Crafty Busy Monday

I think I already have a 'Busy Monday' post. I think my Monday's just stay busy no matter if I want them too or not so I may start a series. BM: "Title" ... wait BM.... um no well maybe ... it'd fit half the time LOL! I'll think about it and maybe come up with something. 

So here's how my day started out. I decided after I got everyone out the door that I was going to do a craft I had found online.... Isn't this how most horror movies start? Well I realized a couple things. One, deviating from the plan means things won't turn out the same. Two, I'm very glad I have a fondness for my low heat glue gun because I tend to get covered in glue. Three, while recycling items is good it is going to cause things to come out different. And finally four, I can't tie a florist bow for the life of me no matter how many youtube videos I watch. 

Here's the original blog post I found. 

Here is my attempt.

So while the website has great directions instead I'm going to give the walk through of my personal nightmare. 

 Well here we go gathering up the supplies. I pulled down the Easter decoration box and grabbed out the bags of old eggs. We have a very eco friendly Easter Bunny so we normally wash the eggs we get from Easter Egg Hunts and just from around the home from previous years and then put them on the porch a weekend before Easter for the Easter Bunny  to hipty hop over and pick up. As you can see I also save Easter grass and it just happened that my husband had just got done building a computer for someone. So total cost was about $4 out of pocket because I bought some very pretty ribbon.

Did you know that the top of a 5 gallon bucket is exactly 12".
Well the original pattern called for a 12" wreath but I thought that looked too small so I made 12" the inside of my wreath and made the over all size (or attempted to) a 16" diameter.  

So I traced my lid and measured out 2 inches. I'm doing pretty good so far and hadn't yet noticed any problems.

Ah the wonderful problem starter. Do you remember doing this in school? Finding the center and using a string and pencil? Well here's the bad part about this technique:
1. the string will slip if you don't tape it.
2. the angle of your hand really matters.
3. trying to keep even on corrugated cardboard is harder than it sounds!

 So I cut it out and it looks like a circle right? I should have taken this as my first clue to perhaps redraw my center circle. Naw! Let's forge ahead. Now to be fair I also started trying to cut this out with a pair of scissors but soon found out I should be scoring and cutting with a precision knife.

Well this is awkward.
Notice how uneven it is? I sure did!
I decided I would put the bow on the thinnest part.
 

I found some old ribbon I had stashed away because I'm awesome at hoarding! Wait! I'm not suppose to be proud of that am I?

I told you we have an eco friendly Easter Bunny that means that some of our eggs really were ready to be recycled because otherwise they would have had to been taped together (which many of them had the previous year and I had to peal tape). I went ahead and glued my eggs together because they were not going to stay together by their own power by any stretch of the imagination.

Notice how little room I have? Yes that cut made a big difference but even in the widest parts I had problems so I would probably go with more than the 2" they are suggestion.
This is the first eggs I put on and I tried to follow the pattern on the website but as I started trying to glue eggs on I noticed I was getting this awkward tilt trying to fit the eggs on!

At that point I gave up and just glued all my inside eggs first and figured I'd fit the outside eggs on how I could. This meant a lot of larger gaps between eggs.

 Hey large gaps? No problem! Lots of Easter grass!
This was by far the longest part of this process! I used a pencil like the website showed but I had several spots where the gaps were smaller than the pencil so this required getting inventive. I think I ruined a chop stick (Boo!). I suggest a skewer stick.

And that was my morning project. 

So just after I finished this monstrosity I get a message from my husband asking if I want to meet him and a few of his co-workers for lunch. Of course I hadn't showered or even found daytime clothes yet so that meant rushing but we had a good lunch at I ate too much. I dropped my husband back off at work around 1 pm to give an idea of the time frame we are talking about here. I then headed over to Hobby Lobby and go my adhesive chalkboard cover and a couple other things for the chalkboard project. From there it was to the grocery store. I walked out needing two shopping carts as I continue my buying for a month experiment other than things like milk, bread and eggs. Last month I saved around $122 this way and was able to stock up the cabinets! I know people must think I'm nuts by now but hey that's OK. I was under budget by nearly $40 last month so I'm just over joyed. 

I got home that afternoon and cleaned up after my craft this morning, put away all the groceries and then went to get Katherine. My husband got a phone call from the car lot he does computer work for on the side (is actual job is computer work at the hospital) so he informed me he would be a little late but said he shouldn't be too late. So I cooked dinner, had the kids do their homework and we waited. I fixed the bathtub drain and scrubbed out the bathtub. I then vacuumed the house while Brielle was still working on homework and Katherine cleaned up her room for me to vacuum in there too. Peter did eventually get home close to 8 o'clock. I had already put one kiddo through the shower and was getting ready to put the other one in. I feel bad he had to work so long but it is what it is.

I did manage to also get the office chair put together for the kids room as we are taking out the big orange plaid monstrosity they were using for their desk. Once the area is well... closer than it is right now to being finished up I'll post a picture of the before and after.

Well I better get ready for work myself as it is sadly Tuesday and that means getting back to the work grind.