A Goodbye Gift

It's hard to let Sarah go back to school. Having a nanny was a short-lived luxury. (She bought me presents just because-better than a husband!) It's probably good that we're putting Eleanor in daycare prior to any possibly shy-around-strangers stage as it will make the transition easier on her and definitely easier on me, but it doesn't make me any less sad to say goodbye to Sarah. As a thank you/we love you gift, I made Sarah a locket with Eleanor's picture.

I've had these lockets in my stash but have always been stumped about how to make them feel less unfinished. I'm not sure what they were manufactured to have in those ovals, but a jewel or fitted insert would be hard to track down in the right size if I even wanted to go that route.
However, the other day I was struck by the thought of faux enameling it with a bit of nail polish. A couple of drops and a careful spread to make sure it reaches all the sides and then all I had to do was wait until it dried thoroughly. The best part is that it's pretty easy to wipe it down and start over if I make a mistake. I love how it turned out!

Confessions of a Craft Addict

UPDATE BELOW

So yes, Eleanor may be born any day now, but I still may have just signed up for this:

Every month's box comes with instructions for an actual project that uses the craft supplies in the box, but you can always go off book and make something completely different with your supplies. Whimseybox's blog is full of DIY Craft Projects that people have shared. Love this idea!
 
How could I turn down the opportunity to not only get mail, but mail that would be a random collection of fun craft supplies?

PLUS, I got $5 off! You can too, even if you only sign on for a single month.
 _______________________________________________________________

I have received two out of my three boxes for my 3-month subscription (April's just never came), and I feel compelled to mention that I'm relatively unimpressed. In theory it's a really cute idea, but in practice it does not feel worth the money. The supplies are minimal, the projects are dated (lip balm and a ceramic planter, both popular on the craft blogs and Pinterest ages ago), and the service is unreliable (though the customer service after is polite and does fix things). Also, make sure to note that even if you sign up for a limited subscription, it will automatically renew at the end and charge your card. (Why have a subscription period option then? I don't understand the automatic renewal.)

I've Just Been Busy

It's been hard to focus on actually getting a post finished. I think I have four different ones started right now. I just get side-tracked easily. I've been doing a lot of web searches for free baby clothes patterns. The last three weeks have been filled with cutting, pinning, and sewing all sorts of tiny things. I've been lucky to get to do everything in both boy and girl versions, which makes it even more fun. (I can't post the boy versions though because they are a gift).

Here are a few of the adorable tiny things I've made lately.

Baby diaper covers. Pattern here.

Newborn baby pants. Pattern here.

Baby kimono shoes. Pattern here (though I added a slight modification with the addition of some 1/4 inch elastic around the top for a better fit).

I have probably made 15 other bibs, but only two with this pattern.
The others are just the regular snap behind the head shape with this pattern.
I'll probably share those in a different post.

The Chair

Recently I tackled painting the flowered armchair we had in the spare bedroom that is now the nursery. The flowers were just too much, but Nathan didn't want to replace it. Since the chair is not worth getting reupholstered (and I couldn't face doing that chair again myself), I read online that you can paint upholstered chairs, so I thought I'd give that a shot.

Before

After

It took a LOT of fabric medium (the stuff you mix with the paint to make it less crunchy) and even more time, but I don't hate how it turned out. It feels a bit like vinyl though not quite that bad. It's not perfect, and I don't know that I'd tackle that again, but I think the chair will work for now. (Plus, if Nathan hates it than I can convince him that we should get a new chair, so I'll win either way).

In it's spot. This nursery is definitely cozy, aka super small.

Here are a couple of pictures of the nursery in progress, but almost done. I still have a few pictures to hang up, and Nathan is going to put shelves up along the top of the room (on the walls with windows) for books and stuffed animals. Once those are done, I'll make sure to share the full view.

Type A

I have this habit of tackling projects in a way that makes them somewhat less than relaxing for the average person. Case in point, at the after-Christmas fabric sales, I purchased enough 70% off Christmas fabric to make 60 napkins (no joke). I definitely got a little carried away.

