'Thankful for books' - Library Life

I know Thanksgiving is over and everyone is in full on holiday mode, but I thought better late than never to share with you my November bulletin board display.I made a giant turkey that is very Thankful for books!

I made the turkey out of construction paper and drew him by hand. The letters were made with my silhouette machine.

Thankful Napkins

Day of the Doctor is over, so let me squeeze in some Thanksgiving themed stuff here! A few weeks ago was another Craft Night at Crazy Beans. We celebrated by decorating some napkins. I ordered the napkins from Save-on-Crafts and we painted them with some acrylic. To make them look really snazzy I made a bunch of stencils (with my trusty silhouette cameo) for all of our crafterinos to use. The stencil's varied from some birdies, leaves, 'give thanks' text and because it is no-shave november, I made a few mustaches.

Everyone had a lot of fun. I met some new people and enticed them with crafty wonderness! One guy just came in for coffee and looked around with a look on his face that said, "what the heck is going on in this coffee house?" And he left with a fabulous napkin. My friend Matt got a little creative and he made his own sayings. I'm proud of my friend Joe. He is not a big crafts person but he wanted to make one for his grandma so he soldiered on!

Would you like to make your own lovely napkin? Here is how! 

Materials & Tools

• Burlap napkin
• Acrylic paint
• Stencils (optional)  
• Foam brushes 
• Cardboard 
• Iron

Instructions

• Prepare the stencils and paint. Figure out what your design will be and what colors you want to use
• Before you begin painting, place a piece of cardboard underneath the napkin (this helps prevent paint from getting all over your table) 
• Place a stencil down and paint over your stencil gently! Then lift up the stencil. Repeat this step until you are satisfied with how your napkin looks! 
• The next day, after your napkin is completely dry, iron it a little bit. This heat sets the paint and really helps melt it into the fabric. 

Sunday Snapshots Vol. 2

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It has been quite the crazy week and I have had a blast with my family and I am sad to see them go! Here are some pictures from the week, enjoy!

My friend at work, Marge, gave me this super awesome Adventure Time hat and it just looks fabulous on Gypsy. 

The night before Thanksgiving is always a tradition amongst our group of friends we call Ridic Thanksgiving. We meet up at a dinner where we stuff our faces and each of us says what we are thankful for. This year was the 8th year we have done it. I am glad my brother Billy was able to come along with us. 

The actually day of Thanksgiving was craziness! I couldn't believe how much work was involved and I didn't even do the majority of the cooking. As you can see it was Tim's job. 

It was good having my Dad and Billy around. I miss those jerks. They also missed each other, you can see them sharing some love in the picture above. 

I tried our best to avoid Black Friday shopping at all costs! However I did go to one place to get Christmas lights. I also go these antlers for the dog, but I look pretty sweet in them, eh? 

I solved my Star Wars wrapping paper problem. Last week I mentioned how I had vintage wrapping paper and I wanted to use it to make coasters. It was a fun project I did with my bro. He made the Chewbacca while I did Han Solo.

One of my favorite pictures taken over the last week was of our chalk board. My parents gave us a Thank You for hosting. 

Thanksgiving

This is my first time ever hosting a family holiday so I am trying to prepare as best I can. I am very lucky to have the chef master Tim (so I don't have to worry about screwing big things up!) However when it comes to decorating, yo I got this!

Even though its not a Holiday as festive as Halloween or Christmas, it still deserves decorating and here is some stuff that I did around the house.

I printed out this Thanksgiving subway art picture and framed it and it looks quite nice!

I made some bunting out of burlap from Halloween, but I had a lot of it leftover. So I broke that stuff out again and made small banners. Here is my Tutorial for the technique.




 I also used some candle holders and stuck some left over pumpkins on them.

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

ps anyone excited to get ready for the next Holiday?!

Sunday Snapshots

I have been taking a lot of pictures lately, I felt like I should share with you my week in pictures......

 

Last week Comedy Central premeired  Chris Hardwick's Standup special, Mandroid. Tim and I were lucky enough to score tickets back in February of last year. It was quite hilarious and I suggest you check it out. 

Also last week I did an Owl themed storytime. I needed some owl finger puppets to go along with it. 

My hair was getting pretty long. I was sporting a serious duck tail! I finally went to Bella Filia and got my hair chopped off. I feel like its shortest its ever been and I was a bit nervous as she was cutting. I always get nervous, but it always comes out great. 

My friend Laura has been wanting to learn how to sew for a while. She mentioned that she wanted to take her Mom's old concert T-shirts (mostly Bruce Springstein) and turn them into a quilt. So we met up and I helped her create a game plan! Glad to say the quilt is in progress and should be ready for her Mom as a Christmas present. 

Thanksgiving is in a few days. I am so excited to be not only hosting my first family holiday, but also having my Dad here! I have been preparing and decorating a bit. This subway art was on pinterest and I printed out a copy and it looks pretty fancy on my little mantle area. Here is the post if you would like to make one yourself! 

Last week we hung out one night at my friend Tyler's. I have been friends with him since Kindergarten and we were even in a band together durring High School. We were called the Helicopters, he sang/played guitar while I played drums. It was a lot of fun and while I traded my drums in for a sewing machine, Tyler is still playing music. This was taken in his basement as a bunch of us were just randomly jamming with his stuff. 

I had gotten this Star Wars wrapping paper from Louisa. While I was at their house I needed some wrapping paper to wrap a  present. Louisa has a box of wrapping stuff and this stuff was in there, unopened! She said I could keep it and I have been hanging on to it ever since. Its been a couple of years and I am in a moral dilema. I got my first Whimsey Box last week, in it were materials to make coasters. I am thinking about using the wrapping paper for it, but do I really want to open up the sacred wrapping paper?! I don't know! If you have any thoughts, please feel free to comment.