"You Are My World" painting

My life has been turned upside down at the moment.  I did, however, finish a project I've been planning for a very very long time (like 2 years). (Priorities people!!)

This is for my great friend who had a baby.  We went back and forth on something she would want for her nursery. 

Her mother made this gorgeous quilt (wish I had a picture of it) which also left samples of the fabric. 

I wanted to incorporate the fabric somehow in the painting - which I did in the lettering.
 

I cut out the lettering with the fabric samples on my Silhouette machine.

After painting the world with different shades of green, I decopouged the whole thing to make sure the fabric does not go anywhere.  It is on a 16x20 canvas.

I love it.  It has the simpleness (my friend was looking for) and yet is artsy enough for me.

Wedding gift pillows

So when one of my best friends from high school asked me to be in her wedding, I knew I had to something creative for her present.

Since I ordered extra silk fabric with my bridesmaid dress, I thought I would put it to good use! 

I wanted to make something that would remind her of her special day, but something she could still use.  Her wedding colors were silver and turquoise.

I used my silhouette to cut out the Mr. and Mrs. from the silk and then sewed it on with matching blue thread.



Here is a close-up of the lettering sewed on.  

Congratulations Nikki! I'm so excited for you! Hope you can get good use of your new pillows!  

 

Teacher appreciation gifts

So this post is long overdue, but at the end of the school year my daughter wanted to do something for her teacher to say thank you for the wonderful year. 

So, thanks to pintrest, we got this idea from the blog of a friend of mine (for some reason I can't link her post about it, not sure why).

My daughter drew and painted the whole thing herself (which she was quite proud of) on canvas and then I glued the flower on top (compliments to my silhouette).  

I love how it turned out, and I'm sure her teacher loved it too.

 

Nursery decor

So a good friend of mine is going to have a baby girl.

I wanted to do something for her baby's room.  Her colors: tan, navy, coral, pinks. And a bird motif.

I wanted to include some cherry-like blossoms to remind her of DC (she is moving away this summer)

So here is what I came up with:



I had this idea of having a damask print in the background with metallic paint (remember my obsession with metallic paint?)

So I cut out a stencil of a damask print on my Silhouette with vinyl.

It was actually much much more work than anticipated.
If trying this tactic, I would suggest a stencil that isn't vinyl.

(or isn't as intricate as a damask print which has so many tiny little pieces to take out.)

But I love how it turned out.  The damask print is subtle -- but it really shows up in the flash of this picture so you can get a better look of it here:
 

It makes it look like it is painted on wall paper or something.

I had a lot of fun with it.

 

Anchor away

So it was my friend's birthday and I was in a creative drought that needed quenching, so I wanted to paint something for her.

Her house is adorable - filled with a nautical motif with boats and maps, etc. So I thought an anchor would be quite fitting.  Simple. cute. (and easy, which fit my schedule this week)

I've been a little obsessed with metallic paint lately, so the anchor is in metallic paint, which really makes it pop when you see it.

 

You can kind of catch the gleam of the metallic paint in this picture here: 

Family Night board

So I found this picture of a Family Night board I made for my sister-in-law for Christmas last year and I loved how it turned out.  (It took way WAY longer to make than anticipated because I desperately needed a new blade for my silhouette. )

This picture is without the pegs that went under the words - I didn't manage to put them on until we flew down for the holidays (too much to do before traveling)

But I thought it turned out cute and I hope she has found good use for it!

 

This is what I gathered from my garden today:



Check it out! My best crop I've ever had!
A little closer look at the juiciness:  

The bowl will not last long since mom has decided to share her bounty with little fingers: 

 

Enjoy strawberry season! I'm tasting every moment!

Teacher Appreciation door decorating

So one of the responsibilities of room parents is decorating the teacher's door during teacher appreciation week.

The theme was MAGIC.

We wanted to keep it simple.

Here is what we came up with (courtesy of my friend's iphone)




Everything was cut out with my silhouette machine (the words, the stars, the hat, the rabbit) - I love having excuses to use it!
Love how it turned out!  

Grommet Curtains

So this project started in November.  I got all motivated, bought my fabric, sewed one panel in a short amount of time.  And then never finished. until now.  Whew.




Partly, because I made a mistake on the first one and didn't bring myself around to fixing it until now.

