Pinterest Project: Yarn Covered Alphabet Soup

I've seen all kinds of creative letters on pinterest since joining the site a couple of months ago. Also a couple of months ago I found two white wooden letters at Michaels on clearance for a buck. An "H" and a "T" I wanted to find a "V" but no luck. That's what happens with clearance aisles.

Well the letters have sat there, waiting for me to make them beautiful. And finally I decided to go the yarn-wrapped route. I used yarn I already had at home that I also thought would look nice in my dining/office space. And it ended up looking like this.

Wrapping an "H" in yarn is hard work folks. My friend Rachel informed me it was challenging, and although it didn't take me the 8 hours it took her, I did watch a good portion of the Green Zone, a war flick that was quite enticing in both plot and man eye candy.

Anyway it wasn't perfect and I knew I wanted it to look a little fancier than that so I thought about the 40 flowers I made in this post and remembered the grey fabric I had leftover from my yellow and grey cork board project as well as a scrap of coral V's mom gave us when we got our sewing machine. These grey and coral flowers would be perfect!

So I stitched some up. I crafted this new beauty by folding a strip on the grey fabric in half and sewing then cinching it into the prettiest little flower. It's my new fabric flower love! With pretty little finished edges, doesn't it look gorgeous?

I made a five other assorted flowers and for this little grey pretty and it's twin made in coral I stitched a little hex nut into the center of the flowers as I liked that look better than the colored buttons I had in my craft bin.  Then stitched them onto the "H" for the perfect little item for my shelf.

Sitting pretty on top of a couple of books! 

Now what to do with the "T"? V wants it covered with comic book images, perhaps I'll appease him and modge podge something up, after all it is for his namesake not mine!

Don't Forget About Breast Cancer Awareness

We are halfway through October which boggles my brain to no end. But what boggles my mind even more is that this year's Breast Cancer Awareness celebration seems to have come and gone already. A trip to the grocery store at the beginning of the month was an overwhelming reminder with pink flowers and packaging around every corner. 

Then the move Five came out to a small fanfare. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out, it is directed by several of Hollywood's famous women and is a very good portrayal of the effects of breast cancer on women and their families. 

Then Giuliana Rancic was extremely brave and announced her diagnosis live on the Today Show. 

Maybe it's because I've been a little secluded as of late but I just haven't seen as much about it this year. I find this disappointing because this disease touches so many of us and early detection is so important to recovery. 

My most vivid memory of breast cancer stems from when I was much younger, a teenager, living at home and learning that my mom's best friend, Julie, had been diagnosed. She seemed so young, so vibrant, and I wondered how it was possible for her to be sick. I will never forget the image of her smiling through what must have been the very difficult task of shaving her hair after her treatments left it falling out on its own. We all gathered on our back patio and her husband and my mom did the honors. And through it all she smiled. She fought and was triumphant and when on to grow her family with 3 more beautiful children in addition to the two she already had.

In honor of Julie, or those friends and family members of yours that have been touched by breast cancer, do a self-exam, get a mammogram, take care of yourself and remind those women around you to do so as well. Not just in October, but all year long.

DIY Honeymoon Scrapbook

Here's a quick project that I made for my friend Keli who is getting married on Saturday!! I wanted to make her something because that's how I roll lately. I stumbled upon the envelope album on Pinterest and thought it would be a good idea to make a quick place to journal some of their honeymoon memories as they go (or on a the plane ride home!) as well as stash away some of the paper memories as they go. So here's what I came up with!

I glued the envelope flaps to the back of the next envelope to make chain.

On each card I "calligraphied" the date of the honeymoon and then wrote "Mr:/Mrs:" so they can each journal short thoughts about that day.

On the back of each card I left space to journal what they did, ate, and saw that day.

This is the back of the package all tied up in ribbon with the couple and their destination as well as the dates again.

