Snowmen Hershey Bars

I'm in the process of creating a gift basket of sorts to give to all of Drake and Lincoln's preschool caregivers (I'll post it later once I have all the parts assembled). Anyway, one part of it is a Hershey's chocolate bar wrapped up like a snowman, which of course I totally stole from was inspired by a pin on pinterest.

Too cute, right? It's not exactly like the pin but I like my take on it. I think it would have looked even cuter if I had some black round brads for the mouth and eye dots, but alas the craft supplies in Germany are sorely lacking.

To create this incredibly simple snowman wrapped Hershey's bar, you'll need sheets of white paper (I used cheap printer paper), a pipe cleaner, clear tape, orange construction paper, glue, a black pen, three scrapbook brads and of course a Hershey's chocolate bar.

What You'll Do:
Cut a sheet of standard US paper into half, while holding it landscape orientation, cut top to bottom. Each sheet of paper will make two snowmen. Place your Hershey's bar on top of the piece of paper to get an idea of where the middle is. Once you have the middle, punch three brads into the paper right in the middle for the buttons. Then draw in two eyes up top and five dots for the mouth. You could conversely use small black round brads, but I had none. Cut a triangle from orange construction paper for the nose, and glue it onto the face. Lastly, wrap a pipecleaner "scarf" around the chocolate bar, meeting up the ends in the front just off-center. Let each end hang down to be the ends of the scarf and trim as necessary. That's it! Very easy and very cute.

Cork Monograms

Inspiration from Pinterest strikes again! I've seen it several times pinned all over pinterest, so I just had to do it myself: a cork monogram. I actually just did one initial (for our last name). It turned out really really cute, so I made one for my brother as well for Christmas (shh..don't tell him!). His kitchen's decorated in a wine theme so his cork monogram should be absolutely cute and fitting.

I tried two different versions of the monogram, one with the corkends showing and one with the long sides showing. I can't figure out which one I like better. The one with the corks on their end definitely takes a lot more corks, but I think it's a more substantial piece in the end. There's really no tutorial here, since it's just as easy as it looks: you layout your letter, then once you're happy with it, hot glue the corks together. The M initial got a bit unwieldy and unsturdy due to its size, so I hotglued popsicle sticks to the backside as bracers. Thank you, Pinterest and all its wonderfully creative people!

Anniversary Project

So it's my eight year anniversary coming up soon. It's amazing to think that we've been married for that long. It certainly doesn't feel that long. Here's a photo of us on our wedding day:

The crazy thing is we're sitting on the same bench in the church courtyard where we took our prom photos together. I'd post that photo, but it's somewhere in storage.

This year we decided that we aren't going to buy each other anything for our anniversary. Money's tight because we're saving for our vacation this summer (Venice and Rome!). We are counting our vacation as our anniversary gift to ourselves. I hate not giving him something other than a card though, so I crafted him something I knew he'd love and really use: a treat jar!

It's a recycled peaches pull-top can, some paper and tape, and treats we had around the house (m&ms) leftover from Link's party. Therefore, cost for this project: $0. I wish I could say I came up with this idea, but I didn't. You can check out the complete tutorial from Our Best Bites. This idea would make a great gift for teacher appreciations, graduations, birthdays, anything really.

Have a great Memorial Day!