Crafty Friday

Oops here it is! First of all, I would like to say sorry for not having had a craft every Friday. I will try my hardest to have a craft out for you every Friday, but I think it is best if I don't promise. Whenever I do commit to one day, something happens. So I will try for Friday. Hope that is ok with you all, and here is today's craft.

While browsing the West Elm catalog (love WE), I saw this really cute handmade display they were featuring.

My first impressions were "how cool and neat", and "I will never figure out how to make it". While doing some spring cleaning, I browsed the West Elm catalog again, and  my second impression was "I might be able to make it after all".  I remembered seeing a diagram on how to put together a little paper house in hello sandwich's book, kawaii wrapping materials book. She is an amazing Australian artist and graphic designer living in Japan. It is really cute how she comes up with so many unique and beautiful designs for different things. This is the book.

And here is a little snapshot of the little house diagram.

And from that little diagram, this is the outcome. All you have to do is fold it up and glue it together. 

How cute is this tiny little house?

And before you say it, I will say it here first. Yes, these little houses will be perfect for an advent calendar at Christmas time, which I will be making this year.

 And after making a whole bunch, this is the final display. 

I love it. It looks so unique and different. Definitely worth the time that it took to make. 

Hope you liked today's little craft and will give this a shot. It really wasn't hard to make and you could even add little windows to the houses. 

Hope you have a fantastic long weekend!

B

Crafty Friday Time

Hello everyone! It is Friday again and that means it is time for some crafts. Woohoo! The post is a little late, but here it goes. I am a huge fan of Martha Stewart and while browsing her site, I came across some super cute pom pom chicks, that I knew wanted to come over to our place. And they did.

He was super easy to make and so much fun. I made the pom poms by using the tutorial from Ez at Creature Comforts. She has a great tutorial for pom poms and with the video she included, they are super easy to make. Check out her tutorial here. Here is my little pom pom. 

Quick note to mention about the pom pom. For this project, you do not need to cut off the yarn and make it neat like in her video. You can cut off some of the extra yarn, but do not make it into a perfect pom pom. 

The second part was sewing the two pom pom together, which you can do with any thread. 

Next, you choose some black thread and make the eyes. I used a French knot to make the eyes. A French knot is when the yarn goes twice around the needle and then you insert it back to finish your sewing. Here is a picture of what it looks like. Sorry about the picture. My needles were in the other room, baby sleeping etc. You can find more info here. 

And last, you cut some orange felt for the beak and feet if you want. 

This is my quick and simplified version to making pom pom chicks. Martha Stewart has a few more tricks up her sleeve, so you check out her full instructions right here. I am quite happy with mine and my little munchkin likes to play with him anyways. 

This proved to be a very easy Easter craft to make. You could even make this craft with your kids and I love the fact that you could easily make this as a last minute Easter decoration for your home. 

It is just me and my little munchkin around here, so I hope we get around to making some more crafts, otherwise it is train, car, digger play time. And I bet you know which one will win. Oh yes, the train, car play time. Any big plans on your end? 

Hope you have a fabulous weekend everyone! 

B

Washi Stop

Hello there! Thank you so much for your comments yesterday and today. I got teary eyed yesterday when I was reading your sweet comments. Thank you for being there and supporting my blog. It really means a lot to me. I am also looking forward to creating more projects and sharing them with you all. So here is one right now.

I loooove love love washi tape. There I said it. I looove washi tape and I think it is such a great way to decorate different things with it. My go to place for washi goodies is Omiyage.

Omiyage has a ton of super cute paper goodies, washi tape, balloons, paper straw, a ton of things. And while browsing their site, I came across these.

How cute are they? I knew exactly who was going to love playing with these. My little munchkin. We have been playing around the house with it and having so much fun. I also had another thought. I have just painted my little guy's room and have nothing on the walls yet, so while I am taking my time deciding on what to put there, I decided to decorate the walls with the washi tape.

I decided to create a subway/ street display and I am liking it. It started with a couple of strips at first, but then I liked how it looked and kept going until I achieved this. 

It was super easy to do and besides the tape, I used a level to make sure the tape is straight.  I think it is really cute. What do you think?

Have a great day!

B

Crafty Fridays

Happy Friday to all of you lovely readers! I am quite excited about this weekend, since I will be painting our kitchen table. The weather is supposed to be quite warm, (hopefully it will actually be and not just a prediction, as yesterday it was supposed to be a high of 10 and was very cold) and I can get outside and give our old kitchen table a makeover.

But first, I would like to introduce to you Crafty Fridays. Easter is a couple of weeks away and I figured I would share some crafts with you. So, here goes the first craft.

Metallic Easter Eggs

What you will need: 

-gold leaf (silver, copper), paper towels, cotton gloves, cheesecloth, brush, gilding paste and eggs

How To: 

1. Apply the gliding paste and wait 15 minutes, 2. put on the cotton glove, 3. pick a sheet of gold leaf, 4. apply the gold leaf inside

or 5. you apply the gold leaf on the outside of the egg, 6. straighten it gently by using your glove or cheesecloth, 7+8. your final product. 

