HAPPY HOLI-DIY | a recap of my craft night at Anthropologie

Last night was so much fun - I hosted an event at Anthropologie (you may have heard about it, ha) and to top it off two customers thought I worked there because I "dressed like it" and I had a "great outfit." Two of the greatest compliments of my life right there. Oh, and my mom and aunt came out to support me and they were like my personal fan club so that was nice, too. Hopefully everyone who came to the event had as good a time as I did! We made initial ornaments that do double duty as gift toppers, and a few industrious people even made enough letters to make a word garland! Check back tomorrow for the tutorial. Here are a bunch of photos of the event... much thanks to Matt who stopped by for a little while to capture these images for me. 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Most of all, thanks to Anthropologie for having me and to everyone who came to the event! Hope we can do another one real soon :)

HAPPY HOLI-DIY | a craft night with Anthropologie & me!

I have such fun news to share today! I'm excited to announce that I'm partnering with Anthropologie and hosting an evening full of crafting and snacking at my local store in Garden City on December 18th. We'll be making yarn monograms which can be used as ornaments or gift toppers, so come on by and craft with us! 

There are two one-hour sessions and space is very limited so if you'd like to join us, email anthroevents@anthropologie.com soon to reserve your spot at the workshop! Please include your preferred session time in your email. Hope to see you there! 

whites and brights | how to host a tie dye party

A couple weeks ago I helped organize a sleepover for the girls in junior high at our church. We needed some sort of activity (other than eating Double Stuf Oreos and watching movies, that is) so I thought for a bit and decided that tie dyeing would be an easy and inexpensive crafty type thing that all the girls could participate in. We ended up spending hours in the garage soaking tee shirts in buckets filled with brightly colored water, and now I want to tie dye everything in sight. Here's what you need to throw your own tie dye party... 

plain white tees / Rit dye powder / salt / liquid laundry detergent

rubber gloves / five gallon bucket / hot water / rubber bands

Once you have all your supplies just follow the instructions on the inside of the Rit box. We (obviously) used the bucket method which is simple and involves no risk of dyeing the kitchen floor. As long as you don't bring the bucket in the kitchen. In case you were wondering, the colors we used were sunshine orange, lemon yellow, fuchsia, teal, and purple. Have you ever tried tie dyeing anything? It's one of my favorite things. 

image via my friend Missy's Instagram

a quilt for baby Solomon

Yesterday I wrote about my friend Ari's shower, and if you've been reading the tiny hummingbird for any length of time then you know that if one of my friends has a baby then I most certainly made a quilt. Ari's baby is no exception. Ari and Matt have a color palette selected for the nursery that basically includes every color so I was a bit baffled when making my fabric selections. Then we visited their new house and I saw loads of paint swatches taped to the wall. I knew what to do. Once we got home I went to Lowe's and gathered my own collection of paint swatches so I had a reference point. It all came together quickly after that.

Stripes! I love the combination of yellow, white, and gray here. Also, the black and white section of binding.

Burp cloths are always a good way to use up any scraps that are left after making the quilt, and while I don't think any mother is concerned about her baby's burp cloths matching her baby's quilt I do think it's nice that they are at least somewhat attractive. They may end up as a regular part of her outfit, after all, as an over-the-shoulder accessory.

If you squint you can see the inscription on the white stripes above, but disregard the second line for now, as it is blank. I'm carrying around my micron pen so I can write the baby's sweet little name in that spot when we visit Ari and Matt after the baby is born. I can't wait!

Here's the only photo I have of the whole quilt, taken right after Ari opened it at the shower. (Thanks, Mia!)

automatic confetti

I was working on a project for Ezra's room last week and I realized that the scraps are instant confetti.  I wanted to save them for Ezra's birthday party but Matt talked me out of it.  I guess I'll just have to make more come October! Can anyone guess what I was making?

bare walls

'Bare' is the only way to describe nearly every wall in our house.  I've talked about this before but still really haven't done anything to remedy the problem.  Here are some ideas from around the internet that I'm thinking of replicating for our home... 

punch collage via Ali Edwards.  maybe stars for Ezra's room.

log cabins via martha. for the living room, over our couch.

alphabet print via kind over matter.  for Ezra.

message board via moxie home. for the craft room.

portraits via Eden Lang. for the living room.

chevron on canvas via decor8. for the dining room.

