Remember that girls’ tights tutorial from last year?
Well I’ve had several questions from viewers about trying variations of this project and had a chance to film a video how-to with Megan from Brassy Apple over at MyCraftChannel.com.
I hope you’ll stop by and check out the video version as well as the other great episodes on MyCraftChannel.com.
If you like this project, please take a minute and share it on Facebook, twitter and Pinterest! Thank you!
A month ago I sat at the computer trying to decide weather or not to publish a new post on Thrive. It was short and sweet – just a quick note to say that Thrive was closing it’s doors and to thank everyone for their support during the last year and a half.
This year has taken me places I never imagined with all of the usual gut-checks on work-family-life-me time that go with it. When I sort of fell off the bloggy edge of the world a few months back, I just closed my browser and walked away. I didn’t sign off. I didn’t check email. Nothing. I’ve worried for months about friendships hurt, relationships damaged, bridges burned and readership lost.
And so I sat here last month with my hand hovering over the publish button wondering if walking away for good was really the right thing to do. I asked myself if this was me finally surrendering to a new reality of I-just-can’t-do-this-anymore or simple an act of sabotage by someone afraid to succeed as much as fail. After several minutes I finally closed the computer and walked away once more. I had made a choice … a scary one … but one I believe in like I haven’t in so long.
THRIVE stays.
Because my time away from here and my almost-goodbye made me realize a few things:
I still believe in the idea I had for THRIVE when I first launched this site.
I still love creating and crafting without spending a dime.
I still get emails from wonderful women around the world sharing their stories of thriving and I cherish the feeling of not being alone.
And even if I post less often than other sites, it’s still worth doing.
So I took that scary first step back Wednesday night and found myself at KSL 5 in Salt Lake City for a bloggers meet and greet. Me and 40 or so other bloggers were invited down to the KSL studios to mix, mingle and get a behind-the-scenes look at the TV and radio side of broadcasting. I’m privileged to live close to so many talented bloggers and was excited to meet up with them again. Well … excited and nervous. And of course Wednesday was one of those crazy days that went sideways from the start and I almost backed out. But thanks to a quick pep talk from Mr. Thrive, I put on my big girl pants, a shirt that was a total mistake and got in the car. (And let’s be honest: when you’re plus-size, everyday is technically a ‘big girl pants’ sort of day, but you get my point.)
(Leanne from Organize & Decorate Everything and Me)
And I’m so glad I did.
This was just what I needed: a chance to get out back out there with the amazing ladies in blog land and reconnect … to chat about SEO strategies … copyright infringement … our love/hate relationship with Pinterest … summer plans with our kids … upcoming projects and features … how bad we wanted to win one of the killer Kaboo bags up for grabs even though some of us (me) don’t actually own iPads … who was going to EVO … finding gas for under $3.50/gallon … and just generally trying to make it all work with life and families in the mix.
(Can you find mine?)
Oh, and did I mention that being down at KSL 5 was crazy awesome?
(And no this isn’t a sponsored post.)
(Waiting to go on The Nightside Project with Kaysi from Keeping It Simple, Me, Ashlee from Topsy Turvy, Isabelle from Les Chateau des fleurs)
I’d never done a behind the scenes thing for TV or radio before and had a blast. I love this channel and listen/watch them regularly. They ‘get’ the value of blogging and women in social media. And more than any other station around here, they actively involve bloggers in lifestyle, DIY and parenting segments in addition to the regular ‘experts’ that usually get trotted out. Or maybe that’s just it: they see us ‘mommy bloggers’ as experts in our own right with something important to share.
And so I shared, too.
(KSL social media rockstar Natalie (in the grey) + the KSL evening anchor team)
Each of us was handed a news script and told that we’d get a chance to tape our own segment from the news desk.
Holy cow.
While one of the evening anchors, Mike Hedrick, was going over the short hand symbols on the script, he casually asked me what I blogged about.
“I registered my domain for THRIVE the day we got our first foreclosure notice in the mail.”
And Mike stopped dead in his tracks and looked straight at me. “Really?” he asked in a surprised, yet thoughtful tone as he stood there waiting for me to continue.
And then I told my story.
