Christmas Tomato?

Every year, from Thanksgiving to New Year's day, my hometown has Avenue of Lights set up in one of the parks.  Last year, when we went through, I saw some of these Tomato Cage lights.  How awesome is that?  So simple and so pretty.



Mr. Inspiring has an aunt that lives in Kentucky, and we only really get to see her at Thanksgiving.  She is so crafty and always, ALWAYS makes something for all us girls.  That's usually 7 of whatever it is she's making for that year.  Other than my mother-in-law (her sister) no one makes and gives her something back.  Well, I started returning the favor a few years ago and it's so much fun! 

This year I made this Christmas tree for her.  All it is is a tomato cage, 200 mini lights, a ribbon and some jute.  I wrapped the lights around the cage.  Then I wrapped the ribbon around it and tied it off with jute.  She LOVED it!!  She plugged it in as soon she got it!  Yay!! 

This is a SUPER EASY project and inexpensive.  The tomato cage was $3.50 and the lights were purchased on sale for $2.00 a strand.  So that's $7.50.  I already had the ribbon and the jute!!

(I'll have to take pictures of the adorable snowman she made me and post them up for you!!  I'm telling you - - She is T-A-L-E-N-T-E-D!!)

Thanks for looking! 

Hugs ~~ Suz

I'm linking up here:

Christmas Rag Quilt

I have lots of cute Christmas Fabric - - I want to make a Christmas Rag Quilt - - or 2 or 3............ :-)

Here's a sample of the fabric I have.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.........  I have a whole box FULL of Christmas fabric - - I thought I'd better not get it all out, because then, well, I just might not get ANYTHING accomplished today!!

Enjoy your day!!

Hugs ~~ Suz

(ok - -  So I really wanted this post on my 'Things I Wanna Do' page, but I just don't have all this blog-stuff figured out.......so, it's going to post on my home page.........  Ah well, I'm learning and it's always good to learn something new everyday!!

Christmas Decoration I Want To Do #1

While we were going through the Avenue Of Lights this year I noticed some new decorations and had one of those I-can-make-that moments!

It's an outside yard decoration made out of a wire tomato basket and little twinkly lights - too stinkin cute. And SSSOOOO easy-peasy!!!!

Turn the basket up-side-down and bend the ends that are now at the top in to form the top of the tree. I imagine they need to be fastened somehow but since I've not made one yet I'm not sure exactly how I'll do it. I imagine hubs would use duct tape!! (note to self - don't do this project when he's close!)

Then take your mini lights and wrap them around and through the wires! And DONE!!!!!

I'm going to make one of these as soon as gardening stuff comes out! I'll post pictures! Christmas in April!!!

Have a great day!!

hugs ~~ Suz

"Quilted" Star Ornaments

A couple of weeks ago, I posted that I would be showing some projects that I've done.  Here's one of my favorites!!

They're fun to create and it's pretty cool to see how they turn out when you change the fabrics and change the distance between the points.  It makes the pattern seem so different.

I found my instructions here Quilted Ornaments    You can make them as fancy and frilly as you like, or you can tone them down to be simple country, or somewhere in between!!

Thanks for looking!!!

My Altered Canvas

First - - I need to start with a confession......  I've been so excited about all of the ideas I'm finding in Blogland.  I just can't wait to jump in and try some of the projects I've seen!!!  So.....  I really got wrapped up in blog-stalking.....and I guess I lost my creative mo-jo.....  It seems like every project that I wanted to get done for Christmas just......... well......... didn't go the way I had planned.  I wanted to make a cookbook for my daughter.  Thought I would do it sort of like a scrapbook.......... but then I couldn't find the papers I wanted to use.....  I really had a problem finding papers with kitchen/recipes kind of themes.......  soooo  Then the project changed into a recipe box.  I bought 4 paper mache boxes to decorate up as recipe boxes.  I could do 4 and give the other 3 as gifts to my sister-in-laws and mom-in-law.  But I couldn't get past the fact that my daughter had asked for a recipe BOOK.....  So, I decided to type up and print recipes on cards and put them in the scrap book.......... Well.... I couldn't find a printable recipe card template that I liked.  And I scrapbook sooo slowly.....  And then........... I happened to stumble on MyComputerIsMyCanvas blog........ And the SOOO-PER CUTE recipe cards she made with Scrapbook Max! ....... AND - - they have a 30-day trial period.....  So I downloaded it and OH MY!!  It is exactly what I was looking for!!   So I bought the software and downloaded it!!  But by the time I went through all of this, and considering I had at least 50 recipes I wanted to do............  I didn't get all the way done.  :-(   But I am halfway and I will get it done soon!  The Scrapbook Max! software is soo simple to use!  I love it!!!

So my next project was an altered canvas for my son.....  It SHOULD have only taken me MAYBE 3 hours to do.  Well - it didn't!!  It took me close to seven hours.  And I didn't take enough during pictures because I had to keep redoing parts of it.............  The next day I seriously had a bruise on my forehead.......  not really, but I should have!!

Anyway, here's the after picture and my instructions on how I made it.

First, I started out with a blank, new canvas.  I didn't want it to be WHITE, so I painted it with some acrylic craft pain.  The color is 'Steamed Milk'.  I wanted it to be distressed, so I then painted some chocolate and olive on it, and then wiped it off.  It was just NOT giving it the effect I wanted so I repainted it Steamed Milk.  I remembered that I had a script stamp and used gold and chocolate ink with the stamp and stamped my canvas.  In some places, the stamp is defined and in other places it's sort of blurred, which was pretty cool.  I then just took my chocolate stamp pad and rubbed it on the edges and here and there on the face. 

Then came the part that really had me frustrated.  I printed my picture on regular paper and when I started to mod podge it to my canvas............ IT WRINKLED!!!  So I pulled the picture off and reprinted it and tried again...........  It took longer for the wrinkles to come and then when I tried to pull the picture off, it stuck.............  So there I sat with a knife, trying to scrape it off............  after about an hour........ I FINALLY got it off.  I reprinted my picture on card stock and just took my time working with the picture and the mod podge.  The edge only got a little wavy -- NO WRINKLES!!!     I put a couple of coats of mod podge on the whole thing.  Tied the jute around it.  Painted the words on my heart and wrapped wire around it and attached it to the jute.  Stapled jute on the back to hang it with and there you go!!  I was really worried that my son wouldn't like it but he loved it............  YAY ME!!!


Thanks for looking and let me know if you have any questions!!!  

Hugs ~ Suz


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