Adorable Christmas DIY Decorations

1. Burlap Stocking Tutorial

Here is a short list of the DIY Christmas decorations that I am dying to try!
{Of course they were all found on Pinterest, but I linked up the original sources}
These burlap stockings are adorable and it's an excuse to whip out my sewing machine :)

2. Glitter Spray Painted Sticks

I have a couple of vases that need filling with some Christmas cuteness.
I am planning on picking up some paper flowers from Hobby Lobby and then filling in the arrangement  with these glitter twigs!

3. Christmas Yard Lollipops

Put a PVC pipe in the bottom, wrap with cellophane, and line your walkway or driveway with these.

This is something I've been wanting to do for forever!
The theme I go for with my Christmas decorations is a Candyland feel.
Lots of candy, bright reds, pinks, and blues all throughout the house!

4. Advent Calendar

Such a simple & adorable countdown to Christmas!

I would put some candies and mini presents in those 'lil packages :)

5. Handmade Christmas Trees

Finally, these trees are to die for.
The base is made from a cereal box!
I guess I need to start buying and eating more cereal to make these...
If you have a link to any cute & cheap Christmas DIYs, leave it in the comments!

Crafting Queen

I saw this on Pinterest roughly 2-3 months ago and was thrilled when my mom handed over a hand-me-down lamp with a heinous old lady rose lampshade.

I can totally use a butt-load of burlap & hot glue to transform this sucker!!

Well, then we decided to pack up and move which definitely put the kabosh on crafting for a while.

Which is my excuse for just now finishing the dang thing.

Ryan is still shocked/weirded out/pleasantly surprised whenever I whip up a new DIY project.

He didn't know until after we were married that I was a self-proclaimed crafting queen.

{A hobby that my mom & I share. Mostly cause she is the crafting queen and I just copy her.}

He still asks me why I never mentioned this hobby to him when we were dating. 

Ummm ya, cause that wouldn't be weird or completely out of the blue while we were dating:

"Soo...I really like crafts. And burlap and hot glue and jewelry making and cross stitch and what not."

Who the crap brings that up on a first, second, or third date??

Also, when rooming with 4 other girls and having to share a bathroom, kitchen, living room, and apartment...it's a little difficult to justify taking over the whole kitchen table so I can craft up a storm.

I finished up this beaut along with decor for my sis-in-law's bridal shower, meaning that I took over the kitchen table for about a week with my craft storm & completed my projects while watching Drop Dead Diva and SYTYCD.

Ok, who else is excited about the ballroom girls from Utah on the show!? :D

Maybe I'm just a ballroom fanatic, but they are too hawt and talented for their own good!

Can't wait to see how far they get in the competition, anyone else have their favorites yet?

{Btw, I think Alexa is an amazing dancer, but I totally agree with the judges when they say it looks like she has no emotion when she dances. It's obnoxious!}

<3 Bri

P.S. Hustle your buns and enter the $20 gift card Apothica Giveaway!

Football Eggs

First off, I want to say thank you for everyone who commented on the last post!

You are all just so freakin' sweet. I almost got a cavity! 

And, it's always nice to know that you aren't the only one out there thinkin' the same thing.

So, thank you :)

....................................................................

Ryan grew up in a family of four boys, meaning that decorating for holidays was not that big of a deal.

I decorated in the small ways I could with being married/college student poor, by changing out my wreath and Rios tree ornaments.

Cutenessssssssss.

I was half tempted to steal more paint chips from Wal-Mart to do an Easter egg twine garland.

{Like I did for my heart garland at Valentines}

I felt kinda bad for takin' paint chips again...so I figured there is always next year :)

Along with not really decorating, he didn't do Easter baskets growing up, so I was STOKED to start a new tradition in our 'lil family.

I stayed up the night before, watching Say Yes to the Dress {which is on Netflix now!! SCORE}, decorating and putting together baskets. 

