Book Sling

This is by far my favourite project to date.

I started this a while ago, but I've been super slow in completing it and hanging it!!

But it is done, pictures have been taken and now we blog :)

This is a BOOK SLING.

I love it.

It serves as a display, a safe place to keep the "good" books, and it's even like a bit of book artwork on your child's wall.

I love it so much, that I'd love to one day make one for my livingroom some day (in an appropriate fabric of course).

I would love to take credit for this, BUT it's from the creative mind of blogger Penny Carnival. See her tutorial HERE.

Here's some fun facts from my own:

-I used clearance fabric from the outdoor fabric section for "end of summer". It was $5 regular $22. It's a bit of a heavier material, so I had to use a heavier thread to sew.

-Instead of the brackets & rods, I found an UMBRA double rod bracket & rod set at Home Outfitters for $14 regular $40. woo!!

-I don't have a sewing machine, nor am I an established sewer...but this is all straight simple lines and I went over to my Mom's house to do it!

-after doing mine, my Family Fun magazine subscription came in the mail...and wouldn't they just have it in theirs as a project, but they did theirs no-sew...all with iron-on adhesive. So you have options!!

-The flowers I used as accents I made, and the tutorial for them are on my sidebar under "favourites"

Some more pics :)

I apologize that they are so super grainy.

Camera issues. Grr.

From the side: it comes out from the wall about 4".

Flower accents (see tutorial under Favourites in my sidebar)

Also...can you tell we LOVE Pinkalicious? Look at all her man-handling "laugh lines"

We also have Purplicious.

Better pics! Finally (new camera)

{la la la la loooove it}

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Another Flower Tutorial!

c blog post seen HERE.

The wreath had these pretty little handmade flowers to embellish it...so here's the tutorial on how it's done.

First, cut a long strip of fabric (the longer the fabric; the bigger the flower, the thicker; the fatter the rolls!)

I found cutting a snip on the one end of the fabric and tearing it instead of cutting gave the perfect fringed edge.

Tie a knot at one end. This will be your flower's center.

Glue the center down to a piece of felt with a hot glue gun.

Then begin twisting your fabric as you glue it down around the center.

Keep rotating until the size of flower you want, OR until you run out of fabric!

Glue the tail to the back.

Cut off all the excess felt as close to the flower as possible.

THAT'S IT! Finished!!

Make all different sizes for the best effect! Looove them.

The longest part is all the gluing.

Why not make some out of an old shirt?

(like this one that no longer fits my hubby!)

Same technique, twisting and rolling...

Fabulous!!

As easy peasy as these are, they do take a bit of patience, a high pain tolerance for the glue gun burns you are SURE to incur and a bit of time to do them.

Like I said before, I did about 30 minutes worth during the kid's naptime and make about 5 flowers in that time.

Here's a couple places I used them:

My blanket sign from an older post seen HERE

Close up:

On the wreath.

Seen HERE

Monogrammed Wreath

So would you believe that I do not own a wreath? 

Well...except for my jingle bell Christmas one...

My front door was resenting me. I could feel it.

So, with a little inspiration from here and a little from here...I went to work on my very first front door wreath!

This was NOT a one-day "naptime" project.

I did about 1/2 hr a day for a week until it was complete.

SO WORTH IT!

Here's the supplies I used:

-grapevine wreath from Michael's Craft store $4.99 (minus 40% with my flyer coupon)

-ribbon

-mdf letter, Dollarama (but they can be found at Michael's as well, in different sizes)

-acrylic paint (to paint the letter)

-fabric strips for flowers

-glue gun!

-spray paint

Here we go!!

Plain Wreath:

Some Krylon spray paint (on sale for $3.24, only used a 1/3 of it)

Here's the wreath all painted

Used a glue gun to attach all these beautiful little flowers (tutorial on them to come!)

Attached the ribbon to the back of the "R"

DONE!!

Isn't she a beaut?

I'm beaming with a sense of accomplishment!!

I didn't have a wreath hanger (and I couldn't find a cheap one I liked) so I attached it with ribbon and hooked it onto a nail on the back of the door

More pics :)

upclose shot of the handmade flowers (they were my labour of love)

As I mentioned, a tutorial on the flowers is coming!!

In the meantime, tell me what you think! I'd love to hear your comments :)

UPDATE!! THE FLOWER TUTORIAL IS POSTED. CLICK HERE TO SEE!!

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Little Birdies S&P Pedestal

So by now we all know my fascination and love for all things spray paint. Well, I wanted to try out a new COLOUR, new BRAND of spray paint and a new SURFACE.

So I did just that this week.

The colour is "Rustic Blue", but I'd say it's slightly punchier than rustic. 

The  brand is Valspar (Lowe's) on sale for under $5

The surface is a glass candle pedestal that I just never use.

But of course hoard never throw away.

The reason I did this project was because my Mom found these adorable salt & pepper shakers for my daughter "Birdie" as a display for her 1st birthday. Well, I've kept them in the box since (1 1/2 years) and now decided that they were too nice to be kept in a box. BUT if I wanted to preserve them then I had to find a way to keep them away from little hands, but still displayed nicely. This was my solution!

Here's some BEFORE & AFTER pics:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I know. The birds are freaking adorable right?

I'm so sorry to say that I hunted down the company that makes them online (http://www.wrapables.com/) and they no longer have them!?

But my Mom found them in a little shoppe for $7.99/pair.

So you never know where you may see them!

Overall review:

Colour: It was a little bright for "Rustic Blue" but was very much the colour on the lid, so that's good.

Brand: I liked the brand. It had a great sprayer tip and sprayed nice and easily. I found there was some drip lines when I was spraying, figured this was a *fail* project, but when I came back an hour later, they had pretty much smoothed out on their own. Impressed!

Surface: I assumed this was going to scratch up really easily on such a smooth surface, but to my surprise, I can take my fingernail to it and nothing scrapes off!! So I'd say it's an alright surface to work on!

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