JOY

One of my favorite Christmas phrases - JOY. It's the true definition of Christmas - pure and complete JOY. Joy to watch your children's faces Christmas morning. Joy to spend time together opening gifts, eating lots of food and listening to Christmas music. Joy watching your favorite Christmas movies together. Joy knowing that the real meaning of Christmas is Jesus Christ and celebrating his birth. What a blessing JOY can be.

Jill found this really cool font and downloaded it and then made some JOY vinyl letters for me. I painted some blocks red, Santa Red - Americana brand.


Added my vinyl letters and tied a little white sheer ribbon around the whole block. See how wonderful they turned out. Pure JOY!!



Okay, I think that's my last Christmas project to show you for now, but I'm sure they'll be more later - of course.





Handmade Holiday at Just a Girl

Let it Snow!!!

Okay, we woke up to more snow this morning - a lot more snow. They boys immediately wanted to go outside and play in it. So they did, but just for a few minutes because we still had to get ready for school.


Notice how the trees in the background are just covered with that wet heavy snow. I think it may have broken one of the branches on our trees in the back yard too.

Anyway, nothing like a little snow to put you in the crafting mood for a little snow decor. I found a similar idea here but I found a square plate at Kohl's and a round plate at Ross and then added some vinyl I got from Jill and look how cute they turned out.



Oh Happy Day!!

Maple Tree Final Update

Exactly two weeks ago my Red Leaf Maple tree looked like this.


Last week my tree looked like this. Isn't it just gorgeous?


And today, it looks like this.


Can you believe those beautiful red leaves are all gone now until next year. I'm glad I didn't wait to capture a photo of those beautiful leaves before the big gusty wind came along and blew them all away.

Well at least it's not winter quite yet - even though we are supposed to get some more snow tonight.

HAPPY FALL!

Believe

Okay, winter is on its way and so is Christmas - I know I can't believe it either. This year has just flown by.

Yesterday morning after hearing the wind howl through the night and the rain come down, we woke up to this. (Sorry for the horrible pictures it was 7:00 a.m. and the sun wasn't up yet.)



Luckily it didn't stick around much after the sun came up. But doesn't that just put you in the mood for a little Christmas cheer? Time to start thinking about some gift ideas.

I found this cute Believe idea here and thought I would try to recreate it. I started out with these materials.


I painted my piece of wood Americana Buttermilk as well as the dowel.


Sanded down the edges and then added my vinyl I ordered from Jill over at www.utahvinyl.com Doesn't she do a great job? I just love that "B".


I painted my star yellow then I just hot glued the two together. I snapped my dowel in half so it wouldn't be so tall.


Added some stain to the wood block and a little on the star too. I drilled a hole in the top of the block that would be large enough for the wooden dowel as you can see here.


I just added a little hot glue in the hole and put the dowel in and there ya go.


One of my son's favorite Christmas shows is The Polar Express and we all love the Josh Groban song "Believe". Some of the lyrics from his song:

When it seems that we have lost our way...
We find ourselves again on Christmas Day.
Believe in what your heart is saying,
Hear the melody that's playing
There's no time to waste,
There so much to celebrate.
Believe in what you feel inside,
And give your dreams the wings to fly.
You have everything you need, if you just Believe.

What a great reminder that all we have to do is Believe!

Vampire Suckers

Saturday is my son's birthday party and I was trying to find a cute Halloween craft the kids could make and take home. I came across this cute idea of a vampire sucker here.

You start out with these supplies.


I bought all these supplies at Walmart
Red Cellophane (In the basket section $3.00)
Wiggly Eyes ($.97)
Black Felt ($.25 each)
Twist Tie (free)
Address Labels (Had some)
Suckers ($1.97 each)

First cut out the template.


Then cut out your black felt.


Cut out a square of the red cellophane - enough to cover the sucker. I just eyeballed it.


Wrap your sucker with the cellophane, add the cape on the back then secure with the twist tie in the narrowest part of the cape like this.


Add your wiggly eyes with some glue dots. Cut two small triangles out of your address label and stick them on for fangs. There ya go. Cute vampire sucker.


Then go ahead and make a whole family of vampires.


Happy Sucker Decorating!

A Shady Update

Many, many moons ago we bought some lamps for our living room since it has no built in lighting. It was a set of three lamps, two table top ones and one floor lamp. So these are about 9 years old now and I haven't updated them at all. One of the shades suffered a minor incident when it was knocked over and cracked the plastic inside liner of the shade. Here is what they look like today.


The third lamp is up in my bedroom. One reason we bought these lamps is because of the 3-way lighting option, which we love. So I've been wanting to update the shades for some time now. I finally found some inexpensive shades at Ross for $8.00 a piece and added those.


So I think they'll work for now. They are a neutral tan color that go with everything. But mostly I like the square shape to them.


So it's not a major change to this room, but a little one.


And I'm liking it. I'm wondering if my hubby will even notice - I'm thinking it may take a few days.

There's nothing like a little change for a whole new look.

Happy Wednesday!

Red Leaf Maple Update

Okay, so last week I showed you some pictures of my yard, including the beautiful flowers that are in full bloom again and my Red Leaf Maple that was starting to change. See how pretty it was last week with the green and hints of red.


Now only one week later look what a beauty she is.


Oh Man, I love fall!

Beneath My Heart Giveaway to Lowe's!!

Traci over at Beneath My Heart is giving away a $75 gift card to Lowe's. Go on over and check it out here. Who couldn't use $75 a Lowe's.

I'm thinking I would love to use that money to put towards a new sink.

Good luck.

BOO Blocks

I had some BOO letters so decided to make some blocks with them. So I painted my three blocks black.


Added some cute Halloween scrapbook paper I found at Hobby Lobby with a bit of Mod Podge.


Sanded down the edges and then added another coat of Mod Podge to seal it all.



The letters I bought at Michael's for $1.50 each. I painted them black and then decided to add a little shine to them. I used my Versa Mark ink pad and stamped the front side of the letter.


Then while it was still wet, I added some iridescent embossing powder.


Once I had them all covered with the powder, I got out my heating tool and heated them up, you could use a blow dryer too.


You can see the one on the left has been embossed and the one on the right has not.


See the shine on those letters.


Then I just hot glued those babies on the blocks.


There ya go - another spooky Halloween craft.





Happy Crafting!!