Patriotic Wreath

Awhile ago I was searching Google Images for some 4th of July craft ideas and I came across this wreath. It jumped out at me and I knew I had to create it. Fortunately for me someone blogged the step by step instructions, with pictures. She admitted she got the idea from someone else who had done the wreath, but she did invent the springy star idea. I liked it, so I didn't change it. So while this wasn't my original idea I'm still going to show you how I did it. Besides, I need something to blog about.

As usual, I am not a professional photographer nor do I drag out the good camera. (Her pictures were so good).

I wish I would have closed my dishwasher before taking this pic. 

First thing you need is some felt. I bought mine at Michaels at .29 cents a sheet. 6 red, 6 white and 4 blue. You may not need this much, you may need more. It all depends on how close you squish them together on the wreath. You want to cut them into 2x2 squares (Don't worry about being exact). It makes it a lot easier if you stack a few sheets together and cut them all at once. Once cut you will fold the squares into triangles. 

Fold once corner to corner.

Then fold again.

You are going to pin these pieces to your wreath on the folded bottom corner. I got the wreath at Michaels craft store. Just to clarify I found everything I used at Michaels. 

The wreath.

The pinning. 

The Shining. 

You're going to keep pining your folded squares all along the wreath. As you pin spread apart the folded squares so they look fuller. You're going to do a lot of pinning, pulling and fluffing. 

Try not to pin your pieces too close together. This will make it look really squished and you will probably run out of felt squares before you are done. I had to pull out quite a few pieces till I got it to look how I wanted. 

Space, the final frontier. 

While I alternated between red and white area's you can do whatever you want. Mix the red and white all around the wreath, mix all the red, white and blue together, whatever way you want to do it works. I did not measure how large of a space for each color, I just tried to eyeball it and hope they turned out about the same size. Make sure to leave a larger area for the blue. 

Once you have all the felt on you can add the stars. I used some very sparkly scrapbook paper. The paper wasn't very thick so I glued some card stock paper onto the back. I don't have one of those new fangled fancy machines that punch out whatever shape you want so they are all perfect and the same size. I'm stuck in the olden days, I used a pencil to draw out the stars and scissors to cut them out. I know, I know, it's like how grandpa had to walk uphill to school, in the snow, with no shoes when he was a kid. 

You can glue the stars right to the wreath, or you can skip the stars and place a few pieces of the white felt throughout the blue. To make the springy stars I used some silver floral wire and wrapped it around a sharpie marker to make it spiral. I attached the stars back to back using a glue dot (scrapbooker thing) with the wire in the middle of the dot, gluing the stars together. Did that make sense? I don't think so either. Let me see if I have a picture of what I did. 

Yeah, like this. Just put another star on top of that one. 

Take your springy star and push one end of the wire into your wreath between some of the blue felt. The wire should poke through easily. I straightened out the end a bit first so it goes into the wreath easier and so it sticks out a bit better. 

I found some cool patriotic looking ribbon, that you can't really see since it's backwards in this pic, and used it to make a loop so I can hang the wreath up. I just pinned it to the back using a few pins for a good hold and so they wouldn't just rip through the ribbon from the weight. 

Notice I did not decorate the back of the wreath, no one will see it and it makes the wreath too puffy so it wont lay flat. Trust me, by the time you've felted up the front (HA! felt up..felted up, get it?) you wont want to do the back. 

AND WE ARE DONE! Sheesh. The blog I read for this explained everything so quickly, easily and clear, plus  her pictures were set up so cool, like side by side and junk and stuff.  I really need to learn the art of blog tutorials. I didn't bookmark her blog, but I know it was called Capitol B, and I'm sure y'all can find her.  I made sure to mention this at the end, so y'all had to read my stuff before knowing who you really need to look for. I need to look again so I can find other completely awesome craft projects to try and do, and learn how to blog. 

It looks great on my door, but I wont keep it there. I don't want spiders making their homes in it. I live in the south, we have a lot of spiders... *shudder*

Proud to be an American

Wow, it's been awhile since I have been here. Not very surprising, I usually get bored with things quickly. That's not to say I haven't had things in my mind to blog about. I've even done some crafty things I could show you all. I just haven't because with one I'm waiting till it's closer to the 4th of July to post, another is going to be someone's Christmas present and I don't want them to see it and something else I'm kinda waiting till I have more to show you all. Do you like how I say 'you all'? As if there are other people reading my ramblings.

