Well, probably not, since my niece's birthday was in December. These are her combination late birthday/kindergarten graduation gift. I was going to make some fabric strap flip flops, like THESE, but then I found all these little jewel beads (that actually used to be my daughter's dress up bracelets, but she broke them) and inspiration hit.
Little bejeweled flip flops. So cute, right? Here's how I did it:
First up was gathering supplies. My daughter helped me sort out the pink, purple, and white ones.
{Upholstery thread, scissors, needles, the beads, hot glue. }
The beads had two sets of holes in them, so I threaded them like this.
There they are. I had measured the flip flop straps before, so I knew how many beads to thread.
I used hot glue to keep the beads down at first, but knew a little extra something would be a good idea if I really wanted these to wearable.
So I wrapped more threads around the threads that held the beads together. That sounds confusing. Here's the picture:
And then I was done. I sent them off one at a time and I can't wait for my niece (who is 6) to get them.
So this is beautiful, right? It's Anthropologie's Orimono pillow. I've loved it for awhile; it reminds me of THIS pillow I made, probably my favorite one ever.
Anyway, I finally gave it a try, so here's my version:
I love it pretty hard. I originally wanted to have a lot of different fabrics on it (like the inspiration), but I looked at my fabric stash and I just didn't have what I wanted. I also didn't want to buy any fabric for it. So I used my current favorite fabric (from a set of bed skirts found at a thrift store for a few bucks). For the design- I drew it all on the paper side of some Heat N Bond, cut out the flower as a whole, ironed it to the cloth, and then proceeded cutting a piece out one bit at a time and placing it on my cut out pillow front. It took some time. After I removed that paper bits and ironed it to the pillow, I did a zig zag around each little petal:
{That also took some time.}
So, like I said, I love it pretty hard. If I ever find the blue pom pom trim I bought to got around the edges of the pillow, I'll probably unpick the whole thing and add it in. Then I'll love it even more. Even more than a fat kid loves cake. But that's only if I ever find that trim.
After the red one, I made a few more. I'll probably sell them in my Etsy shop, but we'll see. They might end up as gifts.
{I would keep this one, too, but the greens look really gross with my wall color.}
I'm not exactly sure what I was going for with this last one. Maybe a wonky chevron/modern interpretation of waves? I still like it, regardless.
So, any opinions out there on what I should do with them? Or how much I should sell them for?
I had some surprise morning glories come up a week or so ago and realized I needed a trellis sooner rather than later. Instead of heading to the store to look around, I decided to see what we had in the shed that might work. I found several antique gardening tools that I thought might be kind of neat, so I propped them up all together and voila!
Also, a note about morning glories- I'm talking about for-real morning glories, not bindweed. This variety that's coming up here is Star of Yelta. Now let's talk about the tools I used. Can you see the little claw hand on the middle handle? Here's a close up:
What is that? I thought it was kind of crazy, so I left it at the top instead of just the handle. It looks like a creepy little hand.
I thought my improvised trellis went well with the super old ladder I'm using as a plant stand on the other side of the front door:
Before we got our new awesome ladder, Mike would actually use this one to get up on our roof. Yikes. I'm much more comfortable with it as yard decor.
And now, where I've been:
Weeding. And potty training. And having down time on the couch when I overdo it and my back can't take it.
Why weeding has taken over my life: We have a lot of perennial flower beds at our house. Like a lot. And with the recent lawn stuff that's been happening, I added even more (my dad thinks I'm crazy- he might be right). Regardless of my sanity, they're lovely and they really add to the cottage-y feel of the house:
That bed in front of the brick raised bed is a new one, that's why it's so sparse right now. Just give it a year and it'll fit right in.
I'll spare you pictures of the potty training process (I'm pretty sure I don't have any, anyway) as well as pictures of me laying on the couch looking super pregnant and pathetic. Speaking of pregnant- I'm 35 weeks now! Just a little over a month and I'll have a brand new little girl! I have a lot of sewing planned for her- mostly onsie dresses. We'll see if I actually get it done before I go into labor, though. I wouldn't bet on it.
I'm sure I'm not the first person who has ever thought of this, but my mom thought it was really great and wasn't something she'd done before (and I have 5 siblings), so I'd thought I'd put it up here.
Mim is big into hopping these days, as well as shapes and colors. So now when we go outside to do sidewalk chalk, it turns into a learning game where I draw a bunch of different shapes on the patio and then ask her to jump (or stomp, or stand on one leg on) the shape I name. It's really fun. We've tried it with letters and numbers before, as well (she didn't like that as much as just the shapes or colors).
