Q&A's

Hello lovely followers (if anyone still even reads this)

Guess what? I did a guest post for Megan and Alyssa over at their awesome blog Sisters In Christ. :D Go check it out!

and even though my summer is going to be crazy starting tomorrow... i'm going to try to write about the experience i had at a ProLife Bootcamp i went to wednesday night- last night. it was so much fun and just all around so amazing! only problem i had was the nasty burrito's and small hours of sleep. i slept 13 hours last night. it was crazy fun! :)

so be on  the look out for that and then i'll have a Q&A post where you can ask me any questions about anything!!! :) i really hope ya'll will! oh and i went to Florida... haha forgot about that. and it's only been like two weeks. haha

Have a fantastic day!
Alyssa

Guest Post Tutorial: Spring Yarn Wreath

      Hi everyone! I'm super excited to be guest posting at Live.Love.Craft. This is my first guest post so I feel really honored that Alyssa asked me! Here's a little bit about myself. I've been blogging for a few years now mainly to keep in touch with family and friends, but just recently started up this DIY/recipes blog. I love crafting, creating, sewing (check out my Etsy shop, The Turquoise Pear), and cooking so this is the perfect outlet for me where I want to inspire and be inspired. I live in Chicago with my husband but I'm a southern girl at heart (born and raised). I'm a third grade teacher and I love what I do. All right, enough about me. Onto the good stuff! Today I will be showing you how to make a yarn wreath with felt flowers. This is a super easy project, that I recommend doing with some girlfriends, putting on a chick-flick and making a fun night of it. I myself enjoyed sitting outside in the 70 degree sunshine. A rare treat for March in Chicago.
Here's what you'll need: 1 wreath (mine has an 8" diameter)* 1 ball of yarn (You'll use about half) 1/4 yd felt in the color(s) of your choice (1/4 yard should get you about 8-12 flowers) hot glue gun/sticks *I originally made the wreath using an idea I had seen on Pinterest where you buy gray pipe insulation from Home Depot and duct tape it to make a DIY wreath. It didn't work. At least not for me. The wreath began to droop and I was slightly annoyed. Just buy a wreath from a craft store. It's only about $3-$5 more at Joann's or Michael's.
The How-To:
Start by tying a knot around the wreath. This will be your starting point. Add a dab of hot glue to hold it in place. It's best to wrap the yarn in sections using about 4-5 feet of yarn at a time. Any longer and it may get tangled and keeping it attached to the ball of yarn wasn't working well for me. How you wrap is completely up to you and your style, but I wrapped and overlapped. There was really no rhyme or reason. After you finish wrapping your yarn, keep it in place with a dot of hot glue then continue on with the next section. Continue on with this until the entire wreath is finished. This took me about 45 minutes to an hour. Again, it'd be super fun to hang out with girlfriends and chit-chat while doing this to make the time pass. Now it's time to make some cute felt flowers. You can use a DVD or CD to trace a cirle on the felt. I just cut a circle the best I could without a stencil. Start cutting the felt into a spiral. When you are almost to the center, leave a cirle about 1-2 inches wide. You'll eventually glue this onto the bottom of the wrapped flower to hold it in place. Starting where you first cut, begin twisting the fabric around itself tightly. You could add a dab of glue here and there, but if you are twisting it tight enough and supporting it with your fingers well you shouldn't need to. Why risk burning yourself with the hot glue gun anymore than you need to??? As you're spiraling your flower, give the fabric an occasional twist to add depth and texture. This is what I did. Or, you could just keep winding it up without any twists and this is what it would look like. It's just a personal preference. When you get to the end of your fabric with the circle, add some hot glue to the circle and press it against the bottom of the flower to hold is all in place. Do this for however many flowers you like. Usually an odd number of flowers look best together. Figure out an arrangement for the flowers on your wreath then hot glue them on. Finally, add a pretty ribbon and hang it on your door! I'm a neutral color girl but I also love pops of color. I chose more neutral colors for my wreath and decided that I could switch out the color of the ribbons for the different holidays and seaons of the year. I think this wreath would look gorgeous with a burnt orange ribbon for the fall. I would LOVE to see your yarn wreath if you end up doing this project. Please visit me over at Mr. and Mrs. Pear and if you like what you see, follow me. I'd love to have you tag along with me!

//Guest Post: Made in a Day//

Hi! I am Kim and I am Guest Hosting today for Alyssa here on Live Love Craft. My blog, Made in a Day, it is where I share my DIY crafty expertise with the world! I love going to thrift stores and finding unique items to decorate with and make into something totally different or just better than new again.

Today I am going to share how I made the two pics below, I bought them a year ago, and I just couldn't find a place for them and I needed to transform them into a great addition to my sea themed bedroom.

