diy: easter chick garland

I've had two packs of chenille easter chicks hanging around the tiny casa for three years now just waiting, waiting, waiting to be strung up for a march or april bed. Enter one very bad day in a bad brain kind of way and a million things to do and you get a very cranky jek craft, craft, crafting away at this. I made the entire garland in less than ten minutes and then realized I never took pictures of the april bed so I strung it up in zee bedroom instead of the living room and got all shutter happy.

This is super duper easy. Make sure your chickies have felt wings, otherwise you'll be threading your yarn or string into them and they will be flying away. The chenille used for the chicks is so fine and fluffy that there is not much to anchor it all together.

 

I looped off my yarn at both end, hung it up, then arranged the chicks. It's all seriously happy, is it not? I was worried the blue chicks would be a bit faded against the aqua wall but the wall is just green enough and the chicks are just blue enough it all works. Tomorrow is Easter so maybe on Monday you can score yourself a couple boxes of chickies on super sale. Enjoy!

diy: patchwork cloud {plus a giveaway}

I whipped up this patchwork cloud for the march bed in under an hour. It's really easy to do! The hardest part is choosing your fabrics. I went with vintage linen pieces, most of which were a gift from Tara and I left the quilting threads long to create a raincloud. They are not very easy to see here but they are there. This is a really loosey-goosey diy and can be adapted in any number of ways.

 

Think about where you are going to hang or display your cloud. Make sure your fabric choices will showcase nicely with your wall color. I went with white because the bedroom is really dark and the aqua colored walls make it seem even darker. I was hoping the white would show up better and brighten things all around. If you have any fat pieces of lace or trim around, add those as well. The contrast in textures is really nice to have. Along with my vintage linens I have some vintage floral seersucker. I love the texture of the seersucker!

I wanted my cloud to be a bit larger than the paper I had on hand so I taped two sheets of 11"X17" paper together with packing tape. I drew a cloud shape until I was happy with it then cut it out. Ta-da! A pattern!

Next up I cut my fabric pieces into smaller bits all about 3" tall/long and anywhere from 2" to 6" wide. I adhered my fabric bits to the pattern (beginning at the bottom) with my trusty craft glue stick. Just swipe it onto the paper and press your fabric on top. This is really just to hold it in place until you stitch it all together. You could pin it all in place if you prefer to do so. Once I had one row adhered to my pattern, I popped it into my sewing machine and did a quick zig-zag stitch (set at 4) across the whole thing. Repeat with the glue, add more fabric a few inches above the bottom row, stitch and repeat.

Once I had covered my whole pattern, I flipped the whole mess over and trimmed away excess fabric. Popped it back into my sewing machine upside down so I could see where to stitch and stitched all the way around with a running/straight stitch (also set at 4). When the cloud shape was too wide on the right to move nicely through the machine, I rolled it up and continued on.  After stitching around the entire cloud I flipped my cloud back over so that the right side faced up and "quilted" the top pieces by vertically stitching along the cloud at various intervals. This serves two purposes, one to anchor down edges of overlapping fabric scraps, and two to add a textural element to the piece. The quilting threads also made for happy "rain" along the bottom of my cloud.

 

Trim threads where you want them trimmed and hang in a happy place (I used washi tape looped onto the back along with a length of yarn clipped to a wire)! I love my cloud and will need to make more I think. If you would like a chance to win this bit of happy, leave me a happy comment below. You have until Earth Day to leave a comment!

spring diy: hanging egg mobile

I spotted these ombre-esque egg packs at Target a few weeks ago and snatched 'em up to create some sort of hanging dealio. With only twelve eggs I like how it turned out...not sure if I like it better with washi tape or without. Two packs of eggs would probably create a super nifty chandelier. I may do that if I get back over to Target and if they have any left. 

I used a large-eyed darning needled threaded with embroidery floss to string the eggs together using the convenient holes already in place. At the bottom of each egg, I looped my thread back through the bottom holes to create a knot of sorts. The egg can still be manipulated along the floss but it isn't loosey-goosey enough to slip every-which-way. I wanted more than three strands and so I mixed 'em up as best as I could. One of the strands only has two eggs on it but I spaced them out enough so that I think it works. More eggs would probably look niftier. I should have picked up two packs. Drats!

For the base, I used an itty-bitty embroidery hoop. Each strand was knotted to the base with mostly equal spacing in between. I write mostly equal as I didn't actually measure anything, I eyeballed it and knotted away. To cover up the knots, I added a bit of washy tape to the hoop but not until I tied on two longer lengths of floss to use for hanging. So that the mobile hangs fairly straight, I played with the distances of the tied bits and then knotted the two hanging lengths together about three inches down from the top. The knot secured the balance (sort of) and the loop at the top is perfect for hanging.

Hang in a happy place and enjoy...or add some washi tape and then hang. 

My eggs are now clattering away outside on the front porch. They add just enough happy spring color to make me smile when I wander out to get the mail. Happy spring crafting!

can it...garden style

 Last weekend I was still reeling from my wallow when I decided to craft myself out of the hole. Crate Paper had just announced its April Color Challenge and I thought, oooh, I have some Crate Paper product, I should make something.

 

So, after a little bit of stitching and a little bit of typing and a little bit of gluing, I came up with these.

 

And so I did...I decorated tin can planters for Earth Day garden gifts. Aren't they purdy? It wasn't until I was about to send in my entry when I realized that the largest bits of paper weren't actually from Crate Paper but from October Afternoon! Yikes! They both had lines called Farmhouse. Can you tell I am not a scrapbooker? If only I had more moolah to spend though I could get seriously addicted...take cakewalk for instance...swoon!

 

So there you have it, three little cans all decked out in their finery for their happy herbal selves...now if only I had someone to gift these to.

what does spring mean to you?

 Spring means so many things to me, to check out a couple spring feeling pics of mine along with a few other nifty people, skip on over to Kara's blog to get a bit of inspiration. I love when I am invited to a party!