Most people (and even myself sometimes) would put at least half of the fabric away to tackle at some point in the future, but not me, not this project. Last year I made about 12 napkins and cut out the fabric to make 6 more. Those six sat unhemmed for a whole year, so I knew (especially with baby on the way) that if I didn't cut and hem all of these napkins while I was in the napkin-making groove, they would never see the light of day.

Thus, I spent an entire weekend (and New Year's Day) pinning, hemming, and watching L&O marathons, while Nathan went running, swimming, and cleaned our bathroom so thoroughly he even took shelves out to wash them. He very sweetly never mentioned how ridiculous my endeavor was or how molded to my ass the couch cushion was becoming. Seriously, never. Not even once, though I'd be willing to place money on it that the thought crossed his mind a time or two.

I did take some cooking breaks and manage to put away the Christmas decorations as well, so it was not entirely a one project weekend. As silly as these napkins are, it feels pretty satisfying to see that tower of finished ones sitting in my sewing room (only 16 more to hem)!

Still, I probably should get around to sending out our holiday cards, which I usually tackle between Christmas and New Year's.

Happy 2013!

Just a Minute: December Edition

reading…Reading is slow going for me now that I'm well into the pregnancy. I barely get a few pages in before I am completely snoozing. One book that has managed to keep me awake longer than most is The Chaperone. It's set in the '20's and is a story about silent film star, Louise Brooks and her chaperone from Kansas.

watching…Saw 5 Year Engagement and Silver Linings Playbook while my sister was here. I really enjoyed both. Silver Linings Playbook was one of the few movies I actually watched in the theater this year, and it was totally worth paying full price to see it. Quirky and at times super awkward, it was a really good story without being too sentimental, so I think even Nathan would have enjoyed it.

listening...to Christmas Time in New Orleans by Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday and reliving our warm weather Christmas last year in Savannah, especially after our atrocious slog home through snowstorm Euclid (really, we're naming snowstorms now?). There's really nothing like Billie Holiday to get you in the seasonal spirit.

sewing...Now that my Christmas projects are either done or too little, too late, I can tackle all the cute little baby things I want to start making. Perhaps this, and this, and this, and maybe even these. 

baking…Well, just before Christmas I made some Orange Oatmeal quick bread, some Chocolate Scotcheroos (minus the sugar, still completely delicious), English Toffee, and Sugar Cookies. This weekend, I made a batch of super gooey brownies for my neighbor's 92nd birthday and homemade Honey French Bread. I think I might start being the "cookie fairy" for all the neighbors once a week, since one batch should easily cover everyone-hope no one is making a New Year's Resolution against sweets.

making...We are slowly but surely getting the baby's room ready. I'm collecting art for the walls, planning shelving to go around the top of the room, getting supplies to paint our armchair so it matches (Am I crazy?-I'll keep you posted. I think that's going to be an early 2013 project), cleaning out what used to be the craft closet, and buying tiny dresses to fill the newly empty craft closet.

Things I've Been Making

Chicken & Broccoli Casserole
Turned old car key chain into an ornament
Put together a live tiny tree
Fish Tacos
Made a feathery cat toy
Chinese food four course dinner
Sugar Cookies
Earrings
Gift tags
A holiday flower arrangement
Pie
Chocolate Scotcheroos (but I left out the sugar and they were just as good)
Potholders
Sweet Potatoes with Pecans, Goat Cheese, and Celery
An ornament for Nathan's stocking
Orange Oatmeal Bread
Cloth napkins
English Toffee

Make it Merry!

I've decided that I'm going to make something every day from now until Christmas. It might seem like a daunting goal, but I'm not going overboard on the "making" definition. I'll count Christmas cookies, crafty things, paper snowflakes, and all my various sewing projects that I'm hoping to tackle before Christmas, so I don't think it will be difficult at all.

I'll show you a peek of one of my Christmas projects that constitutes yesterday's "make." Don't look too hard though, family.

