Sunburst Wreath

One of my awesome friends started a Pinners Anonymous party where a bunch of us get together to work on little crafts that we have pinned on Pinterest. The first few times I wasn't able to go and then they turned into "gift exchanges" where we would have a name drawn for us and we would make something for that person that they had pinned on one of their boards. It's kind of like secret santa but Pinterest style. I was excited when I found the following idea on my person's board.

A Sunburst Wreath for Fall!

I loved it immediately and it fit under our $10 budget. We went as a family on a "stick hunt" and gathered a bunch of sticks to use. I made a wreath form out of cardboard and wrapped it with burlap, attaching it using hot glue. Then I tore strips of yellow fabric and twisted them into fabric rosettes, using fabric glue to keep it together. I carefully chose sticks that were mostly straight and varying degrees of thickness and length. Then I cut them with trimmers and used hot glue to attach them to the front of the wreath form. Then I hot glued the fabric rosettes on top of the sticks. I LOVE how it turned out and really want to make one of my own. I just need to go on another stick hunt to get more sticks.

Here's a link to the inspiration pin with some instructions on how to make the fabric flowers! I actually really love the original even better than my own. So if I make one again I will probably try to more closely replicate it. The reason my version is different is because I actually only looked at the original one after I had glued on all of the sticks. I would make my wreath form smaller a bit and glue the sticks closer together. And cut the sticks shorter. Hopefully I'll have one for next Fall to hang on my door!

The Big 1

In May my cute son turned 1 year old. It was so much fun to plan a little birthday celebration for him. We didn't have a party but my brother flew into town to help us celebrate and my parents came the weekend after to celebrate at the local zoo with us. Even though we didn't have a big party with friends I did go all out and make it special.

I made a big birthday wreath for our door (which we can now use for every birthday in our family). I LOVE how it turned out, except I think I will add even more balloons so that you can't see the straw on the sides of the wreath. These birthday balloons are everywhere in blogland. But I think the initial idea came from How Does She?. The tutorial for the birthday wreath can be found HERE. I bought my balloons at Walmart and loved the colors.

We also hung balloons from the ceiling in our kitchen, which our little guy loved. I did not come up with that idea on my own, but rather it was Dana's idea over at MADE. I also made Bennett's shirt using a tutorial from Dana's website. I post all about his shirt soon.

We spent the day at a local amusement park for little kids and while Bennett was napping we whipped up cupcakes for dessert.

The cupcakes were amazing. I think they tasted better than any white cupcake I have ever had. And the frosting was yummy too. I'll share the recipe on another post as well.


He enjoyed his cupcake a little bit, but was pretty tired by the end of the day. We definitely wore him out celebrating. He mostly just smothered himself in blue frosting and ended up looking a bit like a blue smurf. See what I mean...

He went straight to the bath afterwards.