Christmas Tag Swap

The Burton girls were at it again with a Christmas tag swap. We wanted to do the swap early enough in December that a) we would be able to put up our tags for Christmas decoration, and b) Our Sis who is currently lining in Australia would get hers in time for Christmas. I think we made it!

This year our Christmas theme was more of a color scheme. The theme was Winter Whites. Our tags were to focus on white, cream, silver, gold, and sepia.

I made a banner with the Christmas tags and strung it across my piano for the holidays. I love the look of these tags. They turned out beautiful, and look great displayed together.

A few of us have already had some great ideas for next year’s theme. I’m already excited. Thanks ladies!

-Lynnae

Halloween Tag Swap

One craft project the ladies in my family enjoy is having a tag swap. These usually involve some of my sisters, my mom and a sister in law. Having a tag swap gives us a chance to do a small manageable art project, and  it’s a fun way to stay connected to those that live far away. We don’t use the tags on gifts, just to decorate around the house.

We decide on a holiday or theme, give people a chance to join, and then set a target date for mailing the tag.

These are the tags for our Halloween 2013 tag swap. I made the one on the top left. Each of us made six tags. we keep one of our own and mail out the others to the other participants.

Aren’t they cute?

-Lynnae

Baby Shower Fun

Last time I told you I was making decorations for my friend’s baby shower, and here’s a little peek at how it turned out.

I made giant tissue paper flowers in two colors, two coffee filter balls, and used a round Chinese lantern. The white poof on top is made from coffee filters glued onto a paper-mâché ball. The light pink poof on the right is also made from coffee filters, but the I wanted bigger so I got the commercial size package at Staples, and I dyed them in food coloring. Using dye, tea, or even just water changes the consistency of the filter a little bit and I like it.

This turned out too big to go over the table so I put it in the ‘pass thru’ window by the dining room with a 3M Command hook. I love those babies! I made wire hooks on each piece like you would with an ornament, then connected longer wire and twisted it into a loop at the top. This came from an inspiration photo I saw on Pinterest, and here is a link to the original at Divine Living.

A Baby Shower Game:

This is a matching game. Prepare by writing each word on the left on two corresponding 3x5 cards, and buy the candy bars listed.

To play you will mix up the cards and lay them out on the floor or table. Going around the circle each person turns over two cards to try and get a match. If you get a match you win the candy bar that goes with that word. Then play goes to the next person. Here are the words and candy bars:

Little girls……..Sweet Tarts

Daddy…………..Big Hunk

Baby Names….Whatchamacallit

9 months………Rocky Road

Coo’s and Giggles….Snickers

Teething………..Munch

Weight Gain……Chunky

Pacifier…………..Gobstopper

Multiples………..Sixlets

Nursing………….Milk Duds

Premie……………Runts

Conception………Skor

OBGYN…………….Butterfinger

Epidural…………..Life Saver

Tax deduction…..Pay Day

Contraction………Whopper

You can’t always find all these candy bars. Try to have at least 10 so you have 20 cards on the table for your match game. Have fun!

-Lynnae

Cured by a Hot Glue Gun

January has been a little crazy, and no, I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth.

I was sick early in January, then in mid January we had crazy snowstorms, school cancellations, and an ice storm, followed by a three day power outage.

Then my husband left for a short Army Reserve training in Pennsylvania and I had big plans. I was finally going to paint my family room, get ready for my Jane Austen party, and do a bunch of other cool stuff, and low and behold, I got sick again.

I was a miserable, laying around, achy eyed, coughing kind of sick, for about a week, and did almost nothing except the basic laundry and food for my daughter, and taking her to school.

Now the fog is lifting. Laryngitis has left my voice a little raspy, but I have felt bad for so long that now I almost feel hyper. Which is good because now I have less time to do all the things I wanted to do.

I’ve spent the last two days catching up on laundry and crafting with my daughter. She wanted to try this cool art project with melted crayons that we saw on Pinterest.  She had a lot of fun and it turned out really cool.

As for me, my BFF’s daughter is expecting her first child, and I am helping out with the baby shower. I’ve been experimenting with all kinds of tissue flowers and coffee filter pom-poms. Next time I’ll post a picture of what I come up with!

