Lazy Crafting

Truth be told, I have a pretty big fabric stash. I love fabric. I love handmade. Why don't I sew? One simple answer. I am realllllly freaking lazy. And I'm impatient. And I mess up stuff and get frustrated really easily.

Even with crafting, I enjoy coming up with the ideas. Not so much the hands-on making part of it. Every once in awhile, I come up with a good excuse to use my fabric. Take today for example.

We had our eye on this really nifty television stand for our basement, but it's now discontinued.

It was a little more than I wanted to spend too at $450 after shipping. I would have loved to have bought a vintage mid-century credenza, but we had a problem with the weight and length of vintage getting it in our house. Plus, the ones I found were more than $450.

We settled on this generic but economic and plain tv stand from Target ($179.99):

And this is what I did to it today! Forgive my pics. I cannot, for the life of me, get a good picture down there.

The rolling doors come out and the glass comes out kind of like a picture frame. I had a yard of Erin Michaels for Moda Lush fabric in woodgrain. I cut the fabric leaving about 2" on all 4 sides. I wrapped the fabric around the glass like wrapping a package securing it to the glass with packing tape (see? Lazy). Popped the glass back in the doors and the doors back onto the stand. Voila!

If you try this at home, just be sure your remote can reach the equipment behind the fabric. Mine had no prob.

I feel like I've seen someone else do this but probably with way more thought put into it and with a more perfect and finished method. Sarah, perhaps? She always does the most wonderful sprucing. This way is the lazy way.

Here are some more pics of the illustrious basement. It's coming along nicely.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Ours was nice and relaxing. Oh, and speaking of lazy, I didn't apply to Craft Revival. I'm a little sad, but I know I would be having to force myself to make stuff (not in a good way). It will actually be fun to just go and shop my brains out. Doesn't help that my Etsy shop is super slowwwwww this month (and last, for that matter!).

xo!

Cute, Fun, Scary Cute, Scary...

On this fine Friday afternoon, I am enjoying the following:

♥Whistling Bird vase at Urban Outfitters:

I always think UO stuff is going to be bigger. Like this vase is pretty tiny, but still REALLY lovely.

♥Apartment Therapy. I am a complete addict. They totally need a AT: Detroit!!!!!!

♥I found this at Loved to Death's Etsy Shop a few months ago and forgot to mention it. I love it SO MUCH. It's been sold, but they do have a lovely pigeon shadow box currently.

♥It would have looked splendid in my craft room with this BEAUTIFUL print from Madelaine's Etsy Shop.

I think between this and the mouse taxidermy, I may have been a goth girl in a former life. I would love to put this in my craft room, but methinks it may disturb the kiddos. I dunno-- I still may get it.

And I thought my basement was going to be done today-- it's not. Carpet dudes couldn't carpet. Should be done Monday. Are you sick of basement talk yet? I am!!!

Oh My Aching Basement

...As Amanda so eloquently put it. I'm almost done. Allllllmost there. Just a fewwwwww more days. Here is a sneaky peek. Click to enlarge.


Yes, I'm trying to be like Nicole with my mockup thing-a-majig. Falling a tad short.

We've modified the look a bit from my initial thought, but it still has that mid-century thang going on. Lots of repro stuff, but that's all we can justify in the basement. The clock was my grandparent's. I love it!

I'm even going nutball with the laundry room. That sneaky peek is coming soon to a computer near you.

More Basement & A Cheshire Kat Giftie!

So here's another Polyvore amalgam I have created. This is more piece-specific. What do you think? Too much?? Too many themes? I think the curtains may push it over the edge, and I would only use them to give the illusion of larger windows, but I still may need to nix.


Basement 2 by Girl Land

Look at the lovely care package I got from my friend, Kat!!!! I am a bad bloggy friend. I didn't send any gifties out this year. I'll get'cha back, Kat. I love how she packages her magnets and pins in these cassette cases. Too cute! Thank you soooooo much! Big smooches.

