more crafty DIY projects

I haven't traded baking for crafting, I've been doing both! I haven't made things by hand in a very long time. Long before Malakai was born I busied myself with a lot of other things. I think Christmas inspired me to bring my creative side back out.

Last week I made a couple of tissue paper pom-poms. One I hung up in our room + the other is mini-sized for a gift embellishment. These things are my new obsession.

{never mind our messy bedroom}

Then while I was out picking up stocking stuffers I came across a foam circle for making a wreath. I've been wanting a yarn wreath so I googled instructions + found this adorable blog. 

Mine is much smaller than these, and I didn't use any batting to make it fluffy. Everything else I used I already had. I wrapped it with black yarn (while watching The Sing-Off),  then a red ribbon.

 I added on a foam plumeria flower from our wedding cake (sent to us from one of my aunties in Hawaii). Since I pinned on the ribbon + flower, I can change what it looks like easily.

The next thing I make I won't be able to blog about until after Christmas because it's a gift that I don't want to spoil!

Decking the Halls + a crafty tutorial of sorts

Ok, actually our one hall doesn't even have any decorations in it. I am working on a bunch of framed photos but the frames happened to be the kind without the hanging part on the back and we haven't made it to the hardware store to pick those up.

Ahem...

Anyway, we have decorated our little space for the Christmas season and I thought I'd share with you Malakai's first time decorating the tree, and my handmade decorations.

{I just love a Christmas bokeh}

After choosing our tree on Sunday night we turned on some Christmas music, made some hot cocoa, got into our comfy clothes and began to decorate.

The first thing Malakai did was walk up to the tree, point to a branch, and say "nummy!" Luckily, he didn't try to eat it. He was really excited about the glittery "ball" we handed him to put on the tree. Our Christmas bulbs are all plastic with no hooks. We bought them a few years back to replace the set that our cats kept breaking. Such a great purchase!

A lot of decor in our house is red, my kitchen is red + black and our bedroom is red + deep purple. A lot of Christmas decor is red. However, our front room is a mix of blues + greens and lots of brown. So we went with a silvery blue for our ornaments. Now if only the skirt matched.

Malakai didn't want to let go of the "ball", but we finally got him to hang his first ornament.

Even though he took it (and many others) off again just after I snapped this photo. Miraculously, since that evening he hasn't touched the tree or the ornaments. He has been very obedient when told that he cannot touch. This is not like him at all!

After he went to bed that night, Ben + I finished decorating the tree and setting out a few other decorations. This will be our first Christmas at this house. It was fun to figure out where everything would go and I was very excited to put the tree in the front window since we weren't able to do this in our previous house.

 I also worked on a garland I decided to make for our dining room. It's purpose, to display our holiday cards. We had already received three. Part of my mission was to use items I already had for this project. I gathered glitter glues (many of which were dried up as I haven't been crafty in far too long), yarn, a gift bag, clothes pins, and a couple different kinds of ribbon. One of which I had actually purchased over the weekend from the dollar section at Target. 

I had a general idea of what I was going for in my mind. Something a bit like this...

I removed the bamboo art print from our grey wall where I knew I wanted the garland to go. I also managed to only make one extra hole in the wall, which was one more than I wanted, but necessary to make it work. 

I tied the on the wall, letting it droop between each attachment at first. Later, when hanging things on it, I tied it tightly so that it could droop less and more naturally under the weight of the clothes pins and cards.  Then I went to work with the glitter glue on the clothes pins. I chose red, to match the kitchen + dining area. I just love the contrast of red on the grey paint in our dining room. 

I didn't use nearly enough at first so I made it as thick as I could so you couldn't see the wood underneath. I also colored some black and gave them red glitter accents. The ribbon I got from Target was only 25 inches long so I decided to cut some pieces and glue them on the clothes pins. 

I put the clothes pins up with some cards, knowing it needed something more. I was thinking of making snowflakes, or paper hearts like the example above when I remembered something that would be perfect.  I had a gift bag from a friend who brought us a housewarming gift in it and it was just right. It has these circular designs in white + black on a red background. I cut them out with a scalloped scissor and tied them on with short ribbon. The ribbon was precut to this size because they had once topped by bubbles from our wedding.

I think the paper accents make the perfect little addition and I love that they kind of look like snowflakes. Here's the finished product, waiting for more holiday cards.

Now, on to a new crafting obsession. Tissue paper pom-poms!

