Cardboard Christmas Villages

Over the holiday weekend I knew my two cousins would be around, and I decided that it would be fun to do a craft together. Sure beats Black Friday shopping if you ask me. I e-mailed my family members a week or two in advance and requested they save and bring cardboard, cereal box weight, to be used for the crafting. I got inspired by many things; first was Dana's Ghost Town, as well as a dozen or so gingerbread houses on Pinterest, and this Martha Stewart idea.  Here is what we came up with:

Each row of houses is one cereal box unfolded. I drew a rough idea of the house outlines on the cardboard then cut them out before hand. For one I cut the windows out before we started and for the other three I waited. Waiting means you have to cut through a few layers of cardboard and paper. Cutting the windows and doors first meant the houses were a bit more flimsy to work with. I also used another cereal box to make trees to go behind the houses. 

We all went to the movies then came home and started working. Rich was nice enough to let us all work on the floor in the living room next to a roaring fire. He set out a huge piece of cardboard so we would paint, glue and glitter to our hearts content. 

 The houses are painted or were made with scrapbook paper. We decorated each house with paper, paint, glitter paint and or course lots of glitter and snow paint. Then we hot glued the cardboard to a strip of plywood to make them stand upright. I love how they turned out. In the day time they are pretty to look and notice to details. At night, with some electric tea lights or a string of white lights behind them, they are a great silhouette.

This turned out to be a really fun project. Charlie came home from a visit with his friends and said "Wow that turned out way better than I thought it would." He's always underestimating my crafting skillz. The project kept my 10 year old cousin, my aunt, and myself busy and for at least 4 hours if not more. It also kept the rest of the family entertained with watching us. The only trouble was that my back hurt from sitting on the floor for 4+ hours and I still have glitter in my hair from 3 days ago. 

All and all it was a great time. I love sharing my love of crafts with others. We all inspired each other and shared ideas. It was a great time.

Lauren 

P.S. I am officially paying $2.99 a month to continue blogging and uploading pictures. Hope you enjoy these posts people! If I post 4 times that's 74 cents, talk about motivation to blog! 

P.P.S. I spelled "skillz" incorrectly on purpose Dad. I was feeling like a gangsta. 

Milkweed Stars

It's no secret that I love milkweed. It's one of the only things I like about fall. I get excited when I go running and see the pods open and the white fuzzy seeds floating everywhere. A few years ago I shared a tutorial for making Milkweed Pod Santa Ornaments. 

 A few weekends ago when my family was visiting I suckered them into going out to collect pods.

 Fill those bags you suckers! Penny ran around in the field, I took pictures and everyone else did my work for me. Sometimes I wonder why my family likes me. I swear they had fun, I think.

Garrett at least had fun. He posed for these wonderful shots, what a good sport. In case you're wondering he does have guards on his glasses, wouldn't want any milkweed seeds getting in his eyes. Seriously though he wears them all the time. I digress.

 After giving the milkweed adequate time to dry (in other words I was lazy and left it all in a bag for a week) I got my craft on.

All this project entailed was hot gluing five pods together, then gluing dried flowers or berries to the inside of the star to hide all of the glue globs. Then I glued ribbon to the back so I could hang them. totally simple; a baby could do it. (Warning: do not let babies use hot glue guns.)

 The only place I had to hang them was on my purse wall. My milkweed stars kinda snazzy next to all of the beaded glittery purses.

Now that I finally got around to posting about this I think it's too late to collect milkweed pods. Sorry. Store my fabulous idea in your noggins until next year.

We're going to Maine for Thanksgiving so I won't post anything until after then. Hope you have a great holiday.

Lauren

Snaps from the Weekend

We've been hiking every weekend in November. You're probably bored of hiking pictures. Oh well. I switched things up and use the prime lens I got for Christmas. 

1, 2, 3 over the river. 

We hiked Welch-Dickey. Two 2,000-ish footers in Thornton, NH.

Aside from hiking we went shopping, running, and I've been embroidering while watching Parks and Recreation. Thanks for the recommendation Natalie! 

 Hope you had a good weekend too!

Lauren

Life Updates: Ugly Hat Edition

I am totally in love, head over heals in love, with "Call the Midwife." I've been trying to restrain myself and watch only one episode then waiting a few days. This goes against every scrap of American nature I've grown to embrace since Netflix invented instant streaming for the ipad.

This sweater is taking me forever.

Sandlot reference anyone? I have started over 3 times, and ripped out thousands of stitches and am still only on the first sleeve. I am taking a break and waiting until mom Mum can help me over Thanksgiving break.

I hate cooking. That's not news to you is it? If so you must not know me well. I hate cooking so much that I have started to not even like eating. I obviously still do, as is apparent by my weight. If I wouldn't get all cranky pants and probably kill someone I would just skip eating in most cases. Can't someone invent a pill I can take that would replace the need for me to eat? It's 2012, let's get on this.



Do you ever feel like you wish you were either smarter or dumber. I see a lot of things around me that should be changed, and have a lot of great (to me) ideas, but I don't have the brain power to execute these ideas. If only I were smarter and could figure out how to make my ideas a reality, or dumber so I didn't have ideas in the first place. Having a solidly average (self diagnosed, no proof) IQ can be so exhausting sometimes. Also, being a prissy know it all who can be doubly as exhausting.