This is the Memorial Day weekend. Facebook is already full of people posting their plans for going out of town. Pay attention robbers, they are letting you know their houses will be unoccupied for the entire weekend! No need to rush those T.V.'s and computers out the door, stay awhile, make a sandwich, rifle through the jewelry to make sure you get the good stuff. Heck, stay the night in their Egyptian Cotton sheets.

Other people are posting about the cookouts they are having, the family reunions, and how excited they are to have an extra day or two off work. I've only seen a few posting about what Memorial Day actually means. It's like people forget, or maybe don't even know to begin with.  It's often referred to as the "Official Start of Summer". That will ring some truth here in the south since temps are going to be in the 90's.

I'm not sure what I will do this year, but here is what I did last year on Memorial Day. I went to 2 of our local Veteran's cemeteries. I don't know anyone buried in either cemetery, nor did I go with someone who did have a loved one there. I went to pay my respect to those strangers I didn't know, to those men and woman who wanted to serve their country, fight for me when called to do so, make sure I will live in my happy little world. I love my country. I love the beauty of this land. I cry when I see fireworks, I bawl like a baby when Lee Greenwood sings about how proud he is to be an American. I swell with pride when I hear our National Anthem and when my 5 year old nephew recites the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you to all our veterans, past and present. To those currently enlisted over seas who know that they may never see their beloved country or family ever again. I hope everyone has a fun, safe weekend, but that we do so with pride, with honor and that we never forget...

Avengers Unite!

Do they say that in the movie? If they don't, they should. Nick Fury could issue the battle cry, "AVENGERS UNITE!", and all the Avengers would come together to fight the bad dudes. Can you tell I haven't seen the movie yet?

While doing my daily internet surfing I ran across a picture on some eye contact website showing a cool eyeshadow design inspired by Captain America, or maybe the 4th of July. I figured it was Captain America since The Avengers was released last week and the 4th is still a few months away. You could wear this for either one.

This will be my first tutorial. I want to first stress that I don't have great lighting and I don't use the good camera. I hold up the camera in front of my eye and snap the picture. I do try to use bright or natural light, but usually it's the lamp next to my table or the light bar in the bathroom. I am not even making an effort to be a pro at this or a famous makeup guru. I'm doing this how I put on my makeup every day, in the living room.

Here is the majority of what I used.

Urban Decay Primer Potion

Sephora Nano eyeliner pencil in some blue color (can't find it at the moment)

Avon lip liner pencil in red (sorry, color name has worn off)

Sugarpill loose eyeshadow in Asylum

NYX Jumbo eye pencil in Milk

Generic red glitter from a Halloween makeup kit

Sally Girl blue cosmetic glitter

Sephora liquid liner in black

Sephora eyeshadow in Aspen Summit

Smoldering Baked Eyeshadow (blue color)(bought at Sally Beauty Supply

Nail art stars

Alright, I think I listed everything. Truth be told I put it all away and I have a ton of makeup. I really don't want to pull it all out to get the exact color name. I know, some tutorial, wont even tell us what colors to use. You get the idea though, you just want some red, white and blue stuff.

I used the Primer Potion first, but if you are going to use the NYX pencil you probably can skip this part. The pencil will act like a primer. Take the NYX pencil in milk and apply all over eye area, even under the bottom lashes. Blend in with your finger tips. 

Next take your blue eyeshadow and pat on with a flat brush. If you rub it on with the brush it's going to blend in too much with the white pencil. Just patting it on will give you bolder color. Start just above the crease and take it up close to the bottom of your brows. Leave some space under the brow and some space above your crease. Take a clean puffier brush and lightly blend with the white under your brow. Use the same blue shadow under your lower lashes all the way to the corner of your eye. 

