wise craft

advent

We have now arrived at one of my favorite parts of the holiday season. Advent! For practical reasons I love advent season because I don't have to drag my kids out of bed, they hurry down to open each little pocket. Also, it's has become a bit of a personal tradition of mine to set aside part of a day to shop for what goes inside. (You can see some past advent fillers in this post, as well as get some filler ideas.) I just grab a coffee and head out looking. We are still using the hanging advent calendar I made for the kids a few years ago. There have been last minute advents that have graciously filled in, but the hanging one is the permanent one. Its a fun challenge for me to find tiny things that will actually fit in the pockets (I swear I could put a frozen pea in their and they would ooh and aah over it, they just love the tiny part of it.)

A favorite local store is Top Ten Toys, they have a section full of small party favor type toys that I have completely gone through in years past. I also love getting a few funny things at Archie McPhee's (bacon flavored mints anyone?). I also mix in some advent "experiences" again, we'll set aside one night to drive around and look at the Christmas lights, or pick a Christmas movie and have popcorn, or go downtown to Seattle Center to see the huge model train. Christmas Eve's advent has always been new pjs. Here's some of what's going in the pockets this year:

Arrowheads, amethyst rocks, double dice

 

Straw ornaments, plastic zoo animal rings

 

Geodes, glitter gel pens

There will also be decorating gingerbread houses, a couple of suprise small Lego sets, stickers, and whatever else I can think of.

What can you think of that's super tiny and fun? I'm still looking for to fill a few more pockets! Wish I had a couple of those gold dollar coins (maybe I'll check at the bank tomorrow, maybe they have a couple in the back vault).

Here are my favorite advent calendars-

Kathleen's printable/magnetic one is so genius.

I love this folding typography one. (Maybe for the Story Trading office?)

a felt version at Purl Patchwork

Maya*Made's recycled advent, (and she has a new one this year).

Rosa's advent from 2005 is still one of my all-time favorites.

I *love* the Kaffe Fasset colors and fabrics in this one.

Leslie's is so bright.

I am thinking I may make another advent of sorts, a quilted version, really more to add decoration than actual advent. The holiday fabrics this year are so lovely, Kathy has Michael Miller Christmas fabrics that are kind of awesome.

Happy Advent everyone!

Edited to add- Grace has just put up an amazing list of advent ideas here.

DIY table decor

Thanks for the dining room love! We celebrated Thanksgiving in that very dining room last week, and it was so much fun to set the mood in a new space.

The flowers were from the local market (no driving to get anything fancier in snow and ice). I usually go for a tighter, more formal floral arrangement, but this year I went quite loose, all Studio Choo-style. The "vases" are actually tin cans that held tomatoes last week. They are wrapped with bark sheets, cut to size and tied with string (wrap it around several times and knot). Simple. The votives are actually leftovers from a recent wedding my friend Christiane designed the flowers for. Just a little green moss and rafia tied around. So simple and pretty, especially sweet because they were made by a good friend. The kids made place cards from Perler beads, after a rather lazy crafting debaucle spelling out all our initials with pipecleaners (unreadable and well, just weird).

I loved Emily's Thanksgiving table and the simple pebble place cards.

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There was some Flickr talk the other day about using Vanilla Milkshake/white walls with white trim (scroll down the comments), and still creating visual interest, and not a stark, padded cell effect. Choosing paint is never easy for us, so I know the worry well. I wasn't even sure about the Vanilla Milkshake, but I knew it would contrast well with the wood trim and ceiling beams and nothing else really stood out for me. But use my blog header as a example of how to contrast walls with white trim. That photo was shot at my friend Barb's house, right on her living room mantle. She chose a white for the tons of beautiful wide trim, crown molding, etc that's throughout the house, but painted the walls a slight gray shade. I thing the effect is perfect.

winners of BHG Best of Christmas Ideas books

You guys and your traditions really inspired me, thank you for taking the time to comment about what your family does during the holiday season. If you have any time, read through the comments and perhaps discover some new ones to try with your family. (And I love that you guys talk amongst yourselves in the comments as well, yay!) We have a lot in common you know. Mainly that so many of us spend most of Christmas in our pjs (probably new ones). My kids always get new pjs for their Christmas Eve advent, probably the only time of year they actually get excited about pjs.

