Acrylic Painting - My modern art set

So another hobby I do on occasion is painting with acrylics.  I like it but I haven't done it in a long time because I haven't been inspired with any ideas as of late.  My first real painting set I did was because I got sick of having a giant huge white wall in our living room.  So I made a set.  They are colorful and bright which met my purpose.  If you look closely, you can tell they are supposed to look like they are connected - like they are one actual painting.  I don't have a name for it... but it has been on our wall ever since brightening our room.  :)

Card series - Post 1: Saving Money

I don't like spending a lot of money and I have a short attention span.  I decided one day that spending 5 dollars on a card for someone was silly and I'd thought I'd try to make them myself.  I have trouble sticking to a project because I get bored, but making a card took 15-30 minutes and was very satisfying because I had completed something.  I also take pictures of my cards... maybe to document them, maybe to remember my favorites, not really sure why or what I'd even do with the pictures.  So I'd thought I'd start posting a card series. I'll post once a week and I'll put up a few every post of the series.   We'll see where it goes from there.


friendship

Another reason I started making cards was that I have a hard time throwing away cards that other people give me.  Somehow ripping off the fronts and using them again made it easier.  I don't really understand that logic, but it just works.  If it's really important from someone I'll still save the whole thing,  If it's semi important I just save the inside with the writing and if it's just signed with a name, I will usually feel okay using all parts.  But throwing it away... eek.. that makes me nervous.   I don't know why it bothers me, it's not like someone knows I've finally tossed their card, but this helped and has saved me hundreds of dollars on cards.  


love

I also like it because I can make it personal... using the particular person's favorite colors or pictures that remind me of them.  It's better then a mass produced card saying something you don't really mean.  And lastly it makes people feel important that you took the time to MAKE them something.



friendship



comfort



thank you

Stay tuned for the next card post!

Bibs

I have one gift I have been giving to people having babies.  I wanted something that I could give that I could make, so one day I was in Joann's and was inspired by some fabric to make bibs.  I bought fat quarters and some bias tape.  I have since learned to use extra wide double fold bias tape for my bibs.  My first attempt I used single fold bias tape but knowing nothing about it, I used it like double fold.  Boy, was that hard!  The amount of tape I had to sew on was so thin and when I turned it over, I had missed all sorts of spots.  I ended up zigzaging all around the edge to make sure it caught..  and like I had purposely done it that way for the look.

I have since learned to use double fold, it is much wider and I rarely miss now.  I have done research on bias tape, and apparently I do it the cheating way, but it's easy and I like how it turns out.

I took a bib I already had, folded the fat quarter in half and just cut around it.  I should make a pattern and use that but I am really lazy.  I then take the bias tape, sandwich the two pieces in between.  Pin, and sew a straight line (I have gotten better at that too!  I hadn't sewn in a long time, so my straight line was all crazy the first time).  I usually hand  sew the end of the bias tape to the back. Then attach some velcro.  I sew around the edge of the velcro and then sew an X to make it extra secure and tada!  You now have some cute bibs! 

My wonderful daughter was nice enough to model a set for me. 

The Glider

So there was another big project I did in the baby's room.  We were going to buy a glider with my husband's bonus.. he got the tv and I get a glider.  However, when the time came, there is never enough money, and really I choke when I think of some of the prices of things.  I.. am.. cheap .. thrifty.  I just have a hard time justifying spending that much money.  Long story short, we hadn't gone shopping for it because I kept putting it off and there aren't many furniture stores around.  So my mother-in-law happened to see a glider at a garage sale for 35 bucks.  Now I have a problem with used things also, mostly because I don't like having to use things I dislike just because it's cheap.  However, used usually wins over expensive.  However I decided that I was going to see if I could make it how I liked otherwise I would spend the money on a new one. 


Now this chair started out pretty ugly.. but worked otherwise, though a little squeaky. 

I went to Joann's and picked out some fabric.. originally 30 a yard on sale for 15.  I spend about 35. So total money spent.. about 70, way better then 300 or 400.
I researched online and figured the best way to cover it was to rip apart the original cushions and use that as my pattern.

 It worked fairly well.. tho the orginal fabric was pretty gross and my hands felt disgusting after touching it all day. I was really excited to put this project together so I finished the bulk of it within a week. 

I made some tweaks, like took out the zipper and made it overlap. 

And here is the mostly finished chair!  I really like it overall.  However, I hit a problem, the cover was sewn into the cushion, and so when I used the original pattern the cover came out way bigger.  I couldn't decide how to fix it because either I could cut it or sew over the lines  by hand.  Both seemed a daunting task, and I didn't want to mess it up.  I finally decided to get fabric covered buttons and put them on to help with the weird lines but to save myself having to sew the whole thing to the cushion.  Problem is, it's months later and it stays unfinished.  but it looks pretty done and rocks my baby to sleep... so maybe someday..............

Sorry for the really bad lighting and  bad picture, but you get the idea.

Baby Room

So the office that became a baby room is now actually a baby room/office/guest room - very multi functional. We chose a classic pooh theme from babies r us. It was the only one I really liked, registered for it, and then found out that it was being discontinued. Thanks to my sister in law and a good friend of mine, they tracked down almost all the different pieces from stores all over CA. They are such sweet friends and I love how it turned out.

The colors were tan and green, sort of a neutral. I figured if we had a girl we would add pink accents and if we had a boy we would add blue accents. We found out we were having a little girl and so I got down to business.

I created letters with her name. It was a lot of work getting the green to match the bedding, but I really like the end result. I added pink ribbon and hung them above the crib.

I also found at borders (now out of business :( ) , a collection of winnie the pooh stories for really cheap. I thought about it for a while and went back and bought another copy so that I could rip out the pictures and frame them. I love the way they look. I love them more then the artwork that was supposed to have come with her set.

Here are close ups of the pictures I chose.

These were the main crafts I did for her room, but maybe I'll post another day the other parts of the room. I think it turned out so cute! I couldn't wait to put her in it!