A Neat idea for a Bloom

So there are these blooms at Walmart for cheap but they are in the little egg-crate planters all ready to be planted in your flower garden.  That doesn't help you too much for bringing them inside to decorate with though.  And since potting can get SOOOOO messy and cumbersome I came up with a cutie patootie idea.  Well actually it was a collaboration between an idea of my Mother In Laws (I have the BEST Mother in Law in the world for those of you who were wondering!!!) and the final product that I cam up with to showcase her awesome idea.

First you start by cutting apart the egg-crate container that the flowers cam in (not pictured..sorry)

Next you wrap a plastic sandwich bag around the individual, now cut apart, plant.

Next wrap either a piece of tissue paper or, like my MIL did, a paper napkin (shes a genius!). Use some string or a rubber band to make sure the tissue stays in place.

Finally pick up a cute container for a buck at Target or Dollar Tree and put the now prettily wrapped flower into it.  Oh did I mention that because of the plastic baggie you can now water the plant without fear of leaking???  Lu-AHH-Vv it!!!

Finally display your Spring handy work for your family and guests to enjoy.

Hopefully your shelf wont collect dust as quickly as mine does, the bane of having NO carpet in my home is constant dust.  I think I had dusted these shelves three days before this picture! Oh well you get what you get and you don't throw a fit (a rhyme I use on my kids when they don't think life is being fair). 

Oh and check out my little planter on the top shelf.  It was an old metal bucket I spray painted white.  Then I cut out the sweet "Simplify" on my cricket in the pretty bright yellow vinyl, applied to the front, and there I have a new spring planter that pops.

I hope you found some inspiration for simple and less messy plant potting to bring the outdoors inside your home.

Have a Great Day and God Bless

Flowers of Love

So today has been a wonderful day...ummm wait no that definitely wasn't today!  Excuse me for a minute but I am just going to let you know exactly what kind of day it has been for me and why.  First I woke up sick this morning. Since I am one of those people that sickness forces me to hibernate, I literally could NOT keep my eyes open for a large chunk of the day.  Until finally this afternoon while sitting on my couch listening to my children bicker, fuss, laugh, have fun and generally enjoy a beautiful day play outside through the open windows and screened doors my eyes drifted shut once again. For some reason that nap did the trick.  I finally woke up without the headache, weakness, stomach cramps, and nausea I had experienced all day long. Next I went to find something in the pantry and in disgust with the disorganization started cleaning it out.  This meant that my kitchen was full of pantry stuff.  Then my husband decided to go ahead and take a look at the dryer that quit working over the weekend.  this meant that the entire laundry closet had to be emptied for him to feel sufficiently comfortable enough to pull the dryer into the middle of the kitchen.  Oh didn't I mention that this laundry closet is located at the side of my kitchen??  It is also the place where I store all my un-used quilts, blankets, and comforters, basically all my big bulky bedding items.  they reside folded and stacked in a large laundry hamper, but due to the amount I have of them and the bulk of fabric the stack reaches quite high.  Well my husband decided that he might need to check a junction box he thought was located directly behind this stack...uggghhhh!!  So now all those blankets and quilts are out in my den and kitchen.  Not to mention a few crafty items I had just stashed on top of my dryer to get out of the way, but I wasn't done using so I didn't want to put them away completely, or the mail basket that runneth over with junk mail and school papers the girls have brought home over the last little while that ALL had to be relocated for the dryer repair process.  So right now my den, kitchen, and breakfast nook look like a tornado has hit it and its driving me CRAZY!!!  Finally I think I forgot to mention that my washer started leaking...a LOT and I'm pretty sure that's what messed up the switch thingie on the dryer that now has to be replaced.  The dryer is a cheap fix the washer? Not as cheap, but not as expensive as buying a completely new washer either so yay home repair!!! So to get to the best and most wonderful part of my day today?  It will be easier to show you first

Aren't they beautiful?  All three of my babies picked me great gobs of wild flowers that bloom around the trees in our backyard.  Yes they are weeds wild flowers, but I absolutely adore live flowers of any variety.  I love that my kids know this and try to pick them for me whenever they can.  My kids ROCK!!!  So now they sit in a pretty pink pail on my desk blessing me with their love every time I look at them.  And I do look Reeeeaaalll close at them ever so often just to make sure no little critters came in with them. 

So far no unwanted guests!  Yay!!

Another plus to my day is that I now have an additional shelf in my pantry where there was once just a big empty useless space ( My Hubby is AWESOME!), and I know whats wrong with my dryer and the part is on its way as well as the washer part to fix the leak!!  woo hoo!!!  

So what started out as a rotten day has ended quite nicely, if still very messily (I can NOT wait to reclaim my kitchen from the laundry room stuff and dryer), but that's a job for tomorrow!  I'm too tired to worry with it now!

I hope you had a wonderful Monday and have a great week!

Have a great day and God Bless!!!

Yep, its a Bloomin' Tutorial

This is a tutorial on how to make the felt flowers that were part of my Square Fall Yarn Wreath from last week.   While they neglected to comment on my blog, I had a few friends come to me wanting to know how I made my flowers.  I asked them if they had checked out any of the one MILLION tutorials in the blogasphere for felt flowers.  Ummm... NO, they hadn't, and just wanted me to spill.  Well I have to admit that I really haven't seen any tutorials that show how to do them the way that I made mine.  So I figured I would make it one million and ONE!

First I cut out 9 circles about 3 inches in diameter (across, for you non-mathy folks) of each color felt

Next I folded each circle in half

Then I fold half back over diagonally then the other half you fold the other direction to form an "S"

At this point you insert a straight pin through it above where your fingers are to hold it in the "S" pattern.  Also this is pretty much the same way you start a lot of the other felt flowers.  Now we get to where my flower differs from the other tutorials I have seen. The way you put it together...

Most tutorials say to glue them flat where you can (for lack of a better explanation) read the "S" but I glue mine on their side so it looks a little like waves or the edge of a pie crust. Oh & 

DONT REMOVE THE PINS YET!!!

(you can see some of my straight pins sticking through my pieces)

After you get these 7 pieces glued down you put a HUGE gob of glue in the center and put the remaining two pieces with the pinched in going straight down into the glue.  If you look at it from above you should be able to "read" the two "S's" & DON'T REMOVE THE PINS YET!!

I folded it back so you can see how I attached the center two pieces in the gob of glue

now the last step is to wait until all the glue is completely dry then remove the pins and start to gently pull apart the "S" shapes.  Some will fold back into the "S", some will be fonkey wide, and some will do what you want.  Which is to crinkle up into multiple smaller folds.

If you want a tighter, crinkly flower use the 9 pieces I stated, but if you like the looks of the looser tan flower only use 7 pieces (5 around and still 2 in the middle) Either way they still are AWESOME!!  The great thing about these is that they are useful for all sorts of things like hair flowers, pillows, clothes, purses... the list is really endless, and they were a blast to make!!! Hope you try it out and have as much fun as I did, and be sure to leave me a comment telling me what you think and if you did try it!  

Have a great day and God bless!