OK, 3 winners have been chosen randomly for the BHG Christmas Ideas book and they are:

 

Candace said...

I love that my husband makes a new Christmas mix cd each year & that we all get new pajamas. :)

 

I LOVE this idea from Sujomi-

Sujomi said...

My sister and I keep our eyes our all year for the tackiest/saddest/ugliest/Christmas ornaments for and exchange on Christmas Eve. My mom (who passed away in 2005) started this tradition and we get the biggest kick out of the hunt. We have special trees that we use to display the ornaments in our homes each December.

 

bright and blithe said...

Oh, how fun! Christmas Eve is reserved for our little family of three, complete with a special breakfast. This year we're also beginning the tradition of a Jesse Tree: http://thelittlelist.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/i-n-h-a-b-i-t-a-celebration-home/

Everyone's been notified, please send me your mailing address at wisecraftblog@gmail.com and I'll get your book out to you right away. I've got some other book giveaways coming up soon, so stay tuned.

tour the dining room, or, a redo for the cost of a can of paint, so stay with me here

I haven't forgotten the dining room. I really haven't! Do you remember how it looked before? Let's have a quick refresher...

Before...

dark, black, hard to photograph, not awful, but hardly used, too formal.

And then I shared some tear sheets I'd been collecting.

And here's what happened with all that, once it got into my brain and stewed a while.

After...

I have once again proven to myself that the Swedish really get it right in my book (all that white and bright on Camilla and Elizabeth's homepage there really illustrate it well).

Like Sweden, the pacific northwest is notoriously dark throughout the winter months, and it can really save the psyche to keep that in mind when decorating. As much as Peter and I are fans of color, lightness makes all the difference in this room. Its gets weird Eastern light blasting through those french doors until about noon, then it just goes dark. But now it feels much airier, truly like a deep breath.

The biggest change in creating that feeling in here is the paint color. About a year ago, my friend Neicy called my attention to what has since become my favorite wall color, Ben Moore's Vanilla Milkshake (not to be confused with Vanilla Ice Cream, also a color they carry) . It is a white with a lot of interest, depth, and a cast that really changes with the light, and it contrasts nicely with the chestnut colored box beams on the ceiling of this room (which you can't see well in these photos). It transformed the walls of our family room, and now in here. (Perhaps in the new year it will transform our hallway, I'm really done with the beige.)

Once again, before,

After...

The chairs and table are IKEA. Going into this project, I didn't want heirloom anything for this room. I really hoped that this room would be used, it has always felt quite forgotten. I wanted it to feel happy. So I went for furniture that felt light, useable, and let's face it, IKEA fit within our budget. The table is long and extendable (I went for a long size, but in fact, I should have gone for an even longer one, I keep it fully extended). The chairs have an interesting shape, and a white seat. I love them. They feel modern and simple, and I realize this is where our tastes are heading. They also go nicely with the end chairs, which are upholstered ones Peter bought in St. Louis (and why I married him). In the top photo, we had already changed our overhead light fixture to a softer light, more interesting shape. The one before cast really unflattering, clinical light that would not dim (another reason we never ate in here).

The tiny original painting of Montemartre was one I bought from a street artist in Paris. The bottom piece is of the Wet Mountains in Colorado. The beautiful glowbowls were made by Diana Fayt. The soft twig was made by Stephanie.

The Liberty of London curtains I'd made years ago (which were extremely faded) were switched out for a simple white coarse weave cotton with a textured black stripe going through it (again, thank you IKEA), also helping to lighten the space visually. The artwork in the room all has significant meaning to us. And those porcelain glowbowls look amazing and etherial at night.

