my valentine

For Valentine's Day I left small gifts for Jake to open every hour while I was at work.  They were pretty cheesy, but he had fun with it.  The first 9 gifts were fruit or candy with a little tag that said "We're just Mint to be!" or "I go Bananas over you!"

 The 10th gift he opened at 5 was the one I was most excited about!  The box said "We are Picture perfect!", and inside was a custom made...

View-Master!

I used some of our favorite pictures of the two of us and designed the reel on Image3D!

The website was easy to use and I love how it turned out!

The picture in the middle is so adorable! I saw it on Pinterest a while ago and loved how it looked like Jake and me with our glasses on!

 Such a special gift!

I make a card for Jake every year and since my guy is very techy I thought a QR code card would be perfect!

I used the Google QR code generator for the front and inside! No words on this card! He loved it, and had fun using his phone to read the card!

Husband did a good job as well!  He sent me roses at work, built shelves in my craft cabinet, and surprised me with red velvet cheesecake from Hamilton's! I love my forever Valentine!

friendship bracelet with gold chain

I'm back!

Sorry for the delay is posting this year!

To make it up, I'll start out the blog year with a little DIY...

Friendship bracelet with gold chain!

When I was little, I would make these all the time! So I was very excited to see these back in style!

To dress it up a bit I added a gold chain in the middle (from Hobby Lobby)

I tied the embroidery thread on either side of the chain and followed THIS tutorial to braid in the chevron design.  

Make sure to make a small braid a couple inches long so you can tie it around your wrist.

So fun!

Merry Christmas from The Stapletons!

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."  Isaiah 9:6

gift wrappings

Finally finished wrapping Christmas gifts!  

I usually stick with a gift wrapping theme, so this year I decided to go with the tradish green, red, and white.

I used white wrapping paper and made my own bows and tags!

For the felt bows I followed this tutorial from How About Orange.

It was really easy and they turned out super cute!

 

For the larger gifts I made three bows in different sizes. 

I saw this idea floating around Pinterest and decided it was too cute not to try!

I used festive scrapbook paper and cut out letters to use as the tags for a few gifts!

curled paper ornament

Day 12:  Curled paper

Cut thin strips of paper and wrap it around a pencil.

As you curl it around, pull the paper tight so it will stay curled.

Then fill the glass ornament ball with the paper curls.

Hope you enjoyed the 12 ideas I've shared! Let me know if you try any!