Square Holly Wreath

I am so in love with this holly wreath I made last night!  Using tips from the YouTube video by Custom Crops I changed it up a bit and made a square wreath with varying shades of green.

This is possibly my all time favorite crafted Christmas project ever and it was super easy to make with supplies on hand!

Always,
K

Rosette Tree

I wanted to share the results of the tree I made out of the dyed rosettes I posted the other day.

I absolutely love how it turned out and it looks great in my Christmas nook.  More pictures to come soon to include a couple of other trees I crafted this year and some garlands I am working on.

Always,

K

Rosettes & Dye

Lately I've been into making Lollies (a la Margie Romney Aslett).  I've shared a few of my Halloween ones, but in case you missed them you can find them here.
My favorite part is making the rosettes for the lollies.  I have literally made over 100 of them with no specific plans for them, but just because it keeps my hands busy. I keep them in a basket in my studio and grab one or three to use once inspiration strikes or if I need a quick package decoration.

It's a great way to use up old scrapbook paper (which I have TONS of).
Sometimes I find myself pulling out a piece of scrapbook paper and wondering what the heck I was thinking when I bought it.  Luckily, it finds new life as a rosette!
I discovered a paper stack that I bought that had all pastel colors.  So not me.  So I made some rosettes.

Still not me.  So I decided to try my hand at dying them.  I had some food coloring dye already made for dying doilies and just dipped these suckers in. I love the effect it gave:

Here is a side by side comparison:

You can see the dye I was using was a teal color (I just mixed green and blue food coloring) and it really looks cool in the folds.
I have about 5 or 6 more of these blue rosettes drying for a project I hope to share with you soon.
I also dyed a music paper rosette to see how it turned out and I like that one as well:

Here's a peak at the doilies that started my dye testing:

They didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. I think it's because of the coating they have on them.

I'm all ready to incorporate all of these dyed items into a Christmas project.  I hope to share it with everyone soon!

Always,
K

Time Keeps On Ticking...Ticking...Ticking...

Today is my birthday,  (Happy Birthday, to me!)  so I thought it was appropriate to share this project.  I've had this clock for over 20 years.  I remember buying 2 of the same clocks at JC Penney's when I got my first apartment.  I paid $10 each and I guess it was worth it because this baby is still going strong.

I was a bad crafter and forgot to take before pictures, but I found this picture on google that is similar to the before on this clock, but not exactly the same thing.  It was basically a gold frame with a gold interior with Roman Numerals.  This was NEVER my style, but for some reason the clock has lasted many, many moves.

The after picture is much more "me".  (I never realized how hard it is to take a picture of a clock, so it's not a great pic!)

It was a very quick re-do.  I took the clock apart and spray painted the frame black.  While that was drying I cut some aqua polka dotted paper, found at Joann's, for the inside, added a circle punched book page, some mylar numbers I've had forever and some Prima paper flowers with a little bling in the middle in place of the other numbers.

I'm so so happy with it!  

This project can be done with any clock that you can take apart.  This one was a little tricky because the hands of the clock were not removable, so I had to adapt my paper around it, but you can hardly tell!

A small warning...the hands of a clock are very sensitive.  They bend easily and will cause you to put together and take the clock apart several times in order to get them to not run into each other and cause you to lose time .  Trust me on this - Test it before you put it back together.

Hope your day is as bright as mine!

Always,

K

Boo-tiful!

My sister, Jean, and I spent Saturday on a Halloween Crafting Extravaganza!  Armed with the latest class from Margie Romney Aslett (is that woman a genius or what?!?) and our dollar store loot, we set out to actually accomplish something.  Any, OMG, did we!
Here are a few of my finished projects:

I actually finished one more and almost finished another, but I haven't taken pictures yet.

If you have not invested in or heard about Margie's Spark classes, I urge you to check them out.  So so so worth the small investment! (And just for the record - I don't know Margie or have any incentive to give a good review other than the fact that I just discovered her through my sister and want to share the love! ♥)

I'll share the other projects next time!

Always,

K

Ahhhhh! Nature! It's all over me! Get it off!

Turns out that this lil girl:

Yes, the one looking all guilty as sin:

Has a fascination with all things frogs.  Our new house is inundated with frogs and toads.  Big toads.  Ugly toads.  Jumpy toads.  And this girl considers herself the self proclaimed Toad Terminator.  If you don't mind gently freeing said toads from her mouth like J, is no big deal. I mind.  I'm more of a Nature From Afar kinda gal and I'm not touching the toads.  

This one has chosen to withstand the Toad Terminator and live under the drain spout on our bottom deck. We named him Yoda and I used a zoom lens to take this picture because dude looked ready to get all froggy with me and jump. (Apparently 6 is the number of times you can let a flash go off in a toad's face before they get all jumpy - just fyi)

So anyway, like my favorite quote from Melman the giraffe in the movie Madagascar says: Ahhhhh! Nature! It's all over me! Get it off!  

Totally sums me up.

Always,

K

Settling In

No one ever told me that being a homeowner is such hard work!  We keep finding more that needs to be done on the house (fill the 2 foot deep hole under the porch, pull up the disgusting fake carpet outside the lower deck and seed, clean the dryer vent, clean all of the window tracks to get out all of the gross science experiments growing there...you get the picture) before we can actually get to the fun stuff!