I used a jewelry clasp to add a little more fanciness to the project to hook the project instead of a bow. I also stamped on the Mr. and Mrs. You can see here how the flaps were glued to the other envelope. If you used the same color envelopes this is less noticeable. :)

I'd like to make myself one of these next. I think I'll do 12 envelopes and use it for keeping memories of the year. Or maybe I'll come up with another idea for how to use it! 

DIY Wedding Rehearsal Bouquet

My best friend from college is getting married this weekend!! As her Maid of Honor I have many important duties, many of which I haven't been able to fulfill as I would have liked as she lives in Iowa and I live in Michigan which makes regular meetings and helping with centerpieces and going to dress fittings difficult. One task that I have been able to do well (in my very humble opinion) is make her rehearsal bouquet. I searched and searched the internet for ideas for making this bouquet and having it not look like something made when I was 9 years old. No offense to other MOH's out there participating in this tradition, I understand the true form of the tradition states that the bouquet is made during the bridal shower, not after, thus greatly limiting the amount of time being spent putting the bouquet together. And time, lots of time, is needed to make this bouquet.

Being a huge Pinterest addict I've seen headbands and belts and hairclips made with flowers created from ribbon and many yards of ribbon were exactly what I had to work with. Ribbon and a couple of curly boys and some poly-ribbon. I wanted the main focus to be flowers from the Bed Bath & Beyond purple ribbon and the curly bows to be accents. Here's what I came up with!

Not too shabby huh? Here's some detail pictures for you: 

I found tutorials the following tutorials: Martha Stewart, Burda Style, and Wedding Bee. Truth be told as I progressed in each of these methods I figured out my own way to make the flowers and I encourage you to play with them as well as figuring out how to hold on to all the ribbon before sewing together is sometimes better down in your own words.

After making 40-some flowers I started with the rose flowers based on the Burda Style template that had extra ribbon on below the flower to start sewing the loose flowers together. I just pieced them together to my liking and after about 15 realized it was an odd shape--oops! I did my best to pull and push flowers and sew them in place, alternating the style of flowers. Here's a close up of the bouquet being sewn together:

Then after I got about half-way through with my loose flowers I concocted a handle out of a couple of dead ink pens and wrapped them in none other than painters tape. I wish I would have reinforced the tape with hot glue, but hindsight is always 20/20. I wrapped the loose ribbons around this base and pinned them in with quilting pins and kept sewing on my flowers.

At this point I realized my stem was too short...so I added on another stem, this time the handle from an old foam paint brush. Again I used tape but should have hot glued it to make it more sturdy. I had saved one purple ribbon from making flowers so that I could wrap the stem and I did so, hot gluing it in place until I had formed my desired handle.

Next I had to add in the curly ribbons and the poly-ribbon. I glued on the two curly ribbon bunches right at the base of the ribbon flowers and allowed them to kind of cascade down. I then took the loose poly-ribbons and wound them around the base and hot glued them down to and I was finished!

This took me a good 8 hrs to do in one sitting, so I'd highly encourage you to have a couple of flower sewers as that was the longest part of the process. But it was nice to watch a couple of movies and talk to my little sister who just moved to L.A. while working on it. I'm also proud that it looks a little classier than the norm--just Keli's style! Here's one more shot of my finished project!

Life is Busy.

This weekend was fun-filled and truth be told long. Friday V's PS3 took it's finally breath which was quite disappointing for him but we're coming through the grief pretty well. Saturday we ventured to his parent's house to see his sister off to her homecoming dance and get some family time in with V's brother and sister-in-law that are moving to Alaska on the 15th. Dinner and a comedy show (Frank Caliendo) with a good friend of mine from grad school and her husband followed by trying to stay awake to watch the Tiger's game completed the day. Today we celebrated V's sister's 17th birthday so it was a day full of food and family and was great.

But dang I'm glad to be home with just us and our guinea pigs...who are both male and seem to be trying to mate one another..sad day that I can't explain it won't be too fruitful for them but also a little funny. Never seen this before out of them so I'm not sure what's up with that.