-Lynnae

PS. wanna have a peek at my Pinterest Boards? Click here!

Halloween 2011

I usually don’t do as much Halloween decorating as some people in my neighborhood, but since it’s sort of the kick off to the holidays I had to do some. Pictured above is my feather wreath. I love it, it’s dark and spooky but still sort of pretty. I’ve had it for a couple years and it holds up pretty well despite the fact that the wind keeps tossing it across the porch. I added a wood trim piece onto a cheap wreath hanger and painted the whole thing black.

This is one of a pair of grape vine wreaths I made last year. I patterned them after the decorations on The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.

I also made this Happy Halloween sign last year. The banner, which is the only new thing I added this year, is a printable from Moselle that I found on Pinterest, I printed it and cut it out, and then to make it stiff cut cardboard from used cereal boxes in slightly bigger triangles, painted black and glued the letters on. The whole thing says ‘Happy Haunting’. I think it is so cute. Here’s a close-up of the printout.

-Lynnae

Living Room Corner

For a while now I’ve been working on this little corner of my living room. I had this crazy idea to paint an ugly 70’s lamp, so of course I did. My husband HATED it. Oh well. I was sad but more determined to put it front and center. I returned two shades to the store as ‘not quite right’ before my sister and I stumbled upon this one at a local Goodwill. It looks like it was made for my room. Once the lampshade came home everything else started to fall into place.

  I did try two or three ‘objects’ to set on the books, moving them from other locations in the house and nothing looked quite right. Then, while eating Thai food and thinking about the neon sign of our local Thai restaurant, with it’s mommy and baby elephant, I got the idea that what I really needed (OK, maybe not NEEDED) was a little ellie of my own. The next thing you know I come across this ceramic elephant on the clearance shelf at Michaels. Happy me.

Our Kana Poster is from our stay in Japan, and the Heywood mirrored bedside cabinet in from Pier One (there’s a similar on the other side of the piano).

How do you like it?

More Wedding Goodies

In previous pictures you may have noticed these darling ribbon rose headbands and headpieces my two younger daughters were wearing for the reception. My sister Krisi made them. She wasn’t able to travel up here for the wedding and wanted to do something nice. I just loved these and we got a lot of compliments on them.

My daughters shown here with the groom’s two sisters. 

I tried to post this next bit with the last post but wasn’t able to embed the video. But now that I’ve had a little tech support from my hubby, I give you the Electric Slide……

 

-Lynnae

P.S. That dancing was just the start of the party! Once things were going smoothly I was ready to have some fun with the ladies!

Me, my niece, and three of my sisters getting’ down!

Our Wedding Reception

We had a wedding reception for Hillary and Nicholas at Tibbet’s Creek Manor in Issaquah.Now you will see where all the hard work from my helpers came in. I am so glad I had family and friends there to help me set up, because we only had a couple hours and My mind was in a bit of a fog. I’m also glad I had written up plans for each display area or decoration. We had to go back to the house and were running late, and my family was already setting things up for me.

Remember all the sewing my sisters and I did? Well the majority of it was for the tent curtains, which looked fabulous inside and out.

And even better at night!

Hillary really wanted a chocolate fountain, and it was a big hit.

The cake was lovely too.

      Before the reception began.

One of the neat things we did was have a table of old wedding pictures from Hillary and Nick’s parents, grandparents, and great-grand parents. Hillary has a love of family history and I thought this idea would be a cool way to show that. I’ve never seen it done before. In the rush I didn’t get a clear picture of it, but this picture taken during set up will give you an idea until we get the professional pictures back.

Three of my sisters and I during the set-up. So many people worked so hard. I am full of gratitude. It was a very fun night.

-Lynnae

No Time to Craft

My head is full of plans for my daughters wedding so I haven’t had time to craft or paint (or blog much for that matter) lately. I’ve been feeling like I’m constantly behind when it comes to housework, and when I do have free time I feel too exhausted to even get out supplies.

I did put up a couple of things around the house. Do you want a peek inside?

One is the lovely tray I got at Pier One. It has a rose and a dragonfly. I won’t say I collect dragonflies, but my name ‘Lynnae’ is part of the scientific name for dragonflies, so if I see something cute with one on it I feel like it’s meant for me. This is in my kitchen over the door that goes into the dining room.

