Plaza District Fest . . . Sneak Peek!

Here is a quick peek of a few little things I am working on for the Plaza District Festival. . .more to
come later.

 



   

 

 

 

What are you working on? For money, fun or both? Are you already preping holliday crafts?

Bathroom Spruce-up: Sometimes Things Don't Work Out

 

So. . . Here is the story of my bathroom fail. Inspired by all of the amazing stenciled walls I have being seen around the internet I decided to FINALLY spruce our bathroom up and thought this would be a great, practical, and affordable way of doing it.
Okay, Hold on. . .let me back up. I have been at a loss on what to do with our bathroom since the day we bought our house. We have a one bathroom house but the room is large and strangely shaped. It is extremely hard to take pictures of the room as it is very long and narrow to begin with and then gets bigger towards
the back. 

  

Here is a pre-spruce-up shot. Please forgive the bad lighting. 

For some reason this room froze me with indecision. I guess I was use to living in places with either so little room that beyond towels and a shower curtain styling wasn't an option or they already had a strong focal point of color theme (i.e. the pink tile in our C. Springs duplex[still my favorite bathroom of all time]). After two years of staling I hatched my stencil plan. I decided gray walls with a white ceiling and white stenciling would look great with bright towels and a bright rug! And so I began. Last Friday I spent the day painting the ceiling and walls and things went pretty well.

 

Here is the gray walls waiting for stenciling. 

My plan was to take Jerod to work Saturday morning and begin the stenciling. I hoped to get half the room done that day before we went to a friends cook out late that afternoon. Five or so hours later about 1/8th of the room was done and not looking to good at that. We have freshly textured walls which I originally thought might be problematic for stenciling but I read/watched about a million and a half tutorials on stencils and textured walls and thought "I'm handy, I can make this work". I tried techniques using a small foam roller, a paint brush, and dabbing with a sponge. There was a lot of bleeding around the edges with all of these. I used adhesive, I used tape, I used my hands, it wasn't looking good.

 

 It looks better here than it really looked. I was still a hopeful though.

At this point I thought I was just frustrated and with a little touch up and sleep things would get better. The next morning I finished the area around our cabinet and sink and put the light fixture and mirror back up to see how I would feel about it when all was said and done, unfortunately, it just wasn't working. Jerod agreed. Jerod it very easy going about two things, my decor choices and food, if he dislikes either it must be really bad. And thus Sunday went from stenciling to painting the whole bathroom white.

 

And the cover-up begins.

It was so disappointing to paint over all of this work. But sometimes things just don't work out. The best laid plans. . .I guess. I was not this calm on Sunday.

I am holding off to show you all the white bathrooms as I have new plans that I think will work out. These plans do not involve any additional painting!!!! Expect some glamor shots soon.
I would like to say that I still think this would look great but. . .it just didn't work out for me. I bought our stencil through Cutting Edge Stencils and they got my stencil to me in a super timely fashion and it was a good quality. I just wasn't able to make it work with our walls and our space. I am going to hold on to it and hope that the perfect, non-textured stencil spot opens up in my life.

*It needs to be noted that I was not payed or perked for this post. My promotion or mentioning of these products or vendors is solely because I think they are cool.

Bottle Stoppers: Summer Pinterest Challenge

So....I decided to Pinterest(Summer Edition)Challenge it. . .

 Meaning (for those of you that don't read Young House Love) that you complete a project inspired by something you pinned to Pinterest and then all meet up back at YHL (or Bower Power) and link to your project. It's fun you can see what other people are up to and I do love a deadline!

I didn't get too lofty or overly creative with this project but it was cute, easy and I am happy with how it turned out. I was initially inspired (and pinned) these swanky geode bottle stoppers I saw on cupcakes and cashmere. Not being super swanky myself and also not having any geodes on hand I grabbed a few bits I did have lying around, some heavy duty glue, a couple of leftover corks and 24 hours later I have unique bottle stoppers for our bar area. Here is my process.....

