Keep Calm and be happy happy happy

Do you watch Duck Dynasty? We do. We like it. It makes us laugh. We're still working our way through season 2 (we're so behind the times, I know.) but my absolute favorite part of that show is anytime Phil says "xyz makes me happy happy happy." :) We even got Javi to say it, along with Hey, Jack! #parentsoftheyear

Anyways. I'm slowly adding personal touches to the basement, and I wanted to put my own spin on the ubiquitous "Keep Calm" posters. So I sat down one day to create a graphic that I could turn into a watercolor. I started googling the crown and trying to find a font that closely matched, when my super smart Lover suggested searching for a Keep Calm generator. Turns out there's a keep calm o matic! 

So, I whipped up my graphic, printed it out and transferred it to watercolor paper. Then I got my paint on. Observe.




I love it. It's hanging over the couch in the basement. And you know what? Every time I see that little painting, it makes me... happy, happy, happy.  (You saw that coming, didn't you?)

xoxo,

 

Jenny

Mirror, mirror times three

These days I love simple and easy projects. Ones that can be completed during a nap time, ideally. At our local dollar store, whilst shopping for ... gift bags? cheap conditioner to shave my legs with? disposable aluminum pans? :) I came across these little silver frames that I thought would look adorable as little mirrors. Here's how I completed this uber simple project.

Start with your frames...



Buy some round mirrors that are the dimensions of your opening at the craft store of your choosing. (I like Michaels and Hobby Lobby, personally)



Replace the glass in the frame with the mirrors.



Voila! :) Cute little mirrors.


I wanted these on the wall in the downstairs bathroom, so I also made a wire loop and hotglued it to the back of the frame.





These were light enough to hang with command hooks - easy peasy. Also, I didn't buy a square mirror, so I just slipped aluminum foil into that square one for now. I'm thinking about putting an actual picture in there, but it's just so small!



Pardon the trimless bathroom door. We're working on it. Baby steps people!


Psst! This isn't the first time I've made a picture frame into a mirror! Check out the cool mosaic frame-turned-mirror in this post!

Necklace Organizer

Since Javi was born a year and a half ago, I don't get quite as many house/creative projects done as I used to. And since getting pregnant with #2 in November, my productivity has taken even more of a nosedive. I do my best to stay realistic about the season of life that I am in now, in which I focus on the necessities (food! cleanliness! sleep!) and spending quality time with "my guys", and to not stress about all of the fun ideas I have in my head. I'm getting better about finding contentment in whatever season I am in, no matter how long or short that season may be.

But I am still a creative person who loves to make beautiful things. Or useful things. Or something that is neither useful nor beautiful but is definitely fun. :-) So I make the time every once in a while to satisfy that part of me. I also try to be realistic about what I can accomplish. I'm not working on a hand-sewn king-size quilt right now. Or a one bajillion piece mosaic art piece for my walls. :-) I keep my projects bite-sized, or I figure out how to break them down into bite-sized pieces. One of those projects that I accomplished recently is my necklace organizer.



I love my jewelry, and having most of it out on display reminds me to wear different items on a regular basis. I obviously still have my regular pieces that I default to more often than not, but I love keeping my "jewels" out and on display. So I made a necklace organizer.



This was not a planned, organized, meticulously measured out project. I literally walked out to our garage, selected a piece of scrap wood that was about the size I was envisioning, and started drilling holes. I did count how many knobs I had beforehand so that I drilled the right number of holes. However, I did not worry about centering the holes perfectly. I just worked from left to right, and when I had enough holes, I left an equal space on the right hand side and then chopped the rest of the piece of wood off.



Then I rooted through my paint stash for some pretty colors to paint the board with. I decided on (surprise!) my neutral metallic paints. I think I have a minor case of colorphobia. Unless the color is turquoise. :-) I painted a quick stripe of the dark metallic and let that dry.



Then I covered that with masking tape so I could paint the rest of board. I seriously don't need to explain this stuff, it was so simple and fly by the seat of my pants. :)



It took about three coats of the lighter metallic to get good coverage.



Carefully peel off the masking tape. Or do it roughly. Live dangerously. :-)



Screw in each of your knobs. I had these little IKEA knobs kicking around in the basement since I decided that I did not want to use them on my kitchen cabinets. I think there were two packs and each pack was a dollar. Screw them in by hand - therapeutic! or with a drill - fast and easy! I used a screwdriver because I was too lazy to walk down to the basement and get the drill.



Hammer in two sawtooth hangers on the back to hang your organizer. These sawtooth guys were perfect because they jut out just enough to clear the screw heads. couldn't have done that better if I had planned it. Which, I can't stress enough, I didn't. :)



Screw two screws into the wall, and hang up your organizer. Stand back and admire your handiwork for a moment, then start loading that baby up with necklaces and other baubles.



