Saturday Seven - Football!

This weekend was the kickoff for college football. We're in the South and it's a huge deal. Daniel and I are die-hard Vols. We got our season tickets in the mail last week (Woot!) and we meet his dad for almost every home game. The first game is on Monday and then in two weeks, the first home game. Not only do we get the excitement of the first home game, we get to share it with his parents and our nephew, Tripp. We can scarcely stand the wait!

Now, onward! To the Football edition of Saturday Seven.


1. Little Tiny Edible Footballs - Who says football has to be all manly, huh? Leave it to us crafty types to feminize anything. Or to masculinize anything, depending on which way you look at it.
Bakerella has turned her delicious Oreo truffles into these deliciously adorable tiny edible footballs.


2. DIY Stadium Cushions - Can you imagine the possibilities for these stadium cushions from Steve & Cathie of Creative Juice? Use iron-on vinyl and you can make any fabric into a perfectly adorable cush for your tush. And if you've ever been to Neyland Stadium, you will understand the beauty of that. And if you're planning on taking one to Neyland, make sure it's no more than 12 inches. None of this recliner-seatback nonsense. There's no room for that. In fact, I've been known to "accidentally" knock those people in the head with my knee. On purpose.


3. Football Cozy - I would totally make this if I got along with crochet hooks. Which I don't. But Alicia of Create! does, and it's adorable!

4. Football Scarf - This would be so perfect for the last few games of the season here. You know, when it's frigid and they're all out of hot chocolate? You can buy the pattern for this football scarf by dianelangan at her etsy shop, which has lots of other amazing patterns, too.

5. UT Necklace - I have never seen this method of incorporating ribbon into a necklace, but I'm in love! I mean seriously, who wouldn't want to wear this beautiful necklace from etsy seller notplainjane? I'll even forgive her for being a Georgia Bulldog! :) Check out her shop for other styles and colors. If you don't see what you're looking for, you can request one in your preferred color palette.

6. Raider Handbag - I love the pleats in this handbag from craftster user Diesels_Mom. All the details put into it make it look very professional.

7. Patriots Illusion Scarf - The pattern sneaks up on you in this scarf from craftster user Rumpazel. It's very impressive, especially for her first designed pattern!

And one more thing...

It's funny how dependant we've gotten on "have-it-now" items. I was sitting in my house the other day, wanting some sort of baked sweet. My first thought was "I don't have any cookie dough or cake mix in the house...I guess I'll have to run to Wal-Mart and get some". I seriously sat there, pondering whether or not I wanted cookies badly enough to run to Wal-Mart when I had an epiphany! Long ago, in days of yore, before the invention of refrigerated cookie dough, how did they survive their sweet tooth attacks? They made cookies from scratch. I had flour and sugar and butter and by golly, I could make cookies from scratch, too! And I wouldn't even have to leave the house. So that's exactly what I did. And then I realized that having several dozen delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies would not be kind to my waistline, so I brought them to church and sent them to class with the college ministers.

Spot of Sunshine on a Dreary Day

It's been kinda rainy here this week and I decided to revamp a kinda ugly headband into a kinda cute headband. You're bound to have a couple of questions, so I'll answer some up front.

First, why do I have this ugly headband? Because I got it from Claire's in a 10/$5 sale as part of a 2-band pack. The other headband in the pack was solid orange, and being a huge Vol fan, I thought I'd get some wear out of that one. So I bought the pack.

Second, you may wonder to yourself why I, a 26 year old woman, would want to wear a giant flower headband. I will probably give this to one of the little girls at church who would appreciate it more and not get made fun of. Though I might wear it this football season, since it's still orange, conveniently. :)

Now let's get on to the how-to portion of this post.

Supplies:
Old fabric covered headband
Scissors
Hot glue gun
Button
Ribbon, similar to width of your headband
Thread & needle
Silk flower

Step 1: Cut one end of the fabric casing and slide it off of the headband. It should look something like this:

Step 2: After heating up your hot glue gun, cut two small (1" to 2") pieces of ribbon. I like to heat seal the ends with a lighter for good measure. Glue them over the ends of the headband like so:

Step 3: Next, you'll get your spool of ribbon. Heat seal the loose end. Without cutting the ribbon from the spool, begin to wrap the ribbon around the headband to cover the plastic. Put a dot of glue every inch or so to the underside of the headband to secure the ribbon.

Step 4: Here is where I went wrong the first time. I originally cut the stem off the flower and hot glued the flower to the headband. This caused the flower to stand off the top of the headband like a inch, which made it look ridiculous when worn. So I rethought the process and came up with a better idea. Your flower will have a front middle part (it's yellow in the example) and a plastic green part on the back. I separated these from the petal part.

