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!!!