And I told him how passionately I believe that creativity doesn’t have to be a casualty of financial hardship. And I told him that you could do crazy things like try and remodel your house, clothe your kids and decorate for the holidays without running to the store. And I told him that this unwelcomed change has become one of my biggest blessings.
And then I told him about your stories, your triumphs, and the awesome things this community of women connected by hardship and energized by creating is doing.
Mike smiled and listened and asked questions and smiled and asked questions some more.
Ten minutes later I still had no idea how to anchor the news, but I felt absolutely sure that pushing forward with the whole ‘rock-what-ya-got’ message was exactly what I wanted to do. Of course I still had to do the anchoring thing in the same bad idea of a shirt without a clue what words like **VOT** and **(BOTTOM THIRD)** meant, but I got through it. Sorta.
(Thanks to the awesome Natalie from Boogers On The Wall for co-hosting with me!)
My first news story couldn’t have been more perfect.
Yup, Penn State. I’m still part of that 61 percent.
(Thanks Natalie Wardel and everyone at KSL for an awesome night. You helped kick my craft into gear. And thanks, too, to Nicole from MOMentity for some great ideas on getting it done!)
I saw an all-call on Facebook this week from a fellow craft blogger who is fairly connected in social media circles. She was soliciting input for an article for a large media outlet and posed the following question: “Are the Mommy Wars over? Or are moms still judging moms?”
Mommy Wars?
I’d never heard that term before, but knew immediately what she meant.
So after reading the thoughts of fellow craft/mommy bloggers and leaving my two cents, I emailed the reporter. Here’s what I wrote:
Yes, the war (if you want to call it that) still rages on with both sides gaining ground using the same weapon: social media. The pervasiveness of blogs, twitter and Facebook make the crushing weight of comparison available at a mouse click. The glossy, air-brushed triumphs of the moms on screen are often weighed against our own un-showered, weakest moments. The context and perspective are lost, leaving in its wake the damaging illusion of perfection. However, this same medium is being used more and more as a voice for women to drop the illusions, ‘keep it real’ and bravely reveal their short falls, fears and insecurities. Interviews I’ve read in the last few months from a few prominent mom-bloggers reveal that their ‘here’s where I lost it/came apart/totally failed’ posts resonate most with their readership. On my own blogs, I’ve found this to be true as well. This message of being compassionate and patient with ourselves and others is a welcomed counter balance to envying the Jones and their blogspot.
It’ll be interesting to read the article when it comes out and see what direction the finished piece takes. But for now, the question of moms judging moms has been spinning in my head, helping me bring together thoughts about several things that I’ve been thinking about for the past few months—appearances, judging and chasing the illusion of perfection.
A while back my camera went missing. For days I couldn’t find it until one night Mr. Thrive found it in the bottom of our closet … in his guitar case. Naturally.
It was pretty clear that some little body had snuck it back there and played with it for awhile. When Mr. Thrive pulled it out, the new long-life batteries were almost dead, the lense had been messed with and all of the settings had been tweaked. But the worst part was that all 118 images on there were gone. About half of the pictures I could live without, but I had spent hours on a tutorial and had lost all of it. Given the recovery location, I was sure it was kid #5 who walked off with the camera and did all the damage. And though I was so bummed about what was lost, I was surprised by how not mad I was.
I’d been in a funk over the camera thing and surprised by how much this small love turned huge passion meant to me. I’d missed recording some pretty cool things in our family’s life that week and it bothered me. I was seeing how this medium of blogging and photography was helping me finally keep something of a record of this one wild, crazy and precious life I get. Loosing my camera that week felt a little bit like loosing a part of my history—in a very small way, sure—but a piece nonetheless.
I’d been so inspired by the photography of my cousin’s wife and especially love the pictures of her kids. Not only does she capture their souls, but the way in which she does that with her camera also captures her love for them as a mother.
A while back she and her husband almost lost their son to bacterial meningitis. Seeing their son in his ICU bed, in the back of an ambulance and hooked up to wires was heart wrenching—yet they captured this experience in pictures and later wrote about that experience.
A lot of people openly questioned how she could take pictures during moments like that, let alone share them. But I understood why she felt compelled to record and then share these moments amidst tears.
