Fabric Photo Board

I've been wanting to make a fabric photo board for months, I bought a pre-stretched canvas months ago when it was 50% off for I think $4. I had also bought a few great fabrics for our new house that I planned to use in our pillows and other things that were on clearance. The only thing that was holding me back was that we didn't have a staple gun. Well....my husband recently started insulating our attic so he had to buy one! I swiped it while he was at work the other day. And here's how I did it:

1. I measured a piece of fabric about 2 inches  longer on each side than the canvas. Do the same with 3-4 pieces of cotton batting (not pictured because I forgot this the first time around).

2. Begin stapling on one side then stretch the opposite side as much as possible for a nice finished look.

3. Wrap corners like a present.

4. Lay out your ribbon on a diagonal,  3 in each direction. Staple each piece to back of canvas.

5. The ribbons will cross each other, place a button in those places. Instead of sewing, use a needle and thick  thread  and push  each end into two opposite button wholes. Then take the ends in the back to pull and tie as tight as possible to create an indentation in the batting. 



6. As you may be able to tell from the pictures, doing step 5 insures the secureness of the photos or papers.


And here's the finished product:




All of these are pretty old pictures, but some of my favorites :)

 

I plan to put this in my hallway off the kitchen and may add some recipe ideas, to-do lists, grocery lists, or even kids artwork. Who knows...possibilities are endless! I love how it turned out!! (And the staple gun is my new best friend!)

My Valentine's Day

Usually we don't really make too big of a deal out of Valentine's Day, but this year I felt VERY SPECIAL!

My hubby took the kids all day while I went to lunch and shopping with my sister-in-law. We are going out on Saturday so I was on a mission for the perfect outfit. It was fun to shop without kids, but stressful to focus so much on myself. After like 5 hours (????) of shopping, I finally found something. We kept reminded ourselves that it was the journey not the destination. :) I'm very excited to wear my new outfit this weekend...especially my new shoes!

The best part is that when I got home I found what the boys had been working on:

I'm a lucky lady :)

Hope you all had an equally special day!

Even When I'm Sick...

On the way to my niece's birthday party yesterday (where I gave her this hand bag), Louie had a circumstance that needed my attention in the car. I have received the wonderfully annoying gift of motion sickness from my mom, however not nearly as bad as she has it. Generally, I don't get sick, but when trying to do something in the car while we are moving (and in this case getting on the highway), I get extremely nauseous. So the whole way to my niece's I was just trying to breath and cracked the window for the cold air. Once we got off the highway, my mother-in-law who was driving stopped so I could run into Walgreens and get a Sprite to calm my stomach and run to the bathroom.

Well, even when I'm sick I can't resist a good deal. At the register, they had several Right Guard body washes for $3.99 and you got $3 Register Rewards back. To make this deal even better, there was a $1 coupon peelie right on the bottle...making this FREE after RR!! That, the sprite, and being out of the car in fresh air for a few minutes made me feel so much better! :)

Hand Bag

Yesterday my oldest niece had her 9th birthday party! I was so excited to make her something special because she is a big girly girl and she wears her heart on her sleeve. Giving her a present is very fun as I love to see how excited she gets! Her favorite color is purple so I went rummaging through the remnants (50% off) at JoAnn's for some purple fabrics. I discovered a couple cute fabrics in purple and a beautiful black satin. I also had some rhinestones I bough with a coupon several weeks ago. I sort of made up my pattern as I went (loosely based off a couple purses I've seen in the sewing blogosphere), and this is how it turned out...

I even lined it with purple fabric.

Then I found a rhinestone cosmetic mirror, butterfly nail file, and light purple nail polish to put inside.

Her reaction was worth every minute I spent on it!

Dining Room Inspiration

Our dining room is one room where we will have minimal renovations to do(take out carpet and buff the original hardwood), so I decided to make that room my project right now. I received a gift card for Home Goods from my mother-in-law for Christmas and decided to dedicate it to dining room accessories. I found so many cute things that are fitting to the era and charm of our house. I picked the paint and will (hopefully) be completely finished with everything soon. One thing that helped inspire my style for his room was a picture on a journal of mine. The picture was of a stack of tea cups and saucers. I haven't painted in years, but was so inspired by this picture that I decided to take a crack at it again to create a focal point for our dining room. Here's how it turned out:

Now it's time to find a nice antique wood frame! I can't wait to see everything all together...I will keep you posted!