Styrofoam Ornaments

Day 8!! 
I'm finally getting caught up! Things have been super hectic these past few days. Today I'm going to share with you giant Styrofoam ornaments that I made to hang up in my dorm room. These are super easy and fool proof. 
Supplies: 
   Styrofoam shapes (I picked mine up from the Dollar Tree
   Glitter
   Glue
   String

Step 1. "Paint" glue onto they styrofoam ball. 

Step 2: Cover in glitter and let them dry. 

Step 3: String them and hang them up! 

I told you they were fool proof. I was going to wrap them in wire, but I ran out of time before finals started. Until next time, they will remain just glittery! (Nothing wrong with that!) 

Snowflake Window!

Day 7!!!
Sorry I've been gone a bit! Between finals, work, and trying to pack so I could go home for break. Ugh, I have a lot of crafts to get caught up on! The drive home was no fun either, but I made it home! And now it's a world of snow out there and I am stuck inside. Perfect for me to get caught up!
I wanted to decorate our window so it could look pretty on the outside. I also didn't want to spend a ton of money on decorating the windows. So I resorted to the days of Kindergarten and paper snowflake, but I didn't want them to look like a Kindergarten Katelyn made them. Turn to Google and I found this website of snowflake patterns. I then used this website to lean how to fold the paper. But you know, it's way to hard for me to completely follow directions. So I made a few following the patterns, then I made my own. I then hung them up on our window around our Christmas tree and they look so pretty. They made up for all the snow that we didn't get. 

Reusable Gift Bows

Day 6!
Ribbon and I have a love hate relationship. It makes presents look so pretty but it gets thrown away right after the gift is open. Seems like a waste of materials, right? Not to mention, it costs like five bucks for one bow! This year I have come up with a solution for the dreaded bow! And it only cost roughly 10 cents per bow if that! 

Supplies:
Felt
Ribbon (I bought it at the Dollar Tree. I feel no guilt, I still have a ton left for future projects.)
Hot glue

Step 1: Draw a bunch of circles on your felt. I used my hairspray as a template. I also make one with squares. I like both types equally. Now cut out the circles!

Step 2: Put a medium size dot of hot glue in the center of your felt circle. 

Step 3: I'm not really sure how to describe this step, I learned how to do it by looking at pictures.  Fold the felt upward around the glue circle. I fold mine in half and then half again. I then hold it until the glue hardens. It should look like this!

Step 4: Glue them all to a base circle. Start in the center and work your way out. I used 6-8 circles/squares for each "bow".

Step 5: Glue a few strips of ribbon to the bottom of the "bow". 
Step 6: Attach to the presents!

I really like the way they turned out and they match my wrapping paper!

                         -Katelyn

The Actual 12 Days of Christmas

  Today starts the Actual 12 Days of Christmas!
  I have a serious problem trying to keep myself from giving people their Christmas and birthday gifts early. My mom has received her Mother's Day gift and birthday present early for the past 10+ years. It's so hard for me to keep them! My mom just happens to have the same problem also. She once told me that waiting for Christmas would almost make her sick to her stomach. Same thing happens to me. Then her and her brother started giving each other early Christmas gifts when they were living on their own. 
     When my brother and I were little, my mom started the 12 Days of Christmas. We had these special bags with 12 little gifts inside. They were never anything big, just something to hold us over until Christmas. My first gift that I can remember was the bananas from Bananas in Pajamas. If you don't know what they are, click here. Weirdest kid show ever right!?! I still get that song stuck in my head! Anyways, every year we have the 12 Days of Christmas. I really enjoy it. It's never anything big, mine are usually lip gloss, nail polish, mini lotion ect. My brothers get GAC, mini AXE spray, boy things! I know it sounds silly but we are always really excited about it and can't wait for it to start. 
     Now please don't think that we are super spoiled. These gifts are small and meant to tide us over until Christmas. (Yes, I am 20 years old and I still get these gifts, but my youngest brother is  eleven so we all get them! :P ) Every year on Christmas Eve, my parents give us pj's and another gift. We happen to love the pj's. It's been a tradition ever since I was little. As for the other gift, one year we got Snowdens (It happened to be my favorite movie that year, and my dog now uses it as her own personal stuffed toy.), another we got a body pillows, and one year we got a go cart. The go cart is a whole other story! What I am trying to say my parents gave us the 12 Days gifts, pj's and a surprise gift. Then Santa would visit and life was great. We never knew anything different. And I wouldn't change a thing! We received the perfect amount of gifts for Christmas. Besides, Christmas isn't about gifts! It's about family and the story of Christ's birth, which my parents kept in our minds when growing up. 
   I love the way that my parents treated Christmas and when I have kids, I plan on doing the same thing! So Mom, I'm ready for my pj's and cinnamon rolls! 

