{DIY} Accent Pieces

 

Hello, everyone! Today, I am sharing with you a couple of accent pieces I worked on recently. I covered up a box and made it into a tray for my sewing table, and I recovered a brick so it would fit in better on my bookcase!

Here is the "tray" before. Just a boring little ipad mini box. For this mini project (no pun intended), I used scrapbook paper, hot glue, scissors, and some tiny clock embellishments. I cut strips of the scrapbook paper and glued the long sides in place. Then I glued on the short end pieces. Any excess paper is folded to the bottom. Then I hot glued on the little clocks -- I though they added a nice touch -- and placed everything back into the new tray!

 

Isn't this better than seeing ugly words on a stark white box?

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next, I dealt with the brick. This is a very old brick. I used it for a science project back in maybe 3rd or 4th grade. And I'm starting my second year of college in the fall.  So to make it over from the ugly old fabric stuck on it, I grabbed some leftover pillow sham fabric, hot glue, and scissors for the job. I wrapped the brick like a present and instead of taping, I placed beads of hot glue to secure all of it.

When I first pulled the old sunflower fabric off of this brick, I was in shock but not much. The fabric had been on there so long, that the green and yellow from the flowers was dyed into the brick! I couldn't believe it! But I also could. Either way, I'm glad the new fabric is plenty thick enough to hide it easily.

And here is the recovered brick in its new spot. Full disclosure: I took these photos before the walls were painted and the books, brick, and kindle were all moved to the bottom shelf yesterday.  

 

Happy Tuesday!

Back Home.

I have been having issues with Wordpress and finally made the jump and got back on Blogger. One of my favorite blogs is hosted on Blogger -- it's fate <3

Hopefully it won't take me too long to remember how to use everything!

{DIY} Pants

Above is the pair of pants I started out with. They were ridiculously long on me as jeans, so I cut them down with the intentions of finishing the hem. A year later, that still had not happened. I finally fixed that this weekend.

I started by going through my fat quarters and trying to find one I liked cuffed around the pants leg. I ended up going with a tan remnant that possibly came from a curtain, I'm not 100% sure.

I cut each cuff on the fold, as well as two lining pieces from a white cotton fat quarter. I cut each white piece in half along the fold and set it aside. Then I opened up each tan piece on my table.

I then centered the lining inside the cuff piece and ironed it as one piece of fabric. I didn't use any interfacing, I just wanted to iron everything this way. It works for me, okay? :(

Measure down 1/2 inch and pin across for your hem. I did both edges of both pieces but realized while sewing that I didn't need to.

But as you can see, I left them in while I did the hem anyway.

After pressing from the right side, I wrapped one of my cuff pieces around the bottom of the pants leg and pinned to mark where I needed to cut it. Then I used the cut cuff to mark and cut the other strip.

I stitched this with a zigzag stitch to make sure it would be secure.

 Then I pinned and stitched on the cuffs right sides together.

 

I flipped down the cuffs and ironed across and I was done! Then I went to try them on...

 

And tada! They look great! Please ignore my ugly feet. And no, that is not my stomach at the top. Oops...! Thanks for reading and I hope this encourages you to tackle a DIY clothing project you have waiting, because if I can do it, you definitely can too!

{Room Makeover} My Ugly Dresser

I thought I posted this a while back, but since I don't see it anywhere on here, I will post it today.

I wanted a dresser in my closet. Though it is unseen when the door is closed, the ugliness has got to go! I got the idea for the contrasting drawer color from a pin on Pinterest. That dresser definitely got a new breath of life just with sanding and PAINT. It looks so much cuter and I just love it! It works so well in my closet!

 I used this tutorial to redo my dresser:

http://www.centsationalgirl.com/2011/04/how-to-paint-furniture/

 Here is a shot of the dresser with just the sides of the drawers painted. I totally forgot to take a before picture, so just picture them being bare wood colored.

