Simple Meaningful Art

I framed this "To Do" list last spring to write on with dry-erase markers, but quickly realized it was easier to write my to dos on the giant mirror that hung on the wall nearby (ala YHL).  So after months of not using it, I was ready to make a change.

I've been reading this awesome book by John Piper and came across a quote that I loved and wanted to hang on my wall as a constant reminder.

So I grabbed my favorite book of scrapbook paper (which I've used to make a baby book and tons of stationary)...

...and got to work.

The first step involved cutting out a piece of scrap paper with the right dimensions for the frame, folding it into 4 equal sections, and practicing spacing my words out evenly.

It took a few tries, which is why you can see pencil and marker on my practice sheet.  Next I cut out a properly sized piece of scrap book paper, and carefully wrote the quote down.

And here's the final product!

I love the way it constantly points me toward eternal things.  I don't want to waste my short life on things that will not last into eternity.

Penn State Scandal

I'm a Penn State alum.  My dad's a professor at Penn State and I grew up all of my life in State College, PA.  And while I don't "bleed Blue and White" like a lot of alumni, PSU is definitely near and dear to my heart.  It's where I grew up, it shaped a lot of who I am, it's where I met my husband, where God called me into ministry, and where I began to really fall in love with Jesus.

So the recent scandal involving Sandusky was hard to take emotionally.  I've watched a lot of news clips and read a lot of articles from different papers, but none of them helped as much as the script from a message given at Penn State by the director of Cru.  Here's the link for you to check it out - I highly recommend that you do.

Baking Bread

I recently learned how to bake bread... actually using yeast... from scratch.  I'd been intimidated by this for years but always wanted to try!  And let me encourage you - it is MUCH easier than I ever imagined!  You don't have to be Martha Stewart or Paula Dean to be successful =)

Deliah's Pumpkin Nut swirled bread

I would highly recommend any of these bread baking tutorials.  They give simple step by step directions, and best of all they show awesome, inspiring pictures!

Here are some pictures of me making Dana from MADE's Braided Bread (with cinnamon sugar):

MADE Braided Bread

Dana's lovelier bread

Deliah Creates Best Bread Ever

Pumpkin nut swirl - yum!!

The PioneerWoman

Pioneer Woman does them right.  Soooo yummy!

I've made these cinnamon rolls a few times for various events and everyone loves them!  I don't have any pictures of the ones I've made... they didn't last long enough to take a picture!  I did change the icing recipe a bit, leaving out the maple and adding vanilla just because of my personal preferences.  They are even easier to make than the breads above because you don't have to knead the dough at all!

Current Project - FINISHED!

Remember when I told you about my current project?  Well I finally made some progress!  I quickly realized that I needed a way to add material to the shirt to make it wider- but I wanted to retain as much of the original look as I could.  Here's what I started with:

Digging through my stash of thrift shirts, I found another one that is too tight and decided to use it for my additional fabric.

 First I seam ripped the neckline off of the front of the shirt all the way to the shoulder seams.  Then I cut the front of the shirt (not including neckline) down the middle.

Then I measured the length of the front panels of the shirt, top to bottom.

And I ironed a portion of the eggplant colored shirt (I had previously seam-ripped it apart) flat.  I don't have an ironing board so I just fold a towel up and put it on our table that has ceramic tiles.  As long as the iron doesn't pass over the wood edges everything is fine!

Next I used some simple geometry to mark out the triangular shaped piece of eggplant fabric that I would place in my newly opened section of the shirt.

And cut it out.

And pinned it into the shirt!

 

Then I sewed it in using a straight stitch and added a piece of the purple fabric to the collar.

Then I finished by sewing the collar back onto the shirt.

So... it did add some width to the shirt and gave me more breathing room.  However, I'm afraid it looks like a black shirt with a purple tie.  I don't think it looks too bad when it's on, but it's definitely not an amazing refashion. 

Paint Chip Art

Paint chip art is popping up everywhere these days.

From Pinterest

And since we've collected quite a few paint chips this year at Home Depot, we thought we'd give it a try too!  We haven't changed up the pictures in our apartment for a few years so we were both looking forward to something new.  Young House Love and Bower Power's current Pinterest Challenge was definitely a motivator too!

