Ten Buck Tuesday, Week 3!

Sorry ladies and gentlemen (are there any gentlemen reading?) about the week-long hiatus. It's been a little crazy in Young Nester land this past week!

Taylor’s oral qualifying exam for his Ph.D was on Tuesday (he PASSED!) so my ‘craft’ this week was for him! It’s pretty simple and I’ve seen this idea on the internet before. This craft cost me $10.60 and was the price of the 20 balloons filled with helium.

So, I sneakily pre-made these super simple phrases. I’m talking cheap, cheap, cheap since we were celebrating the rest of the week and weekend (which means spending money). I literally typed out 20 phrases I love about him or good luck phrases on Microsoft Word and printed them out on regular white paper. I also took some of my favorite photos of us and incorporated them into some of the phrases.

Then, to add a little color, I glued the phrases down to different colored cardstock (be careful of too heavy cardstock or it will be too heavy and weigh the balloons down to the floor).

On some, I took my handy-dandy pink permanent marker and highlighted some words.

I then hole-punched a little hole at the top of each piece of paper or photo and tied the phrases the balloon strings (these are all taken in our guest bedroom).

And wah-lah! When the sleeping giant went to bed (and was in dream land), I snuck in the room and let the balloons float all over the room (again, this is a test run in the guest bedroom).

Two side notes
1. Make sure the fan is off :)
2. Balloons are pretty loud, I carried mine in one by one so they wouldn’t hit each other and make their balloon sounds and wake up the sleeping giant.

He was definitely surprised! I also made him waffles and cut them into hearts because I’m a super nerd.

It’s super simple and a really great surprise for even the non-mushy types like mine! I’m glad he didn’t get up to pee in the middle of the night…

Now on to the fun part!

LINK UP YOUR $10 CRAFT OR RECIPE! Please post a link back to this original post or copy the Ten Buck Tuesday button to your blog post when you link up! The link-ups will be open until the following Monday at 11:59pm (EST)!




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I can't WAIT to see what you're making this week!
 

Ten Buck Tuesday, Week 2 - Silk Flower Tutorial

Wow! I can't even begin to thank all of my bloggin' friends for an amazing first turn-out for Ten Buck Tuesday! Are you ready to link up MORE?

This week I tackled burning silk to make flowers. Here goes nothing!

Supplies:
Silk (I bought a yard of black silk with polyester at Jo-Ann's fabric w/ a coupon) = $6
Scrapbooking brads (or beads or buttons or whatever) = $1
Flame (I used a large candle) = fire is free!
Magnet Strip = $1-2
TOTAL: $8-9

Are you excited yet?

.........

Start by cutting your silk into different sized circles like so:

As you can see, I just kind of winged it. No perfect circles in this house! I mean, I was about to burn the darn things... there was no way I was going to be tracing and cutting beautiful circles to BURN.

Then, hold over the flame. Pretty simple. Be sure to keep it moving over the flame and not to get it too close or it will melt your imperfect circles and this will be your outcome (prepare yourself):

This is why practice makes perfect. You don't want an Addams Family flower. You want a pretty, dainty flower.

Put it all together and this is what ya got!

And then, to avoid my sewing machine, I used an awesome little brad and poked it through one piece of silk at a time until they were all attached.

And this is what it looks like! I've seen people sew buttons and pearls and bears, oh my. It's whatever you like! Because this was my first (successful) flower, I decided to avoid my sewing machine keep it simple.

Just in case you were wondering, this is what the back looks like with the brad all the way through.

I then decided to hot glue a piece of magnet tape to the back to make it a... magnet. Since I have the rest of the yard to make these babies (I wish I had picked white or pink), I'll probably make some for head bands, beanies, hair pins, shirt pin-ons, pillow pin-ons, etc.

All finished just in time for Ten Buck Tuesday!

So, what do you think?

.........

Ok, ok, enough about silk flower amazing-ness and on to the fun part...

LINK UP YOUR $10 CRAFT OR RECIPE! Please post a link back to this original post or copy the Ten Buck Tuesday button to your blog post when you link up! The link-ups will be open until the following Monday at 11:59pm (EST)!









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I can't wait to see what you all are making this week!

Featured Blogger: Suzanne at Just Another Hang Up

Want to see something amazing?





Suzanne at Just Another Hang Up has graciously taken up an entire post to help newbies like myself be more motivated to take our sewing machines out of the box!  Take a look at some of her projects; they're WONDERFUL!  I hope one day to have her mad-sewing skills! The Gathering Fabric & Muslin Pillow Tutorial is my favorite (you can find a link on the right bar of her page)! 


Suzanne - Thank you for being such a great blogging friend!

Mud and late Valentines = perfect Sunday

Did you know that when it snows (don't think about Seal) and then it warms up, your backyard turns to a mushy wetland?

This was after our first wash (I forgot to take pictures of the real disaster)

Her paws are usually white.  All white.  A pretty white. 

Tomorrow is Valentine's day and I'm just now finishing up my home-made cards (stay tuned for pics). Procrastination at it's finest!

Anyone doing anything fun for Valentine's day?

Ten Buck Tuesday!

TEN BUCK TUESDAY IS FINALLY HERE! I could barely sleep last night hoping that my first link party goes over well!



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I picked something extremely simple for my first craft so you can literally do this in your sleep (you probably wouldn't want to do the cutting part in your sleep though...)

I bought all of my supplies at Michaels:

5 small wooden letters - $0.49 each
1 scrapbook paper - $0.59
1 small canvas - $1.49
Mod podge - already had but I think it's about $5

GRAND TOTAL = $4.53 (without mod podge; with mod podge it would be $9.53)

When I say simple, I mean, I did it in about 10 minutes last night while watching the Bachelor and wondering why Michelle was still on the show. I'm going to start off slow just in case there's some first time crafters out there. I haven't decided whether I'm going to paint the canvas yet but this little baby will hang above my craft table that's still in the garage. I'm going to make some more that say "sew," "scrap" and "thrift" and maybe some other fun word.

I traced the letters onto the back of the scrapbook paper and cut them out.

Then I mod-podged the paper onto the letter.

I also mod-podged over the finished letter to give it a little umphh (spell check?)

You could also put it on a wooden plaque (they also sell those at Michaels)

But I opted for the canvas style. Like I said, I'm probably going to paint the canvas but I want to finish the other ones so I can really make a decision.

TA-DA! That was IT! I told you it was crazy simple... hopefully not too simple! I know there are some professional mod-podgers out there!

Now for the fun part...

LINK UP YOUR $10 CRAFT! Please post a link back to this original post or copy the Ten Buck Tuesday button to your blog post when you link up! The link-ups will be open until the following Monday at 11:59pm (EST)!

I can't wait to see what you all are making!

Smooth Criminal

The criminal:

The crime:

The aftermath:

Happy Superbowl Sunday!

I don't think you're ready for this jelly...

Um, or LINK PARTY! GET EXCITED!

Ten Buck Tuesdays will be debuting HERE on Tuesday, 2/8! Ten Buck Tuesdays will feature a craft by yours truly for under $10 (I’ll even include my receipt for you OCD types… like me). Then comes the fun part... you link up your craft for under $10 (technically I’m allowing up to $10.99, including tax). Are you excited yet? I went to Michaels today with my cool friend and we are ready for Ten Buck Tuesdays at YoungNester! Are you?

Grab a button, $10 and tell your friends!





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Are you sure you’re ready? :)

Guess Who?

No, really. Please guess. I need a name for my sewing machine who is....

NO LONGER IN THE BOX! :)

So what shall I name her/him? I haven't even decided if it's a male or a female yet.