I'm Here!

Sorry for the hiatus in posting! I have to say I've been a pretty miserable person lately, and I get tired of hearing myself whining-- so I can't imagine that YOU all want to hear it. Now I have a cold too. Dagnabit. But enough about that...

So I took a few pics of Q's room. I'm so lazy that I haven't really finished it up. I need more stuff for the shelves, but only a handful of her books will fit in the built-ins. I also want to buy her a carrying case for her records. Haven't found anything great yet.

I like this area. Still need to add details. I have a gnome embroidery I want to do on linen, and my dad gave me a skeleton key from my grandma's house that I want to hang up too...

Here's her kitchen. I'm a tad bummed about the clock. It's really hard to see the hands from more than like a foot away. I even painted the hands black (instead of gold). No difference really...

And I don't know what to do with the curtains. Right now, they are just the heavy brown ones we had when it was our bedroom. I bought white swiss dot, but I'll need to get darkening shades for them. Don't quite know what to do.

Just a few more...

That's about it. We rented Sweeney Todd and After the Wedding. We are about 3/4 done with Sweeney Todd (tried to get it in at naptime), and it's good! Ryan and I saw the play about 11 years ago. One of our first official dates!

Happy weekending, all!!! xo

God Bless the Scandinavians!

The Junior Society just sent a newsletter out about Fjorn Scandanavia. Not only do I love everything in their store, I ADORE this picture.

Reason #1,281 for wanting to learn to sew...I so want to make these:

Is everyone ready for Christmas?? I'm buying myself Photoshop from Ryan as my Xmas gift. What a guy. Can't wait to mess around with it! Also really REALLY want to buy a sewing machine. We'll see...

Oh, and my tentative baby-pulling day (I'm getting a c-section again) is May 1! If this pans out, Baby Girl M. will be sharing a birthday with one Mr. Wes Anderson, director of one of my faves, Bottle Rocket.

Pom-licious

I have had this lamp for my craft room for months now. I finally bought the lamp shade, tea-stained it, then bought the vintage poms off Ebay and attached them this morning. Bout dang time.

Today is the hubby's and my 6th anniversary! We are celebrating in a few weeks with a trip to Traverse City. We go there every year, and it's wonderful. We're taking Q too.

Trying to figure out what to do today. Q desperately needs a haircut. I don't want to do it myself. She has pretty tight curls, and when we pick her up from daycare she looks like a wild woman. It's her "Gene Wilder Look". But I also wanted to go to a cider mill even though Ryan is not thrilled with going to a cider mill when it's supposed to get up to 86 degrees today.

Hope everyone is having fun!

*Insert Maniacal Laugh Here*

Have I told you how much I love Halloween??? I do, I do, I do! Well, not as much as a co-worker who got married on Halloween in costume (she's now divorced), but pretty darn close. Did you know that it's only 41 days away? I've been buying things left and right to make some Halloween projects, but just have been too lazy to start. So I just made something little tonight...it's in my Etsy shop. It looks so cute across my fireplace, so I won't be *too* sad if it doesn't sell.

My friend, Dave, also bought some bags o' stuff at the last flea market we hit. He rifled through the bags and gave me a few odds and ends he thought I might appreciate. This guy being one.

He really scares the poop out of me. I believe he's daydreaming of chocolate treats. Or drinking my blood, I'm not sure. I think he will look smashing in a mini Halloween diorama, no? I picked up some black tinsel trim at my favorite dollar store today to line said diorama and also to adorn some treat pails.

Oh, one more thing to round out my Halloweenish post. I was birthday shopping for my niece today at Borders, and I came across some books I remember fondly from grade school by Alvin Schwartz, however I will NOT be getting them for her because they were rather disturbing (they would probably even disturb YOU, I'm not kidding), but I may end up buying them for myself. Last year, I bought Q a book called Tailypo that I loved as a kid, but I will wait a few more years before I freak her out. It's about a man who chops off a creature's tail, and the creature will not rest until he gets it back...even though it's in the man's stomach!!!! Wait for it.........MWAAHHHAA HAA HAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa.....