Step 5: I found a button that was about the same size as the middle of the flower and thread that matched the ribbon. I suppose you could use thread that matched the button instead. In a stack I sewed the button, petals, and headband together, starting the knot underneath the flower, up through the flower using the original hole, up through the button and back down and around, catching the headband on my way back up. Do this several times to make sure it's secure and tie it off when you're done.

Saturday Seven - The Mustache

In honor of that one guy on the men's Croatian water polo team:

ladies and gents, without further ado, the mustache.


1. Mulitiple Mustache Max - I just love this little guy from craftster user loveandasandwich! You can change his muctache with his mood and he even has a pocket in his back so he can carry them all along wherever he goes! You can see more of her work at her etsy shop.

2. Mustache Stamp - ollyollyoxenfree makes carving your own stamps seem like a piece of cake with her tutorial on craftster. And if you're going to carve your own stamp, why not make a mustache?

3. Walrus with a Mustache - This is the last craftster find for today, from hipswiveler. I want this painting! It's a new painting, yet it seems like a classic when paired with the frame. Classic with a funky twist.

4. Mustache Handkerchief - Buck up, cowboys! Next time you're on a cattle drive, you won't have to sacrifice style to keep the dust out of your face. You can still rock a manly 'stash and keep your face squeaky clean thanks to avrilloreti and her etsy shop.


5. Mustache Necklace - Keep your disguise close to your heart with this mustache necklace from etsy seller AchAchLieBling. I love that something so mockable (is that a word?) has found a place in our crafty little hearts and been turned into something we can love to wear! And because I couldn't decide between the two, another shout-out goes to LittleAngelsJewelry's awesome mustache necklace - tres cute. Bonus! LittleAngelsJewelry has offered Free Shipping to my blog readers on any order from her shop. All you have to do is type in my blog address and "free shipping" in the message to seller. Hop on it cause she has the most darling stuff!


6. Mustache Glass - It's now easier than ever to have a much sought after milk or kool-aid stash with these glasses from Glue & Glitter. Learn how to make your own with this tutorial over at SuperCute!

7. Mustache Key Holder - Stick this right by your front door. It's a great place to stash your keys. Get it? Get it? Cheesy, I know. But what's not cheesy about a mustache. I mean, come on. From The Curiosity Shoppe.

Apples, you say?

Look who decided to pop in this summer!

I must say, we were a little surprised to see them. This is our third summer at our house. Last summer, we had no apples at all and the summer before they were little bitty. This year, however, boy do we have apples! And they are big, a little bigger than my fist. We have no clue what they are, but we googled "poisonous apples" and couldn't find any. We did find a recipe for poisonous apples, but none that are naturally. We figured since we couldn't find any evidence to the contrary, these must be safe to eat! So we got cookin!

Saturday, we made an apple cobbler (sorry, I didn't think to take a pic before it was gone). Paired with Purity Homemade (but not really) Vanilla ice cream, it was yummy! We had a jam-packed Sunday, so no apple goodies. Yesterday we got to work. We thinly sliced three quarts of apples to make apple butter. And then this morning we learned our lesson about trusting online recipes. I don't care what cooks.com says, you can't put apples on high overnight. Unless your overnight is four hours. We now have a crock pot full of burnt apples that I still need to throw away. :(

However, not all bad came of last night's attempt at apple butter. We greatly misjudged how many apples would equal three quarts, so we had a lot left over. I remembered seeing this recipe from not martha. I had originally wanted to try them in the jars, but I couldn't find any small enough. So muffin tin tiny apple pies it was!

Isn't it cuuute? Precious little pie! And honey, was it good! Daniel and I each had one last night and then I had one this morning because when it comes to sweets, I have no self control. They were really easy to make, too. I used refrigerated pie dough and since I don't like to waste something as tasty as pie dough, I made these with the leftovers:

I just mushed all the pie dough scraps into one big ball, rolled it out and cut it into rectangle-ish shapes. Then I sprinkled a cinnamon sugar mixture over all of it and baked it at 400 degrees until they didn't look raw anymore. The original idea was to use them to dip the apple butter, but that didn't work and they're perfectly tasty on their own!

Saturday Seven - Back to School

More like Back to Cool! Who says school has to be boring? If I had this great stuff in school, I would've been more excited about going for sure!

1. Fabric Covered Push Pins - How cute are these from craftlog? They seem super simple to make and would be a great way to use up your tiny scraps of fabric.

2. Decoupage a Notebook - I see lots of gorgeous notebooks in my future! This tutorial from Grace Violet makes it seem like a piece of cake. Also, I'm a big fan of taking something cheap (50 cent notebook) and making it look like you sent 20 times that much at a boutique!

