Styrofoam Cone turns Christmas Tree.

Here is the promised craft idea I teased about a few days ago. Thanksgiving hit and of course the Christmas fever happened causing me to disappear a few days. Many decorations were put up and some shopping was done to help avoid the last minute shopping stress. Hopefully that doesn't happen.
To the project...

Styrofoam Cone turns Christmas Tree

Supplies Needed:

Styrofoam Tree (Any size works)

Yarn (to wrap the styrofoam with)

Stick Pins

Sequins

Sewing Pins to secure the sequins with

A star for the top of the tree

Here are some pictures of the supplies...

A Close up of the pins...

My advice for wrapping the tree. I wrapped the bottom of the tree once and stuck several stick pins along the yarn line to secure the first string. Then I continued to wrap around the cone. At first I tried to wrap it securely and thoroughly but in the end figured out it is easier to wrap it, leaving some gaps all the way to the top. Then, go back and rewrap the tree, wrapping all the gaps that were missed. It makes it a little more secure and textured with more dimension. 

Here is a picture of the final project on display...

P.s. Those are the same stars I used on the clay terra cota pot project found at Walmart in the cheap dollar ornament aisle. I just stuck them into the top of the styrofoam. The sequins were matched to a sewing pin with the big pin head matching the sequin. 

Enjoy!

So thankful...

Happy Thanksgiving All. Headed to a family gathering to celebrate what we are thankful for and to enjoy a delicious meal. Tis the season for yummy meals and treats :)

I am very thankful for many things....
*My husband who is always there for me and helping out
*My cat and my dog
*My family
*Our house that is always warm
*My job that I love
*My health
*All the wonderful things this next year holds
*mJoy Photography (it has given us many opportunities and provides an income)
*My AWD car...Necessary in Fargo

And just for a little extra on the post I will include some pictures because they always make it better right? :)

Mac's mini pre-thanksgiving meal. So cute right?

 How about some Cran-Slam scent in light of Thanksgiving? Yummy. 

 Mac was sitting on Mitch's back the other night and I had to capture what I saw when I looked at Mitch. HAHA. 

Also, I finished a Christmas craft last night so I will be posting pictures in the next few days to come. Depends on how crazy we go Black Friday shopping. May be tired :) 

Holiday Light Parade.

Went downtown for the holiday lights parade. It was perfect. Oh yeah except it was FREEZING! 5 degrees to be exact, and with wind -6 degrees! Nuts! The good part was that they were throwing candy (which I LOVE). Bad news is i had giant mittens on and trying to pick up a fruity tootsie on a snowy road is next to impossible.
In the beginning I was trying to pick up all the candy by me but then as I was getting colder I started to weigh the value of the candy thrown at me. I mean I was cold and was it really worth it to bend over and pick up a small blue frooty tootsie? Nope. But then when a bag of skittles came my way, I was definitely bending over to pick it up. After a while I think people were feeling bad for spectators because they were just dumping handfuls of candy into my cupped palms. Or maybe they too didn't want to have their hands out. Either way it was a success.   Wish I had some pictures to show you but my fingers were numb about five minutes into waiting for the parade to start.
Since I didn't take any pictures but I LOVE CANDY, I will show you another venture I took on a few weeks ago. Found this yummy puzzle and decided to experiment with pictures and putting it together. Check out the video to see what I mean.
(Thanks hubby for putting the pictures into a video) :)



--mJoy

Christmas Tree (Stacked Terra-Cotta Pots).

Well another project crossed off my long "hope to-do" list. This one turned out pretty great!

My mom explained to me the original project idea and I searched online to find an example of it. I found the example here House of Hepworths .

I did mine a little differently than hers, adapting it more to my style.

Here are the supplies that are needed for the project:
* 3″ pot
* TWO 4″ pots (one for trunk, other for middle part of tree)
* 6″ pot
* 6″ saucer
* A glue gun
* I used acrylic paints since our weather doesn't allow for much outside spray painting (Acrylics in green and brown)
* A bag of multi-size and colored sequins
*Found my star in the cheap ornament section at Wal-mart for $1.00

After painting, I assembled into a stack with the saucer upside down at the base of the tree (on top of the trunk)

Then I hot glued sequins on. I didn't glue any of the parts together since I would like to take it apart and store it in a stack to conserve space in my Christmas decoration storage. I would suggest gluing it together if you have kids or put it in a place where it might get bumped.

