Monday, July 27, 2015

Re-Potted Plant


I got this plant, when it was "up for grabs" at my office.  When I got it, the plant was healthy, but the soil was near the bottom of the container, looking like it had eroded away.  And it was in a dirty, plastic container.  So, I decided to re-pot it.

My first step was to find a pot.  I found a good size, gold, clay pot at Goodwill. I decided it would be extra cute if I added white stripes, so I used painters tape to tape stripes off (harder than it looks, since the pot doesn't have a uniform circumference.)  Then I just spray painted the whole thing white with several coats.

Then I got to peel off the tape and reveal the stripes!

Then I added soil and re-potted the plant, at which time I found it was actually a bunch of cuttings put together, so that was more challenging to re-pot.

I like how it turned out and here it is back at my office!




Monday, July 20, 2015

Quiet Book Part 4 - Counting Page

DIY quiet book, counting buttons quiet book page

This page was so easy and I LOVE how it turned out!  Hobby Lobby had buttons on sale for 50% off, so I went and picked out a bunch of fun ones and got a plain sheet of lavender felt and a glittery sheet.  I also found felt letters/numbers that stick on (which is what made this page so easy). 
 
I cut the flaps with my rotary cutter and mat.  Then I sewed them on with a zig zag stitch, to make them strong.  Then I stuck the numbers on.  Then I hand sewed the buttons on under the flaps.  Then only problem I ran into was that I bought soccer balls and saved them for under the 7 flap, but they were too large to fit under the flap, so I still need to find some small buttons to use. 
 
One circle
 
Two Kitties
 
Three Flowers
 
Four Monkeys
 
 
Five LadyBugs
 
Six Ice Cream Cones
 
Seven - TBD 
maybe stars...
 
Eight Flip Flops
 
Nine Crayons
 


Monday, July 13, 2015

Multi-Strand Seed Bead Bracelet



I kind of forgot how fun it is to design and make your own jewelry - you can customize it exactly to the colors and style you want.  It's also a nice project that once you get started, you don't have to think about what you're doing, you just thread one bead after another.

I wanted a bracelet to match the new tank I found at Old Navy, so I got red, silver, dark blue and sky blue seed beads.

1. This is obviously the Old Navy model, not me.
2. It's cuter in person and paired with red capris.
3. Look - the model's bracelet is similar to mine!
I found a tutorial that said you can measure your wrist and then make one really long strand that you can then wrap around your wrist, which gives you the multi-strand look (rather than making a bunch of bracelets to make a multi-strand bracelet.)

After I was finished adding all the beads, I put a crimp bead on each end, as well as a clasp on one end and a chain on the other end.  Then I looped the wire and fed it back through the crimp bead and several of the seed beads.  Then I tightened it.  Then I used the crimping tool to crimp the crimp bead. (I realize that sentence has an excessive use of the word crimp.)  Then I cut the extra wire.
 
Making jewelry was so  much fun, I ended up  making necklaces to match as well - which you can see below in this picture of my adorable nephew Henry, who was celebrating his first birthday on the 4th of July!