{New Pendant lights}

This has been quite a process and I want to explain it well, but I Love seeing the blogs and pinterest ideas using new pendant lights. My husband is very proud of what we ended up doing and has been asking if I posted about this yet. So please make sure to comment on here if you like it or you will Crush him LOL. He is very proud of himself. ok- so we are clear- please comment on your thoughts to this lighting update.....mmmk. K.

 I love the Mason jar ideas, but when I tried a Mason jar here it didn't fit the threading. So I just took down one of the white shades to try out a couple ideas and see what I liked.

This is just putting in one of the round bulbs that go above our bathroom vanities. I like it ok.

It's not horrible, but I do like it better than the white shade.

It is less destracting than the white shade especially with our pot rack right behind it.
So I left it up for a while to see how I felt about it and til hubby got home to get his feedback. This confused the heck outta my kids. My 5 year old kept asking about it- she thinks I am a bit nuts sometimes.

Well hubby got home and had an idea. When I told him my dream look for this-

You see this little white ring. It's ceramic and it is the threading that holds the shade in place. Hubby said well let's take a mason jar lid- the flat part and trace the small part onto it and cut it out. We used regular kitchen shears

This is the flat lid of the mason jar- the part that usually seals, with the cut out area to fit around the white ceramic threading.

He just cut around it. Now watch out it is a bit prickly and can scratch or cut you.

Then we put the ring around the flat lid held it up and screwed the ceramic ring in and it held.

This is a closer view of it in place. I tried to use an edison bulb but they were too wide to fit in the jars. But the basic CFL looks fine.

Then I used 2 blue Mason jars and screwed them onto the lid- Now doesn't that look pretty cool.

Close up of it at eye level- see how it looks good even with the CFL in it?

With the light on! I am in LOVE

In a dark house- doesn't it just glow! This makes me so happy. I leave these lights on at night and it casts such a nice cozy glow about it and reminds me of something from my child hood that I just can't place.

Then I noticed the white lid and said to hubby- I am going to spray it silver so it will blend better and he reminded me we had silver ones lol. Guess I just look for a reason to spray paint things.

So we switched it out for the silver one! Now it looks better and like it was meant to be there. It looks good with the living room mantel in the background.

See even with the pot rack behind it, it works better than the old lights.  It is so sweet and fun. We have had these up for about a month and a half now and we still love them. What do you think? If you love it, please leave a comment, remember my hubby's fragile ego?!? ;-) I don't think I have written a blog post that he was this excited about, or excited about at all LOL. Makes me think of Mandy from Sugar Bee Crafts hubbys new blog at So I married a Craft Blogger.

I have read hubby several of his posts, and he cracks us both up. So be sure to check that out too.

{Making your own Chalkboard Labels}

 

These were actually very easy to make. I love the look of these labels and chalkboard in general. We have both the chalkboard paint in a can as well as the spray paint at our home, but for labeling things like our sugar and flour containers I didn’t want to paint something. The Martha Stewart labels are expensive for me to justify. The other thing I thought about doing was to cut out small wooden hang tags, drilling a hole with my Dremel, adding twine, and painting with chalkboard paint. That seemed labor intensive but I have the supplies to do it.

I was playing with Microsoft Publisher, but You could do this with any program that allows you to print labels. I chose a shipping label format that I already had on hand- Avery 5163. I then chose a shape to add, you can choose any that you want.

 I chose this one that I have seen around as a great shape for these labels.

Then if you get the outline to show up, right click til the paint can shows up, and chose the black color

 

And it looks like this now.

And really you are done at this point. That’s all there is to it. You can then go through printing. I suggest doing the print preview so you can see how it will look. It will take up a LOT of black ink, but It works and you can do it with supplies you already own.

  

This is what it looks like ready to print.

If you don’t have a program that can do this, or don’t want to bother, It is available for download for FREE here

Chalkboard labels

You can adjust it a lot of different ways including adding the words and changing fonts……

{Flower card tutorial}

Ok If you downloaded the last 2 weeks worth of Freebie Friday images.....then Here is FINALLY the tutorial on how to use it. Big Shout-Out to MyMemories for their help in providing these images and directions. These are easy, I just had trouble putting the post together.....mama-brain I guess. So here it is, really super simple!

Flower Card Tutorial
How to Assemble your Flower Card

1.  Print your file on cardstock.


2.  Take your card template page and fold at all fold lines.  A bone folder helps make the creases nie and crisp to help your finished card to look nicer.



