Plant Sticks

I would like to say that I thought up this cool idea... but that would be a lie! So thank you Martha Stewart!
 I have theses done, and a lot more to do.

I used a REALLY sharp knife, shaved the sides and then used my wood burning tool. Good bye tacky plastic plant labels hello to my little Betty's! Yes I am going to cut off that pine branch with all the needles!

Lilly's Birthday Invitations!

These are the invitations I made for Lilly's 4th Birthday Party!! I don't feeeeel like they turned out exactly like I wanted but I feel like that about a lot of my stuff.. But she looooved them so that's all that matters! She kept telling me how Perfect they are! Shes so cute!! 

To do the writing on the paper I was going to use my wood burning tool and give a really aged look. But that did not work out so well . It took to long for it to brown on the paper and the letters turned out really streaky. Sooo I went to Michael's and bought a brown calligraphy pen! With High hopes of (looking at google images for all of two secs on how to write calligraphy) My amazing calligraphy skills. Buuut that was to hard. So I gave up and went back to computer and typed it all out and printed it. Ehhh you win some you lose some! The picture below is what I practiced on. On the finally invations the edges were not so, Raley took a bit out of them looking and..burnt. But I couldn't find any that were done and figure out how to get my address and everything blurred. I didn't want to put that out there for the world to see, ya know!

 

After I printed off the pictures I took them down and used coffee from the morning and a paint brush and painted the coffee on the paper. I did several coats of coffee on it. Then tore the edges from the paper to give it a aged look and then took a lighter to it and slowly burned the edges. I preferred to do this when the paper was still damp that way it just barley burned the edges. Once the paper got to dry it would burn the paper do fast!!

This is a close up of the fairy. Originally she had a yellow frame around her but I copied it and took it to "Paint" and erased it. I had to go inside all the flowers and leaves. It was a pain, I am not going to lie. I am sure there is a easier way to do it... I then Used the spray paint in the "Paint" and spray painted the bottom and left side under the grass to make it look more faded. In this picture you can see how and where I used the gel pens. In her hair, the center of the flowers, the edge of the wings, her sleeves and the top of her skirt. But I did all this after the coffee staining process so that way the gel pen colors were really bright and sparkly.

 

 I bought these bottles at Joann's in the wood section for a dollar a  piece, they were the kind of bottles that had the metal pouring tip for oil. Then I took some scraps of tulle cut them long and skinny added some ribbon and tied it in a knot on the top of the bottle. For the tag I used a scrapbook punch and put the date of the party with a gel pen (the paper is Moda). I added different glitters to the bottle so it would look like pixie dust! Lilly loved that! Then I  rolled up the invitation and put it in and gave the whole thing a good shake so the "pixie dust" would get all over the invitation! Lilly and I then walked around to our friends houses that lived near by and delivered them!

The past Week

This past week has been Crazy!!! Lilly is done with her first year of preschool, and she is Turing 4!!! I know I said I would have the tutorial for her invitations in two days and that was a week ago but we have been so busy doing this..

I showed them how to play with Cottonwood, they went crazy!! We marched around, blew it, I know a lot of people hate cottonwood but I have always loved it!! We have two huge cottonwood trees and it always looks like its snowing in the summer time to me!! You can see how covered the grass is.

Ray blowing some Cottonwood

 Lots of swinging!! Shes such a monkey!!

 Sharing Ice cream and secrets

These little Betty's came up! Don't you love Peonies!!

I have the tutorials done for a lot of the items on my To Do list from last week I just need to find time to post them!! Lilly's Birthday party had to be rescheduled for next week do to all the Rain, Storms, and tornado sirens going off . I do not think a bunch of soaking wet fairies would be to much fun!!Word on the street is you cant fly if your wings are wet, or at least according to Lilly ( and Disney) ;) But after rescheduling her party ( Giving mother nature a good fist shaking) the clouds parted and all the neighborhood girls came over and I was informed that I would be having a sprinkler party! Ha, I am such a push over! We started off with the sprinklers but pulled out the big guns and  broke out the giant tarps set it up it up at the bottom of the playset slide and had a blast, I even went down !! It was so fun! The after effects to the poor grass was not so fun but ehhh it was worth it!

