The itch...

Every year around springtime, I get the urge to 'do stuff'. You know. Get creative, re-purpose things, redecorate, etc. Well, last night I got the itch. And I had to scratch it. I still have tons of thrift store/yard sale finds from last Spring/Summer sitting in my garage waiting to be finished (much to the chagrin of my husband). I bought this humongous picture frame... ...a while back at D.I. for $7 with big plans in mind. I got the idea from the talented Becky Higgins. You can see what she did here. Now, mine isn't nearly as amazing, but I think it turned out pretty cute! You can see that I spray painted the frame black, put some fabric on the back(which by the way, I got from Wal-mart. Sometimes they sell bolts of fabric for $5.)and then hung white frames inside. I wanted to just get 6 white frames and hang them just like Becky did, but Walmart only had 5 and when I have a project in mind, I need to finish it asap. So I settled for 4 and then the twofer in the middle. That works for right now. The pics are random and candid. Eventually we will get around to having family pics and then I will switch them out, but again, for the time being, this works for me. :) Here is a shot of it above our couch. You can see how massive it is. I wanted it to be the focal point. This is what people will see when they walk into our house. Right now, our living room colors are gold-ish, black, yellow, brown and accents of blue. My next task is to make the pillows that I bought stuff for last year too... This was super fun, and pretty easy. You should give it a try...scratch that itch, baby!

More Valentine's Projects...

Since I have been staying home with my sick Malia, I have had plenty of time to work on a few projects between long naps and endless movies. :) The first is a little notebook I found at Target and just recovered. It's pretty small (3.5x5.5) so I thought it would be a fun little thing to carry around with my in my purse. I am always saying "I love this" or "I love that". I thought it would be kinda neat to just carry this around with me and write down all the things I am always saying that I love. Hahaha. I'll keep ya posted on what goes in there... Here is a pic of it open. I put little heart eyelets in the front and back with ribbon strung through to hold it closed.

(Supplies used: Notebook from Target; Paper, Journaling Sticker, and Ribbon: American Crafts; tiny alpha stickers: Cosmo Cricket; and brads???I have been hoarding them since forever.)

Next, I made a little "Love Notes" tin with little cards for our family to write notes to each other.

I got this (it's about the size of a band-aid tin) at Robert's months ago. I didn't know quite what to do with it until now. I covered it with paper, added a few embellishments and added some little note cards to the inside.

Here are some of the cards:

(Supplies used: Tin from Robert's Craft; PP on outside: Scribble Scrabble; Trim, Rub-ons: American Crafts; Jewels: Imaginisce. For the inside note cards I used various things by Sassafras, American Crafts and some left over paper from the outside.)

I put the tin in a conspicuous spot so we can all remember to write little notes of appreciation and love to each other. Can't wait to see what happens with it!


Lastly, I made this simple print to frame as another V-Day decoration. The message is simple enough, that with a few tweaks to color, I could leave this up year round. Hmmm...

Hope you enjoy as much as I enjoyed creating!

Something *hard*ly simple...

This year, we decided to go simple for Christmas. That meant that I was going to do a lot of handmade gifts. I decided to make a 'simple' quilt for Malia, because she is that 4-year-old who is always carrying around her blankie. And quite frankly the ones she's been toting is a little grungy.

As you may have guessed from the title of my post, this was not the most simple thing I could have done. I (stupidly) decided that I wanted to hand-quilt a bunch of petal (?) shaped pieces of cream fabric onto my quilt of squares to give it a little more dimension. I actually adore the way it looks but it took Forever. Foooreevveer (imagine Squints Palledorous from Sandlot saying this really slowly. That's how long it took.)

But...I finally finished it on Christmas Eve Eve. Here is how it turned out:

I used the cutest fabric line from Basic Grey by Moda , supplemented by a few other fabrics I picked up at the lovely Wal-mart.

I love the colors! Also, notice how the edge is scalloped. Cute right!?

Now, this is before I washed it. After it is washed the edges of the cream fabric will fray up and look super cozy. I hope.


And here is the back. It made a really cute circle/flower pattern depending on how you look at it, which I love. But again, a lot of work.

Now, this quilt is far from perfect. This is only the second quilt I have ever finished, so I'm giving myself props for that, but the next one can only get better! (Don't think I'll be making one for a while though...

A Holiday Project...

So, I have been thinking and stressing about all of the things that I need to do before Christmas...and instead of doing them, I decided to make this little project inspired by the 'Holidays Handmade' week over at Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog. (If you want artsy,crafty inspiration click here!)

Anyway, here is a look at the process:

I started with a tiny 4x4 canvas that I have had lying around wondering what to do with since I went to *Spark*. I started with a tiny doily and used it as a template. I applied a layer of gesso over the canvas with an old gift card.

Then I drew a heart with some oil pastels and water-colored over the whole canvas.

Then I put some watered-down mustard acrylic paint to make it more greenish.


I wanted to make it sort of rustic and weathered so i dry-brushed some brown around the edges.

Then I took this small acrylic heart...

...and stamped some script on it with red staz-on ink, put a brad through the hole and poked it through my canvas over the top of my red drawn-on heart.
(Sorry, it's a horrible pic)

I wanted a little more going on in the center so I drew some green circles with oil pastels and applied a little more watercolor over the top.

Then, I used a small brush to paint the words on with acrylic paint.

I wasn't loving the way the white looked on my 'Joy' so I water-colored it red. I added some chipboard hearts that I embossed red to fill up the space. I also thought it needed a little something more on the outside (which in hindsight, I don't really think it did) so i painted a black line and a scallop.

Even though it didn't turn out 'perfect', it was so much fun and it's growing on me. Malia told me it was beautiful so...

Have a merry day!