Hand Painted Wine Glasses

My friends and I have started a little tradition.  Once we drop our kids off at camp, we head out to my brother's ranch for a little R 'n R.  I have the most generous brother in that he basically lets me spend the majority of the summer out here.  My friends all are petitioning to be adopted by him!  I say get in line!!

When the girls got here, I had little bags of goodies waiting for them.

Ear plugs (for shooting guns,) bug bands, flashlights and their own personalized wine glasses.

Dollar Tree wine glasses and Martha Stewart glass paint.  Gotta say I'm not overly impressed with the paint.  The Enabler first introduced me to glass paint and her brand works SO MUCH better.  I bet if she reads through this, she'll share her brand in the comments.  This paint seemed thick and did not cover all that well.  I had to do the blue several times to get it to really show up.

On the back, I added the name of the ranch and the date.  This is now our annual tradition, so we may need help in the future remembering what year we did what gifts.

 

A little colorful animal print on the bottom to sass them up a bit.

Oh, and I misspelled my dear, dear friend's name...so I had to do it over...she said so.

Here's another group picture of the glasses...just threw it in because you can kind of get a glimpse of his AWESOME kitchen...simply gorgeous!!

Maybe I'll do a tour of the place for a future blog post...

 

I'm thinking about adding painted glasses to my Etsy store.

What do you think?  What is a good price point?

 

Smiles!!!

Flasks for Friends

Spoiler Alert!

If you are one of my friends that happens to live out of town...skip this post!

(That includes you...Plano resident!)
Thank you!
Now...look what they're getting for Christmas...
FLASKS!
My friend and I saw some super cute decorated flasks when we were out shopping a few weeks ago and decided we would like to try to make our own.
Said friend gets online within hours and buys flasks and finds a tutorial.
She explains how its done and she got to work.
Now, it's been 4 weeks or more and I just got started on mine.

Zebra with beaded heart...

Lime leopard with rhinestones and brown eyelash fringe...

Happy Flask....

Star Wars Flask with Darth Vader & rhinestones and...

Large beaded heart flask.

My friend bought the flasks online and we split the cost...want to say they were about $6 each.  These little flasks are only 4 oz.  Somewhere online (not sure where as I never saw the tutorial, but I'm sure you can Google it,) my friend read that you should varnish the paper BEFORE putting it on the flask.  I varnished both sides then added varnish to the flask and attached the paper.  All that's left is to decorate them!  Large rhinestones and beaded flower centers found at the craft store top the lids (I used super glue and E6000.)  The beads are attached using gem & glitter glue...I drew the design then added the beads as if they were glitter.  Tacky Glue was used to attach the ribbon and fringe.

Oh, and by the way, neither my friends nor myself are a bunch of lushes (well, ok, one of them is, but she's wonderful just the same!!!)

I doubt the flasks will ever be used.  They were just cute and something different.

Which is YOUR favorite?

Smiles!

May share these fun gifts at some of the fun parties found in my sidebar =>

What a Great Party!

Thanks so much to all of you that shared your lovely packages at our first ever party. I've had such fun looking at all of the creative ideas as well as making some new friends who enjoy wrapping gifts as much as I do! It was not an easy task, but I pick a few items to highlight here today.

Heather at Dragonfly Designs created these adorable sour cream packages for party favors for a Mad Hatter's Party she hosted.  Does she have a tutorial for these?  Or is this something everyone knows how to do but me?!?

Mel at Bliss Bloom Blog upcycles her children's artwork by using it in creative ways to decorate packages.  Grandparents eat this kind of stuff up!

NancyCreative shared this lovely basket she put together as a birthday gift for a friend.  The flowers all came from her very own garden.

Over at The Craft Cave, Brooke went above and beyond for teacher appreciation!  She not only made a party favor cake for each of her children's teachers, but she also made the teachers an extra one to share with their teacher friends!  Nice!  Pretty sure the teachers fight over who gets her kids for the following year.

OK, these are just so doggone cute!  (Sorry folks, had to say it!)

I'm sure Max, Lilly and Peanut all agree that their "mom" Christy at from Glitter to Gumdrops is pretty AWESOME!  This isn't her only sweet treat for her pups...be sure to check out all of her other treats!

Megan at Fowl Single File gave these sweet treats as party favors for friends who stopped by their housewarming party.  You can make these little pies ahead of time, keep in the freezer and have the most wonderful treat ready at a moments notice .

Thanks for making this such a fun first party!

Let's do it again next month!

smiles!!!

Cinnamon Rolls for Friends

My Cinnamon Roll recipe  makes enough for us to have our fill, but also enough to share with friends or neighbors. 

 So the recipients can enjoy the cinnamon rolls 

warm out of the oven,  I package them to deliver the afternoon/evening before.  

 I put the unrisen rolls in a buttered aluminum round cake pan,

 cover with plastic wrap and deliver with

directions on how to bake them.
Want the label?  Click here

 This works well when you are taking food to a new mom.

  They love receiving not only dinner,

but something for breakfast as well. 

 New daddies seem to be big fans of

cinnamon rolls for breakfast, too!
Click here for the recipe!
  Smiles!!

Linking to:

Christmas in July

While I was over at Tip Junkie's http://www.tipjunkie.com/ this morning, I came across her Christmas in July Event.

Here are a few gifts I made for teachers this past year.  The idea came from an article in a local magazine from my hometown.  (If I can find the magazine & article, I will definitely give credit where credit is due!)

Update!!  February 3, 2011

Can you believe it?!?!  I found the adorable person that was the inspiration behind these little gifts! Her name is Cyndy and she has an equally adorable blog called The Exchange...you must go check it out!  Thanks for the great idea, Cyndy...you are super talented!

 

Of course, I made these BB (before blogging) so I don't have step-by-step photos.  Its pretty easy and self explanatory, but I'll go ahead and explain what I did.

1/2 price picture frames from Hobby Lobby, scrapbook paper, chip board, stickers, rhinestones, spray adhesive, glue dots, tacky glue, ribbon, hot glue

To Make the Red JOY Frame

Cut scrapbook paper to fit back of frame...spray said frame with spray adhesive, attach paper.  Place into frame.  Add sticker letters.  Attach ribbon to top of frame with hot glue...ta-da!!!

(I also printed off some cute, small labels with a Christmas wish/verse from my child to attach on the back.)

To Make the Blue joy frame

Same as above, but instead of stickers I created my own letters out of chip board.  Just painted them with gold & silver metallic paints.  Once dry, I added a few rhinestones with Tacky Glue for accents.  I attached them to the paper with glue dots.

 I've done different versions of this same type of gift....fabric background/rhinestone cross on top or/initials.

The possiblilities are only limited to your imagination.

Linking to:

Watercolor Notecards

Cute Personalized Notecards

Made these for gifts for two of Jack's special girls.