Here is the final result!

-mJoy

Don't mind if i do. :)

Sorry I have neglected you. I feel bad. Honestly.

Life has been a little crazy but good has come from it.

Saw my parents this weekend. Love them. Had a good time and glad I got to see them. p.s. We picked up a lot of craft supplies for the multiple projects I have on my to-do list so I should have some projects to show soon :)

Got a bunch of preschool cubby decorations colored. They look super cute. I know will be ready for two-three months worth of decorations. Ahh I love working ahead.

Turned on the X-mas lights a few times this weekend. Broke the "no xmas decorations before Thanksgiving" rule and my hubby ok'd it this year. Yes.... We will see about putting up the tree. I am itching for them to go up. Or at least one? We'll see. We do have a few photoshoots this week so we will be busy.

By the way, I mentioned the Xmas lights. I no longer have to feel guilty about the Xmas/Christmas word debate because I googled it. X because of some language translations stands for Christ. Yep. You heard me right. It's ok to say Xmas and not feel bad about it. Although others don't know that so get the word out so that they don't silently think we are being incorrect.
Here is the explanation if you are interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas

Found out there is going to be a "Little Fockers" movie in theatres December 22. LOVE Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers. Can't wait to see this movie.

Then we finished out the weekend with a meeting for Help Portrait. My husband, along with other photographers is coordinating an event in Fargo/Moorhead for less fortunate people/ families by supplying them with a free photoshoot. Its an amazing event on December 4th that happens in cities all over the US on the date. We are still finalizing details on what organizations will be participating.
Read about the event here: http://help-portrait.com/ 
If you would like to contribute any help to the event we are putting together, join our event on facebook. Help Portrait : Fargo 

Better head to bed so that I am ready to take on the classroom kids again this week. Although with Thanksgiving on Thursday, it gives me one more thing to be thankful of. Only two days of work this week!!!

Thank you Thanksgiving :)

Love. Memory Monday Edition

Ahh. Love in many forms. 

Our wedding day. 

Mexico. 

Enough said.

Cricut Love.

Finished a few projects tonight and they turned out great! One of the projects is for a silent auction my work is having in a few weeks. It sounds like a great fundraiser for our organization/work without having to hound people to buy stuff from you. We all bring in items we have made, bought, or having lying around that others may want. Then we all bid on the items. We win items for cheap prices and we make money! Anyways, after making the candy dish the other week, I figured I should make a cute one for the auction. It turned out pretty cute. I actually may redo mine to look like this.

Here it is!

On the bottom ring of the candy dish, it says "1 for you & 2 for Me".

I kind of continued to go Cricut crazy (cutting vinyl with my Cricut machine). Here is another project I LOVE!

I used one of those ice cube blocks (sold at Hobby Lobby) and printed the information of our wedding day. Inside the cube is our wedding unity sand we had in our ceremony. I had been trying to think of a unique way to display it without it being at risk of being dumped by our pets. I think I finally figured it out.

Thought it might be a great time to show off our other projects we have created with our Cricut.

 Words reading what seems to be an obvious suggestion yet people weren't doing it :) 

We personalized our laptops :)

Hope you all had a great weekend! Here's to a great week :)

Gobble Gobble

Busy last few days. Its already super late but figured I should quick check in again. Hockey game last night and flu shot this morning. Then I locked myself in my preschool classroom's closet for the day and cleaned a ton! It felt amazing. Then I came home to finish more school projects. The most time consuming task was coloring turkeys for the kids' cubbies. Probably should have had these ready before this week but you know how it goes. I can always use them again next year.
Here is a sample of the turkeys...

The turkey is from DJ Inkers clip art. Love their stuff! So cute!
p.s. Sorry its blurry. Evidentally my eyes are too tired and my mind is rushed to focus with my point and shoot. 

Better get some sleep now for parent conferences (more again) tomorrow morning....

Oh its love.

Today was a great day filled with lots of joy!

First, awesome weather (and its November!)

