Vintage Inspiration for a Little Girl's Room

I love vintage as most of you know, so when my little girl wanted a "Cinderella" room, I was a little disappointed. Not that I expected her to say, "Mommy, I want my room Shabby Chic", even though that's what I had in mind. I tried to convince her that blue walls would establish it as "Cinderella", even though I don't think she believed me at the time. I love her room, she could take it or leave it I suspect. But, I figure she'll be asking for purple paisley with screaming red walls before I know it, so I'll just enjoy her room for now.

Here I took one of my favorite vintage tableclothes and just hung it on the wall above her headboard. It's attached with thumb tacks, so nothing fancy.
This was a really cool idea that a friend of mine suggested after seeing something similar in Anthropologie. This is such a great place for decorating inspiration if you ever get the chance to step foot into one of their stores, I would highly suggest it.
I spray painted the base of the lamp white. Then, hot glued gaudy silk flowers all over the shade. Then I took the same white spray paint and sprayed the silk flowers. I love it because it muted the brightness of the flowers and gave it a totally different look.Then, here are the pillows on her bed. I just made simple square pillows out of scraps of vintage chenille bedspreads that I had in my stash.



Hopefully, she'll be happy with this room for sometime and thankfully, I don't have to worry about doing something with all of the Cinderella stuff that would've been in her room.

Craft Challenge: Dozens of Ways to Repurpose a Pillowcase - It's Here!

I'm just so excited to share with you my first entry into the world of publishing. I couldn't stand it any longer and got tired of waiting for my copy from Lark Books, so I went ahead and ordered myself a copy. I was thrilled to find my apron on the inside front cover as well as the back cover! It's the "Layer Cake Apron" and the only apron in the book which surprised me a little. I love the way they photographed each of the aprons.
The entire book is very pretty as well. It's very fresh and perfect for spring just around the corner. I'm also really excited to try several of the projects in the book. There are 3 different styles of the pillowcase dress, a cute adult robe, adult tunic which can be made as a child's dress as well, lounge pants, several bags and other cute accessories for your home.

I've done a little background reading on several of the designers in the book and I have to say that I believe that I am in fine company. Many of them have Etsy sites which I intend to check out and several have blogs which are on my reading list.

Market Bag

I have so much fabric in my "sewing" room (which is actually my dining room - except we've only actually "dined" in that room once in 6 1/2 years of living in this house) that I love it when I find quick easy projects that use up some of that extra fabric. Besides, if I can use up what I have, then I can buy more! That's half the fun!
So, I'd had this idea of making a market bag for awhile now and just yesterday decided to whip one up while my son was sleeping. We'd had a rough morning of puking "plus", which all started at 4:30am....so I was blurry eyed and needing a sewing fix, or a nap, but sewing was calling me.
I used instructions that I had picked up somewhere for free at Joann's or some other store. I'm planning to make a few more to toss in my car and I swear I'll use my new fabric grocery sacks instead of choosing between paper or plastic. Even though I prefer paper.....all those plastic bags drive me nuts. But, they do make good containers for stinky diapers, which I've changed my fair share of lately!
Next bag I'm going to make a few changes. Such as making the handles a little bit longer. I'd also like to mix up the fabric more and add some of my vintage touches. I'll have to keep in mind though that these bags will probably get dirty and treated badly, so I'll have to be sure whatever I add will hold up.
This bag whipped up in about 1 1/2 hours, so easy. I'll share the instructions with you another time. It's a great versatile bag that you could tweak lots of different ways.

Clipboard Cute

I mentioned before that i don't consider myself a "paper" crafter - but, I've seen these cute clip boards around and have really wanted one for myself. So easy - just dig out the Modge Podge, some trim, your glue gun and scrapbook paper. I stenciled our family initial on it as well and had to put a little vintage bit on the clip at the top. It's a wooden piece that I found in my stash of goodies. Had a little trouble gluing it onto the metal clip with the hot glue gun but found that E600 glue worked great. Looking forward to using this on my fridge!
The best part is that this didn't cost me a penny - the clip board came from a garage sale (got the clipboard for free) and I had all the other supplies in my stash.

Thrift Store Metal Tray Turns Into Adorable Vintage Memo Board

These are so easy to make - and add so much funky charm to your room. You could make them to suit any theme you have going. It all depends on what you can find at the thrift store or flea market, or whatever you happen to have lying around the house. I have this one hanging in my laundry room at the moment.

Here's what you need:
Metal Tray (look for these at flea markets, garage sales, thrift stores, you get the idea)
Vintage Earrings (or buttons would work great too. Look for earrings that may be broken already or miss matched - you'll get them much cheaper, and you won't feel so bad when you snap the thingy off the back and glue a magnet to it)
Ribbon
Round Magnets (at any craft store)
Hot Glue Gun
Drill

Basically, all you do is drill two holes at the top of the tray to string your ribbon through. Then take your earrings and snap the backs off. Then just hot glue your round magnets to the backs of the earrings, and there you go!.
No one else will have a memo board like yours and they are great for displaying some of your nifty vintage photos, postcards, tidbits and inspirations. I'd love to find a really big tray to do this too and use it for my "inspiration" board.

