Making it Lovely » Crafty (& Handy)

Inspiration Board

Making it Lovely — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:43:23 +0000

I made something last night. It’s my attempt at an “inspiration board”, though I confess I think of it more as a big rectangle of pretty clutter. I don’t even know what to do with it now! I like having pictures of it, but I don’t want the actual physical item hung up anywhere.

Am I the only one that can’t get behind this whole inspiration board (which is just a fancy word for bulletin board) thing?* I did think of an excellent use for it though: desktop wallpaper.

*Odd, since I put together digital boards all the time. Those serve a purpose though (for a room or an outfit). When the purpose is simply inspiration, I don’t find it all that inspiring! Then again, I do like looking at the ones other people have made. I suspect this has something to do with my perfectionist tendencies.

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Christmas Wreath

Making it Lovely — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:24:06 +0000

Brandon bought a wreath from a boy scout that came to our door last month. Isn’t that sweet? When it arrived though, I could see it needed a little help. It came with a smooshed plastic red bow and two pine cones.

I ordered a set of vintage silver bells after Laura posted them on the SCOOP, and I figured they would do nicely in the center of the wreath.

I added a silver bow and the two pine cones back in and hung it from a silver ribbon. The whole thing could have used a little more fussing, but I fixed it up and had it hanging within fifteen minutes. I had to work quickly!

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Trying to Sew a Slipcover

Making it Lovely — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:49:13 +0000

I had this idea a year and a half ago to slipcover my desk chair, and I’ve finally gotten around to trying it. Guess what… it’s way harder than I thought it would be! Of course, I am a novice seamstress at best, but I’ve had some sewing successes and I thought I could do this. Well, I made three pocket-like things that are fitting (sort of), but I have no idea how to connect them. I’ve been sitting on my chair like this for about a week now…

There’s no shame in giving up on a crafty project, right? What about you guys? Have you had better success with this type of thing? Do tell.

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Katamari Baby Costume

Making it Lovely — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:49:28 +0000

She’s the Prince. And that costume too waaaaaay too long to make!

I think she looks pretty cute, even if you aren’t familiar with the Katamari games. Of course, if you’re confused you can visit the official Katamari website (fair warning: there is music), or consult the all-knowing Wikipedia. And then there’s always YouTube (na na na na na na na na na, Katamari Damacy).

Happy Halloween!

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This Project Made Possible by You!

Making it Lovely — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:17:40 +0000

I’ve created a little banner to identify projects funded by our winnings in the 48-Hour Challenge. We’ve held onto the money until we could decide how best to use it. Half has been set aside for an important business expense (which I will discuss at a later date), and the other half is being divvied up among several new projects around the house. Thank you again for your support, and for making all of this possible!

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Felt Pin with Interchangeable Center

Making it Lovely — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:18:38 +0000

I’ve been planning to take a photo of Eleanor each month, and I wanted a way to mark each one for easy identification. I ran across a prize-ribbon tutorial recently, and I was going to make one but I didn’t have the right kind of ribbon. Sure, I could have gone out and bought some, but I had a sleeping baby in the house and a desire to make something now. I ended up rummaging through my craft closet for supplies that I had on hand and I came up with a felt version instead.

First I cut two matching circles out of pink and white felt.

Then I cut a slightly larger circle out of brown felt with pinking shears (using one of my pocket mirrors as a template).

Next I marked an asterisk pattern on the pink felt circle, stacked it on top of the white circle, and then cut out eight triangular points.

I chose a few cute ribbons to form the tails…

Then I hand stitched all of my parts together and formed the body of the pin.

I could have stopped there or sewn a button in the center if I just wanted to make a cute pin, but I wanted to be able to change the center each month for Eleanor’s age (in months). Since I have ready access to a button machine (I make pins and magnets with it for my shop), I decided to make 24 numbered buttons. May as well make this a two year photo project, eh?

Now I can just swap out the center each month and Eleanor can wear the correct number on the pin each month for her photo!

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How To Make a Hanging Divider

Making it Lovely — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:12:34 +0000

First, I want to thank you all for your support in the 48-Hour Challenge! Our porch is back in the lead again, but it’s close and every vote definitely counts. Thank you all, especially those of you that are voting every day from now until June 12! I really appreciate it.