We spent a lot of time coming up with a design.  Our paint chips were all variations of three colors: pink, green, and blue.  So we decided we wanted some sort of swirl pattern out of the pink-toned paint chips and that the blue and green would be filler colors.  It took some playing around with different patterns but we eventually came up with something we liked:

After determining the layout, we flipped each paint chip over individually, cut them to ensure they were all the same size, and taped them together on the back.  The cuts weren't perfect (I really wish I had one of those paper cutters that teachers use) but that's okay - it looks homemade!

Next we waited until I found the perfect frame - at Unique!  Unique is an awesome thrift store in Northern Virginia.  I was there with friends to find 80s clothes for a costume and just happened to walk by a $3.99 picture frame that looked like the perfect size.  Hooray!

After I cleaned it up with Windex I realized that there was no way to take the frame apart.  Well, there probably is but I couldn't figure it out!  So my husband used an knife to cut open the cardboard in the back and pull it out of the frame.  Except it wasn't just cardboard!  There were plastic layers between different layers of really thick, unbendable cardboard.

But eventually we got it and were able to slip our art inside.  Then we just taped one layer of cardboard on the back to keep our art in place.  Here's the final product:

Easy Art and Updated Storage

I adore this idea from Nesting Place blog today.  Wrapping shoe boxes with paper, fabric, etc. to make art.

Here's the picture from Nesting Place:

 

houzz

Love that!

This weekend I did something similar - not to make art but to update some ugly storage on our desk.  Months ago I took a cardboard box and covered it with masking tape, hoping that it would just be a nice, unnoticeable beige.  It looked like this:

Not the best.  And why I chose to write in such big letters in the middle of the box is beyond me.  Though it used to be oriented a different way so the words weren't sideways.

So I turned it into this:

Here are my steps to updated storage:

1.  Cut out a piece of scrapbook paper so that it is approximately 1 inch larger on each side than the box top.  Glue on to top of box using Tacky glue.  Put extra glue on all four sides, approximately one inch from the top.

2.  Fold down extra paper so that it sticks to sides.  Repeat on the bottom.

3.  Put glue on one side of box.

4.  Cut out piece of scrapbook paper so that it is the exact dimension of the side that is glue and lay over glue, smoothing it down.  Repeat on all four sides.

Much better!

Easter Basket to Anytime Basket

Last Easter I was feeling pretty blue.  We weren't able to go to church because my hubby couldn't be in big crowds yet (and church is always crowded on Easter) and we couldn't visit our families either.  Two awesome things happened though: we watched an amazing live church service from Mars Hill Church and Pastor Mark Driscoll, and my husband surprised me with an Easter egg hunt that culminated in this special Easter basket filled with treats:

After 6 months admiring it and being reminded of my Easter surprise, I decided that I needed to do a little updating to make it match our decor a little better. 

First, I un-threaded the orange and gold ribbon that ran around the middle of the basket.  It actually wasn't even glued in so it was very easy to do!  Then I pulled out my set of craft paints and painted over the butterflies and the pink strips.  It took multiple coats (and a very small paint brush) but this is the end result:

And now for a close-up:

I love how it matches my bookshelf and that I can now enjoy it in all seasons!

I'm still not sure what to do with the extra baskets sitting inside of it - and I'm hoping to make some fabric flowers to put in that vase... eventually!

Heart Onesies

Last weekend I taught my friend some basic sewing skills - it was such a great time!  For our project I taught her how to add applique to onesies (she has some friends' baby-showers coming up).

I originally learned to do this from Stitch by Stitch - and it really is simple!  Here's our final product!

$1 Bookcase Re-do

I found this bookcase on the side of the road last week!  I've been wanting one of these for a while now and then poof!  There it was!

I rescued it right before heavy rain started to fall.

It's made out of particle board but the back on three of the squares was really cheap cardboard.  So I ripped it off.

 

 

Which left this:

It might be less trendy than the original, but I don't really like trendy things because they go out of fashion too fast for me to keep up with.  This way it's more of a classic bookshelf that will always be in fashion.

To spruce it up I added many thin layers of $1 "oops" paint from Home Depot.  We bought it a while back for another project and had half a can left.  I really like the color and me and the hubby thought it'd look great in our bedroom. 

The first few layers were applied with a small roller brush.  Then I used a tiny craft brush to fill in along the edges.  I chose not to sand it at all before painting since it is particle board and I didn't want it to start disintegrating, but it did make it hard to get the paint to stick.  I ended up applying my final layers with a foam brush which gave me more even coverage.

 

And one more time without books...

Total cost?  Less than $1!