 

Supplies! A friend gave me this tiny, glow in the dark Virgin Mary years ago and she has hung around in a lot of spots but I thought she she would like to make her home among our liquor for the time being. I also have this random rose rock (it's an Oklahoma thing, read up on them here) that we dug up in the back yard last year. I though it was a homey sub for a geode.

 

I put some glue on the base of the objects and on the top of the corks, pressed the objects on did a little clean up around the edges and. . . .VIOLA!

 

Well okay, first I secured the object to the cork with a trusty rubber band and let them dry about 24 hours. Better safe than sorry when letting glue dry. . .and then. . .VIOLA! For real this time.

So what do you guys think? Are you pinning, making, drinking anything of note these days?

Dustbowl Arts Market: Recap

Well all . . . last weekend was finally the Dustbowl Arts Market at Norman Music Fest 5! After a month of doing nothing but working and sewing I got to set up my booth and sell some stuff. Some being the operative word. . .meaning there was more looking than buying but I got some great responses, gave out a million cards, and had some good chats with people. With this being my first market I learned a few things and would rethink (or restructure) this or that when doing one of these in the future but all in all I had a great time and am anxious to apply for more shows and give this making/vending thing another shot.
So here are some pictures of my booth: 

This is a full shot of the booth. Again there are a few things I would change but I think it looks pretty cute

and a lot like me! Also it was VERY overcast when the day started so my pictures are a little drab due to the low grew light.

 

A few of my pillows.

some bits and pieces. . . Oh. . .a couple (three) things 

1: I used, as it was recommended by friends and the Dustbowl organizers, Square. Which allows you to run credit cards on your iphone or android. It is great, a little finicky, but so cool! You can text or email receipts and include a photo of the product on the receipt. Super handy, Super cool. 

2: Last minute I decided I wanted some cheap little extras to jazz up my table so I whipped up some cute little flags with fabric scraps and skewers (see picture below). Crazy easy and so cheerful. 

3: I also wanted something wearable in the mix and thought some classic friendship pins (see picture below) would do the trick. These are a tiny bit annoying to make as you have to unwind the safety pin. . . but aren't they happy. I think I may have to wear frequently now.

Little and big buntings or pendant flags or hanging flags. I am going to have to think of what I call them going forward. It seems people either know them as buntings or are completely confused by the term.

My birds. These were the big seller and got the most attention in generally.

I would like to take a second to talk about my cards and my labels which (in my opinion) turned out GREAT! I got quite a few comments on the cards and a number of question on how I did them so here it is. . . I ordered custom cards with black text on plain brown kraft paper from Modern Typography's Etsy shop. To give a little plug Modern Typography was extremely helpful, got my cards to me quick as can be AND she has lots of other adorable stuff in her shop so check it out. Back to my cards. . .once I got the plain cards I ran them through my sewing machine using a decorative stitch and bright thread.

I didn't do any additional work on my fabric labels but think they turned out great so. . .I am going to show them off. I ordered them from Inked Papers on Etsy who also has tons of great looking products (especially the labels). 

. . .And that is my Dustbowl experience.

 I do need to say that Jerod was a great help on Saturday (man can he load a card when he needs to [you would have been impressed Dad]) and is always my biggest supporter and bought me curry on Sunday and put up with me not being the most fun person this last month and is encouraging me to make and do more. . .so . . . thanks to him.

And thanks to everyone else who had to listen to me talk only about this.

The Ottoman Empire

During the first couple of weeks we owned our house (early September 2010) I bought a torn up, green leather ottoman at a garage sale for $5. It was a great size, shape and price and had cute brass feet. . . all in all it had a lot of potential but was in no shape to be out for people to see it! Since its purchase the poor thing has sat, or more truthfully, been shoved under the table in our laundry/craft room until last week. But let's start at the begining. . .

Here it is in it's original state. . .torn up but waiting to be cute.

I began by removing all of the leather and setting it aside for pattern pieces. Removing the original leathe was probably the most time consuming part of the whole project.