Here's what I mean:
In this variation, I only drew circles (her favorite shape- "Mo kirkle, pees?") and then had her find all the ones of the same color. Anyway, there's about a million ways you could adapt or modify this and if you're looking for something to do with your little kids this summer, give it a try!
Sigh. Now the whole blogging world (because I assume everyone reads this blog) knows that my feet are totally shaped like flippers. Seriously. I have a skinny little heel, but by the time you get to my toes, my feet are overflowing a normal sandal. Ahwell.
I found the tutorial here. So awesome and comfy. I'm going to make more pairs, too. For $2.50 (I got the flip flops at Old Navy), why wouldn't I?
So the reason I've been MIA so long- the yard. We've tried to get some major work done this year, and with the help of a lot of family, it's coming together. I was going to wait to post about this until it was all grown in and perfect, but I just can't wait anymore.
Our house when we first moved in:
{Summer 2008}
A little red house, so so cute, but with some things that we wanted to change.
Goodbye huge tree that was wonderful in many ways but too close to the house and hello new windows:
{Spring 2009}
Goodbye to the curb that bisected the property:
{Spring 2010}
Goodbye grass (we had to take it out so we could level the yard and give the entire property a nice grade):
{Early summer 2010}
Not pictured: the ugliest non-lawn ever. There's a gap in between these two pictures of about 4 months. We spent the rest of our lawn budget on getting an air conditioning unit for the summer (so worth it), and so after the grass was removed, the weeds came up like crazy and everything was bumpy and awful. It was the crappiest lawn ever.
It's flat! (It mostly was, at least. We still had to work on the grade in several places. Oh, and we still have to fix the back.)
{Fall 2010}
A new sprinkler system as of this spring (this is where the process started feeling more constructive and less destructive):
{Spring 2011}
The last of the stump gone, a final grade, and grass seed!
{Spring 2011}
My picket fence. I adore it. Also, you can't tell in this picture, but there's a green tint on the dirt now that is actually the grass sprouting:
{Early summer 2011}
And finally, grass:
Coming in late summer 2011.
Still a lot to do. The back has definitely suffered with all the focus on the front, but hopefully we'll be able to make some progress on it before winter. Hopefully. The biggest lesson I've learned from this is that everything yard-wise takes at least twice as long and costs twice as much.
Other yard progress includes a vegetable garden, which I'm going to post about now.
I know, right?! My project list is still growing all the time, and lately I've knocked out some big yard landscaping stuff (and by "I," I mean my family), but I'm waiting for that to be ready for some dramatic after pictures before I blog about it. Anyway, I was inspired Saturday by the awesome weather to get out and get one of my little projects done that I thought of a long time ago. It also helped seeing all those painted rugs out there in blogland. My front door mat before:
Yeah, I just got the cheapest one there was when I bought them 3 years ago. But now:
It's much better. I was going to do a multi-layer stencil, with leafy branch stencils in the background, but I thought I better keep it simple to make sure it would even work. I used my Silhouette to make a vinyl stencil and just used spray paint. I was worried that I would get lots of seepage around the edges because of the texture of the rug, but it turned out ok. It probably helped that I stepped on the stencil once it was positioned, to really seal the vinyl to the rug. I'll have to see how it holds up, but even if it doesn't last the summer, it's not like I'm out anything.
Here it is in position. I like it. You'll have to imagine some bright flowers in the planter and some sweet potato vine coming down on the other side, where I have another planter you can't see in the photo. Looking at this picture makes me want to go paint my other outdoor mat right now, but alas, it is raining like crazy.
I couldn't just leave those flower pots empty, right? Enter styrofoam balls, dollar store flowers, cheap grapevine wreaths, and sheet moss. Mike actually thinks these are pretty neat (not that he dislikes my other stuff, he's just mostly indifferent). The original plan was to cover all the spheres in moss, but after doing three I was pretty sick of working with the stuff and its mess, and I had the leftover leaves from the pulled apart dollar store flowers, so that's where the guy on the left comes from. I'm loving it.
Yep, still loving it. Tonight I embark on an electrical journey.
