A Creative Weekend

Taking advantage of a long weekend, the girls and I visited my mom. It was a nice weekend for several reasons, like seeing my 6 month old niece for starters. Of course, I enjoy visiting with all my family, with my brother and my sister-in-law and nephew, but of course there is nothing like seeing nieces and nephews - especially when they are still babies!! The last time I saw this sweet girl was just before Christmas and since my little family was still recovering from the flu, getting near little Natalie was a no-no.

Lots of delicious food and almost gluttonous eating also made the weekend great. I have always said for some reason we all become insatiable bottomless pits when we are at my mom's! For lunch one day we hit the Pizza Inn buffet where our slices of dessert pizza equaled the number of regular pizza we digested. Shrimp Alfredo, clam chowder, apple dumplings and some incredible Nutella cupcakes (courtesy of the SIL) - and that wasn't even everything of course. Let's just say I'm fairly sure my jeans are a little snugger today.

The big highlight of the weekend was probably the crafting though. I would typically consider myself a fairly crafty, somewhat creative and artsy kind of person but for the past year my life has certainly not exhibited that part of my personality. I'm not sure I even realized just how much I missed it until I started working on stuff this weekend. (kind of like being away from blogging for so long)

It started with a trip to Hobby Lobby. Being only my third, maybe fourth, trip to this crafter's heaven,  I wanted to be able to take my time and really look around - as much as you can with two kids begging you to buy every other item that catches their eye!

I had a couple of projects in mind. I have been wanting to make a burlap wreath for our front door. Burlap ribbon was on sale so score!! I bought all the materials needed and on Sunday evening put together my wreath. I had forgotten that a thicker wreath would not fit well between our front door and the storm door. Fortunately this wreath does fit - barely. The flower gets a little smooshed but not terrible.

The other project I have been wanting to make is a chalkboard for my kitchen wall. I had envisioned finding THE perfect mirror or frame or platter from a consignment store, something with some vintage flair, painting it with chalkboard paint and maybe hanging with a ribbon. And then I found this chalkboard and my dream of creating the perfect chalkboard for my kitchen went right out the window.

The look of the swirled wrought iron frame was exactly the style I had pictured in my mind. It was on clearance so even better.  I did have some doubt, questioning whether I could have made the perfect chalkboard myself for a better price. The fact I spent a bit more than I had planned didn't help the doubt. The several "little" items like craft kits for the girls, Valentine items for the girls' school Valentines, and a couple of other random goodies added up quickly! Fortunately after consulting my friend Janie, I decided the purchase was well worth the clearance price I paid. And I couldn't be happier with the purchase.

Of course when I got home I discovered the chalkboard is wider than the area in the kitchen I had planned to hang it.  Figures. But no worries, I'll have to rearrange some photos which I've been wanting to do for some time anyway, and then I'll have a perfect wall for the chalkboard and maybe some additional artwork of some sort.

The craftiness continued with a refresher course for my mom on how to work her Cricut machine. She is part of a card group at her church. They meet once a month and make and share cards and techniques. She was wanting to get more creative with her card making and finally make use of the Cricut cutter my sister gave her a few years ago. I loved it. The girls loved all the cute little critters we were making as well. We let them keep the first couple of creations while I was showing Mama how it all worked. And then my mom made quite a few on her own for various cards she knew she would be making in the next couple of weeks.

I am happy to report my own Create a Critter cartridge is being shipped to my house as I type. Now I'll just have to make the time to get some cute little things made for the girls to use on their school Valentines - as I promised them every time they begged Meemaw to let them keep everything she was making.

Gabrielle used her critters to make a picture to hang in her room. It turned out really adorable.

Now to keep the creative juices flowing...