Homemade Orange Juice

We received oodles of oranges and grapefruits from the local children's choir fundraiser.  After eating so many that our fingernails turned completely orange from peeling, my husband decided to make juice.  We had a Lemonader (yes, that's a real appliance) that we got as a wedding present from my parents.  So out came the Lemonader.  We juiced a bunch of oranges and two grapefruits.  It was so good!

Flower Sand Box

On our last Ikea trip (dangerous!), I scored some red and beige sand bags, and some beautiful red flowers.  Unfortunately, I forgot to get the giant vase to go with them.  Crud.  Yesterday, though, I decided the time had come to do just do something with them.  It's been long enough.  I'm talking years here.  Seriously.  

Luckily, I had this gorgeous glass "thing," that was my grandma's, sitting in our basement.  My grandma had some amazing stuff that we were blessed enough to receive after she died.  How wonderful to be able to fill our home with things that remind me of her.  Anyways, the flowers I had were going to be way too tall for this glass container.  So I cut off the plastic stems, then hired my hubby to take care of the wire cutting that was inside the stems.  I poured the sand in colored layers into my container, then decided the zebra look wasn't as cool as I thought it might be, so I blended the sand with a giant spoon.

I have a current obsession with buttons, and thus had to find a way to include them!  I wrapped thick white satin ribbon around the top of the glass.  The angle of the glass, though, prevented the ribbon from laying flat.  I twisted the ribbon in two places, then hot glued it to the glass.  Voila!  I placed red buttons on each of the twists, and white buttons on the seam where the ribbon ended.

I wanted the top and bottom to match, so I wrapped the same white ribbon, folded in half to fit the right width, around the stem of the glass.  Then I put another red button on that seem, because you can never 

have enough buttons!

And here it is!  I'm so pleased with the final product.  I placed it in our dining room, on top of a piece of furniture that was my grandma's.  Our dining room is tan and red, so it fits in perfectly.  I love it when things work out!

And don't you love the name of my post?  I asked my 4 year old what I should call this post--She said, "Flower Sand Box."

Coming Soon!

I spent all morning (between tying doll shoes, using scraps of fabric to create doll bedding, making snacks--every ten minutes, etc.) crafting a wreath for our front door!  Normally we'd be at church, but I still can't make it through three hours sitting in a pew and chairs.  Hubby's on call today, so the kids stayed home with me!  Sometimes I just love spending the day at home.

We made a super successful Goodwill run yesterday where I scored the base for my wreath.  So, coming soon is a tutorial for a spring wreath, using feux and real flowers!  Check back soon!

Happy Sunday,
Emily