husbands & wives

 This art was for my husband's birthday this year. I created them from images from PicMonkey and Bible verses.  They are in our bathroom where he keeps the bag he takes to work and a place where they remind both of us of God's commandants to husbands and wives.

Feel free to print them out for your own use. :)

painted acorn garland

Over the Bed

Confession....We have been living in a nearly naked bedroom for years! It took us 3 years to paint the room (gasp!) and it's still not fully decorated 5 years after moving in. We have some difficulty meshing our styles, my hubby and I. He's traditional and I lean more towards modern-rustic. Could we be more different? So I've been in search for something to hang over our bed for a while and finally came up with this. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm  not thrilled over it, but it's an improvement and it cost hardly anything. We're still missing something...not sure what it is yet...

 We started this this....nothing...

 I looked at a few things....

 but nothing seemed just right (these 3 photos from Target). Um, sorry about the above shot. Just realized, not so flattering.

 Then I happened by a junk shop downtown in the city where I grew up and found this lovely (er...something) thing. The glass was broken out of it so I told the owner I would take it if he would get all the glass out first. He promptly took it outside with a hammer and smashed the glass to smithereens. And then wham, 5 bucks and it was mine. He said I was getting an awesome deal because it was an original artwork signed by the artist that was hanging in a local gallery at some point. 

Gee thanks. Better call the Smithsonian.

 I didn't tell him I was scrapping it for the metal frame and white board behind it. It was well framed by a respected frame shop in the city, so I think $5 was a screaming deal. I cleaned it up (had a greasy layer of something or other that WD-40 did a nice job of cutting through) and it turned out great. Perfect size!

 I finally used the stencil that I won from Royal Design Studio ages ago. I painted the whole thing (the white board the frame came with) with blue craft paint and then stenciled with silver craft paint.

 It took some work getting the art work out of the frame and assembled back together since it was  metal frame with brackets and all sorts of weirdness I never saw before (Guess i never UN-assembled a well-made frame before). When I brought it into our room I could not believe my eyes. It hadn't dawned on me until I set it up against the wall of curtains that they are a very similar design!

 Then I took an oval frame that used to be gold (painted with the same silver craft paint), stuck an enlarged b/w photo from our wedding in it and  measured and nailed it right on top of the stenciled board. And just like that, we have over the bed wall art for about $9! ( $5 for large frame, $2 for oval frame, $2 for photo enlargement)

Like I said, still a work in progress...feels like it needs something more. But what?

Washi Clothespins

What I have been making a lot of lately because it's easy to set up and pack up in the few minutes I have to craft nowadays. And I can do it while still playing with the kiddos. Plus they are useful hostess gifts and to keep around the house for chip clips (aka frozen pea clips!).

fox cushion

I made this for our 4 old son for Christmas this past year and I totally forgot to post about it. So here it is 3 months later. I used the fabric that I bought in IKEA's as-is section. It was a slipcover for a chair. A nice heavyweight canvas. I printed a picture that I got off of the internet years ago ( sorry I can't link or give credit to it since I don't remember where I got it. Feel free to let me know if you know. ) on to transfer paper and just ironed it on to the fabric cut around it leaving a couple inch margin and sewed it up. I filled it with regular ol' polyfill. I think he turned out pretty nifty.

The 1 thing that always happens with transfer paper for me is that it turns out with a green tinge. I'm really not sure why it does that, but it turned out fine anyway. Have a great Sunday!

Working on....

I'm learning to cross stitch. Thanks to Michael's which had a Mary Englebright cross stitch kit for a buck, and Martha Stewart's awesome article about cross stitching families. I'm making one in honor of my one year old baby boy.

And I'm blogging from my phone for the first time. Maybe I'll be able to blog more often this way. We'll see!

stress and sheep

I know I say this a lot lately, but it is has been a while since I have visited this space. It's a crazy life I lead...I am not sure when the craziness will end, but work is quickly killing me. My sanity is in craft I realize. I read an article in Whole Living magazine (which I sadly learned this week will no longer be published! So sad!) the other day and it really spoke to me. I cannot find it on the website, but it was about how crafting actually does focus, center and ground us. It is a form of stress relief. Fo sure!

