Las Vegas Craft Weekend

Things have been so crazy around here I didn't get a chance to tell you about my trip down to Las Vegas My mom and I put our names in the drawing to go to a Craft Weekend with Meg Deurksen in Kansas and sadly didn't get chosen. So when Gwen and I had planned a trip down to visit my parents my mom naturally made it into our own version of a craft weekend.

My Mom set up their formal dining room as crafting headquarters with a St. Patrick's Day flair. She made that bunting without any sewing involved, that woman can yield a hot glue gun like it's nobody's business.

She has so much stuff that's collected over the years. It was insane how many foam paint brushes, acrylic paints and wood blocks one woman can have. The minute we laid the baby down for a nap we got to crafting.

By the end of the weekend we had managed to make so many things. It was like Pinterest came to life.  My dad got my mom a cricut last October for her birthday and she had yet to use it until that weekend. She broke it in quite well, I must say. We used it for all the wood block projects and surprised ourselves at how nice they came out.

Here are a couple projects we made.

Birthday clipboard inspired by Eighteen25

I read on Twitter one day (I have no clue who posted it it was awhile ago) that the dutch put a calendar filled with birthdays in their bathrooms. It's a great spot where you have to look at it all day everyday. They followed it up with something like, "but you're not tacky enough to do that but follow their lead by doing this instead...." I'm terrible with birthdays. Just ask my nephew who gets his birthday card a week late every year or our two friends who I had planned on making cupcakes for 3 weeks ago. So guess where this bday reminder calendar is hanging? On the wall straight across from the toilet. That's right. My nephew's birthday card was still late but that's just tradition at this point. {cough cough}

 

 

 

 

 

 

Valentine's & St. Patrick's  rotating blocks inspired by Thoughts in Vinyl

Fabric canvas inspired by Whatever

My Dad was cute. He came in and looked at everything we made and oohed and ahhed and then got a little quiet and said, "I understand the blocks and everything else, but I'm sorry, I just don't get these things," pointing to the fabric canvases. We all just laughed because we don't really get them either. They're quirky and fun and that's what matters, right?

Picture block puzzle inspired by The Idea Room

This one was a bit time consuming and a little too advanced for Gwen, but still a great idea. Amy at the Idea Room recommends square blocks from a craft store which my mom discovered were quite pricey. So she bought some wood at Home Depot and had my dad saw it down to the right size for $1.50. She wound up with over 20 blocks.

And that's not even all of it! It helped that the baby slept for the majority of her visit there since her grandparents knew how to tire a girl out. So if you ever lose out on the lottery of getting to go to an official "craft weekend" don't forget that you can always just do one yourself. Between yourself, your family and your friends you could gather up quite a few supplies and you'd be surprised what you're capable of.