Saturday, May 12, 2012

Card

Woo-hoo!  My little brother and his sweet girlfriend are engaged!!  I'm so excited by their happy news, I broke out of my regular habit of sending a text to congratulate and actually made a card.  I was inspired for the design by one I saw on Etsy.


And because my hand writing is soooooooooooo bad, the envelope as well


My wall of photos

Renovating the spare bedroom took a turn out the door and into the hallway.  After I had finished painting all of the frames, my husband/consultant took one look at them and said they would look great in the hallway.  I decided to hang them all with 3M picture hangers, which ended up costing about $30, more than the frames, paints and pictures!
In the end, I decided that was totally worth it because I can take them down whenever I want and swap the picture over, and if I ever get sick of the navy (how could I? The color combos are endless!) then I can taken them down and paint them a totally different color!
Now I had ten more photo frames than before, I had to decide what to put in them.  I've made a little collage of my mum, included pictures of my grandparents when they were young, and put up some memories of our recent trip to Europe and the UK.  Still a couple more to fill, but nearly finished now!

Friday, May 4, 2012

Revamping the spare room

Our house is a 1960's shell that has been renovated to be all white with down lights in most rooms.  I love that it looks so clean, but lately I've been seeing what other people are doing, like my friend Alex on her blog "Hello from Tassie" and on Dwelling Gawker, which is similar to one of my favorite craft sites Craft Gawker.

So I decided it's time for a bit of color, and I've given myself a budget of $200, just to be a bit of a challenge as well. I have started a furniture project (but that's for another day when it's finished) and that has cost $25.  I moved some things around in my wardrobe, which is of course free until I find some more shelves to go in it.  And I pulled out some old photo frames and bought $8 more worth so I now have 10 frames in total.  Finally I bought three sample pots of paint for $28 dollars.  The brushes and cleaning supplies brings the grand total so far to about $70.

The paint I bought is snap-shot (navy), go alpha (jade) and meniscus (light grey).  I'm set on painting stripes, but I'll wait until I've tried a few things out before I go crazy on them.

This weekend I plan to paint all of the photo frames and decide what to put in them.  They look great so far.  Then I need to fill them with pictures of our families, and memories of things we have done as a couple.  I pulled out all the Europe mementos, program from Wicked and magazine from Port Arthur.  Such great memories.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Little pup

When my friend found out she was expecting number two and wasn't finding out if it was a boy or a girl, I wanted to make her something that could be a bit neutral.  She has two dogs already, so I thought that a little stuffed dog would be perfect.  It ended up taking a whole weekend to make him, because I didn't think to go online and get a pdf pattern of a dog, I just looked at pictures and did a few tests until he looked right.  His body is made of cotton canvas and the print is from a local patchwork shop in town.
I love matchy-match gifts, so I went into town and got a scrap blanket from the Waverley Woolen Milles and sewed a brown linen backing on it, and some circles in the matching print.
Even though I did this nearly a year ago, I was reminded about it this week when my lovely friend texted me to tell me that her son, now seven months old was staring at the pup and then reached out and pulled it down to him. He loves it - Yay!

Inspired by a rainy weekend

This weekend the weather has been rainy, and that's given me a great reason to do craft (like anyone needs a reason too).  I saw this concept of printing on book pages a while ago and now that I have picked up my new color printer, it's time to play!

I've been considering for some time, how to use the flowers I dried from my sister-in-laws wedding bouquet.  She was happy to give me the bouquet but the flowers did not dry well.  Now you may be thinking how do these two things go together?


Well, I scanned the flowers through my new printer, edited them to be purple silhouettes and printed them on the book pages.  I also added a little monogram and the date, and a stamp of a little bird on each one.  I used purple and the bird, as that was the inspiration for the wedding decorations.  They came out great, and I'm planning to post them to her for her birthday next week.

While I was at it I got a bit off topic, and made this for the sister of the bride, who caught the bouquet on the night.  Not book art, but re-using the images of the dried flowers.









My first test print was inspired by the rainy day.  I printed a clip art umbrella onto an old book that my sweet husband said I could have for the purpose.  Sorry for the poor quality photograph, it looks much better in real life!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Patchwork inspiration

I just figured out what to do with some of the more unusual pieces of my fabric stash.  How cool are these bunting flags?



DNA photography via Style me pretty

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Placemats

DIY stencil throw pillowI have been longing to try this latest project since I saw the cushions (right) from Wit & Whistle via craftgawker.  I had planned to make cushions too, but when our cousin told us he was re-decorating in grey and white I got inspired to make them the place mats below instead.  That and they had already been given cushion covers.