Just a Minute: November

Boy, November flew by!

Image from Amazon

reading…Just finished This is Where I Leave You by Jonathon Tropper. A bit like mixing The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen with High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. A little heavy, but the end wasn't a downer and the narrating voice was great which made for a quick, enjoyable read.

cleaning…When we were at my parents' over Thanksgiving, we took a stab at cleaning out some of our childhood/high school belongings. I ended up dragging my CD collection back to Chicago to sort through it. I have a rather embarrassing plethora of movie soundtracks (Does anyone even remember the movie Go? Well, I have the soundtrack, among many many others.) and a rather large stack of country music, including no less than 12 Garth Brooks CDs (oh, Lord, I even own his Chris Gaines oddity). One thing my sisters and I agreed on as we went through our piles of things is how painful it is to think of all the money that those many ceramic Disney figurines, CDs, or teddy bears represent.

Image from Amazon

listening…I bought Holidays Rule from Amazon this week because they had it as a $1.99 special. It's pretty good. Among my favorites are I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day by The Civil Wars and What Are You Doing New Year's Eve by The Head and the Heart. It's a good mix for background party music.

Image from fellowfellow

loving…This wreath. I adore it. I bought a huge square boxwood wreath at a thrift store this fall, but I haven't tackled adding anything to it yet. This makes me want to try. I could definitely make this work.

making...I'm nearly finished with the stocking stuffers. I think watching a good two movies while hand-sewing should finish them off. Maybe when they're done, I can get started on some fun baby projects. First order of business, baby pants from a pattern my sister gave me this year.

Image from King Arthur Flour

baking…I made some dried cherry and pistachio biscotti this weekend. I used my usual recipe, and just added about a cup of pistachios and a very large handful of dried cherries. Though I was a bit disappointed in how it turned out (a bit crumbly for some reason), Nathan assures me he loves it. I think perhaps I cooked it too long during its first bout in the oven. Our oven is so temperamental. I sort of secretly hope it dies, so I can justify getting something awesome. But then again, our microwave will have to die first and our refrigerator has some incredibly frustrating crisper drawers, so maybe the oven will need to live a lot longer...

Barn Project

A few of my Indy friends were in town earlier this fall, and I took them to a neighborhood-wide garage sale. Poor things, they ended up carrying some of my purchases back. I hadn't yet told them that I was pregnant, so my purchase of a wooden barn (along the same lines as a dollhouse) struck them as puzzling. "You could use it to hold your shoes," said one.

My plan was to fix it up and give it to my dad, a farmer and occasional cowboy, to have at home for when his someday grandchildren visited. It looked pretty sad when I bought it, a bit mildewed and weather-beaten, but I had a vision.

One weekend before my dad's birthday, I sat down and got to painting. I used acrylic paint I already had on hand in a dark red, black-brown, grey, and white. It took about 3/4 of a small bottle of each to paint the whole surface, which was lucky because I have no idea if I could have matched that paint in a store since it was leftover from other projects long finished or abandoned. I used scotch tape to make the straight white lines around all of the openings and hand painted the curves.

You can see the paint bottles behind the barn.
I also used the masking tape to keep the red paint off the roof and
floor and to keep the roof color off the walls. I painted the lightest
color (the floors) first so I could be messy with that one.

 

I even bought some tiny plastic farm animals from a market in Italy to help populate the barn and found an old tractor online. I also found some tiny hay bales at Michael's, which I just couldn't pass up. They were super messy though, so I finally covered them in glue (which dries clear) so they'd stop leaving hay everywhere. We took the barn home to my dad on Thanksgiving, and I'm pretty sure it was a hit. (The cats loved it, anyway!)

My little barn cats.