**I'm so excited! The lovely Naomi bought my banner! I will have another in my shop in the next few days in case anyone is interested**

We Waited for This, Martha?

I will have to admit that when Martha hit Michael's, I was impressed. I was happy that she didn't disappoint us. Her things are a tad expensive, and she doesn't let us use our Michael's coupon on her items, but that's Martha's prerogative. She's Martha, for Chrissake!

But imagine my excitement when I received Macy's new store flyer with the new Martha swag! Well, excited until I really took a hard look at it. Uninspired poopy! We've seen all this boring stuff time and time again. Martha need to either find some new idea people, or she needs to start doing something to get inspired herself. Base jumping? Snake charming? Community service (just kidding)? Well, let me ask what YOU think. Am I being too harsh? The only thing that even caught my eye was the aqua/red color combo on the back page because I'm obviously a sucka for that.

Speaking of lovely color combos, check out this pretty pink sunset taken from our backyard the other night!

Summer's finally over. It's dead to me now. I'm moving on to better seasons-- my favorite, FALL! And some fallish, Halloweeny projects! Hmmmmm...

Gray Day Sunday

I luuuuuuuuuuuv icky rainy gray days. The three of us basically slept, read, ate, and watched movies all day long. Love me some lazy Sundays. The Firm is on now. It's one of those movies I could watch over and over. I remember when the hubby got his job after law school, and I said, "I heard some firms pay off your student loans!" and he was like, "Sarah, did you get that from The Firm? Yeahhhh, that doesn't happen" and I was like, "Uhhhhhh". How embarrassing. Luckily, he'd already proposed, so there was no way out for him.

I'm at a bit of a standstill with the craft room. Waiting for my Ikea desk and new (!) laptop to be shipped to me and for my fabric to come in. I've decided to pick up an unfinished wood kid's table from Ikea too, but I don't know whether I should stretch oilcloth over the top or paint and embellish them with these super cute decals!!!


Was going through some of the pics on my computer, and I came across these of Q's nursery taken before we brought her home from the hospital. I would have made it a tad more kitschy if I had the chance to do it over again, but I still love this room best in our house. It's very peaceful, and I spent many an hour in that chenille rocker during my pregnancy and after Q was first born. I was in my House Inc. phase and became rather obsessed when they discontinued the fabrics I had picked out. Hope you all had lovely weekends too!!!! Xo.

In Flux

I'm in transition between my old, ahem, "system" and my new craft room! For now, things are in boxes in the guest room and closet, and I am typing this, keyboard in lap, on the floor of my future home. Ryan has been so great. He painted from 9:00am-9:00pm yesterday minus a small lunch break. Today, he put together my new file drawers from Ikea and hung the curtain rod. The curtains need to be hemmed, however.

I received two lovely packages in the mail today. The first was a piece of fabric from Japan, and the second was a 3 pack of soon-to-be diorama owls from Spokane, Washington. Frances packaged the fabric beautifully in a strawberry print cellophane bag. And the shipping was so fast!

IKEA-- Where Crafty Girls Meet

Bless my husband's heart. It was a sad day in the Girl Land household. Ryan moved all of his things out of his old office *slash* my new craft room. He also took Q and I to Ikea which is like 35-40ish minutes away. I like Ikea in theory, but our house is very traditional, so I always feel the decor is a little too mod and hip for us. But I ended up buying some great stuff which I think will meld well with the retro feel of my new space. By the way, I'm following suit with this Ikea-themed post. Jenn voiced her Ikea love last month.

