bulletin board

I am slowly working my way through a long list of home projects the biggest of which is moving my little man from the "nursery" into his own "big boy" room. As I am working my way through turning the guest room into his room I am coming across various things that have been stashed in there, out of the way so to speak! This includes the little hand and foot print set I did 2 years ago and never put together - it's now proudly hanging in our bedroom. Better late than never.

I have so many frames that were in that room and I have no where to put them so I decided to do something creative with one of them and make a covered bulletin board. I found some inspiration online and did some pinning. Love Pintrest!

Here are some of my favorites.

I like the layering of the buttons on these push pins

great color!

Totally my favorite. Love it.  

simple and nice

dreaming.....

love the idea of painting on the board

So after browsing through these lovely examples and many more here is what I made! I painted the frame in some fun purple/grey paint I had and used some funky 1970s style fabric. I also made some pushpins by making fabric flowers and hot glued them on to the pins. I also roughed up the frame with some sand paper to create a shabby effect.

I need to add some hooks on the back so I can hang it up but for now it looks nice on the shelf in my kitchen.

I just love the fabric It's actually a whole jungle them when you see the fabric. It was so cool I bought it without a particular project in mind and I haven't found the right way to use it yet but this is a start.

Here are the push pins I made. So easy and cute.

Hope you like it!

MC


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my latest purchase

So excited! I just ordered this book on Amazon. It has such darling patterns and great ideas plus I just love the way it is illustrated. Can't wait!

I also ordered a humidifier, electric blanket and a bunch of books for my little guy. Can you guess how cold it is here? 4 - 8 inches of snow expected today!


Do you know Shirley Hughes? I love her books and I grew up reading them. We checked them out of the library a while ago and loved them so much we wanted to get our own for keeps. Our favourite is Alfie Gets in First - a good lesson not to run ahead of Mum! I really recommend this series of books. 

square 1

You might remember a while ago I got a lovely bunch of fabric for a quilt I was planning to make for my bed. I've made some baby quilts before, simple ones without much piece work, but never anything of large size or real quilt making techniques.

So I have spent the last 2 months procrastinating about what I should do...then I realized that if I didn't make a decision soon winter was going to be over and I wouldn't even need a quilt. I settled on doing a log cabin style pattern using a 5 x 5 inch square of fabric as the center of each square.

Square 1

I made one square a few nights ago. Cutting the strips took FOREVER! I actually didn't cut up all my fabric because I got so bored of cutting strips that I just wanted to start on the square. The first square took a long time as I had to get the technique down. After unpicking a few seams I got the feel for it and finished it pretty quickly.

Square 2

Then last night I started on a second square. Only after I put the two squares side by side did I realize that I had done a different pattern with the fabrics!! That's what sewing late at night when your brain is fried will do! Actually I prefer the second pattern because I think it shows the beauty of the fabric patterns better so I think I will use the first one as a throw pillow and stick with the second style.

Side by side

This project is going to take a while but as it is my first big quilt project I will continue to post my project. Wish me luck!!


P.S. Apologies for the lighting in the photos - I sew in a cave (in my basement) and the light is really bad!

paper snowflake window display

After watching Elf for the 100th time I went in search of templates for paper snowflakes. If you've seen the movie you'll remember how Buddy decorates pretty much everywhere he goes with paper snowflakes.


I found some cool templates here. And I just saw another post today for some really fancy ones. Trust me, once you start making these, it becomes addictive!

I chose to make mine in red paper stock and used a heavier weight paper so that they would look more substantial. I felt like the red paper would really stand out against the white window nook.

I used red thread to hang them and I used a needle to pierce a hole in the paper while simultaneously threading the snowflake.

The neat thing about these snowflakes is that when I put candles on the windowsill below they rotate beautifully throwing shadows on the wall.

These cute little antique Santa mugs finish the look!