We dug through the stacks and stacks of artwork we had in the basement and pulled out all new pieces for the walls. These two watercolors were done by Peter's grandmother Marjorie. I had them rematted in acid free materials (sadly, the edges of them of are crumbling) and we're both so happy we can now look at them every day.

My embroidery hoop "installation" remained, we all like it. The lampshades were switched from red ones to white ones, huge difference in the amount of light we get from them now.

I made new cushions for the bench (the before here) from those amazing old curtains I found secondhand a few months ago.

I had plans to repaint the sideboard a bright color, but to be honest we all liked it much better as it is after we lightened the room up, so I've decided to live with it for now (with new knobs from Anthropologie). That stool, above on the left, is the same one from the holiday photo shoot and a large plant will live on it soon, once I decide on one.

Now. The big clincher, that I hadn't realized until the redo was complete? All of this costs me the price of-

1 can of paint- $50

1 roll of painter's tape- $5.00

Thrifted fabric for cushions- $5.00

That's it.

I'm not kidding.

You see, we sold the original table on craiglist for a decent price, which in turn created my IKEA budget. Granted, we didn't change many things that are in here, but I accomplished my goal of a family-friendly, airy space. We now eat dinner in here every night. Emma and I craft in here, it doesn't feel like wasted space any more.

Little changes that made a big impact. I keep saying it, but it doesn't have to cost a fortune to design and create your home with intention.

A few of the many books that inspired me:

Simply Scandanavian

Contemporary Country

Lotta Jansdotter Handmade Living

Crafting a Meaningful Home

Now there's some goodness to add to your holiday wishlist.

Oh, and the tablerunner, more on that soon.

Thanks for reading this far!

 

 

 

not quite ready, explained in bullet points

I'm a little off my Thanksgiving prep game, thanks to this week's snowstorm. But I'll get there.

*I took this photo while at my friend's photography studio the other day. I was playing with some fabric I'd brought in. I loved how these flowers filled up this otherwise very stark, modern space, almost felt like an open market for a split second. (Not to mention that's some dang cute fabric.)

Other random things I wanted to share with you.

*I have tasked my children with their annual Thanksgiving challenge of name/place cards for Thursday's table. My challenge is they use no paper of any kind. We'll se what they come up with.

*These printables are so very cute for Thanksgiving.

*I love Diane's potluck dish cozy, genius.

*I am meeting a friend in a couple of weeks and plan on getting a crash course in 1/2 single crochet (the simpliest stitch, and I need help with it) so I can cozy up some jam jars. That Tif! I just love these!

*Nice idea for far-away grandparents, a Thanksgiving gift jar.

*Erieann has some lovely new prints in her shop. I really like this one.

 *Whip Up's 2011 calendar is available and full of crafty inspiration here (printable in 3 different formats so you can customize). Here's a small peek-

*I love Lisa's doily art pieces, and now do our own wall decal installation of them. I'm eyeing these for our bathroom possibly. That's my next project...like I need another one. (Oh, but I do!)

(photo- working proof)

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I want to take a moment to thank my sponsors for their continued support. Adding sponsors to wise craft has allowed me to justify the time I spend herein this space. Many of you know, there is much work that is done on a regular basis in order to keep a blog current, interesting, and running smoothly. I enjoy every minute of it, but it does take time. It is because of sponsors that I am able to balance that. Please take a moment to visit them.

Paradiso Designs

Pink Chalk Fabrics

Cooper Sewing Machines

Tiny Prints

VistaPrint

and our newest, Fabricworm!

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And lastly, but, really most importantly, I want to thank YOU. Every one of you that take time out of your day to stop by this space, read, leave a thought or comment, share with others, all of it. This space would be absolutely no fun at all without you. I enjoy doing it so much more because you share it with me. And thank you for that.

I'm off to cook a turkey. Happy Thanksgiving to all who will celebrate!

