Hanging Up - Pin Wheel Wreath (and a how to!)

Well folks, I think it is safe to say that summer is really underway these days and is was time for me to take down the spring flower wreath and move on to a more summery one. So I came up with these little pin wheels (have you noticed pin wheels popping up all over the place?) and a new wreath was born.
To start you will need one, two or three pieces of fabric, I would recommend that at least the outer most layer be felt, I made my by sandwiching a layer of regular quilters cotton between to pieces of felt it seemed to be the perfect amount of stiffness. So lets say for the purpose of this post you want to make a three layered pin wheel. You are going to start with cutting a small square out of felt, this will be your inter most layer, you will then cut two more squares each about 1/4 of an inch larger than the one before.
For the next step you will snip from the corner up to about 1/4 of an inch from the middle (maybe even less), you want to cut all three layers together.
Next you will fold one half of each corner into the center as shown. You want to sew each corner as you go, overlapping them slightly.
Finally once you have all four corners sewn down you need to sew a button in the middle to top it off!
I hot glued mine onto a florist's wreath that I wrapped in some (cheap!) variegated yarn. This project is super easy and quick, my eleven year old sister spent the night on Sunday and was able to whip up enough for her own wreath in the time it took us to watch Nancy Drew and that included all the time it takes to put together the right color combinations!

As always I'd love to know if you make any of my projects, so drop me a line (even better if you send pictures!). Also as promised this is project week so check back every day for a new project I'm working on.

This is my something Christmassy

My self imposed rule says that I need to stop by here today and leave a little Christmas related note. I don't have much to say this week. Gifts are starting to trickle in, but one for my brother James will not be shipped until after the 1st of the year so I guess I am going to get something else and save that for his birthday in February. My other big issue is that my wrapping paper in all in my trunk that three days after our big snow storm is still frozen shut.

The image is what I made for an ornament swap. I'm rather happy with how they turned out!

Oh Come Our Dayspring from On High

Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel!

Well that time of year has come Advent is upon us. I awoke this morning to snow and a bitter cold, but it is just in time for our thoughts and hearts to turn to a new season. A season of hope and joy, of answered promise and salvation! I am really looking forward to church tonight, I love attending church at night, even though my church is a newish building (the section our sanctuary is in is less than 10 years).

Anyway real quick on my lunch break I wanted to share a few advent calendars with you. I had great plans to make my own little project to count down the days, but it never happened. Maybe if you have a little free time and fast fingers you could whip up one of these for yourself. (Love the little birds, so cute!)

Yea! Happy Christmas All!

Magnetic Advent Boxes

Little Birdy Advent Count Down

Embroidered Felt Pockets from Purlbee

Cheater Cake

A few weeks ago at our little weekly Girls Night my we celebrated my lovely friend Mel's Birthday. I whipped up my now perfected (I think!) cheater cake (in my family we call this kinda thing/half cheating at something "The Johnny Way" after my cousin who taught us it was okay to pick the next card in war, you know if you are loosing). So anyway here is my "Johnny Way" surprise it's your birthday cake.
I start with a boxed cake from Trader Joe's - you can use any cake that you want, but if I am looking for the right time + quality mix I go with their cakes, real butter and milk make a big difference.
After baking the cake and letting it cool I put a layer of Raspberry Jam (again I think mine was from Trader Joe's, but any fancy or not so fancy jam will do).
Last I made up some easy frosting: powdered sugar, milk, butter and vanilla to taste and texture. You could frost the whole cake, but I don't really like frosting that much so I normally only frost the top of my cakes.
The whole thing takes less than an hour to make, bake and clean up from so this is a great way to have a little something to celebrate someone for whatever reason!
As a variation I have also used; lemon curd or a thin layer of Strawberry in place of the jam.

So do you have any quick "Johnny Way" tricks you could share with me?

Keeping Promises

Remember when I promised all those wonderful blog things and then never did them, well here I am trying to follow through on a few of them. So here we are the wreath.

This is a really easy and fun project, great to do while watching TV (I would recommend DVDs of That Girl). I started out with felt that I picked up at the fabric store, wool felt would be nice, but I just used good old acrylic and it was fine.

I made a pattern to trace for the leaves, I made Birch, Oak and Maple leaves. I just went to Google images and looked up leaf line drawings to get the idea of what they should look like.

After I cut out my leaves I embellished a few of them. And I couldn't resist adding a few buttons of course!

I then glued them onto a wreath form from the fabric store I covered in brown felt.

Finally I pinned a little bit of ric-rac to the back for a hanger.

Here it is hanging on my door in the lovely sun shine.

New look with a little help from Amy

I started off my Labor Day weekend with this fun and quick project (aided by the last disk of season 1 of Fringe, my new favorite show). I started off with some Amy Butler fabric and two 60's chairs.

These chairs were left in the garage by former owners of my house. They were covered in nasty nasty fabric and cat (or maybe racoon) hair.

I think they turned out nicely, if I do say so myself. And more importantly they are the start of a very big adveture; namely the basement make over!

The colors are based off these three fabrics and will be the place where all my 1960's furniture will eventually end up.