 

 

Anyhow, I made another sheep pillow and needle felted sheep for a Christmas party at work and a co-worker asked if I could make more for her. At first I thought I would not have time, but then I thought about it and I realized I need to MAKE TIME for craft to keep my sanity, which is slowly getting away from me, if you did not catch that up above! Ha!

 

Anyway, instead of doing everything I was supposed to do today, I spent an hour needle felting by the Christmas tree with my 4 yo while my baby napped and it felt good! I did not finish anything today, but I did remember that I had made a little baby lamb for my baby lamb's first Christmas a few weeks ago so I decided to photograph him.

The photo up there is what I found in the yard when I went to photograph this little guy I made! So cool!

 

 

 Here he is hanging on the tree. love him and his little bib!

When I finish the others I will post again :) I hope to get another hour in again tomorrow. I have to remember that it is good for me and I love it. It is not just a fun thing to do...it's therapeutic! I need to keep reminding myself of that when I start to feel guilty for not cooking up a storm for the rest of the week which is what I had planned to do this weekend.

Kid Craft ~ Junk Robot

Heeeeellloooo! Wow, I've been gone a long time without realizing it. Life...it's busy...full time job (plus), 2 kids, house, shopping for food, laundry, you know the stuff that makes life ours.

Anyway, our 3.5 year old made a little robot from junk around the house so I thought I'd share.

He named him Stripey Pom Pom.

It can also double as a pencil/ scissor/ marker holder!

bathroom art

I made these for our "kid" bathroom (we can call it that now that we have 2 kids I guess). I actually use the bathroom too because it is cozier than our master bath, but as my husband reminded me, "You won't want to be sharing a bathroom with two little boys for long!" I need to get to work on the master bath to make it cozier, and have been pinning away, but still do not have a good idea about how I want to make it work for both of us.

Anyhow, here is some art I made for the kids' bathroom. In case you like them, I included links to print your own (or just email me and I'll send you the both of them, with the edited clip art). I used Word doc clip art and changed the colors in the toothbrush to match the faucet and then tried to match those colors for the text.
brush your teeth

BRUSH YOUR TEETH

wash your hands
WASH YOUR HANDS

We don't get any natural light in the kids' bath except from the stairwell when the door is open, so the photos are kind of lame. They are much brighter and cheerier in person. I bought some $3.99 frames at Target with a gift card, so this art was FREE!
My favorite kind!

 I'm actually pleased with how they came out. This (and a few other projects I've been working on lately) have given me a new-found respect for people who can combine colors effortlessly. It's kinda hard!

As a last minute idea, I made the "I am a child of God" sign, based off one I've seen around the internet and Pinterest.
To give credit to the real person who created it, here is the real deal.

leftover easter egg dye

When we were done with this:

We still had this:

So, we turned it into this:

Since we only dyed 8 eggs (how many hard boiled eggs can a 3 year old eat, anyway?), we had a lot of left over dye that I could not bear to dump down the drain, so we dyed some wool roving too. The orange turned pink, almost the same color as the real pink. Oh well, more pink needle felted bunnies? sheep, piggies???

HAPPY EASTER!!!

suprise easter balls

I got this idea from Martha Stewart Living magazine (here is the link though), but it is not a new idea.

Martha (well, her craft team) used cut up crepe paper, but I used the streamer kind since that's what I had. I don't know why they just didn't use the streamer kind since you have to cut it into strips anyway (why Martha?). I used felt (and googly eyes) and they used paper for the details and I skipped on the cupcake paper collar since I need to hide it before Easter and I knew it would get messed up anyway. I added a cotton tail to the bunny and a piece of wool roving  head "feathers" for the chick.

I started with a chocolate creme Cadbury egg in the middle and added some individually wrapped fruit snacks and for the chick I also added some personalized sticky notes.

The bunny is for my 3 year old son and the chick for my13 year old  niece. I'm thinking 13 years old is not too old for Easter gifts, right?

gone fishing!

 It's been a while, huh? I wasn't planning on being gone for a month, but you know how life is, I'm sure.

To celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday we made a quick fishing game we saw on Martha Stewart that same day a la Dr. Seuss' One Fish, Two, Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

I adapted it for things we had on hand and made it a little easier. Such as, instead of gluing 2 pieces of felt for each fish, I cut one piece of fun foam. Instead of putting a magnet inside of each felt fish, I hot glued a paperclip (or 2) on the mouth of each fish and hot glued a (Dollar Store) magnet on the end of a "fishing pole."

As a matter of fact, you make this entire project with Dollar Store stuff. The googly eyes are from there and I saw fun foam there the other day. The sell ribbon there and I am sure there is some sort of stick you can buy. Or simply get a stick from the backyard. I am also sure they have an abundant supply of paperclips.

My mom had made this "fishing pole" a while ago, with a plastic piece (the was inside a barn from Ikea) and some seam binding. We used a hula hoop as the pond. Easy, right?

My son has had a ton of fun this past month with this simple project.

All photos are from my phone, so not so great, but they'll do! 

window clings

We had a few more birds left over from the Ikea placemat-turned mobile, so my 3 yo son and I discovered while I was washing windows that they stick onto the glass! How cool!

Just add a bit of water to the back of the bird and stick it on the window!

upgraded craft nest...now...nursery

My craft nest, as you may know is in our guest room closet (which is to the left of the door where I am standing when I took the below photo). The room  is now playing triple duty as guest room, craft nest and now nursery. I've slowly been making it into a nursery for our now 5 week old. He still sleeps in our bedroom in a co-sleeper, and will remain there for some time, but it is nice to have a place for his clothes, changing pad and other baby accouterments.

I emptied out my refinished mirrored dresser from all it's craft supplies with the help of my sister-in-law and moved it over to the far wall. We moved the bed to the left corner so there would be more floor space in which to add a mini-crib that I got on Craig's list.

There were several projects in this room. The biggest was making the roman shades from the existing blinds. Now THAT was a project! My mom helped me (thank God for her!) make them from a combination of these tutorials (here and here). I won't bore or confuse you with another tutorial since there are so many readily available, however, one major tip is: just BREAK or CUT off the unused slats. DO NOT try to take them off by taking them all off the cord via the bottom of the blind by taking it all apart. If this does not make sense, it will once you start the process. After making the first large shade, I found another tutorial that said to break them and the next two smaller shades took way less time and it was way less frustrating!

The fabric is made of curtains we cut up from Ikea. My mom helped me by sewing on a black out shade the exact size of the shades before we started. One thing to mention: the needle makes holes in the blackout shade and the sun can shine through. It's not a big deal, but you want to make sure you sew a very straight line and do not back up because you can see any mistakes. Again, thank God my mom did this step!

My little turqouise needle felted bird hangs from the ceiling fan.

The other project was a simple one. I cut up a placemat also from Ikea and made a bird mobile. I used fishing line and sticks for the mobile.  This room is getting birdied-out!

So there you have it. Our triple-duty room! Not sure how it will function once the baby uses it to sleep, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

p.s. The Ikea site is not working right now, so I was unable to link to the fabric and placemats, but once it's up you can just search them.

thrift store finds 2

Wow! I scored some amazing stuff at the thrift store today.  I am so excited to share them with you!

I went in looking for frames for our gallery-wall-in-progress and came out with toys galore! And not a single frame.

Look at these finds! I walked out less than $30 later with all this stuff and a few other things as well.

 Mega Blocks to add to our boy's collection for $6!!!  And a working "computer" which has several spelling and alphabet functions for $2.

A full size brand new UCLA basketball for $1 and a brand new in the box mini basketball for $5. I guess they felt the package warranted it being $4 more dollars than the big one. Hmmm.

 A bowling ball set for $2.50 and a connector set for $3 for my boy who loves to build things.

A set of letter rings which both my baby and 3 year old will love. For some reason he loves to play with those baby rings and these are in the shape of letters, so he'll really love them.

And finally my favorite find! LINCOLN LOGS! Do you know how expensive they are in the stores (When you can even find them)??? Really! This set was $5.00 and worth every penny!

Looks like I am set for Easter and Birthday for my 3 year old!

I am so stoked!