Spring Dream Catcher Wreath

While in Utah on spring break, my cousin was scrolling through Pinterest on my phone, looking for a cute way to decorate her door for spring. While scrolling, she came across this pin of a dream catcher wreath.

We both admired how cute it was and Becca told me she was going to pin it for me, kind of as a joke in a you-should-make-this-but-we-both-know-you-probably-never-will type of way.

Little did she know, I LOVE dream catchers...and most things Native American really. And with this feminine look I had my heart set on one of my own. Plus, I knew I already had most of the materials at home.

When I got home I looked up a couple more dream catcher wreaths like this one:

And decided to wing it making my own with what I had. So here's my outline of making a dream catcher wreath:

First of all you need a wreath -I happened to have this one I had purchased last year at the dollar store, for a project such as this - and some twine or string. I picked my most frayed twine for the shabby-chic type of look.

Note: If you want the wreath a pretty color like the top example, make sure you spray paint it and let it dry first. I wanted it the pretty blue in the example, but I didn't have any cute colors of spray paint and I wasn't willing to wait to go out and buy any. I just went with what I had.

Having made a dream catcher in 5th grade, I knew the basics of how to weave the rope, but I looked up this tutorial online and followed it until I got the hang of it again on my own.

It really isn't hard, don't be intimidated, just make sure, after the initial loops, that you pull the strings tight.

Also, don't forget to plan ahead where you want your beads, because you can't go back and place them without undoing what you've already done. I raided my daughter's beads for the colors that I wanted.

It only took about fifteen minutes to finish stringing the dream catcher. I finished the middle by just pulling the twine across, rather than using a middle piece like in the tutorial, or leaving a small hole as I read in other examples. Just make it look however you like!










Once I had the actual dream catcher made, it was onto sprucing it up. I dug out all my fake flowers and cut up the ones I wanted and arranged them on the side. Then I used my hot glue gun to attach them.

My hot glue melted some of the flowers and made them wither, so I had to make sure to only put it on the firmer stems of those ones. I would just test how any of your flowers react before you slather hot glue on them and they are ruined.

Once my flowers were fastened, I dug out my burlap and old ribbon scraps that I keep in my crafting supplies.

After digging through and finding what I liked, I roughed up a bow of burlap to make it slightly frayed, and glued it on the bottom. (I love the cute little bow on the first example, but decided I wanted my bow to hang long like feathers usually do off of dream catchers.) After attaching the burlap, I made a bow out of a sheer pink ribbon, and glued that on top of the burlap.

Then whala! My wreath was all prettied up and finished!

See, easy! And really, it looks much better in person than in these pictures. I really love it. It's so springy and sweet. And now hopefully all the evil will be kept out of our house and we'll only have sweet dreams.

Craftiness:A Golden Birthday Banner

This post has been a long time comin', but since I'm really not very crafty and I'm really not very good at documenting what I do, I've been putting it off.

However, I did want to write about the birthday banner I made for my daughter's sixth birthday because I was a little impressed with my ingenuity of using cheap finds and supplies I already had.

Here are the supplies I used:

Plain white computer paper
Gold glitter glue from the dollar store
some gold sparkly scrapbook paper
Gold table doilies found in the wedding section at walmart
Gold ribbon.

And here's what I did:

First I printed off the letters for Happy Birthday on paper and then cut them out holding the gold scrapbook paper behind them so the letters would come out in the gold.

Once all my letters were cut out I took the table doilies, laid them out on the plain white paper and then used the glitter glue on the edges of the doilies to glue them onto the paper.

The paper wasn't quite big enough for the whole circle, but I decided to just make that the top of my circles where I would string the ribbon through. I let the glue dry overnight and then cut the circles out just outside the gold glue.

After cutting out the circles I glued the letters on.

Then I took a hole punch and punched two holes in the top and threaded ribbon through each of the circles. I didn't take pictures of this, but I will say because I used regular paper and not cardstock, this part was difficult because I had to make sure not to rip or bend the circles too much as I threaded the ribbon through. The doilies glued to the paper reinforced it enough for the banner, but it was still a bit touchy during the ribbon threading.

But I loved the finished product!

The banner was a lot bigger than I expected!

I also hung up white balloons with lots of curling gold ribbon hanging down at the ends of the banner, and looked really good, but I didn't get a picture of it. Just imagine some more of the balloons in the picture below, at the ends.

It set the tone perfectly for my girl's golden birthday party.

I've already used the banner again for my mom's birthday and a relief society birthday dinner. It's easy to store because I just stack the circles on top of each other when I'm done. And it only cost around six dollars to make.

So that's about as crafty as I've been lately, making a simple birthday banner. It's not super fancy, but the price was right and it worked perfect for me.

Hair Storage Craft

It's been hard to be crafty when all of my supplies are boxed up in a storage unit. But each Christmas I usually like to try to go with more handmade gifts because they are fun for me, I feel more in the spirit of the holidays, and the gifts mean more to me (and hopefully to who I am giving them to). Since all of my stuff was boxed up this year, I only really made one gift, and it was for my sister Kayleen.