 

BHG's best of christmas ideas giveaway

Happy Tuesday! We're blissfully snowed in (somewhat..I do not want to drive in it but could if I needed to) and what better time to give away a book of great Christmas ideas-

This book is 192 pages full of food, decorating, and gift ideas for Christmas, so if that's something you'd like to curl up with in preparation for the holidays, just leave a comment here on this post describing one simple family Christmas tradition that's meaningful to your family (for my own selfish reasons, I'd love to hear some ideas). I'll draw 3 names this Friday, 11/26/10.

Good luck! And thanks for playing along.

Edited to add- Thanks to all that entered! Winners have been chosen.

a little party

There was a birthday party to have. With cake, of course...

 

There was the distinct pleasure of adding that wonderfully precious vanilla extract elixir-of-the-gods from Amy...

 

Resting and cooling. Me, patting myself on the back for the golden perfection...

 

Glistening baby blue sprinkles and 12 pink candles were the accidental color theme we quickly decided we liked...

 

After spying this and this, I took it as a sign that new bunting should, and probably must, be made. Out of my precious Liberty scraps...

 

All of my precious Liberty scraps...

 

Pizza, cake, presents, Harry Potter, friends sleeping over. A lovely end to a day, a 12 year old I adore...

(She looked sooo little when I started this blog.)

holiday 10 projects for value village/savers

The projects I created for Value Village/Savers are now live on their site! Grab some tea and let's chat about them!

The overall theme for their holiday season is "Shop Green, Give Green", so I knew right away I'd like to have fun playing with various shades of green. Knowing that these projects will be up on the website alongside last year's holiday projects, it was decided to keep the color story more traditional this time around. Hopefully I managed to give it a modern twist.

The kids and I visited a tree farm in early October for that sweet little tree (yep, it's real). I picked one, and the owner sawed it down and stuffed it in the car for me. He was so nice. It was all blissfully easy, until that H U G E spider crawled out of the tree and onto Ian's seat on the way home. I thought that kid was going to break the window and jump out of the car before I could pull over. But I did, and I got it, and settled Ian down.

Whew!

Then it happened again.

It was an interesting day to say the least.

Oh well, let's move on...

Its such a pretty little tree, isn't it?

 

I had a lot of fun with fabric stiffener and a large doily tablecloth I found at. V.V. Parts of the tablecloth became ornaments for the tree-

 

and other parts became bowls-

 

My favorite of all the projects I did this time around was the sewn furniture. For the green box, I simply marked with a pencil, then drilled holes to form 1" x 1" squares, and sewed the squares with different colors of yarn. For the stool, I cleaned and stained it (this was how it looked originally). I printed our name out in Helvetica on the computer, playing with the size until I got what I was going for, then Peter drilled evenly spaced holes to form the letters. I backstitched through the holes with green yarn. Trust me...go buy some old wooden something (tray, box, anything) and do this. You will love the effect-

 

This was an Anthropologie idea I'd had stored away in my brain for a couple of years. Do you remember their fabric decoupaged teapots? These are glass plates decoupaged with fabric (the fabric is on top of the plate), then mod-podged over that, with white cups glued to the center of the plates-

 

Brooches into ornaments (there's a goldmine of these to be found at V.V., Could you imagine a tree full of these?)-

 

A vintagey fabric hand-patched pair of the perfect fitting jeans-

 

This gift idea is a bag of tags and cards made from vintage trim, buttons, etc, meant to give as a gift to someone and they will have it to use all year long for sending cards and labelling gifts.

 

These picture frames are completely random in style and varied in size, but unified by paint! Buy an odd number of frames, from large to small, clean and paint them, then add a stripe going through them all (sometimes through the center, sometimes above or below). Hang them in a line, lining up the line you painted across them. Instant collection.

There is plenty of time to make these project before the holiday season. All of the project instructions, plus some additional projects, are on the Value Village website.

I'd love to hear if you jump in and make something.

(all photographs by EJ Armstrong)

thanksgiving napkins

Thanksgiving napkins, 2010

Just completed for the folks at AmazonMom, a fun and simple project  that mother and children can work on together to prepare for the Thanksgiving festivities. You can find the instructions on their website (I believe you have to complete a short sign up first).

