Crochet Chain Wreath

I saw today's ornament and had to make it. Right Now!!!

There was just something irresistible about it. Cuteness? Simplicity? Crochet?

All three, please!

You can find out how to make your own little Crochet Wreath at Tangled Happy. Super easy to follow directions with great photos!

Our oldest son recently told me he'd like to learn how to crochet something. I think this will be the perfect first project for him!

I can see me making up a LOT of these. I've got a bunch of random green yarn to use up, but I'm also seeing little white wreaths with blue ribbon? Adorable!!!

Go Big Red!

Maybe you know...maybe you don't...but I'm a Nebraskan.

Born and Bred and Corn Fed

And I'm PROUD! 

Through my life:

I've been asked by someone from California, "Do you, like, still have trouble with Indians?" 

I've been asked by someone from Florida, "Do you have to go to a well to get water?"

I've been asked by someone from Oklahoma (ummmm...only separated from us by Kansas), "Do you have cows? Do you ride a horse to school?"

My answers have varied:

"Do you know what year it is?"

"Do you have this thing called "education" in your state?"

"Are you freaking kidding me??? You're from Oklahoma! You're in the same boat we are!!!"

Anyway...I love Nebraska. We're in the middle...that means we're not too crazy. Lots of space. Lots of clean air. Lots of blue sky! Not too far of a drive to see fields of green, orchards, berry farms. People are friendly here and helpful. It's right on the sign, "The Good Life"!

Maybe you know...maybe you don't...but Nebraska has this little football team.

They're called the Huskers!

If you follow college football, you've probably heard about them. 

I'm not a big football fan. I was in the marching band...so I know that the game is just the Half-Time pre-show! However, I can't help but get swept up by, what I like to call The Red Zone.

This week they lost (Big Time) to the Wisconsin Badgers. Maybe you heard my husband hollering? Sobbing? With all that raw emotion...I thought we needed some Husker Cheering in our house. This is what I came up with:

The inspiration came from Pinterest (pinspiration!) When I saw THIS.

Source: sheskindacrafty.blogspot.com via Amy on Pinterest

I unleashed my Knock Off Powers and grabbed some ribbon. First, I tried pinning the ribbon rolls to the wreath, but they went all crooked on me. So I got out my glue gun and made a zillion little rolls from the ribbon and then glued them into place. I used my Silhouette machine to cut out the glitter & black "N", but I couldn't get the white background right, so I hand cut it.

I'm pretty excited with how it turned out! And, win or lose, we love our Huskers!!!

Check out these FABULOUS parties we're Linking up To

Erin-Go-Wreath

When Louie was a baby, I bought him a CD called Sunday School Favorites.

We LOVE it!

But our favorite song...and one we sing ALL the time goes like this...

May the road rise to meet you,

And the wind be at your back.

And the Lord hold you always

In the hollow of his hand!

It's called the Irish Blessing Song and I just wanted to share it with you all!

Now. I'm. Ready. To. Take. A. Giant. Leap.

I've got a really ugly front door. So ugly it could win an ugly door contest.

But I made this really cute Irish-y wreath that I want to share.

So, I think I'm ready to share our ugly front door with the world.

Promise not to laugh. Or gag.

I know, right! And this is from the inside...the outside is worse!

But the wreath is cute!

Wanna know what I did?

I started with a Dollar Tree wreath form.The guy at our Dollar Tree must think I'm nuts. In the last few weeks I've bought five of these. Anyway...cut out about 10 Zillion circles from felt in the colors you want. And grab your straight pin box. Really...are there any sort of pins that aren't straight? Curly pins? Zig zag pins? Just curious...

Grab a circle and then fold it in half. Now fold it in half again. It will look like a little green (or whatever color) pie wedge. Then spear the tip of your new felt pie with a pin. Like this.

Only make sure you get a manicure first! SORRY! Then stab the pin into your wreath form.

Now repeat this process 10 Zillion more times...filling up the wreath!

And...Taaa Daaa!

A pretty wreath on a nasty door!

I promise to paint my UFD (ugly front door) this summer and I'll try to do something with those horrible diamond windows. Buying a new door would probably be the easiest route to go...but I'm cheap  all about reduce, re-use, recycle! Plus the word shimmy kind of bugs me.

St. Patrick's Day Wreath

Well...we're dealing with a Croupy Kat over here. Not fun. It makes me so sad when the kids are sick, and I just want to magically transfer whatever aches and pains they have to me. I'm thankful that we've really got some pretty hearty kids. Other than a few here and there's the munchkins are pretty healthy (knock on wood!). It's kind of funny, though, whenever I hear the word "croup" I immediately think of Anne of Green Gables and how she saved Minnie May Barry...ANYWAY!

So the last few days I've been doing a lot of snuggling and rocking with my Girlie. But not much craftin'. She's sleeping peacefully now, though, so I cranked this out!

Isn't it a wonderfully horrid photo of a terribly lopsided wreath?!?!

And I had such high hopes. Pooh.

As you can see...I wrapped up a foam wreath with some yarn that I inherited from my MIL. It's the variegated yarn I used to make some of my pom poms. Crazy how the wreath turned out striped! Then I made these little green rosettes out of scrap felt. I followed the directions from Our Seven Dwarfs. I also proceeded to hot glue burn my fingerprints off my thumbs. Good times. Then I hot glued (cursing all the way) the rosettes into shamrock shapes. Not noticing that they weren't exactly even. Double Pooh.

But...it IS bright and cheerful looking!

Valentine's Day Wreath

I've been spending a lot of my time reading other blogs and gathering Valentine crafty ideas. Now I need to start DOING!

My first official craft was this cute little wreath I found here at Trendy Pockets. I love the poofiness of it! Mine didn't end up so poofy. In fact, when I first finished, I wasn't sure I even liked mine. But it's grown on me!

So you want to start with a styrofoam wreath form. Mine was white to begin with, but if your's is green, you'll want to paint it white, pink or red. Then you'll need some loofas! I had a new white and pink one in the cabinet waiting to be used. Find the part where it's cinched in the center and snip the cord holding it all together. You will then have loofa guts spilling out on your table!

I think mine didn't end up as poofy, because my loofas were tiny to begin with. I was also surprised that the "pink" one was really a combination of pink and white. OH WELL!

I started with the white "material" and hot glued the of one of my loofa entrails to my wreath. I then just loosely wraped it around and around, hot glueing the ends and then glueing the next piece of material right on top. I fluffed as I went.

I had gone on a Valentine Hunt at the Dollar Tree and found the exact same heart picks as the original poster! My life is so exciting!!! So I snapped off the stick part and hot glued the hearts on top of the loofa poof(a).  I saved the pretty cording that the loofa came with and glued it onto the back to use as a hanger for my new wreath!

What do you think?

It does need more poof. But I like it a little bit more every day!