Kayleen's hair stuff was all over the place and my mom kept talking about needing to figure out a better way to store all her headbands and bows. Having seen many, many, many pinterest ideas on just the subject, I decided to undertake that task as my gift.

I searched and pinned multiple ways to create a hairbow board and headband container and then kind of winged it on my own, combining different processes. Then I went to Goodwill for a cheap frame, and then to the dollar store and Walmart for the rest of my crafting supplies. I did spend a little more than I wanted, but that's because I had to buy all new supplies instead of just using what I already have in storage - like modpodge, paint, brushes, and such.

I took the frame from Goodwill and painted it a dark gray/blackish color.

I also took a candle stick holder from the dollar store and painted it the same color as well.

It took several coats and days for the glass to look half decent. It still wasn't high quality, but it looked just fine for the purpose of just sitting on a shelf.

Unfortunately, after this point I forgot to keep taking pictures. I was actually rushing to get the project done since I had to do it when Kayleen was at school and I was constantly running out of time. So, I don't have pictures of washing out an oatmeal container and modepodging scrapbook paper around it, or gluing the container to the candlestick holder, but you'll see the end result.

I also modgepodged scrapbook paper to a piece of cardboard that came with the frame.

Once it was dry, I was reading to add the ribbon. At first I tried to use a staple gun to attach the ribbon to the frame, but it was too strong and the frame started cracking. My brother smartly suggested I use a regular stapler instead, and despite my protests that it wouldn't be able to go into the wood, it worked perfectly.

After the ribbon was stapled on, I put the back on and it was ready for bows!

I also took two smaller frames from the dollar store, hot glued ribbon and used some coordinating paper as the background to go with the big one.  I used Kayleen's favorite color of turquoise, and my favorites of green and pink, for the project, and I found a cute little container that matched to work for small clips and bobby pins.

With a couple new bows, I boxed it all up and Kayleen was able to open it on Christmas. I should have taken a picture of the before, but I was forgetful. I also should have taken a picture of what everything looked like before we added all of Kayleen's hairstuff, but you just get it after it's all set up.

Though you'll have to take my word for it, it all looks WAY better than before. And her hair stuff actually fit on the shelf. Before it was falling all over the place. I loved how it turned out.

Someday I'll have to do it for all of Lydia's stuff as well. I sure loved working with the fun colors and I always feel so accomplished when I make something nice for others, even if the quality is amateur at best.

Jewelry Organized

I love jewelry. Lots and lots of jewelry. Actually I love any accessory. I think it's because it's one size fits all and can spruce up the drabbest of outfits. Needless to say, I have accumulated plenty of jewelry throughout the years and due to the volume, I have felt overwhelmed with what to do with all. Especially unpacking after Christmas vacation and facing the daunting task of putting it all away.

So instead, I practiced the good old avoidance method and my dresser looked like this:

For the past month. It's been driving me crazy!! Jewelry was everywhere. I knew I needed to do something about it and I hated how all my necklaces kept getting all tangled together in their drawer.

Not to mention they didn't fit anymore so I had stopped putting them in there anyway. Well after going crazy for so long, I decided to finally undertake a project I had pinned on Pinterest over a year ago found here.

If you look on Pinterest there are SO many different ways to make jewelry organizers but I knew I had this beauty:

I found it ages ago at DI for twenty-five cents, so I went ahead and made my own version of the above project.

I went and picked out some scrapbook paper, cut it to shape, and mod-podged it to the wood.

I kept the pink border because I liked it :)

After everything dried, I took some metal hooks out of our tool set and screwed them in the middle.

Next, I hung it on the wall and did one of the funnest things in the entire world: organized my jewelry! It's amazing what you rediscover when you go through your jewelry box - lots of memories, and hidden treasures. The end result turned out like this:

Ah, so nice and clean! I actually enjoy going into my room now and I don't feel stressed when it's time to get ready. I love how it turned out! I think Brigham was tired of the mess too because he keeps commenting on how nice it is.

It was seriously easy and fast! And now I have a perfect excuse to get MORE jewelry (as if I need one). Now I just need a solution for my numerous pairs of earrings. All the organizers that include earrings make you have to hang them up with a back, and knowing how lazy I am, that just won't happen. When I'm in a trying on several pairs at a time trying to find what looks best with an outfit, it's too much work for me to hang them up and put the back on over and over again. Realistically, I know I would throw them on my dresser in a rush rather than take the time to hang them up. And yet, I hate throwing them all in a drawer together because they don't keep as well. Maybe I shouldn't be so lazy because something like this would be really cool:

But alas, I know I would end up throwing all my earrings on my dresser in a big pile all the time until I made myself hang them back up on clean house day...and then they would start piling up again until the next clean house day. Maybe a big magnetic board that they can just stick to? Do they have those? Hmmm, I will have to research.