Now we are going to go a little fast. Pat on the red eyeshadow (mine was the Sugarpill) on your eyelid only. Leave the strip between the red and blue. Don't worry if you get some shadow on that space, but try not to. After you have your red and blue on use the glitter over each color. Sally Beauty has great, cheap cosmetic glitter and a clear "glue" that helps it stick. Apply a thin layer of the glue with your finger tip and pat glitter over the shadow color with a flat brush. I let the glitter dry just a bit then took my NYX pencil again and went over the crease again to clean up any stray shadow and define that area a little better. I used the Sephora white shadow under my brow area and lightly blended it with the blue. 

Next I used the Sephora liquid liner and created a winged line on the top lid. I used black but you can always use a dark blue. I mainly used black because I applied false lashes and the black helps hide the false lash strip a bit better. I took a little more of the glitter glue and used it to place tiny nail art stars on the blue shadow. If you can't find little stars check the craft stores in their scrapbooking section. I have some tiny silver star stickers that would have worked great too. You could also use white face paint and just paint small dots in this area. If your really good you can draw tiny stars. Or take silver liquid eyeliner and do the same thing.. you get the idea, I hope. I also used the blue eyeliner pencil to line my waterline and applied black mascara before the false lashes went on. 

In the original picture I saw of this the eyebrows were done in red. I liked how that gave it even more of a red, white and blue look, but it might be a little too much if you are wearing this out. I mean, you already have a ton of glitter and stars for heaven's sake. Red eyebrows might be overkill. I liked it, so I used my red lip liner pencil. It's kinda cool, kinda strange. If I left the house this way I would have been thinking of my red lip liner eyebrows all night. I also used my favorite false lashes, why not be more dramatic. These are  Illamasqua 013. They have some awesome black ones with blue in them, they would have rocked this look. 

After all that I used my red eyebrow lip liner and lined my lips then filled them in with it. For extra pazazz you could use the red cosmetic glitter on your lips, or better yet, do them in blue, with glitter. 

AVENGERS UNITE! 

Hair chalking!

If you know me, or read my blog, you know my obsession with changing my hair color. Any time I do a funky color I get a lot of compliments, usually followed by "I wish I could do that!". Usually I'm not entirely sure why people can't do it but sometimes they give a reason, work wont allow it, parents will freak out, husband would divorce them. I understand the work excuse, kids are suppose to freak out their parents, and if hubby divorces you over your hair color you didn't need the SOB in the first place.

Well ladies, I am about to blow your MIND! O.K., not really. I am going to show you how you can have some funky highlights without committing to a permanent color that will make your mother cry.

I give you HAIR CHALKING! (Insert inspirational awwwwww music here). Alright, alright, it's not a new thing. It's been done a lot, I certainly didn't make it up.

First you will need a few things. A spray bottle, some colored chalk, and a flat iron (for hair, not the steak). I used cheap sidewalk chalk. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go out and draw on my driveway with it the next sunny, dry day we have. I want to do it now, but it's raining. :P

Start out with dry hair, styled as you usually would. Skip the hairspray for now. Take a section of hair you want to color and spray with water to saturate it. 

Now take the color of your choice and "color" your hair with it. You're literally going to rub the chalk back and forth over the wet piece of hair. The more you rub, the more color you get. I ended up wetting the piece of chalk also. 

You can use one color, or as many as you want. 

Dry your hair either with your hair dryer or wait till it dries naturally. I'm impatient, I used the hair dryer. Try to avoid brushing your hair. Once dry take a flat iron and use it on the colored parts to set the color better. 

VOILA! This would really look amazing on blonde hair. My hair is heavily layered and would probably look better on long pieces of hair. I brushed mine right after taking this last picture and the color really came out. It left a light chalky look. I wonder why, maybe it has something to do with it being chalk. My hair now feels kinda gross where I chalked it. I would imagine if you didn't wash it out you will wake up with a colorful pillowcase. 

True story time. 

I was planning on doing this today and blogging about it. I had been wanting to do it all week, but I have been too busy (lazy). Today was the perfect day. If not doing this I would be going through my clothes in my packed closet and I really didn't want to do that, this was way more fun. I still need to clean out my closet, it's bad. It would appear I have a clothes addiction too. Crap, another 12 step program needed. But I digress.. While surfing Facebook this morning I came across an add for COLORSMASH. I am now so excited to see this product! It must be fate that I see this when I had plans for coloring my hair with a piece of chalk. I can't wait! 

