long overdue...

Dear friends and readers,

Hello! I'm back!

I apologize for the unforgivably lengthy hiatus on this poor blog. I suppose I can sort it blame it on Tucker.

Yes, that's right! We are now proud puppy parents and this our darling little boy. He is just over 3 months old and we've had him for about a month. He's fabulous and we love him. However, I will never downplay the amount of work a new puppy requires! Here he is having his first bath.

Anyway, enough about the pup and on to craftier things!

While I've been gone, I've still been working on a project or two! Here is a gift I made for my friends for our trip to D.C. (which was fabulous of course). 

 I bought some little metal jewelry pieces from the hobs lobs for a buck thirty-four for a two-pack! Unbelievable! There were varying sizes, but I chose the 12mm to start because I think that small things are cute. So basically these little metal pieces have a pushed in center that is ready to be decorated with whatever you find and like the look of!

The cardboard that the piece came attached to had an "actual size" square printed on it, which served as a perfect template. I traced the template onto the background patterned paper. Then I cut teeny animals out of an old anthro catalog I had lying around. Using Mod Podge, Dimensional magic, I glued the animal to the background, initial stamped it and then pasted it into the metal piece. I filled in the rest with more dimensional magic, which looks cloudy while its drying. **Note: if you have bubbles in the glue, use a toothpick to drag them to the edge and then pop them.

 This one actually had a small bubble, but since its above the mouth of the fish, I still thought it was slightly appropriate! I put a pearl on this one using my jewelry making tools. I think these square ones can also be turned sideways to make a bracelet. I prefer the necklaces myself, but there's always room to experiment.

 If you want to try this at home, you'll need:

Jewelry pieces found at hobs lobs

Old magazines or any sort of miniature pictures

Alphabet stamps, or even chopped up letters from magazines

Mod Podge Dimensional Magic

A little imagination! 

All in all, I really liked the way these turned out, and proceeded to make quite a few more in different styles. I'm still trying to find a way to print high resolution animal pictures on such a teeny scale, but it's proving to be difficult with my resources thus far. If you find a way, don't hesitate to share with the rest of us!

I will take this moment to say I am rededicating myself to this blog and there will not be such a long wait for more splendid things in the future! I'm sorry and I love you all.

Happy crafting!

monograms and buttons, oh my!

Our couch is massive. It sleeps 4... comfortably. So naturally, we have a serious need for throw pillows. I saw a cute idea I liked for a monogrammed pillow and thought, why not do it with buttons? I have a pretty substantial button collection that was passed down to me, so I already had most of the supplies at home.

I bought a pillow from Meijer. I totes dig the Katie Brown collection so I often check out the home goods section. I found a pillow I liked and traced a lower case g on it with a sharpie. If you are not a good free-hander, perhaps you should try chalk. I laid the buttons out and pinned a few down. A little rearranging was necessary to get a good shape.

Note: it will save time if you do not hot-glue the buttons to the pillow. It will be quick, but the buttons will fall off and you'll just have to sew them on anyway... fail.

At this point, I just sewed the buttons on, one at a time. I did need to rip a hole in the seam to fit my hand inside the pillow, which I stitched back up when I was done. It might be easier to start with a pillow that zips.

It might be cute to try this idea with something other than a letter... geometric shapes? an animal? Or maybe it would be cute to try multi-colored buttons as well?

I think the end result is sort of cottage-y chic.

If you want to make this at home, you'll need:

1 pillow, either one you've sewn or store bought

Buttons

Thread

Needle

Sharpie or chalk

I hope you learn from my mistake on this one and don't waste time gluing, because you'll also waste time peeling all of the glue off of the buttons before you can sew them back on. If your pillows are as well-used as ours, you'll need them to be sturdy!

Happy sewing!