I bought these plate holders over a year ago at TaiPan Trading and they’ve just been sitting in a box. So I finally got some nails and put those up too, in the breakfast nook. The two smaller plates are also from Taipan. I do use these plates from time to time, but I like the display and will just take them down and wash and use them if I need too.

Finally, I’ve got my Fiesta ware, which I’ve wanted for years. It was a gift from my SWEET husband for Valentines Day. I had a blast picking out the colors, and they were on sale, too!

  Now I need glass front cabinets, wouldn’t you say so?

I am doing the decorating for my daughters reception. I will enlist the help of some friends and family, but I am so excited to make it a beautiful sight to add to her special day. My head is spinning with white and shades of pink,  pictures I’ve seen, flowers, and centerpieces. I have tons of ideas that I will then scale back into what’s ‘do-able’. Other things are coming together. We have the dress, the location, the photographer……but there’s still much to do.

-Lynnae

Into February

2011 is in full swing now. It usually takes me most of January to recover from the holidays. That’s why I never make New Years Resolutions. With me it’s more like a yearly ‘End of January assessment’. Once the routine gets back to normal I am able to think more clearly about how life is functioning and what would make it better. High on the the list is ‘Try to Get Enough Sleep’, and along with that, ‘More Art’. So we’ll see how it goes.

On the art front, the Burton girls are having another fun valentines swap. It’s a nice thing to do as sisters, sister in law’s, moms and daughters. Those who are too busy may bow out, those who really need it right now, like me, are in. The picture above is just a shot of the table while I was grafting. I’ve been in a bit of an art deficit, so I’m going all out with this little beauty, which is why it will probably be late! (Forgiveness- another great benefit of being in a family art swap.)

I will post a picture of the final valentine after I wait a few days for my gals to get theirs in the mail.

My Third Annual Jane Austen Day is on hold for now, because we are going out of town for midwinter break when I have had the party in the past. I will be talking wedding plans with one daughter and taking care of another who is getting her wisdom teeth out. But the Jane Austen party will happen. Our theme will be Sense and Sensibility’s 200th Anniversary. I am also thinking of a fun door prize drawing for those who come in Regency costume.

-Lynnae

Christmas Tag Swap

This year the several of the women in my family had a Christmas Tag Swap. The theme was ‘The Music of Christmas'”

I was nervous about a swap when everyone is so busy, but at the same time I loved the idea of the Christmas theme, so we dove in. We did have to be forgiving and let the deadline slip a little bit, but that’s the nice thing about swapping with family.

All of my tags were variations on one of these two vintage pictures. The back reads “Merry Christmas Darling”. I was going to go in a different direction but with my husband gone, all I could think about was Christmas couples and being together again. (As I mentioned in a previous post he was at an Army Reserve training and because my blog is public I don’t like to mention when he is gone until he is home again.)

In the swap were several sisters, my daughters, a sister-in-law, nieces and my mom. Almost as fun as getting the tags was decorating with them.

 

-Lynnae

Thrift Store Find…..Sewing Box

A week or two ago I mentioned finding something really cool at the thrift store. I finally took some pictures of it.

I’m pretty sure it’s a sewing box. I love it’s portability and it is made of wood. It is in good condition except for the knobs that are a little worn, but I wouldn’t change it. I am going to use it to hold small craft supplies for solder charms and beads. These are things I often take downstairs to work on with my sisters or Mom when she visits, so it will be handy to have them all together and portable. Plus the box looks cool!

 

Here is how it looks all opened up.

-Lynnae

Dorothy Tag Swap

I recently made some Dorothy and ‘Wizard of Oz’ inspired tags for Karla Nathan’s Dorothy tag swap. You’ve seen the button on the side of my blog. Now normally I would keep my tags a surprise, but since Karla has asked us to post pictures on Flickr I thought I could go ahead and share them with you also.

This is the tag back.

I had to scan these because the computer wasn't reading the memory card.....

My inspiration was Professor Marvel/The Wizard of Oz. The sepia toned back represents the beginning of the movie, and the front of the card represents the colorful land of Oz.

Don’t we all at some point wish we could get away, as Dorothy says, ‘behind the moon, beyond the rain’….to a place where there isn’t any trouble?

-Lynnae