New Euro Shams + A Giveaway!

So, for the past 7+ months our master bedroom has been getting a face lift!  It started in the spring a few weeks before Baby Q was born when I kindly asked my husband if we {meaning he} could paint all of our guest bedroom furniture white and move it into our master in place of the dark stained furniture that we were using!  Well he is a great sport and said "yes!"  It may have also had something to do with the fact I was big and ornery...you know, intimidation factor!  So along with a few mirrored nightstands and a dresser that we picked up at Downeast Home we were well on our way to that master bedroom facelift!  And then more important things happened!  Like the birth of our third babe and all of the exciting, albeit exhausting things that came with her!  So now that Baby Q is on a great schedule, this Mama has a little more time to focus on getting the master bedroom up to par!  And working on a new found hobby {sewing} along the way!  I love the winter bedding I already have, but decided to switch out the neutral beige euro shams for something with more pizazz!  I followed a simple sewing tutorial for euro shams with flanges at Welcome to Heardmont and the rest is history!  The only thing I did different from the tutorial is I cut my fabric to 30" by 30" and the back envelope panels to 20" by 30" because my pillow forms are a lot fuller and I felt I would need the extra inches.  Here is the finished product!

     

I just have a few more pillows to make and I will feel like the room is complete!  Now for the fun part!  A giveaway!  So apparently I'm not to good with math because I ordered six yards of this village blue/natural chevron fabric thinking I'd have just enough for all three euros and I ended up only using about 3 yards of it!  I guess the fact that this fabric comes 60" wide should've been taken into consideration!:)  Well, I'm excited and glad that I over estimated because I'm giving away two 20" by 20" envelope style decorative pillow covers {pillow forms not included}!

What the pillow covers will look like with a 20" by 20" form inside.

2 village blue/natural decorative pillow covers.  Baby Q likes them too!

The envelope back.

All you have to do to enter is become a follower of our blog and leave a comment letting us know!  If you already are a follower just leave a comment about where you would like to use these pillow covers in your home!  This giveaway will close this coming Saturday at 12:00 am!  The winner will be chosen by random.org!  GOOD LUCK!!!!!    

Framing Cool Fabric = Brilliant Idea

Happy Hump Day everybody!  So, the same friend who put the rain gutter book shelves in her kids playroom also had the brilliant idea to take fun fabrics and put them in my most favorite frames.  The Ribba from Ikea!  I love that it adds a little more texture and dimension than just framing patterned paper!  Check it  out!

images by Kara

Rain Gutter Bookshelves

Last week one of my best friends did something ingenious in her kids' playroom!  Her and her husband went to Lowes, bought lengths of rain gutter with the end caps and mounted them on the wall to use as forward facing bookshelves!  She got the idea from a website called Raisingolives.com.  Isn't this brilliant!  Not only is it major eye candy to have childrens books displayed this way, it also helps peak their curious minds to want to read!  She did something else in the playroom that I will save for another post coming soon!  Enjoy!

 

Idea from Raisingolives.com


images by Kara  

A Pretty Kitchen Table

Happy Friday everyboby! We hope you all have fun plans for the weekend! Even if it just means vegging at home and catching up on some R&R! The images above are of my new kitchen table! I first saw the inspiration for this table on our good friend Kalanicut's blog and she shared a link to a wonderful diy and interior design blog called Stylizimo! The minute I saw pics of that table, I knew I had to have one! So I immediately called my husband who happens to be the most handy guy I know(lucky for me for sure:), and asked him if he would be willing to help me out with a fun diy project over the     weekend. I had been looking for quite sometime at different dining table options because our current table was just not fitting into my color or design scheme anymore. We went and picked our planks from Lowes, the table legs from Ikea and I was excited to get started! But as luck would have it, I came down with a terrible head cold and wasn't of much use for a few days. Bleh! My hubs was itching to start and complete this project, so he went ahead and got it done without me. At a much better pace and quality than I could've pulled off anyway....I told you he was handy!:) I absolutely love the finished table! It has a modern meets cottage vibe that I'm loving right now! And the best part?? It cost us under $100 to make!!!! Stylish and budget friendly! What more can you ask for?! We followed the tutorial pretty closely with the exception of adding a little extra thickness around the edge. Which is just 1 inch planks of wood that Kimble cut to size and nailed around the lip of the tabletop. Also we decided to use four 10 inch by 6 ft planks, simply because it fit our space better. Kimble primed and finished the table with 5 or 6 coats of high gloss white paint! And guess what folks? He used spray paint! Yep, the stuff in the pressurized can! It goes on so nice and smooth! We used the same table legs as Nina, just painted them silver!  And viola! Nina from Stylizimo's table tutorial is plain, simple and easy to understand and we couldn't be happier with the results! I love creative people and blogs that inspire!!!