Second, I had a few parent teacher conferences and the parents were just SO grateful for what we do as teachers. Feels awesome to be recognized and thanked :)

Had a staff meeting. Not real fun. But in the end I realized something.  I am grateful to work with nice people who are all there for the same reason. They love kids and want to better their lives.  I am glad I found an awesome place to work. 

The last one is a HUGE one! Christmas is a huge deal for me and just a magical time of year. Christmas lights on our house has always been a priority even though I am not the one who gets up on the roof. Well tonight I pulled into my driveway after my staff meeting (dark outside of course with time change) to find my husband up on the roof putting up lights. Sheer delight to have lights on the house. Such an act of love for two reasons: He doesn't like being high up on the roof AND he bought the new Black Ops Xbox game last night at midnight. (Yes a die hard fan.) Which means he passed that game up tonight so he could put up my Christmas lights. Any of you with significant others who are gamers know what a big deal this is and for that I am truly appreciative.

You have been chosen.... (memory monday).

Seems like life has been busy lately with hardly enough time at home to write a short blog. Glad for the memory monday idea because its already way past bedtime and here I am trying to post.

In light of the recent Toy Story 3 release, I thought I would post my biggest art project accomplishment so far to date. Myself along with two other friends constructed one of the aliens from Toy Story for a paper mache final project.

Here it is....

Everything you hoped, right? And don't you love my glasses. haha Oh awkward teenage years, I don't miss you one bit :)

In case you are checking, I am still here :)

I have been meaning to post a new blog but didn't think I had much to blog about. Figured I could at least have enough courtesy to tell you what I / we have been doing then at least.
Saturday was spent lounging around a bit but then my husband and I went downtown for a photoshoot.

mJoy Photography Facebook Link (be sure to hit "like" it if you like what you see)

mJoy Photography Site   The official website.


After having fun downtown, we headed home. I cleaned the house and did laundry. Fun, right? Not exactly however I do like finding time to mop with my Swiffer WetJet :)

Today brought upon a visit from a good friend. Always love seeing people you haven't seen for a while. It also brought upon a visit to Five Guys Burger and Fries restaurant. Something else we love.

Tonight I have managed to get lost in the blog world while searching for more details on a project I want to complete. However, I must go buy a few supplies to do the project. It will be great though.

Since I don't have a project to show for all my internet searching, I will share a few of the blogs  I have managed to get lost in tonight. They have a lot of good stuff packed in them.

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/fonts/    Free fonts for your computer. I love these!

http://kimboscrafts.blogspot.com/

Looking back it seems funny I got lost for so long amongst these blogs but I confess. I did. They have good stuff. Something I am striving for. :)

Candy Jar.

Kind of a late night post but I have been busy working on a craft I found a while ago on another craft blog. All I used was a planter and a fish type bowl. Here is the end result...

Taken with red tissue stuffed inside so you can read the jar. (Used my cricut and vinyl for the writing)

Then a picture with candy inside (the intended purpose)

Love what you see.

Need to head to bed but dedicated to not missing a post. LOVE the idea of this video and how cute it is!

Age is beautiful.

I experienced something great today. My preschool class and I took a field trip to a retirement home today and it was a wonderful experience. Each generation had something to offer each other and really enjoyed the company of the other. Then it was brought to my attention that one of the residents was 104 years old! Incredible, right? She was coloring a picture right alongside of a four year old. 100 year age span?!? Remarkable. Truly a beautiful thing. I googled a picture that I felt captured somewhat of the moment.

 ( I have no idea who this photographer is but found this picture in google image search. I am leaving her name on the photo to give her credit though because as photographers, I would definltely want credit for my photo. )

Memory Monday

Well its Monday and for someone who works Monday-Friday work weeks, Monday means ugh. Tired, exhausted, and yearning for the weekend (already). Mondays in a preschool classroom are especially rough because the kids have been away from school rules for a few days and you have to get them used to the routine. Then add Halloween festivities and candy eating from the night before and you get one outrageous Monday.
I am trying to be dedicated to having a rant-free, postive blog which leads me to my new Monday blog idea. Memory Monday. I will post a picture of the past that makes me happy :)

In light of Halloween just happening, here is a picture of myself one Halloween MANY years ago. This was my FAVORITE costume that my mom made for me and I demanded to wear it for several years.

Enjoy!