Seeing the looks on Evan & Ryan's faces when they saw their fave candies, football eggs, cool t-shirts, and cologne made me extremely happy. That's always the best part!

{My younger brother, Evan}

{Ryan, I tried to make it less girly by using football eggs...and a football holding bunny}

{Mine}

How was your Easter?

<3 Bri

The Bee from Heck

Materials for Clay Pot Bee: Small clay pot, Black and yellow acrylic paint, Yellow pipe cleaners. White foam, Googly eyes, Lots of glue, Polka dot ribbon

This Tuesday all the poor kids were SO frustrated with this project.

They turned out really cute, but a lot of them couldn't get the paint on right, figure out the ribbon stripes, handle the glue, and some of them even broke or cracked part of their clay pot.

One little girl broke the bee's face and sat on the stairs crying.

Another boy was frustrated and just put his head down because he messed up his bee, and he said he just couldn't give a messed up bee to his mom.

I calmed them down from that, then the girls started asking if Mr. Rios was my husband, and I said yes.

Then they were literally offended that I didn't invite them to the wedding.

{Say what?!}

After all of that I felt like crying.

Good thing I had Ryan there, gosh.

After I talked all the lil 1st-3rd graders off their crafting ledge and bribed them with candy, they all seemed to calm down a bit.

For the rest of the club we will be doing: fingerprint bees, bee visors, and bee cupcakes.

Hooray for no more paint!

And hopefully no more meltdowns!

<3 Bri

Tissue Paper Flowers

This week for my craft club, Crafting Just Bee-Cuzzzz, we made flowers and bouquets out of tissue paper :)

Anddd for 1st-3rd graders it proved to be a lot more difficult to teach than I had anticipated.

But everyone was jumping for joy when they found out we were making flowers.

Even most of the boys surprisingly!

All the little ones made their flowers and they all decided to give them to someone they love.

One little boy, Leo, made a bright blue flower for his mom cause that's her favorite color.

Another girl, Kylah, made a whole bouquet to give to her mom and dad.

And another boy, Israel, made one for his girlfriend (why he has a gf at 7 years old I have no clue...haha)

My heart melts :)

Supplies: 

Tissue paper, pipe cleaners, scissors, garden stake, crepe paper, tape, ribbon (opt.). 

Have fun! 

<3 Bri

Oh, It Is Love

Valentines day in a nutshell.

Oh gosh, it was a really long day.

 Between a choir performance, craft club, work, picking up Valentines dinner, and a Valentines date...

I was dang exhausted by the end of the night! 

But had an amazing time :)

{Craft Club}

This is a Valentine we made in Craftin' Just Bee-Cuzzz today.

For all you new followers, I volunteer at an elementary nearby and run a crafting club for kids between 1st and 3rd grade, once a week.

This week the kids were on a complete sugar high and thus, were especially rowdy.

Lots of count downs and threatening of no candy next week did the trick.

But how cute are these "Bee Mine" Valentines?!

You can't go wrong with paper hearts, pipe cleaner bees, googly eyes and candy.

One of my girls made a Valentine for me and for Ryan, aka Rios and Mr. Rios.

{Wrapping}

Ryan's adorably wrapped present!

{Which I'll have him model for you guys later}

After we swapped gifts, Ryan surprised me with tickets to The Vow! 

Total tearjerker.

{Dinner}

After the movie we came home and made up our quick 'lil homemade dinner.

SO GOOD.

Our Valentines dinner:

Butter & Herb Salmon

Spinach salad w/ craisens, poppyseed dressing, cheese, bacon bits

Fresh fruit

Dessert:

Candy {Reeses}

Cream Puffs

{Love}

One of my presents from Ryan.

This "love" necklace, so adorable and simple :)

Hope you all had an awesome Valentines day, cause I sure did!

<3 Bri

P.S. Watch out for a guest post swap with Lovely Little Things  soon!