Thanks for the comments yesterday!

projects to celebrate fall

I am not quite ready to give you a tour of the dining room. Almost, but not quite. There's a little sewing to be done, (mainly those pillows that got pushed down the list). In the meantime, I was looking back through my archives the other night, trying to remember what crafts I'd done around this time in years past. After much digging I found them, and thought I'd repost them all together in one post, for anyone who may have not seen them. I hope you enjoy.

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Woolen Leaves from November of 2006

I love these leaves. Every year I pull them out I remember how much I love them. I have made several versions of these leaves since I made this original set (some things happen so quickly around here they never get posted on the blog). These are truly easy. I don't think the original link to where I first found these works anymore, but not to worry. Here's how. I used both wool felt and thrifted pieces of wool plaid skirts, whatever I had in my stash really, to make these (acrylic felt would work fine too). Do a google search online for leaf images to find simple leaf shapes that you will use to trace onto your felt pieces. I fused 2 pieces of felt together with double sided fusible interfacing before I cut them out because I wanted them to feel sturdy and not curl up, but you can skip this step if you want. I lightly traced the leaf shapes on the fused pieces (only on one side), then cut them out with sharp scissors. You could get extra fancy and stitch the veins of the leaves either with your machine or by hand, but for these I thought they were so nice just like this. I cut small snips in the tops of the leaves and threaded yarn through to make a garland, but I may hang them in the dining room this year a totally different way to change it up. They could be used with napkins at the Thanksgiving table, appliqued onto a pillow, similar to the ones I recently made for our front porch (for obvious reasons you would use only a single layer of felt to make the leaf in this case). Tons of uses.

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Emma's shrinky dink placecards for the Thanksgiving table from November of 2007.

When I'm you're mom, you know there's always things like Shrinky Dink paper in the house. The kids always make some sort of placecard for our Thanksgiving table. I use white dinnerware and linen napkins, so the holiday color is added with things like placecards. Emma just decorated a 4" x 4" square of shrinky Dink paper with colored pencils and Fall thing (its hard to tell, but there's a leaf and an acorn on the one pictured). There was a hole punched in the corner before they were "shrunk", then we threaded string through the hole to tie them around the napkins. Guests love unique placecards of any kind, and ours usually even take them home.

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Tomorrowland Holiday Trees from November of 2008

Peter snapped this picture of a shop window on a trip to Tokyo several years ago and it just killed me. So cute! These trees are so easy to make out of felted sweaters or wool felt (large sheets). Think about embellishing them with wool "beads" or swarovski crystals. What about making several of them in a variety of colors, put out the neutral, fallish colors around Thanksgiving, then add the more holiday colors as the season moves to Christmas. This year maybe I'll even add a little snowman like the one in the window.

*I did an even simpler tree for Value Village/Savers that is up on their website.

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Woodland Thanksgiving centerpiece from November 2009

You folks know I can turn pretty much anything to a woodland-themed something or nother, and the Thanksgiving table is no exception. I love Thanksgiving colors and decor that doesn't scream traditional  harvest colors and I thought this was a lovely centerpiece. I used ordinary, grocery store bought roses and berries, and a sheet of bark wrapped around a clear, cylindrical vase (I got the bark from my florist friend, but I have since seen these at Micheal's I think, don't quote me).

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And just because I love them...

For the past 2 years I have spent many a cozy November and December evening stitching up Alicia's felt ornaments, and this year will be no exception. I just grabbed my copy of her latest PDF ornament pattern, Snow Day, and can't wait to get started on them. These ornaments are extremely detailed, but its part of their charm and worth the effort. I am sure that one day when I am old and wearing glasses 3 inches thick, I will be very impressed at the amount of detailed workmanship I did on these when I was young and spry. Seriously though, these are a joy to take out and hang on the tree every year. And, well, I just love slow stitch projects any time of year.

Hope you're okay with this "greatest hits" of sorts. After blogging for 5 years, its nice to remember where I've been.

Enjoy! Blair