Christmas Pillows with Cricut

Today, I'm talking about something that I wish I could have shared a month ago - Christmas pillows! I'm sharing these now because all of the pillows are with their owners! I didn't want to post any spoilers before giving these as gifts. I love doing homemade gifts around Christmas time, and these pillows were fun to work on and served as great presents! I'll walk you through what I did as well as the end product! I've shared several cricut projects before, so I won't walk you through the nitty gritty of using HTV vinyl. But, I will share the materials I used along with a little of my creative process.

I always start cricut projects by doing research. Research might not be the right word here, because what I'm really doing is scrolling through Pinterest for inspiration. For these pillows, I was looking for quote and design inspiration. I ended up choosing to make 5 different kinds of pillows. I made pillows that say Holly Jolly, Noel, Joy, Merry & Bright and Jingle. The designs all came together a little differently. In most cases, I create some sort of preliminary design, run it by my family then make adjustments before printing.

I decided on white pillow cases and this was the hardest decision by far. Ultimately, I decided on white in hopes of working with everyone's Christmas decor. I tried to pick something that wasn't too bold or too plain knowing that all of the pillows are going to homes with different decorating styles. I got the pillow cases and inserts from IKEA. They had great options and by far, the best pricing! Here is a peak at all of the pillows:

Deck the Halls

This post is long overdue. I've been meaning to share a little look into our Christmas decor for weeks, but am just getting around to it now. I snapped some pictures to give you a little look around some of my favorite parts of my house at Christmas time.

Before we get started, I should mention - we went smaller than usual this year. I love that I got to grow up in house that does Christmas (& Christmas decor) so well but I can totally appreciate us going a little smaller this year for a couple of reasons. 1st - We are in a major renovation. Everything is turned upside down so we didn't get all of the Christmas stuff out. 2nd -  We are leaving on a fun trip just days after Christmas. We have gotten to enjoy a few decorations all through December and I know we will be glad not to have to put too much away when we get home from our trip! And 3rd - We have had some pretty extravagant Christmases and while I love to celebrate big, I love that we are having a quieter year to focus on togetherness instead of material things.

Easter Bunny Cake

My Gammie turned 81 on Easter Sunday! My family celebrated her birthday on Friday evening with a delicious butternut squash & Fontina cheese lasagna, some Italian sausages, my favorite apple & walnut salad (recipe HERE!) and a fun cake!

Technically, there is nothing new about what I'm sharing today - I've shared the cake before (recipe HERE) and the chocolate icing before (recipe HERE), and I used store bought fondant. So, I won't be sharing a new recipe today but more so a concept, and I'll talk about how I made my cake making process.

Most of my cakes start out with a drawing. I had so many ideas about this cake - pastel colored icing for Easter, flowers, bunnies on top of the cake, bunnies on the side of the cake, a banner on top of the cake... I have never made a cake for Easter before so I was full of new ideas and Pinterest was filling my brain with so much more! I ended up deciding on icing the cake to look like a tree trunk, having a little bunny bum made of fondant sticking out the bottom of the cake, some little pieces of green fondant to look like grass along the side of the cake, and a little flag banner on top supported with 2 paper straws.

Easter Decor

Easter is quickly approaching & it kind of took me by surprise! I don't love that Easter moves around from year to year. I think that might be why I get all mixed up! My family has slowly but surely been transitioning from our winter decor to our Easter/Spring decor. We leave some red and white pillows on our couch all through Christmas and Valentine's Day and in the Spring we switch them out for some light blue and green pillows with some birds on them. We keep the rest of the decor to a minimum but this is what we have up...

This cute little bunny banner hangs in our kitchen window. I made it last season with my cricut, some scrapbook paper and big pom poms!

Heart Shaped Treats

Both of the recipes I'm talking about today are ones that I've already shared but I wanted to show you how I turned them into Valentine treats! I took my go to sugar cookie recipe (you can find it HERE) and turned them into hearts. I also took my favorite cinnamon bun recipe (you can find it HERE) and turned them into hearts! So many hearts coming out of my kitchen this week!

Valentine's Cards

Happy Valentine's Day, sweet Readers!! My family went to Vermont this past weekend and I got to do some Valentine crafting with my favorite crafting buddy, Hannah! We relied heavily on Pinterest for some ideas but we had so much fun putting some cards together! I'll walk you through the cards that I made!

I made all of the cards using blank pre-folded cardstock cards. I also used a black Sharpie pen to write on the cards, some markers a hot glue gun, some felt and extra cardstock to decorate the cards.

This card says 'Valtenine... you make my heart soar.' I used yellow cardstock to fold up the mini paper airplane. I glued the paper airplane on with a hot glue gun.

Christmas Decor

This past weekend, my family got our house all decked out for Christmas and I have been loving it! The twinkle lights have been such a joy to cuddle up and read by! Here is how we do Christmas decor at my house...

Lost Socks?

This is something that I made AGES ago!! Like I think it was done in June!! My little sock hanger has been on my list of things to blog for 3 months and I only got around to taking pictures of the final product today! I made this sign based off of a few ideas I saw on Pinterest - it's a compilation of 2 or 3 other sock signs that I saw!

I started with a plain piece of wood that I stained with a dark stain I had at home. I let the stain dry over night before doing any of the lettering. I cut out the letters on my cricut - I didn't have any vinyl on hand so I use plain white card stock and glued it onto the stained wood using Modge Podge. Once the letters were positioned and glued, I Modge Podged over the entire piece of wood to make sure everything stays on there well.

Once the staining & lettering was done I enlisted my dad's help because power tools are not my forté! He drilled two holes in the bottom of the wood and bent a metal coat hanger to make the little bar that hangs under the sign. We hung three clothes pegs along the wire and that's it! It is currently hanging in our laundry room and it is cute as can be!

Thanks for reading!

Cheers to the Fall!

Happy Fall!! I realize that I said in an earlier post that I would wait until it was actually fall to decorate, but I lied! This decor has been up for about a week because I just couldn't resist! The weather cooled down and I was feeling like surrounding myself with fall! Here is a little look into my family's fall decor: