finished products and a tutorial

Like I mentioned last post, I've been gettin' crafty lately. First of all, after being inspired by these monograms, I decided to start my own collection:

For the mossy B I started with a tutorial found through Pinterest but it included buying foam (that stuff is pricier than I thought) and using a projector (where am I gonna find one of those? Steal one from the elementary school or church library?) to trace your own shape etc. So, I ended up buying a $1.50 solid paperboard letter at Hobby Lobby and some sheet moss. I traced around the letter on the moss with a razor and then hot-glued. Looks pretty don't ya think? The blue one is a .50 cent styrofoam letter painted with acrylic paint and the gold one was at Hobby Lobby too.

My next project started with inspiration found here. Thumbtack covered foam balls which are then painted. However, one pack of  100 tacks didn't even cover one medium sized ball! Hmmm, time to problem-solve. I decided to just paint the rest with acrylic paint and then cover a couple with a fun fabric I recently found as a remnant at Joann's. I briefly looked online for how to cover a sphere with fabric, and improvised from a couple patterns I found. Want to make your own? 

(Note the baby hand on the right part of the picture. Yes, these are very attractive objects to little people. However, I will be a mean mom and keep these fun-looking items barely out of reach).

First measure your ball from the middle of the top to the middle of the bottom. Mine was about 11 cm.

 

Then make a leaf-shaped template (mine was cut out of cardstock) as long as your ball was. The width of the shape I didn't worry about at all - I just kept it symmetrical. I just winged it and it worked out. If you want to be more technical, it's maybe 3-4 cm across. It was wide enough to barely (just barely) cover the medium-sized ball with seven pieces, so you may want to make it a little wider. I guess it all depends on the size of what you're trying to cover.

Then cut out your fabric pieces using your pattern and glue (I used fabric glue) to the ball, making sure to line up your pieces if you are using a pattern. It's not perfect, but if keep your fabric in line after you cut it out and glue it in the same order, you can keep the general pattern going.

 Ta-da! And again there's baby, dying to play with those cool toys

And now the reveal of my favorite (but most time-consuming) project:

Yay! $5.00 matching end tables (yes, there's two of them) from DI. Some sanding, primer, a couple cans of Rustoleum Heirloom White spray paint, and some light distressing and you get this. Far from perfect, but when you distress it anyway, who cares, right? The hardware is the original, just without the ugly ornate piece that went around the knob.

Our "fall-wall". The extent of our fall/halloween decorations, but since we're so young in our marriage I have no doubt the decorations will accumulate over the years, so I'm trying to be patient. I think it's fun to have a little area you can keep decorated based on the season without worrying about trying to get the whole house coordinated each new holiday. And btw, the bats on the wreath were made by searching for "bat silhouettes" in google images and then taping a piece of white paper to the screen and lightly tracing, then using that as your pattern. My SIL Laura and I figured out how to do that for Sarah's wedding cake toppers and for easier shapes it sure is cheaper than one of the fancy cutting machines. There are a bazillion cool silhouette shapes out there, try taking some black construction paper and making your own. I have in mind another little project using embroidery hoops and linen-type material to back these birds:

Okay, that's enough craftiness for one day (see what Pinterest and decorating blogs do to you??) I think I'm gonna take a break and catch up on my book club reads.