Recommendations for affordable wall art, either DIY ideas or for purchase, are welcome!

Layer Cake Quilt

This is a quilt that I made for myself out of fabric that my mom gave me for Christmas... last year.  When I received the layer cake of Lila Tueller's Santorini for Moda I immediately knew I wanted to make a quilt with it and started searching Moda Bake Shop for ideas.  I chose this pattern and worked on it over the course of a couple weeks whenever I had time.

I chose a solid brown snuggly fabric for the back and quilted simple lines all over.

I love the polka dot binding!

I love the look of the floral prints that resemble stained glass.  Usually the quilts I make are for someone else, but for once I'm going to keep one.

the everything bag

Operation Baby Preparation Project #2 was the everything bag from little stitches for little ones by Amy Butler.  Let me begin by saying that this project is not for the faint of heart, or at least not for a beginning/intermediate sewer (I still can't get over the fact that I must refer to myself and like-hobbied people as a system for transporting sewage) such as myself.  Luckily my cousin Shannon (who makes amazing children's clothing, for sale in her Etsy store Bella Couture Designs) wanted to make the bag as well so we worked on them together and after, oh, seven or eight hours we had completed both of them.  Overall I'm really happy with how mine turned out.  Two of my fabrics are from Erin McMorris's Park Slope collection, birds and flower field in teal which I used for the pockets and lining.  The main fabric is Anna Maria Horner's dance floor in teal from her Garden Party collection.  I didn't pay careful attention when cutting my side pocket fabric out of the bird print and thus ended up with bird flying north and south rather than east and west, but I don't think anyone would notice unless they looked closely.  Or unless I point it out, which I have done every time I've showed the bag to someone.      

The pockets are roomy and the divider is a nice feature, too.  I actually used the bag for about a week and loved how organized I was.  My usual bag has only two pockets and is large enough to fit a change of clothes complete with shoes and a plated banana bread (I've done it) including all the normal purse things so you can imagine how easy it is for me to lose things inside.  I can't wait to fill this one up with baby things.  Anyway, if you decide to try your hand at making this diaper bag make sure to check out the corrections here and get a good night's sleep.   

rock-a-bye

What do you get when you combine a hand-me-down cradle, a gigantic piece of leftover fabric from Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley collection, and a scrap of minky dot?   

A beautiful place for baby to sleep while he's teeny tiny!  My cousin Shannon and her husband Matthew very kindly gave us the cradle that they used for each of their three kids, but along with it came outdated tan and blue teddy bear bedding.  I decided to remedy that wee problem by going through my stash and was lucky enough to find some fabrics that I knew would work for a baby boy and a girl, too, if one ever comes along.

I recovered the bumper and made new ties for it with the help of my friend and teacher, Lorraine.  

She also showed me how to make a simple cradle/crib/bed sheet so now I can whip them up quite easily.  I plan on making a few more for the cradle so we can mix it up a bit.  Also in case of accidents (*wink).

Now all we need is the baby!

Leah's Flock of Triangles

This quilt is almost a year old at this point as it's been used by a very sweet baby since she was born.  OK, well almost since she was born.  I didn't quite have it finished in time.  Anyway, I asked my cousin TJ to bring the quilt to a family cookout so I could take some photos.  I had handed it off to him and his wife for their baby Leah last October without documenting any of the process or finished product.  So here it is, the second quilt in my quilt roster, Denyse Schmidt's Flock of Triangles (crib size) from her book, 30 Colorful Quilt and Patchwork Projects.  

