DIY Cake Toppers

Here is a CREATE I did a year ago, but it's only a few days until my anniversary so I'm feeling a bit nostalgic. :)

I never liked the idea of an ordinary cake topper, so as a kid I decided the little statue guys would be having a cake fight-frosting on her face, frosting in his hand.
Once my handsome groom proposed, I did the "bride" thing and looked around at a few store bought toppers. They were exactly as I had thought. Most were faceless and had the most typical hair and clothes to be sellable. But now that I knew my Mr., I also knew he was tall and none of these toppers looked like us at all. And worst of all, they were very overpriced. So I got thinking and this is what I came up with. :)

And here's how I did it...

My husband is 7 feet tall (well, technically 6'11" but whatevs...) so I printed a 5x7 photo with him 7 inches tall on the long side. I am 5'5" so I printed a 5x7 with myself as 5.5 inches tall on the long side also.
When we practiced my hair and makeup and stuff at my friend's house, I put on my dress and had a friend take the picture and had her take one of him in his tux also.

Then I bought one of these Styrofoam posters at good ol' Wallyworld.

I started it out and had my mom finish because the tux pic had to be the day before the wedding to fit within the rental time.
But I painted glue onto the poster and stuck the picture on.
I used a razor blade and got this...

 

 

I stuck toothpicks in the bottom and they were done. :)

 

 

 

Ta-Dah!

 

 

 

Now, we keep it on a shelf in the sand we used for our sand ceremony. Here's that...

 

 

 







In the end, it looked JUST like us, height difference and all. AND it only cost the amount of the two photos ($0.26) and the poster (~$2ish) and the toothpicks and glue (free).

 

See you soon, friends! In the meantime, pray for me. I want to keep up with my SEEK, FOCUS, and CREATE, even if it means a post about a year-old craft. :) Thank ya.

DIY Insta-Calendar

Here is a CREATE for all of my bagillions of readers! (ok. Zero... But who likes to talk to no one?? not me. Plus I've had 22 accidental views this month.!) Annnyyways...

On Christmas, I made an Insta-Calendar. I think I may have gotten the beginning of the idea from Pinterest, but I definitely did the project on my lonesome.

First, I bought a few of these rings from Walmart.

And printed some 4x6 pictures but since they were Instagram photos, I cut them down to 4x4's.

 



I used Costco one hour printing, and added the numbers and words in on Photoshop, but honestly you could use Quick App or Overgram app, which are free.
You need a set of photos, one with each month, a set of 0-3, and a set of 0-9. I just chose photos off of her Instagram that were of people I knew weren't going to be in and out of her life but that she could look at in December of next year and still be glad to have on her calendar. :)

I have this really fancy cardboard that someone gave me. I have absolutely no idea what they're called. They resemble the thick tan flat frame things that go in bigger frames. But cardboard or SUPER thick cardstock would work. So I folded it neatly, taped the edge, and stuck the ring thing in there.

 

 

I wish I could say I made the holes with some super fancy tool, but I found a nail on the windowsill, and used my thumb to jam it in there. I'm a fancy crafter. :)

 

And here's the final product!

 

 

 

If I wanted to, I could have painted it or maybe even papier mache'd scrapbook paper on over the white. I chose to leave it simple just because I liked it this way.



It's pretty easy and simple but it was fun to make. :)

I'd love to hear that one of my bagillions of followers tried this. :)

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

I take really long showers.
Or at least that's what people tell me. I think they're the perfectly appropriate length for a shower, especially having to wash and condition thick hair, but that's a topic for a different day.
Here's my theory. IF, hypothetically, everyone's right, it is for this single reason: I hate showers. Or at least I think I do. When I know one is coming, I avoid it. The whole process sounds inconvenient and long. I don't look forward to "guessing" whether the water is going to burn me or freeze me out at the first moments. I dread getting wet and I dread drying off. I'm never excited for the opportunity to find an entirely new outfit while I'm freezing. All while spending the whole time next to a toilet. Ugh...they're just not my favorite idea.

However, once I'm in, and the water's just right and no one's bugging me, and I have nowhere to be, I just can't find a single reason to get out. I'd gladly stand there in the perfect warmth forever.

A huge portion of the time, that's exactly how I feel about SEEKing God. When I'm in his presence, I can't get enough. I'm highlighting and sticky-note-ing so fast that I forget to breathe. I want to Facebook what I'm learning but I don't want to stop learning long enough to even click the app. It's purely addicting.

But when I'm done and life's keeping me occupied, the idea of the whole tangible process is unattractive.
Looking on, I have no desire to stop my day, read, and risk feeling guilty for rushing it to get back to my life. Or risk feeling the pressure to have to change any of my behavior afterward based on the conviction I receive from it all. Satan does a mighty good job making SEEKing seem totally undesirable and honestly, exhausting (Reality check-it's a lie. God's the bomb dot com).


But here's how he gets me a lot of the time: No one wants to admit it. Anyone who's been a Christian longer than a day and a half, when asked about their day, seems to always start out with, "After my 3 hour morning prayer, I broke my fast before God and began my evening prayer before beginning work at my secular job where I prayed silently for all of my coworkers to see my light." Now, maybe this is true. Maybe every Christian in the world looks forward to SEEKing God except me. It seems that's the case with showers, so it very well could be true. But sometimes it's been discouraging. I've been a Christian for almost 15 years and given my life to the furthering of the kingdom and it's still just plain old difficult for me to find the motivation. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. But my hope is that by being honest about my struggles to SEEK, FOCUS, and CREATE, maybe I'm help someone like me feel understood and remind them of how fun it was the last time they spend with Jesus. Maybe I can remind them, and myself, that showers are fun. We might not dread them so much anymore. We might just enjoy them like the rest of the world.