friendship garland

My daughter has so many cute friends, but unfortunately not many of them live close to us.

I decided to make her something to help her feel closer to her girlfriends that live far away.  I saw a paper doll garland on Pintrest that sparked an idea.

This garland was super simple and cheap to make.  The most expensive part was the fabric stiffener I used to make the dolls stand upright.  I used scraps of fabric for the dresses.  One important thing, as I have said before, is to use good felt. I have a local quilt shop that sells quality felt. Search one out. It will make a lot of difference in your end product.

Top roll:

Charley, Patterson, Ivy

Bottom roll:

Eloise, Amelie, Emerson

peace on earth

The children that live with me seem to like to fight. A lot.

The babies are the main culprits.  There is screaming and hitting and pulling hair and yes, unfortunately, even biting.  The problem seems to be that they are both of the age where they believe they own the world and everything in it. And nobody is allowed to touch or look at anything they own. Or look directly at them while they are carrying one of their possessions.

It's really quite exhausting.

Now the boy, he's a teaser. A heckler. An instigator.  He knows allll the right buttons to push when it comes to the babies.

Like I said before, there's a lot of screaming.

So out of pure desperation, I have declared this Christmas to be the year of "Peace on Earth". (Read Peace in the Meeker House.) I'm also for world peace and all, but it's baby steps people. Baby steps.

So far it's not working.

They have fought over ornaments. They have fought over who gets to open the advent calendar.  They fought over Christmas music lyrics. They even fought over the baby Jesus in our navitity. Baby Jesus!

Oy.

Here's the DIY details on the mantle:

The trees are just foam cones covered with felt. I don't use cheap felt. Ever. It's just not worth it. Find good felt if you can!

I used a Sizzix machine to cut the circles of felt for the garland. I ran them through my sewing machine to join them together.

The peace dove felt cut outs and jingle bell wreaths are from Target $1 Spot. I made bows out of felt to top the wreaths.

The letters are from Paper Source. They are paper mache that I painted silver and then used pattern craft paper to embellish.

The wreath is made from two pool noodles. I used one noodle to create a circle. I duck taped the ends together. Then I used the other noodle to make the inside lines of the peace sign.  Again I used duck tape to secure the pieces to the outside circle.

I spray painted the noodle peace sign silver.

From Target $1 Spot, I bought tubes of small plastic Christmas bulbs.  My wreath took about 450 bulbs. I cut the top hanger part off the bulbs and hot glued them to the noodle wreath. I wasn't able to get all my bulbs in silver so I had to then spray paint all the bulbs silver. I highly recommend Valspar paint. It covers really well with very little paint. I glittered some of the bulbs for dimension.

I cut up a strand of tinsel and filled in the small gaps between the bulbs.

The end result is one super sparkly peace wreath.

The mercury glass pieces are all part of my collection. I found the vintage strands of beads on Ebay. I got the blue trees at Home Goods this year. I was so excited to find them.

So there you have it.

Even if it does nothing for the children, it inspires me to try to be the peace maker instead of screaming at them for screaming at each other.

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Okay! The winner of the Mindy Gledhill "Winter Moon" album is Katie Johnson who told me about the She and Him Album, that my husband also recommended, that I love love love.

Katie send me your address!

these boots

Every once in a while, a purchase comes along, so fundamental, so useful to your well being as a human, you can hardly believe your good fortune.  Thus it is with with my Target boots.

I bought these boots for $35 dollars. Yes. You read that right. Thirty-five. They were on sale from fifty. They are real leather. I love them from the bottom of my heart.

But, and not to speak ill of my wonder boots because they are the consummate perfection of foot wear, the pinnacle of comfort, but, they are just a wee bit plain.

And you know me.

Baubles make everything better, even boots. (Wow that's a mouthful.)  

Here's the "how to" on my boot embellishments:

You will need:

A round of leather or thick felt.

Felt flowers and leafs.

Yarn.

Felted balls.

A darning needle.

A metal clip.

Ribbon.

Using the darning needle, run the yarn through the center of each felted ball and tie off the end.

Snip a slit in the leather round. Slide the upper prongs of the clip through the back of the round and glue down with hot glue.

Arrange your felt flowers. I bought my felt flowers to save time, but you can make your own. There's like a kabillion tutorials online showing you how.  Google it.

Glue down your yarn with the felted balls first. Then start hot glueing your arrangement onto the round on top of the clip and yarn.

Supa supa easy. And you can clip your little arrangement onto a headband or necklace or even your purse. We are nothing if not versatile around here. But if you want to be on the cutting edge of fashion, you will join me in my boot embellishment revolution.

Long live the Target boot.

And now... to a give away.

Leave a comment, just one.  Make sure I have a way to contact you. The winner will be announced on Monday.