Having two of my girls be teachers means I’ve got to see all the little goodies that parents and students have bestowed on them in appreciate of their teaching efforts. If you still haven’t done something for your teacher, check out this quick and easy gift idea from Skip To My Lou:

You can download the plant tag for free and insert your own child’s name. Print, cut and glue to a Popsicle stick. How cute is that! I love Skip to my Lou for all their creative ideas.

Spring, the season of sudden change.  I helped Deb pick out flowers to make a Spring bouquet for her front door and the flowers laid on her dining room table for weeks before we finally got it completed and hung.

I think the end result was worth the wait.  Do you have a Spring door greeting, please share it with us.

Here was our flower selection from Hobby Lobby when 50% off applied.

Even the worst arranger in the world can’t go wrong when working with this kind of beauty.  Next find all the tools needed for the project, wire cutters, floral wire, flower foam, ribbon, a container, and of course Grandma’s helper, Aria.  She had a blast helping us with her own little cutting and wiring projects.  We found the perfect container hanging in Deb’s kitchen eating area so we decided to empty it of it’s contents and borrow it for a few months.

Nest we need to place the floral foam inside the container, making sure it is solid and we are ready to insert flowers.  Decide what is your main floral ocus and put that flower in first.  Gauge how tall you want the flower to stand out of the pot and get those wire cutters busy.  Continue adding flowers with the focus on your main flowers, usually the larger sized ones.

Once all of the larger flowers are placed we began to fill in with the smaller plants and the greenery…I use every leaf as a filler by wiring it to a wood stick as it helps keep costs down and looks good.

In case your wondering why I didn’t fill that container in and cover it up…well that is what we are going to do with the Spanish Moss.  It gives it such a natural and old fashioned charm as you will see in this next photo.

I was grateful for Deb’s little and young   fingers pushing the moss through the  container…yep I could have put some in first but this stuff is messy! This way it is hanging out of the design of the container and looks like it has aged there naturally too.

I added a bow and Deb figured out with some  duct tape how to keep the Kansas winds from blowing it through her glass and we are ready to show off the final result.

A few final touches.

We thought it turned out pretty fine…definitely looks beautiful on her door don’t you think?

And Aria she never missed a beat she was with us every step of the way and finished by making her bow to fit the arm of the bench on the front step.

What a beautiful welcome to Spring and the visitors at the Pearson’s.

I just had to share this adorable Easter idea for making cupcakes very cute and special for your family or others.  Skip to My Lou is a feed I subscribe to that always has creative, easy to do projects with step by step instructions and lots of pictures.

These cupcakes will be on my “to do” list and thought you might enjoy also.

Seriously these are so cute and the template for the face is free in PDF on her website….let me know if you tried them too.

A wonderful blog spot Natalie’s Sentiment’s has a fantastic post on things to prepare for Easter, both food and decor.  Check her out at the following link Natalie’s Easter Lovelies.  Here are just a couple teaser pictures I borrowed from her website to coax you to go take a peek.

Creative Chics is participating in a super Mother’s Day Giveaway at Natalie’s Sentiment’s so be sure you sign up for the giveaway while you are there.

Fresh flowers, so simple, easy and beautiful!

This is precious and you will love the fantastic Easter treats she has posted for you!  Enjoy!

These cute-as-a-button cottontails, made from spray-starched square napkins, will energize any Easter table.

Perhaps these adorable napkin folds are not a new idea for you but they were for me and I love them….

The bunny on the pink plate is from Good Housekeeping just click on the link I have created here at Good Housekeeping and find simple step by step instructions with lots of pictures that should make them easy for anyone.  I do have to give Living credit for having the bunny on the yellow plate in this month’s magazine and their website led me to Good Housekeeping.

I hope to try this for my Easter Tables this year.  If you have already completed this project, leave us a comment and let us know if it is as easy as the tutorial says.

I made this terrarium for myself and enjoyed it so much I decided to do one for my son and Debbie.  However my middle daughter Kim came over the weekend and wanted me to make her one with a purple African violet and I could not find another so this terrarium ended up in her house That’s how mommy’s are you know.

