My awesome grandparents live in a retirement community nearby. Momoo, my grandmother, is in large part to thank for my craftiness and creativity. So, it’s only fitting that she be the recipient of some of my handmade creations. Thus, I’ve taken to making Momoo and Daddy Tom seasonal wreaths for the door of their apartment. I mean come on, what is better than having the best looking door in the retirement community AND be able to brag that it’s your granddaughter that is responsible. It’s grandparent heaven and fun for me too.
My previous wreaths have mostly been concoctions made up of faux florals and doo-dads from the seasonal aisle at Michael’s. Not so steal-worthy, my friends.
But last weekend, I came across this Babble article with 10 Simple DIY Fall Wreaths (many adorable) and decided I would rip off this one in a Valentine’s palette for my sweet grandparents.
You can steal this blogger’s instructions for making felt flowers here and use these adorable baubles for all kinds of applications. I really like this craft because you can cut and fashion the flowers while sitting on the couch (felt sticks to itself – so with just a round object to use as a template, a pen, and some scissors, you can make a whole mess of these little flowers before you ever get out the glue gun).
Once I had them all rolled up, I moved from the sofa to the dining room table and in 30 minutes, they had all been hot glued to the grapevine wreath. I decided that some leaves were in order so I halved some green felt, placed a towel over it and ironed a crease before cutting out the leaf shapes (I learned the hard way that the towel is a big deal – synthetic felt does not like heat!).
Pop on over to Little Things Bring Smiles and steal some inspiration for a lovely Valentine’s Day gift!
When faced with taking a tot on a trip, new moms are always looking for ways to make it easier. So when my mom friends extraordinaire Macki and Kathy collaborated on this Kid’s Travel Toy Blanket with Velcro Loops and Ribbon Tags, I took note of the idea and filed it in the Klepto Files.
The genius behind this blanket is that it is both cute and functional. The ribbon tags with different textures and colors give baby something to concentrate on. The Velcro loops can be used to catch little teethers and other small toys. The tiny pockets are perfect for tucking away a pacifier, stray pair of socks, or even a tot-sized book. Aren’t Kathy & Macki brilliant?!
Lately, I’ve been bitten by the sewing bug again, so I spent the last couple of weekends whipping up 2 of these adorable blankets. I did all of my fabric and ribbon shopping in the clearance section of the sewing store and came away with so many adorable fabrics, ribbons and ric racs that I bought more than I need so I’ll be ready to make these for many munchkins to come!
One was for a very special little girl on the way so I opted for lots of different pinks, whites and a touch of coral and brown.
Following Kathy’s perfect instructions, I completed the little girl version of my blanket in an evening and a morning.
Once I had a better handle on the process, I was able to whip up the baby boy version in about half the time. And I think it’s twice as cute!!
Plus, it will be perfect for this little monkey …
Thank you Kathy, Macki and Merriment Design for the adorable idea! Rip-off accomplished!!
xo,
Julia
The Saturday before Valentine’s Day I got an itch to make a homemade Valentine for my hubby. He’s a man who has everything and we’ve never made much of a big deal over Valentine’s day. In fact last year we had Will’s delicious chicken marsala on our good china by candlelight. It was honestly a perfect evening. That’s one of the great things about my husband. He’s an excellent cook and it’s totally sexy!
The week before Valentine’s Day, my friend Jaime from Prudent Baby wrote a post on Valentines Poems for Every Personality. And on that list, I found one that was PERFECT for him. It’s called The Love Cook by Ron Padgett and it goes a little something like this:
Let me cook you some dinner.
Sit down and take off your shoes
and socks and in fact the rest
of your clothes, have a daquiri,
turn on some music and dance
around the house, inside and out,
it’s night and the neighbors
are sleeping, those dolts, and
the stars are shining bright,
and I’ve got the burners lit
for you, you hungry thing.
HOT! HOT! HOT! I love it. And I wanted to do a little something more with it than write it on a card. But what to do? Put it in a frame? Hand-embroider it on a dishtowel? Paint it on a utensil holder at one of those paint-it-yourself places? Of course I came up with this idea on approximately February 12 so I had to work fast.
Enter Prudent Baby once again! They were featuring a potholder contest at the same time for a chance to win a Brother sewing machine. That’s when I saw this:
And I decided that yes in fact a potholder can be sexy. So I went to the fabric store and picked out some Valentine-y but not too girly fabrics and some notions. Then I ran on over to Michael’s and grabbed some heat transfer paper and I got to work using the instructions that Prudent Baby provided for their contest.
