Home Quote Plaques... that hold recipes!

This was by far my favorite craft from last year, the preparation was insane and daunting- but the outcome was so rewarding. The hardest part was making it fit my budget, and where budget needs to be adhered to, it means a lot more work.

So, first you have to either purchase wooden plaques or- if money is tight, purchase a few 1x6's, cut them into 4 inch length's and then miter the edges, then paint them. Like I said- saving money will take a lot of energy and time... and a good friend with the required tools and her willing father. Many thanks to Bethany!

The next bit was simpler... I found some Grafix paper online- basically allowing to print my own rub-onz. I came up with some designs and sayings with the wonderful help of my steering team and printed them all- in reverse according to the package instructions,then all we needed were hot glue guns, and clothes-pins.

The clothes-pins are attached (upside-down) to the back to both help it stand up, and to hold either a photo or a recipe card. The hot glue serves to attach the clothespins and are used to make little bead on the base of the plaque to get it to tip back and rest on the clothespins. Have fun and enjoy!

Family Christmas Ornaments

These lovely Gems are done using transparencies! you can get them in a nice ink-jet printer friendly format to make it easy :)
print the photos, cut to the correct size circle- making sure to leave a little tab at top to keep it from spinning upside down, wrap transparency circle around a pencil and slide into glass bulb, remove pencil and watch the photo uncurl :) add a pinch of snow-glitter for a nice effect then, re-attach ornament top. Add a pretty bow and hanger and you are set :)

Necklace from 2009-2010

A friend of mine who makes lovely jewelry taught me how to make this necklace. I got just about all the bits and pieces from e-bay!
you take a stone donut, and some wire, wrap the wire around and around, keeping it slightly loose. Then twist the wire at the starting point to create a loop to attach to the chain... the fun part: use a pair of needle nosed pliers to gently twist the loose wrapped wire to make curlycue's! so pretty and lots of fun :)
This was our first crafts and one of my favorites :)

Bright Idea

Hello :)
I am the creative activities coordinator for our Day MOPS group at Lighthouse Christian Center. Basically I plan and arrange crafts for the moms who hang out with us. I plan on using this blog to share ideas and photos of our crafts- I am in contact with several other crafty gals who do what I do and hope that this is a great way to connect ideas and share great places to buy supplies!
I hope you enjoy the ideas that get posted.
~Tonia