What are you making by hand this year?

my first mother's day

This past Wednesday Ben kicked me out of the house so he and Malakai could work on part of my Mother's Day present. I went out and did some shopping and came back 90 minutes later to my smiling boys. Shortly after I noticed a bright red mark on Kai's thumb and thought he was bleeding somehow. Upon closer inspection I realized it was marker or paint of some kind. I looked at Ben and said, "If you know what this is and it's non-toxic I'll stop asking questions". You see, he has a VERY hard time keeping secrets, especially when they involve something he is excited about. If I ask enough questions I can get him to spill the beans, but I happen to like surprises so I do my best to help him keep things secret.

Today we celebrated Mother's Day with my in laws and I found out what the red fingers were all about.

{TO MY MOMMY ON HER FIRST MOTHER'S DAY 2010- LOVE, MALAKAI}

It was my mother-in-law's idea to make this for me from Malakai. She also made one for his great-grandma on their side and herself. Ben video taped the whole process and I get to watch it tomorrow. I have a feeling it's going to be hilarious, I mean just look at those messy little handprints!

My boys are still holding on to a few more secrets. I have no idea what's going on after church tomorrow other than we'll eventually end up seeing my mom. And at this very moment Ben is wrapping things in the other room. I can't wait!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas out there. I hope that your children, your significant others, and the rest of your family and friends make it extra special and memorable for you like mine already have.

the holidays are upon us

We decorated the tree last night. We have the plastic balls that look glass, so we were able to let Malakai hang his first ornament.

It was so fun to put on some Christmas music on pandora and decorate the house. We had to move our dining room table into the garage to make room for the tree this year. Our house is 900 square feet and with Malakai in the second bedroom, we moved our desk to the living room- thus taking up the space we used to have for a Christmas tree. We never eat at the dining room table, so it wasn't a huge sacrifice and the tree looks quite nice in it's place.

This year I decided to take down a lot of our other knick knacks and decor from our mantel, the piano, and end tables to replace with Christmas decorations. I used the trimmings from the tree on the mantel and piano and think things turned out pretty well. I took a couple photos. We aren't finished yet as I think we'll take back the cheap stocking to get something nicer for Malakai as we'd like it to last through the years. It's either that, or I'll add a monogram to the one in the picture. We also need more hooks to hang all three stockings.

I did attempt to make a stocking for Malakai out of a sweater like I posted about recently. I didn't have a rotary cutter or a good place to set up my sewing machine so I attempted to make it with my mom's help. Sadly, it turned out much too skinny...so if Ben ends up having a secret santa exchange at work, I'll decorate it and fill it for him to take. It's almost the same size as the above stocking (in the picture it looks like a regular old sock) but I forgot to give myself room for the seam and it the material doesn't hold up quite right. oh well.

While Kai was napping I took some photos of our Christmas decor and these are a few of my favorite things (by the way, why is that even considered a Christmas song?)

This ornament was given to me by a co-worker and marks our first Christmas as husband and wife.

This is one of my favorites because it was given to my family by my grandpa who passed away when I was 15. He was half Hawaiian.

This is a new favorite, because I saw it for the first time yesterday. My mother in law gave Ben all of his ornaments, and I just love this one with his little photo in it.

I got this one in an ornament exchange at work and just think it's so cute.

We got this one from Ben's mom as well and I just got around to putting the photo in it last night. This is our 2008 ornament as we hope to get one for each year. Of course this year (after Christmas to take advantage of the sales!) we'll get a baby's first Christmas one.

This is what our plastic ball ornaments look like. We got them at Target a couple years ago because the cats (that we no longer have) kept knocking the glass ones onto our wood floor and shattering them.

This angel was on my families tree growing up until my mom got a new one a few years ago. It's sentimental but the gold doesn't match. I'm hoping to get a new topper this year and use this one as mantel decor or something similar.

And I've already got a few presents under the tree for my cousins (the ones ranging from 17-2 years old anyway)

sweater stocking

After reading this post on one of the dozens of blogs I follow, I really want to make one of these adorable sweater stockings for Malakai.

We originally tried to find a monogrammed felt stocking to match ours, but Target isn't carrying them this year. Ben really wants his to match ours, but after finding this adorable idea I'm really wanting to make him one myself. The things (blankets, clothes, stockings) I always loved the most growing up were the ones that someone had made just for me. I still have two stockings at my parents' place (for looks now, not for gifts), one was crocheted by my great-aunt and the other I was brought home in like a swaddling blanket because I was born just 4 days after Christmas.

My grandma & I

This oversized stocking usually had a big gift in it, but could you imagine if Santa filled this with regular stocking stuffers each year?!

Currently, there are two sleeping babies in the house and my husband is home sick from work (so really that's three babies right?) so I won't be getting a start on it today, but I'll post pictures if I do get around to it!