images by Kara

Wall Collages

We have lived in our home for over 2 years now. And the walls have remained bare. We've hung a few paintings, but I'm a little shy when it comes to picture collages. Maybe it's because I hate putting holes in my walls or maybe I hate the thought of getting every picture perfectly aligned or even worse perfectly NOT aligned if I'm going for that eclectic/different frames sort of look! Let's be honest, it's all of these reasons and probably some I'm not even remembering! Well, I decided it was time to get with it and over come my picture collage fear! Especially after I walked in my sis in laws house and she had done a collage just by eyeballing it! Really??? I don't have this special talent...it was all about the laser leveler for me and my very sweet and PATIENT husband coming to the rescue...I'll get to that part in a sec! First of all, frame selection! I went with the Ikea Ribba in silver (same as my sis in law:)! I love this frame!!!! I love that you can pay a little for A LOT of style! I love that it is a fairly substantial and chunky frame! My Mom actually walked in our home and said, "Wow! It didn't take long for you to get those pictures framed! Where did you get them done?" I was all to happy to inform her the frames were from Ikea and that it took me a few minutes to frame all of my images! Talk about bang for your buck folks!!!! Now onto the next...

It was a Friday and I decided to cut butcher paper to the exact measurements of my frames and tape them to the wall. Now I know this step probably isn't mandatory, but instead of working with a perfectly square wall I was working with the angle of my stairs. So I felt I needed to put a "rough draft" if you will, on the wall to tweak and adjust as I walked by throughout the day! Plus, I wasn't certain on the pattern I wanted to hang the pictures in. So taping the paper up gave me an awesome visual and I was able to quickly decide that I wanted the pictures all straight and uniform in width apart but graduated! Remember, I'm shy with this stuff, so for now, this is about as far out of the box as I will go!:) So, Friday night my sweet Hub helped me hang our pictures! Let me preface what happened over the course of that hour by saying, "I didn't have any room to complain, nag or even speak for that matter. I haven't hung many pictures in my life time and have ZERO room to talk!" Needless to say for the next hour, even with the laser leveler in his hands, I hissed, whined, stomped a foot or two (I know, I sound like a 2 year old) and pretty much told my patient husband everything he was doing wrong! Honestly, looking back it's soooo beyond embarrassing! I thought I was a genius by buying those 3m Damage free hanging strips! Awesome right? No holes in my walls? Wrong! Damage free my foot!!! We tried a few and it took the paint clean off!!! So now back to holes in my wall and worrying he was going to put too many in all the wrong places! I was nothing short of a nightmare I'm sure! So after all my pestering.....

SURPRISE!!!! My husband hangs one mean and perfect picture collage! With zero help from me obviously!!! After it was all done and I looked up at his perfect work with my tail between my legs he let me know he was heading downstairs to his office to unwind! Dang it! I can be such a ninnymuggins sometimes! It was upstairs with the kiddos for me with a little storytime and tucking in bed! While my two babies and I were snuggled up reading stories I sent Kimble(hub) this text, "I just wore you ragged! I'm so sorry! I know I was a butthead! You are very patient!" I know, I know, can we say world's most awesome communicator??? His response, "Love u babe!" Now that, is true love y'all! And the really crazy part is, is he's still willing to help me with random projects around our home! And I'm getting a lot better at trusting the good work he does!:)

Okay, after all that rambling the key points:

1. Pick a wall in your home!

2. Pick your images and frames!

3. Cut butcher paper or scrap wrapping paper to the size of your frames and tape them up! I promise it will work wonders for the vision of your collage. Heck, I may even get a little crazy I try a fun one using different sized frames in the near future!

