Wednesday, February 29, 2012

decorate your shoes

The power of a flower!
So cute right? They are flower clips I did myself...who knew how cute it would make the shoe! At first I thought maybe it looks to crafty but not at all! When I went to the mall the other day all I saw were embelished shoes.
Like these:



Now, the only problem I have with these shoes is they are so freaking high!

so when I found these heels I knew just what to do with them.
I'll show you how I made the flower.

  This is the fabric I started with and cut it at 2 inches wide and about 20 inches long

Then I ironed it in half and put it thru the machine. Make sure you change your stitch length as much as you can. Mine goes to 4.5.
Make sure you leave a tail of thread so you can pull the thread to make the fabric gather...

(see) You just pick the top thread (or the bottom) and start pulling it and just continue to work your way down until the whole strip is gathered.
Now you are just going to wrap the gathered fabric into a circle (creating the flower) Then you are going to cut a fabric square to glue your flower on. ( i use a hot glue gun)
Once you have it glued on then just cut the excess fabric off then glue a clip to it.
And clip it to your shoes! How cute is that?
I love them!  Thanks for stopping by!
I will be linking here:


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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Living Room before and after

I have been waiting to do this comparison until I am COMPLETELY done with my living room but figured...close enough. 
I still need to do something with my window seat and also add a little more to that bare wall. The window pane just can't do its job all alone on that big wall. So I know I have shown my living room before but I never showed you the "before" picture....

 
So here is the before, big difference right? It is still pretty but it's also pretty boring. So what I did was paint that ugly railing white, installed board n batten walls,  bought new couches from Ikea, bought a trunk for $1,
refinished a dresser for the tv stand and switched out the flower picture for an old window pane.....wow I really have been busy.

TA DA! My Cottage living room! and just an fyi, this did not happen overnight. Last summer I decided I wanted a cottage feel living room and thanks to blogland I realized I could have one. So each weekend I would take on a new project. One of the things I love about this room is that you just can't go to Target to get the decor. It takes time to find unique pieces ....I love the character of this room.
So here is a different view, you can see the difference the railing makes
I also have a lot more storage, the trunk is full of things and also the couches have space underneath so I can fit shoes and blankets and my dogs toys. (love ikea)
Here is a side by side, crazy right?
Oh, another thing. I did not repaint my walls, its just the lighting. The color is called rutabega by Sherwin Williams.  So do you have a room in your home you absolutely hate? Well then what are you waiting for...get to work!   What I started to do is pick one room and little by little just work on upgrading that room. Don't work on another room until that first room is exactly how you want it.
 Here is a pix of my bedroom before and after too if you're interested.
Thanks for looking!  
And the inspiration does not stop here, check out these other blogs for ideas too!
BEWARE of INSPIRATION OVERLOAD





Shine Your LightThe DIY Show Off



Thursday, February 23, 2012

scrappy quilts

I finished it! well the top anyway, I have not yet quilted it.
I was just really excited to show it off. It's a paper piecing technique. You may have seen it around a few times since there is going to be a quilt a long real soon about it:







Sew Sweetness


but for now I found a different quilt along using your scraps and I thought this would be perfect!

This is what one block looks like. So I just did 4 blocks and put them together.
If you have a lot of scraps laying around (most of us do) then I would suggest a paper piece quilt because if you are like me then alot of your scraps are cut on the bias and paper piecing helps stabelize them.
Some tips for this block is to use a lot of starch and pin, pin, pin, which I talked about in this post


Scrap Attack Quilt-Along
so I'm joining in on this kinda fun. This also gives me motivation to finish my string quilt.
I have been working on it for so long it's about time to wrap it up.

So click on the Scrap Attack button to see all the other creations.
And I'm also linking up here!





”Bubbly








”Bubbly




Monday, February 20, 2012

paper piecing quilt along

I forgot how much I love paper piecing!
If you don't know how then learn it so you can participate in this quilt along:





Sew Sweetness
You can pick the blocks you want to work. I'm just going to do a mini one.


Here is the back of it.







And here is the front before I trim and clean it up.

here it is after I trim it.



I was pretty intimidated by the curves but it turned out ok as long as you pin, 

pin and...
more pin!
I love how it is turning out! I will keep you posted! 
Thanks for looking!



Sew Chatty



{Sew} Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations





Sewing Scrap Projects! A Quilted Bag.

Don't you just love all this fabric goodness?  In todays episode we will dive into scraps of fabric again! Do you have a fabric stash? I...