I am so tired of cleaning and doing maintenance. And by "I", of course I'm referring to J doing all this while I helped (ie made things worse).  I had to do some nesting. Even if it was a touch here and there.

Last weekend, Jean and I found a couple of gently used bar stools at the local Good Will for $10 each.  They were perfect except for the fabric part.  

 A quick trip to Joann's and a yard of fabric later and ta-da!  I'm still planning to paint the chairs white at some point to match the kitchen better, but this was just the pick-me-up I needed to make the house a little bit more like home!

I also made myself a cozy little corner of our new to us couch donated by a great friend, Mary Beth.  The vintage yo-yo throw was found by my Mom years ago at a yard sale and the denim pillow is something I made last weekend when I was itching to sew.  

So, slowly but surely, we are settling in and creating our own home!

Always,

K

Homeowner's At Last!

I've been away for quite awhile, but with good reason.  J and I became homeowners earlier this month!  Our landlord for 8 years decided to move back into the property we were renting, which gave us the push that we needed to find a home we could call our own and it's been a whirlwind of activity over the last few months.
Here is our new place before we moved in:

We just moved in a little over a week ago, so we are still living in box central, but we are slowly making progress.

J is not so interested in the interior decor, but he has already started working on our curb appeal!  The man has limitless energy and Home Depot has become like his second home!  The bush to the left of the stairs is already gone, as is the straggly rosebush under the window and the ill-placed satellite dish.
He is still working on the front of the house, but I will share pictures soon.

As for me, I'm still "nesting" and haven't quite gotten used to this being our home. I love the master bath with a soaking tub (something I've always dreamed of!) and the huge deck overlooking the woods is the perfect place to relax in the evening.  Our previous place was in an older, crowded neighborhood and on a main street, so we were used to hearing traffic and fire engines and police cars scream through constantly.
The new house is at the end of a quiet court surrounded by woods and all that we hear at night is crickets and frogs.  (I've also been warned that the foxes make quite a racket sometimes, but we haven't had that yet.)

But the best part of the new house is that I'm super close (like one street away close) to my sister, Quilted Cupcake, which means tons more sister sewing and crafting time!

I can't wait to share our before and after pics of our progress.  Our to do list is crazy long, but it's so much more worth is when you are working on turning your own house into a home!

Always,
K

She Art

My latest obsession has nothing to do with fabric & sewing and everything to do with mixed media art.  I used to scrapbook and stamp and used mixed media there, but She Art is new to me. (Apparently it's been around a few years, I just never came across it.)

So I decided to try my hand.  I bought a bundle of 8x10 canvases at AC Moore with my 40% off coupon and pulled out my old stamping and scrapbooking supplies for the reast.  

Not sure how it would go (and wanting to be able to return the canvases if i hated it) I also uncovered a small 6x6 canvas that had a design on it to use as a test.

After modgepodging book pages over the design, I went to work and ended up with this:

I love how it turned out and I loved the process.  I can't wait to make more!  With all of the tons of supplies I already have on hand, I think I found a cheap new creative release.

If you want to learn how to create your own She Art, check out this pinterest pin from the Queen of She Art, Christy Tomlinson of Scarlet Lime.

Always,

K

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, Blogland!  I've been adding more bunnies to my collection.  For some reason they keep ending up blue.  I also made the eggs by modge podging old book pages to plastic eggs from the dollar store.

For the bunnies,I used the free pattern from my sister, Quilted Cupcake.  So quick, easy and fun!

You can find the pattern here.  Enjoy!

Always,

K

Thrifty Finds

My sisters and sister-in-law attended he AQS quilt show in Lancaster, PA this past week.  Unfortunately, I was unimpressed with the quilt show.  I had attended in 2011, then skipped last year and found that this year seemed pretty much the same.  While I found lots of pretty fabric, for some reason the Wow Factor was missing.  We spent three days in Lancaster and only 3 hours at the show.

I always love trips to Lancaster for visits to my favorite places like Zook's Fabric Store, Goods Store & Shady Maple.  This time my sister, Jean, and I spent most of our time in the local thrift stores as well.
My favorite was definitely Re-Uzit .  We went to two different locations (New Holland and Ephrata) and we definately scored some great stuff.  The prices were so low compared to the Baltimore area thrift stores, we went a little crazy!

One of my favorite finds was a bunch of vintage scissors for .25 to .50 each.  They immediately found a home in my craft room in a small square jar.

We also found a ton of zippers - some vintage, some newer.  They found a home in a half gallon mason jar that is place conveniently in my sewing area.  We each got a huge bag of reclaimed zippers for 1.00.

I immediately tried my hand at something I've been dying to try - a zipper flower. 

I used this great tutorial I found on Pinterest.   I'm super happy at how it turned out and can't wait to make more.  (Note to those who may try this: Cut the zippers with scissors, cutting with a rotary cutter may lead to slicing your finger open and interrupting your project for 15-20 minutes while you apply pressure and bandage the wound.  Further note: If you do end up with a bandaged finger, it works really well to block the hot glue from burning you.)

Look for another post soon to share more thrifty finds including linens and reclaimed wood finds from a roadside store.

Always,
K