Day of the Dead Hoop Wall Hanging

October 6, 2020October 4, 20202 Comments

Good morning! It’s October! Fall is coming quickly! I hope you have been safe and are enjoying some fall weather where you are. I think of all of you every day and pray for you and your families. I love having you come by and visit! Thank you!

I have another Day of the Dead, or Dio de la Muertos craft idea today, but this could be easily adopted to other holidays or colors. Think fall colors with pumpkins or even Christmas with ornaments. So many ideas!

I started with an embroidery hoop, chunky yarn, silk flowers and Day of the Dead sugar skulls.

I cut several pieces of each color of yarn and then started tying them on the bottom of the hoop. I folded the yarn in half and laid it over the hoop.

I took the two loose ends of the yarn, wrapped them around the back of the hoop and then thread it through the loop.

Pull the yarn tight to form the knot. Keep adding yarn for as far as you want it to go.

I added four strings of each color that I was using.

I trimmed the bottom of the yarn to make it a bit more even.

I hot glued three flowers on the hoop over the knots of yarn.

Then I took three skulls and glued them to the top of the hoop. I chose two white ones and one with color.

This is such a simple little craft! It’s perfect to add to my other Day of the Dead items- shadowbox, Ofrenda.

I have this in my entryway right now, but I will move most of it outside to my Ofrenda just before Halloween. Have you ever decorated with Day of the Dead items or put together an Ofrenda? I would love to hear about it!

Valentine Games for Kids of All Ages

February 6, 2017February 6, 20175 Comments

Good morning! We have had the strangest weather this past week. Last Monday, it was so foggy here, we had several big accidents on a nearby freeway. Thankfully, there was nothing serious, but lots of crushed vehicles. On Wednesday, it was so nice, we could wear short sleeves outside in the sunshine. On Thursday, it rained. On Friday, there was so much rain, some areas flooded and on Saturday, it was back to short sleeves again. Whew! It’s pretty hard to know how to dress each morning!! First world problems, right!?

Here we are, just a week before Valentines! Do you have your plans yet? I thought I would share some fun games for the kids of all ages to play. Even my grown kids like a little adventure now and then.

1. Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts can be done a couple of different ways. I made this one for my preschool class for a fun Valentine Day activity and it’s great for the younger kids who can’t read yet. This can be made with all different kinds of things in the squares, depending on what you have in your home. I made this on Microsoft Word and added in the different pictures.

You can also make a scavenger hunt with written clues, which works better for older kids. The clues can be a easy or hard as you want. I have made simple ones, such as ‘look where the movies are’, to harder ones like ‘this is where we go each day to talk about our work and play.’ I hand the child the first clue and then they have to go search for the next one. The second clue leads them to the third and so on. There is a special gift at the end of the hunt.

2. Yarn Treasure Hunt

I did this one for the girls a couple of time at Easter. Each girl got their own color of yarn. I tied the end of the yarn on their doorknob and then wound it all through the house, over and under furniture and all around. There would be little treats at various places and then their basket at the end. We even took it outside through the doggy door! The girls would have to follow their color string all over until they reached the end. I didn’t have any pictures of this, but here is a very similar one from handsonaswegrow.com.

3. Mad Libs

We love Mad Libs! We play them when we travel in the car. They always bring on a good laugh. Haley gave these to her friends in her Senior year of high school. She wrapped them around a piece of chocolate and gave them out at lunch time. Then the group sat around the table and had lots of laughs together.

Haley also mentioned using Conversation Hearts to fill in the blanks. I’m sure some of those answers would be hilarious!

4. Heart Hunt

How about a heart hunt? Similar to an Easter Egg Hunt, but the kids can look for hearts instead. This could be heart shaped candy, heart gift certificates, or bags filled with candy.

Just try and remember how many you hid them or you will be finding candy long after Valentine’s Day!

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine’s Day filled with love and lots of chocolate!

Here are some links for your convenience. If you order anything from these links, Home on the Corner get a little bit back at no extra cost for you. Thank you!

Addiction to Yarn Organization

January 29, 2016January 27, 201613 Comments

Everyone, I have a confession to make. Now, it may come as a surprise, but I have an addiction. I know, I know…shocking. But, it has finally come time to admit to my addiction.

I am addicted to buying yarn.

I know! I know! It’s horrible. But, it is time to come clean and admit to my mistake.

But, I like the feeling of knitting a scarf and finishing it and feeling good about it. Feeling a sense of accomplishment and pride as I have a scarf finished.

But it has come to this.

It has become very disorganized to the point where I didn’t know which scarves are done and what type of yarn it is. The scarves were becoming tangled together and I wasn’t too happy with it.

I also kept all of the tags from the yarn and just kept them in a bag. Unfortunately, it was hard to know which brand and color belong to which yarn when they are all just laying in a pile.

Also, you know the Banksy box that I have with all of my extra yarn? Yeah…the zipper is breaking…

So, I got started by using this crate that I made at the Do It Herself workshop at Home Depot. It should probably be used as a wine crate or something more useful, but I decided that it is perfect for yarn. Here is the before I fill it with yarn.

And here it is the after I have filled it with yarn.

Much more organized than the yarn just hanging out in the plastic tote. I can now see what yarn I have and what brand and style it is. It’s so perfect!

I also decided to create a yarn book. I wrote down all the brands, style, and color of each yarn. I also cut a small piece of each yarn so that way I knew which yarn went with each brand. So, here is my yarn book!

It is so perfect. I can now see what I have and which yarns I have knitted into scarves. Hooray!

I also took all of my scarves and put their tags with them. I had to go back and look up some of the names to see if I could find which color went with which style. But in the end, I was able to put them back in the plastic tote to store them.

And not only are they organize, but the box is now labeled as well.

So now it is all organized!

It looks so much better! I am so happy with how this got so organized and how it looks. I now know where all my yarn is and what scarves are done. Hooray!

Well…I am so glad that I was able to open up about my addiction. Now, how many people think I should be on ‘My Strange Addiction’?