You are definitely going to want to click on that hyperlink up there and look at Jaime’s tutorial for sewing a potholder if you are going to tackle this yourself. But below I’ll summarize the steps with a few tips on what I learned in the process. I must admit – sewing a potholder is a very satisfying little project. It really only takes an hour or so and with some cute fabric, what a sweet little hostess gift or thank you gift it could be.
Here’s how it goes:
1. Cut two 8″ squares of fabric, two 8″ squares of batting, two 5×8″ rectangles of fabric and two 5×8″ rectangles of batting. Pin batting to each fabric piece comme ca:
Now the fact is that you could just use one piece of dense batting in between two pieces of pretty fabric and that would be just fine. But the batting I bought was light so I wanted the extra layer to protect against heat. I was also planning to applique the heart to the potholder and I didn’t want the thread to show through on the other side. That’s why I opted to quilt each side separately, which brings be to point #2.
2. Place a pretty fabric square on a batting rectangle and quilt. I chose to do 1″ parallel lines which I estimated using my little handy ruler. (This is, by the way, a great project to practice sewing straight lines if that’s an issue for you – not that it is for me (cough).)
3. You’re going to do the same parallel line quilting on your second fabric square and batting set. Then move on to your rectangles. The rectangular fabric cuts will be used for the little hand mit portion of your potholder. Since my mit rectangles weren’t getting any appliques or special decoration, I just sandwiched the pretty fabric on either side of 2 pieces of batting, pinned it tight, and quilted away. Jaime says a walking foot for the sewing machine is great for this. I didn’t have one and I did just fine.
4. What you’re going to do next is press your message on to a heart-shaped bit of fabric using heat transfer paper. I didn’t get any photos of this but it’s pretty easy. Just make sure you give yourself some leeway to do a little trial and error with the transfer paper as it is NOT an exact science.
5. Then use the satin stitch setting on your sewing machine to applique the heart on to one of the fabric + batting squares. You’ll wind up with something that looks like this:
5. Now you are going to sew some bias tape to your rectangular pocket on one side and then base the rectangle on to the square while basting the squares together. If you have never sewn with bias tape (I hadn’t), check out Prudent Baby’s tutorial here. But be forewarned, you may become obsessed with bias tape as I now have. Bias tape makes me want to sew a LOT more often because it hides the ugliness! But I digress … here’s how we’re looking now …
6. Now it’s time to apply the bias tape all the way around. Don’t forget to make a provision for the loop to hang you pot holder with. And again, if you haven’t already, check out Prudent Baby’s Bias Tape Tutorial.
7. And that just about wraps it up!
8. Unless of course you are me and you have already decided in your head that a set of pot holders would be way cuter than just one.
I thought the conversation heart motif was kind of fun. Do you see that that one actually has iron marks on it? I suppose maybe the iron was a little too warm, the press was a little too firm, and the hold was a little too long on that heat transfer. But I decided that especially given the message of this pot holder that the iron marks give it more character. So I decided to go with it!
My Love Cook loves his new pot holders. And for less than $25 (I had to buy every single thing I used here … no scraps to be had), I made a cute, custom and funny valentine for my love. Handmade gifts are fewer and far between these days. Who better to give one to than the one you love the most?
Thanks, Prudent Baby, for the poem and pot holder inspiration. Clearly, I was inspired!
Last Valentine’s Day I blogged about a great idea: Tree of Hearts.
As of this morning I have a first-person testimonial about just how great of an idea this is! Look at the beautiful sight I saw outside my window …
You wanna know how someone will react if you decide to give them this very special Valentine? First they will gasp, then they will run upstairs to put on their snowboots and grab a camera, then they will run outside in the snow and take not less than 30 pictures with tears streaming down their cheeks and a big ‘ole grin on their face that nothing will wipe off all day long.
Here are a few more lovely shots for your viewing pleasure …
Wasn’t it smart of my friends to use these foam cut-out hearts to make this beautiful tree for me?
Man oh man do I feel loved. Like my cup runneth over loved. Like could I be any luckier loved? Like wrapped up in a big, warm sweater of love. If there’s someone that you wish could feel overwhelmed with love, you should steal this idea THIS WEEKEND and make it happen. Pass it along!
Thank you Heather, Whitney, Carolyn, Brandy, Jenny, Hontas, Melissa, Alissa and especially the master-mind Allison and anyone else that mailed in hearts without names … I am just SO, SO, SO touched and inspired by your friendship. I truly believe that gratitude is one of the best tools to help heal a broken heart. My heart got a big pink, purple and red-hearted band aid this morning. Just awesome.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
xo,
Julia
Did your elementary school have a fall carnival? Mine did and I LOVED it. There was a haunted house, a cake walk, a fish bowl ping pong toss, potato sack race, hula-hooping contest and of course the perennial favorite, the bean bag toss. These days, the bean bag toss has seen an incredible resurgence at beer-drinking events for the adult set. No serious beach day, steeplechase, tailgate, or cookout is complete without it. Game sets are available for purchase online and decorated with every imaginable team logo. And it’s also gained a more mythological name: Cornhole.
