100th Post! Christmas Ornaments with Wedding Flowers

Hooray, it's taken me about 18 months or so but I've made it to 100 posts!  100 projects, probably not but for sure 100 posts!  That's kinda cool.

Well anyways onto today's craft.  I've been in two weddings over the last year and a half and I dried the flower bouquets.  Since I was already in the mood to make ornaments it fit for my next project.

One of the bouquets had tons of different flowers so I wanted to make sure to get all the color and texture.  I slowly took the ribbon off, found out a lot on how professional bouquets are made, and cut it apart.  I discovered quickly that I would not be able to get the leaves in without breaking them.  I suppose if I did it with fresh flowers they would go in whole.

 Once all the pieces were inside I took the ribbon from the stem and made a bow on the top.

 I did the same with the baby's breath bouquet.  These went in a bit easier.  I kept the baby's breath on their stems as well as I could.  I cut off stems that had many blooms still on them.  They seemed to float inside the blub.

Both brides really loved them.  

And I made some for me too.  They are a part of my life too and a nice reminder every holiday season.  Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year.  And Festivus for the rest of us.

Origami Cranes ornament

Continuing with the Christmas cranes projects.  Last year I made glass bulb ornaments with Disneyland Maps curled inside.

This year my ornaments have origami cranes inside.  I made all the cranes in high school and they have been sitting in a Lord of the Rings tin for many years.  Now that The Hobbit is out in theaters it was time to open my Two Towers tin.  I made tons of them over the years.  There were about 10,000 inside so I had plenty of cranes to choose from.  

I picked out many different papers and put them inside the ornaments.  I decided to put cranes in the ornament from the same paper inside.  Some were green, some were pink, some white, some were made from wrapping paper, some from Andies mint wrappers.  I kept one with a music score.

I'm glad I kept all those cranes over they years.  Now to figure out what to do with the 9,000 cranes left.  

Make 9 wishes?

Christmas Crane Garland

So over the years I have made thousands of paper cranes.  I've made probably 15,000 and I don't think that it much if at all of an exaggeration.  I made most of them in high school and since them they have been sitting in tins in our basement.  And this year I had a couple ideas of what to do with them.

Again please forgive me for the bad photos.  I almost always work on/finish my projects at night and need a flash to take photos.

I started with an idea.  What about using my Starburst cranes to make garland for my Christmas tree.  I started pulling the colors out that I wanted and started to notice it was going to be a very difficult and long process unless I divided up my entire stash.

Like many of my other projects I got in a bit too deep!  I had so many different red ones that were almost impossible to tell apart.

 I took about 2 1/2 hours to divide up all of the cranes.  It was worth it.  So much simpler to find all the different colors!

Once separated I split into small colored piles.  I used 6-10 of each color.  I had 18 different colors.  Who even knew that there were even 18 different flavors of Starburst!  

From there I used a needle and hand quilting thread to string them together.

 I'm very happy with the result.  It adds a lot of extra color to my Christmas tree.  And I hope that those who receive them for Christmas gifts like them too.

So all that time in class during high school that I was making these instead of holding my complete attention was well worth my effort.  It only took me about 10 years to figure out what to do with them!

I'm back for the holidays - Day 9 Sweater Island with no sheep

Sorry for the time since my last post.  I've been catching up on many projects that I've been putting off for a long time, over a year for some.  As I've been working on all those projects I've also been looking for a job here in Kansas City.  So if anyone know of any openings that you think I would be a good fit into let me know!

Well anyways I'll be adding all those projects soon.  Some might have to wait until next Halloween as 3 of them were finishing off Halloween projects.  Last year at this time I was already done with my Christmas projects and this year I'm only just finishing my Halloween ones!  Oh well. 

Now for today I'm going back to my travel log.  I hope you are enjoying them!

Our full day in Galway I spent by going over to the Aran islands.  There are 3 islands on the chain.  We visited that main island where most of the tourists go.  They are known for the sweaters made from the island.  Think Cosby but only one color.  But there were no sheep to be found.

And I can say with confidence that I don't understand why anyone would go over there at all.  And people stay on the island too. I felt bad for those who did that.  I deemed it the most depressing place that I have ever visited on a vacation.  I don't think that Ness City counts as a vacation but if it did it would come in a close second.  

We left Galway on a double Decker bus filled to the brim with people and a stinky bus driver.  We drove an hour to get to the ferry.  We ended up seeing that same scenery on the drive that was on the island.  The ferry ride took a little less than an hour.  It took in total two hours to get onto the island.  When you arrive on the dock there is a slew of vendors, bus tours, horse tours and bile hires all asking you if you would like their service.  In hindsight I would have gotten a bike to ride around the island.  There is not much there if you are there for a short day. 

They are known for their sweaters but I didn't see any sheep on the island at all.  They probably swam across the ocean for something exciting to do.

We walked along the east side of the island.  There are very few homes along the road and even then some of them were abandoned.  There were many animal paddocks made from the rocks from the island.  There were tons of paddocks but barely any animals.  Maybe 1 in 300 was occupied and that number might be a bit high.  Mostly cattle were around with a couple horses and 2 goats.  Lots of wind and rocks but not much else.  

Most of our group that went to the island ate lunch at one of the few places that you could eat for a slightly overpriced meal.  Everyone was checking their facebook accounts after I finished my meal I headed off on my own.  I can say that there was not much else to see.  The one bit of inspiration was a neglected and broken down church that had two trees growing inside of it.  Because of the wind trees mist don't survive there so at least they can thrive someplace.

I'll have to say that I was very disappointed.  It took about 2 hours to get back.  The country side along the road was the same that was on the island.  Again why do people go to that crappy island?  There has to be one bad thing on the vacation that makes everything better by comparison.  The only nice part of the trip was on the boat back I saw about 20 red sail boats.  Apparently they are only seen in Galway so that was a nice treat coming back from the island.

We got back to Galway around 6 on Sunday night so most of the stores were closed but 6 of us went to a bar/restaurant in the heart of downtown.  The food was expensive so I ordered a starter.  And since I saved money on my meal I bought an Irish coffee in Ireland!  The meal was ok but the coffee was great.  That made up a bit for the crappy day.

On the way out a couple of the other girls and I stopped at a sweet shop.  It was like walking into Honeydukes in Hogsmeade.  So many Harry Potter references.

We also stopped a place for Gelato because when I think Ireland I think Gelato.