Things that go bump in the night..

For as long as I can remember I have loved all things scary. Well, scary movies or books. I wouldn't love being mugged or trapped somewhere. Geez, how awful. I have fond memories of watching the Friday the 13th movies with my best friend, Shawnna, when she would stay the night. Back then we actually had to have my mom drive us to the video store so we could rent those wonderful bloody slasher flicks. There was no Netflix or internet so we could pirate what movie we wanted to watch.  Certainly if my mom knew what our young impressionable minds were seeing in these movies we would have been watching The Sound of Music instead. Back then movies were far more scary than they are now. As kids we were terrified from the very first scene. Watching these films in complete darkness was a stupid idea. We would find ourselves looking at all the dark corners of the room and out into the even darker hallway, waiting for Jason and his butcher knife to casually walk out of the shadows and chase us off, probably to steal our air popped popcorn. Going to bed was even scarier. We would sleep in the middle of my grandmothers queen bed, as close to each other as possible. We were smart, nothing could get us if we were in the middle of the bed no matter how big their butcher knife was. The monsters would have to just lay there under the bed or in the closet, frustrated with how clever we were to have the insight that we were safe if we stayed in the center of the bed. Obviously these wretched creatures fell asleep when we did because they never did come out of hiding while we were asleep and naturally drifting away from the middle into more comfortable positions. Maybe they just got bored and went next door to try and eat the neighbors.

These days those movies that caused so many sleepless nights for us are rather cheesy. I find myself laughing at Jason or Freddy now instead of fearing I would be the next victim. I was blaming this on age, I'm not 10 years old anymore. I am a rational adult. We adults know better. Yesterday proved that theory false. I went to the $2.50 movie theater, formally the dollar theater.  I saw The Woman in Black. Great movie. None of those awful special effects that usually look so fake it ends up ruining the movie. These scares were subtle. I did have a hard time believing Daniel Radcliffe was old enough in the movie to have a wife, and also to have had sex with said wife since he has a child in the movie. In reality he is 22 years old, but I still think of him as a teenage wizard. Being it was the middle of a Wednesday afternoon there was only one more person in the theater with me. I ran into her in the bathroom after and would guess she was quickly heading towards 80 years old. She laughed and said that she knows she will be sleeping with the lights on that night. I wonder if she knows  about the sleeping in the middle of the bed trick.  I did like the movie, but still didn't have that wonderfully terrified feeling like I did when I was a kid watching Jason hack his way through all those hormone raging teenagers partying at his lake. I'm hoping the older I get the scarier movies will seem again. Hopefully I will be peeing in my pants from fear and not incontinence.

Hair today...

I feel the need to blog about my hair. First of all my hair is amazing. No, it's not Jennifer Aniston hair amazing, no one will cry "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!" and it will never cover my naked body while I ride my horse through the city like Lady Godiva. It's amazing because of the abuse it takes from me and never tries to leave home or just lie down and die altogether.

 My hair abuse mostly comes from coloring. I can't stop. I have a serious problem when it comes to coloring my hair. Is there a 12 step program for hair coloring? I'm not sure there is a color left that I have not had it. It's been all your natural shades from blonde to black and all of the not natural shades, pink, purple, blue, green and my favorite, fire engine red. I love my red. 'Hi, my name is Teri and I can't stop coloring my hair'. "Hi, Teri!".

Oh yeah, it was PINK. 

I think somewhere in my family someone must have been a ginger. My own natural hair color is a very dark brown. No matter what I color it red tones always come through. I really love dark red hair, not the faded almost orange red hair, but a true rich red color. Unfortunately when I dye my hair any lighter than natural color it fades into that light orange mess.

One of my better self dye jobs. 

Feria has been my favorite dye in a box brand for years now. I love their colors and how soft their uber after dye conditioner makes my hair. If you are dying your hair all one color I don't think home box dye is all that bad. Highlights however are one thing best left to the professionals. I try sometimes, and sometimes succeed, but it's never as good and someone who knows what they are doing.

