St. Patty's Day Banner

This weekend I decided to make a St. Patty's Day Banner to spice up my house for the next little "holiday". 

I do have a Cricut, so it made this little project a little simpler than if I didn't. But you don't have to use the same shapes that I did, play around with it and make it fun. If you don't have a Cricut or some sort of cutting machine, just use scissors or your handy dandy paper cutter.

 I started out with this cute flag design, it ended up being 3"x4". Then the squares I used were 2.5"x2.5". The letters were in Celtic Hand fond and 2" tall. 

 Glue (with a glue stick or with glue dots, whatever you prefer) your letters to the green squares...

 It will look like this...

 Then glue your green squares to your cute patterned paper, but make sure you leave a little extra room at the top for some holes...

 Use whatever tool you have to punch 2 holes at the top of the flags, just enough to stick some string through (I think I went in a half inch and down just a quarter inch).

Then, string all of your pieces, and hang on a mantle, wall or anywhere else you'd like to have spiffed up for St. Patty's Day. 

 This was a super easy craft and only took 1 hour to do. The patterned paper is by Echo Park, but check out your local paper store to see what other cute papers they have (I do recommend cardstock over regular paper). Please follow us on Facebook and upload your pictures so that we can all see your creativeness!! You can also leave us a link to your web pages in the comments below. We would love to hear from all of our blogging friends!

A Quick and Easy Valentines Placemat

I don't know if I have shown these to you, but I will show them again, because I love them!

These are my super simple placemats that I made last year for my family. 

All it took was 1- 12x12 paper (polka dots)

1/2 of an 8.5x11 paper (pink, cut in half lengthwise) 

a cute cut out of a design (blue)

and a cut out heart (red)

I cut my 12x12 paper to 11x12 and then glued the pink that was 4.25x11 with a small overlap to the 11x12 paper. 

Then take your cut out and position it where ever looks to you, and then glue the heart on top of that.

 It is really simple!! 

Then I took them to my local copy store and had them laminate them with the heaviest lamination that they have. 

Cut them out and they are ready to use!! 

We always do fondue on Valentine's. 

First it's the yummy cheese then we do chocolate for dessert. 

 **JUST A NOTE** You can also make these for any holiday, party, or season. They are super easy and cheap to make!!

Easy Valentine's Wreath

I was looking through my Martha Stewart Magazine last week and saw this cute wreath they had made out of really cute flowers and they were made with tissue paper! I wasn't sure if I had the patience to make the ENTIRE wreath out of flowers, but I could try a few. So, I followed the instructions....some what. I didn't know what a pom-pom kit was, so, I decided to make my own. I took some pink and red tissue paper and cut it into 6"x6", and 4"x4" squares and layered them 4-6 pieces per flower and accordian folded them (like the fans you would make in grade school). Then I took a piece of floral wire about 6 inches long and wrapped it around the paper and twist and the bottom 4 or 5 times. Then trim the ends in a semi-circle. Like this...

 Then, you open up the fans a little (this is a top view)

 Then layer by layer, pull gently up to the middle of the flower. Like this...

 This is what it will look like when you have done both sides! Cute huh?!

 Then I took an old grapevine wreath I had laying around,

 And attached the flowers to it with the extra wire hanging from the back. Pretty simple and cheap. I didn't have to buy anything, but I think I picked up the tissue at Dollar Tree, and the wreath is from Michael's. This was super fun to learn how to do and it turned out pretty cute too!!

Magnet Menu Board

OK, so 2 posts ago I had found this really cute menu planner from my favorite paper store. Well, I had this magnet board that just sat in my kitchen that I have done NOTHING with for the last 2 years. *LIGHT BULB* So, I totally thought that this would be the perfect thing to make my menu planner out of.  Then I just rummaged through all of my scrapbook paper and got to work.

 Then I made dinner tags on the printer in a cute font and glued them to another co-ordinating paper and then I used those magnets that come attached to your phone books (you know the ones I'm talking about, the ones that you never use for the mortuary or the plumbers) I cut those into strips and glued them to the back too.

 Then I made a little pocket for the extra meal magnets to go into. And then I used my Cricut to cut out the days of the week (the other one had the magnets as the days of the week in a bottle cap, but I didn't have any of those). Then, the only thing I actually had to purchase was the Post-It notes for the shopping list. 

I made this totally free with the stuff I had on hand. I LOVE it when I can make things and not have to go buy them (not to mention my hubby does too :0)