What sparked the Cornhole epidemic? According to Wikipedia, the tipping point came in the 1990′s when kids at Miami University made Cornhole a mainstay as a casual drinking game. And I am proud to say that yours truly (Miami Class of 2001) certainly fanned the wildfire’s flames.
This spring, Cornhole is getting an even more impressive promotion when it will be featured at my dear friend Sarah’s wedding (another Miami alum). Sarah and her beau Kevin are marrying at Folly Beach, South Carolina. Their fete will be casual, elegant, and beachy with Capsian Blue bridesmaid dresses from J.Crew and yellow accents.
Sarah asked if I might know how to make custom Cornhole bags. I said “I do”.
My mother-in-law and I whipped these up over the Christmas holidays using the directions at the appropriately-named CornholeHowTo.com. I saved this project until I was visiting her since she has an embroidery machine and I thought it would be necessary to create the appliques. However, I learned that any machine with a satin stich will work for applique. Here’s a quick summary of what we did:
1.) We followed the directions at Cornholehowto.com to make regulation 6×6″ bags filled with 1 lb. of hull corn each.
2.) Before assembling the bags, create and apply the applique. First I hand-sketched the whimsical K and S seen above on stiff paper and cut each letter out as my template.
3.) Using standard blue cotton duck and an upholstery print called Good Vibrations (that I can’t find anywhere online!), I traced the letters onto the right sides of the fabric.
4.) Next, iron Heat ‘N Bond to the backside of the letters.
5.) Now it’s time to cut out each letter and center it on the 6×6″ fabric squares. Peel away the paper backing on the letters and press them to the fabric.
6.) Now just run around the border of each of the letters with a satin stitch. I confess that my mother-in-law was much more skilled at this than I. However, I would tackle it again knowing that even though I might have to rip out my stitches a time or two, I could get it looking pretty darn good.
Sarah is making her Cornhole boards herself! I’ll be sure to post pics of the set in action at her wedding this spring. I think they are super cute and I’m wishing we had not hastily purchased a Tennessee Vols Cornhole set this past summer and rather made our own! Maybe that set will make it’s way to Craig’s List …
Sometimes, an experience makes a better gift than a material item. My Mom’s birthday was last week and she hinted to Dad, who told me, that she wanted to try growing an orchid. Mom’s a green thumb but she had always been intimidated by orchids in the past. Now’s she’s ready. Mom and I, we’re thick as thieves.
So I visited my trusty friend Google to see what was available in the world of Nashville orchids, hoping I might happen upon something special. And something special is exactly what I found … Merkle’s Orchids. Ed and Lydia Merkle run a little backyard orchid business from their home in the Inglewood area. The greenhouse isn’t open all the time. As a matter of fact, it’s really just a hobby for the two of them and they show their orchids at events across the region. But if you use the contact information on the website, Ed will meet you and give you a tour of his greenhouse.
Mom and I spent over an hour touring with Ed. We sniffed orchids that smelled like peonies, coconut creme pie, root beer, nutmeg, and believe it or not, exactly like Fruit Loops. We learned about orchid reproduction, what makes an orchid and orchid, how best to care for them, and how the various species of orchids have adapted to ensure pollination. Some become fragrant only at night to attract the moths that pollinate them. Others smell rancid like a carcass or dog poo to entice the flies that pollinate that species. Still others (and Ed didn’t have one of these to share but we loved hearing the story) use sex to lure in a pollinator … here’s an article about the wasp orchid that looks and smells like a female wasp. The male comes by looking for action and pollinates the flower in the process. How in the HECK did evolution cause that to occur?? Mother Nature is a fancy lady, indeed.
Here’s my favorite orchid from the Merkle’s collection. Never seen anything like it:
Isn’t it STUNNING? And here’s Mom with Ed and her new purchase (plus a little baby orchid that is a hybrid that Ed himself created – couldn’t resist).
Happy Birthday, Mom!
Steal this idea … think outside the box to make a gift a little more special. Mom’s orchid was only $25 but the time spent together and the things we learned were priceless.
Will and I got engaged in November of 2007 on a magical European vacation with our families. The day of our engagement, we opened up a bottle of champagne in celebration and I’ve been saving our treasured cork ever since.