                        This is a drawer front after one coat of paint…

…and the same drawer with a second coat. I didn't bother sanding down the whole design because I like how it looks under the black paint. Please ignore my toe at the bottom...

And the finished product in my closet! I finished it off with spray gloss on the black parts and left the purple alone. I want it to weather over time, so I did not seal the drawer sides. The insides of the drawers are also painted. You can see a little black smudge of paint on the top drawer, but it doesn't bother me so I didn't bother trying to fix it. That shoe rack is LONG gone. I have an over the door organizer ($5 at WalMart!) for all of them.

{Critique Your Own Etsy Shop} - Part One

A Guided Etsy Shop Critique

Hello, Everyone! Have you ever watched a shop critique on the Etsy Labs? I've only seen a few done, and I know I need to work on my own shop -- as in, a major overhaul of photos and descriptions completely! But I am finally going to fix that. I hope you will follow along as I go through my own shop critique, and I hope you get several ideas for your own shop as well! Let's begin!!

First, take a good look at your shop. Take a few notes on what you immediately see that needs to be fixed or improved. What do you like about your shop? What could be different? What's one thing you wish you could change, but you feel like you can't?

As you can see in the screenshot below, I have a very ugly banner. I have been making my own banners since I started having any kind of online presence, be it a website, Etsy shop, or a blog. I want to browse for some ideas online, and make a graphic set that really says “Something interesting is sold in this shop!” I also need new photos of certain products, and I need to get new photos for the listings I deactivated for that purpose!



 I picked 10 of my favorite shops to gather ideas from during my shop critique. They are:

1)    Elegant Rose Boutique

2)    Bed Buggs Boutique

3)    Sol Bijou

4)    Truche

5)    Sweet N Savory Trinkets

6)    So What Sherlock?

7)    ModFox

8)    The Tiny Fig

9)    Adelaide’s Boutique

10) The Caramel Jar

 For the remainder of this critique, I will either say “Shop Numbers X, Y, Z” or “Shop Name”, depending on the section of the critique.

First of all, let's get rid of that ugly banner and so-so avatar! I played around a little more with my graphics program, and I like it so far! The gift boxes weren't as scary as I thought, or even the ribbon. It was the bow that was a nightmare! Trying to recolor that was a JOKE. The whole image kept getting filled in, so I had to use the paintbrush tool to color it in. THEN, two of the gift boxes were fine with me using the Magic Wand tool to erase the background to turn them into .gif images. Some slight hiccups, but nothing major to derail me.



And that, dear reader, is where I will end this first post. See you next week for my photography revamp!

 

 

Craft Show Prep #2

I thought I would do a second post detailing my sources of certain products I use at shows. I am doing a women's symposium at a college next month and want everything done before hand. My inventory is no where near done but I have a lot of things cut out to sew.

For now, though:
Fabric Labels: Spoonflower (I got a fat quarter printed with my logo and pressed the edges under, stitched around each one, and added it to my products. I used this tutorial.

Business cards: moo.com - LOVE their mini cards! They shipped them so fast and the little QR code on the back links to my Etsy shop.



Banner: Wal-Mart - I bought a paper pack for five dollars along with double sided tape. I made a paper banner like the ones seen on Pinterest. Way easier than fabric/felt and way cheaper than vinyl (I ended up sewing the second two together after I took this picture).



Photo Price Signs: anywhere.....I have 20 free prints from Snapfish for purchasing HP ink, so I will getting my next set through them. My last ones were from Walgreens for about two dollars. How ironic that I don't have a picture of these yet. But I have designed them!

Bags: my mom and Etsy. I got some big clear plastic merchandise bags from my mom, who is a Scentsy consultant. I got some zebra print t shirt bags and purple merchandise bags from two different Etsy sellers. Talk about pops of color!



Stair-step Display: Dollar General/Wal-Mart - I used the same paper pack and bought foam core from DG. Found the tutorial on Pinterest!