I finished my last ornament today.



It's Friday. For reals, look at a calendar. Woot! It's Friday but it's not Thanksgiving yet. I wish it was. I am already 1/15 packed, which means my crafting supplies are packed.

Charlie and I bought season passes to Ragged Mountain. We have been skiing at Cannon for the last two years, but the Student discount Charlie was getting is over now that he went and graduated. It's also farther from our house and we'd feel bad leaving Penny home alone for that long on the weekends. I just need to invest in a coat that looks like everyone else's and a face mask so none of the kids I work with will recognize me there. I wouldn't look too obvious in this would I?



Speaking of winter wear. Every winter I pull out my homemade hat and Charlie says he won't go anywhere with me if I wear it. I knit it before I learned how to knit in the round so it's just a large piece of knit knitness folded in half and sewn up the sides. I used to wear it all the time in high school. Today he said he would let me continue wearing it if I wrote a blog post about it. That happened after he ripped it off of my head while we were going outside to walk Penny. He purposely lets me get way ahead of them and then crosses the street so he won't be associated with me. Then he said wearing the hat would be comparable to him having a picture he drew in 5th grade on his desk at work. I see no comparison  What's wrong with wearing a silly hat that gives you joy? What's wrong with being proud of how far you have come in your "talents"? (I use the world loosely here.)

On second thought, who needs a panda mask when I can just do this.



Guess I'll be skiing alone a lot.

Did you ever think to yourself in college "Oh boy I can't wait to be 26 so I can write stupid blog posts on a Friday night instead of ragging with my friends." Yeah, me either. I did spent a lot of Friday nights stuck on a coach bus watching "Remember the Titans" and other movies that my teammates had on VHS. I say teammates because I was a division 1 athlete. Was.

My friend told me she liked the first post I did like this one so I decided to do another one. If nothing else it give me some good laughs on a Friday night.

Lauren

Snaps from the Long Weekend

This weekend we both had a three day weekend. That allowed me time to go to my Dad's house and catch up on my junk TV watching (hello HGTV marathon.) It also allowed us time to go on a hike. Bald Mountain to be exact. It's small but lovely. The weather was fantastic so we hiked in tee shirts. 

I have a theory that there are really six seasons. Here goes, 1. Winter, 2. Mud 3. Spring 4. Summer. 5. Fall 6. Bleck then back to winter again. We are in season Bleck.  Even though the weather was gorgeous the view was kind of bleck because there is no color. I just wish it would snow already and be pretty again.

The only bad part of our hike was when Penny decided to roll in poop and fish guts. We drove home with all the windows open and our shirts wrapped around our faces.

Talk about style. This could be the new thing. Highly effective for blocking bad smells.

Penny sat in the back wearing her safety vest and being embarrassed that she made such poor life decisions. It's a good thing she has us to guide her.

Okay, that's all.

Lauren

p.s. Is it Thanksgiving yet? I'm so excited.

Lorelei Skirt

Hola! Just because my blind hem was a major fail, doesn't mean my entire project was. I made another copy cat skirt two weekends ago. It's based off of a skirt that my friend Lorelei, mistakenly, let me borrow a few years ago while she was in Iraq wearing scrubs and camo. When she came back she asked for the skirt, but I've pined for it since. I finally begged her to send it to me so I could make one like it. I think it turned out alright if I may say so. 

It still needs a bit of tweaking. I added a lining but I think the lining is too bulky and therefore crumples the whole skirt when I walk. I was pulling at it most of the day, which was super annoying. It could also have been due to my tights, or the dry air. Aside from the bunching, when I stand still I really like it. The best part is that it's made of three pieces that are all cut on the bias and make the skirt flowy. 

When I spin in circles, which often happens since I forget where I am going frequently, it flows like the flowers in Fantasia. (skip to 4:30 ish if you don't believe me). Am I the only person who watched Fantasia several hundred times as a child? No one these days knows what it is, and even some people my age look at me like I'm nuts when I rave about Fantasia (Charlie). 

I also need to work on my styling. If Michael Kors had seen me today he would have shaken his head. I felt that a white top would have looked better, but would have been too spring/summer-ish. The mustard cardigan was as close as I have to yellow. I didn't have any other tops that matched with the colors of the skirt. It was also cold so I had to wear tights, I went with brown. Meh. I'll fix the lining and pack it away until spring when I can wear it with a nice white top and sandals. Then I'll be styling.

 Charlie made me laugh.

On another note, this is an issue I run into a lot. When I wear clothes that I have made, I like getting complements, who doesn't right. What most people say though is "Did you make that?" I usually take this as a complement, but maybe it isn't. Can they tell I made it because it sucks? Hum. Then the other issue is when no one says anything about your outfit it could mean one of two things. The first being that they think it looks nice, like something you bought in a store, and they don't say anything. The second, less desirable, option is that everyone knows you made your skirt and they think it looks so bad that they adopt the "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all policy." So much to ponder for a self conscious over-thinker like me.

Maybe I'll ponder it tonight while Charlie and I are on top of a mountain freezing out butts off trying to see the Northern lights.

Lauren