We are the Facebook, Twitter and TV Generation; a generation that is used to both carefully packaged programming and live on the scene coverage that records life as it happens. And taking pictures is what we do–how we record what happens around and to us. I bet most of us have hundreds of pictures of our family’s life and history, but little journaling or written stories. Blogs and scrapbooks have become a new way to start recording and capturing our lives so that our children and grandchildren will have a record of what we went through.
But part of that new form of recording seems to gloss over the painful and uncomfortable.
In our desire to paint the illusion of the perfect life, perfect family and perfect experiences, the imperfect but powerful forces in our lives are too easily deleted. And what doesn’t get deleted, we wouldn’t dare share: Don’t let them see me weak. Don’t let them see this mess. Don’t let them see this pain or struggle or hurt.
A few years ago I would never have taken pictures of myself stressing over bills or broken down on the side of the road. But today I probably would so that I could look back and remember how precious life is … how difficult moments have an amazing ability to immediately reorder priorities and clear away the crap in our lives … to remember how much we love our kids despite the messes and whining and drama and work, and how shattered we’d be if it was ever gone.
I reread a post this morning on my family blog that I’d wrote a while back on one of my lowest days as mom. I was trying to put into words why I felt driven to record a moment that was hard to look back on, “… to acknowledge that ‘I was here today,’ even if today sucked…” and I think that’s exactly it. In every experience, good or bad, I need to record that I was here today, even if today sucked.
I think it’s why I cried and snapped pictures and cried and snapped pictures when my two youngest wound up in the hospital, just weeks apart.
I think it’s why I drug my camera along for the ride one Thursday when I fought back tears as I was bombarded by broken water lines and standing water and kid barf and vermin and three back-to-back tantrums by three different kids in three different stores all before lunch time–and then felt compelled to blog about it.
I was here today, even if today sucked.
And I can’t help but look back at history and wonder how different it would be if those accounts were recorded scrapbook or blog style with the goal to impress, not recount honestly.
What if all we had from Washington crossing the Delaware was a smiling group shot of the troops in Trenton?
What if no one recorded how bad the storm that night was, or how trapped the American troops were, or cropped carefully around the shoeless feet of those hungry troops who nearly froze to death on the march there because no one wanted to remember just how bad it was?
Or what if the only record we had of the Martin and Willy handcart companies was a picture of the group heading out and then arriving in the valley?
“Ever Onward” by Joseph Brickey
What if no one recorded just how bad the storm was that pressed in on them, or how devastating their losses in the Cove were, or the impassioned words of Brigham Young to go rescue those stranded on the plains, or the courage of those brave men who risked their lives crossing the icy river to bring those pioneers home?
How different would our lives be, even generations later, if we didn’t know what they went through?
Those moments that are the hardest to record–the ones we want to look back on the least–are the ones that mold us, shape us, steel us and sanctify us. They are our Delawares and Martin’s Coves … those places were we are tried, tested, broken and delivered … the places were we find our faith and our God and our strength to keep going.
I was here today …
I’m feeling more and more that the greatest favor I can do my for children, my posterity and especially myself is to be honest and complete as I record this time we have together. Otherwise I worry that the scrapbooks, blogs and status updates I leave behind will be at best, just a hollow highlight reel that teaches them and me nothing, or at worst, a devastating weapon of illusion that another woman uses to beat herself down with. It’s time lower those weapons of false perfection, step away from the air-brush and ease up on the cropping. It’s time to raise up the camera, even if there’s toys on the floor, dirty faces or faces without make-up–and share them. It’s time to be more patient and forgiving of ourselves and trust that others will be, too.
I was here today …
So as I sit here un-showered at the computer this morning with my flat caffeine-free Diet Pepsi, bed head and Mother’s Day hash browns, I issue a reminder call to all of us out there to take a deep breath and embrace the imperfect, un-edited version of our lives and share them—please.
Stuff Doesn’t Matter. Life is Precious and Short. Perfection comes in every shape and size.
I was here today.
Happy Mother’s Day from me and my imperfectly, perfect crew.
