Earring Holder

For a few months now I've been looking for something to hold my earrings instead of having mounds of them in the bottom of my jewlery box.  While working with my mom at Vintage Village yesterday, I came across this cute, white iron frame.  PERFECT!

First I painted the frame with black paint using a sponge brush.  I then dabbed the black paint off so that the original white would show through.

Then, I cut chicken wire (used pieces from my mom's old fence) and hot glued it to the back of the frame, securing it with decorative ribbon.

SUPER SIMPLE AND SUPER CUTE!!  What do you think?

The Craftin' Southern Belle

ATTENTION ETSY LOVAHS... I NOW AM ON AND OPEN FOR BUSINESS!! 

Before I continue with my shameless self-plug, I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has sent kind words, thoughts, and prayers my way as I started the crafting thing.  I appreciate everyones love!

Ok, back to the plug... I've updated with a couple of Christmas items that I've started working on - three ornaments and two lanterns to be exact.  These are the "demos", if you will, for the items that I will be making and featuring in my mom's booth at Vintage Village (great place to find all kinds of neat things... like my Halloween lanterns!  Check them out!)

Please visit my Etsy store and view the items.  Let me know your thoughts, suggestions, requests! 

www.CraftinSouthernBelle.etsy.com

Christmas in October

Although Halloween is still two weeks away stores are decked out in Christmas garb.  Trees, lights, decorations, gifts... you name it, Christmas has hit the retail business.

In the spirit of the season, I decided to start demo crafts for the Christmas rush.  Today, I made 4 items: two lanterns and two ornaments.

Lanterns
Using the same technique as I did with my Halloween lanterns, I created these CUTE winter inspired crafts.  The snowman and "let it snow" lanterns are perfect for Christmas AND the rest of winter! 

The Snowman Lantern

"Let it Snow" Lantern

You will have to excuse my painting skills on the "Let it Snow" lantern.  They need some work.

Ornaments
The ornaments are VERY simple to make.  I purchased plain, glass ornaments at Michaels, ribon of different styles and sizes, some jewels, and started using my hot glue gun!

Funky Ribbon Ornament

Christmas Ribbons Ornament

The "Write" Time

I am super excited folks! On Monday I learned that I would be the new contributing writer for TalkGwinnett.com! The funny thing is, I didn’t start out in life as a writer, but maybe… just maybe, it is in my blood.

The opportunity made me start thinking about my past and about how writing has influenced and affected my life thus far.

School
Growing up, I was always an A/B student – nothing exceedingly great, but nothing horrible either. My grades were all right, but I always seemed to struggle with grammar – the dreaded time in class when I ALWAYS made a fool of myself. I crutched my way through and by the time high school rolled around I was slung into the Honors English class (what?! Who me!?).

Upon beginning my senior year I was graced (using this term sarcastically here) with having Dr. Wilson as my Honors English teacher. After turning in paper after paper and having paper after paper returned to me with failing grades and blots of purple ink with corrections my mom intervened. She felt that Dr. Wilson was unusually unreasonable on her grading and set up a meeting to discuss. It was in that parent/teacher conference that Dr. Wilson lovingly (again, sarcasm) told my mom “she’ll never make it through college English… she is a horrible writer… I don’t know how she has made it this far…”

Hey, Dr. Wilson… why don’t you take a moment to check me out now? No purple pen around here!!

Cynthia
My newfound writing opportunity lead me to remember something that I had long forgotten about – “Ms. Cynthia Porter”. Oh how proud she would be…

Cynthia Porter was the nom de plume my granmommy would use when speaking about her dreamed writing career. She would talk about the books she wanted to write, but how life was busy and time got away from her.

Last night my grandma’s talks of “Cynthia” popped into my head after being a lost memory for years. I began smiling, which made Brandon curious. I told him the stories about my grandma and her writing chats. In turn he replied, “maybe that is her way of saying how proud she is of you.” Just thinking about that brings tears to my eyes… look grandmommy, I’m doing it!

Future
My first post on TalkGwinnett.com mentioned my goals for my writings. I hope that I am able to accomplish these while creating new ones as I go. Thanks to all of you who read my ramblings here. I’ll keep posting here as often as possible. After all, this is my starting point… now off to the big leagues folks!

A Classic Treat Turned Gameday

Yesterday I was inspired by a friend who told me about the Rice Krispies Treats her class had made. Needing something to take to the family College Gameday cookout, I quickly decided that Rice Krispies Treats were just the ticket.

In order to spice things up, Adrian’s class had thrown M&Ms in the treats - my spice, ONLY red and brown M&Ms. After all, these are for the Georgia game afternoon.

Here are my Georgia Bulldawg treats:

For your sweet tooth pleasure, here is the recipe:

Ingredients –

     3 tbsp. butter or margarine

     1 pkg (10 oz.) regular marshmallows, OR 4 cups of mini marshmallows

     6 cups Rice Krispies

Directions –

     In a large saucepan melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.

     Add Rice Krispies cereal and stir well.

     Using butter spatula or wax paper evenly press mixture into 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan coated with cooking spray. Cool. Cut into squares.

Revisit: Haunting Halloween Craft

After making my precious Halloween decorations last night I decided to make some monsters to add to my collection (once again inspired by Not So Idle Hands). Here they are!

Haunting Halloween Craft

Just the other day I was lucky enough to stumble upon a wonderfully crafty blog, Not So Idle Hands. In early September she had a post featuring these cute Halloween decorations that I HAD to make.

The process is simple and quick. This would make a great craft for kids too!

All you need is:
A couple of jars. Not So Idle Hands recommends using varying sizes for a more interesting effect. Since I didn’t have those, I just made mine the same and displayed them in a grouping of 3.

Tissue Paper. Not a whole bunch – just a sheet or 2. I used orange for the pumpkin and white for the ghost.

Mod Podge. It’s cheap and you can find it at the craft store. I think I paid $5 or so at Joann’s.

Black Paper. I used some construction paper I had.

Paint. Use green for the tops of the pumpkins and black for the top of the ghost.

For a great step by step guide (with pictures) visit the Not So Idle Hands blog by clicking here.

Happy crafting!