painted acorn garland

Over the Bed

Confession....We have been living in a nearly naked bedroom for years! It took us 3 years to paint the room (gasp!) and it's still not fully decorated 5 years after moving in. We have some difficulty meshing our styles, my hubby and I. He's traditional and I lean more towards modern-rustic. Could we be more different? So I've been in search for something to hang over our bed for a while and finally came up with this. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm  not thrilled over it, but it's an improvement and it cost hardly anything. We're still missing something...not sure what it is yet...

 We started this this....nothing...

 I looked at a few things....

 but nothing seemed just right (these 3 photos from Target). Um, sorry about the above shot. Just realized, not so flattering.

 Then I happened by a junk shop downtown in the city where I grew up and found this lovely (er...something) thing. The glass was broken out of it so I told the owner I would take it if he would get all the glass out first. He promptly took it outside with a hammer and smashed the glass to smithereens. And then wham, 5 bucks and it was mine. He said I was getting an awesome deal because it was an original artwork signed by the artist that was hanging in a local gallery at some point. 

Gee thanks. Better call the Smithsonian.

 I didn't tell him I was scrapping it for the metal frame and white board behind it. It was well framed by a respected frame shop in the city, so I think $5 was a screaming deal. I cleaned it up (had a greasy layer of something or other that WD-40 did a nice job of cutting through) and it turned out great. Perfect size!

 I finally used the stencil that I won from Royal Design Studio ages ago. I painted the whole thing (the white board the frame came with) with blue craft paint and then stenciled with silver craft paint.

 It took some work getting the art work out of the frame and assembled back together since it was  metal frame with brackets and all sorts of weirdness I never saw before (Guess i never UN-assembled a well-made frame before). When I brought it into our room I could not believe my eyes. It hadn't dawned on me until I set it up against the wall of curtains that they are a very similar design!

 Then I took an oval frame that used to be gold (painted with the same silver craft paint), stuck an enlarged b/w photo from our wedding in it and  measured and nailed it right on top of the stenciled board. And just like that, we have over the bed wall art for about $9! ( $5 for large frame, $2 for oval frame, $2 for photo enlargement)

Like I said, still a work in progress...feels like it needs something more. But what?

Washi Clothespins

What I have been making a lot of lately because it's easy to set up and pack up in the few minutes I have to craft nowadays. And I can do it while still playing with the kiddos. Plus they are useful hostess gifts and to keep around the house for chip clips (aka frozen pea clips!).

fox cushion

I made this for our 4 old son for Christmas this past year and I totally forgot to post about it. So here it is 3 months later. I used the fabric that I bought in IKEA's as-is section. It was a slipcover for a chair. A nice heavyweight canvas. I printed a picture that I got off of the internet years ago ( sorry I can't link or give credit to it since I don't remember where I got it. Feel free to let me know if you know. ) on to transfer paper and just ironed it on to the fabric cut around it leaving a couple inch margin and sewed it up. I filled it with regular ol' polyfill. I think he turned out pretty nifty.

The 1 thing that always happens with transfer paper for me is that it turns out with a green tinge. I'm really not sure why it does that, but it turned out fine anyway. Have a great Sunday!

Working on....

I'm learning to cross stitch. Thanks to Michael's which had a Mary Englebright cross stitch kit for a buck, and Martha Stewart's awesome article about cross stitching families. I'm making one in honor of my one year old baby boy.

And I'm blogging from my phone for the first time. Maybe I'll be able to blog more often this way. We'll see!