(Original published on Friday Night Date Nights)
Hi everyone! I’m Nike from Choose To Thrive and I’m excited to be here on Friday Night Date Night to share some of the story of how me and my husband Ben (or as I like to call him-Peterson) began our story.
It was a Thursday.
I had came home from work at Target and enjoyed dinner and lighting off fireworks in the cul de sac with my mom, brother and sister. An hour later we left for a huge 4th of July fireworks show at the local winery that spilled onto the massive field next door.
And as fate would have it, I ran into a friend from church at the concession stand and wandered over to where some of our friends were hanging out on the opposite side of the massive field. As I sat talking and catching up with friends who were home for the summer from college and missions, I heard and saw someone talking about me out of the corner of my eye. When I finally turned to see who it was, there was this guy – Peterson – who asked me if he’d seen me at church the Sunday before. Over the next hour – and through the entire fireworks show – we talked and laughed and made fun of all those idiot friends we knew who met, dated and married the person of their dreams within months. Dumb, dumb people we laughed. He also told me about the movie Independence Day that had just come out in theatres. I wanted to see it and he happily offered to take me and sit through it again on Saturday… if he could get a phone number out of me. Since this was long before the days of cell phones and texting, we both wandered back to where my family was sitting and borrowed a pen from Mom’s purse. I would learn later that Mom told my Dad that night that she’d met the man I was going to marry and that he needed to get ready, because it would be quick.
And she was right—it was quick. Like July 30th quick. Like less than a month later quick.
And it was a Tuesday.
Peterson picked me up and we stopped by my great grandparents home before heading to our favorite place – Alki Beach. The view of the Seattle skyline at night had spun a particular brand of magic at that place—a place that we had retread to several times to spend quiet time talking about what life would be like together.
And on that beach we had laughed and joked, cried and argued, made up and held each other close. And on that Tuesday as the was sun lingering on the horizon … I sat in the sand wrapped in Peterson’s arms … and watched the sea roll in and break against the shore … and felt the warmth and protection as his arms pulled me in closer … and heard him whisper how much he loved me and never wanted that to end … and that his dreams of a life and family and future where in me.
But school and work and family schedules would mean that a wedding couldn’t happen right away. And so a few weeks after getting engaged, I drove away from Peterson on a Friday morning in tears and headed back to school. Soon after he would send me this picture of him standing alone where we had met. The back of the picture read simply, “Imagine Fireworks.”
Waiting for our day was long and painful; we ached to be together and struggled through the stress of being apart. By that Friday in February 1997, we were ready to crack and even called off the wedding … and spent a week totally alone … and then met the next Friday night – Valentine’s Day – to see if we could work everything out. And in a quiet, candle-lit room, we talked and cried and forgave and promised and moved forward united. When I think back on that night, I smile and remember what almost wasn’t and give thanks for what was. Because ten years later to the day, we spent a Wednesday night in another quiet, dimly lit room holding our fifth child after an emergency c-section during what should have been our Valentine’s Day dinner.
But Saturday … oh how I loved that Saturday.
That crazy Saturday after Thanksgiving when we drove to the Seattle Temple under threatening skies and a brisk wind. And in the largest sealing room they had, we promised forever in front of our family and friends. And as everyone left room 11 and started for the lobby, Peterson and I ducked into the back stair well … and paused in between floors … and told each other privately just as we had at Alki Beach how much we loved each other and never wanted it to end … and that all of our dreams for a life and family and future were together. As we left the temple, there would be no beautiful pictures on the grounds that we could frame and look back on and remember. All we managed were just a few quick pictures under the covered entry before we raced through sleet, rain and wind towards cars that would take us to the reception. But even with no real pictures and crummy weather, it was such a beautiful day.
The funny thing is that I remember thinking that I could never love Peterson more than I did on our wedding day.
How wrong I was.
Because that love got bigger the night my husband held me close as my body shook with sobs after I miscarried. And I loved him more still when we went through it again six months later. And then a third time still. And every Mother’s Day and Father’s Day that passed childless brought us closer together until that Wednesday in 2001 when my husband became a father.
And I fell in love with him all over again each time he stood beside my hospital bed and held my hand as each of our six children arrived.
