Mother's Day ~ Dahlias

Of all the "Hallmark holidays," Mother's Day finds me the most sentimental. 

On Mother's Day I think not only of my own mother's self-sacrificial love, but of all the moms out there who care for us in ways nobody else could. I think about the women who have been role models for me. And I think about my friends who started this journey of motherhood alongside me--who obsessed over pregnancy details with me, gave me advice when I felt completely helpless, and said those two words that make everything better somehow: "me too." I think I'll always feel a special bond with these women. My friends, new and old, continue to inspire me and encourage me to be a better mom. 

This year my mom commented that it's still strange for her to celebrate Mother's Day without having her mom around, even though she passed away long ago. I was 17 years at the time, and because Grandma Bosman lived in Washington state, I only saw her once a year.  What stands out when I think about her was her green thumb. Grandma grew the most incredible dahlias that would win prizes at the fair each year. 

Grandma in front of a few of her many dahlias

Ready to head to the fair

me with Grandma, at age 5

 When I got married, I used dahlias in the centerpieces as a way of honoring her memory. And when I saw this great mother's day gift idea by Megan Reardon at Holidash, I knew a dahlia pin/corsage was what I wanted to make for my mom. I created one in bright blue and one in yellow so that my mom could choose one based on whatever she was wearing to church that day. (She chose blue.)

 Of course we still gave mom real flowers, as is our mother's day tradition:

Flowers from my favorite greenhouse.

And this year I indulged myself with a dahlia plant of my own...just to see if maybe a bit of my grandma's green thumb was passed on to me.

Craft Night Motivation

This month's craft night was named "Motivate Me May" and I certainly needed the motivation to get my creative juices flowing. It has been a SUPER busy spring for me, and I'd been wanting to create a more colorful spring wreath for our front door for quite some time. Craft Night was just what I needed to force me to take the time to make it happen. I'd pinned this lovely wreath, found on Craftiness is Not Optional, a great blog by Jess:

So I picked up a wreath at Michaels for about $3 (with the coupon of course) and then, upon learning that Michaels doesn't have a great supply of felt, I headed to Hobby Lobby for the felt, which was only 25 cents for each 8x11 sheet. Of course they didn't have the exact colors pictured above, so I settled for something similar. My goal was just to try and replicate what Jess had created.

 From there I had to learn how to make the various flowers. I found some great tutorials online: Pom poms seemed the most forgiving to make -- see Miss Priss' instructions here. Though the rosette and scallopped flower were pretty quick and easy as well, as Jess lays out here and here And when I found this tutorial on dahlias, I was a little intimidated but thought they were beautiful so I gave it a try. (And actually, I didn't find that they were as hard as they looked.) After some work at Craft Night, and some work at home the following night, I ended up with this:

You can see that my dahlia turned out extra large and didn't look quite full enough. My husband also noted that all my flowers seemed a little big in proportion to the wreath, so I made a second attempt on a dahlia, picked a few flowers to save for another day, and ended up with this final result, which I am very happy with. Sometimes all it takes is a little motivation! :)

Easy Valentine/Anniversary Gift

I had fun making this sentimental Valentine's/anniversary gift: print the lyrics to your first dance onto parchment/white birch-type paper and cut into a tree shape...I've seen this with 2 hearts hanging from the tree branch but I thought 2 love birds would be cute.  :)

a foray into crafting: rosette ball

First, let it be known, I have never really considered myself a "craft person."

I have to give credit to T. for sorta changing my life in that regard by inviting me to craft night and also pushing me to join Pinterest, which I had lots of misgivings about, and still do actually (addictive, materialistic time suck)...but there are redeeming qualities as well...

So, slowly, I am becoming more comfortable with the idea of me and crafting in the same room. My first project this month was something to hang in Molly Rose's room. Next up was this craft, basically because it looked easy to do, the components were cheap & easy to find, and our mantel could use a splash of color for February.

Now, I know there are hundreds of crafting blogs already out there with amazing layout, beautiful photography, and witty writing. I do not even begin to aspire to such crafting greatness, but I did think it might be helpful to add a few tips to the wonderful website I got my instructions from.

I purchased an extra large roll of crepe paper thinking surely I wouldn't need more, but I did almost use all of it. I also purchased a medium sized styrofoam ball. (Keep in mind that after you've added all the rosettes the ball will be much bigger than what you're starting from.) So materials (assuming you already have a glue gun) were less than $5.

It took me about 30 minutes to perfect my technique of rolling rhe rosettes and then a couple hours to create enough to glue onto the ball. I tell you this upfront so you know what you're getting into. I admit that the thought crossed my mind at least once that I could just be putting in some work hours from home and be able to purchase store bought decor. But, uh, that's not something a craft-y person would say, is it?

As the blog states, it's nice to crumple the crepe paper up first and then smooth it out so it's not so stiff. (I did this after I had cut it into many 24-inch-ish pieces.) Then fold the top third down--and it took me awhile to figure out that you don't crease the fold, but make it more of a gentle fold-then they'll look more like roses instead of tight little buds. It was a challenge to make the rosettes loose enough but I tried to keep my fingers at the bottom and loosely wrap the crepe paper around and around. I placed them and adjusted them as necessary before gluing to each other and the ball.

Toward the end I was getting really tired and got a little sloppy, which the perfectionists out there may have already noticed. However, I'm happy with the end result, and happy that I've been inspired and pushed to step out of my "non-crafting" box!