Just a Minute: September Edition

announcing...September was the month in which we were given the go-ahead by our doctor to make public that we have a healthy wee McArdle on the way. So far, (sorry baby) I am not really enjoying pregnancy much. Nathan doesn't ever let me use the "I'm pregnant" excuse for anything, which really puts a damper on the whole thing. I'm sure looking forward to the magical second trimester where you (supposedly) feel amazing.

partying…I was concerned that our big news would somewhat overshadow my birthday this year, (just like our wedding overshadowed my 30th. Why do I keep doing this to myself?) but my amazing husband really went all out this year for me. Not only did he send me flowers at work, but he also got me another birthday gift, tiny ice cream cakes, AND he even secretly texted friends to let them know they should send me birthday notes and wishes. Finding out about that honestly was the highlight of my whole birthday.

source

reading…Just finished the well-written but incredibly hard-to-read, Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. It's nonfiction about Annawadi, a large slum next to the Mumbai Airport. It is devastating to get such a vivid picture of the suffering of some of the world's poorest inhabitants. I kept having to remind myself that these were real people, not characters because my mind just didn't want to accept that this is a real experience for so many people.

fixing...In a last day of the month project, I fixed up a bedside table bought at a recent yard sale. It was surprising how quickly I was able to finish it. I really like those rare projects that provide such dramatic and fast results!

Photo (& Recipe) by IowaGirlEats.com

cooking...A friend from work recommended this recipe for the PF Chang Lettuce Wraps to me last week, so I made some on Thursday night. I highly recommend these! Nathan doesn't like water chestnuts, so I left those out. In an effort to replace the crunchiness, I added in bok choy and sliced pea pods, which were delicious. I think I was more liberal on the liquid ingredients when making the sauce, so mine was much more drippy. I also doubled the recipe, but that meant we had days of leftovers, so don't be tempted to do the same unless you are serving a crowd.

Sarah's Muffins by Rhok

baking...I was provided with a valuable baking reminder this weekend. Sure the timer is important when you're baking, but you should equally trust your instincts and your nose. If the muffins smell done, you should take them out of the oven, even if they have nearly 10 minutes to go. Leaving them even five more minutes will mean they will taste like streusal-covered cardboard with a charcoal infusion. I sawed off the charred bottoms and still ate five, but my enjoyment was forced. I ended up throwing the other dozen and a half away because once they cooled off, they had nothing going for them.

Saturday Project

We rearranged our bedroom recently, and with the new layout I no longer had a window ledge to use to hold my stuff. I needed a bedside table. At a recent neighborhood yard sale, I found a cute little beat up bedside table. It was missing some hardware and very scratched, but I realized that with a little paint and some replacement knobs, it would be better than new!

This Saturday I got to work. I picked up a quart of Valspar Sea Wave Semi Gloss from Lowe's and found some small knobs from Anthropologie for $6 each.

I got to work with my sandpaper, sanding down every part of the lacquer on the table so the paint would stick.

I had a little "help" with the sanding.
There was an offer to help paint, but I kindly turned them down.

Luckily the sun was quite strong and my paint dried quickly. I did at least 3 coats on everything, though there were probably five on the top. I screwed in the knobs and soaped up the bottoms of the drawers so they would slide smoothly (you can also use wax), and my project was finished!

I'll post a picture of this table in its new spot soon.

Just a Minute: August Edition

reading…Finished Gone Girl in less than 24 hours. Hyped for a reason. It was definitely a page turner with a dark sense of humor. I'm also started reading a series (Maisie Dobbs) set in the 1920's about a woman investigator who was a nurse in WWI. I'm enjoying it enough that I'm only half way through the first one, and I've already checked online to see how far the series continues. She's a very thoughtful, interesting character.

listening…Need a quick song to help you relax? Though it's awfully depressing if you listen to the words, These Ain't Raindrops by James Carr, is an amazing song.






surviving...The fourth annual Leisure Games took place the last weekend in August and was, once again, a success. We had seven out of town guests, and we fed lunch and dinner to well over 30 people! The house survived (minus one toilet handle) and is nearly back in shape 2 weeks later.

planning...Finally bought our tickets to Italy for this fall! Now I have to plan the trip. We're thinking we are going to rent a place in Tuscany and explore the countryside. I probably won't care where I am as long as I'm eating all that delicious pasta! 