The Fabric is Amy Butler Lacework in Olive from her Lotus collection. It is out of print, but you can find it on Etsy and some quilt shops.

Checking in

I don't know why I am so surprised by the way the summer has been flying by, but it is really catching me off guard this year. It seems that just yesterday I was planning what to do with all my "extra" time. Needless to say I have been keeping busy. What with projects around the house and visits with friends and all the other things good and bad that can fill up your long summer days.

My hands have not been idol these past few weeks, I have been working working working away on a few secret projects that I can't wait to show you once they are finished (and in some cases in the hands of their intended)!

The Bedroom Before and After

before:
The time has finally come my friends to show off the first almost totally made over space at the little house! I had a party on Friday night so everything was whipped into a some what acceptable shape so forty people could parade through and peek into my rooms and wonder why I can't seem to pick paint colors.

So do you remember these pictures, it seems like a million years ago that my bedroom was in this state (it was six months ago to be exact), seeing these two images takes me right back to that first time I walked through the house trying to imagine my life here around all that junk.

In progress:
First the stuff was removed.

The walls were washed and the carpet was pulled up.

This was the only room that I picked up only one possible paint color for.

My dad was very devoted to painting the room. We spent a few fun afternoons listening to the NPR weekend line up - with my fave "This American Life" and his fave "American Roots".

My brother James moved my bed for me twice, once when I bought it at our local Saturday morning charity sale and then again when the room was ready. My sister Phoebe and my dad set it up one night while I was out, again lovely family members have made the move/make over of this little house possible.

After:

So here it is my sunny room.

The dresser was one of the finds left in the mess of the house when I bought it. The drawers are a little stiff and it is a little scraped up, but that is how I like things anyway.

The only real down side to making the attic bedroom mine is the small funny closet. It just means I have to be good about hanging stuff up and not letting laundry collect at the bottom.

Here is the reading nook at the top of the stair, you can't see this but there is another window just to the side of this space that makes it a nice cozy spot to sit down with a book or some paper work and a cup of tea.

Finally the bed in all her glory. There is nothing like waking up with the sun pouring in the South facing windows reflecting off the yellow walls. The bedding is a few years old and from Anthro, the hope chest to the side was a birthday gift from my parents last year. The pictures are vintage bird pictures that my aunt found in the living room the night that I closed on the house and the crate that I am using as a night stand was another item salvaged from the junk collecting in the house.

Okay I hope you have enjoyed the before and after. My wonderful friend Beth said this weekend that the picture don't do it justice - but I think that might be because she is a loving and supportive friend and likes to feed my ego! We all need friends like that!

Happy Week!

I love flower pots

I of course had a big to do list for the long weekend. A lot of it got shelved, but I did get some flowers potted to brighten up the dilapidated porch steps. Can you see how they are sinking into the ground? Uggg.
There is also a little garden of herbs growing next to the back door. Cute hu?

Random Goodness

Dear blog readership (ummm Hi Lydia!),
Long time no post!
This has nothing to do with house stuff. I have no new pictures as my camera charges has not been unearthed. In the mess of boxes that are living in my basement. There have been many thrilling things happening around the little house though, I will not gross you out with the details, but lets just say that I have added a sewer and drain guy to my ever growing list service people. If you are ever in need of Sewer work I highly recommend Reed's Sewer and Drain in Ypsilanti!
Other than still finding homes for all my belongings and spray painting picture frames and not mowing my lawn to my shame. I have been doing a lot of crocheting and watching netflix. Crocheting is my true crafting love, I have been mostly working on baby sweaters these days (sorry no pictures see camera problem stated above), but I thought I'd show off some blanket from days gone by. I made both of these for babies born last fall, the top image is of a pattern I made up (and didn't right down so I now have know idea what I did) and was for my cousin Maggie's son Topher. The second is a slightly modified version of a pattern from Vintage Crochet a wonderfully inspiring book for anyone who enjoys yarn craft, it was a gift for my darling niece Evie. So just a little note to say hello and I am looking forward to more posts soon.
xoxo,
Libby

Lighting up the night sky

Not a very good shot (it was taken with my dad's phone) but there are Christmas light up at the house and I have just the weekend before I get my grubby little hands on the thing and can really start getting work done. But getting the lights up does make it seem like someone cares about that little place.

Birthday Cake

Yesterday was my mothers birthday. She didn't want to make anything of it - she is getting ready to head out on a five day hiking trip with a few friends and has put all her focus on that and getting my two youngest siblings ready for school.

I however don't think you should let someones birthday go by without a little cake and a lot of good cheer. I admit that I was planning on buying a store made cake and calling it a night when I remembered that I had a Trader Joe's box cake. I think TJ's has just about the best box mixes and with a little help from some frozen berries it turned tasting great (even if it was kinda ugly)!

The "Yellow" Board

I have been wanting a chalk or white board for my kitchen for a while now so when I saw this DYI over on design*sponge I knew it would be the perfect thing. I had this old print kicking around my apartment so all I had to do was pick up some fabric, paint the frame and volia a great message center.

The fabric fits in with my dishes perfectly and adds a nice pop of color on my white kitchen walls.