Make: A Merry Garland

So it's mid November now and if you are like us sisters, and love to put those handmade majesties under the Christmas tree, then the clock is starting to tick. Lucky for me I can pull out last years decorations and not spend all that precious time selfishly making adornments. I will, however, encourage you to take the time to make a handy construction paper Christmas garland to bring some holiday cheer into your home.

I'd advise you get your garland ready now, because you'll need all of December to make your lists of projects that you have every intention of completing. So get garlanding...

DIY: Arrow Rack

I found a bunch of old arrows while messing around in Dad's shop a couple months back and have been going back and forth about what to do with them. I finally committed to turning them into a rack for necklaces. If you've visited us before, you may remember my tree branch necklace holder. Apparently, I'm big on necklace display. Not surprisingly, this project requires a few arrows, and unlike me, you might not just stumble across arrows as part of your everyday activities. So, here are several ideas on where to procure arrows of your very own...

Pumpkin inspiration!

Pumpkin City by Country Living

Every year I consider carving or painting a pumpkin and creating a little Halloween vignette on my tiny porch, and every year I reject the idea because without trick-or-treaters, what's the point? Usually, I satisfy my craving for Halloween decor by tricking out my mantel with creepiness, but if I had a yard or a bigger porch or any trick-or-treaters at all, I'd be making these pumpkins like crazy.

Autumn bookshelf...

The leaves have started turning fiery shades and falling to the ground. I thought it appropriate to mimic the changing seasons in my living room. Specifically on my bookcase. I didn't use any template for these little leaves. They're pretty easy to make. All you have to do is grab some autumn leaf-colored card stock and a pair of scissors, and start cutting out all the little leaf-shapes you can think of. It doesn't have to be perfect because there are all different kinds of leaves...

blue as can be

I finally finished the other set of curtains I forced Mom to sew for me. And by finished I mean that I dip-dyed them with Dylon Ocean Blue fabric dye. Remember that other set? The one Mom made while I was napping? Well, she made this one, too. I basically just shoved fabric at her and went to sleep for a couple hours. When I finally awoke, it was because she was standing over me saying my name. Apparently, she wasn't aware how terrified I'd be to awake with someone looming over me. I yelped and about fell out of bed. Man, afternoon naps are so disorienting. As for these curtains, with the underwatery light they spread about my bedroom...well, they're dreamy, not disorienting...

Golden corgi

Nicholas' birthday was towards the end of July and because he loves corgis so much, I decided to make a special topper for his birthday key lime pie. I didn't just stop at a corgi topper. I went ahead and made toppers out of the whole wild kingdom. Take a look and maybe you'll be inspired to make your own gilded toppers. If you are so inspired, I included an easy-to-follow tutorial.

Started with a corgi figure that I bought at Michael's

wonderful wallpaper

Most of my memories of wallpaper are taken up with the unicorn wallpaper from my sisters' childhood bedroom and the awful fruit basket wallpaper currently grossing up the walls of my mom's kitchen. And that, my dears, is definitely going to go the way of the dodo this summer. The fruit baskets will experience a major extinction event. So long, maroon and hunter green! But this magical woodlands toile wallpaper from Sian Zeng is quite the opposite.

brown and pink

blue, green, and grey

khaki and blue

And for the wallpaper grand finale....MAGNETIC WALLPAPER!
It even comes with a charming group of magnets to get you started. Who wouldn't want this little fella on their wall? 

Under the Sea. Up in the Air.

Okay, so Christine is a Master Felter, and being a sister, I get to benefit from her skills on birthdays and Christmas. She has made me a manta ray, colossal squid, and sperm whale; I decided to combine these marine-themed felted wonders and create a maritime mobile to brighten up my mornings.

I used an old embroidery hoop and wrapped fabric to create the mobile and made a couple additional sea accoutrements to round it out.

Pretty thrilled with how it turned out, and if you would like to check out any of the other amazing felted wonders on the blog just click on the word 'felted' in the tag line. There were really too many great ones to put all the links in the post, but I did have to add one special link to a felted Narwhal that Christine made for Catherine last year. This one made it to the post because, you know, it falls in with the theme. Best check it out.

Felted Narwhal

$1 Wreath

I've been meaning to get some kind of festive spring/summer wreath on the front door since the day I took down my Christmas wreath (mind you that wasn't in December, I took it down February-ish--stop judging). I had an extra wreath form leftover from Christmas. I bought mine at the Dollar Tree. They're wrapped straw, and they worked well for covering in tree branches at Christmas and covering in yarn for summer!

Step one: acquire a wreath.

I'm a knitter, so I always have leftover yarn sitting around. Most of this is acrylic yarn that I don't really use for many knitting projects. I grabbed a bunch of colors to pick from

The bad cat was sleeping, so I wasn't disturbed. The next part took about an hour to do.

