Have you seen those adorable candy jars that have a vintage spin to them?  Super cute, right? 

I'll show you my tricks so you can make your own!

First step: Have fun shopping thrift stores (I have seen some that use pieces from Dollar Stores as well).  You are looking for fun objects whose base's are similar in size.  Mine ended up being all glass, but you can use milk glass, metal, etc.  The top should have a lid so you can store treats and the bottom should be heavier then the top so they are sturdy.  Wash all pieces in hot soapy water, rinse and repeat. 

"Glass primer?"  you ask.  Got it!  Here's my trick:

Rustoleum Frosted Glass.  Buy it.  You'll luv it.  It is made to stick to glass and paint sticks to it. <3

Next, paint your base.  I highly recommend spray paint so you do not have lines.  Here's some of my fave Krylon colors:

Spray another coat of the Rustoleum Frosted Glass or use a clear coat spray to protect the paint.

Epoxy the top piece to the base.

Embellish it up a bit, add pretty candy (of COURSE!) and enjoy.  You might be so impressed with your creation that you have a photo-op.  Luckily you don't have to tell candy to sit still. 

Here's one last glance:

A yummy Easter craft?  Maybe you have some other season in mind, or perhaps you just want to match a room's decor.  What ever you do be sure to let me see! 

I recently began selling a kit to make this golden Pouting Princess flower.  While my Pouting Princess tutorial teaches you how to make the flower, there is nothing in it about attaching the lace trim.  Truth be told, this is the same way to attach Russsian Netting and most any trim! 

Materials you will need include:
-Flower (I am using a 3.5" Pouting Princess fabric flower)
- Lace Trim or Russian Netting (My length is 12")
-Hot glue gun & all-purpose hot glue
-Needle and Thread (optional if you are crazy like me)
-A Circle of felt or fleece for a neat finished appearance
-A brooch pin, hair clip or both

Step 1: Thread your needle and knot the end then sew a few stitches in one of your short end.  Wrap thread around the end of your lace.  Put the needle back through the lace and tie a knot.  Do not cut your thread. 

*Note: I do not personally use a needle and thread.  I am known to be crazy with hot glue and just hot glue the trim to the base of the flower.  If you are not experienced at doing this I recommend using a needle and thread to get a consistent look.

Step 3: Stitch the remaining small end closed and pull your thread until you like your edge.  Wrap your thread around the small end, put your needle through the end of your lace and tie off your thread. (Just like Step 1.)

Cut the remaining thread.

Step 5: Hot glue your felt/ fleece circle over the lace back (for a neat appearance).  Hot glue the hair clip and/or brooch bar to the back side of your flower. 

I like to hot glue a small rectangle of matching felt/ fleece to cover the inside of the brooch bar as it offers a bit of stability and gives a neater appearance.

Which one do you like better?  I hope you love trimming your flowers with lace/ Russian Netting! 

I am celebrating today.  Celebrating the decision of a very special 8 year old niece who has chosen to be baptized.  To match my mood I made her a fabric flower "Dazzle" headband.  Here's the flower:

What about you?  Are you celebrating anything in particular?  Couldn't your life use a little more "Dazzle"?

I have so many things to be grateful for!  At the top of my list are my Savior, Jesus Christ, and family.  Do you ever feel like time stands still and you take a mental picture of something? I recently experienced a day such as this and thought I might share a few pics from a mostly perfect day:

Such a wonderful day!  I mostly remember lots of smiles and that time. stood. still.

I enjoyed decorating the tree and used what seems like a million Festive Fabric (Pouting Princess) flowers! (In the Festive Flower workshop there is a section on how to make the flower into an ornament.)  These ornaments will be used for a few years to come because to make so many took F.O.R.E.V.E.R.  but I think they were worth every second.  Of course we have a flowing Angel on top who was able to do then what I desire to do now: proclaim the joyous news of His miraculous birth!

Ah!  and of course, the reason for the season:

I have decided to give my Savior a gift this year.  Mine is a gift of more time to my precious, priceless children.  What is your gift to the King?

Yes, a lovely day when time stood still.  May you have such a day this holy Christmas season.  May I wish you and your loved ones a very merry Christmas!

NEW Bliss Flower Pattern!  The art of millinery fabric flowers has long been regarded as an artisan craft until now!  With the "Bliss" flower pattern you will learn how to make beautiful millinery flowers with household supplies!

Bliss can be small or LARGE.  I even show you how to make a large bliss flower in to an elegant single flower bouquet:

Guess what?  No flame is involved.  You get beautifully shaped petals without a lighter, candle, match, torch....or whatever!  I'll show you how.

Don't you think your life needs a little enjoyment?  Perhaps a little Bliss?

It's official: I now have the sweetest, cuddliest, floppiest bundle of joy that I could have ever wished for.

I could basically hold him all day long and not accomplish much else.  Come to think of it, that's about what I've done for the last 8 days.  I have been anxiously awaiting his arrival and now I feel like I am gleefully playing house.  (Although I don't remember so much exhaustion in the youthful version of the game.) 

For months now I have been dreaming about the kind of nursery I would like him to have.  My 2 boys will be sharing a room so I mostly have a wall to work with but I really wanted to make it special.  My first obstacle was how to distract from the carpet?  The carpet is a dated blue and because we currently rent, it cannot be changed, but I thought I would draw eyes elsewhere.

DISCLAIMER:  I am not a professional carpet layer!  There are possibly easier ways of doing a project like this.  :)

Here's the rug we'll be making:

Start by having 2 bath rugs in contrasting colors.  Nothing updates blue carpet like brown so I chose brown and  creamy white bath mats.