And I loved him more as he’s stood by me during the last fourteen years and been my biggest fan and cheerleader. He supports my crazy ideas and grand plans even when I fail. I feel so blessed to be loved by a man who sees me as smart, capable and beautiful even when I don’t believe it myself.
And that love has only grown since that Friday in 2009 following a layoff when I left for work and he stayed home with our kids. I will never know how hard it was for him to be out of work and not able to support his family, but the way he handled those six months taught me so much about love, dignity, honor, duty and respect. He chose to thrive and move forward in a place he never thought he’d be. And talk about thriving … Peterson came out the backside of our layoff adventure with two degrees, a new-found talent for artisan baking and the love of his children who got a rare chance to spend that much extra time with Daddy.
And now? I am reminded of how much I love him still … just like I was last Monday when I surprised him for lunch … and we parked our Suburban in front of his office and munched on drive through chicken strips … and talked about new flooring in the kitchen and the kids’ report cards … and goofed off with the camera while the little kids polished off our drinks in the back seat. Man I love this guy.
Good days and bad, struggles and joys … I feel lucky and happy to spend everyday with Peterson.
Confession: I’m not that big into decorating for Valentine’s Day.
I like the holiday, but have never been the sort to break out the red and pink around the house. The front door is about as much as I’ll ever do like I did here, here, here and here. And the whole no-hearts thing has been even more true the last five years since we welcomed our 5th kid on Valentine’s Day night during what should have been our special dinner. Now you’re more likely to see balloons and streamers on the 14th instead of hearts and flowers.
But oh my word.
My kids think I’m the meanest mom ever for not decorating our house like their bulletin boards at school. So I caved and threw together a quick, free Valentine’s project that the kids were able to help me with.
Ta-da. My kids are now speaking to me again.
This came together super fast using an old window frame in my living room that had been sitting bare since Christmas.
(A large picture frame would work, t00.)
A quick wrap with some twine …
… some printouts of family pictures and conversation heart-esque names on cardstock …
… and some left over dollar store clothes bins that got a quick coat of craft paint.
Assembly took all of three minutes and could be swapped out easily for any season or holiday using the same materials.
And while I won’t admit this to my kids, I actually love seeing all the wedding and anniversary pictures from the great love stories in our family:
siblings and parents …
… grandparents and great-grandparents …
… even me and Mr. Thrive.
Hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!
We’ll be celebrating five awesome years with our best Valentine’s Day present ever.
Hi, I’m Erin from Fundamentals and Fripperies and I am so excited to be guest blogging at Thrive today.
I feel very honored to be asked because Thrive is one of my favorite blogs. I love seeing Nike continually rock what she’s got in such a creative and classy way. I feel a special kinship to her because I, too, get a thrill of satisfaction from making something awesome from nothing, and I, too, have my own dirty half dozen. I know how difficult it is to fit blogging into an already over-full family life, so she amazes me even more!
Gushing introductions aside–I want to tell you a sad story that you may be able to relate to.
Every Christmas, I start out gift wrapping with a happy heart and put all my love into each carefully tied bow and crisply folded corner. HOWever, about halfway through wrapping my family’s gifts, with other holiday demands starting to heat up, my evil inner martyr mother comes out. The wrapping gets uglier along with my mood, and I have a Scarlett O’Hara-like moment where I say, “I will never be stuck spending hours wrapping Christmas presents again.”
My husband’s solution to this problem (in addition to helping me wrap a few as long as I stop verbally abusing him long enough to pass him the scotch tape 🙂 ) is to suggest that we just stick the presents under the tree in the shopping bags and shipping boxes they came in. He reasons that the kids will still have something to undo, and we won’t have to do a thing. Problem solved.
Except, that it would look ugly.
Really, really, ugly.
And I am just shallow/proud/perfectionistic enough that I mind putting super ugly presents under the tree like I’ve given up all pretense of a beautiful
holiday.
Luckily, there is a third option beyond becoming a wrapping paper martyr, and giving up on life. My very talented mother-in-law often gives gifts in personalized fabric gift bags. Also, a dear friend of mine wraps all her family’s gifts in fabric gift bags that an environmentally-conscious neighbor gave her as a gift many years ago.