Oh the texture in the wall paint, Martha?
I made it myself, with a little help, I suppose.
It's kitten hair. I'm glad you like it.

painting…This month we finally got around to redoing our tiny third bedroom. We painted the walls a robin's egg blue/green color, got a new yellow rug, and fabric to make new curtains; and it's only taken 3 years to get around to it! 

making...Curtains for the room-in-progress. It's very difficult to put a room together when you pick the wall color first. I couldn't find curtains that included the wall color or blended well with it, so I found a fabric we like and decided to make them myself. Curtains are one of the easiest sewing projects because it's just four straight edges.

Changing it Up

I decided our living room needed a change. My youngest sister painted me an abstract of poppies about 5 years ago in bright reds and yellow, but I felt that it didn't really fit our living room anymore. I looked at a variety of art for quite awhile, but I kept running into two large obstacles. 

First, I was having a hard time finding something the right size for the space over the mantle. If I found something I loved, it was invariably too small or tall and skinny to look balanced in this space.

And, just as importantly, everything that I really loved was either too expensive or Nathan hated it.

Finally, I had a flash of inspiration. When coming up with an idea for my office wall, I realized that I could buy a scrap quilt topper and use it for two projects simultaneously: the office wall AND our new mantle art.

I found a piece of sturdy cardboard to fit in the same frame our abstract poppies were in and covered it in a simple muslin fabric to act as a backing for the quilt. I used a little bit of spray glue to adhere a couple of strategic blocks to the muslin, just enough to hold the whole thing in place, then I wrapped them around to the back of the cardboard, cut of the excess, and secured the edges with more spray glue.

 

 

Fancy Headbands

Use a vintage necktie, lace scraps, ribbon, or embroidered fabric to make fancy headbands. Photo tutorial below.

Cut piece of tie long enough to go 2/3 around your head (mine was 15 1/2 inches).
Tie elastic cord into figure 8 measuring approx. 7 1/4 in. (I colored my elastic cord with permanent marker to match.)
Fold in ends of tie and position cord. Pin and (carefully!) try on. Adjust cord if needed. Sew.

Martha, No. Just No.

It's usually a good idea to go to Martha for upcoming holiday inspiration. However, sometimes those craft gurus at Martha Stewart Living seem so intent on cranking out the projects that you wonder if there's ever a project they deem unfit for the web. Here are a few they've suggested for Mother's Day that I sincerely question.

The perfect gift if mom is working on a rag rug or if she is a Rastafarian
(but seriously, how crazy/cool would this look on someone wearing dreads? )

There is no mistaking this as a stylish fashion necklace.
It is clearly a woman wearing giant bouncy balls and pantyhose around her neck.
Fashion, Martha owes you an apology.

Severed baby limbs? You're welcome, Mom.

You won't find these in a mall, but you might find them hanging from your nearest lamp.
You should not, however, find them hanging from your mother's ears because that's just wrong.

What?! I am sure as hell not wearing a button around that says this
no matter what day of the year it is.
Why, Martha? Why?

I Did That!

Just wanted to share a couple of projects that I did around the house this week.

At work I've been creating an hour-long workshop to present in just a week (my first one-I'm super nervous!), but even though my work hours have been longer than usual, I've found myself inspired to tackle some big projects around the house when I get home.

Last weekend we hung a new flatscreen in the tiny bedroom (it's on a moveable arm, so it might look a little off center in this picture), but I actually got the cord situation under control! And see that little hidden shelf for the cable box? Oh yeah, I did that!

It suddenly hit me how much nicer the dated wooden headboard in our guest room would look if I painted it. I could use a fun, bright contrasting color to all the deep reds in the room, and it would make such an impact. I chose Moonlit Pool from Behr.

While I was moving the bed, I came across these folding wooden chairs that I bought at a garage sale two years ago to fix up as a "project." I used a floral canvas and striped oilcloth I already had on hand, the paint I was using on the headboard, and white paint in our storage closet.