Happy New Years Eve!

2011 is coming to a close and 2012 is right around the corner. We had a great Christmas visiting with the family and our first ever Christmas dinner at our house. With 15 people here, everything went surprisingly well and everyone was impressed with how easy we made it look (and it was easy compared to Thanksgiving :P).

I was feeling the after Christmas blues this week. So much preparation for Christmas and then it was done in one day. I have been feeling kind of lost with my projects. I think I am going to crochet something for myself now since I worked so hard on presents for everyone else. I have a few things in mind I would like to make. I also told Mike I was taking requests now if he wanted anything too.

We can get back into some home projects too. We have a long list of ideas that have been put on hold in the midst of the Christmas craziness.

Here is a list of things I want to accomplish in the coming months:
Crochet hooded scarf in cream for me
Scarf, flower hat, and headband in pink for me
Black hat for Mike (design TBD)
Pillows for the guest room
Pillows for the living room
Craft organization
Jewelry organization
Clothes refashions
Jewelry refashions

Now that I've set myself a project goal I am going to work on accomplishing it. I have a ton of crochet projects I have been saving to share because they were Christmas gifts so I will be posting about them this week.

Enjoy your New Year and see you in 2012!

Circle earrings

I made these super easy earrings to go along with the Anthro knockoff necklace I made.

I used what I had leftover from the necklace. I took two sets of three different rings, two jump rings, and two earring hooks. I opened the jump rings and added all the circles and earring hooks and closed the rings. Done! That was easy.

Anthro knock off necklace

I found this amazing tutorial from Flamingo Toes for the Anthropologie Shepard Moon necklace. I had to try and make one of these for myself.

This is the first time I've ever made a necklace from scratch so I had a bit of a learning curve. I had to look up videos on youtube for closing jump rings and making an eye pin. I have to admit I am pretty proud of my accomplishment.

I wanted to show you the supplies I used because I had a tough time finding them. The rings and beads are from Michaels. The rest of the jewelry supplies I had previously got at Joanns. The big rings came in a pack and the smaller ones were on a string. I left the eye pins out of this pic (oops).

I have to admit I had some problems with the rings at first. Every time I picked up the necklace it fell apart. I figured out the culprit were these rings that were in the pack.

The rings had an opening and they wouldn't stay shut. I ended up using two at the top of the strand of rings but I didn't use any as connectors because they didn't work. Despite the hiccups I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I made it nice and long but I can adjust it if I want to wear it shorter.

I made a matching pair or earrings too with the extra rings I had. I'll post those tomorrow. (Update: Here it is)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

I'm looking forward enjoying my mother in law's amazing Christmas brunch. She puts on a great spread with quiche, french toast, sausage gravy and biscuits, ham , fruit and more. It is a great way to start the Christmas day!

This is the first time we have had Christmas dinner at our house and we are looking forward to be at home an entertaining family. We are making veggie lasagna and shrimp cocktail plus we will be serving the cake balls we made last weekend. Combined with cabbage rolls, ham, brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, green salad, bavarian strawberry jello and tiramisu, I think we have a great meal for the 12 other people that are coming over.

Mike and I will also be making espresso martinis and cosmos, combined with white and red wine and beer it should be a great dinner to enjoy with the family.

Enjoy your day today with your family!

Flower and Lace Headbands Tutorial

I made some headbands for my eight year old cousin's birthday this summer. Her 16 year old sister (my other cousin) was really impressed with them so I decided to make some for her Christmas. This is a super easy gift and it took me less than an hour to make all three.

Here's what you need to make these headbands

Headbands- any kind but plastic will work (the glue gun can melt plastic- it's happened to me before)
fake flowers
roll of lace
rhinestones
pearl beads
felt
hot glue

For the purple flower headband, find some fake flowers with lots of petals. I used a hydrangea.

Pull the petals off of the stem and remove the inside piece. You can discard the inside pieces or save for a future use. I used six petals. Two were bigger than the others.

Cut two small round pieces of felt. You will glue the petals to one piece so it should be small enough that you won't see it under the petals. Take the biggest petal and glue it with the hot glue to the piece of felt.

Continue to glue and stack your petals. If you alternate the orientation of the petals you will get a fuller flower. Finish it off with a rhinestone in the middle to cover up the hole in the center.

Take your head band and find the place you want to place the flower. I tried it on first to the find the right position. Put hot glue all over the felt circle and place the headband in the center

Then place the second felt circle on top to make it look finished and keep the headband in place.

Admire your pretty headband

For the blue flower headband I started with these flowers.

I followed all the same steps as the purple flower headband only I used a stretchy headband to glue the flower to.

For the lace headband I started with this roll of lace ribbon.

I rolled the lace into a circle and continued rolling until it formed a flower. I did a practice roll first to see how full I wanted the flower before I cut a piece off. As I rolled the lace I glued every so often to keep the lace in the right shape. Once I was done rolling, I glued three pearl beads in the center.

Another Christmas gift crossed of the list.

And I had to try them on myself- for quality control of course :)

I may be linking up to these parties: