paper hearts a flutter

I feel like there is an awkward transition between Christmas and Valentines. There's a good 2-3 weeks where I don't feel like there is a season to decorate for. I was so excited when I felt it was ok to start putting a little more love in my home. I don't have very much heartsy decor so I made this

This is easy! It did take me a few days to complete because all I had was 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. It was also easy because I would just do a flower or two at a time, that helped with the jumping back and forth.

I got sick of the regular paper flowers I knew how to make, so I would just google images of paper flowers and find one that looked interesting and do it. I would probably make about 2 of each flower I found. Then just hot glued them onto a heart shape I cut out.

The paper I used for this was a stack of double sided 12x12 cardstock I bought from Joanns by Anna Griffin the Carmen Collection. I loved this because in this stack of 24 sheets you get gold foil paper and glitter paper!

Even the wreath had a slight transformation for the holiday. If you couldn't tell.... I just love this yarn so much. It just has such great texture!

felt floral pillow delight

You may have seen pillows similar to this. I first saw this at a popular home decor store and again at a cupcake place and knew I just had to have one. I didn't want to pay the somewhat $40 and the thought came to me, the one that usually comes to me when I don't want to pay the money but absolutely find myself wanting/needing something, "I can make that"
FYI these photos are from my phone so they aren't the greatest sorry

(here the flower is finished but I still need to sew to edges of the pillow together and add a zipper)

So here we go....
for the size pillow I did (20x20) I used about 1 yard felt (I got my felt from Pineneedles in Gardener Village originally ~$9 a yard but used a 30% off coupon)
thread to match + needle
good scissors or a rotary cutter

I am not so bright with a sewing machine so I mostly hand stitched this the only thing I used a sewing machine for was to sew the edges of the pillow.
I cut out a petal template from a regular sheet of paper. the size of each petal ended up being about 3"x2" I also used a cup to keep my 1/2 circle petal smooth.

I then used my rotary mat/cutter to cut out each petal. To speed up this step you can stack your felt to cut out more petals at once.
Once each petal was cut I then stitched each petal together and made a petal train (I used a sewing machine for this part). For my 20x20 pillow I cut a piece of felt, 22x 42 (2" seam allowance) Starting from the center of the pillow I started to stitch the petal train in a small spiral and then eyeballed the spiral out. You could use a sewing machine if you like, but as I said before it was easier for me to hand stitch. It didn't take very long either.

I do love how this turned out. It was a gift for my dear sister-in-law. For my next one I will probably make my petals smaller and do more so it is more full.

Fall decor

 I decided I needed to finally take down Halloween, and since I refuse to put up Christmas until after Thanksgiving I needed that fall transition.
This month we have started a gratitude chain, daily as a family we will find a handful of things we are grateful for and add to the chain. It has been a great opportunity to try to help Oliver understand what gratitude means, yesterday he added nursery, friends, and then listed all of his aunts, uncles and cousins.
Tutorial for the felt wreath:
Supplies: 1/2 yard of felt, hot glue gun, wreath form (mine is a small foam one from the dollar store)
cut circles ranging from 3-4" diameter. Next fold circles into many different ways ex. fold in half then half again. I played with many different ways to fold so they wouldn't look so uniform. Next just hot glue folded circles onto wreath form
Cost ~$3.50
The "Thankful" frame is just some scrapbook paper with painted chipboard letters. I like that the chipboard letters are simple yet they give some dimension. This frame will stay on my table and I trade out the picture for every holiday.

 I think this wreath looks better in person, I don't love how it looks in a picture. But I also use this wreath all year long and trade out the embellishment. These are felt flowers. you first cut a circle and then cut the circle spiral like (does that make sense) and then roll up the cut circle into a rosette. I like when the circle isn't perfect, I add some curves as I cut the spiral. This way when you roll up the rosette it isn't all uniform. I added wire to the back of each rosette and then just stuck them into the wood wreath.
I'm kind of a cheap person, so when I decorate I try to use something as the 'base' and then build up/take down from there.

This guy isn't new, I made him last year. I think I saw this on Good Things Utah? but this is mostly paper cut into ~3" & 2" circles and folded to make the feathers