Thanks Pinterest

More purposeful crafts ideas from Pinterest!

I'm not sure what's come over me in the last year or 2, maybe it's the realization that I'm really in my 30's and should probably look the part a bit more, but I have rekindled my love of shoes and developed an intense appreciation for fashion jewelry.  That appreciation can mostly be attributed to a fabulous store, Charming Charlie!

We have a wonderful outdoor mall that's really close to our place and several times last summer while walking past the store I expressed to B my desire to go in.  He'd always tell me to go in and take a look but I made the assumption that it was a super chic and expensive store so I always decided not to torture myself.  Well once while at the mall with a friend I decided to throw caution to the wind and went in...

I loved, loved, loved the layout of the store; everything is color coordinated! And then there were the prices...absolutely nothing like I had assumed...I walked out with 2 sets (necklace and matching earrings) that day.  I have returned many times sense, and that explains my need for my next Pinterest projects:  Jewelry Storage!

I went back to Michael's and bought another (smaller) unfinished open back frame. Some craft paint in a shade of my favorite color and some pretty damask ribbon from Joann's.  A towel bar, window screening, and circular screws from Lowe's; some "S" shaped shower curtain holders from Walmart and bugged my neighbor to cut a piece of wood that I had laying around my house...and then I went to work!

Hair Bow Frame

For years I have had the intention of making one of those awesome hair bow frames and well, I just never got around to it until now.  Like I've said previously I enjoy making crafts but I especially appreciate and love crafts that serve a purpose or solve a problem.  And my current problem is what to do with the growing number of bows that I have for the girls.  I have moved them from box to box to larger box and they are now bursting out of said larger box.  Add to that the fact that I am STILL making MORE bows for them, it was past time for me to solve the problem once and for all.

So I went to Michael's and bought a 16x20 unfinished open back frame:

Painted it a beautiful, bright lavender:

Mixed some purple glitter with Mod Podge and apply it to make it sparkle:

Added some pretty rainbow colored ribbon using a hot glue gun:

Hot glued on a pretty flower that matched some of the flecks of glitter and hung on the wall:

Added some of the bows (enough to keep it looking neat) and took a final picture:

Chalkboard Menu

I have completed my first (non-recipe) Pinterest project as well as my first project using my Silhouette Cameo.

It has solved a huge problem I had; remembering what I planned to make for dinner at the end of the week.  I always plan the menu for the week on Sunday night and then go grocery shopping on Monday.  By the time Thursday or Friday rolls around I have usually lost my list AND forgot what was on the menu.

I didn't have a beautiful armoire like the original one I attempted to mimic but I do have some pretty crafty friends.  One is really good at carpentry so I bought the materials (wood board and an open photo frame) and cut it all down to the size I wanted.

I am extremely satisfied by how it turned out and it is serving it's purpose extremely well!

Crochet

I decided it was time to expand my needle craft repertoire and give crocheting a try.  I've been wanting to make some bows that look like roses and none of the knitting patters I tried were working to my satisfaction.  So I searched and found a crochet pattern and decided to give it a go with some help from Youtube.  I have made a few to give to friends and one for each of my girls to wear at Christmas.  The photo below is not my first attempt but it is my best one to date, it has taken me a while to get used to the whole crocheting process.

It All Started with Knitting...

I've officially gone off the deep end!  The crafting deepend anyway.

I am now the proud owner of a sewing machine...and an apron.  What do the two have to do with each other?  Well when my grandma gave me a sewing machine I figured I'd need to know how to use it.  So I devised a plan that I would buy a pattern and materials and while visiting my mom in NC she could teach me to sew using the stuff I had bought.  Great plan, right?

So what pattern did I end up buying?  Yep, you guessed it...an apron.  Those who know me best will see the irony in this:  first off, I own a sewing machine; second the first thing I chose to sew was an apron!  Since when do I spend enough time in the kitchen to justify the use of an apron?  Since when do I get excited about having a sewing machine?  Why do I get all googly-eyed over KitchenAid mixers that I can't afford (or justify buying anyway)?  Why do I fall head over hills for any item in black and white damask print?  Why do I have more recipes than I know what to do with?  I'm the girl that always hated cooking, remember?

I have become the woman I never though I would be, the woman I never thought I wanted to be, I'm...domesticated.  How did I get here?  When did this start?  I blame knitting, it's been all downhill (or uphill) from there.