4. Have fun while hanging your pics! Because it SHOULD be fun. And not the horror I made it out to be!:)

5. Also wall collages don't always have to consist of only pictures! Throw a cute little painting or two in or some fun decorative plates!!! The decorative plates idea comes from the better half of this blog, my sisser Bri! She has the cutest decorative plate collage hanging in her home! I wish I had a picture to show you! Maybe she can post a pic just to give you an idea of the creative fun you can have! No pressure Bri!!!

images by Kara

Decorative Clothes Pins For Displaying Holiday Cards

I was looking at one of my new favorite blogs yesterday, YoungHouseLove.com and I found a quick and easy tutorial on decorating clothes pins. They did it specifically to hang abc cards in their daughters nursery. So I decided to use up some of the holiday card stock I had gotten a few weeks ago for the ornament post I did and make decorative holiday clothes pins to hang holiday cards.

It was soooo easy! All you need is clothes pins, fun paper, and glue(preferably the type that has a brush applicator such as Krazy glue). The brush makes it a lot easier to get an even coat of glue on the clothes pin.

All you have to do is outline the face of a clothes pin with a pen onto the backside of your card stock. Then cut it out. Use this piece of card stock as your template for outlining and cutting out as many decorative pieces as you need. Glue the card stock, pressing down firmly, onto both sides of the clothes pins.

Then take a length of yarn and string it across the area you want to hang your cards. For the sake of not having to pull out a hammer and nails, I secured the two yarn ends under Christmas Vases I have on both sides of my mantle. As you begin to pin your cards onto the yarn, it will droop naturally through the center. For this reason, I wouldn't cut your yarn until all of your cards are hung. Incase you need more or less length. I think this would also look cool hanging across a large mirror or even a window or two!

The more cards that come...the more festive and charming it will look!


images by Kara

Easy Felt Tree Skirt

Welcome to December Folks!!! Can you even believe how fast the Fall has gone and now here we are, Christmastime and all! Crazy! In years past we have had one Christmas tree up at our home. This year we got a little ambitious and decided to set two Christmas trees up, so we needed another tree skirt. I decided that instead of going out and buying one, I would attempt to make my own. Because I'm not too crafty to begin with, I knew I would need to be minimalist in the material and the design I chose, as to not overwhelm myself and end up with a big over fussed mess! Luckily, I tend to lean towards minimalistic styles anyway, so I knew I could probably pull this off! And as luck would have it, when I went to the fabric store to pick material, all of the felt was on sale!

Materials needed:

1- 2 yards of felt for tree skirt

2- 1/2 a yard in each of the colors you would like to use for cutting out shapes and designs to decorate your tree skirt

3- Fabric scissors and/or rotary cutter

4- 3 or 4 buttons

5- Glue gun

I used the tree skirt I already had as my template to cut out the new one. I folded my felt in half with the existing tree skirt folded in half on top of it. Then I cut out a perfect half circle. I also cut a small half circle in the center at the top for the trunk of the tree. See image below.

I unfolded my cut out tree skirt and this is what it looks like. Image below.

I then took my fabric scissors and cut a straight line from the outer edge up to the center circle.

Next, using my eye to space them apart evenly, I sewed 4 buttons down the left side of the straight cut line. After the buttons were sewn in place I used a rotary cutter to make small slits in the felt on the right side to coordinate with each button. Then I buttoned my tree skirt up!

Next I rough cut different sized polkadots to decorate my tree skirt. That is one of the beauties of felt! So easy to cut and get clean shapes! Even without a template!

Then I used my trusty old glue gun (we have become great friends:) to stick all of the varying sized polkadots on the tree skirt!

TADA! Done and looking sweet and simple under our tree! I'm quite positive that all of you can come up with way more creative and in depth designs so please forgive the meager skills here!:)

images by Kara

Quick Ornament Project with Kids

Well, Christmas decorating is in full swing at our home! The house will be lit and trimmed by Thanksgiving. Maybe I'm over zealous, maybe I'm borderline obnoxious to some who believe the Christmas festivities should begin the day after Thanksgiving. But I just can't help it! I grew up in a home where Thanksgiving flowed seamlessly into Christmas! I loved that we could enjoy the Christmas tree sparkling bright as Momma, Bri and I were in the kitchen baking pies on Thanksgiving eve! It is what I know, so it is what I will do! Alright, I'm done making excuses for myself.;) Here is a quick and inexpensive project you can do for and with your kiddos!