Pat yourself on the back for a job well done and take a moment to admire your pretties. Then store your pictures on a hard drive for eight months and finally get around to blogging about your accomplishment. You're done! :-)



 

A Gift for Jenna and Alice!

 My sweet friend Jenna is due in just a few short weeks with her first baby - a little girl! :-) Over the fourth of July weekend we were able to visit each other for the first time in ages and get as caught up as much as we could in just a few short hours! We snapped a quick picture at the Starbucks that we took refuge in from the oppressive Chicago heat. It was so great to see her!

Don't you just love the random Starbucks barista in the background? :-) 

 I wanted to send a little gift to celebrate with her - especially because I can't just pop in to see them when Alice deigns to make her arrival! 

I've been obsessed with baby hats forever, and now that I have my own little guy it only fuels my obsession. :-) So obviously, I wanted to make some little hats for baby Alice! I followed this tutorial  from Little Birdie Secrets to make a little ear cap, and then I also made another (a little bit bigger) with a cute little flannel heart on it. 

I also made a cuddly flannel blanket out of the cutest gray, white and pink flannel. I made it extra big so that it's perfect for swaddling little Alice. Hopefully she'll like it!

Now here's the part of the gift I'm super excited about - 

Tiny baby sneakers in a the most adorable plaid, and a tiny little popcorn bowl! I know how Jenna loves her popcorn, so when I saw this teeny little bowl I knew it would be perfect! :-) 

This was my first time wrapping the inside of a box, and I love how it contributed to the whole look of the package. It came out really cute. At the very bottom of the package I placed a novel that I read recently that I thought Jenna would enjoy. It'll come in handy for those marathon nursing sessions! 

All packaged up and ready to mail out! Hope you enjoy it Jenna! Can't wait to see pictures of that little girl!

Veronica graciously put together this virtual baby shower for Jenna so that we could all be a part of the celebration of baby Alice! Please check out the other gifts that these sweet girls prepared for Jenna! Thanks Veronica!

4 Little Fergusons (Midwest USA): 11 Lessons To Determine If You Are Ready For Parenthood
A Little Lunch (Eufaula, OK): Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice Scones
City Songbird (Greensboro, NC): Merry Christmas, Alice!
Eats Well With Others (New York, NY): Peanut Butter and Honey Ice Cream
Hunting for Bliss (Bozeman, MT): Garam Masala Deviled Eggs
Pinking Shears & Broccoli Spears (Newark, DE): Making Food Good For Your Baby
Sydney Shares (Eugene, OR): Baby BLTs
That's Some Good Cookin' (Salt Lake City, UT): Cheesecake Cookie Bars
The Pajama Chef (Bloomington, IN): Iced Tea with Ginger-Mint Simple Syrup
Two Dogs In The Kitchen (Sterling, MI): Spicy Asian Meatballs
Veronica's Cornucopia (Wichita, KS): Raspberry Almond Fudge Cookies
Very Culinary (Sacramento, CA): Toasted Orzo and Chickpea Salad
 

A Robot Pillow :-)

I had a baby shower for a friend of mine on Saturday. Seems like everyone I know is pregnant - which means lots of showers and lots of gifts! I try to buy something off the registry for first time moms because I know they are things they probably really need, but for my friend Kelly I wanted to make something homemade for her little guy too. Kelly and her husband decided to do something a little different for the nursery - robots and bright colors. I thought that sounded like a super fun idea and came up with the idea to make a felt robot pillow to go in the baby's room.



This project was super simple. Hobby Lobby was  having a sale on their 8.5x11 pieces of felt (30 cents each!)  so my total cost for the felt was 1.50. I knew I was going to sew each piece on with embroidery floss, and as luck would have it, I went to a garage sale where the lady was cleaning out her crafting stash. I scored an entire box of embroidery floss for $1. Awesomeness!

I trolled the web for some inspiration pictures, and ended up basically using an Etsy seller's design for the pillow. Don't worry, I may have copied her work but I don't plan on plagiarizing her design for profit. :-)



Anyways, assembly was pretty straightforward. Cut out individual pieces, assemble on background to make sure I liked it, then start sewing. It was pretty fun and therapeutic. And fast. In no time at all I had all the pieces sewn onto the background. Then I sewed another piece of blue felt onto the first one to form a pillow, stuffed it and hand sewed it closed. Easy peasy. And it cost me about $5 to make. Not too shabby! Here's a closeup of  the finished product,



and the fun bin I found to give the pillow and the rest of the gifts.

This little project was so fun that I even whipped up a little initial tag for the bin too! Fun times. :-)

What have you made recently?

A Sewing Machine Project: A Cover!