That blue was so pretty! 

A few weeks ago I found a deal on Living Social for a cut, color, highlights and a deep conditioning hair masque from Fringes Salon and Spa here in Knoxvegas. It was a deal I couldn't pass up so I went to have my self hair coloring disaster fixed and a much needed cut. I had it dyed to a more natural color with some caramel highlights and my beloved red. I usually think I do pretty good with my dye jobs, that is until I have it done by someone who knows what they are doing. Kaydee at Fringes ROCKS! I love it and might even stick to the pro's for all my hair coloring needs. I will still be in that 12 step program though.

Hair before. The ends are looking pretty bad here because I had to wait awhile to get it cut because they were so busy. I'm not sure how I can see with those bangs, and probably shouldn't be driving. The color here isn't that bad, but my roots were really showing.

Hair after. Smoother and sleeker looking with the dead ends chopped off. Eyes now visible. My nose looks like a ski slope from this angle. Ugh. 

In all, I love my awesome hair. I love that it doesn't fall out and that it provides me with endless opportunity to change the cut, color and length. I know a lot of people who are afraid to do anything to their hair. Even if it means they have had the same style since high school. You know who you are and I urge you to go get it cut and colored! Let them do what they want. (I do recommend a good salon, no super cuts for this!). It's only hair, it will grow out again.. 

Cherry Blossoms

Ahhh Spring. That wonderful time of year when the winter blahs turn into spring allergies. Everyone opens their blinds and windows and comes out of hiding with tissues and eye drops in hand. Everything comes out of hibernation with a wash of color. This year I was in the Caribbean when the magic of Spring came alive. I know, the Caribbean! It was rough, but I somehow made it through 14 nights of island sun and turquoise waters.  I missed the blooming Dogwoods and Flowering Pear trees, although I did get a brief glimpse of some Eastern Redbud trees while driving home through the Smoky Mountains. Gone were the Tulips and Daffodils. So I decided I needed to bring some of what I missed into my home, something that would last more than two short weeks. At least until the layer of dust is so thick I can no longer tell what color it's suppose to be. I made this pretty and easy (pretty easy!) cherry blossom centerpiece. I'm going to put this in the middle of my dinning table, which just happens to have a cherry blossom table runner on it. Well, I will once I take the Easter decorations off it and put them away. It might be awhile.

Start off with some tissue paper. I used a two different shades of pink. Of course you can use any colors for this, it doesn't have to be pink. Any colors would look great, except maybe brown. Usually brown flowers are not a good thing.  You're going to cut out the petals. I suggest folding the tissue paper to be able to cut more than one petal out at a time. Don't worry if the don't look perfect, it's not going to matter. Mine were around 2 1/2 inches across.

Happy little petals. 

Next you want to put two sheets together to make your blossom. I used the darker pink for the outside and lighter on the inside. Lay them so they don't line up with each other. 

                        Now you are going to grab the center part and twist the two pieces together. 

I made some with both colors and a few single colored ones for a little variation. 

Next you need some sticks. If you can find a dead tree or one that has not bloomed yet grab some off of it. It's a pain to try and remove all the leaves. I wanted this to look as natural as possible so I didn't look for perfectly straight sticks or all the same length. Besides, I don't have the patience to search for sticks like that. 

To attach the tissue buds I used a hot glue gun. I'm not a fan of hot glue guns because they are messy and I hate that glue string that always ends up all over your masterpiece. In this case I figured it would look natural, like a left over spider web in the trees. I glued my flowers on to the sticks where the leaves would have been budding from if I hadn't killed these branches by ripping them off the tree. I didn't glue them to every single bud point because I didn't want an overflow of flowers, just enough to look like they were just beginning to bloom. I also used a lot of the single light pink pieces of paper along with the pieces with both colors together. 

Finally I picked most of the glue webs off, peeled the glue off my fingernails and placed all my finished branches in a vase. I stuffed paper around the branches in the vase to keep them in the center and placed my unused tissue flowers on top. 

Even though these are not real allergy inducing flowers my right eye is still itching. Eye drops here I come.