DIY 3 Votive 4x4 Wooden Candle Holder

Hello,  happy Tuesday after a Monday holiday!  I always love a short work week!  I had a fantastic long weekend.  I got some fun Valentine's projects started and also played with some mixed media for Art to the 5th's "Documented Life Project 2015".  It's a mixed media journaling project. Last year, I joined but silently (and probably creepily!) watched rather than participated.  This year I decided to jump in and participate, which has really put me out of my artistic comfort zone and pushed me to try and learn lots of new techniques.  I'm LOVING it!  I plan on sharing some of my journal pages later. Anywho, yesterday Hubs and I went on a road trip to the beautiful Park City Utah and had a wonderful day.  I love weekends where I get to be creative, make cute things and get some quality family time in!

Today I am sharing the votive holder that Hubs and I made for family for Christmas gifts.  It was super easy and I just adore how it turned out:

We used 4x4's, sized and drilled the holes for the votive's then sanded, painted, and stained the wood.  Added the cute twine wrap, candles and burlap flower.  That's it!  So stinking easy!

It looks darling on my table as a center piece.  I get happy every time I look at it!

2x4 Summer Bug Crafts

By now, everyone knows that one of my favorite things to do is make fun crafts out of 2x4's.  I try and do it for every season/holiday.  Here are a few "bugs" that I came up with to decorate my hutch for summer:

2x4 Bumblebee:

2x4 Butterfly:

2x4 Lady Bugs:

And finally,  A 2x4 Flower pot because all bugs like flowers right?!:

I just love my little bug collection!

Reversible Spring/Summer Wood Blocks

Dual purpose crafts are the best!  Awhile back I decided to make a Spring block set with a chick on it and as I was looking at it, I decided to make the best use of the wood and add a Summer theme on the back of the blocks.  The Spring side:

Flip it all over and this is the Summer side:

It sure makes swapping decorations from Spring to Summer easy!

Linked to:
anti-procrastination-tuesday
nifty-thrifty-tuesday
take-look-tuesday
too-cute-tuesday
whatever-goes-wednesday
wow-me-wednesday
flusters-creativemuster

A Few More Snowman Decorations

Everyone knows by now that I adore snowmen!  They are my favorite January decorations.  A few new decorations that I made this year:


Cold Noses Only:

Snowman Canvas:

Snowman made from an old board:

And a picture of my winter porch:

All of those snowmen make me so happy!!!!
Linked to:
craft-o-maniac-monday
made-by-you-monday
gmtg-link-party
nifty-thrifty-tuesday
time-sparkle-link-party
take-look-tuesday

Another 2x4 Snowman

I love snowmen!  They are my absolute favorite thing to decorate with for the month of January.  A few years ago, I made and posted this cute guy:

I love him!  He sits on my porch.  I decided that he needed a buddy to sit with him, so this is what I came up with:

Don't they look super cute together?!

More Easy Friend or Neighbor Gifts...

I'm always stressed about what to do for neighbors and my kiddo's friends for gifts.  Here are a few recent and relatively easy & inexpensive) DIY gifts that I made:


Noel Block:

Decorated Wood Letters that are also picture holders (perfect for girls!):

Another example:

Twine Wrapped Star hanger, made from gluing paint sticks into a star shape (this can also be done on a much smaller scale to make ornaments by using Popsicle sticks):

Ice Cream Basket:

And finally, for your dog loving friends/neighbors:

Linked to:
mad-skills-party
give-goods-link-party
coastalcharm./christmas-home-tour-party
time-sparkle-link-party
too-cute-tuesday
take-look-tuesday
flusters-creative-muster
wow-me-wednesday

2x4 Santa Claus...

                                                                My 2x4 Santa Claus:

I think he turned out darling!!!

                                                                 His hat has a pom pom around the bottom of it.

                                                         His belt has a cute gold buckle and the base says Ho Ho Ho...

                                                                    His beard, mustache and hat band are textured...

2x4 crafts are my favorite, I just love to look at a 2x4 and find a way to turn it into a cute crafty!!!

Linking up to:
whatever-goes-wednesday
& wow-me-wednesday
& creative-inspirations-linky-party
& beyondthepicketfence
& freedom-fridays
& rustic-restorations-weekend-linky
& dianarambles/pin-me-13
& a-crafty-soiree

Vintage Ho Ho Ho Blocks....

Hubs and I made these cute vintage Ho Ho Ho blocks for some of our friends for Christmas this year:

We used two different shades of red and therefore, two different ribbons for the bows on top. This is #2:

They totally take me back to the old style Christmas look from my childhood :)

Fireplace Decorations...

I have three fireplaces and not one of them has a mantle (insert frowny face here).  It's definitely on my to-do list and I have big fireplace place renovation/update plans.  Just not for today...  Anywho, since I don't have a mantle, I always decorate my hearth:

It's such a fun time of year for decorating, and the fireplace is a terrific spot to really have fun with :)
Linking to:
christmas-mantel-link-party
& too-cute-tuesday

2x4 Thanksgiving Crafts...

Hubs has been recovering from surgery, which means that I've lost my wood man.  He is the one that normally cuts, sands and preps my wood.  I was dying to do some Thanksgiving crafts, so I headed out to our scrap pile and found a few discarded 2x4's that didn't need any cutting.

First, I made this darling Pilgrim boy:

Then I made a Turkey:

                                                        I used a balloon for his gobbler :)

Finally, I made an Indian boy:

All 3:

I love them, they are perfect for Thanksgiving!
Linking to:
show-and-tell-saturday
& get-schooled-saturday
& sundayfunday-blog-hop
& pruningprincesses- blog hop
& keep-calm-and-link-up
& mad-skills-party
& craft-o-maniac-monday
& homemakeronadime

A few Halloween Monsters....

I noticed that one of my old posts removed the pictures of three of my past Halloween projects.  Boo to Blogger for doing that!  Oh well, I will just re-post them :)

                                                                               My cute Chunky Frankenstein.

                                                                                             Chunky Mummy.

                                                                                                Tall Mummy

These were all super easy to make.  Who doesn't love a cute monster?!

2x4 Frankenstein...

My 2x4 Frankenstein:

All you need is two screws, some paints and a chunk of 2x4.  Easy Peasy!

He goes great with my 2x4 Witches!  See them HERE

Linking to:
mad-skills-party
& creative-bloggers-party-hop
& craft-o-maniac-monday

2x4 Scarecrow

I made a few new 2x4 crafts for my Fall decor this year:

How cute is he?!

Linked to:
lil-luna-link-party
& whatever-goes-wednesday
& show-off-your-stuff-party
& hookin-up-with-hoh
& its-hodgepodge-friday
& whatcha-work-up-wednesday
& -no80-will-see-it-wednesday

Lemonade 2x4 Craft...

I love 2x4's!  I wanted to make a few new summer decorations for my June hutch, so I dug through our scrap pile and found a few extra 2x4's.  Here's what I did with them:

Easy sneezy and it didn't cost me antything :)

Linking to:
making-monday-marvelous
& craftomaniac-monday

Home Blocks & Burlap Rosettes...

So I made these blocks forever ago:

Pretty blah right?

 I got tired of looking at them so I pulled them off their shelf and did this to them:

I added a few coats of paint, ripped off the black vinyl, distressed them and added a some jute and a few burlap rosettes.

I like them SO much better :)

Linking to:
sassysitesffa