Now they weren't that bad to begin with, but I needed two pics that were pastel, shabby and more up to date. So first I removed the tiles in the center and gave the frame a nice coat of beige satin spray paint. Then I cut light green burlap with a rotary cutter to fit in the inside area of the wood frames. Then decoupage them in with Mod Podge, I did not coat the outside of the fabric, I wanted the burlap to keep its texture. Next I printed out vintage pics of shells on card stock and decoupaged them with Mod Podge onto the tiles. I did decoupage over the top of the pics as well to seal them onto the tile. Hot glue the tiles back to the center of the pic. I then took sandpaper and scuffed up the frame edges, to make them shabby chic.

These turned out really great! I love them they are a perfect addition for my bedroom.

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial! Thank you Alyssa for having me over to share!

DIY //knock off// green lace earrings tutorial

I can't wait to show you these lovely knock off lace earrings that Vanita from House of Avandan made a tutorial on! Without futher adeau: Vanita--

My name is Vanita and I am a working mother to two wonderful kids and wife to an awesome husband. We have a dog named Boots (and he hates anyone wearing boots) and live in a house full of jewelry, (literally, I have necklaces hanging from curtain rods).

As far back as I can remember I've always been attracted to the pretty things (clothes, flowers, jewelry), but never pursued that direction in college or career. Until one day, I just decided to start making jewelry. I have an etsy store and the jewelry is edgy meets pretty. House of Avandan Store

I am inspired by steam punk, nature, metals, gems, textures, and the glamorous life. My items include handcrafted necklaces, bracelets and earrings. I use a variety of materials from chains, gemstones, beads, and metal.

I started this blog to share my passion for jewelry with the rest of the world. We'll discuss trends, showcase jewelry designers and share jewelry tutorials that you can easily make.

Here is my tutorial on these pretty green lace earrings:

Designer Inspiration

My DIY

Lucifer vir Honestus Carved Imperial Jade Earrings has a price tag of $5700, although I would love a pair of these particular earrings, there would be no way for me to justify that price tag to my husband. And if you know me, when I see something I like, I can find an alternative way to make them. For my DIY earrings, I used white lace fabric, painted it and stabilized it with green fabric.

Materials:
Lace fabric
Green fabric (two pieces glued back to back for sturdiness)
Emerald green paint
Brush
Diamond template
Two gold jump rings
Two gold ear wires
Tacky glue
Fray Check
Sharp pin

Cut out diamond template.

Paint lace fabric with green paint. Let dry completely.

Using tacky glue, glue lace fabric to green fabric.

Trace template onto lace and canvas fabric.

Cut out and use fray check along the edges to prevent threads from fraying.

Pierce small hole for top part of earring.

Attach jump ring and ear wire to top of diamond shape. Repeat step for other earring.

Ta da! All done!

Smother yourself in jewels,
Vanita

//guest post// Retro Table Makeover from ReMadeSimple!

{Welcoming the lovely Kristina of ReMadeSimple! She gave a plain little table a gorgeous makeover! I'm in love. without further adieu --- here she is!}

Since the New Year, I've been having fun changing up a few painted furniture pieces in my house, turning a few things lighter from rusty reds and blacks to yellows, whites and pastels.

And, this little side table of mine was bugging me. It looked too dark and boring sitting in the corner of my living room next to a dark brown leather chair. 

So, I decided to give it a lighter, brighter revamp...

I painted the legs a pale gray, and the top the same yellow as my pie safe called "Magnolia"

by Martha Stewart. (Looks a lot like hard boiled egg, but I like it!)

I used eggshell latex paint for this (not on the chalk paint bandwagon...yet).

After the paint was dry, I decided to stencil the tops and sides for a nice pop of "Tangerine Cream" colored paint.

 I used my Nagoya Craft Stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils. 

(I had done stenciling for the first time with this stencil on a market tote bag 

and decided stenciling was fun and not scary!)

After the stencil was dry, I thought the design looked a little too bright how it was, 

so I decided sand down the top and sides with an electric sander using fine sandpaper.

Sanding the table did the trick of toning down the orange accents and added that aged look that I love to the table. I love my new brighter table-

I think it adds a fun retro feel to my previously dark corner. 

And I love the combination of stenciling and distressing-will definitely be doing this again sometime!
(And maybe I'll be trying out that chalk paint everyone's raving about too...)

I hope you enjoyed this table revamp and I'd love to see you at ReMadeSimple sometime!