All you have to do is start wrapping the wreath form with whatever color you want. I started with gray and wrapped until I was satisfied and then switched colors.

When you want to switch colors just cut the yarn and start wrapping the next color. I always overlapped by just a couple strands to secure the previous color and anchor down the new color. I didn't use any glue in the entire wreath.

I picked the colors as I went, and at the end, I tucked the final piece of yarn under a couple of wraps. 

It's a really easy wreath that could be customized for any holiday or birthday. Someone will probably do a red, white, and blue wreath, but I'm just not that festive. Another bonus is that the wreath is super light weight, so you don't have to worry about hanging it on any wall. This wreath would also look cute in a bedroom or living room.

 This wreath certainly livens up my front door and it only cost me $1. 

It also looks nice from the back which is perfect since my front door is a bunch of glass panes.

Head over the dollar tree and while you're there, grab some tissue paper which your cats will love. Throw some in a box and call it good.

They also have a really good deal on some seashells. I bought 4 or 5 containers of them, but I haven't figured out what to do with them yet.

Wolf on the Wall.

First and foremost, let me apologize for the blue tint to these first couple pictures. I didn't realize Ben had changed the settings on the camera. Whoops. 

This is my Wolf on the Wall project. The name came about when Ben and I walked up the street to where all the food trucks hang out in Burbank. As we waited in line, we peered into the antique shop behind us and saw a picture of a wolf on the wall. For some reason that turned in to the thing to say, and this project was born...

I like you chairy much!

So this is a true story about a traveling chair. Well it's not super amazing, but kind of fun. About fourteen (?) years ago my boyfriend, Ben, lived in Burbank, CA. He was a young man living on a dime with his best buddy, and since their pocketbooks were slim they jumped at the opportunity to gain a chair off the side of the road. (Said chair is featured above.) Now, in Burbank it's a desert climate so this is okay. In the Pacific Northwest you really wouldn't want to pick anything plush up off the side of the road because it could contain a deadly strain of mold.

Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes made of ticky-tacky...

So every now and then we are all guilty of gleaning ideas and inspiration. Well, here is my confession of such a replication. The picture below is a shop in East LA; I was walking by it one afternoon and noticed their window decorations. It was clear to me as soon as I saw them what must be done. Consider them the victim of gleaning. 

 

 I was going to actually construct the edifices out of cardboard but then I found these little house boxes at
 Michael's Craft store, on the cheap.

 I removed the chimney off the smaller one because I liked the look without it.

 I used a 'bleached titanium' colored acrylic paint, the coverage was thick enough I only needed one
coat and then a few touch ups here and there.

 I painted all the sides white, that I wanted white I guess.

 The roof and the chimney top would be black.

Once the paint dried, I used a grey marker and a folded paper (for a straight edge) to outline my designs.

The black completely covered any marker remnants--it was hard to make the line perfect.

But I kind of liked those imperfections in the end.

Finished product. I should have taken more pictures. Oh well, I do plan on making more of these and will have to add some more pictures. But they are fun to make and you can go crazy with the patterns. Also, they would be a really cute house warming party decoration...if you did actually make some lighter ones and hang them. Anyone moving soon?

You don't have to be 14 to be into nail art!

That's a fact. I did however learn how to stamp my nails by watching a 14-year-old girl give a tutorial on youtube. She was most helpful. About a month ago I purchased some nail plate kits on amazon. Don't ask. It just kind of happened. Anyway, when they arrived in the mail I realized I didn't know how to use them. I went to youtube and found out I had forgotten to order the stamper that goes along with the nail kit. Big mistake. So I went back and ordered that too. Now that I have all the pieces, I can show you how it works.

The finished product!

Let's start at the very beginning (God, now I just want to watch the sound of music).

In the beginning, there were plain nails.

You pick one color to use as the base or undercoat.

Then you pick a color that will stand out over the base coat.

I decided to pick a pattern from plate 212 (who cares really?)

Paint your undercoat color. Check.

Then you paint the design with the accent color.

You have to scrape off the excess from the pattern.

Then you take the stamp (that you surely remembered to order)
and pick up the pattern.

See, this is what it looks like. No get prepared to transfer it to your nailsssss.

It'll be really messy at first.

Keep on trucking.

After you repeat the above steps on every nail, you apply a generous top coat.

Then you're pretty much done. I wasn't wild about these two colors. They're a little boring-snore if you ask me. I've done a few others that I really like. Everyday I reapply the top coat. They last for about 5 days, which isn't bad in my opinion.

PS I think it's hard to photograph nails/fingers without it looking creepy.

STAMP YOUR NAILS!