I have not disappeared, nor did I have the baby yet...

With the holiday craziness and being uber pregnant, I just decided to take a mini blog break.  The holidays were lovely, baby-baking is going swimmingly, and it's a new year!  Life is good.

We haven't done much in the way of exciting house projects lately (except for the master bath which should be completely done soon), but I did make a fun little craft project yesterday to keep my brain occupied while we wait for this baby to get here (due date is coming up on Sunday!)

We've gotten a bunch of really sweet baby cards and I wanted a way to keep them.  I found this cute idea via Pinterest and decided to make my own version.

The front:

The back:

The inside:

The project was super easy and took less than 2 hours.  I won't bother to post the step-by-step instructions; just click the link above--she covered it much better than I could.  I think it's a cute little way to keep meaningful cards.  You could also do this for big birthdays, graduations, or even annual Christmas cards!

How To: Make Your Own Bordered Bedding

There are a lot of bordered duvet sets out there that look similar to this:

I love the look, but my beef is that these sets are a) always a bit pricey, b) usually don't come in many colors.  But for less than 25 bucks, I made my own!

All you need is a solid duvet cover and pillow sham (I got my set at Ikea for $14.99 for a twin), scissors, a tape measure, pins, a sewing machine, and binding in whatever color you like (it runs less than $2).

First, determine the size of your pillow sham, then layout where you want the binding to go (eyeball it).  Once it looks good, figure out what your mearurements should be.  My pillow sham was 20" x 30" and I wanted the border to be 4" from the edges.

Place a pin to mark the four corners:

Starting from the open edge of the sham, pin the binding in place, making sure to only pin the facing side of the pillow sham (you don't want to pin the pillow sham closed, otherwise you'll sew the thing shut).

Again starting from the open edge, sew both edges of the binding in place.  Remove the pins and voila!

To do the duvet cover, it's very much the same process, so I recommend starting with the sham, because it's smaller and easier to work with and you can work out any kinks here before moving on to the bigger project.

The only other thing you'll need for the duvet is satin blanket binding, which runs about $7 per package.  For a full, queen, or king duvet, you'll probably need two packages of this binding:

Like I said, you'll follow pretty much the same instructions for the pillow sham with the duvet, pinning the corners like so:

Here's what it looks like when it's all laid out:



Just sew it all together and you're done!  The duvet's a bit harder just because there's so much fabric to deal with, but overall, if you have some basic math and sewing skills, this is a totally do-able project.  I'll share the final pictures tomorrow, along with the curtains I made.

Sneak Peak

I may have lost my mind.  But for now I'm going with it cuz I still think it'll be cool.

Tornadoes and a stenciling project from hell

It's kind of hard to write a post about stenciling the entryway knowing that 22 people died in our state this weekend from the 200+ tornadoes that ripped through the area.  We're incredibly lucky that we didn't have any damage when homes, cars, businesses and lives were destroyed less than 10 miles away.  Despite some heavy winds and small hail, our part of town seemed to have suffered no damage at all--the only reminders of severe weather are shreds of fiberglass insulation all over the place, likely carried from destroyed buildings miles away.

Despite the weather, I tackled stenciling our entryway this weekend.  On Saturday morning I headed out to get some paint and supplies prior to the weather turning.  If you want to try your hand at stenciling, here's what you'll need:

Paint, a stencil, and a sponge brush.  If you're going to make your own stencil, you'll need blank stenciling paper, a template, a Sharpie, a hard surface, and a sharp knife.

I printed off my template and then taped it to the back of the stencil paper so I could trace it on.

Then I slid the acrylic block under the sheet and cut out the pattern with the knife.

Starting in a corner, I taped the stencil to the wall and then it's time to paint away!

Here it is after about 10 minutes.

After about an hour or so (?).  It was surprisingly slow going.

I had to take a break while the power flickered, but here's what it looked like by Saturday late afternoon.

By Sunday afternoon, I had gotten two entire walls done, but my shoulders were aching and I was feeling over it.  More importantly, I was getting sloppy and there are a number of places that I'll have to retouch later.  It's taking much longer than I had anticipated, but all in all I'm THRILLED with how it's looking.  For less than 30 bucks, the entryway got a great little makeover.  It's a subtle difference, but I think it looks interesting.  Oh, and ignore the weird brown spot on the ceiling.  We had a roof leak last year but once I scrape the ceiling in here, that weird brown spot will be history.

So, what do we think?  How was your weekend?



Weekend Project

This weekend I plan to stencil our entry way.  Wheeeeee!  I really like the idea of wallpaper, but that's not really in the budget at the moment.  I've found some great looking stencils (at Olive Leaf Stencils--there are a ton of cool patterns), but one is too big and they both require shipping and I'm really impatient.  So, I'll just have to make my own!  (I've done it before actually and it's surprisingly easy.)

Here's the entry way as it is now:

Stencil A, which I love:

The only problem is that the scale is HUUUUUUUUUGE:

I could probably find a way to make it myself in a much smaller scale.

Stencil B, which I also love, but I really want to stencil this weekend and I'm not sure how long it'll take to ship:

So, we'll have to see.  I plan on using some of the Martha Stewart Precious Metals paint in either Bone or Tin, so the effect will be subtle.  I'll be sure to post pics.

Homemade Soap!

The latest issue of Martha Stewart Living has an article about making soaps using herbs from your garden, which reminded me that I had everything I needed to do this.  If you've never made your own soaps before, you should give it a shot--it's SUPER easy and would be a fun project for kids.

Here's what you need:

Some glycerin (available at any craft store), a microwaveable container, some herbs, and a mold of some sort (could really be anything--I used a square cardboard container).

So, first you microwave the glycerin until it melts completely (microwave about 30 seconds at a time).  Meanwhile, chop the herbs.

Once the glycerin is melted, stire in the herbs.

Pour into your mold of choice.

Let it cool completely, then remove the soap from the container.

Now you're left with one big block of soap and you're free to cut it up as you like.

I chose to simply slice mine into three large slices. 

Have fun!