Snowflake Ornaments

DAY 5!
I honestly think that these are super cute! I had some extra snowflakes and tulle from my snowflake wreath adventure. These are so easy to make and took me only about 15 minutes start to finish! I love snowflakes because then I can keep my decorations up longer! (A lesson I learned from my mother.)

Supplies
Glitter
Plastic snowflakes (Dollar Tree) 
Tulle 
Hot glue gun

I got fancy on the glitter for this one! I wanted it to be super sparkly and shimmery. I mixed fine white gold, silver German glitter glass (chunkier glitter), and iridescent glitter and mixed them together until I liked it. I wish I had something big to glitter in this stuff, I'm in love with it!  I do have a big vase at home... (stay tuned to see if that pops up!) Anyways this is what my glitter turned out to look like. 

I then glittered the snow flakes in the same process as the ones from the Snowflake Wreath. After that I cut my tulle in about 5 inch strips. I then knotted two of the strips together and then tied a third on to fill the gap. (The first two strips made an X and the third piece made a line horizontally across the X)

After tying 10 little puffs, I put a dot of glue on the back of the snowflakes and pressed the puff onto the glue dot.  Let them sit for a bit so the glue will harden. 

TaDa! Aren't they adorable? I love them. I hung them up on our door to accent the wreath. I then hung the rest up in our room. I plan on keeping these ones and putting them our Christmas tree next year (that is if we can fit one in our apartment!). They are just so cute :). I hope you enjoy making these!

-Katelyn 

And Welcome to Pre-Finals Week!

It's getting to be crunch time around here! Not just for finals, but to see if we can make it another week without having to do laundry. I really don't want to have pay to do laundry when I can just do it at home... 
Anyways it finally started snowing last night! It snowed quite a lot. Now it can just stop until I get home for Christmas break. Anna and I went for a walk in it. We went to go look at an apartment. 

Obviously, Anna is not prepared for white out conditions. She would blend in. But don't worry, I wore my bright orange coat just in case the wind picked up! 

I have a little (super big) obsession with Starbucks' Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. It doesn't help that it is right down the street from my building. Anna and I had to stop there on our way back after apartment looking. Which brought us to the following conversation:

             Me: I want to make a snow angel, but I have no snow pants. 

             Anna: Yeah... 

             Me: I wonder if the snow would clean my pants... I dropped a pizza roll on them. 

             Anna: Don't worry, I have Cheetos on my pants and I wore them to work. 

             Me: I think that we should try the snow angels...

See we really do not want to do our laundry! Let's face it, I'm to cheap to do do my laundry. But that's ok, I will admit it. 

Then we commentated a snowball fight out in the circle at 11:30 at night. Who ever the kid was that did a handspring over the snow pile, we have a trophy for you! It was pretty entertaining. That is college for you :) 

-Katelyn

Stamped Wrapping Paper

Day 4!
I love wrapping paper. It's always so pretty and there are so many different designs! I really like the sparkly and glittery kind. I found some full out, complete glitter wrapping paper at Walmart this year. I thought I was in love. What I'm not in love with is the price. The glitter paper was $9 for about enough to wrap 2 or 3 small presents! And regular paper is like $5 for about the same amount as the glitter paper. Plus it just gets thrown away unless you are like me and pick your favorite pieces to craft with later. I love the look of butcher paper and it's pretty heavy weight so I know it won't rip as I'm trying to tape the ends... So behold!!! My homemade wrapping paper! I actually got this idea way back in October when Josh was visiting and I found butcher paper. I have been waiting so long to do this!

Supplies: 
Stamps (Remember how I said that I was using those stamps for another project... You can see the tutorial for those here. 
Paint
Paint brush 
Butcher Paper (I got mine at the Dollar Tree. 15 feet for a dollar! I was so happy!)
Bubble wrap (Also got that at the Dollar Tree. It was right next to the butcher paper. It was like a sign!)

 (Ignore our messy room. This was at the end of a whole day of crafting...) 
Step 1. Cut a square of bubble wrap off the roll and paint it with your craft paints. I mixed silver and blue to make it sparkly. I also used the darkest color as my "base" so that the stamps would stand out. 

 Now stamp that on to the butcher paper. Be sure to press down on the entire surface of the bubble wrap to get the paint to transfer. (But don't press to hard or else you will pop the bubble wrap...) I was able to get 2-3 stamps out of each painting of the bubble wrap and I used the same piece for the entire role of paper. 

 This is what it will look like. I thought it looked pretty cool and gave the paper some texture and dimension. 

Step 2. Paint your stamp and stamp it all over the paper. (Sadly, I don't have a picture of this I thought I did, but it must have gotten deleted. Some of the stamp prints turned out perfectly and others are missing little parts of it but I really like the way it turned out!

