WIWO Thursday: Crafting

originally published october 16, 2014

They say there is an affliction called Nesting that befalls pregnant women (mammals?) in the last trimester. They are caught up in a sudden urge to clean and prepare every little thing before the babe comes. Our Realtor confessed that when she was in her last trimester she was up on her roof cleaning gutters. GUTTERS! Our baby isn't going anywhere near the gutter, otherwise I'm sure he would be ashamed. The truth is I am here at 36 weeks, slightly sick, exhausted and in no mood to clean one more inch of this house. Still in between remodeling jobs (although painting is finished! Thanks to my beautiful sister) my soul has almost given up on tinkering, reorganizing and shifting boxes. Let alone dreaming up extra loads of laundry to do, and nooks of floor to mop. 

Alas, I am caught up in another mood entirely. Crafting. I know what you are thinking--but, I do not consider myself a "crafter". There is no shame in the word, in fact I see crafters as "jacks of all prettiness". Martha Stewart is a crafter (if she does in fact make all that stuff on her website). Those who have made something actually cool with modpodge are crafters. People who know how to get in and out of Hobby Lobby are crafters. I love to sew, I love to cook, I love to paint--but rarely do I step outside of my narrow aisle of creating. I could probably count all the crafts I've actually completed on my 2 hands. (but then again maybe not because I would have to try to remember Girls Camp...) My "Craft" supplies consist of tempera paint, some odd spools of floral tape, fake flowers I've never used, 1 bottle of tacky glue and a hot glue gun--which I cannot wield safely let alone skillfully. I don't even own glitter!

My point is: this is a weird feeling. So my first craft? I bought a vase, twinkly-light-up-twigs and made a center piece with some handfuls of freshly picked acorns. My acorn/twinkly stick vase was charming until the acorns let loose a pile of fat white maggots. There is no picture of that craft. See, you crafters saw that coming right?

Next, I made a wreath. I associate wreathes with moms, so maybe that is why I made one. There is no tutorial or anything, since I'm afraid of the hot glue gun I'm pretty sure most of this will fall apart once I take it down. But it sure does burst with autumnal pride right?

I have a hefty line up, considering I will be in charge of a newborn human in just a few weeks. But only a few are outside my realm of creating, so maybe the crafting hasn't gotten that intense yet. I mean I still haven't purchased a bottle of glitter, and none of these require glue.

1. A leaf garland! The seasonal garland is considered the audition to become a crafter, in case you were wondering.

2. A pillow case for my body pillow! I am also going to do some dip dyeing experiments for your benefit and mine. Here is the start so far.

3. A robe for this future milk machine! I don't think this counts as a craft...

4. Curtains for babe's room! What makes this crafty? Hand stamping. It will become very real

5. Finally? Making at least 1 thing in babe's room match his black curtains!

Which will be finished first? Which project will be left in the dust? Will this affliction stick with Shannon for the rest of her young adult life? Does Mr. Wood even know what is going on? All this and more coming this fall season on dear sweet wood!

I Can make That Pretty

In the long list of cute and fun recyclable crafts, this one is probably already on there a hundred times, but maybe you would like to see what I’ve made.

I had a hot chocolate can sitting around. It seemed sturdy so I decided to keep it to store buttons in (because it comes with a lid!). But, no one wants to store their buttons in their craft room in something that advertises hazelnut hot chocolate, that would be unhealthily tacky. So I decided to cover it.

I don’t know if you can technically call me a crafter, because I never have modge podge lying around, or pretty paper. But I do have fabric and various and assorted adhesives. My choices this day were tacky glue, a glue stick or super glue. Obviously I went tacky.

I also had this vintage upholstery sample piece that needed to be seen. Often you can go to furniture shops and they will give you their outdated fabric swatches for free—at least they did for an awkward teenager several years ago. It is nice to have around because it is sturdy and funky.

I also had yellow fruit, baby's breath and natural sunlight on my table, which just screams blog photo.

K guys, super easy.

I know. I say that too much.

Step 1: Cut a rectangle: exactly as tall as your can, and can wrap all the way around plus 1”

Step 2: Glue it on, being sure to over lap the end so it looks nice. I used tacky glue and painted it on with an old brush. Just glue part of it at a time, then rub the fabric down, then glue some more, that way the glue doesn’t dry up.

Step 3: Sit back, look at your can, and feel crafty.

 

Shannon

Home Sweet Home

Some lovely friends got married. Marriage is wonderful. I like to support marriage by giving it handmade little things. Hopefully they hang it up in their probably very cute little home.

Yeah. I know You can hardly see the words. I understand. It was supposed to be that way….

If you want to make your own crafty hoop art, it is really easy. Just cinch it in tight and glue the edges of the fabric to the hoop inside. Tah dah! Bonus if you can beat my amateur word sewing skills.

Shannon

Dyeing to be Pastel

This lovely little post is the story of a pair of pants born white wanting to be pastel.
The idea came from Lovely Kiera B. my longtime friend and roommate. She wanted some red pants (having some of my own, I only encouraged the idea). So we went off to Ross to buy some white skinnies for each of us.
We commenced dying the next day. Goal: Kiera Red, Shannon Mint.
Unfortunately mine had a disco ball on the back pockets so there was a little work to do before I started.

Fortunately they came off in like 5 minutes. Cheapest. Rhinestones. Ever. Really Ross!
here are the bedazzling's of only one pocket

I know right?
Then the next step was dying. Which of course accompanied triple layer brownies and a chic-flick. If you are going to do something, do it right--you know?
Before:

We did 2 methods: Washing machine and Stovetop.
Kiera’s red pants in the washing machine worked great. We reset the wash twice so that they could get jiggled around in the dye for the suggested 30 minutes. Result? Hot Red Pants in an excellent shade of tomato red. The only con? It dyed my machine pink. A load of bleach took most of it out and a white scrubbing sponge took out most of the rest though.
As for the mint ones? Well, the dying went well. I followed instructions mostly from a RIT package though. Be sure to get your clothing wet before putting it in the dye or else it will not absorb evenly. Also, I used a 98% cotton product, so it sucked up the color like a thirsty giraffe. I didn’t dye it as long as suggested. I bought tulip dye in teal (pale teal would be a nice mint right?). It turns out teal=sky blue, and the only one who cares is me because I am a color snob,  but you all knew that anyways. It will work perfectly for Kiera’s sister’s bridesmaid dresses, but not for my legs.

Exhibit A

Now this I'm sure would work for some people. Although, if you all of the sudden add a slightly unnatural hue to your wardrobe with consists mostly of pale pinks, creams, yellows and tomato reds you are going to be quite sorry. So I had to suck the day glow out of these pants--for the good of the wardrobe.
Also I was incredibly disappointed that the color was not the color advertised on the package…
The solution was to put it in the washing machine in a hot bath of bleached water. Bleach is a tricky thing, never expect it to bleach something just a lighter shade of the current hue, you will be disappointed. Almost always it will bleach yellowish or pinkish (or completely white). So I took a gamble-either it would add just the right amount of pale and yellow to turn these pants mint, or I would get a weird pinkish color.
I was lucky.

Tah-Dah! Now you can look at this blog-made fashion shoot of me wearing my pants, and yes it is true--I just put them on for the picture. But! Still don’t believe me that this looks better?

 VS.

Although, I won’t try to hard to convince you, because in the end it is really just opinion.
To pale-pant-fads that I whole heartedly endorse! Although not for $50 (Gap…)

Shannon