But in my defense, I still hate to clean, so I guess I'm not fully domesticated!  Whew! ;)

Anyway's, here's my creation!  My favorite print combined with my favorite color!  Thanks Mom for all your help, I really enjoyed our bonding time!

Christmas Bows

This year, unlike past years, I had a difficult time finding Christmas dresses for the girls that I really loved. And so I settled for dresses that I thought were okay but I was determined to make them better.  And so I set out to make flower pins for the dresses and matching bows for their hair.  I knitted several different bows and liked none of them until I saw the end result of a couple bows which I had knitted for a friend at church.  I then knew which bows I'd be making for the girls!

Here's the end result:

Bows for their hair

Slightly smaller pins for their dresses.

The First Gingerbread House

A few weeks ago Y started asking if she could build a gingerbread house, so finally last week I decided that we would do it...soon!  I just had to decide between buying one of the kits which range from $8-$10 or use graham crackers and make my own icing and buy all the candy.  Finally after considering it I figured that it'd be cheaper to buy the kit than spend the money on buying all different types of candy - especially since we only wanted to make one house.  So we decided that building the gingerbread house would be our FHE (Family Home Evening for my non-LDS readers) activity on Sunday.

Y was excited and so she rushed through dinner and the FHE lesson and was ready to build her house.  I did all the structural work and then we put on all the candy and icing.  As for the icing she told me what she wanted and where she wanted it and I went to work.  For the most part she stuck to the design of the picture which was on the box. 

Here are some pictures, I think it turned out pretty well!

I love that it comes with a tray with indentions for "structural support."  It was 100 times easier than building with graham crackers!

The hardest part of the whole thing was getting the tree and gingerbread boy to stand up straight...don't let the picture fool you, it was quite difficult!

Yep...her face is covered in sugar and icing.  I'm surprised we managed to get her in bed so easily.

The finished product

Aerial view

"Princess" Board

I'm not the most creative or original person you'll ever meet!  I am, however, really good at duplicating something I like when I see it.  And so when I saw this post over at Baby Makin(g) Machine (a blog which I read frequently) I just knew that I wanted to make something similar for my princess.  I just had one hang-up, when I originally read the post I knew that we were planning to start trying for baby #2 in the coming months.  And since Y and baby #2 were going to be sharing a room, I wanted to wait until 1) we were pregnant and 2) we knew the gender.  So in March, after our ultrasound, the wheels started to turn in my head.

I should interject that I'm very fortunate to have some very talented and crafty friends here locally.  I spoke with one of these friends regarding what I wanted and she gave me some awesome ideas to make the project even better.  She has a vinyl cutter and I simply emailed her to see if she would be able to create the vinyl for me but she also gave me the idea of using scrapbooking paper behind the vinyl.  On top of that great idea she also recommended that I contact a mutual friend, who is amazing at carpentry and woodworking, to shape the edges of the board so it wasn't so boxy and gave it more of a finished look. 

The project is finally finished and I am super excited about it, I fall in love with it again every time I walk into the room!  Here you can see pictures of the progress from start to finish!
 

I started with a regular 1" thick board from Lowe's which measured 12" wide and 4' long.  I can't remember what it cost but I think it was somewhere between $6 and $10.

 

The edges after being shaped by a friend.



I choose to stain the wood instead of paint it.  I wanted a cherry wood color that would match all the furniture in their room and the closest I could find was called Red Mahogany by Minwax.  It's not a perfect match but it's close enough!

 

Here's the board after I added the scrapbooking paper.  It's super easy to do, all you need is Mod Podge and the paper of your choice.  First, cut the paper to the size you need to fit the board, apply a small amount of Mod Podge to the board and then apply the paper.  After all paper is applied to the board allow it to dry and then apply Mod Podge to the top of the paper.

 

Take some measurements and apply the vinyl.  I was sort of paranoid because I have never applied such a large piece of vinyl so I just had my friend help me out with that part.  She was a huge help and had some techniques I never would have thought of.



The final project hanging above their window.  The window is just over 6ft wide so you can probably understand why I needed the board to be so big.

 

In case you're wondering why I didn't chose a polka-dot scrapbooking paper which would certainly match the decor of the room a little better, it's because I needed a paper that was both feminine and would grow with them.  I'm sure that eventually I, and they, will outgrow my polka-dot obsession and so I went with a more neutral paper.  In either case, I think it turned out perfectly.