Supplies needed:

1. Clear glass ball ornaments (plastic shatter proof might be smart if you don't want to deal with broken glass. Especially with little guys:)

2. Water based paint markers in red, green, silver, gold, pretty much whatever colors you would prefer.

3. Christmas themed card stock paper

4. Thin ribbon for hanging your finished ornaments

Now sit down with your kiddos and help them cut small squares of card stock, in the prints they like, to a size that can be rolled and dropped into each ornament.

If your kids are old enough, on the blank side of the card stock, let them write one wish and list several milestones that they have achieved over the last year. Take the top out of the ornament and roll the finished list, christmas print facing out, small enough to fit through the hole at the top of the ornament. I might suggest wrapping clear scotch tape around the roll to make it easier to get out with tweezers at a later date if needs be. Obviously, I didn't do it this time around...but I will next year! Replace the top and cut a small amount of ribbon to tie at the top for hanging on the tree. Now using your paint markers, write your childs name and the year across the ornament. Allow the paint to dry for a few minutes. Continue to do this for each of your kiddos year after year and you will have created an amazing family tree filled with awesome, funny, tear jerking wishes and memories that you will be able to pass on to your kids when they have grown and started there own families! Or you can just be greedy and keep them to enjoy as Grandparents some day!:)

images by Kara

Happy Fall Break Weekend Everyone!

My Sissies and I were up at Gardner Village this week and in the village toy shop Bri and I picked up these adorable haunted houses for 22 bucks! Awesome right? Well, to me yes! Considering I had been looking at the Ceramic Department 56 haunted houses that can run you around 100 bucks! It was soooo easy to put together and my Little Ace loves it! Bri tells me over in her neck of the woods, her Lily can't stop playing with this house either! A small price for A LOT of joy I'd say! The brand is Merimeri. This company also makes adorable greeting cards and party items. Worth checking out? Why yes! www.merimeri.com

image by Kar

Happy Weekend To You!

Hey, guys! I hope your weekend is shaping up to be a fun one. Maybe you have plans to get all your Fall/Halloween decorations out? I love decorating for Halloween-- it's almost as much fun as Christmas decorating...almost. Our whole entire family is bowling tonight and I am so excited. I can't wait to light up the lanes.

We'll be back Monday with some fun Fall recipes to share. Until then!

images by Briana of some of my Fall/Halloween decorations.

Hand Cut and Hand Sewn Fabric Flower Tutorial...and a few other things!

My first advice would be to get yourself a good pair of fabric scissors, if you don't already have them. They can range in price from $5-$75. I bought a Fiskars pair that cost me $15. And they are awesome! So don't think that you have to go make a huge investment on scissors! Secondly, the fabric I chose for this project is broadcloth. Because broadcloth comes in a HUGE variety of colors, won't break the bank ($1.99-3.99 per yard) and is soft yet stiff enough to hold its shape once you have sewn the flowers! I bought 1 yard each in seven colors equalling seven yards! I was able to make 102 flowers with a little leftover.

1. Cut your fabric into 3 and 4 inch squares. (for 2 different size flowers) Then divide and stack fabric squares 4 layers thick. (you will understand when you read below)

2. Use the corners of the fabric squares as your guide to make different shapes. For example, below I rounded off each corner and cut down into the middle to make a rounded four petaled flower. Or keep the corners pointed. I found it the easiest to cut the flower shapes 4 layers at a time. Each flower I made was 8 layers thick!

3. Off-setting the rounded corners, stack the flower 8 layers thick. ( you can always use more layers if you want an even fuller flower:)

4. Pull the thread through your needle, doubling the thread, give yourself roughly 12 inches of length to work with and tie the 2 thread ends in a double knot. Push your threaded needle up, slightly off center through the back of the flower layers.

5. Once you've pulled it through, make a small stitch by going back down through the front to the back again.

6. Follow the same 2 steps one more time to create and x stitch in the front of the flower. At this point your needle should be at the back of the flower again.

7. Take your needle and go back up through the bottom 3 layers of fabric.

8. Wrap the thread once around the center and then pull the thread tight, cinching it!

9. Take your needle up through the next 3 layers, with 2 layers left on top.

10. Follow step 8 again. Wrapping the thread around and then cinching it. The cinching is what helps create the 3-D effect helping the petals to stand up!