We got the rest of our Garden planted! Until Today when I bought Some strawberry plants and a watermelon plant. I think they would be so fun to have this summer!! On the other side of the yard we have a spot were we have not grown anything in years so I am going to put in some blueberry plants!!

 

xoxo
Annie!

A whole lot of stuff to do... sheez!

This week is full of fun things!!

• Finish mulching and Laying brick
• Get Plants and Rest of Veggies planted
• Making my shelves for my walls
• Make Lily's Birthday Invitations
• Make plant markers
• Make Laundry soap
• Boredom Buster Jar.
• My Summer Activities Jar
• Make wood Frame for Bakery and Grocery stand from PBK's
• Seal Play set/Playhouse
• Finish Chore Chart/ Day Chart/ Week Chart
• Make Highchair for Lilly's doll for a Birthday Day Present
• Ordering Plates for Lilly's Birthday
• Finish our Fairy Garden- This is awesome if I do say!!!

For Lilly's 4th Birthday Party were doing "Fairy Garden" theme!!
I know Lilly's really excited about this and I am really excited too!! I am making invitations using clip art, my new wood burning tool, Glitter and glass bottles can you guess what its going to be??! I hope to have the tutorial for it tomorrow!! I am also making toadstool's for seat and getting trees logs/stumps to use as tables and the girls are going to have a "Fairy Tea Party"!! I order the fairy wings the other day and I order them from Halo Heaven  . I making Fairy Flower Halos ! Also TONS of Decorations!! All of these I am going to show how I make or create them!! I really wish I could find wooden tea cups!! How cute would that be , and expensive if there is such a thing... :(

A couple of years ago my mother started a fairy garden in a pot with my niece, my lovely friends(neighbors) saw them and loved it and started there own ( V and G, Lilly's friends) so This past winter I decided Lilly would have a blast helping me make all the stuff for a fairy garden or should I say Fairy Village... I got a little carried away! So now Lilly's other friends (neighbor's) J and A started ones also! So were in a big Friendly fairy garden competition!! My mom came up with the cute idea to walk around and take a tour of the the fairy gardens and have a snack at each of them like a "Garden Tour" but a "Fairy Garden Tour" !! I LOVE IT!! She so crafty that one! I am going to post pics of our "Fairy Village" and tell how we did ours so that will be coming up in the next day or so !!

Lots and Lots and LOTS of Tutorials coming this week!!!

Our Butterflies came out!! Before I went to pick up Lilly from school I checked on the cocoon's and two of the butterfly's had come out!! So I raced to get Lilly scratched getting dog food ( He can wait an hr) and raced back to the house to surprise Lilly with her butterfly's!! She walked up the the tent and the started flying around and it made her squeal and jump back a foot!! Silly girl! She LOVES THEM !!!


They made her jump and squeal!

 Two seconds after the pic above, shes so funny!!

 She LOVE'S them!!

 

Her wings are still wet.

Hair organizer..?

Hi!! So now I am really excited!! I have 6 Followers !!!! I cant believe it!!!
I just had to say that!!
So L and R's hair accessories were out of control. They were thrown in a makeup bag of mine ( minus the bows) and it took forever to find a rubber band that I wanted especially matching ones! Usually I would just dump the bag out on the changing table as I did Raleys hair, which she would love and throw all over the room. So I bought this little divider in the Target dollar asle and it fit perfect in a diaper wipe container! I have rubber bands and small clips on top and when I put the divider in it stops about half way down the container so under the divider I store big clips and ribbons! I have a Ribbon holder that hangs in the girls closets for all the bows to hang on! I was thinking about covering the diaper wipe container in fabric but since Lilly loves it so and keeps pulling it down and then Raley gets it, I think I will wait!

Our Caterpillar's have now formed there cocoon's and Lilly is very excited!! These pics were taken a couple days ago so they should be coming out of there cocoon's soon!!

I have been lacking on posting because I have been outside working on the backyard, laying bricks and putting mulch down ! Its going to look so neat Iam going pics once I am done! But we did go to the petting zoo!

Goats were feed..

 Every SINGLE goat was hugged.. ( this little goat was laying down so Ray camped out with it)

 And fed some more..

And horses were ridden ( All by herself!)

It was a good day. Ending with the neighborhood girls coming over and playing tag in the backyard! Loving the good weather!!