Guest Post TUTORIAL: Crafty Cousins

Today I have a ton of lovely Valentines day tutorials for you! Nat and Ash are two sweet cousins who love to craft! Here they are:

First of all, let me introduce myself. My cousin Nat and I have a blog called “Crafty Cousins”. We both have private family blogs that we’ve had for years. Recently, we realized we were cluttering up our blogs with pictures of our projects instead of our cute little munchkins. We decided to join forces and start a new craft blog where we can put our projects on, and have an outlet from crazy motherhood! You can read more about us here. Thanks Alyssa for having me over today!

Being the mom of 2 little girls, who both think princess dresses and tutus are perfectly fine to wear EVERYWHERE, everyday….Valentine’s is their kind of holiday! Pink, pretty, flowers, hearts, sparklies, what more could a little girl (or a big girl) want!? We had fun the last week crafting a few decorations, and they loved showing their daddy what they’ve been making with mommy! Now, I apologize in advance. I’ve seen Alyssa’s pictures, and mine are no where near as good, so please bear with this learning rookie!

First off, we bought a flower making wreath at Hobby Lobby. I bought one that was 16 inches, but if I were doing this project again, I’d go smaller (it’d look fuller with the same amount of hearts…).

I put extra wire in the middle, like a bike spoke, so I’d have more places to hang hearts. If I had my spray paint, I probably would have sprayed the wire wreath at this point…Silver, white, red, or pink maybe.

Then, I had my girlies come help. Don’t mind the picture, it’s actually the best of them out of 5. They just can’t hold still!

We used my mom’s Sizzix, and cut out LOTS of hearts!

Since I didn’t have any double-sided scrapbook paper, I glued a few pieces together before cutting out the hearts.

Next, we took some glitter glue and decorated the hearts

By this time, their attention was spent, so we went on to other things and decided to come back later, when the hearts were dry.

After they had dried, we came back to the hearts and poked holes with a needle

and threaded fishing line through the holes.

and then tied them onto the wire wreath,

all over, in different lengths.

Let’s be honest, the kiddos weren’t helping by this time. One was napping and the other was watching Mickey’s Clubhouse.

After it’s full of hearts, hang it up!

Just for reference sake, I used 48 hearts, half bigger, half smaller….

In front of a window…

By the way, if this looks familiar, I was inspired by Pottery Barn’s Valentine Chandelier:

So what did I do with the rest of the hearts?

While at the Hobby Lobby, I checked out their clearance Christmas things, and they had these trees. Red and white. For $4.

I bought it to decorate for Valentine’s in my girl’s room, and maybe spray paint white for Christmas! So we made a bunch of paper ornaments (read: free so doesn’t matter if they get broken by said girls)

We decorated the tree, and I imagine we’ll be making more ornaments and additions to the tree until V-day…

This heart is made out of red hot candies glued onto a cardboard heart.

That’s the dollhouse I did for my daughter for Christmas in the background.

They like looking at it, and I imagine we’ll make it even more girly with feather boas, lights, and sparkly beads!

Finally, what Valentine’s wouldn’t be complete without a wreath? Last Valentine’s, before I knew there was such a thing as craft blogs, I made this heart wreath out of Christmas ornaments (on clearance, of course!) and a hanger shaped into a heart. I know there’s tons of tutorials out there, so if you want to make one, you’ll have to go look for one, because this is the only picture I took! One tip I will give is make sure your ornaments are shatter proof, so they don’t break when they fall off (and they will!), and make sure to use hot glue on the metal hanging part before you loop onto the hanger. That will help them not pop off!

But, here’s this year’s version of the wreath.

I bought a Dollar store wreath and chopped the edges with an X-acto knife to make it more rounded shape.

I had seen some candies displayed in a glass vase, and decided that needed to go on a wreath.

If you don’t want to make the wreath, Good & Plenty’s are the perfect Valentine colored candy to go on your mantel in a pretty jar too! My original idea was to make a design like this….

Are you pondering what I’m pondering? I think so, Brain, but if a ham can operate a radio, why can’t a pig set a VCR?

Chevron. But because of gluing issues and the type of wreath, I just went with gluing them on. I didn’t start right, so they’re not exactly straight, but if you do this, you may want to draw a line for the first one to make sure it’s straight. This wreath used up 3 boxes of Good & Plenty’s, so make sure you have enough for your wreath size!

I had some light pink spray paint, so I sprayed the foam wreath, just so that not-so-awesome green wouldn’t show through in gaps. You can wrap it with ribbon if you have it too. Then, just start gluing! Pretty straight forward, so here’s the finished product!

Hung with a loop of ribbon over our door…

There were quite a bit more pinks than whites, so I used my leftovers and hot glued them to a 1 1/2” Styrofoam ball. I was going to use it as an ornament on our tree, but it’s HEAVY!

Maybe just set in on a candlestick, or do a group of them for your mantel!

Thanks for having me Alyssa! I had lots of fun making these Valentine crafts and hope you do too!