Families Are Forever

My heart is breaking.  I lost my dear friend after a long fight with breast cancer.  I will miss her dearly, and I ache for her husband and young children.

While she was fighting I made her two crafts.  My hope was to inspire her, to lift her up, and to give her family some comfort.  I would like to share those crafts.

The first craft I made was an anchor.  I chose this symbol in part because my friend loved the ocean, and a small group of us were lucky enough to take a cruise with her as we "Threw Cancer Overboard."  There are a few phrases you can tie to an anchor.  I ultimately landed on "Refuse to Sink" on one side and "Anchored in Christ" on the other side.  I painted the anchor her favorite navy blue and added fun chevron paper.  I then added some rope to give a 3-D effect.

The other craft I made for my dear friend was a temple.  We are both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  An important tenant of our faith is our belief that there is life after death, and that our families can be together forever.   I decorated the temple in embossed white paper, and then I added white glitter on top.  I was honored when her family displayed it at her funeral.  I miss her dearly but look forward to the day we will have a happy reunion.  Please hug the ones you love today. <3 p="">

I have tagged this post with "craft party" because I was asked to organize and lead this craft later for a Relief Society Super Saturday activity coming up in a few weeks.

Dinosaur Skull

This was a custom request for a birthday party!  I think the customer might be putting them on buckets for little excavators.

Star Trek

This was a custom request meant to be given as a gift to a Star Trek fanatic.  Live long and prosper!!

Super Saturday

I am currently serving on the activities committee for my ward's Relief Society.  Once a month we try to throw a fun, educational, uplifting activity.  And every few years our group hosts a Super Saturday full of crafting goodness.  I have sort of been designated the crafting guru of the group and will be leading three crafts.

The first craft is a small wooden perpetual calendar.  It is really adorable finished, with ribbon tied around it.  Unfortunately I didn't take a finished photograph before many hands sort of messed up my pristine craft.  I haven't had time to touch it up yet.

 The other two crafts I will be helping with  are Christmas designs on decorative charger plates.  I know simpler would have been easier, but I am all about letting people customize their crafts to fit their home and their tastes.  So I let them choose between a few colors of plates and a few colors of vinyl.  I was cutting so much vinyl between the calendar and the plates!!  But the crafts were well received and I had fun bouncing around helping the women.  I thought the Wise Men design on the red plate was stunning!

Teacher Gift

Oh my goodness I love how this wood craft turned out!  I hope our awesome teacher loves it too!

Birthday Gifts for Grandparents

Both of my parents have birthdays in July, two days apart.  This year I wanted to give them a homemade gift from my kids, with my crafty flair of course.  I decided I wanted to capture their footprints in a manner that they looked like hearts, because these boys of mine just won't stop growing up!

I purchased 20 inch long canvases and painted them neutral colors, then painted my boys' feet and carefully positioned their feet on to the canvas.  Someone we managed to get it all right the first time and we didn't even get paint on my floor.  My dad loves everything western so I added on some sheriff stars with their names and called them "little buckeroos."  I pick a quote to tug on the heartstrings for my mother's canvas.   I love how both of them came out.

Wedding Sign

I happen to know a really talented wedding planner who lives in California.  She hired me to make a vinyl decal for a wedding, and I about died laughing seeing it in action!