Hmmm. I think re-useable, pretty, fabric gift bags are a good thing. And now finally, after years of meaning to make them, I have done it.
And, I am willing to give you all the benefit of my experience and wisdom with lots of lazy shortcuts and tips (you’re welcome 🙂 ).
To make your very own bags, you will need:
•a fabric stash to pilfer (oh, come on–you know you have one, too)
•and/or other fabric, such as pillowcases you don’t need, pillow covers, old sweaters, etc.
•ribbons, cords, old (clean!) shoelaces, etc.
•a sewing machine with thread
•scissors
•pins
That’s it. Probably all stuff you have lying around.
Now, I am not one to re-invent the wheel. There are some great tutorials for making a drawstring bag here and here and probably lots of other places on the web as well. If you don’t already know how to make one, I suggest brushing up on the basics.
Then, using those tutorials (or your own awesome innate drawstring bag wisdom) as a basis, here are the shortcuts I’ve devised for making your bags more quickly and simply:
Lazy Shortcut #1: Use pinking shears so you don’t have to zig-zag. These aren’t going to be used every day, so you don’t need to finish them perfectly, but you still don’t want your hard work to fray into un-useability.
Lazy Shortcut #2: Instead of making the casing for the bag and then feeding the ribbon or cording through, pin it into the casing when you fold the casing over (see above–my pins are holding both my ribbon and casing in place). Then sew your casing seam, taking care to keep a safe distance from your cording or ribbon. Then all you have to do is take out your pins, and Voila! You are ready to go!
Lazy Shortcut #3: Unless you really want a drawstring bag that has handles on either side, you can just leave the casing open on only one side of your bag and then tie it in a bow. It saves time and ribbon.
Lazy Shortcut #4: Another option is to make a buttonhole towards the top of your bag before you fold your casing over. Feed the ends of your ribbon through the buttonhole, then pin the rest into your casing. Sew the casing seam and unpin everything. You can close it by pulling on the ends of the
ribbon and tying it into a bow, or put the ribbon ends through a toggle or large bead–then you can just cinch it up.
Lazy Shortcut #5: You don’t have to make a casing at all. Just make your bag with an open top (like a pillowcase) and tack some ribbon near the top. Then all you have to do is bring the ends around to the front and tie it in a bow. Just like this one below with the double-ribbon tie. Easy peasy.
If you don’t have a fabric stash (and if that is true, I pity you 🙂 ), I’ll bet you still have access to other free/cheap sources of fabric.
For example, I made a gift bag out of a thrift-store throw pillow cover I wasn’t using anymore.
I unzipped the zipper on the side and removed the pillow to add a gift …
… then I just used a zig-zag stitch to tack the ribbon on one side of the pillow cover, put the present in,
zipped up the side zipper and tied the bow.
So simple!
I made this one out of an old pillowcase. It was cute and soft, but it had shrunk, and just ended up
looking skimpy on the pillow.
However, with a cute black grosgrain ribbon tacked to the back and tied into a jaunty bow on the front, Santa couldn’t do any better :).
You probably have some unused pillowcases in your linen closet, but if not, most thrift stores in my area sell them for about $1. That’s less than a new throw-away gift bag.
Some other options I didn’t try yet, but that would work really well:
An old/shrunk crewneck sweater. Cut off the arms (which could probably be used to make small, thin gift bags, by the way), turn it inside out. Sew straight across the top from shoulder to shoulder, and up each side from the waistband to the seam you just created (closing up the arm holes). Trim to a 1/
2″ seam allowance on each seam and zig-zag to prevent fraying. Turn right-side out and add a ribbon. That would be so cute, especially if you used a holiday-themed sweater.
Made cut-offs last summer? Use the bottom part of the jeans/pants that you cut off! You end up with kind of a tube when you make cut-offs, so you could just turn this tube upside down, and sew a seam where the knee used to be. Turn right-side out and add a ribbon and you’re in business.
Really, the sky’s the limit in terms of places you can find fabric for this project.
Good luck, and may adorable fabric stash gift bags keep your evil martyr mother at bay this holiday season!
And hope you’ll stop by Fundamentals and Fripperies and say hi!