But there you have it folks, I finally got my craftiness back on!

Kid Craft Day: Magic Tape Letters

Because we've moved and had a lot going on lately, I've been sadly lacking in the craftiness department. I still haven't gotten all my groove back, but I recently decided to do a fun little project with the kiddos. I've seen a few variations of this project on Pinterest and decided to give it a go.

First step is to take some clear tape and use it on a piece of blank paper to make a design, letters, or whatever you want.

Then you take the paper and color ALL over it.

Ammon did surprisingly good. I thought he would only try to eat the crayons but he actually made a few scribbles on his paper...

And then he did end up having a bit of a snack.

Lydia, colored like a champ even though I had to convince her to not color ONLY on the tape but around it as well, and to use colors besides black and brown (I'm not sure why she was drawn to such drab colors that day).

Jeez, Mom. You're always telling me to color IN the lines and now I'm supposed to scribble all over?!

This is what our papers looked like after taping and coloring:

Can you guess who's is who's and what will magically appear?

Whala, the mystery is solved!

Lydia really enjoyed this project.

I mean, REALLY enjoyed it.

Oh, that picture makes me smile every time I look at it.

Ammon liked our project until I took his snack crayons away.

Then he just got sad and angry.

And then even sadder and angrier.

Oh, that picture makes me laugh every time I look at it. How dare I ignore him to try and get a good picture!

And that's my latest crafting adventure. The taping of so many letters on the paper actually was a little tedious and took me about twenty minutes to do, while the coloring also lasted about twenty minutes. A nice, neat, free, forty-minute project that we all enjoyed. Well mostly. I definitely recommend this for a rainy day in to entertain the little ones with magically appearing designs.

If you would like to view the original masterpieces they are currently on display at the Tappana Household in exhibit: Side Of Fridge. For hours and rates contact katappana@gmail.com :)

Baby Ties

Some of my most favorite things are baby boy church clothes. Nothing like a little man all dressed up in his big boy church suit. So, of course I've set out to make sure my little Ammon is set in that department. Only problem is those tiny itty-bitty clothes are so dang expensive! So I've set out to find alternative routes to get what I want!

Luckily, I found a a great website that taught me how to make little boy ties! And for Christmas I made five for Ammon and five for my nephew soon to be born.

I am so impressed with these ties because, they take a small amount of fabric, are easy to make, allow room for sewing error, and are adorable. You also can tie them so they are longer or shorter and grow with your baby. I made them out of cotton, which is great because now when Ammon drools or spits up or spills on them I can just throw them in the wash. Score!

Thanks to this project I also discovered my sewing machine has a button-hole maker, which I never even knew existed! I was so impressed and that just shows you what a juvenile sewer I am. Apparently sewing machines usually always have a button-hole setting and I am just clueless to what half of the things on my machine mean. Too bad I lost the instruction manual somewhere.

You could always skip the buttons and just sew on Velcro instead, but I like how buttons look and my smart friend Brittany pointed out the baby boys wouldn't be able to pull off the tie if it were buttoned. Considering how Ammon loves to rip his bibs off, I figured it was the way to go.

He's already had a chance to wear three different colors of his five new ties and I love how they look! I don't know what it is about a boy in a tie, but I'm a fan of all ages :)

Cheap Baby Leggings

Baby leggings are adorable and convenient. Especially when you have a baby who is short on outfits and has a bunch of shorts that are unusable because it's winter time. The only problem is that one pair is so darn expensive!

So thanks to this site, I was able to come up with some homemade leggings on my own.

Browsing through the dollar store, I noticed some socks that were supposed to be knee highs and so I picked up four pairs of them.







However, when I got home I found out that only one of the pairs were legitimate knee highs. The rest were deceptively - well not. They looked more like this:

Longer, and yet not knee length. Despite that, I didn't want three of my four dollars to go to waste and decided to try them out as leggings anyways.

So taking a pair, I snipped off the ends...

Flipped them inside out, took some needle and thread, and hemmed them by hand...

I wish I could fit the socks around my sewing machine without stretching them out so I could zig-zag the ends down so they don't fray or curl up, but this works well enough.

Flipping them right-side-out and they look like this:

I was skeptical because they didn't look very much like baby leggings - more like socks with the toes cut off. But when I put them on my baby boy they looked like this:

Perfect baby leggings! They look just fine and they've created a bunch of new outfits for him while keeping him warm at the same time.

As long as I turn the heel of the sock to the back of the leg, you can't tell it's there at all! They just look a little bunched up.

They've lasted after being washed and Ammon's crawled all over in them and they stay on and are working wonderfully. They look mighty cute as well :)

So for four dollars I made four pairs of legging! That's a great deal!

For the knee-high socks, I cut them off right at the heel and they actually ended up shorter than the other pairs. It ends up the other three pairs work out better in the end. So if you're in the market for baby leggings and you're looking for a great deal - try the dollar store!