Er, um, ok so that’s not exactly how it went. We did get engaged on a wonderful Mediterranean cruise with our families. And we did open a bottle of champagne not long after Will popped the question. And I did save the cork. And then I lost it 36 hours later. But, in true glass-half-full style, we just used that as an excuse to order more champagne and do more celebrating. ;)
But what to do with them? I came up with an idea that I think is totally genius. Christmas ornaments! Don’t you love to go through the ritual of pulling out your Christmas ornaments each year and remembering who gave them to you or who made them for you or where you bought them? Well now you can remember those special occasions by immortalizing your champagne cork as a festive ornament for your tree. Here’s how:
Champagne Cork Ornament
1.) Start with a clean, dry cork with the muselet still attached.
The muselet is the wire cage that secures the cork to the bottle (I just learned that term tonight – fancy, eh?). If you want to work with a wine cork that naturally does not have a muselet, you might try threading some fishing line on a needle and pushing it through the cork. I haven’t tried this, but it seems like it would work.
2.) Shape a bow using some cute, festive ribbon.
I chose ribbon that’s Christmas-y but it would be just as cute to match the ribbon to the occasion. So if you opened a bottle of champagne on the day your baby girl was born, make it pink. It it was the day your hubby got into business school, find ribbons in colors that match the program.
3.) Shape a bow, don’t tie a bow.
I’m using grosgrain ribbon here and it doesn’t exactly make the most gorgeous bow because the ribbon has so much body. But it’s just too darn cute to pass up. So, I shaped the two “ears” and two “tails” of the bow and pinched it with my fingers.
Then I used a stretch of fishing line to tightly cinch the center of the bow. Next, I used a 1-inch long stretch of ribbon and a little crazy glue and covered up my fishing line. Grosgrain ribbon will fray so don’t forget to singe any loose ends with a lighter so that the fibers melt together just a bit.
4.) Attach the bow.
Bend the muselet back to make a little spot for the bow to rest. Give it just enough room so it’s snug. I added a little crazy glue to the cork right where the bow would fit to keep it extra snug.
5.) Make it hang-able.
I used some fishing line to make a loop through the ring of the muselet so it can be hung from the tree! Our tree is already down for the year so here it is, hanging from a nail in my office wall. Trust me, this will be WAY cuter once it has a Christmas tree limb to dangle from.
I’m going to try to remember to do this as a follow up from showers, weddings, engagement parties, New Year’s Eve parties, and the like. Wouldn’t it be such a fun idea to steal a cork from a party you attend and surprise the guest of honor with a little momento at Christmastime? I could kick myself for not nabbing a cork from an engagement party I went to this weekend.
One of my favorite blogs, Young House Love, does a similar application with the chop sticks from their ritual New Year’s Eve dinner. You can read about that here. They also mention framing their old house keys in that post but wouldn’t old house keys make great Christmas ornaments too? Maybe with a sweet little hand-written label that gives the address of a much-loved house and the years that you made memories there. Such a fun thing to pull out every holiday season.
So Corks for Christmas – totally a Julia Original! Enjoy!
My husband has an uncle who enjoys woodworking. This Christmas, we opened a package to find he had given us a pair of handmade cedar birdhouses! One was a wren house and the other for blue jays. Aren’t they awesome?
You don’t have to be a bird watcher to appreciate a handmade birdhouse. Think about it. Who isn’t fascinated with birds? I mean come on, they fly! And what a great gift for families with kids. Post these suckers close to a window with a comfy seat and the little ones will be sure to be entertained … well, at least for a short while.
And, if you or the ones you love aren’t handy with wood working, then you can cheat. Lord knows I LOVE a good cheat. A quick search on Etsy turned up over 1,300 bird houses in the wood working section alone. I love buying gifts on Etsy because the seller usually puts in a little card talking about their handmade business. The recipient knows you didn’t just pick up this birdhouse at KMart.
Check out this cutie I found, just $15 from Etsy seller Bacon Square Farm. I love that little twisted perch. Such a simple detail makes it so special!
Or, if you are looking for something a little more mod, check out this vintage camper birdhouse for $45 from Etsy seller Strictly for the Birds. You can even order a custom license plate with up to 10 characters for just $4 extra. Freaking adorable.
And, if you want to take it up a notch, click the “Custom” button at the top of Etsy and request a bid for a custom birdhouse from the Etsy community. Snap a pic with your cell phone and you can include it in your bid request. A birdhouse built to custom specifications would be a great gift for a first-time homebuyer or as a thank you to friends who invite you to spend a weekend in their vacation home. Also great for matriarchs or patriarchs who have everything and have created memories for your family in a special home that you can immortalize in birdhouse form. With Etsy Custom, you can be as specific or as general as you want and YOU name the price. You are not locked into any purchases until you accept an offer. I LOVE buying gifts this way.
I love a gift that makes memories. This is that kind of gift. So whimsical and thoughtful, steal this idea and give someone a handmade, or even custom, birdhouse!!
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