I'm pretty relieved to finally have this complete!  Baby Q will be here within a week and a half and fortunately my to-do list is dwindling down.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Ok, the truth is that I didn't invent anything but I did have a necessity and so I decided to create a solution.  To get to the point I'll give you a little background info.

I picked out Y's Christmas dress really early this year.  By "picked out" I mean I saw it and I knew it was the one I wanted, I went in an bought it a few weeks later, which was still over a month ago.  But from the moment I saw the dress, I knew what I wanted for her hair when she wore the dress.  I wanted a Poinsettia clip that I could either use as a bow or with a black or white crocheted headband depending on my (and her) mood.



The Dress - it's paired with red tights and black shoes.

Seems pretty easy, right??  Yeah, I thought so too.  So I started checking out stores when I first saw "the dress," looking for the bow I wanted.  I never found it and I attributed this to the fact that I was still way ahead of the Christmas outfit game.  So I would look every now and again as I went in stores and I'd also peruse different Etsy shops as well as Ebay and Amazon.  Each time I'd come up disappointed.  And finally, about a week ago, a few options showed up on Etsy and Ebay but then I hit another wall...they were asking $5-10 plus shipping for ONE bow.  I didn't wanna spend that much on a single bow that I couldn't even hold or touch before deciding if I actually wanted it.  (Note:  had it been in-store for $5 I probably would have bought it but when you add in shipping fees - $3.25 to ship a bow that doesn't even weigh 2oz is crazy to me - I had to pass).
So I began looking at craft shops for flowers to make my own bow...this lead to more disappointment and frustration!!!  I kept coming up empty handed at every store I went to...until I went to the store I felt was least likely to have what I was looking for.  And I was right in my assumption, sort of.  They didn't have what I was looking for in the form that I was looking for it but they, unlike all the previous stores, did have something that would help me improvise and CREATE what I was looking for.  They had this:

Armed with the right tools and necessary embellishments, I created this:



The first was taken without flash and the second with flash, neither is very good but the lighting was pretty crappy.

And the best part is I only ended up costing me about $1 per bow and I made 12 bows, which I will be sharing with my niece and some friends here locally!

My Latest Project

I freely admit it...I am becoming domesticated! To many this probably doesn't seem like a big deal or anything to write a post about. But those who have known me the longest will probably be pretty surprised by this admittance. You see, I was never the one to cook, bake, make things, and definitely would not entertain the notion of being a stay at home mom. But people change and evolve based on their life circumstances - I am living proof.



While in college at Virginia Tech, my roommate LeAnn always wanted me to cook or bake with her. She would come home from class and I would likely be taking a nap (I typically had 8am classes or had to work early) and she would swing open my door and yell: "U, let's make some cookies." At first it was a little weird and then it became funny because she knew that I had no intention of making cookies with her, but she would come in and jump on my bed or whatever it took, but I still never made those cookies. I really think she just got all her joy out of waking me from my long naps.



Fast forward a few years and now I enjoy cooking, baking (when I have the time), and LOVE to try new recipes. The weird thing is that it changed almost overnight. One day I hated everything to do with a kitchen and the next day I got married and loved cooking. I remember relatives asking B what he was going to do since I couldn't cook. I always corrected them by saying, "It's not that I can't cook, it's that I DON'T cook." Once we were married I actually found joy in it...maybe I just needed someone to cook for.

A similar thing happened once I became pregnant. I developed a new found interest in crafts. I would find things that I wanted to put in Y's room and then I would decide that instead of spending a ton of money to buy it I would spend a little money and a lot of time in order to make it myself. Well once she was born AND I was in school the projects pretty much ceased but recently they have started again. You all saw my Christmas cards, well immediately after I finished those I started on another project - hair bows for Y!!! She was born with so much beautiful curly hair that I always wanted to put things in it. Last year it was headbands, which I still love! Unfortunately Y doesn't nearly love them as much as me and as soon as she realizes it is on she pulls it off. I went out and purchased many bows but either couldn't find all the colors I wanted or didn't wanna pay the price that it cost to buy all the colors I wanted. So I did a little research online and found FREE instructions on bow making, found 2 that I liked and went to town making the bows. Fortunately I was able to find a website that sells Grosgrain ribbon by the yard because I didn't wanna purchase full spools of ribbon for the small amount that I actually needed for each bow.



Anyway, I'll quit rambling now but here's a picture of my latest completed project. If you're wondering what is next, I'm teaching myself to knit. I've already started, haven't created any masterpieces yet but when I do you can be sure that I'll post them here!