handmade

Bridal Shower Money Gift: A Champagne Bottle Wedding Dress

/ Jodi / 45 Comments

Bridal Shower Money Gift: A Champagne Bottle Wedding Dress.

Money is always a welcomed gift – right?

But it is also BORRRRING to give.

When going to a bridal shower, one of the main events is the gift opening, so I often try to figure out a creative presentation.

My daughter-in-law hosted a bridal shower this weekend for her sister.  What an amazing job she did, and what a beautiful day we were gifted with.

I created this champagne bottle money wedding dress as my gift.  It was so easy to do, and I had everything to make it on hand.

I took a bottle of champage and wrapped it in white tulle and lace.  I embellished it with paper flowers, pearls, and crystal gems and created a veil with additional tulle.  Everthing was glued on with a hot glue gun or Tombow glue.

I then pinned the money on with straight pins all around to form a layer of the dress.

Several years ago, I made a Happy Birthday Money Cake for one of my sons.  It has been the most popular blog post ever here at TheCreativeLifeinBetween.com.   Seems lots of folks are looking for creative ways to give gifts of money, so I hope you all enjoy this one too.

Cheers &  Hugs,
Jodi

 

A Special Happy Birthday

/ Jodi / 61 Comments

Watercolor Birthday Card in Prussian Blue and Burnt Sienna

A Special Happy Birthday.

Every year on this day
is a very special day to me.

27 years ago
on a Saturday at 1:57 a.m.

a perfect and chubby 10 pound
baby boy blessed my life.

That sweet little boy
grew into an even sweeter man.

Thank you for the joy and happiness and love
you bring to my life.

May this year be the best…
until the next.

When I wish that it is the best,
like I feel being your mom.

Every year was the best – until the next,
and they still continue to be.

Happy Birthday NIck!

With so much love,
Mom

Introducing McKinneyX2Designs

/ Jodi / 83 Comments

Mx2 log

I am so excited to share something my sweet daughter-in-law, Colleen and I have  been up to the past couple of weeks.  We started a little Etsy Shop together, and I could not be more proud of her and her beautiful work, so I wanted to share with all of you wonderful LifeinBetween friends.

Colleen takes reclaimed pallet wood and creates beautiful rustic home decor and signs.

il_570xN.919819770_c4va

She takes buttons and burlap and creates sweet little works of art (several have sold already for baby nurseries!  a little blue whale and a toy sailboat!)

il_570xN.914679891_6w97

She paints beautiful sayings and adds country charm to each piece she hand makes with love and such attention to quality and detail.

il_570xN.919530413_kemg

I’ve added a few of my favorite little watercolors that I’ve turned into prints and made into cards – selling them in singles and boxed sets.

whimsy owl set mx2

From our first sale, we got a Five Star Review:

review

Thank you, Maggie!

So I hope you don’t mind me sharing here and asking if you can help us spread the word.  Will you share with your friends and give us a “favorite” on Etsy,  a “like” and/or “share” on Facebook, and follow us on Instagram too?

And maybe you’ll even find something you like or a gift for someone you love.  Here is a little gallery of some of our products.

I look forward to hearing what you think, and we would appreciate any ideas for products, suggestions for promotion, and general feedback on what you like or don’t like about it.

Thanks for letting me share, and thanks in advance to those of you that are willing to help us out and spread the word and share with your friends.

Cheers & Hugs
Jodi

A Parliament of Owls in Watercolor

/ Jodi / 60 Comments

whimsy owl 1 original

It’s #DrawABirdDay with my WordPress artist blogging friends, which we celebrate on the 8th of every month.

whimsy owl 2 original

I had fun yesterday watercolor painting a parliament of whimsical owls.  (Did you know a “group” of owls is called a parliament?)

whimsy owl 3 original

A little search on Pinterest provided some inspiration of ideas that I combined to create these little cuties.

I think these will make fun greeting or note cards.

Hoots & Tweets and Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

 

Hand Painted Snowman Mugs

/ Jodi / 34 Comments

painted snowman mug 2

One of our Christmas celebrations last week was our annual McHendy Christmas get-together.

For this celebration, I painted some snowmen mugs and filled them with Rolo chocolate caramel candies, mini marshmallows, and the recipe for Rolo Hot Chocolate that I featured here a few weeks ago to give to everyone.

painted snowman mug

On white ceramic mugs purchased from the Dollar Store, I painted little snowman coal eyes and carrot noses with Sharpie Oil Based Paint Markers on one side, and wrote McHendy Mug and the year on the other.

painted snowman mug 3

After painting them all, I let them cure for 24 hours.  I then placed them in a cold oven, set the temperature for 350 degrees F and “baked” for 30 minutes.  I turned the oven off after 30 minutes and let them cool completely in the oven without opening it.  I hope this works as it is the first time I tried.  They are supposed to be able to go through the dishwasher.