It doesn't quite feel like Sunday night and I'm not really ready for this next week. Monday to Thursday will be pretty typical except that I'll be prepping to go to Iowa for my college roommate's wedding which I'm Maid of Honor in. And I have quite the to-do list to accomplish still before then. Hopefully we'll see my parents while we're in that neck of the woods. 

I'm also hoping I'll have a couple of calls about potential jobs/interviews this week. I'm working on a few different avenues right now and I just reallllllyyy want to be working again soon. This unemployed business is boring. The Kardashians and Law & Order crews have been great but I need some real stimulation and I need it quick! 

Anyways, that's all for my really un-exciting post. I am working on developing some new goals for blogging and perhaps have a couple of projects that I'll be working on to post soon! Night!

Spice Girls: Taco Seasoning

As I've grown much more confident in my culinary abilities I've been much more daring and into taking risks in the kitchen. Ask V, they don't always turn out as I envision, but I can't think of anything we couldn't consume, just recipes that need a little lot of tweaking.

After deciding at lunch time that we wanted tacos for dinner and knowing fully that I used our last pre-made seasoning packet when we had tacos on...Monday....I thought to myself that it couldn't really be that difficult to make my own. Besides, I reasoned, I bet I have most of the spices already.

After a quick search of "taco seasoning" on my handy-dandy Pinterest I found many great options like this (which also has a plethora of other recipes I now want to try) and this and ultimately to eventually to Smell's Like Home's recipe which I whipped up in the amount of time that it takes to measure out 9 teaspoon/teaspoon and a half quantities.

The result was delicious taco seasoning with extra for a few more batches when we get the craving again, which knowing us will be soon. But if not, SLH says it will keep in it's air tight container for 6 months. Yay! I recommend trying this out as it is sooo easy (insert ingredients, cover container, shake) and delicious. Plus there's the health benefits of no MSG and reduced salt but tons of flavor.

Who doesn't love homemade goodness?

Frame and Mirror Revamp for Entry Way

My love of Pinterest and home improvement blogs finally resulted in a pretty fabulous project for the apartment. I'm in love with my beauties and luckily V likes them too! I thought I'd share my DIY process with you as well so here goes! 

Here they are before being restored to all their glory! The white framed mirror we bought for $4 at a garage sale and the oval frame we bought for $3 at Salvation Army.

The frame originally contained this beauty and the most jagged-edged glass covering I've ever seen. The glass was later broken in half on accident--good thing I already had other plans in mind!

So the first thing I did was pull out the primer and gave both frames a good covering. The oval frame obviously needed more attention due to it's dark color. Next I pulled out the BRIGHT yellow spray paint and coated them each 3 times to fully cover. 

My thoughts? "CRAP! I've ruined them, this is WAY to bright for my entry way!" But at the same time I absolutely loved the color as it's my fave! So I moved forward and did this:

I wanted the oval frame to be a cork board, so I transformed two square shaped tiles of cork into this lovely round shape. In all actuality V did most of the work of this step of cutting, he's much handier with the XACTO knife! Next I hot glued them in place to the backing aka the original artwork from the frame!

Next I covered it with charcoal gray remnant fabric I got a JoAnn's for a whopping two bucks and hot glued that in place as well. I *should* have ironed it better before doing this process but I was anxious and my counseling background says move forward not dwell in the past so moving on!

Popped the covered cork board into the frame and I was in love with the results can't you tell? (I look a bit crazed...woops!) Well the mirror was done and another trip to Salvation Army resulted in a smaller oval mirror that was another $3 that I didn't take pictures of the painting process but this is the result!

Tada! I love it! These are in my entry way  so it works well to provide a place for event reminders and other odds and ends. The mirrors also add to the depth of the room since it's a rather small space and right off of our living room. 

So what do you think? Either way I love them!