Crafts

I grew up with a Grandmother who was a life long teacher.  She started teaching at a very young age back in the one room school-house days.  She was her youngest brother’s first grade teacher.  Imagine that… you start the morning wanting to pop his head off for not letting you into the bathroom early enough, head off to school and have the patience of a saint while teaching him how to read.

This is my sweet Grammy a little later in life… always the teacher.  She instilled a great love of teachers and of learning in me.  So… in memory of her, together with my girls, we put together some teacher appreciation gifts tonight for their teachers.

For all of you amazing men and women out there to choose to spend your days with my little rug rats and help them to become amazing people, THANK YOU!!

To put together the pencil flower pots you will need:

• pencils
• small container
• Styrofoam core
• shredded paper
• ribbon
• 1 inch Fiskars daisy punch
• pearl headed pins
• wire cutter

• Place Styrofoam inside small container cover with shredded paper. 
• Sharpen pencils and set aside. 
• Punch how ever many flowers you need.  I doubled my flowers to give it a more 3-D effect.
• Take 2 flowers, lay on top of each other. Bend the top flower’s petals towards you to help if POP!
• Place the pearl headed pin in the center of the flowers through the pencil eraser…

• Take the wire cutters and carefully snip off the remaining length of pin.
• Tie ribbon onto pencil to look like leaves.
• Now, arrange your flower bouquet as you like by pushing the sharpened pencils into the Styrofoam inside the container.
• Feel free to right-click and save the image of the tag if you would like to use the free printable.

By the way, the inspiration for this fun project came from my sweet friend EllieG from Less Cake More Frosting and her fun teacher gift! Thanks for the inspiration, my dear!!

We are linking up to…

• Tatertots & Jell-o
• Blue Cricket Designs
• Be Different Act Normal
• Made by You Mondays

Meet Maggie! She’s a cute lady I’ve had my eye on for a while now. Maggie is the Midwestern Sewing Girl.

She sews, she crafts, she bakes, she decorates, she photographs… the list goes on and on. Here’s a little taste:

She’s so much fun. Go on over and give her some love!

Now, it’s time for the party. Welcome to the Friday Flair at WhipperBerry! A place where you can link up all things tasty, fancy, and fun.

Show us what you have a flair for:

• Recipes
• Sewing projects
• Craft tutorials
• Dessert tables/events
• Photography
• Printables
• Gift ideas
• Décor/DIY Projects

We like to do it all—so we want to see it all!

Just remember these guidelines:

• Please link up only your own projects, and link to the specific post, not your blog home page. No Etsy shops or giveaways, please.
• You must grab a WhipperBerry button and include it somewhere in the post you’re linking, or on your home page (a text link is great too).
• Stay and mingle (remember, it’s a party!), and leave a couple comments for other guests!

We reserve the right to remove any link that we feel is inappropriate, or does not follow the guidelines. Thank you for understanding. 

Due to some fun things we have planned next week, we are going to close this party one day early (on Saturday afternoon), and feature our favorites on Sunday instead of Monday!

Let’s get started…

This may be the slowest project in blogging history, but that’s alright.  That’s how I roll sometimes.

Sarah has been crazy busy working on competing for the The Biggest Loser’s At-Home prize, so this room makeover has taken the slow boat!  However, I do have another little sneak peak. 

Not too long ago, I saw a quote on Pinterest that really caught my eye and screamed Sarah’s name…

Soooo, I teamed up with one of our new sponsors, Shelly from Say Anything Expressions, on a fun little project!

I have a sad old mirror that has been stuffed in a closet for years, because it was ugly, and I couldn’t find a place for it in it’s current state…

…but with a little love and some spray paint, I knew it would be perfect for Sarah’s room makeover.  So I dusted it off, rolled up my sleeves and went to work.

I covered the mirror with some old wrapping paper and painters tape. Sprayed on some primer and then a couple of coats of White Gloss Valspar spray paint.

Then I went to town with my trusty sander, and added some character.  I know, why was it called ugly before, but now that it’s white and roughed up we say it has character?  I don’t know, I don’t make up the design rules.  All I know is that It makes it look lovely…

I cleaned it all up and installed Shelly’s vinyl.  I wanted the quote to look like it was etched onto the mirror rather than opaque vinyl, let me know what you think…

Didn’t Shelly do a FANTASTIC job?!  I LOVE how it turned out!

Can’t wait to show off the final project!!

Linked to:

• Blue Cricket Design
• Sew Much Ado
• Women Who Do It All
• Organize and Decorate Everything
• Seven Thirty Three
• Someday Crafts
• Somewhat Simple
• Night Owl Crafting
• Creations by Kara
• House of Hepworths
• Fireflies and Jellybeans
• Paisley Passions
• Tatertots & Jell-o
• SNS & Funky Junk
• Creative-ly U

I almost forgot… Spring Fever on the brain!  I wanted to share our business cards that we created for Creative Estates a few weeks ago.  This was a super simple DIY business card that really made a statement.

Here’s what we did…

• I used letterpress paper from Lifestyle Crafts {no, I don’t have a letterpress… but I love the paper.}
• I also purchased some custom stamps from a fabulous shop on Etsy… forYOO. I love that she still makes the old-school wooden handled rubber stamps… love them! 
• I bought some thread in our signature yellow and gray hues and got to town.

Emily and I went to work stamping and running the cards through my sewing machine.  Before we knew it we had a pile of lovely DIY business cards that were WhipperBerry worthy!

When we arrived at the conference, we were pleasantly surprised with a lovely business card holder from TaraDara to place our little lovelies in…

Thanks Tara my dear, we LOVE it!! It even kind of matched our color scheme. 

On a side note… last week was Spring Break in these parts and my family went on a STAYCATION and had a BALL!!

We stayed at the lovely Green Valley Ranch Resort and Spa, and went a little crazy enjoying our time away from the grind.

I took the opportunity to kick back and enjoy some of the lovely Las Vegas weather. Check out this view from our room!

I took that picture through this little lovely…

I could use one of those in my dining room… do you think it will fit in my bag? He, he… just kidding!

Anyway… sending our love from Vegas.  Hope everyone has had, or will have a great spring break!!

I am giddy with excitement for this week’s giveaway!!  I fell in love with these reusable shopping bags a little before Christmas last year, when I discovered them on a short segment of the Today Show.

Have you heard of BAGGU BAGS?

Aren’t they delish?  Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all about going green, but when you can go green and look this cute… SIGN ME UP!!!!!  I have a set of four bags that I keep in my bag at all times, so I’m always ready for a shopping trip.  This is the color combo that I am currently sporting, and I must say, I get compliments galore every time I pull them out of my bag!

Yes, they fit in your bag or purse so you will never leave them in the car again!! They fold up into a little pouch that fits nicely into even a small hand bag.

I love these bags so much that I sent sets to all my family last Christmas… they now LOVE them too! 

Baggu has generously offered a set of three bags to one lucky WhipperBerry reader!!!!

Here’s what you need to do to enter…

• Skip on over to Baggu’s online shop and tell us the color combination that you would like.  Return to WhipperBerry and leave a comment.

For extra entries…

• We would LOVE to have you follow us via Google Friends Connect, Facebook, or Twitter.
• Tweet, Facebook, or blog about the giveaway.

Leave a comment (and link) for each additional entry.  This giveaway is open from Tuesday, April 26th, through Saturday, April 30th, and the winner will be announced on Sunday, May 1st.  Good luck everyone!!

I’m heading over to shop… the Papaya Dot and Sea Stripe are calling my name!!!