11. Pull your needle and thread down and through the center of the back of the flower.

12. Begin making small, shallow stitches through the middle back of the flower to secure all of the stitching you have done! Make sure you pull the thread tight after each stitch!

13. I did between 5-8 stitches to secure the flower. Cut the needle and thread loose.

14. And SURPRISE! Perfect little handmade fabric flower.

Now for the various ways to use these little beauties! First of all the headbands or floral crowns if you will! I used 16 gauge cloth stem wire and floral tape.

1. I found that one length of stem wire was long enough for an average 1 year old's head. It's still smart to wrap the stem wire around your little girls head to see exactly how much the ends overlap. If this is the case with you, just form the wire into a circle, hot glue the two ends together (slightly overlapping them) and then wrap the glued ends tightly in floral tape! If you need the crown to be smaller, follow the same procedure, just overlap the ends more! To make the crown a little larger, I cut a 3 inch length of 1/8" braided elastic as an extention and hot glued 1 inch of the elastic to each wire end. That left roughly an inch in the center. Then I used floral tape to tightly wrap across the glued elastic. The nice thing about using elastic, is it gives you some stretching and retracting room depending on the little girl's head size!

2. For the little flower buds, I used my leftover scrap material and cut out various shapes, tapering the shape at one end.(a narrow tapered end makes it easier to glue onto the stem wire) Each layer you see on the floral buds is actually a separate little piece of fabric that I just overlapped and glued around the stem, not one whole flower! Once you have glued the tapered ends around the stem wire, wrap the end tightly in floral tape! There is no rhyme or reason to how and where I glued these little sweeties. Just glue them on at will!

3. For securing the fabric flower, I dabbed a generous amount of hot glue right in the center of the back of the flower. Then I pressed it firmly onto the stem wire crown!

For tying the flowers to tree branches, first I cut different lengths of twine. Then I double threaded my needle, double knotting halfway through a roughly 12 in length. Meaning there is 6 inches on both sides of the double knot! Then I made a shallow stitch going through the back middle and back out about 1/8 in from where I entered. Now you have 2 six inch ends of thread coming out of the back of the flowers. I secured the flowers to the lengths of twine by tying and knotting the thread ends around the end of the twine several times! And then tying the other end of the twine to the tree branch! I guess looking back, you can save yourself some time by just hot glueing the flowers to the ends of the twine! But I like to complicate things for myself and make it as hard and time-consuming as possible!:) Plus I needed something a little more permanent since I plan to hang some of these flowers in my Lil' Gal's nursery as decor...another post, another time!:)

For the flower garlands I cut 15-20 ft lengths of twine and secured a flower (the same way a did the single hanging ones) every 8-12 inches. Again feel free to hot glue the flowers on the twine to make your life a little easier! They will hold up great! But I think the flowers will stay a little more secure if you do it the time consuming way!;)

I secured the garlands in the ceiling with flat silver thumb tacs. Allowing enough length to droop in the center! There you have it folks! It took a lot of time! But I loved every second of it! And it was nice to kick back on the couch, with a good movie on, while I sewed! Now, get to work!!!!

A hearty THANKYOU to Bre for helping me figure out how to make all these lil flowers! Another hearty THANKYOU to Kisha for helping me figure out how I wanted to hang the garland and put the floral crowns together! Without you two, I would've spent and waisted a lot of extra time (which I did not have:) sitting on my thumbs trying to make sense of what I was doing! You guys are RAD!

And yet another hearty THANKYOU to Briana, my sis and partner in all things Talk Chow Play House for taking the pictures of the flower tutorial since my hands were a little tied up!;)

And lastly but not leastly;) THANKYOU to my wonderful Momma for coming over on such short notice on a saturday night to help me make and hang the floral garlands! I know for a fact, you had plenty of other things you needed to be doing!

Does this all sound like I'm up on stage accepting an Oscar? Ya...maybe. Dramatic much? But seriously I am sooo not crafty AT ALL! This was a big undertaking for me! So if you just so happen to be one of THOSE people, who just breeze right through projects like this, than kudos to you and I'm more than a little jealous!:) Happy crafting all you nifty crafters!

P.S. I know my instructions are less than stellar! I was having such a hard time trying to find the right wordage for this tutorial! So if you have any questions or concerns PLEASE do not hesitate to ask! I will answer you promptly!

Flower tutorial images by Bri

All other images by Kar