******************************************************************
Thank you so much Erin! I’ve made my first bag for my family, too, and am sooooo excited at the thought of NOT being up at 1 am on Christmas morning swearing complaining about wrapping presents.
Erin is another amazing e-friend that I’ve been lucky to find in blogland. We have living in Utah and Washington in common besides chasing around six kids – it makes you close. 🙂
I love reading Erin’s blog because she’s awesome at pretty much everything:
Check.
Check.
Oh heck yeah CHECK.
Oh, and did I mention that she’s funny and real and inspiring and a total Craigslist-shopping rock star?
No?
Well she is, so there’s four more reasons I hope you’ll stop by Fundamentals and Fripperies and visit Erin.
Happy forget-the-tape-and-paper Holidays!
Hey everyone! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!
I scored some ridiculously cute Riley Blake fabric and have been busy sewing for Christmas. Come check out what I whipped up for my girls.
And I’ll be back tomorrow to show you two more Christmas dresses that I made for my girls for flat out free … from Easter dresses.
Really.
See you tomorrow and hope you come stop by Cutting Corners today to say hi!
You asked and now it’s here – Christmas subway art submitted with words chosen by you awesome THRIVE readers!
Several of you who emailed me about the Thanksgiving design were disappointed when it sold out so quickly. I’m not a professional vinyl lady and am limited by the amount of time and materials I can cut. So when I got emails asking for a Christmas design, I asked my awesome neighbor Heidi to handle the cutting and shipping for me. That way I can work on more no-cost holiday projects to share with all of you – deal?
Here’s what we came up with using the suggestions submitted on THRIVE’s facebook page.
I love it! You guys picked the best, most fitting words to describe the season!
The picture above is vinyl on red painted canvas, but you can apply it to a board or wall. And to accommodate the reader requests for different sizes/colors, here’s what’s available: 8”x10” – $8.00, 12” x 14” – $10.00, 16”x20” – $14.00. You can pick the color when ordering HERE.
And as always, I’m all about the freebies and rockin-what-ya-got, too.
You can download a free printable 5”x7” of either version below.
So there you go!
Have fun picking the perfect vinyl design color for your home or enjoying the awesome free version in a frame.
I hope this helps bring a little bit of the magic of the season to your home!
Thank you so much for all the love you showed my good friend Brandi. Reading how much she’s touched each of you made me float.
***
As I sit here tonight, Thanksgiving is two weeks away.
Tonight I’m sharing the first of four holiday posts as my family and friends are getting ready for Turkey Day: Being Grateful, Decorating Without Dollars, Dressed for the Occasion and Stuffed! (all about the food!).
This year in particular I’m making a deliberate decision to reclaim Thanksgiving as a holiday in it’s own right and not just the first day of Christmas. I want to linger on thankful, relish in blessings and openly rejoice for everything I have instead of what I think I need. When I’ve taken this approach in year’s past, I find I’m much less likely to be depressed by what we’re not spending on Christmas and recognize how rich and full my life is right now.
So to celebrate today’s theme of Being Grateful, I’m so excited to have another bloggy friend, Becky from Creatively Content, here from half way around the world to share a beautiful Thanksgiving tradition she enjoys with her family. She writes that her theme for this season of her life is to ‘use what we have’, and I can tell you that her blog is a beautiful testament to just that.
Becky is an American blog momma living with her husband and three beautiful children in western Turkey near the Greek border. I’m always inspired by Becky’s faith, grace and creativity as she builds a wonderfully unique life for her kids. I hope you’ll love the Thanksgiving Mailbox that she’s sharing today as much as I do.
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Hi everyone at THRIVE! I’m Becky from Creatively Content.
The Thanksgiving Mailbox started because my girlies and me were sitting around making envelopes out of an old magazine and they played mail for a LONG time, sending sweet love notes to everyone in the family.
So I thought it would be fun to have a Thanksgiving mailbox where we wrote notes every morning starting 2 weeks before thanksgiving of things we are grateful for and put them in our mailbox. We used heavy duty cardboard for the bottom and the sides and a cereal box to shape the middle and back.
The stand came together using cardboard circles and toilet paper tubes.
