wise craft

make a geometric garland out of vintage sheets

I was quite entranced with Spring this past weekend, Seattle truly outdid itself with beautiful weather! We had dinner on the beach (I, of course, brought home more rocks), we walked the neighborhood, dyed Easter eggs, and had Peep jousting wars in the microwave, and made our traditional Easter dinner of ham, carrots, asparagus, etc. I wanted to make the Easter table feel as Springy and came up with this garland after seeing a similar paper version in an old kid's crafting book from the 1960's. I love that it creates a really geometric shape and gives a new spin to everyone's favorite triangular bunting shape. I think these will stay up for a while, I smile every time I pass them.

Here's how I made them.

easy easter eggs

I think Easter decor looks prettiest when it's kept simple. These eggs began as those lightweight, pastel, speckled eggs used for all kinds of Easter decor, a box of them for $4.00.

A coat of white paint with a few accents with gray puff paint and neon acrylic, then some traditional and unexpected egg cups, and I have some simple and pretty Easter decorations to sprinkle around the house. I played around with easy to use rub-on letters on one of the egg cups, I think I'll be using these letters again.

I hope to dye some eggs with the kids this week, in the meantime, I have been adding to my Easter pinterest board (I have also created a pinterest board for all my project tutorials) My kids are getting older, but they still love an Easter basket filled with chicks and chocolate bunnies (so do I).

There is still time to enter the giveaway for Handmade Hostess!

painted vessels

Miraculously in my family's eyes, I have given up almost all magazine purchases these days (even going so far as to give up my old Marthas), but there are a couple I refuse to give up. One is Living Etc (for the record, the other is Uppercase). I find so much inspiration in that magazine. I came across an image I had dog-eared in a recent issue of Living Etc, these graphic, eye-catching new Caravan jugs, from Marks and Spencer.

geode redo, helping nature out a little

I bought this geode while out thrift shopping several months ago and its just been sitting on a shelf in my studio ever since. I love the pink striations of the geode, but the back is kind of, well. I think its kind of ugly.

 

diy easy tabletop redo

I stole a few minutes to myself the other day and went thrifting. I came across this oil painting and found myself buying it. Wasn't exactly sure why. I don't see it on our walls, and don't even particularly like it as a painting. I do like the colors a lot, and the composition isn't bad at all. The price didn't hurt either.

i almost didn't go

thrifting on Saturday. I don't normally like going to any secondhand stores on the weekends, but Emma talked me into it. She's pretty obsessed with everything Steampunk right now, and wanted to hunt for watches to buy and take apart.

I'm glad I went, cause if I hadn't I wouldn't have found these-

A pile of Heath ceramics. I was pretty excited. I feel like I've had mixed luck lately, so this was an amazing find. It was not free, but close to it.

I especially love that the three kids I was with had no idea why I was so excited.

What good things have you guys found lately? Bertoia chairs for free on the side of the road? A chesterfield sofa in a dumpster? A gorgeous, perfectly perfect Scandinavian lamp is working order for $1?

I'm assuming you guys found these things, because I didn't.

But I do have Heath mugs to have coffee in while I ponder over why I don't ever find things like that.

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A few things:

*The winner of last week's Quilting Modern book giveaway is Deb. Congratulations Deb!

*I am going to post a new, all-inclusive how-to video on last Friday's granny square assignment. There are some discrepancies on a few of the rounds and, seeing as how this week is already feeling a little less stressed than last week, I am hoping that the new video will prevent confusion. So sorry if folks had any trouble following my instructions. I promise I'm not on drugs (although perhaps??).

*I have created a Granny Square Afghan Project Flickr group for anyone who is doing the granny square sampler and would like to post photos. Please post what you're doing, I love seeing all the different versions, colors, etc, and these are only going to get more interesting as we start adding and assembling the squares.

Back tomorrow!

 

new things in the pipeline

There has been a lot of exciting things going on here behind the scenes. You already know about the book, but what didn't mention is that that the work of repurposing, reusing, and recreating secondhand things continued after my work on the book was over. A new feature is being added to the shop for these unique items!

I won't get all chatty about it just yet, except to say I have thought long and hard about keeping every single piece I've worked on this shop update, but we don't have the room for that kind of madness at our house, so I share with you.

There will be handmade items, and secondhand items, redone by yours truly. Everything is one of a kind, which is good and bad, cause once its gone its gone.

If you would like to know when the shop is stocked and ready, sign up for updates and news. And there maybe some super secret coupon codes for new subscribers, who knows?

add a metallic stripe

 

(Prints at top and bottom are both from Lisa Congdon, damn fine day print from the SIBLING shop- Courtney posted an image of this print on Instagram a week ago and I fell in love with it.)

I am cleaning and clearing the studio today and decided to change up the wall above the fireplace. Even though I do love the print that was up there, I tend to change up the walls pretty regularly around the house. This is a simple project I did last year, but never talked much. Taking thrift store, mismatched wooden frames of various sizes and unifying them with color and a metallic stripe. Once the base coat of paint is completely dry (I spray painted these with a few coats of white and let them dry overnite), I taped off a 2" wide space on each of them using painter's blue tape, then sprayed metallic inside the stripe (two coats). I intentionally didn't put the stripe going exactly through the middle of the frames. The idea being, hang them by lining up the stripe, not the frame. These three frames are all different sizes, and I love the way it creates a unified look.

Another way to do these is to hang them tighter together, which I might actually do. I've got two smaller frames with the same stripe on them, but I'll need to figure out what to put in them.

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Thank you all for the suggestions on the owl needlepoint about starting closer to the owl, rather than trying to fill the background one long row by one long row. I tried this last night and maybe its all smoke and mirrors, but I felt so much more productive!

Ok, back to cleaning the studio!

channeling my inner jonathan adler

I love Jonathan Adler needlepoint pillows and would have a whole couch full of them if I could afford them.

Or would I?

I was trolling around ebay the other night and came across this beauty, which I quickly snatched up for $24.

A vintage, pre-worked needlepoint canvas owl. He (or she) is so awesome. I have to work the background (the owl is pre-worked, the background is unworked). I'm using cream yarn to finish it.

I think it will be going in our front room as a pillow.

I haven't done any needlepoint since 1985, when I was in college. Now I remember why I stopped. I forgot how long it takes. Or maybe I'm just less patient now.

I'm giving myself 2 weeks.

What happens after 2 weeks if I'm not done? I don't know. But 2 weeks. That's it.

crochet sampler

I did a little thrifting last Thursay morning and found a Better Homes and Gardens Treasury of Needlecrafts book. Most of the projects- which cover knitting, applique, patchwork, crochet, quilting, embroidery, rug making, and needlepoint- are ones I've seen in some of their other books published during this time, early '80's, but when I got to page 171 of this book, I stopped dead in my tracks.

What? A granny square sampler afghan?

Um... hello honey.

I have made it my mission to try one of these squares every night, starting with the most basic granny square and progressing along in the instructions.