And since I'm sharing, here are my other two DIY Display pieces - no tutorials, just sitting there playing with materials.

{Pin of the Day}: POTD

I have included two pins to make up for yesterday. My apologies!!

Source: skiptomylou.org via Natasha on Pinterest

Source: designdazzle.blogspot.com via Natasha on Pinterest

PS: I FINALLY noticed the obviously placed "Embed" option and I have updated the previous posts.

{Pin of the Day}: POTD

Hello, readers! I am going to start something else on my blog called Pin of the Day! Hopefully (as with every other failed attempt) this will help me remember to make a post everyday or so. For the first pin, I have chosen one of my favorites:

Source: designsbyloftcreations.com via Natasha on Pinterest

This is super cute! If you want to see ALL of my pins, feel free to follow me on Pinterest. I pin alot of recipes, fashion/beauty stuff, and just neat crafty things. Anything that can't be pinned, I save to my computer so I won't forget!

Trashed my To Do List...

And made another one. Yeah...

• Nightstand Charging Station - I watched a Youtube video done by OlgaKay (Love her!!) and I already found and priced the same ribbon dispenser at the Container Store. There is one maybe 10 minutes from my house :) I also priced a power strip online (Lowes- $4). I will probably do the same decorating she did with the scrapbook paper and stickers, but I may need to buy some more paper for that. (JoAnn run! yay!)


• Windowseat Cushion & Pillows - I measured the entire thing and figured out the pillow sizes. I rounded up, so I am working with about an 88 inch length. Therefore, the foam is ridiculously expensive. I might just get a bunch of cheapo pillows and take the stuffing from those. Not sure yet. But I really want a box cover now. I will do a regular pillow cover, and then sew and cut the points.


• ICS Bench - Yes, this is still happening. I am so ready to be rid of my broken butterfly chair, but this is my most costly project so far. I want it to look nice and it requires patience and careful selection of the materials. I still haven't had time to go thrift store hunting for a table, but I know I need to! It finally dawned on on me that I was in a Home Decor Fabric store a few months back, and I can get the brown canvas I need for HALF the price I would have paid locally. But it's the DRIVE to get there, man. 30-45 minutes out there versus 10-15 minutes here on a good day.


• Table - I totally scrapped the rubik's cube table idea. I took two large cardboard boxes and made a funky shaped table. Hopefully pictures will be up either before the end of the month or early next year (: I want to use the big huge ruffle I got from my old canopy bed around the top, but I also want to add something to the top to make it  sturdier, since my little nephew got mad at me and punched in the top (it's CARDBOARD!!! - I was not happy). It held a glass of water very well and a couple of other things before he punched it. So now I want to add maybe some foam or a piece of thin wood. Not sure yet.


• CD Case - I already priced one. I will do serial number labels on all of my Sims games, and mini track listing printouts for any music CDs that i'm not sure what's on them. Everything else just goes in with nothing special.


• Shelf Over Desk under board and frame - I need a shelf. Not  junk-catcher. ha.


• Restoring the Storage Cube - http://www.howjoyful.com/2011/07/restoring-cube-tutorial/ - Only I got rid of most of mine except for enough to make one half the size of hers. I found two boxes that will fit perfectly - no cutting needed!!

Additions to my Etsy Boot Camp To Do List

 

I need to figure out my shipping system in the off chance I have a huge load of orders to ship XD (I need to list more items)

I also need to write my holiday return/exchange policies - though I don't usually take returns.

 

Happy Crafting and sorry for the super short post!

I HAD to share!!

I was perusing a couple if my favorite blogs when I got home today and found a post where a group of bloggers all submitted their handwriting to be turned into fonts! (I wonder if I can pay someone to do that with mine....hmm) I already downloaded and installed them and they are AWESOME!! I found the link on this blog:

http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2011/05/do-you-want-to-see-what-my-handwriting.html

 

And no, I am not being biased when I say Make It and Love It's is my favorite (;

 

Natasha.