And because part of the mistake involved making ANOTHER trip to Joanns which is about 40 minutes away. ugh. which doesn't happen very often.

The only problem is that not only did I have to fix my first mistake, I had to RELEARN how I made it the first time. 

Hopefully, with this post I can remember what I did (if I ever want to do it again).

I got a lot of good help from THIS website and a few good tips from THIS website.


There were two important tips that I also learned - make sure the fabric on both panals is going in the same direction. It seems very basic but if you have a pattern fabric it can be hard not to get confused (thankfully I didn't make this mistake, but almost did)
And secondly, make sure the grommet tape is going in the direction you want it to go. I had it all sewn on and finished when I realized I had cut out the grommet tape wrong (so the panals faced out instead of in. urgh)

In my opinion, it was worth going back a few steps to fix.  Here is the difference:

This is without using the grommet tape:

And this is WITH the grommet tape. It makes a much more uniformed, polished look (at least I think so) by scrunching the sides of the fabric together.

* EZ grommet tape can be found in the home decorator fabric section at joanns.





My steps I followed:

1) So, I first measured out my fabric. I wanted them 90 inches long.  I added 8 inches for the bottom hem and .5 for the top - so 98.5 inches long.



2) I measured out my lining. Total length subract 3 inches. (87 inches)

3) Sewed a zig-zag stitch on the top and bottom of my fabric.

4) Bottom hem: Pressed in the bottom fabric 4 inches. Then pressed in another 4 inches.  Then sewed a blind hem stitch to finish it off.  Good video HERE. 

5) Bottom hem of lining: folded up one inch (right side up facing down) and pressed. then another.  Sewed a blind hem stitch to finish.

5)  Pressed in the top of fabric (.5 inches).

6) sewed fabric with lining.  Right sides face each other.  Leave about 3.5 inches on the top and 1.5 inches of fabric on the bottom. Sewed with a .5 inch seam.  Pull lining to other side and repeat.

7) Turned fabric inside out - and pressed, leaving a even amount of fabric on each side.

8) Pinned the grommet tape on the top so it covered the edges of both the lining and the fabric.

9) Sew the grommett tape on - leaving an even amount of fabric on both sides.

10) Cut the fabric circles out. Scary! but don't worry, it will look good in the end.

Note:
If you use EZ grommets, the grommets will fit this tape. I did NOT use EZ grommets, and therefore had to cut additional part of the grommet tape away so it would fit.  very annoying.



These are the grommets I used - easy to put on, just snap together (you have to put some muscle behind it, but still relatively easy)

So the other problem I had was my curtain rod - the original one I had was not strong enough or long enough (even though it said it went up to 120 inches).  SO I ended up having to get a dowl at home depot and paint it.  (and the dowl wasn't long enough, so I had to buy two. I did end up using the same finials though.

However, when I was putting up the second panal, I dropped the rod and broke the finial. urgh. and bent the pole a little bit. oh well.... such is life.

Here are some without the flash.... a little blurry and the coloring is a bit off but you get the idea.

Notice I found a spot for my Eve painting? From THIS post? finally. It's been collecting dust.

 

There you have it! A not-so-difficult way to update a room.

Valentine's Day

So this year we made these for my daughter's class:

 

Thank you pinterest! See here on more info to make the chocolate pretzel buttons.

And the button handout I made on my silhouette.

The pretzel buttons actually were more difficult to make than it looked like (due to little fingers helping) but they were fun to make.

Candyland party

We've had a busy start to the year.

But we managed to pull off a fun birthday party for my 5 year old, whose birthday shortly after Christmas. He loves to play Candyland, so we thought the theme was appropriate.

Next time, I need to allow myself more notice. Planning a big party in less than a week is a little crazy. (and anything after Christmas traveling is also crazy)

But, it came together and turned out great.

Our candy spread
(I cut out letters for the sign with my silhouette, and much of the candy I bought on Amazon)

 

Close up on how much candy we had...overload

 

Treat boxes (once again, my silhouette came in handy)

 

Cupcakes with rainbow lollys

 

Cake batter rice crispies. LOVED them.

 

the kids loved the floating candies

 

Playing musical squares (to the music "I want candy")

 

Making King Kandy Kastles

 

Our sign on the door

 

Overall, success!!