Wondering what a McHendy Christmas Celebration is?

Well – when you take two besties and their families that have so much love they actually form one big family, you combine their last names to create a new one.

jill and jodi mchendy christmas 2015

And you celebrate every year watching the “kids” grow, marry and add to the family, and count your blessings dearly!

Mchendy family 2015

My BFF Jill not only had these shirts printed for all the McHendys this year, she even created the McHendy family crest, which is full of love and meaning to both of our families.

McHendy crest

We can be born into families, and we can be loved into families.  No matter which way it happens, celebrate it, and cherish the moments!

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

 

Wooden Log Snowmen

/ Jodi / 41 Comments

Wooden log snowmen christmas 2015

I love making and giving handmade DIY Christmas and holiday gifts, so when I saw a similar snowman project created from logs, I fell in love with the idea and convinced hubby we should make these.

He was a real trooper and really did the hard work.  He gathered, cut, and sanded the logs, drilled holes and assembled them with dowel rods and glue.

I broke out the sewing machine and created little fleece hats and scarves.

And Voila!

Stinking cute primitive wooden log snowmen!

Wooden log snowmen christmas 2015 2

We were thrilled with how they turned out, made about 15 of them, and had so much fun giving them away.

Handmade with love from both of us and sharing a little piece of our woods.

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

 

 

A Homemade Special Family Coloring Book

/ Jodi / 28 Comments

Ellas coloring book

One of my favorite Christmas gifts I made to give this year was a special family coloring book I made for Ella.

Ella is my cousin’s daughter, and we have a very special bond.  She is very creative and artistic, so I was excited when my BFF Jill shared a fun site with me called ReallyColor.com where you can create your own coloring book pages from photographs.

Since I recently had the opportunity to do a family photo shoot of Ella and her family at Thanksgiving, I was excited to make some of these photos into coloring book pages in a special book for Ella to recreate.

Here are just a few of the pages.  I can’t wait to see what Ella does with them!

ella coloring book 1

Ella with Daddy and Mommy

ella coloring book 2

Brother Mason and Daddy

 

ella coloring book 3

Ella Tree Climbing

ella coloring book 4

Mommy, Ella, and Mimi

ella coloring book 5

Mason and Poppy (aka Oh Rob!)

ella coloring book 6

Mimi’s Greenhouse

Check out ReallyColor.com and convert some of your family photos into a fun project!

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

Anchors, Knots, and Easy Faux Enamel Dots

/ Jodi / 32 Comments

PP256 Square Nautical Hope Anchors the Soul

This week’s Paper Player’s Challenge is to make a square card.

pp256

So I created this card for my design team inspiration card that I sent to a special guy who has just completed a very important milestone with lots of hope for continued health and happiness.  He is a guy full of hope to anchor his soul and one who embraces life more than anyone I know.

faux enamel dots

It was fun layering on designer series paper and gold netting, embossing, and knotting, and creating fun faux enamel dots.

faux enamel dot close up

They are so easy to make, and you can create so many fun shapes and colors and designs.  I simply cut some paper with my Stampinup Owl punch that has a variety of circle sizes and a heart, laid them on a piece of wax paper, and put a “dollop” squeeze of Stampinup’s Crystal Effects on to dry for several hours.  After they are dry, any excess can be snipped off with scissors, and you are left with beautiful little dots and button-type accents.   I’ve featured them here before also.

The sentiment is from Neat & Tangled.  I love this simple, inexpensive stamp that I have featured before (in fact about a year ago here).

Hope my cardmaking, creative, artistic friends will join us at The Paper Players Challenge #PP256 this week!  All “Hip to be Square” cards are warmly welcomed!

(And “Oh Rob” – hope you feel all the love I put into this card just for you! <3)

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

DIY Scrabble Coasters

/ Jodi / 20 Comments

scrabble coasters bundled

I had a ball trying to think of fun four-letter words with Scrabble tiles to make these DIY Scrabble coasters as Christmas gifts for family and friends.

I really wanted to share them before Christmas, but I didn’t want to spoil the surprise for the recipients.

scrabble coasters

They would also be cute birthday, Valentine’s, new home, and anniversary gifts too!

I simply purchased a couple of sheets of cork tile, glued Scrabble tiles in a 4×4 pattern onto them with E6000 glue, hit them with a spray of clear polyurethane spray, then trimmed with a utility knife.  Voila!  Cute handmade gift!

scrabble coasters coffee mug

I bought bags of Scrabble tiles at Amazon, but if you have time, you can start scouring Goodwill, second hand shops, and garage sales for used Scrabble games cheap to get the tiles.  You might also just find yourself wanting to play this classic game again, too!

Cheers & Hugs
Jodi

PS.  If you want to make these and need further directions, there are some great Youtube videos or other DIY sites you can check out by simply searching Scrabble Coasters.