American Flag Collage

We are very patriotic at the Grow Home. Maybe you've seen how we decorate around here for the 4th of July here or here. This year my sister completed our newest American decoration.

It's a 40" x 30" collage made up of 50 stars made from items like seashells, dominos, and buttons on a blue sea of ribbon, cutlery, and paper, 13 stripes of torn patterned paper with silk flowers, beads, dice, Christmas ornaments, game pieces and more.

My mum wrote a fun little I Spy game to go with our custom collage. You can enlarge the above picture or look at the smaller photos to see details and play along.

I Spy 4th of July

I spy a mouse, a rabbit, a hog

an elephant pin and a print of a dog

I spy a knife, a spoon and three more

2 pencils, a sword and two closed yellow doors

 

I spy the queen, her guard and a bus

a bridge and a crown of silver for us

I spy santa, 2 stockings, and a present that’s blue,

An ornament, a tree and a gift bag for you

I spy a strawberry, and a measure for heat

a Band-Aid, a lion and 2 shoes for your feet

I spy a crab, a pepper, a button shell

cotton candy and a blue devil from hell

white stars against a blue night sky

bottom left

top right

bottom right

Let me know if you play along. For more fun I Spy fun, check out this website.

Super Bowl Prep

I made another 2 NFL (American football team) pennants tonight. And, I decided to string them up on a laundry line so I can adjust them every year as I add more. Actually, I'll probably need two strings because I have 5 more pennants not pictured here (maybe AFC and NFC?).

The big game is this Sunday. Our menu:

• Antipasti platter featuring olives, pickles, roasted peppers, mushrooms and baby mozzerella balls
• Cheese fondue with bread cubes, green apples, carrots and broccolli
• Chili (turkey and veggie versions)
• Jell-O helmets in blue and black (orange+grape=black)
• and for dessert we are tentatively planning on chocolate fondue

We'll probably do some chips and guacamole and some chex mix too. I'll post pictures.

Oh, and my football pennants are featured this week on the modern eve blog along with some really yummy looking football cupcakes.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. I'd love to hear your Super Bowl traditions. And, if you are from outside the USA, I'd love to hear about your sports traditions.

Magnetic Board

A couple weeks ago we had a ladies craft night at church. Well, I mostly socialized so I didn't finish any of my 3 projects that night. I just now finished this one. It's a magnetic board to hold pictures, postcards, invitations, cards, whatever. I was supposed to use ribbon to tie on the metal hanger but I cut some fabric off of my bedskirt instead.

I'm making some custom magnets to go with it. When I finish I'll post them with my board hanging in my room.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I have a few treats to share with you today.

This is a brownie baked in a heart shaped muffin pan. The frosting is chocolate ganache poured on top. I made the flower with chocolate clay. I haven't chosen a recipient yet. I had lots of Heidi Grace Love Blossoms goodies leftover so I used the flocked paper to cover Target mailboxes and the tops of the candy packages. The mailboxes were super easy with the Paper Garden template.

I make pink candy every year. I don't use a recipe. It's just melted white chocolate and crushed candy canes spread thin onto parchment paper. I have a bunting addiction. I made a 10 inch heart template and cut several different red and white fabrics and white felt. I zigzagged stitched the patterned fabrics to the felt. Then, I used my new Fiskars scalloped pinking shears to cut the edges and finished it off by straight stitching red seam binding on the back. It's hanging over my kitchen windows.
Have a lovely day. Oh, and I'm part of the Craft Critique Valentine's Day Carnival of ideas today.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Last month Amy Westerman from Heartfelt Greetings posted the most adorable card that she made using a random draw of paper scraps from her stash. She does this every Saturday for what she calls, Scrap Stash Saturday. I loved her card so much that I bought a used SU Mon Ami stamp set with the intent on creating my own version of her card. I'm not usually a card "CASEer" but I had fun putting my own spin on Amy's card.