Pinterest Interest: Initial Wreath

On my Pinterest account I have an entire board dedicated to wreaths. I love them! I am just now getting into making them and have found that this new hobby is really fun. Every time I pull in my driveway and walk up my steps to our front door, I get a little bubble of joy. I say to Ryan "Look at our wreath! Isn't it pretty?!"

This design idea was inspired from the blog Broken Treasures . She has got some great ideas and tutorials. This is my take on her beautiful Initial Wreath. 

I started with a pressed board letter that I found at Hobby Lobby, some yarn that I had left over from a scarf I had perviously made and a glue gun. (A crafters best friend!)

I took my yarn and started wrapping my "S" and used my glue gun to help keep it in place as I moved along. The ends were a little tricky, but I just glued and made a long zig zag pattern up and down the end and it worked great.

Once I got it all wrapped and looking wonderful. I added some decorative pieces that I found at Michael's. Some red and yellow/green foam berries, a felt flower, and an amber gem that I glued to the center of my flower. I then glued down all these pieces to my "S".

Then to finish it off, I added some sheer ribbon that matched my yarn to hang my initial wreath on the door.

Happy Wreathing!

Coming Soon! While I was at Michael's I also got some other stuff to make a grape vine wreath that I'm really excited about!

Pinterest Interest: Car Seat Coolers

As I'm sure many of you have already figured out, Pinterest is a great resource for what ever you fancy. If you haven't discovered Pinterest yet, you definitely should!

Anyway, I have found hundreds of ideas for crafting, decorating, and recipes. I have tried to make myself use these ideas instead of just collecting them and letting them sit in cyber space. One pin I recently came across, was how to make car seat coolers for your little ones. Riley hates getting into a hot car seat! So this was something that I really needed to make for him and Ellie as the summer heat drags on.

I got the directions from a blog eighteen25. She has a great tutorial and it's super easy to follow. I only made a few changes to my car seat coolers. 

• I only added 4 ice packs pockets 
• I trimmed my ribbons shorter and added a small hem to the ends of my tie
• I used a combination of beans, corn, and lentils for my weights (because I didn't have rice) 

The first time I used the coolers, I took my kids to the aquarium. We were there about 2 hours and when we came out their seats were nice and cool and the ice packs were still frozen. My mom also had the great idea to get a thermal tote to keep the coolers in while you're traveling from place to place. 

I keep all the ice packs in their pockets, roll up the cooler, and store it in the freezer. So all I have to do when we're ready to leave is grab it and go! 

(If you like my thermal tote it's a Picnic Tote by ThirtyOne and I know a great consultant!)