For this project, I decided to apply the gold leaf inside the egg instead of 

I hope you liked this little how to and will try to make your own golden eggs. 

I hope you have a marvelous weekend!

B

Pink Kraft Fun

Valentine's Day is tomorrow and I did manage to wrap my hubby's present ahead of time. I don't know about you, but I, for one, love to design my own wrapping paper. I love using plain kraft paper and some fun accessories to make it special. It saves money and space and you can customize it for whatever occasion it is.

This time around I used the great tutorial that Ez from Creature Comforts has for making pompoms and made some pink cuties. She has a great video tutorial and made it super easy to follow.

I was doing this while my baby was napping and I think I got a little carried away with the free time, since I experimented and tried a whole bunch of options.

One,

Two, buckle my shoe,

Three,

Four, close the door, 

And I stopped at four. 

I felt that it needed a little masculine touch though, so I added some washi tape and voila. 

This is the final product after having some fun with pompoms. Hope he likes it. 

Have a great week ahead!

B

DIY Mini Christmas Decorations

Good afternoon everyone! How are you? I am feeling the pressure, but we are planning some baking tomorrow and hopefully that will end our preparations. And now my Christmas Decorations.

While my baby was napping this weekend, I played around with sequins. Here is what I made.

All you need are some styrofoam balls, hot glue gun and sequin strings. I used the single string and it worked ok. But the string and a half, so to say, worked much easier and it covered the ball much better. They are super easy to make. You start at the top of the ball and add a dab of glue, and start with the sequin string there. After that, you continue going around the ball until you covered the entire ball. These will be sitting on our coffee table, until my little guy finds them and then there will be a sequin fight in my house.

Quick question, how do you keep little hands off the house and holiday decor? My little munchkin is moving things around and it is making me question what I did. Does his look better or mine? Two decorative trees beside each other or three? We are off to wrap the last of the presents and do some baking. Have a great afternoon! B

Christmas Sea urchin

A little earlier, I told you that I managed to make a little Christmas decoration this weekend. Voila.

This is my little sea urchin that I made over the weekend. What do you think? And please be honest. Would you put this guy on your Christmas tree? 

It all started when I was looking at this ornament on our advent calendar. (below)

It reminded me of this post that I saw on apartment therapy's craft at Anthropologie, (link here). All you need is a foam ball, toothpicks, dye or spray paint. They recommend you go around the ball (equator) and then perpendicular to that and last you fill the empty spaces (or quadrants).

I figured I would make the craft and then spray paint the toothpicks and add some glitter. I spray painted mine white, but you can paint yours any color, silver, gold. They dyed the toothpicks in the post, but since I wanted mine white, I had to spray paint them. 

I am not 100% sure if they will stay on the tree, but I will see how it looks with all the Christmas decorations on. Hope they are not too big for our tree. Would love to know what you think of these on a Christmas tree. B

Magazine Recycling

Good evening everyone. I mentioned to you this morning that I managed to get a couple of things done around here over the weekend. One of them was to sort through my piles and piles of magazines. My husband was giving me an ultimatum, so after some sorting and organizing, I had a couple of magazines left over and I had big makeover plans for them.

I took this:

And transformed it into this:

This is what I have been looking at all night. I love how they look.

Aren't they cute? Of course, mine are not as perfect as Martha Stewart's (below), but they are pretty cute. And I recycled my magazines into Christmas decorations, which will be used for years to come. I made a couple of them and we will see how many I manage to do in the end.

Martha Stewart - Magazine Christmas Trees

If you would like to make some magazine Christmas trees yourself this holiday season, you can find the instructions here. Have a great afternoon!

B

Christmas Is Coming...

Christmas is coming, and time is flying by. What have I been up to, you ask? Well, this past weekend I tackled some Christmas projects, and my sewing machine has been hard at work. Today I will share one of them with you and it comes from Scandinavia. (You know my love for Scandinavian things!).

And now, we have a little elf in our home.

Isn't he cute?  He is called a tomte in Swedish and is an elf. My little munchkin has been cuddling with him at night and it is so cute how he wants to put tomte to bed too.

I have been admiring these little elves or pixies for years and have been wanting one for a while.

 Aren't they adorable? The tomte is a household fairy who brings good luck and prosperity to a household. Each family has its own tomte who lives nearby in the woods and does chores around the house.  At Christmas time, they don't come down the chimney, but enter through the front door and give presents to the family. Now, who wouldn't want a tomte at home.  Here is the awesome book, Scandinavian Stitches, by Kajsa Wikman, that I came across and where I found a tutorial of how to make one.

I am in the middle of another project from the book and I will write a little more about the book in a couple of days. Do you have any elves around the house? Do you make any special Christmas elves or dolls? Wishing you a great week ahead. 

B