My first quilt

 I made this cute quilt for my friend's new little baby boy. It is the first quilt I have ever done.  I did all the cutting, sewing, recutting, unpicking, resewing, quilting,  My mom did the binding because I just can't quite figure that out yet! While the pattern is simple, I fell in love with the fabrics. I am hoping the bright, pretty colors will help my dear friend look past the oh-so-many imperfections. It was made with love!

I took the finished product to my monthly quilting class for show and tell.  Quilters are so wonderful! Even though it is such a simple quilt- look at the other show and tells!!- they made a big deal about how pretty it was and took my picture for the blog (because it was my first quilt).  And yes, I am headless in the picture.  It's probably better that way! :)


I'm linking up!

I am no good at this

No matter how many hours of HGTV I watch, I will never be good a decorating.  I have managed to do things in my house little by little, but now I am stuck on my master bedroom.  Other than move furniture in and out, we haven't done anything with this room since we moved in 3 1/2 years ago.  My mom made us a beautiful quilt when we got married that was the one bright spot in our room. 

In my redecorating planning, I decided that I want to go with some different colors for our room.  I wanted brown walls (we get TONS of natural light) with green accents.  I found a bedding set I thought was perfect so I bought it.

While I still like it, now my lack of designer-ness is causing me stress.  Since I have taupe bedding, can I still paint my walls brown? I was hoping to do tan walls with a dark brown accent wall around the bed.  Would that be too many colors of brown?  Would I be better off painting the room green and going with brown curtains for this window?

Can I paint it green, even if 3 other rooms in my house are green (1/2 bath, laundry, nursery)? Or should I stick with the brown paint and do green curtains? I bought some off white curtains with the intent to sew a band of green fabric at the bottom.  Of course, when I went today, the store no longer carried the fabric I wanted! 

I think once I have the paint and curtains figured out I'll be able to do the rest.  But for now, I'm wishing David Bromstead could swing by and give me some tips!

Latest projects

Lately I've been giving my sewing machine a good workout with:

• blocks for my block of the month class at a local quilt shop. I love going to this class! I love spending the morning with my mom and looking at all the fabric.  And I love pretending I understand all the terms everybody uses!

• Working on ornaments for my tree this year.  I've made good progress in getting the background stars cut, most of the pieces traced and cut out of the fusible web.  Still need to fuse to fabric, cut them out again, then piece together on the star.  Think I can finish by November?

• An awesome project for a friend who just had a baby which I can't share yet, because I haven't sent it yet and she may read this!
• Happy thoughts about the project I bought the last time I went to the quilt shop....guess what I'm making!

My Mantel before and after

I decided that my mantel decor needed a little shaking up.  I don't know what prompted it, but once I thought of it, I couldn't rest until it was done.  So after many google images searches, blog browsing and a few Goodwill trips, I am happy!

The before (sorry, I wasn't so good at taking pictures then).

I like the flowers in the center (from our wedding!), but the other decorations weren't colorful.  With white walls and white woodwork, I needed something that would stand out. 

I went shopping in my house and moved some candlesticks from the piano, but it needed more. 

I got a few vases at Goodwill and transformed them with jute (idea from Thrify Decor Chick) Cost : $3 for vases, $1 for jute, $1 for craft glue.

Then I read this post about transforming books and I had to do it! I don't have distress ink, so mine aren't as cute.  I'll probably do that one day, but I was all about keeping costs low.  I didn't have any books to use, so back to goodwill - $5 for 2 books, $2 for scrapbook paper.  I hated paying for books, but it allowed me to shop around for the sizes that I wanted. 

A little more shopping in my house and I found an awesome metal piggy that my sister gave me a few years ago as part of an inside joke.  It was perfect!

The results:

I'm still trying to decide how to arrange the books.

And of course, I'm practicing my photography skills.

The addition of the curtains my mom so graciously sewed for me helps a lot too.

Before:

After

Total cost of make over: $12 ($32 if you count the fabric for the curtains). 

I'm linking up!

Thrifty Decor Chick's Before and After Party!

Second Saturday class

My mom is a fabulous seamstress.  She claims there are people who are better, but she's the best in my book.  Anyway, we've decided to take a class together at a local quilt shop.  You pay $6 for the first month's kit.  The kit contains fabric and instructions for making one block.  If you come to the next class with your block complete, you get the next block for free.  Otherwise you have to pay $6 again for the next block.  It is good motivation to get your work done! My mom helped me A LOT with my first block - helped me cut it, told me exactly what to do each step.  It turned out pretty good, I think.

The next month, she helped me get started on the cutting, but we didn't have time to sew it.  So, I took it home and tried to do it on my own.  I think I did a pretty good job!

Look at how my star points match in the center! I am so proud of myself!!

I can't wait to do the next one!

Bow holder

Before Christmas, I tried to make a bow holder for my 8 year old niece.  I took old picture frames, spray painted them, with plans to cover the inside with fabric, add ribbon, etc.  After 4 frames and 2 cans of spray paint, I wasn't any closer to being finished, so I admitted defeat and bought her some earrings. 

But recently I noticed that my box that holds bows for Little Bit was getting a little crazy.  I really needed a bow holder.  Knowing my past failure tries, I decided to go for something a bit simplier.  Her room is done in ladybugs, so I took some little wood cut out ladybugs (Michael's, about $.50 each) and glued some ribbon on the back. 

Then I used the sticky thing you use to hang up 3M hooks (don't you love my acurate descriptions of things!) to secure them to the closet door.  It took about 15 minutes and I LOVE it!

I'm linking up to Someday Crafts: Whatever Goes Wednesday!

Shadow box update!

Thanks to my sister's suggestion, I made an awesome change to the not-quite-done shadow box/silverware tray. I don't have a before picture of when I spray painted it black - too excited to get started on it! It was a plain old silverware tray with an ugly white back and birch colored edges.

Here it is after I painted it. 

I liked the paint, but felt like something was off when I put the trinkets on.  I wasn't in love.

When I posted about it before, my sister suggested I modge podge some paper on it.  I tried it, figuring if I didn't work, I was out the $3 I spent at Goodwill.

I dug out my scrapbook stash and found some paper that looked like it would work.  Unfortunately, I didn't have enough of either kind to do the whole thing with one pattern.  So being too impatient to go to the store creative, I decided to mix and match 2 different papers. And um, AWESOME! I am in love with how it turned out. 

I love looking at all the little trinkets that have special meaning for us - the box my wedding ring was hidden when the hubby proposed, a trombone commemerating my years in band, some things the hubby picked up during his 2 year church mission to Germany.  All things I like to display but get lost on a big shelf.

I am still looking for some ribbon to put on the edges like my mom suggested (yea, I know who reads my blog!) but haven't found anything I love yet. 

I'm linking up!

Thrifty Decor Chick's Before and After Party

Between Naps on the porch Metamorphois Monday

Belated Valentine's day

In addition to my tree, I made a few more Valentine crafts.  The cost was about $1 for the scrapbook paper from Target's dollar spot.  Everything else I had on hand!