3. Pretty Binder Cover - Lola...again has the most amazing tutorial for sewing a cover for a cheap (there's that word again!) three ring binder. I never seem to have enough room in any of my binders even with a pencil case and this is definitely near the tippy top of my to-do list!


4. The September - Remember when school actually started after Labor Day? Me too. And this pendant from etsy seller StaceyDawn reminds of those good old days. What a wonderful way to upcycle old colored pencils. Each of these pendants come on a sweet ribbon, but can be used on any chain.


5. Art Tote - Family Fun has tons of great craft ideas - but I really love this tubular art tote. Being a nanny, I know I got sick of art coming home tattered in an old manila envelope that needed to be returned to school. This way, kids can forgo the "must return" envelopes and have art in one piece!


6. Reusable Sandwich Wrap - The length of the average school year here in the U.S. is 180 days. If you pack your own lunch, that's 180 plastic bags per person that end up in landfills. This reusable sandwich wrap from The Small Object is ecologically responsible - and it's cute to boot!


7. Chalkboard Bangle - Last, but certainly not least is this chalkboard bangle from etsy seller dlkdesigns. I literally gasped when I saw this for the first time. I can't believe what a great idea this is! Each bangle comes with a piece of white chalk, so you can let the world know how you feel, do some long division or write down directions.

Oh, the Horror!

It's not really that bad, but I wanted to use the phrase because I never get to say it. You know, it's one of those things that never really comes out right.

I ordered some of those fake gem rings for tea party favors and when I got the bag in, here's what about a third of them looked like:

Pitiful. I know they're cheap, but I couldn't bring myself to throw them out. They'd already made a trip days long accross several states, feeling inferior to the "perfect" rings. I knew they had to feel dejected when they arrived at my home. I knew God had a special plan for them. So I brought them in and gave them somewhere to stay while they eagerly anticipated what was in store for them. After months of planning (or procrastinating, take your pick) I decided it was their time. They'd been patient. They'd been quiet and unassuming. It was time to make them great. So I got out my glue gun, some fake flowers, beads, buttons, sequins and my magic weapon. Magic that could instantly make anything more awesome. That's right, my stash of glitter glue pens.

Then I got to work. And here's what we ended up with. The process is pretty easy, but if you feel like a tutorial would be helpful, let me know and I'll post one!

This one's my favorite:

Saturday Seven - End of Summer

With the end of summer drawing near and school about to start, I figured today's seven would be a tribute to my second favorite season.

1. Ice Treasures - The possibilities are endless with this one! This would be a great way to clear out your laundry pocket discovery collection. Plus it keeps the kids busy for *hours*. Hopefully. And you won't have to make a special supply trip to do this - just use what you have. If you wanted to do this for a large group of kids, I imagine you could use empty yogurt containers or a muffin tin to make smaller ice treasures. From Let's Explore.

2. Pool Party Pops - How I adore Bakerella! She made something so precious, the whole craft world let out a collective "aww!". Then she made it cuter. And seasonally appropriate.

3. Rag Jewelry - Cheap, easy, fun. Who could ask for anything more? From a friend to knit with, via whipup.

4. Flower Ball Garland - Picnic, tea party, bedroom - I can think of a ton of places this garland from Pink Paper Peppermints belongs. You could change the colors to match the occasion and even recycle magazine pages.

5. Garden Party Pants & Jumper Set - If you want the best dressed toddler around, look no further than this darling set from Etsy seller wondermommy. I love the print, the ruffles, and the white top which I think balances the bright pants perfectly.

6. "Transparencies" Pendants - Craftster user TickleTickle has my heart stopping with these new pieces. They just bleed summer! Check out her other items at her etsy shop here. She's got an amazing talent.

7. Fairy Wings - Is summer really summer if you can't run around wearing fairy wings? These wings from The Long Thread look relatively easy to make and include a wand!

I ♥ Hair Bows

Hair bows are so simple and cheap to make, every mom should know how to make them. I hope and pray God will bless me with a little girl one day (not any time soon!) but until then, I love making bows for my friends' daughters.

The best website in the world (in my opinion) for learning to make bows can be found here: http://www.girlythingsbows.com/

The few tips I would add are:

1. Use a needle and thread to sew the bow in place. Using wire is easier, but I like the added security that sewing provides. The loops don't slide when you sew through the crease like they do when you wrap the crease with wire.

2. SEAL YOUR ENDS. It drives me crazy when this short, final step is skipped. It takes only seconds but really helps the bows last wear after wear. I prefer using a lighter to seal the ends over Fray Check.

3. Don't get your clips from craft stores. At a beauty supply store (I go to Sally) you can get a box of 100 alligator clips for around $5.

This is my favorite, the pinwheel bow.