3.  There should be a total of 9 folds when you are done.



4.  Cut out your card.

                                                           

 

5.  Turn your card over so that the printed side is down and

 pinch the sides of each petal together until all 6 petals are

standing straight up.

6.  Gently push all the petals in one direction until they lay flat.

7.  You now have a flower card.

8.  Tie a ribbon (not included) or something equivalent
around the card to hold it closed.

9.  Embellish as desired.  This card was embellished with a

circle cut out from a piece of background paper.

{Recovering Cornices}

I like to remodel and recover things as well. I just don't do it very often. It really is simple. I am fortunate that before I decided I could do some building and woodworking projects on my own, my hubby and FIL would make it for me. It just usually wasn't on my schedule or as fast as I wanted it unless I had a deadline. 
My husband made these cornices for me to use in our first nursery. Obviously it is very girly. The prints we chose had to at least go along with our master bedroom decor as the room was right off the master. You literally walked through the nursery to get to the master bedroom. That was our plan when we built this house and we knew we wanted to have our nursery very close by as new parents. 
Well that only lasted the first child. So then we changed it to an office or mini man cave for my husband. It has a tv and recliner and his video game systems, book shelves, and holds our printer and some decor on the walls.Well our pink swirly cornices didn't match his manly room lol.
So here are photos of what I did.

Here is the before

And a close up of the design

1- used flat head screwdriver to pry staples off that held the fabric

 2- I left the batting on for some padding

So I had this fabric from my grandmother. It's a blue velvet fabric that worked out perfect for this project. And goes well with our barn brown walls. I just cut it in half to fit both cornices.

I laid it down under the cornice and folded it over to make sure it would cover everything.

Then you start folding it over, pulling it tight, and stapling it in place. And that's it.

So what do you think?

AFTER

AFTER

{New Site} from some Blogging Rockstars

I am posting about this today because it is the day this site goes Live with awesome Tips and tricks and How-to's on how to Really REALLY use your DSLR camera in MANUAL mode. When I am back to work from Mat Leave and have some extra cash, I will be taking several of their classes.

Shootflyshoot.com is a website started by Kevin of The Lettered Cottage blog that he does with his lovely wife Layla. Kevin runs Shootflyshoot.com along with his friend Josh.
Here is a short video about it that Layla shared on their blog.
INTRO with outtakes! from Shoot Fly Shoot on Vimeo.
The first class they will offer starting today is Photography 101 (2 hr and 40min class) and its just $69. AND because its on video you can pause, rewind and re-do over and over to get it down. They show you the buttons and settings and walk you through it several times, AND you will have access to it forever.
Be sure to hop over and check them out and show some love on opening day!

{Applique T-shirt Tutorial}

I saw this great photo on pinterest for a shirt I couldn't wait to make for my daughter and my niece.

So here is how I did it, and what I would do different next time:

So I gathered my supplies: shirt, fabric, heat-n-bond, ric-rac

I cut out myfabric circles and then the heat and bond slightly smaller and ironed them on to fuse.

Then placed them on the shirt where I thought they would look nice.

And fused them in place, as well.

Then it was time to see how much and where I would need the ric-rac.

after laying out my ric-rac and figuring out the lengths I would need and where to place them. I used fray check on the edges of the ric-rac that would be seen.

I sewed the ric-rac first so I could tuck it under the edges of the circles. Next time I would sew the ric rac first and then add the circles afterward wherever it seemed to fit best.

This was the setting I used on my zig-zag stitch. I needed it to do a fairly wide stitch but close together to look more like a satin stitch. You could do your stitch length further apart if you want to, would just give it a different look.

This is me SLOWLY making my way around the edges of the circle. You can see how it was necessary to do this if you can make out the fraying of the fabric at the edges.

Ok so let's be honest, zig-zagging around several circles is NOT easy. It wasn't gorgeous. It had some issues but it was necessary to keep the edges from fraying. One tip for next time would be to fuze the fabric to the heat-n-bond BEFORE cuttting out the circles. That would have prevented the fraying and possibly completely eliminated the need for the added time of zig-zagging the edges. I would also use fabric glue on the ric-rac next time. I think those two tips would have made this so much simpler.  Now one more picture of the finished project. My sister seemed excited about this one I made for my niece. I now need to finish my daughter's shirt.