Cake pops for the 4th of July

Get started on your baking for this weekend and Wednesday a little bit early!
Cake balls are still popular, and since they're bite sized, they're perfect for your 4th of July activities.

Bring em to a bbq, carry a container to munch on during the fireworks, or put them on sticks for real "pops"!

Cake pops from MyJuiceCup

I can't bake. Yeah, I just can't do it. I'm terrible at it. If it involves flour, theres a 95% chance I WILL mess it up. This may mean there is a shortage of treats in our house. That's probably good, right? The less in the house, the less you eat, and the fatter you don't get? hahahah. Well, since I can't bake, I won't be making these. I will gladly accept gifts though. They look delicious. ;-)

Clear Ornaments

I was planning on spending part of today making a few Christmas ornaments. There is currently a 6ft fake tree sitting in my living room. The boyfriends dad gave it to us, and we have yet to decorate it. 

Neither of us have any Christmas decorations already. 

We went out and bought some lights, and went with the color scheme he wanted which is silver, gold, and red. Not quite what I had in mind, but it will be pretty.

(I had wanted something crazy like lime green and purple... or electric blue and orange).

I've been to 5 stores now in search of plain, clear, glass ornaments that I can decorate myself to help make our tree a little more personal. I haven't been able to find any. Probably due to how late in the season we went looking. Everyone else already has their whole house decked out, so we had to pick over the leftovers. Boo.

My original plan was to use this morning to craft and take photos, and post them all here. I suppose since I can't do that, the next best thing will be hunting down other bloggers DIY's to give you. 

Here's a short list i've come across.

 

Fancy House Road put together some instructions for using paint to make your own personalized colors! Basically, pour some paint inside and twirl it around til the whole ornament is coated. 

Simple, and you can create some great custom colors!

 

No directions here, but Country Living provides this photo to spark ideas.

Family Chic has the idea to fill bulbs up with yarn or twine. You can use almost anything here including ribbons or paper clippings. Your favorite poem written out and cut into slices? I often come across fantastic colored yarn, but since I don't knit, I have no use for buying it. I may think twice now and set some aside for this project next year.

 

I came across this photo on Pinterest. It links back to the Freepeople blog, but doesn't give a specific post. Add some embellishments like fake flowers from the scrapbooking section of your craft store. (or cut the stems off the larger floral flowers). It looks like they added a tiny but of glitter to spruce them up. 

Feathers?! What a fantastic idea that's in style right now. Cook Love Craft has a set of instructions on their blog. This almost makes me want to go out and buy a tabletop mini white tree to do! Simple, yet very chic.

Button Ornaments

Tis the season! 

Wait... it isn't even Thanksgiving yet! Hmm... Oh well.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that they know I'm not too big on Christmas. For one, I'm not a fan of the colors red and green being combined in just about anything. 

I prefer "winter" decorations over "christmas" ones I guess you could say. 

Those icey blues and silvers are where it's at for me! Give me the beauty of snow and ice please. 

I also like decorations that are slightly out of the ordinary. 

Buttons? They're good for more than just keeping your clothes together. I came across three different ornaments that you can customize any way you want to for the perfect holiday look. They'd be cheap and easy to make for a color themed tree especially! 

The buttons used aren't really expensive. If you go into the craft store and  look hard enough (in Hobby Lobby they're near the scrap booking and embellishments) 

you'll be able to find pretty big bags of buttons for $6.

At Wendys Hat, she purchased clear bulbs that you can take the top cap off and fill with anything you'd like, as long as it's small enough to fit into that hole. 
The hat lady went with a classic white color that would fit in any setting. 
I do think these would look best when filled with 3 colors or less.
I love the classic look of this one.  Tie a ribbon to the top or add a metal hanger for your tree. 
This particular one has a tassle hanging down to spice it up a bit. 

I saw this piece on Curbly.

Styrofoam ball of any size.

Straight pins. (the kind you find in the sewing department)

Buttons!

Going multi color here sounds like a great idea. 

The contrasting colors on the overlapping pieces is perfect! 

To top this off, try taking a small piece of wire (jewelry wire, floral wire, anything) and making an upside down "U" shape with it. Stick the ends into the ball and add a dot of glue to keep them in place. Tie a ribbon bow onto your "U" to hide the wire, and add a hanger from there.

There are 4 other button ornament ideas on that website as well!

Modern Minerals came up with this little tree, after seeing the Martha Stewart mini button wreath ornament.  The big bag of buttons you can pick up has varying sizes included. Pick a color scheme, and start stacking! The author at MM used a plain piece of cord to string through the holes.  You do need to make sure what you're using is small enough to fit, and sturdy enough to hold it. Don't use thick leather or thin thread. I would suggest a piece of hemp perhaps.  You can glue or paint the tip so it stays stiff and moves through the holes easier. If you don't have any cord, hemp, or thin yarn... try a piece of medium thickness wire. 

A tiny star bead (or any bead) makes the perfect tree topper.

Painted Pumpkins

It's almost that time of year....

My favorite holiday. 

HALLOWEEN!!!

Time to get out the pumpkins and come up with a display. 

Do you place your pumpkins outside or display them inside? 

Carve them or paint them?

One or a dozen?

The choices are endless.