{DIY: Fuzzy Wreath}

This is a simple, affordable, craft to do to decorate your home, office space, kids room, and really anywhere.

You Need:

• Garden Wreath (found at Wal Mart - around $4)
• Yarn (around $2)
• Wreath Pins (found in the same place as the wreath - around $0.97)
• Scissors

How To:

1. Wrap your yarn around three fingers.  For thicker yarn, about 15 times around should be good; for thinner yarn, about 25-30 times.  I wrapped each of mine 25 times.
2. Cut a piece of yarn between 4 and 6 inches long (depending on how big your wrapped yarn is).
3. Use that strip of yarn to tie the middle of the wrapped yarn.  Do this over and over again; this is how you start the pompom process.
4. After you're done tying the wrapped yarn, cut the loops and spread the yarn out to make it fluffy.
5. Use the wreath pins to pin in the little fluffy pompoms.  If your pins are long, pin them in sideways.

{Decorative Water}

This is the simplest way to decorate with glass jars and glass bottles:

1. Fill the glass jars to desired water level.
2. Drop 2 or 3 drops of colored food dye into the water.  More drops = darker color.
3. Use the lid, or use a paper towel, to cover the nozzle to mix the food dye and the water then you're done!

This is a great way to decorate for all holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, or just for every day color-filled life!  If you want another way to decorate simply with bottles, you can use yarn! 

{Bottles of Yarn}

There are a few ways that I have decorated parts of our house using glass jars and bottles.  Here is a simple way to do this: use yarn (or some other form of stringy thing) and wrap a bottle.

1. Tape the end of the yarn to the bottle.  Don't bother cutting the yarn's length yet - I've always found it more useful to just unroll the ball of yarn as I go rather than ending up too short or long when I'm finished.  Tape the end of the yarn vertically, pointing the very end down towards the ground.  
2. Hold the tape in place there as you begin wrapping the bottle in yarn.
3. When you get towards the end of the bottle, or when you are getting ready to stop, put a piece of tape right below where your yarn is - not yet at the bottom, but within an inch of the bottom.  Let it hang a little off the bottom of the bottle.
4. Once you get far enough down the bottle, over the tape, lift up the bottom sliver of the tape and place the end of the yarn underneath it.  
5. Then cut the excess.  Ta da!  Bottle wrapped in yarn.  You can see my label in the end result - this won't happen if you don't put it in front of light or if you use a label-less bottle ;)

Tin Can Lanterns

It's getting close to Halloween!

And I am getting stoked about decorating for it!  I've been a little slack on progress towards decorating, aside from all the pumpkins I got for the house, but it's comin' along ;)

I followed a tutorial here to make Tin Can Lanterns.  Here is my rendition of tin can lanterns for Halloween.  I actually made it last year, but never got them up in a post! Of course, this craft can be applied to any time of year! :

(You can tell this picture was taken last year because the paper this lantern is sitting on was the rough draft of our wedding invitations!)

Some pointers I learned while making this are:

• Make sure you do this on ground that you don't mind ice melting on!
• It's tough to keep the can still while you hammer the nails through it.
• I actually ended up using a screw driver to make the nails - this was easier for me.

I hope you're enjoying this wonderful October month!  Halloween is right around the corner!

How To Make Labels Using Microsoft Word

I learned from a very intelligent woman, whom I know only from the blogger world, how to make my own labels for my jars around the kitchen.  I want to share that skill with you!  Of course, giving her credit, and understanding that Word is open for everyone to use and discover ;)

Want to make labels that looks like these?

Or are you planning ahead for Christmas?  How about labels like these?

Here's how to do it:

1.  Go to Microsoft Word and find the "Shapes" tab option under "Insert".

Choose a shape.  I chose the shape called "Plaque".

You can change the color of your shape, the lining, etc. through the "Format" tab that will automatically appear when you draw your shape on your Word document:

2.  Go back to the "Shape" section under "Insert".  Select another shape (it can be the same shape as before, or you can switch it up.)  Draw this shape inside your first shape:

Under the "Format" tab, where you can change the color and lining of the shape, you can find the option to change the line to dashes.  I am going to change mine to dashes, but you can do whatever you would like with yours.

3. Now you can change the textures of each shape.  Under the "Format" tab, looks for the option called "Shape Fill".  Go down to the bottom where it says, "Texture".  You can do one of two things: 1) use a template texture, or 2) use your own texture downloaded from the internet.  

1):

or

2):

I chose to use my own texture from the internet; I looked up fair isle patterns - they remind me of Christmas! :)

4.  You can choose the color/texture/pattern of this shape now.  I chose something that matches my background.  However, you can do whatever you like.

6.  Now to fill in words.  Go to the "Insert" tab.  Find on the top right hand side of the page the option listed as "Add Text Box".  Click on this option, and go to the very bottom of the list where you see, "Draw Text Box".

7.  Draw your text box in the second shape to fit as desired.  Again, the format tab should appear for you text box; under the Format tab, you are able to take the lining of the box away, change the shape fill, and change the shape color.  All of this is up to you.