In my fabric stash I had 1 metre of wool look fabric that I picked up at the op-shop for $2.    Once assembled and ironed, I got out my stencil and wrote the phrase "Live, Love, Laugh" on them with a sharpie.  I love how they came out.



Friday, April 6, 2012

Easter

For Easter we always go to Cocoabean Chocolate in Launceston.  Their chocolate is di-vine!!  This year we bought everyone two little bunnies is a clear box.  They are the cutest little bunnies and it will be a shame to eat them.  I also bought a box of Tea Tonic dark chocolate and black tea, hoping to make Easter last longer than the chocolate and giving the adults a grown up treat. And now because it is still two more days until Easter and I don't have to go to work, I thought I'd try and make them look pretty in their wrapping.





I made these cute little tags to put on the Easter baskets.  I can't believe how easy it is to make something like this in a word processing program.  The rabbit is actually the letter "r" of a font that is animal silhouettes instead of letters.  You may have guessed, I love Donna Hay magazine and it arrived yesterday, so after I read it I knew I wanted to make blue and brown themed Easter gifts the same as Donna's signature colors! Plus chocolate is brown.


I also have been going to my favorite craft site, craft gawker.  I love seeing the creative articles and getting inspiration from this site.  On there I found a crochet pattern for Easter bunnies from Craft, and with best intentions I set out to make the pair.  I haven't crocheted for over a year so it took a little longer than I thought, but I did manage to make Edward in time for Easter (sorry for the terrible photo!).




On Easter morning, my beautiful husband took these pictures for me.  From left to right: Edward Bunny and two little chocolate bunnies for our little 3 year old cousin; plum pickle for everyone; and the tea bags and plum pickle all nicely wrapped together.  








Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Wedding decor

I was thrilled when my sister in law, N, asked me to make some decorations for her wedding, held at that same place I got married 18 months earlier.  She's got good taste!


Her colors for the wedding were purple and cream, and she described her style as rustic chic.  I had no idea what this meant but I found a few great websites, like Sparkle and Hay, that described it as finding a chandelier in a barn.  What a beautiful image that brings to mind :)


First I had a little whip around my house and garden to see what fitted the look.  I found old books, cameras, vases, lavender and roses.  In thirty minutes or so I'd made this (thanks Instagram app for making it look cool).




I used these little bits and pieces to put around the wishing well, made by N's grandfather.  I didn't get a picture of the day because we were just so happy and excited to be sharing their special day with them.

For our wedding my amazing mother in law got us four metal hooks made that go into the ground and you can hang lanterns or flowers off the end of them.  N used them too and put two at the end of the aisle and two at the top of it.  I made her these covered mason jars and filled them with purple roses (how lucky was I to get those!) and the last of the lavender and hydrangeas from our garden.  I loved that we were able to give her something special just from us on the day.

 
As it was an outdoor wedding, and the reception had been beautifully set up, everything in cream with gorgeous flowers everywhere, everything else I made was for outside.  My favorite thing was the embroidery hoops with crocheted doilies sewn on to tulle.  I know, it sounds a bit odd but the just set of the tree canopy but didn't overwhelm it and the photographer loved them too.  After the ceremony we took them down and sat them next to the fireplace in the reception venue.




I saw this fabulous DIY project for making a chandelier from an old light shade and paint swatches on hey gorgeous blog and decided to make my own.  A word from the now wise, in the chandelier they have used a big shape.  Do not even consider cutting out 12 x 1 1/2" hearts for each drop, and 17 drops on each of the two layers, and two chandeliers.  It was more than one week before I got full feeling back in all my fingers from cutting those hearts out.  It didn't matter when I saw how lovely they looked up in the trees and how much N and the rest of the family loved them.  What a great day, and I got to bring all the decorations home so I get to remember it every day!




Baby shower event

This is very old now, but my dear friend A had her baby shower at a local cafe.  She wasn't finding out if the baby was a boy or girl, and had decided to decorate the nursery with owls in greens, yellows and oranges.  I made her a few little things to make it an extra special day for her.


First basic cookies, with white royal icing and then pastel colored icing piped on in the letter A, these cute little cello bags with bright stars, and placed them all in a bowl on a coffee table at the cafe.  Every one took at least one home at the end of the event.








This owl bunting reading "A's baby shower".  It was made using owls hand cut from scrapbooking paper I had at home, some two inch round circles made with my whole punch and a bunch of letter stickers I had left over from another project.






Last but not least I had some baby shower games typed up with owl designs I created especially for the day.  They are so cute!