Deco mesh wreath decorating party

This past weekend I had some girlfriends over to my place to make Christmas wreaths together! I made a couple deco mesh wreaths a few days prior and was surprised how quickly they came together. It's easy enough for beginner crafters and is great for instant gratification! I'm still planning to do a quick video tutorial on how to make these and will post that soon.

We laughed a lot, enjoyed some Christmas tunes (including Bieber's new album) and had some pretty fun wreaths for the girls to take home!

Here are some of their creations: 



Visiting Family

Fayetteville is really growing on us and one of my favorite things about living in NWA is how close we are to family. Sean's mom lives here in Fayetteville and the drive to my parents house is only about 90 minutes, making weekend trips SO easy.

My parents just bought this really pretty home in Branson Creek - it was fully furnished and is really beautiful.

 A couple weekends ago, my Nanny came to visit (mom's mom). Isn't she pretty?! I sure hope I age as well as she does!

 During her visit we went to dinner at the Candlestick in Branson - SO delicious! Here's mom and dad before dinner:

 My little brother Austin and I at dinner and me and dad before we left. I think Austin and I look a lot alike! Austin is a spitting image of my father when he was his age.

This picture is taken from my parent's master bedroom looking into the bathroom. There wasn't a door for privacy! The actual toilet room does have a door, but the bed looks straight into the jacuzzi tub and mom wanted a bit more privacy, so I sewed these drapes for them. The picture isn't that good, but they are mostly green with purple and gold trim.

 I also made mom this Christmas wreath. People decorate for Christmas very early in Branson - it was only Christmas music at the Landing when I was there in early November. 

 My papa (dad's dad) visited Branson last week, but I wasn't able to make it up there due to work. Thankfully, they made a special trip to Fayetteville so we could meet them for breakfast. My papa is arguably the nicest man on the planet! He loves Jesus dearly, has taught preschool Sunday school since I can remember and volunteers somewhere different almost every day of the week (hospitals, driving friends to doctor appointments, a pharmacy, a theme park for special needs children). His heart is so generous and giving and I'm so thankful for his example!

What a blessing our family is!

Random updates and adoption reads

I'm here and will have some craft posts up soon. I love to craft. A lot. But sometimes life just takes other turns. I'm in the 10th week of study of Beth Moore's Daniel study - it's fantastic! I have to approach it like an actual class otherwise I will get behind on my daily assignments. I encourage you to check it out - you can buy the book online or in a local bookstore and download the video sessions on iTunes!

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Sean is eager to finish school. Prayers for wisdom as we start the discussions on our next steps would be awesome.

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We really love our church and small group here in Fayetteville. Both have made our transition in this city SO much easier and we feel more comfortable here than ever. 

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I've been reading and trying to learn a lot about adoption and orphan care, something that Jesus called his followers to be a part of. We're not really sure how adoption will fit into our lives, so for now I'm just trying to learn a lot about the process, educate myself and Sean and staying in prayer. There's so much information out there! Here are a few of my favorite reads online if you want to check them out:

How to support a family going through the process of adoption. She writes with a good sense of humor and transparency what not to do and what would be helpful.

Katie Davis, a 22 year old who has started a great ministry in Uganda. She has taken in 13 girls and it's interesting to see her view on adoption in context of the devastation the children are facing.

Evangelical Adoption Crusade This one is long but a good read. The writer has a pretty cynical view towards Christians adopting, taking a few notable examples (i.e. the group who got caught trying to sneak children across the Haitian border post earthquake) and trying to turn it into a larger message. I wouldn't stand by a lot of what she discusses, but there are some interesting facts on the number of adoptions and how adoption patterns have changed over time.

A Christianity Today response to the above article. This takes some of the points of the previous article and talks about what we might need to learn from her criticisms.

Commissioned: banner, bag-o and bench seat

Here are a few commissioned projects I haven't yet blogged about:

These aren't great pictures, but I made a 'Here Comes the Bride' banner for a friend's wedding. Two little boys carried it down the aisle just before Megan and her daddy walked down the aisle. I hope the photographer got a good shot of this banner with the bride in the background! I actually ended up using iron transfer letters for this because that's what I had in hand. If I had thought about it more I would have purchased some iron-on black vinyl and used my Silhouette machine to cut the letters out.

 My boss was having a tailgate and couldn't find his cornhole/bag-o bags, so I made him some. They are really easy! I followed this tutorial. Before I sewed the bags together, I freezer paper stenciled the hogs on. I used my Silhouette to cut out the hogs. I purchased the corn feed from a local farm supply company for super cheap.