Last month I mentioned that I finally completed a few sewing projects. One of them was a cover for my sewing machine. I figured since I can be a bit... slow about completing my sewing projects, which, in turn, means that ,y machine sits for a long time collecting dust, a cover was in order. This is project I've been meaning to get around to for, oh, well, forever. :-) I had dreams of making the cover all fitted and proportional, with piping along the edges, and smooth, even seams. And so the machine sat there, cover-less, collecting dust. Finally I decided it was more important to just HAVE a cover than to make it all perfect and time consuming. Here's the finished project.



I simply measured the height, depth and length of the machine, and cut two side pieces and one piece long enough to go from one end, over the top, down the other end. Then I ran two long seams, hemmed the bottom, and voila! A sewing machine cover. Easy. Breezy. Covergirl. :-)



I used some leftover linen I had from my lampshade recovering project. The cover was looking a little plain, so I printed out the word "sew" in a font that I liked, and slid it underneath the front of the cover. Then I held it up to a window and traced the font outline with a pencil. Then I just used a fabric marker to fill it in with light strokes.

I'm hoping it works as a sort of subliminal message reminding me to sew. So far it has worked a little. :-) I'm working on my tree skirt, and a few other little projects. And I am psyching myself up to make a few dresses an skirts. I'll let you know how that goes.

The sewing machine was my mom's. She went to school for fashion design, and this was her first machine. So even though it goes all wonky from time to time, I love that it has a history. :-)

The Glassy Crafty Day :-)

I promised a recap of our crafty, glassy day where I invited a group  of my girlfriends over to play with some crafty stuff with me. There were a bunch of glass projects I have been wanting to try, and this seemed like the perfect time to try out a whole slew of them. And then we also threw in a hair flower craft for good measure, which was a big hit. :-) Here's how it played out:

I went shopping at the Salvation Army and bought up their entire selection of vases, votive holders and pretty glass cups. The lady at the checkout counter HATED me. :-) Although I did help her wrap everything up, which I thought was pretty nice of me.



Then I washed and de-price tagged it all. THAT was fun. :-)

My goal was to experiment with a few different projects - glass painting, glass coating and glass.. enhancing I guess you could call it. For Saturday, I just assembled all of the supplies, as well as a gallery on my laptop of inspiration ideas. Here are some of the crafts we did:

The glass painting (wine glass) was more difficult than I anticipated. The DIY mercury glass (silver votive) was super simple and easy, and the glass coating, (white cup and red vase) was time consuming but simple and fun.

It was a full house, and we had a blast.

I told the girls they could bring their own projects to work on, or do what we had planned. Most elected to do the crafts I had planned.

Not Andrea though. She's a rebel. :)

My sister in law Anna brought her daughter Becca with her. Becca is the sweetest girl I know. My friend Sara brought her daughter Lily, who is definitely the sweetest girl I know. And Andrea (the rebel) brought her daughter Grace, who is for sure the sweetest girl I know. The rest of us gals are daughter-less, so we just brought ourselves. :-) Speaking of sweet, my sis Steph brought these aMAzing cookies, that were scrumptious.

That's not Steph. That's Bekah and Chelsea. They are awesome girls. :-) This is Steph.

(on the right) :-)

Speaking of awesome food, Lover surpassed his usual awesome self and cooked us up an amazing array of treats. This is just a sample of what he made.

SO good. :-)

Gosh, my hair is getting really long. :-)

Grace made an adorable vase with polka dots and her initial on it.

Sara and Lily made mercury vases and hair flowers.

So that's pretty much it. We had a great time and made all sorts of fun stuff. Lover fed us so much we were all stuffed. And Andrea made up for her rebel self by bringing me flowers. :-)

Here are the links to the projects we made.

DIY Mercury Glass

Glass Painting with Markers

Coated Glass Bottles

I couldn't find a link to the type of hair flowers we made, with flannel and tulle, but if you google "hair flowers DIY" you'll get tons of results. All in all it was a super fun time and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Although maybe not right in the middle of a busy weekend with twelve other things on the schedule. My bad. :-)

A Better Wrapped Gift

One of my goals for the year is to be more original with my gift wrapping and presentation. I've learned over the years that if I present the gift that I got someone in a wrapping that is every bit as beautiful as the gift, it makes said gift ten times better. So I am really trying to ramp up my presentation. :-) Obviously, there are exceptions, like my two year old nephew who really only wants to rip open some paper and find the toy inside. But for my six year old niece, I tried to up the ante.

I used some cute polka dot wrapping paper from the dollar store, some black and pink ribbon, and a heart shaped paper doily as the gift tag. I think it came out cute and sweet. Where do you get your wrapping supplies from? I want to build up my stash, but not go broke in the process. :-)