Step 3. Wrap all of the presents! Aren't they beautiful! Anna thought that I made the bag also. I wish I had that kind of talent but I bought that in the dollar isle of Target! I also made my own "bows". That tutorial will be later this week! I still have a lot of paper left. I'm surprised I got so much out it for only a dollar! The total cost of the wrapping paper (including stamps) and bows was about $2.50!

DIY Stamps

DAY 3!!!
On the third day of Christmas stamps were made...
These were made for another project that I had in mind, yet could be used for just about anything! They were so simple to make and cost about 20 cents a stamp. You can't buy stamps that cheap! You can make pretty much anything that you want and let's say that you decided that you didn't like your design anymore, all you have to do is peel the puff paint off and you can reuse your tile. You could use blocks of wood, but being at college I didn't exactly have access to a wood shop. Plus the tile is reusable! 
Supplies: 
Ceramic tiles or blocks of wood
Puff Paint - MUST be "Puffy" Paint 
dry erase markers (optional)

Step 1: Draw design on tile with dry erase marker. This step is optional, but I found that it makes it easier than "eyeballing" my design. 

Step 2: Draw design with puff paint, let dry, go over design again. Do this step slowly! There is no rush and your design will turn out better. By going over your design twice, it makes it more defined and it stamps better. 

Now you are free to do what ever you want with you stamps! You'll see what I created tomorrow!

      -Katelyn

A Phillips Family Christmas

Today was my family Christmas. I'm so sad that I missed it because I was at school. Every year my mom's family gets together and we have lots of food, Christmas treats, and Santa comes to visit. We always have such yummy food, plus there is every Christmas treat imaginable! Now I'm hungry...

I have a pretty big family, there's a lot of us. My mom has 10 brothers and sisters, so that means lots of cousins. I love having a big family! I wouldn't trade it for the world. Here is a picture of my family. Keep in mind that there are plenty of people missing and it's from two years ago. Lots of babies have been born since then! We just never stop growing. 

I hope everyone had an awesome time today and I missed you much! Next year I am going to try to get home for it because I miss it soo much! 

Glitter Nails!!!!!!

I found the perfect color glitter polish the other night! And it only cost 2 bucks!!! and then I decided it needed more glitter, so I added silver glitter polish to make accent nails. I am in love with them :) It'a an even darker magenta in person. I love it!!!!!

Snowflake Wreath

I like using snowflakes for decoration, they can used all winter long rather than just during the Christmas season. I saw a picture on Pintrest over the summer of a wreath and I fell in love. I stared at the picture and told myself "You can totally make that! You don't even need to read the directions!" So here is my version of the snow flake wreath! 

Supplies: 
Metal Ring (I got mine at JoAnn's for a buck fifty. It was by the doilies.)
Glitter (I used silver and iridescent.)
Tulle (I got it at Hobby Lobby, 10 - 15 yards for $5. It was on sale.)
Hot Glue Gun
Mod Podge 
Plastic Snow Flakes (I found these at the Dollar Tree.)
Glitter Fabric Spray Paint (Optional)

 The snowflakes that I bought had some glitter on them but clearly not enough! :P So I brushed them lightly with Mod Podge and made 5 iridescent and 5 silver. (I was recycling my Bio test so hopefully he decides we can keep them for good, because mine is covered in glitter...)

Next I wrapped my tulle to cut it the right length. When I bought it, I bought it in a roll. This made cutting it super easy! And I still had about half (maybe a little less) of it left after I was all done. If you have the book Milkweed, it is the perfect size! If not make your tulle pieces 10-12 inches long. It all just depends on how big your frame (mine was 12 inches) is and how big you want your wreath. I did this wrapping and cutting process four times. 

Cut only ONE side of the tulle! This gives you 10-12 inch strips. 

Then knot the tulle on the ring. My knots looked like this. 

Once the the tulle covers the entire ring, you can start gluing the snow flakes on. I put a dab of glue in the center of my snowflakes and then stuck them on to the knotted part. Be sure to hold them there until the glue sets. I found that if I didn't hold them, they popped off because the tulle was pushing them up. After it was all glued together, I sprayed it with some glitter fabric spray paint. This made the tulle sparkly! But that is totally optional.

This is my finished wreath! I LOVE it. 

We were going to keep it on our door, but the people that live in our hall have a tendency of taking things off of the door. 

Happy Crafting!

-Katelyn

PS. Then this happened. Miranda and I both thought, "Hey this will totally fit over my shoulders! It's like a tutu!" Yeah that all worked until we couldn't get it back over my shoulders and I started to panic because I didn't want to have to ask my CA to cut a wreath off of me... But no worries, we got it off!