8.  Add your text.  A tradition my family had, aside from making cookies for Santa, were throwing seeds out into the yard for the reindeer.  I want to make cookies for the reindeer, too, this year!

A website that my husband and I found last year while we were decorating wedding invitations is DaFont.com. This website has thousands of fonts that people have made all over the place.  Most of them are free for personal use, some are free for public use, and then there are a few that you have to pay for to use.  If you can't find a good font for your labels, check out DaFont!  I downloaded the font called, "St. Nicolas" for this label.

Now all I have to do is print this off this label and stick it on the jar with the reindeer cookies!  I know about certain kinds of sticky paper that you can buy - at least I've heard of them.  I'm just going to cut my label out, probably laminate it, and use ModPodge or double-stick tape to stick it to my jar.  However, the intelligent blogger friend I have could probably tell you more about this is you visit her blog post on this tutorial: A Typical English Home.  

I hope you've found this helpful!  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comment section, I would love to help you if you need it.  Have fun making your holiday labels!

Combining {The Craft Room}

    As some of you may know, a little over a year ago, I opened a new blog called The Craft Room.  I did so because I had so many craft project how-to's to share with the world.  I don't necessarily have a problem with Pinterest, but I don't really use Pinterest to say I'm crafty.  Since I was a wee tot, I found a lot of creative alternatives, partially because of my mom's influence, partially because of lack of video games and television in our house, and partially because I didn't really get new things growing up in a relative-poverty household.  Because of these reasons, I have always been able to somehow figure out how to turn paper towel rolls into bracelet holders, and so on.  Both of my siblings learned to be creative for the same reasons.  This was just how we lived out our childhood: without Pinterest.

    I have been thinking about doing something for a few months now;  If you have noticed, The Craft Room blog has gone pretty stagnant since the beginning of 2013.  There are a few reasons for this:

1. I just have not had time for crafts, nonetheless everything it takes to take good pictures, document them into my computer, then type up a blog about it.  I just haven't had time.
2. I wanted to share my own creativity with the world, but everything I did was made generic by asking first, "Did you see this on Pinterest!?" That really hurts me more than I let on.  I'm tired of putting things up and people asking that question.
3. I use this blog (Jay Elle Bee) more than I do any of the other ones I have created.
4. I just don't like the way I designed The Craft Blog layout, but I don't really feel like spending time to change it.

So for these reasons, I have decided to leave my Craft Room blog in the dust.  I tried, not as hard as I could, but I decided I didn't like it.  However, I cannot simply close it down and delete it.  For those of you who are on Pinterest, I have allowed people to pin pictures of my crafts and tutorials to Pinterest.  When people click on the pictures to find out how to do these things, I want them to be able to find my blog.  Yes, I could allow followers of my main blog to Pin pictures, but I don't want to have false representation of how many people view my blog each day.  Besides, this is my personal blog, where I talk about things that go on in my life.  I will start posting some crafts that I do along the way, not regularly, but whenever I happen to do them and take pictures of them.

    So in all, I might be copying the tutorials of my previous crafts on this blog, but I will not be continuing to use my blog known as The Craft Room.  I haven't decided on that yet, but we'll see.  For now, you have only the luxury of enjoying The Craft Room as it is.

    Thanks to all of you who read my posts and support my blogging habit - it means a lot to know that people care enough to read about what's going on with me!

Jessica

The Craft Room Is Opened!!

After a long wait of anticipation on my part, I have officially opened my craft blog I call The Craft Room!

The first week (08/06/2012) went really well in reception and I look forward to posting more crafty things in the coming future!  Throughout the semester, I have begun DIY projects by myself and with my fiance that I will take you through step-by-step on how to do them yourself!

I hope that, through this blog, I can inspire many others to take a crafy approach on life!  Keep in touch with my blog and don't be afraid to try these things yourself!

The Craft Room

The Craft Room: Coming Soon!

I have created a separate blog titled "The Craft Room" for all of my crafts and DIY tutorials.  Although I still plan on using my current blog as an outlet for life through writing (typing), The Craft Room will specifically be an outlet for my crafty side to share.

The blog will include weekly craft tutorials in areas of:

• repurposing
• refurbishing
• upcycling
• re-styling
• recipes and cooking
• decorating
• and craft inspiration from other places and people

  Every Monday, I will post a blog about a recent craft I have made in my own time, and I will list tutorials on each craft I make so that you can also make it for yourself.  Some of the crafts you will see are ones that I have thought of on my own.  Others have been inspired by another's craftiness!  I will be sure to give recognition where credit is due. 

  At the moment, I am looking at August 6th as my first posting date.  I already have a few tutorials set up and ready to go, and I will continue posting weekly as more people become interested.  So please share my blog with your friends and family!!  I will be sure to share on this page (The Craft Room page for Fly From the Highest Swing) so that you will be updated here every time I post a new article in The Craft Room.  My current blog (Fly From the Highest Swing) will still remain available for everything else in my life - so you can stay tuned!

  Thanks for the support everyone has given me through your viewing and moral support of my talent in actual life.  I hope you look forward to doing some crafts as much as I look forward to sharing my talent!

The Craft Room page on Fly From the Highest Swing