This is David’s and the turtle that I got at Hobby Lobby for $2.00 on sale jsut makes this my favorite.  He does have a pose David is familiar with

And this pink African violet is Deb’s.  She is hopefully going to find that forgetting to water for a couple of weeks won’t be too big a problem with a terrarium.  I put a small piece of fern in hers as I love ferns in terrariums.  Her’s also has a small piece of mirror in the center, to look like a lake,  that was impossible to get a good photo of.

This ended up being mine.  I love violets of any color but thought this soft lavender was perfect with the begonia I used.

Easy to do and lots of fun to make, terrariums can be expensive or on a budget, however if you make four you will blow the budget .  I hope you enjoyed my creativity with terrariums and will give it a try for your home.

As promised, I wanted to share with you my favor bags and birthday stickers I used for my granddaughter’s recent birthday party. The pink paper bags were picked up at a craft store in the food prep aisle I believe. They’ve been sitting in my pantry for some time so I can’t say I quite remember where I got them.

What you’ll need:

- hole punch

- bag of tootsie rolls

- cookies, or candies to put inside favor bag

Place candies or cookies into the bottom half of the bag. Fold down the top of the bag one time.

Hole punch through the folded down portion of the bag two holes about 2 inches apart.

Slide tootsie roll stick through the punched holes to hold the bag closed.

Place sticker or other embellishment on the bag. That’s it! That simple.

So here is a set of the Thank You stickers for you to use.  Just click on the image to download to your computer to print. These are 2″ stickers.

Please honor my copyright and not redistribute this download; but I will gladly let you link to my blog so others can download it for free also.

I’ve got a recipe for punch that is sure to please your guests. I’ve made it twice now and both times my guests drained the punch bowl so fast my head was spinning!

Now I also put fresh pineapple and maraschino cherries on the little cocktail umbrellas and placed in each cup of punch for flavor and mostly for fun!

I created the napkin rings out of paper strips. All you need is a little clipart, imagination and an image editor.

Or you can download a set of these napkin rings to use for your own party if you prefer to have this already done for you Just use the solid green lines as a cutting guide. Roll paper napkin rings around napkin. Use two sided tape or craft glue to attach the two ends together.

Please honor my copyright and not redistribute this download; but I will gladly let you link to my blog so others can download it for free also.

Tomorrow, step by step on creating party favor bags and another free download of Thank You stickers.

While in JoAnn’s I became enamoured with this sewing book (Making Children’s Clothes available on Amazon) on children’s clothing.

Now mind you my youngest is 16 and the smallest child I have happening around here is my 5 year old granddaughter. But so many ideas are in this book, oh and the patterns are included!

So my granddaughter just turned 5 and I made her up a few dresses as gifts, including one similar to the cover of the book. Ok, mine isn’t quite as cute.

I had a remnant just sitting around, kind of  a seersucker pink with white daisies. And yes, I love pom-pom fringe.

I also whipped up this one that is a bit more detailed and frilly with lace and princesses and castles and all things Aria loves!

One way to beat the long winter blahs is to have growing plants indoors.  A suggestion is make a terrarium, time required an hour or less.

What is A Terrarium? A terrarium is a miniature landscape with living plants and even sometimes small animals like lizards or turtles.

A terrarium is a miniature ecosystem which is a complex system of relationships between organisms and resources of different types.  If you have a good balance of plants, soil, nutrients, and water in your terrarium you will be able to seal it up and watch it grow and thrive for very long periods of time – sometimes even years.

It’s quick, easy and doesn’t have to be expensive. To save money, on your terrariums, look around your house for a container or shop discount stores, flea markets or consignment shops to find glass containers, jars or even goldfish bowls. The plants you’ll use are generally small houseplants, which can often be bought for a couple of bucks each, so the whole project, depending on the size of your jars, can be made for well under $20. Terrariums also make wonderful and impressive gifts, even for people who consider themselves plant-challenged.

There are lots of tutorials online to help you along the way, here is one I found that has very specific easy to follow instructions.  Kerry Michael at about.com has a great tutorial with lots of pictures..here is an example of her finished project.

When your done send me a picture and I will post a picture of mine.