My husband and I have a special affection for Yellowstone National Park since it's where we met and worked for several years. So we both love to collect vintage Yellowstone items. These are just a few of my favorites that I pulled out of a stack. Actually, they were stuffed in those vintage suitcases I mentioned awhile back.

I'd love to hear if you make one of these - are you getting the itch for flea markets and garage sales to start up again like me?

More Valentine's Love... Just in Time

These are the crocheted Valentine's Day hearts that I did awhile back. I'm just getting around to showing you how they look on my window (with curtains! Nothing fancy, but they are curtains). You can see the instructions here at Bella Dia (for the hearts, not the curtains). I decided to add my vintage touch with old buttons and vintage thread. I also layered several hearts to give them more interest.

Then, I saw these adorable pixies on Forever Flamingo and fell in love with them. I had to make my own little Valentine's Day cupids. There are so many things you could do with them. Think Halloween, Birthdays, Christmas - adding little touches to make them more personal. I think they would be great Mother's Day gifts for the grandmothers in my family. They would also make adorable gift tags. The possibilities are endless! I'm also excited to use old vintage photographs, even though I love the idea of using family members, I also love old photos. There's just something about looking into the eyes of people who have come before us. And, I just feel bad that these poor people's pictures are just laying around in piles at flea markets collecting dust. Planning to add that to my list of flea market finds this spring.

Check out Shabby Nest for the instructions and more inspiration.

These are little gifts I made for my daughter's Kindergarten teacher as well as my Supper Club friends. I got the idea from here at Just A Girl and took it a teensy bit further by adding the glitter glue around the stickers. After making the pixies, I'm in love with glitter glue! It's cheap, and adds so much. If you decide to make these - be sure you pick bottles with easily removable labels. I found the hardest part was taking all that goo off the bottle - ruined my nails! (Big deal, since my nails are rarely "done" - had several "social" outings this past week so had to bring out the nail polish). I am trying to at least keep my toes done.....but that's a whole other topic!

Anyway, it's been fun doing regular crafting but I'm getting the itch to rev up the sewing machine again. I've got way too much fabric staring at me waiting to become something beautiful.

Hope you all have a lovely Valentine's Day!

Little Lovelies

I'm not a big scrapbooker; although I think I could someday - or at least I'd like to be a "paper crafter". That would require a whole new set up in my sewing room that I'm just not willing to do right now. So, I decided to take some of my fabric scraps and try to construct some Valentine's Day cards out of them. I really like the idea of stitching onto card stock - so that's basically what I did with these two cards. I added vintage buttons and bits of vintage lace and rick rack to the front of the cards. They really don't feel finished to me, I'll just leave them out and mull them over for awhile until inspiration hits me! I'd like a more distressed look to them.

This is a little pillow that I made several years ago that I found tucked away in some old vintage suitcases that I use for storage. I hadn't seen it in a long time since I used the suitcases as an end table in my living room and rarely open them. I thought it deserved to come out during Valentine's Day. I made it using little pieces of fabric left over from other projects. The buttons are vintage of course, as is the lace. The felt came from a Christmas project, and the fabric was left over from some pillowshams I made during my first few years of marriage.

You really need to head over to Forever Flamingo and check out her Valentine's Day decorating ideas. This girl has got it going on! I'm in love with the little Pixies she made following the tutorial from the the Shabby Nest. I also love how she made the stuffed hearts and displayed them around her house. And... of course, I love her collection of vintage valentines.

Anyway, hope these give you some inspiration to create something yourself!

Heart Pretties - Inspiration from fellow Bloggers

I was inspired to make these after reading Heather Bullard's blog. I didn't have enough pearls to make all three, but I did have beads, shells and pearls from a stash that I had bought several years ago off of ebay. I think I thought that I would get into jewelry making someday. I like them better here though. What do you think? I didn't have the keys that she uses, but that's ok because now when I see them at a flea market, I'll know that yes, I need those and will know exactly where!

Heather's blog is so beautiful and inspiring - I highly recommend taking a few minutes to browse her space!

Ballas Hough Band on GMA

I am fully aware and most of my family and probably the majority of my friends (although they won't say so) think I am a total dork for being so caught up with the Ballas Hough Band and Dancing with the Stars. I can't help it! They are so energetic and so full of life and fun and I can't help but love watching them.

Here are the links from this morning.

This one is what I saw on TV - "Do It For You"

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6810813

This was another clip that I only saw online. Here they sing "Devastated" and are interviewed by JuJu Chang.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6811241

Oh - and if you want to find out which celebrities will be the next contestants on the new season of Dancing with the Stars - tune into ABC Sunday evening during the Home Makeover show. They will be announcing them through out the show from what I understand. I've heard rumors of Donnie Osmond, Denise Richards, and Jewel.

Can you stand the excitement?!?! (dork. I know) I do have some very cute "crafty" sort of things to share with you soon, just couldn't pass up the chance to talk BHB and DWTS.