Turn your carpets face side down and use a sharpie to draw squares on the back of the mats.  My squares were 15" each, but most any size of squares will work.  It just depends how large you would like your rug.  Cut out your squares: 

NOTE: Be prepared for a MESS of carpet fibers.  Also, I recommend using a shop vac or broom to clean most of the carpet fibers as my vacuum ended up clogged.  Additionally, make certain that the carpets you purchase are large enough for what ever size  squares you decide on.  You will need 6 squares of one color and 2 squares of the contrasting color.

Continue to cover each seam with the adhesive strip.

Next, glue the seams together:

Trim the canvas backing off the rug.

ALMOST DONE!  :)  This is where my professional carpet laying skills will likely come in to question.  ;)  For a nice, finished edge I used double folded bias tape and... hot glued it on?  Oh yes I did:

And we're FINISHED! 

If exhaustion doesn't ware me down next week, I will post a tutorial for the valance.  Or maybe I will show you how I made the crib skirt?  Hmmmm.... Stay tuned!!

I was recently contacted by a bride to make a bridal headband that has stretched my brain power.  I hadn't yet designed a great flower pattern for what the bride had visioned so I searched high and low for the perfect silk flowers.  Thankfully my search fell short.    I say thankfully because it led me to such a beautiful new creation: 

Apparently, designing flowers is what you do when you are 2 weeks from delivering your 4th child.  Never mind the nursery I am designing (YES, some free tutorials for my nursery adventures are coming SOON!), never mind the loads of laundry that need to get done, etc.  ;) 

I am genuinely not complaining.  I know that I am procrastinating some things, but it was soooo worth it.  At least to me. 

I have to give credit where it is due:  I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for the inspiration to make this flower.  I truly am nothing without Him and can do everything with Him. 

BTW, I am not certain when I will be able to release this flower pattern.  If you saw my to do list of things to do before this baby is born you might be tempted to go back to bed and put a pillow over your head.  Well, maybe that's just my temptation.  In the meantime, to see some of my other flower patterns I welcome you to visit my Fancy Schmancy store!

It's been a while!  Life has been a bit rough with the exhaustion of pregnancy (due in 3 weeks!!) and such, but I have some fun things in store!  I am making a nursery for my soon to be baby boy and have some free tutorials for how I am putting it together.  CAN'T WAIT!

Meanwhile, here's something for ya:

Do you remember my watermelon wreath tutorial?  Remember when I said to save the other half of your green wreath??  Well, this tutu witch wreath is what I had in mind!  ALL of the ribbon in this tutorial came from May Arts.  It was SUPER fun to put together and the quality of the ribbon is wonderful!!

Ready to get started?  For the witch tutu skirt, I used 3 yards each of 4 different May Arts ribbons in different varieties.  I used nearly all of it!  (I saved a tiny bit of the black and white striped ribbon to embellish my witch hat!)

Start by cutting a "waist" for your tutu skirt, then start hot gluing lengths of ribbon around your styrofoam.  The ribbon lengths should be a few inches longer than your styrofoam and you should cover the styrofoam with ribbon that is not sheer:

Keep going all the way around your skirt. 

I think that witches, by nature ;), are pointy.  Thus I chose to cut pointed ends in my ribbon:

Next, hot glue shorter lengths over the top of the longer ones to give your skirt some dimension:

Next, I took 2 yards of tulle and folded it in 4th's length wise.  Fold on end like a fan and bunch it up in your hand. 

Turn your wreath ribbon side down.

Next, put a good amount of hot glue along the top, backside of your skirt and making certain that the tulle does not come above the styrofoam, firmly press the fan folded edge of tulle to the hot glue:

Make sure that the hot glue goes through all of the layers of tulle.

Note, you will either want to wait a bit after hot gluing to make certain that you do not burn your fingers.  Another alternative is to use a hot glue pad to protect your fingers:

Hot glue your charming witch hat to your funky witch tutu and...

YES!!!  I can get 3 adorable little monkeys off my back who say that I haven't done anything for Halloween.  ;) 

What can I say?!  I'm pretty busy growing a baby here.

Speaking of babies, I can't WAIT to show you some of the nursery tutorials!  Stay tuned because I have a rug tutorial coming soooon......

(FOE Winners are posted at the bottom....)  As I mentioned in the last post, I am updating some pictures of my patterns and today's photos are of my "Enchanted" flower on a beautiful baby girl.  Oh how I wish I could have done her blessing dress justice!

So precious.

Sweet in her momma's arms.  Makes me think that I can't WAIT to hold my 4th in 2 1/2 month!!

What a work in progress photography is for me, but it is fun!  You can learn how to make my "Enchanted" fabric flower with my easy peasy fabric flower tutorial.  :)  Or... you can see my other fabric flower tutorials.  :)

OK.  Now down to the knitty gritty!  The winners of last weeks FOE giveaway.  :)  I have good news and bad news.  The bad news is that I only had 3 entries for my second linky party.  The GREAT news is that there are 3 winners!  YEA!  So all 3 entries will win 10 yards of Fold Over Elastic from Hobovian.  That's something to smile about, right?!  

Signing out for now!  XOXO

I'm in the process of updating some of my product pics for my patterns and am offering a few actual pieces as well, but the photography is a work in progress for me!  In particular is this great phenomenon; how to get my children to cooperate when they are a bit burned out when I pull out my camera?  This short video about sums up the morning:

Ok, yes she's adorable and kept me smiling most of the morning, just a tad uncooperative.  So grateful for a few miracles as I was able to get a few good pics.  Here's some Glory pics...

And a true Pouting Princess... done in Dupioni Silk.  (Mmmm luxurious!)

Of course I had to throw in a sassy pic as it pretty much sums up this little cutie pie:

Whether you're a mom or a pro I bet you can relate with a wiggly photo shoot!!  Please tell me I'm not alone!!