And everything was held together using hot glue.
The kids tackled the decorating with strips of magazine pages + mod podge since my scrapbook paper supply is small and precious.
The envelopes are stored on the back of the mailbox in a little pouch with 5 little cards for each of us in the family to write what we are thankful for.
One special thing I added was that 5 envelopes have each of our families initials on it and so each of us will write (some with help) 😉 one thing we are grateful for about that person.
On Thanksgiving day we will open up all the 14 envelopes and remember what we were grateful for and each have our own envelope to open and see all the special things our family has to be grateful for about us. (The kids will love to get their own mail! We have one for Jesus, too.
Thanks Nike for including me in your Thanksgiving posts and hope you come and stop by Creatively Content.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
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You’re so welcome, Becky! I’m making one of your mailboxes for Family Home Evening with my Dirty Half Dozen.
I’ll hope you’ll stop by and say hi to Becky this week. Her corner of the world is literally thousands of miles from craft stores or fabric shops, yet she always finds amazing ways to use what she has and make do with what she doesn’t. Her blog is full of projects that celebrate the spirit of recognizing and being thankful for everything we do have in our lives.
Case in point:
No theatres to watch movies? Or too expensive to hit the theatre? No problem.
Becky just whipped up the coolest invite-the-neighborhood-over-and-watch-Toy-Story-2-kids-theatre.
No cool race car floor mat? No problem.
Becky made one on the floor using masking tape. Genius.
No sewing machine? No problem.
Becky just whipped up this adorable tiered skirt for her daughter without one. Seriously.
Thanks again Becky for sharing your Thanksgiving Mailbox with us!
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And to all you out there in blogland…
… tell me …
what are you GRATEFUL for right now as you get ready for THANKGIVING?
(Can’t wait to show you part 2 of the THRIVE Thanksgiving series on holiday outfits. Like I mentioned at the end of Brandi’s post, this has been the happiest little accident ever.)
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Hey there Thrive readers!! I’m Brandi and I blog over at Don’t Disturb This Groove.
I write about handmade projects, makeovers and a recipe here and there.
I like finding creative ways to incorporate natural elements into my home. Which is why I love Nike’s, “Rock-What-Ya-Got” approach to living and crafting.
Growing in my yard is a Sweet Gum tree. Sweet Gum trees produce these prickly little balls (“Sweet Gum fruit”). Those prickly little balls are everywhere in my yard! This week instead of raking them into a pile, I went outside and gathered a bag full to create a wreath.
To construct my wreath, I started with a simple wreath form purchased for a dollar.
Then using my glue gun, I attached the prickly fruit to the wreath form starting from the inside and working my way out.
Once completed, I attached a saw tooth hanger to the backside, again using my glue gun.
Here it is my friends!
I love the texture of the wreath.
I kept things simple to focus on the natural beauty of the Sweet Gum fruit.
“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you”. – Frank Lloyd Wright
I hope you enjoyed my tutorial! Happy Holidays everyone! Thanks so much Nike for having me over!!
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You’re so welcome, Brandi! I ADORE how you used natural items from your yard to create this beautiful wreath for the holidays. I’m so pinning this!
Many of you probably know Brandi from around blog land – she’s the wonderfully thoughtful blog visitor leaving heartfelt, genuine comments on some many projects out there. I am constantly encouraged by Brandi’s feedback here on THRIVE and am so not surprised when I see her doing the same for women crafters. And if you haven’t read about her inspiration for her blog title, you need to.
Oh, and did I mention Brandi’s mad crafting skills? No? Seriously … mad.crafting.skills.
Did you see this awesome Pottery Barn Knock off a few days ago?
It’s a Brandi.
Or these gorgeous holiday wreaths from corn husks and bay leafs?
Also Brandi’s.
This chair make-over is one of my favorite projects of Brandi’s ever.
And recipes … oh good heavens. This woman regularly screws up my daily WW points totals. 🙂 She makes evil, terrible, awful things like homemade eggnog … and Good-As-The-Mall Pretzels … and Banana French Toast.
I hope you’ll stop by Don’t Disturb This Groove and say hi to Brandi!
Be back soon to show you a happy little accident … (hehehehe)