Doesn't my front door look friendly? Check out the view as you approach:
Look at that columbine bush. Look at it. Doesn't all that yellow make you feel even more cheerful? The snow flattened it out, but I was able to perk it up some (I keep trying, too. I feel like I'm a physical therapist for plants). There are marigolds in the black planter, too. Then, in a month or so, the hollyhocks behind it will bloom, as well as the daisy plant next to it. Ahhhhh. So, six bucks for the wreath. Months ago I was at the Dollar Tree and they had bunches of gerbera daisies that I thought didn't look too bad. I think I got 3 bunches. A few days after that, I started making this wreath and realized I would not have enough. So back to the Dollar Tree, where I got the last 3 bunches. Whew. To make it, all I did was take a straw wreath I had lying around (it seems like craft stores always run out of them, so I bought three last time I saw them), used needle nose pliers to trim the flower stems to 3 or 4 inches, and then just stuck them in the wreath form. I didn't even use glue. I did another thing pretty recently-
So, this is already after I painted it the first time. I love the big ceramic planters. Oh, I love them so much. But they cost about a million dollars (or they might as well). So this is a cheap plastic urn from Lowe's that was originally light gray. My big idea was to try and paint it so I would look like a glazed ceramic. I used two shades of blue and then a brownish metallic color, which is what the picture is above. I didn't do too bad of a job, but I ended up not liking it as much as I thought I would. Then, I remembered a few days ago that I had some leftover blue ocean breeze (you know, the color I would marry).
Boo to making it look real. I love the robin's egg blue and red combo, so I love this next to the house. Also, you can see why I wanted a big planter in this spot. Mike tore out the wood staircase early this year (or maybe late last year) and the spots that were covered by it before are now exposed and ugly. Since we're not repainting until the fall, hopefully the plants in that blue planter will grow and cover that yucky spot. I'll cover the other yucky spot under the door with a board.
I am all about spray painting planters. That yellow one used to be almost the same boring gray as the urn. Speaking of which, I found a much better place for one of the shades of blue that participated in its faux ceramic look:
Mike got me a jigsaw for my birthday because he's awesome, so I put it to some use yesterday. I used sheet moss over drywall. I was going to use wood, but then remembered the drywall that I had gotten from Home Depot for free a few days before. I needed about a 6"x6" piece for a patch in our living room, and when I asked if they sold it in pieces smaller than the sheets, the guy just gave me a piece a couple feet square that they were going to throw away. So, the patch is done, and the rest of it was just the right size for this big letter J. You know, for Johnson. I already had the moss and the burlap for hanging, so it cost nothing. I free-handed the letter- it's an imitation of the Elephant font in Word. I think I'll embellish it a little more, add some little blossoms or something, but I love it plain, too. Jigsaws are awesome.
I added this little bit to the new bookcase after I did that letter. I've had the moss forever, I think I just forgot about it. And now-I'm so proud of this- the newly repainted kitchen! True, I did paint just after we moved in, so it hadn't been 2 years since I first painted, but I hated the color. I just wanted a tan, but the tan I chose, as it turns out, had very strong red undertones. It looked pink. I gave it a year to see if it would grow on me, but last fall I decided I would be repainting. So I finally got to it last week. Before:
During:
After:
I took the before picture in natural light, since that's when it looked the least pink. In the second picture you can see the contrast between the two paints and my awesome laundry board nook. I've had the door off of that since we moved in- somehow it didn't get painted when it had the chance and it just ended up in the garage forever. But it's finally back on- much better. And I'd been dying to use chalkboard paint, so it worked out perfectly. And I've put flowers in those little planters on the table now- red poppies. The pail next to the laundry board cubby is to hold chalk and an eraser. I've started my first quilt. Pictures to come.
I've been looking for a big trunk or chest for our living room (no luck so far) and checked out several consignment shops last Saturday. At the Mona Lisa consignment in AF, there wasn't a trunk, but there were these little wood plaques that had old seed packets mod-podged onto them. I loved it, so I made my own (the plaques, about 2"x4", were 12$ a piece). Here's my version:
I had the frames lying around (the one on the right was actually another little project- I painted and added the beads, like this one, sans butterflies), and the burlap, and got the seed packets at walmart for 20 cents a piece. I also tried to age the packets a little bit, but you can't tell in the picture. I crumpled them up and folded them a bunch and rubbed them on the burlap to make the creases look old. I also added some dirt.
My next framing idea was inspired by something I saw at Gardner Village forever ago, and then was reminded when I saw the skeleton keys at the consignment shop (for 4-5$ each- I remember being in high school and going to Star Mill before it was all prettied up and getting a whole jar of skeleton keys for that same price). Anyway, since I didn't want to spend that much on them, I just googled "skeleton keys" and found this place and bought a bunch there for a lot less. I actually already owned that first big jailer's set- I got it at Tai Pan awhile ago. So, on my bookcase I now have this:
I might paint the frame, but I don't know. Seems like all of my frames have been painted now, so I kind of wanted to leave one natural.
