Spring Floral Round-Up

I have been anxiously awaiting the end of winter. Of course, living in Utah, the end of winter doesn't always been the end of of cold weather or the end of snow storms. But something about the month of March, daffodils blooming, and occasional rain storms gives me hope that the end is near. In honor of Spring being officially here this week, I am rounding up a collection of beautiful floral items and crafts. Enjoy!

Items to Purchase on Etsy

Pen and Paint // Floral Note Cards

Fly Trap // Abstract Flower T-Shirt

Cassandra Z // Asymmetrical Cherry Blossom Wire Sculpture

Kica Bijoux // Mint Flower Earrings

Items to Make

Sugar Bee Crafts // Floral Raglan Tee

Spoonful // Scented Paper Flowers

Nana Company // Pastel Petal Pillow

See Kate Sew // Floral Trucker Hat

4th of July Craft Roundup

I have a hard time finding 4th of July decorations that I like. I often feel like patriotic decorations are too over-the-top for my tastes. So during the summer, our house is a little drab. In order to remedy this, I decided to put together a round-up of cute patriotic decorations that appeal to those like me.

Patriotic Paper Flowers from Live Laugh Rowe

Kelly at Live Laugh Rowe provides a great tutorial for crafting these fun and easy flowers. I love the variety of patterns she uses so that they are not just an explosion of stars and stripes.

Patchwork Watering Can from Little Pumpkin Grace

I'm not sure if Jessica at Little Pumpkin Grace made this watering can herself, but I absolutely love it. It looks like it could be a pretty easy mod podge project with either fabric or scrapbook paper.

4th of July Flag from Around and Again

Chelsea at Around and Again created this amazing 4th of July flag and she's nice enough to show us how she did it. It looks like a challenging sewing project to get the state shapes right, but the result looks like it is worth the effort!

Wooden Firecrackers from My Repurposed Life

I love that Gail at My Repurposed Life has combined the patriotic colors and shapes to create decorative wooden fire crackers. The tutorial looks very easy, too!

Liberty Wreath from Hot Commodity Home

Yep, this one is mine! I had a lot of fun putting this together using an extruded foam wreath form, strips of fabric, and wooden shapes. A great front door decoration!

4th of July Jeans from Crafty Lady Lindsay

Lindsay at Crafty Lady Lindsay gives a very nice tutorial on how to transform some old short jeans into fun and festive capris. I adore the ruffled hem!

God Bless America Printable from Landee See Landee Do

Landee definitely got this right! And even though the printable is two years old, it is still so current. I have big plans to print this out and frame it for a fast and easy decoration!

{Linked on The Owl's Skull, New Nostalgia, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Hickory Trail, Funky Polkadot Giraffe, Adventures of a DIY Mom, Today's Creative Blog, VMG206, Ladybug Blessings, Him and Her, Romance on a Dime, Nap-Time Creations, Inside BruCrew Life, Cedar Hill Ranch, Coastal Charm, Someday Crafts, Daisy Cottage Designs, We Like To Learn As We Go, This Girl's Life, DIY Craft Projects, Handy Man Crafty Woman, Trendy Treehouse, Content in the Meantime, Mostly Homemade Mom, Lil' Luna, Sugar and Dots}

Frilly Flower Pots

I have been seeing fabric covered flower pots all over the crafty blogs lately. I love anything and everything covered in fabric, so I had to try it out for myself. Luckily, I recently acquired a bunch of flowers that needed pots. Now this is what my front porch looks like, happy and colorful:

I did one fabric covered pot, then added rick rack to another pot to coordinate. To those of you who have covered flower pots in fabric, I have a question: How do you keep the fabric from getting really dirty? Dirty or not, I still think it is cute!

{Linked on My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Adventures of a DIY Mom, Today's Creative Blog, Ladybug Blessings, Nap-Time Creations, Inside BruCrew Life, Cedar Hill Ranch, Coastal Charm}

I'm Spending My Weekend...

...making ribbon flowers and watching LDS General Conference. That's right, folks, I'm a Mormon. And for Mormons everywhere, this weekend is a special one. We get to hear the words of the living prophet right in our own homes.

Of course, having small children makes listening to these words somewhat difficult. But we try our best. While we watched this morning's session, the kids drew pictures, played iPad games, and drove everyone crazy. And even though all the craziness made it difficult to hear, it was important to my husband and I that we had the TV on so that our kids could see Conference and in the hopes that maybe we'd be able to hear at least part of it.

While I attempt to listen, I try to be productive, too. Today I am sewing ruffly ribbon flowers to add to all my crafting projects. These flowers are super easy to do. Here's a little walk-through:

• Cut a few inches of ribbon (the longer your ribbon, the more ruffly your flower will end up).
• With a needle and thread, sew along one edge of the ribbon.
• When you get to the end, hold the thread tight and pull the ribbon down the thread (toward your knot) as far as you can. It will curl itself.
• Straighten it into a circle, then sew a stitch through both ends of the ribbon to join them. Tie it off.

There you have it. Yeah, I told you it was easy. I have been using different widths of ribbon to make different sizes, then stacking two or three on top of each other, sewing them together, then adding a cute pearl or rhinestone center to finish them off.

The best part: at the rate I'm going, I'll have 50+ flowers by the time General Conference ends tomorrow!

How are you spending your weekend?

(Linked on Sew Many Ways, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Skip To My Lou, and Classy Clutter)