 I sewed this bench seat cushion for a friend's sister. That thick foam is expensive! I price shopped for quite  a while and ended up buying it from Hancock Fabrics when they had a 54% off sale. {why 54...why not 50 or 55?}  I used an electric cutting knife to trim it to the size I needed then followed this tutorial for the cover. I would say this is an intermediate-advanced project. If you take it slow you will be fine...there's just a lot of fabric on your machine at one time and some angles to work with. 

Mizzou's Centennial Homecoming

Sean and I traveled back to Columbia for Mizzou's 100th homecoming this past weekend. We weren't sure what it would feel like to be back in Columbia, but we LOVED it! Running into familiar faces everywhere we went was refreshing. It felt comfortable to be back on campus and surrounded by black and gold.

We went to house decs on Friday night. For those of you who attended Mizzou, they aren't quite as impressive anymore. Rightfully so they have cut back on the amount of pomping - I mean...those were ridiculously time consuming and expensive anyways. I'm glad they've done that, but they're not quite as much fun to see anymore.

The parade, however, was great! This float was my favorite - my super sweet 16 themed.

After the parade we popped into the new bookstore to buy a couple of things then headed to my sorority house for a brunch. Look at my tan-tastic headshot below. Not sure how I even got that dark and am slightly embarrased that picture will be up in the house forever.

A good family friend graciously let us sit with him at the game. The weather was beautiful (we actually got a little sunburned)! 

 This is a picture from inside the new student commons center - it's really impressive! Tons of room for student to hang out, study and grab a meal in between classes. They did a great job integrating Mizzou traditions into the new facility.

 Last but not least we dropped in HyVee. Oh, how we miss this place! I really didn't realize what I was missing  until we went back in - their selection is SO big and prices are good. With the Wal Mart national headquarters in NWA, that's pretty much our only option here. Sean plans to write a letter to HyVee asking them to expand into our area. I'm sure they'll listen. :)

 We also spent time with old friends, went to The Crossing on Sunday morning and dropped in the new Goodwill store {it's the nicest one I've ever been to!}. We have no idea where we will end up after Sean finishes school in May, but Columbia is definitely on the list of places we might like to be! 

DIY Camping Party Invitations

These are some party invitations I made for a 10 year girls birthday party and they turned out pretty stinking cute. Since the theme is camping I had the idea to make each invite a s'mores kit.

With some inspiration from the web, I grabbed the clip art from thinkstock.com, downloaded a font called Pinewood and used Publisher to put it together.

Front:

 Back:

 For the actual invites I used vellum envelopes from Hobby Lobby. I printed off the above design on cardstock, filled the envelopes with s'mores goodies, then stapled the topper to the envelope. I used tape to secure the envelope shut.

 You probably want to assemble these close to when you hand them out so the graham crackers and marshmallows stay yummy.

 These will be fun invitations to hand out at school! With just $10 and less than an hour's time, these cute DIY s'mores invitations add a special touch to party!

Baby shower - DIY elements

This past weekend I hosted my first baby shower for a friend here in Fayetteville. Here are the invites I made - based off an idea I found on pinterest.

As my gift to the new-mom-to-be I painted this door sign. It acted as door decor for the shower, but can also hang on her hospital door when little Caleb is born. I left room for them to write in his stats after he makes his appearance. I really like how this turned out. It's just a $5 canvas from Hobby Lobby that I painted. I used a sharpie for his name and the Bible verse, but will probably use my Silhouette to cut out vinyl/heat transfer on the next version for additional precision.

 Welcome baby banner.

 I made some tissue paper poms (see tutorial here) and some paper pinwheels (see tutorial here) to hang above the food table. The thing to remember about the paper pinwheels is that the larger the diameter of the circles, the longer the strips of pleated paper will need to be. Hot gluing the circles to the front and back centers provides stability.

This was one of my favorite parts of the shower! I set up a onesie decorating station with freezer paper stencils. Here's a good tutorial on freezer paper stenciling. I googled various boy friendly shapes, imported them into my Silhouette software to trace their outline then used the machine to cut out the freezer paper stencils. I hung them on some fishing line with mini clothespins from Hobby Lobby. Other items I had out:

iron and ironing board

fabric paint

foam brushes

paper plates

blow dryer 

instruction sheet

The guests loved this!  

 I bought a couple packs of onesies and blank bibs for the guests to decorate. Note on the blank bibs: when heat setting the fabric paint, don't hold the iron in one place too long b/c the bibs have a plastic backing that could melt.

 See all of their adorable creations?!

 I also had a stack of diapers out with sharpies for guests to write encouraging notes for the new mommy and daddy.

 Overall it was a success! I think Mandy felt loved and cared for - she's got a great support network of friends and family in the area, which I'm sure she will appreciate as she starts her family!