old thimble to cut the centers out.  Nowadays I  have a tiny round cutter that came in a set of fondant cutters.  If you don't have some sort of cutter...you can always cut the raw biscuits into fourths and fry them that way.

Put about .5 inch of oil into a sauce pan (I wouldn't use a fry pan unless it has high sides).

Heat up the oil on about medium heat... Don't let it get too hot or you will not be able to keep up with the cooking speed! :)

 I just drop the donuts in by hand being careful not the touch the hot oil, and I use a large slotted spoon to fish turn them over and fish them out.  You will be surprised how quickly they cook so stay on top of them and do not get distracted.  It will only take a minute or two (depending on how hot your oil is) for the first side of them to brown up...flip them and not more than a minute later take them out.  Don't forget to cook the little donut holes too!

I laid them out on some napkins to kind of soak up some of the oil.  You will want to let them cool enough that you handle them without getting burnt before rolling them through the sugar.  The warmer the donuts are the better the sugar will stick (i.e. MORE SUGAR!)

After you roll them through the sugar...you are done! 
 
The best thing about these donuts is that they are best eaten warm...so you really have to eat as many as you can before they get cold!  LOVE THEM!

My Heart Belongs to Buttons...

It is no secret that I have a thing for old buttons...I really do not know what it is...the unique beauty of each one, the mystery of the story and age each one, the use of something so practical to make art.  I love them...I really do.

So today I was putting the finishing touches on the Valentine decor around the house...and I really wanted something for the little space next to the front door.   I always have something hanging there, but couldn't find whatever it was that I hung there last February.  On the front door I already have my adorable felt heart wreath I made last year...so I needed something else to go along with it.

I searched pinterest for inspiration, but didn't find anything exactly.  It was just a good way of getting my creative juices flowing...I grabbed a paper plate, some burlap, my trusty glue gun, and my box of buttons.

 This is what I ended up with.  I like it a lot...it is very unique and very detailed.  I think it will be fine hanging outside...it is covered, as long as we don't get some crazy storm.

Happy SuperBowl!

Just a quick post in honor of the Superbowl tonight...

Hubby was heading out to a Superbowl party and I panicked...What did we have in the house that I could send with him?...NOTHING!  Oh wait I bought a Betty Crocker Gingerbread mix on clearance at Target after Christmas!  And since I have every cookie cutter known to man, (Last fall at a craft fair I won one of those Wilton boxes of 100+ cookie cutters), I knew I had a football cookie cutter.  I am betting you could use an egg shaped cutter and just kind of smoosh the sides into the right shape as you put them on the sheet.

I mixed, rolled, cut, and baked.  Ha!  Does that sound like a reference to an illegal substance to anyone else?  I've been watching too much Breaking Bad and/or Weeds.

Anyway...back on topic.  I made a quick bowl of royal icing for the laces...It only took me about 45 mintues and hubby had a great looking plate of goodies to bring to his party!

I forgot to take pictures until AFTER I wrapped them in Saran wrap and I was not about to undo that annoying process.  So please ignore the saran glare!

Christmas 2012 Awesome Stuff I Made!

 One of my most favorite parts of the holiday season is the opportunities of creating stuff...baking, gifts, ornaments, decor...all sort of fun stuff!

First up...my tree.  Because I have kids and kids come with stuff...I had to trade in my big fat tree for one o those tall skinny ones.  I wasn't sure how I was going to decorate it without it looking VERY clustered.  I have waaay too many ornaments.  Well I finally decided to take inspiration from my woodsy looking star tree topper.  That next week my family and I travel to eastern Iowa for Thanksgiving.  The best thing about travel to the tiny town of Tipton, IA is the AWESOME cute little shops they have lining their main street.  So the day after Thanksgiving...when everyone was watching the big game...I sneaked away to go to the "grocery store".  I am pretty sure my husband knew better.  I hit up Daisy's On The Square.  It was an amazing 30 minutes just wondering around and taking it all in.  I ended up leaving with this really petite grapevine garland....I was REALLY hoping I could make it work on my tree back at home.  I also picked up the adorable grapevine cone tree you can see on the table in one of the pictures below.

 

The grapevine worked great!  I was so pleased with how it looked on the tree once I got it home!  I continued the woodsy look by tucking in some long pine cones that I had collected in winters past. I also found some cute red berry floral picks and stuck those in all over.

I also took inspiration from this burlap tree skirt tutorial over at Done Over Decor.  It came it out really cute and was pretty easy.

 

My next holiday craft was an advent calendar.  There are so so so many options of DIY advent calendars it was hard choosing what I wanted.  I pursued one of the local craft stores here in town for further inspiration.

I found these tiny vinyl numbers from 1 to 30 and my mind just took it from there....I knew I wanted those little favor tins you see with the wedding supplies, but I couldn't find those until I stopped at Hobby Lobby later.  I grabbed a piece of fiber board, a small stack of Christmas paper, and those vinyl numbers and headed out of the store.

I got the tins, spray painted the board, and used my Fiskars scalloped circle punch and cut out all different circles from the Christmas paper stack.  I put the number on the lids of the tins.  Once the board was dry I used epoxy to glue the bottoms of the tins to the board.  and then used simple craft glue to glue the paper inside each tin.  I drilled two holes at the top of the board and strung some ribbon through it.

This year I had Rolos and pretzels in the tins so that my 3 year old had something to each day she checked.  In later years I may get adventurous and make out those cute little activities slips for each day.  There are so many neat possibilities for this!

Baking, Baking, and MORE BAKING!!!!  I loved these cute little ginger bread trees decorated in white royal icing...they were AMAZING with my morning coffee!

 And because my three year old Hayden has been very obsessed with gingerbread men this year...we made several of them too!

 My three year old and I made these Christmas Cheer shakers for all her aunts and grandmas.  I picked up salt & pepper shakers at the Dollar tree (2/$1).  And all sorts of random little Christmas tid-bits at Hobby Lobby and she had a blast filling them!  Again I am not sure where the credit goes for these, my husband's grandmother had recieved one as a gift several years ago and I stole the idea!

 

Here are the finished shakers...I printed the tags and spiced them up with a piece of burlap and a jingle bell...and attached wire for hanging.  The tag reads:  

"At this time when we
feel most blessed,
Holidays can make us
feel real stressed.
When the "bah humbugs"
start coming near,
Just shake yourself up
some Christmas cheer!! "

(Sprinkle on others as needed)

 And as gifts for all my Wino friends I made these adorable Cork Reindeer....There are so many versions of these online I am not sure exactly where I saw it first.  They came out super cute!