Lowcountry Artsit Market

I have been given a great opportunity to promote my Etsy shop with an Etsy-inspired craft show here in Charleston! I was contacted by the owner of the Music Farm a few weeks ago about getting a booth in a new show she was putting on. Of course I jumped at the chance!

So if you live around Charleston or know anyone who does, come check it out...I'll be there with a booth full of goodies!

I haven't forgotten you. Honest.

Hello? Anyone still follow this blog? I wouldn't blame you if you didn't...I've been a bad blogger.

It's been pretty crazy around here. Seems like from October through March my house is always in upheaval. Not only are we in the middle of the holiday season (can you believe that Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK? I can't!), we are also in the middle of hockey season. Hubby coaches a squirt travel team (8-10 yr olds), assistant coaches a high school varsity team, and also helps out with the coaching of Noah & Jonah's termite house league team. In case you're wondering, the answer is yes, he is at the rink almost every day of the week.

But there are fun things going on for me right now too. I am busily preparing for a craft show on Saturday. THIS Saturday. The 21st of November. I found out about it just two weeks ago. So I've been sewing and crafting my butt off. My kitchen counter is covered with ribbon, hair clips and hot glue sticks. The dining room table holds my sewing machine and piles of fabric cut for skirts. Our bedroom, which now doubles as my craft room, has all of the finished products laying around ready to be put in the Rubbermaid for transporation Saturday morning. My hubby is counting the days until this show happens. He wants his house back.

Anyway, if any of you blog-readers are in the Charleston, SC area, come to the Holiday Bazaar at Stratford High School in Goose Creek on Saturday 21 November from 9-3. I'll be there with bells on!

Ok, not really with bells on, but maybe if you're lucky I'll have some bells somewhere...it's a Christmas show afterall!

Frugal How-To: Autograph Books

We went to Disney over the weekend and part of the Disney experience is meeting the characters and getting their autographs. You can buy all sorts of autograph books inside the park for about $15 a pop, but when you multiply that by three kids, it gets pricey. So, to save some money (which of course we later spent on a bunch of other souveniers for the monkeys), I decided to make them for the kids and add a little personal touch to them.

I used these chipboard books from YMBD and let the boys each pick out some Mickey Mouse stickers to decorate the covers with. I bought some coordinating scrapbook paper and stickers and decopaged everything to the front. I cut printer paper into pieces the size of the covers and punched holes in them, then used the rings to hold it all together. I added some ribbon cuts from my craft stash and tied them to the rings to finish it off. All in all, it cost me about $20 start to finish (including buying pens for each of them) for all three books. And the best part is that the kids loved them!

Noah is really into the Pirates of the Carribean and these stickers were perfect for him! Yes, I know, the play on words is a bit cheesy, but that's what happens when you've got Dutch dry humor running through your veins. And hey- my 7 year old loved it!

Jonah thought these stickers of Goofy & Mickey were really cool!

Sophia LOVES Minnie Mouse and I thought that fun red rhinestones and black & white dots was just right!

Handmade Christmas, part 3

Between the two boys, there are 3 teachers to buy gifts for this year. Noah has one teacher, and Jonah has a teacher and a full time teacher's aide. I was at a loss for what to do. I baked them all bread for Thanksgiving, so I didn't want to do it again for Christmas. The other day I happened to catch a segment on The Today Show, and saw this idea by Martha Stewart. I knew right away what I was going to do for teacher gifts! I got the plain white mugs from the BX for $0.75 each, and the ceramic paint came in a sampler set at A.C. Moore for about $6. I had black transfer paper at the house already from other projects, so I just used that. I used a toothpick to make the dots, and voila- instant Christmas mug!

The boys wanted in on the craftiness, so I let them pick a color from my over-abundance of oven-bake clay, and roll it out flat. Then they used Christmas cookie cutters to make the wreaths and the tree. After we baked them up to harden, we glued rhinestones on to the front. We flipped them over and added ribbon to make them into ornaments, and the boys wrote their names and the year on the back.

All that's left to do is buy some small, flavored coffees and tie them up with plastic wrap, and send them off to school for the teachers on Friday!

Handmade Christmas, part 2

Now that Christmas is next week (aaaack!), I'll be posting lots in my Handmade Christmas series. I'm finally finishing the 68546813 projects that I so geniusly decided to take on, thinking I'd save myself some dough this year. I still have TONS to do, but here's one that's done!

This is the kids gift to their great-grandma, whom they call Nana. I bought a $3 double frame from Walmart, printed out the pictures of the kids, and decided it needed something more. I had these iron-on rhinestone letters in my craft room, becuase I'd used some on onesies before. I thought that I'd be able to put glue on the the flat backs, let it set, and then just peel the clear cellophane off. No such luck. When I went to pull off the sticky cellophane, the rhinestones came off too. So I had to glue each and every stinkin' rhinestone on, one at a time! Oy!

Handmade Christmas part 1

Since money's tight this year, I have decided to make the majority of the gifts for our family. I have been working on things for Sophia, my neice Gianna, my sisters, and my mother-in-law. And I roped the boys into being crafty this year too. A couple of weeks ago we went shopping at Michaels (by far one of my favorite places!) and bought some ceramic ornaments. The boys each picked out three to paint for their grandparents and their nana. Much to the boys' delight, today was they day they got to don their paintshirts and pull out their paintbrushes and get to work. Noah was not happy I took this becuase he was still in his pj's.

Note the concentration!

The finished products. Their grandparents and nana are going to love them!