Once the leather was removed I suplemented the original batting (which was in pretty good shape) with a little more just to even things out and give it a little more cushion.
Oh-I will also say at this point, I decided to eleminate the piping around the top and bottom of the ottoman and only keep some along the center seam. I tried it a couple of ways but decided that the piping was a bit fussy when mixed with the plaid fabric I was using to recover it.
One more note. . . This is the same fabric I used on our dining room chairs. I think this ties everything together nicely PLUS this fabric was donated to me from my lovely friend Amy. Making this a super cheap fix up. All told I think I spent under $10 on the whole project, how is that for frugal?

Okay. . . back to the upholstery. After I added the batting, I sewed the top and side pieces together and slipped it over the top half. Once I made sure everything was in it's place and fitting snug I tacked the edge down with upholstery tacks making sure everything was pulled evenly and securely.

Next I attached the center piping and lower fabric, covering the raw edges of the top half and piping. I attached all of this with my trusty staple gun.

With all of the visible parts being finished and pretty I stapled the remaining raw edge to the underside of the ottomen and called it done. . .well almost. . .

In it's original incarnation the ottoman had cute brass brads finishing the fabric around the legs I went ahead and bought new brads hammered them in and watched them shine!

The cats, as always, were a huge help every step of the way.

Here it is in the living room! Don't you want to kick your feet up and cuddle with a cat?

Striped Sweater: An Actual Project!!!!!!

I know, I know. . .I am actually posting on craft project on a blog named "More Projects Than Time" it's a real shocker! About a year ago I mentioned a sweater I was knitting and had completely screwed up. Well I finally finished it! I predominately worked on it this fall during a time I was not actively engaged in this blog, meaning I don't have any process pictures but I thought I would share this silly (fuzzy and crooked-faced) picture of myself, all dressed up for work in my new sweater.

I'm a little proud of myself and my hair looked cute that day!

All You Can Eat Buffet

Over the weekend I got busy sanding, painting and otherwise revamping the hand-me-down buffet we have been using for the last five years. This little guy was my grandparents (I've mentioned their/our other dining room furniture here) and has been painted at least twice, once blue and once white with varnish over the paint. The white version, with aged and yellowing varnish, is what we had kept it as up until now.

Aside from the discoloration of the paint it had a few chips, cracks and problems, both from us and it's tenure in my grandparents attic.

After sanding, painting and new hardware it is looking fresh and lovely!!!!!

This buffet make-over is also making me realize I need to do some work on the dining chairs. I will take some complete shots of the dining room after I work on the chairs. . . but . . . one thing at a time.

The Yard: Part IV, things are growing

I know it has been ages since my last post but I needed to let a few things start growing before updating everyone on the yards progress. Also, I will admit I was being a bit lazy about taking pictures.

Without further ado. . .here are the pictures!

This is a little overview of most of the garden.

The squash looking lovely

The okra is finally getting bigger.

Mint and rosemary. Don't worry we will eventually we will deal with this dirt (although it may not be this year)

Marigolds

We've been working on some building projects and indoor projects too. I will try get a post up about all of those in the near-ish future.

As always you can check out the progress of our yard here, here, and here.

The Yard: Part III

The yard accomplishments we made this weekend aren't stunning to look at but . . . I feel we got quite a bit accomplished, especially since we were only able to work on Saturday.

Here is what we did:

1. Removed the rest of the black edging!
2. Finished filling the garden with soil and compost.
3. Finished digging out the side of the front flowerbed.
4. Added and enriched soil in back flowerbed.
5. Planted Cosmos seeds.
6. Removed unfinished railroad tie boarder from the front of house. This one is a big enough deal I'll throw in a couple of before and after photos. We plan on leveling the bed and putting some type of edging or border around it.

It rained Sunday morning which is AMAZING, the precipitation totals for March and April so far were .05 inches. Hopefully, this will green up the yard a bit and really get the Cosmos growing.

*Our previous yard posts are here and here if you are wanting to check-out any of the work we've already done*