Sooooo, I got a desktop but had to order the legs, rolling file drawer for my decorative paper (I have buttloads of it), red and white ticking curtains, some small painted buckets and wonderful vintage-looking jars for a song! Looked for curtain rods and bracket shelves but didn't find much I liked. This week, I put Ryan's expert painting skills to the test-- wondering how much primer will have to be applied to cover up the dark burgundy walls. Hmmmm.

Also ran into Taryn of Talking Squid at Ikea. She's so sweet and so very talented. I owe my new attempt at embroidery all to her. Thanks, Taryn!

Speaking of-- my niece, Miss Sophia, has a wiggly tooth, and I am mailing this little guy to my mom on Monday to finish up a tooth fairy pillow for her. Hope it gets to her before it pops out!

I am really happy with how this turned out. This is my own design too. I am a little nervous about the quilting pen I used because it really isn't fading! I'm debating washing it or soaking it in Oxyclean, but I'm scared. Anybody? Yay or nay?

I cannot believe tomorrow is already Sunday. Bleh. I'm wishing for a gray day because I have so much to do inside! Makes me feel better about being a shut-in. Xo, Lovies!

Tuesday (or Tu-HOO-esday)

As you can see, my blog titles have been less than spectacular lately. I did find it fitting to show this guy off though. I got the embroidered fabric from a flea market in the spring, and just backed it with some cute repro fabric to make a pillow. I don’t know what you’d do with him, but I likes. You can find him in my shop!

Also wanted to show off my most recent Etsy purchase. It’s a vinyl wall decal for Q’s big girl room (you know, the enchanted forest one). I will be the first to admit that I am an idea stealer. Come now though, who isn’t? My “inspiration” came from Emily’s trees and Amy’s HD Buttercup experience. James of One Up Designs has lots of different vinyl stickers, and he was super easy to work with. And trusting too! Didn’t even ask for any $$ before the design was finished.

I’ve also decided on the paint colors for both Q’s room and my craft room. Q’s room is going to be this raisiny pink called Lovable (gotta love the paint names) as shown in this sample room pic. And I *think* that my craft room will be like a silver sagey greeny (can’t remember the exact name…pine something) with Antique Red accents. Will show you those colors laters, taters.

P.S. There may be some news involving Girl Land products in an actual local brick and mortar shop! Eek. Trying not to get my hopes up…will keep you posted.

Toleware Monday

So I've started *actually* planning my craft room-- well, sorta. I did a scaled drawing of the
room, and I found a table at Ikea that I want. Does that count? I'm now scouring the internet for ideas on how to organize craft supplies. I received two books for my birthday on organizing craft spaces, and they were, eh, ok. I decided I want to make a corner of the room into a wrapping station as well because I have SO MUCH wrapping paper, curling ribbon, cute tissue paper that is just jammed into an unlit closet upstairs. If anyone has any storage tips or secrets they could not live without, please feel free to share.

I'm going with the silver sage green and antique red from the previously shown hankie. I kinda want to go brighter, but I really like those hankies which are more muted. I kind of, ahem, "borrowed" the idea from Jenny, but I think I'm going to take it in a little different direction. We are also looking into a new computer. God bless our 5-year-old HP Pavilion computer. It has been a trooper, and it's still going strong, but it's so darn bulky.

Ok, so to the toleware. I found an idea to take a toleware tray, mount it on the wall, then take those little flat round clear lid screw-top containers and put your teensy crafting things in it then affix a magnet on the back of THOSE (phew!) and stick them to the tray...on the wall. Get it? Now I'm obsessed with finding a Toleware tray. Here's some information I found online:

Tole, from the old French taule, refers to iron or steel in thin sheets laminated or welded under pressure. (definition from a 1910 French dictionary). From a traditional point of view, "Tole Painting", is painting on items made from this thin metal...the term "tole" is that "toleware" is a very specific kind of decorative painted, highly varnished product -- usually made from metal.

Here is one that I'm mad I passed up:



Here are a few that don't match but are very pretty!

And here's one I had when I was six years old (not exactly Toleware, but still rather charming...)