The beginnings of my Autumn decorations

So I've been feeling a bit behind on my Autumn decorating.  But tonight I started on my mantle.

It's coming along but needs many little projects, which hopefully will mean I can track my progress on here, and then the Mantle reveal!

SO first project is inspired from Pinterest and friends.

you've all probably seen this floating around pinterest.

I tried to find the original source but the problem with pinterest is sometimes it can get tricky to track it down. And I'm not sure where it comes from, there are a few people who have done their own tutorials, And the lovely Elva at More Than Just a Drop in the Ocean did a lovely tutorial with an added bit of paint. You can find her tutorial here.

I used a Jones soda bottle a Martinelli's bottle and a wine bottle to create these.

I used Hemp string and my trusty glue gun, turned on netflix to watch some shows and got to work.

I decided to do mine a bit different, for the soda bottle as you can see I completely wrapped it, the clear wine bottle only got wrapped in the middle kind of like a label, and the Martinelli bottle I started at the bottom and worked my way just over half way up. I like the look!

I'm thinking of painting with black something spooky on one side of each of them to give myself the option of turning them to the spooky side for Halloween and back to the plain side for other times, I haven't decided on that part yet. What do you think? I am thinking I will likely use them a lot in my Autumn decor so having them reverse does make the switch from Autumn to Halloween particularly easy.

These beauties are now sitting on my mantel with the beginnings of the Autumn decorations waiting for the Autumn mantel reveal.

If you decide to make some of these bottles I'd love to see how yours turn out.

xoxo

I am alive.... promise

Ok this has gone on long enough... I look at my blog and know I need to post but there always seem to be a million other things to do. It is true but tonight I am avoiding the million other things and writing a blog post because really...it's about time!

So what is new and exciting in my life, well only one month until my wedding day! 

I've become really good at procrastinating on wedding stuff (yikes) But it will all come together in the end (right??!!?!!)

What do I need to do you ask.... Well let me tell you!

The feather fiasco that is my wedding needs to continue, 

 source

I have finished my bouquet made of feather flowers, and the boutonniere's. I still need to complete my veil and fascinator, as well as my matron of honour's fascinator. The centerpieces  need to be completed and the felting has not even started.

I am planning on making something like this cute felted dumpling bag for my flower girl to carry:

 source

 And I am going way out on a limb to try to create this as an alternative to a ring pillow:

This girl on etsy makes beautiful hollow books her shop is called secretsafebooks but I found a book at a used book store that I'm itching to try out so we'll keep you posted on how that turns out.

I also haven't even started on my seating chart... I'm going to do alphabetical but haven't decided exactly how I'd like it to look... deciding on something like this ....

which I found here

But I wouldn't make it so big and all the pink circles wouldn't be on there but I like the idea of the fun fonts .... Or something like this

 which I found here
 I like the idea of the photo's but I would probably do it a bit differently....

Or just going for this style

 which I found here

what do you think?

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as things I need to do, but putting it here on the blog has just motivated me to get a move on! I'm hoping to keep you updated on how some of these projects turn out.

Ever seen felt dreadlocks?

Some people have a whole head of them and others just add a few accent pieces here and there.

 My dear friend Emily asked me if I could make felt dreads. She wanted a few accent pieces. Well I had never really thought about it but I thought it could be fun so we took a go at it! I didn't think to take any photo's of the making process but we chose some beautiful colors and mixed them as we felted the dread. We made two dreads ... this is what one looked like....

The lighting is pretty bad so it's hard to see how lovely it actually is. The colors are a lovely sage green, rust orange, earthy teal and deep purple. So there we have it .. the dreads look perfect and are complete, now how do we put them in? .... time to experiment...

A bit of braiding and wrapping and knotting should do the trick. .... until it came out not sure how so next time MORE braiding before wrapping and knotting!

and look at that lovely dread adding color, texture and interest to Emily's gorgeous locks.

too bad I didn't get a picture of the both of them in, but oh well ... that lovely head of hair with darling dreads is as we speak on it's way to NZ!
HAVE FUN EMILY!!!

to knit or not to knit...

So this week I reminded myself how to knit again it's fun but I put down my project so fast and then started a crochet project... So I wonder am I just not a knitter? But really I think I just find crochet faster because I'm better at it. With practice I bet I could get quick! I'm just so unmotivated to start, I don't want to make another scarf I want to make something more exciting. Does anybody know of any good easy knitting patterns that will get me excited and practicing so I can be better at knitting. My goal is to make cute little knit sweaters and dresses for my kids (yup I wanna be one of those moms, the kind who sew and knit and craft their kids the cutest dang outfits ever!)

Well if you know of any good easy beginner knitting patterns let me know cause one day I want to be able to make this....

and this.....

and this.... and more!

By the way all of these pics are collected as inspiration from the internet and are not mine.


Pics and info on my latest crochet project coming soon (ish)!

It's not just the process....

So I figured this blog could be a great place to keep people not only updated about my thoughts and feelings and life, but also my lovely creations. When I make my sewing, felting, artsy masterpieces it's not just about the process for me... I LOVE making the stuff. But I get SO excited for the finished product... and when I'm done I just want to show everybody I know! Mostly cause I'm so happy about how it turned out. I guess this blog would be an awesome place to do that... So here goes.  First project of the new year... well really it was finished in Dec but close enough... And besides, my blog, my rules! ha ha.
Good friends of ours had a baby girl this Christmas which is so exciting. It is the first baby to be born into the tight knit group of friends that Kelly grew up with and still hangs out with often, so it is really kinda a big deal. I decided to whip out some of the old patterns I have from garage sale finds and make a modern twist on a vintage baby outfit. It turned out so so cute.
This is the Pattern I used... (can't believe it originally cost 85 cents... I'm sure I ended up getting it for less than the 25 cent price because I bought a whole handful for a dollar or something like that)

I focused more on this little version of it.....

Don't you just love the look of vintage patterns? I really do I feel so inspired when I use them it's so much fun...
Anyways so I decided to make the little dress out of denim because I always have denim ... (a long time ago one of the fabric stores was going out of business and everything was super marked down so I bought a TON of denim.) Anyways.... I thought the denim might be a bit rough on baby so I went to find something cutesy and skully to line the denim in and found the cutest flannelet it was perfect.
I lined the dress with the flannelet and made the little bloomers or diaper covers or panties (whatever you like to call them) just out of the flannelet and added some skull details on the front of the dress and on the bum of the bottoms.... Turned out great... here it is the finished product!

I hope baby Violet enjoys wearing this as much as I did making it for her!
Can't wait to see pictures of her in it, Congrats Steve and Renae!