Zipper Bows & Paint Chip Hearts

Sooo you may be wondering why my head is chopped off in the following pictures.

There is a reason.

Anddd the reason is because my hair was sopping wet and there is NO WAY I'm putting that on the internet.

I really don't need to give my family & friends more blackmail than they already have.

Anywhoodle. 

I am still loving my colored jeans with a flaming burning passion.

I NEED ALL THE COLORS!

I don't know what it is...they just make me happy! 

How can you be sad in bright red jeans?!

Think about ittttttt.

Top: Anthropologie. Jeans: American Eagle. Jacket: Loft. Shoes: LA Fashion District. Bottle Cap Necklace: Cherry Lane Boutique in Provo, UT.

Yet I digress with my apparent obsession with colored jeans.

The real point of this post is that:

I finally made my Valentines garland and am excited to share!

Seriously. 

The easiest/fastest/cutest/cheapest thing ever.

First, gather the following: twine, paint chips, scissors, tape, and tacks.

And yes, I totally did jack 20 paint chips from the Wal-Mart paint section.

No one is missing them...at least I hope not.

Ohhh the things you gotta do when you are a college kid.

All I did was cut the paint chips out by hand into hearts. 

And don't worry if they aren't perfect, it's cuter when they are a lil' off kilter!

{Look at photo above}

Then I lined them up next to the twine and started wrapping the twine around the paint chip hearts.

Then put a couple pieces of scotch tape on the back.

Advice: Tape down the twine {on the back} towards the top of the heart so they don't flop over when you hang them.

All my hearts twined up!

Tacked them on the wall in a chic swooping fashion and VOILA.

Uber cuteness, for how much you ask?

Twine: Free cause I already had it, but I originally bought it for $3.

Tacks: Free, cause I already had it.

Tape: Free, already had it!

Paint Chips: Free! Oh gosh, I feel like a horrible person for stealing paint chips.

Grand Total: FREE.

I keep looking at my wall and feeling so dorkily proud of myself. 

<3 Bri

Just Bee-cuzzzz

An awesome opportunity that has crossed my path as of late, is to teach/be a leader of a club at a nearby elementary.

An elementary school where most kids don't have the means to join an outside sports team, dance classes, or other activities. So the school hosts what they call 4-H clubs to give these kids the chance to learn different skills and have some fun things to do after school. 

I jumped on it, cause I did make a resolution to keep kickin' my bum out of my comfort zone.

I decided to name it: "Crafting Just Bee-cuzzz"

Uber corny, right? 

Hey, the 1st-3rd grade kids thought it was cute! That's all that really matters!

We get to make crafts, play games, get to know each other, and I get to be a cool adult in their life for a few short months.

I was kinda nervous because this was my first day, and so I asked Ryan to come.

He is so good to me :)

We made bees out of paper plates, paint, paper, and wax paper. 

There was a little strip of paper on the back of the bee where you could slip your hand in and fly it around.

Total cuteness!

Anywhoodle, I was just really excited to share this because I had SUCH a fun time! 

We painted, and talked, helped each other making the bees.

Played duck duck goose, freeze tag, and head/shoulders/knees&toes.

I got to see Ryan around a bunch of lil' ones. It was just swell!

I get to do this once a week for a few months, so be expecting more crafting posts for little kids!

Bee Kid Craft

Supplies:

• Paper plates
• Wax paper {cut into U shapes for the wings}
• Black scrapbook paper {to cut a strip of paper to tape under, and also cut out triangles for the stinger}
• Yellow paint
• Black paint
• Tape

Directions:

1.  Have the kids paint the whole paper plate yellow
2. Go play some games till that dries :)
3. Come back and show the kids how to paint the black stripes on the bee
4. Show them how to paint the eyes/face on the bee
5. Wait for everything to dry and show them how to tape the wings, stinger, and paper strip on the bee.
6. Have them put their bee on their hand and buzzzz them around the room!

<3 Bri/Bee
;)