I used five different Stonehill Collection fabrics (available at  Jo-Ann's), repeating the pink leaf in the binding and the brown polka dot on the back.  My favorite prints are the bright on white floral and the green.  The design was surprisingly manageable for a beginner like myself and I would definitely make it again.  My one problem was getting the bottom points to stay pointy... a lot of them ended up inside the seams of the quilt top but I don't think it makes the quilt any less pretty!  

Here's ten month old Leah wrapped in her quilt, no doubt wondering why she's bundled up in August.  With lots of babies due in the coming months I should have lots more finished quilt posts coming your way!    

Stacked Coins Baby Quilt

My cousin Shannon and her husband Matthew welcomed their third child, Matthew Jr., into their family in late March and it took me until last Thursday to visit.  I had made Matthew's cousin Leah a quilt when she was born last October and I heard through the family grapevine (OK, so my aunt told me) that Shannon would love a quilt for Matthew.  Well, I love making quilts and it's even better when I have an excuse to make one so I got right to work.  I used some fabrics from a jelly roll that I bought at Joann's, but some of the prints were too girly so I had to buy some coordinating fabrics.  I used three different Stonehill Collection fabrics, including this stripe, this polka dot, and this geometric pattern.  This was only the fourth quilt I've ever made so I used a fairly simple pattern, stacked coins found at the moda bake shop, and completed it entirely on my own!  Lorraine, my teacher, would be proud.  I did, however, have to walk down the street (luckily Blaine's is only a two minute walk!) to buy a new needle when I was mere inches away from finishing the binding.  What kind of quilter only has one needle?  Apparently that would be me.  Fortunately, there was a sale going on and I bought three packs of needles for the price of two.  I should be all set for a while, especially since I don't change my needle nearly as often as I should.  That might explain the broken needle...  Anyway, I hope Matthew enjoys his quilt!  I enjoyed making it and am looking forward to beginning a new project soon.  

i love lemon

A few months ago I was asked to design the invitations for our youth group's annual parent teen cookout.  I took a page out of Jordan's book to make these nifty invites that only took me a few hours total, although I completed the project over the course of a couple of days.  I bought kraft boxes in bulk from Paper Mart, 5 pounds of Lemonheads from Candy Direct, and printed the invitations myself.    

I filled about half of the boxes with a layer of Lemonheads before running out so some quick thinking was needed.  I was making 50 invitations and only had about 25 boxes filled.  That meant I needed about 5 more pounds of Lemonheads and I didn't have enough time to order another bulk delivery.  I called a few local candy shops but the prices were ridiculous... $14 per pound?!  Were they joking?!  More thinking.  I knew I had seen Lemonheads at the Dollar Tree down the street from our house so I hopped in the car and was there in about one and half minutes.  Success!  I bought something like fifteen bags of candy and was able to completely fill the rest of the boxes.  My advice is this: if you decide to recreate these invitations figure that you need about 5 pounds of Lemonheads for every 25 boxes and place your order accordingly.  

My next piece of advice - print one invitation and have it copied at Office Max or somewhere so you're not babysitting your inkjet printer for 45 minutes!  These babies were double-sided which accounts for the extra long print time.  After they were printed I cut them down to size and rounded the corners.   

Rule number three is buy enough ribbon.  I don't know what kind of math calculations I was doing while in the aisle at Joann's but it was horrifically incorrect.  I only bought enough of the coordinating yellow and white ribbon to wrap maybe ten or twelve of the boxes.  That's right, I still had about forty more to go.  Instead of leaving the house to go to the store for the fifth time that day I dug into my stash of ribbons and fortunately found enough bright scraps to finish the job.    

I handed them out over the next couple of weeks and parents and teens alike were excited at the prospect of the candy inside.  I had teens begging me for extra invitations, so I directed them to their local Dollar Tree where an 8 oz. bag is, you guessed it, a dollar!    

Here is a similar project from Brooke over at inchmark that's perfect for any happy occasion.  Have a great weekend!