Today, I thought I’d explain how to make the hanging divider that we created for our front porch.

Materials

2′x4′ piece of hardboard
two wooden dowel rods
s-hooks
chain
paint

Tools

table saw (or circular saw, or jig saw)
drill
cabinet knob template
pencil
paint brush

How To…

You can do something symmetrical or random, so it’s helpful to plan out a pattern (you can use graph paper) before beginning. We started by cutting our hardboard into long strips (3″ wide), and then cutting the strips into shorter pieces (ours were 6″ and 10″ long).

Once we had our pieces cut, we made marks for our hooks using a cabinet knob template. After drilling for the holes, we painted the front and back of each piece.

We assembled the strips with s-hooks and hung the whole thing from a dowel rod and some chain. We also added another dowel rod along the bottom for more stability. We’re actually planning to reinforce the connections with wire to help the divider weather strong winds. If the hooks were easier to bend, we would have bent the ends to hold it all together a bit better. If you’re using the divider indoors though, the extra step wouldn’t be necessary.

There you have it! And you can easily customize the project by making it more random, switching up the colors, using different shapes, and so on. You can even add in other materials — there are great metal parts in the plumbing section of any home improvement store. I hope that inspires some of you to try your hand at your own hanging divider!

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Icicles and Ornaments

Making it Lovely — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:00:51 +0000

There are some spectacular icicles on all of the houses in my neighborhood. Very pretty, and also a little scary (I worry when Brandon goes out to shovel).

I made those paper ornaments a couple of years ago (based on the instructions from design*sponge), but I don’t think they’ve shown up in any of my photographs before. I love the way they look with the icicles behind them.

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No More Popcorn Ceiling

Making it Lovely — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:35:15 +0000

The popcorn has given way to a smooth, flat ceiling, thanks to Brandon’s hard work. As I mentioned before, the ceiling did not contain asbestos (always check before removing because many popcorn ceilings do), so we felt comfortable trying to remove it. It came down easily enough in just a few hours (he sprayed it with water and scraped it off), but smoothing the resulting mess took a little longer. He did a rough sanding (60 grit) first, wiped all of the dust away with a damp cloth, smoothed over all of the imperfections with joint compound, and then sanded everything again (220 grit).

I’m the more handy one out of the two of us and I felt bad that I couldn’t help, but we didn’t think it was a safe job for a pregnant lady. Oh yeah, I’m also a wee bit of a perfectionist… It was really hard to not go in there and obsessively sand and smooth and do things myself. After priming and painting though, the ceiling looks really good.

The new light looks great, though we did have to run out and grab a ceiling medallion. I’m not really a fan of them, but Brandon had a hard time smoothing out the ceiling near the light, and the medallion was an easy solution to hide the remaining popcorn texture. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll leave it white or if I’ll paint it the same color as the rest of the ceiling.

Now, I know people get a bit nervous when dealing with electrical projects (we do too), but changing a light fixture is EASY. We’ve done it six times so far in this house (in the living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, studio, and nursery). You just make sure the power is off, take down the old fixture, connect like wires to like wires, attach the ground wire to the little green screw on the mounting bar, and then attach the new fixture.

We decided to keep the room the same color (Wheat Bread by Behr), but it needed a second coat of paint. Really, it’s always needed that second coat, but I think I was too tired when working on the guest room before and I just figured ‘good enough’ (which is so uncharacteristic of me). It has bugged me ever since. So now we’ve painted the ceiling and walls, and even did some touch up work on the trim, and the guest room is officially ready to be switched over to a nursery.

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Updating an IKEA Lamp

Making it Lovely — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:50:23 +0000

This is a super simple IKEA hack that took about 10 minutes this morning.

I wanted a light in the alcove in the nursery, but I was concerned about little fingers meddling and getting burned by a hot bulb. IKEA sells the TASSA NATT lamp for $5, and the main draw is that it’s tamper-proof and it doesn’t get hot. Great, except for the little frog/bugs on it.

The cover comes off very easily though.

I just traced it onto prettier paper and recovered the lamp.

The new cover may not last as long (the original was vinyl), but it’s easy enough to switch out every so often.

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