Gift Giveaway Adventures!

Several months ago I did this chain-type thing on Facebook where you offer to make gifts for the first 5 people who respond to your note. They then have to post the same offer, and so on and so on. I realized the other day that I still hadn't made good on my promise to make gifts for the people who responded! You have a year (I think), but I figured I should get it done now before the school year starts. So far I have made gifts for two of the people who responded...

The first gift that I decided to make was a set of magnets for a friend of mine who lives in Colorado. A brief explanation of the magnets: she was once described as 'refreshingly blunt' by my sister, which is just an awesome description of her. She is going to school in Colorado for her Masters in English Lit, but is from Oregon. More specifically--Tillamook! And Tillamook High School's mascot is the Cheesemakers! I hope she likes them!

The second gift was for a friend in Portland. He's an amazing artist and graphic designer, so I decided to make some cool pencils and a pencil pouch. I made the pouch out of fused plastic bags, but didn't have any zippers so ended up making it a drawstring pouch. It actually turned out much better than I thought it would!

I covered the pencils with the patterns from inside security envelopes. He and I are both kind of obsessed with the patterns on the inside of security envelopes, so I think it was a very fitting gift. I love how they turned out, and even better--he loved it!

Hair Adventures, Part Trois!

I am slowly getting addicted to making hairclips! There are just so many possibilities, and you know how much I love 'upcycling'! I made this latest hairclip out of a green paint chip I snagged from Home Depot and a page out of a book that has seen the end of its days. (I took the book from one of the teacher's 'trash piles' on that infamous last day of school. It was completely falling apart, ripped, etc. but is great for little craft projects!)

The buttons I already had in my collection, so it was simply a matter of mixing and matching until I found the combination I liked best! I love how it turned out!!!

I have found that making these different hairpieces has really helped me overcome my initial misgivings about my haircut. Instead of viewing my hair with a mixture of dread and disappointment, I now look at it with excitement! It has been extremely fun to play with, and especially to accessorize!

More Hair Adventures!

This morning I couldn't wait to continue crafting up some cute hairpieces! I decided to make a smaller version of the paper flowers that I made last week. I really liked how those turned out, but they were too big to put in my hair. So here it is!

I really like how it looks when clipped into my hair!

I can already tell that I am going to have a LOT of fun accessorizing my new haircut!

New Haircut Adventures...

I just got a new haircut, and it is realllly short! With this new haircut I've been playing around with fun hair accessories. I made these two headbands in mere minutes, and the decorations can easily be taken off!

I found these super cute flowers on sale at Michaels. And the best part? They are actually pins!

So I just 'pinned' them to the headbands! The teeth on the headbands prevents the flowers from moving around, so it works perfectly!

I love the way they look in my new haircut! I can't wait to play around with other hair accessories!

Card Adventures!

A friend of mine had a bridal shower yesterday, so I decided to make her a card to go along with her gift:

I used words from a dictionary, which I guess has become my 'trademark' thing. I chose words like Love, Marriage, Husband, Wife, etc. The bride-to-be really liked it!

The day before the bridal shower another friend of mine came over to encourage me to work in my yard. I managed to entice her with my craft room instead, and she made a card for the shower as well! I will choose crafting over yardwork any day!

I think that her card turned out beautifully! And she was so proud of herself!

Adventures in Pant Alterations!

Today through Wednesday I am attending an education conference with several people from my school district, including my Principal and Superintendent. I have never attended this conference before, so I wasn't quite sure what the dress protocol was. It's still summer so I didn't want to show up in slacks, but I also didn't want to dress too casual. And it's still fairly warm out so I wanted to be comfortable, but I also didn't want to wear shorts in front of my bosses! I ransacked my closet to try and find something appropriate, but was left empty handed. It was then that I remembered a pair of pants that I had stashed away because they were given to me by a relative and were far too long on me. I raced to my craft room and found them in the closet, patiently waiting to be hemmed to a proper length. Here you can see just how long they are on me:

I then proceeded to hem these pants--but as capris!

It took less than 5 minutes and I ended up with the perfect pair of pants to wear to my conference! Summery, yet not too casual. They worked out great! Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to wear for the other two days...

Paper Folding Adventures!

Today has been one of those wonderful, lazy days where you actually feel accomplished by the end of it. Sure, all I did was sit on the couch and watch episodes of some of my favorite shows (True Blood and Pushing Daisies), but I also made some cute paper flowers! I really like how they turned out, and I'm trying to think of ways to utilize them. I'm thinking hairpieces, but since they are made out of paper they would only be suitable for dry weather.

I made the flowers out of folded book pages. I really enjoy origami and other such paper crafting, but have been preoccupied with sewing lately. So it was really nice to sit down and let my fingers have some folding fun!

The Skirt Adventures Continue!

Yesterday I created a new version of the simple elastic waist skirt I love so much. Let's call it Skirt version 2.0 shall we? This new version was inspired by this skirt from Anthropologie:

The one thing I didn't like about my skirts before version 2.0 was that the elastic waist wasn't the prettiest thing to look at. That's why I liked this skirt from Anthropologie so much! With the cute sash you can tuck in a tank top it looks great. So I decided to make one myself, using one of my husband's old dress shirts. Unfortunately the dress shirt didn't have enough fabric to make both the skirt and the sash, so I decided to alternate panels of the shirt fabric and some extra scrap fabric that I had laying around. I was pretty pleased with the end result:

I apologize for the poor picture. I forgot to take a picture of the skirt before we went out with friends last night, and this was the only pic from that night which showed the entire skirt. But here it is! What do you think?