diy dillydilly: make a painted pom garland

 

This super easy pom garland packs a neon punch! All you need is a handful of white pom-poms, an eye-dropper, large eyed needle, thread, and neon acrylic paints (though liquid watercolors would probably work as well). 

I set out a sheet of wax paper and tossed a handful of poms onto it. I then filled my small paint palette with a squirt or two of neon paints then added an eye-dropperful of water and gave them a little swirl. The water is to water down the thick acrylic paint.

 

Give each pom a squirt or two of color and keep adding until the splatter makes you happy. The poms need a long time to dry though so make sure you begin the day before if you want to use your garland for something special.

String together on doubled-up thread or embroidery floss and hang in place that could use a little happy. My extra poms were added to my beaded pom-pom garland. Enjoy!

the week in review: april 15-21

Most of the week was spent at work or in a brain cloud. Truly, I can't really think much on the week. I had a photoshoot on Tuesday that was fun and I did more laundry than usual and lots of folding and moving crafty piles from one corner of the tiny casa to the other. As far as craftiness goes I stitched up a cloud garland that had been floating around the noggin for a few years now as well as pulled out the micro tins for some Earth Day projects. I also prepped some cuttings from my succulents to plant into said micro tins...I'm trying to work through my crafty idea lists from 2010 and on. There are simply too many things I want to make and I need to use up my stash before it eats me and the mister.

If we go clockwise from the top left there you will see the cloud garland and then a super yummy accidental lunch of samosa filling turned quesa-less quesadilla. Over the weekend it felt like summer and so I pulled out the popsicle maker and whipped up a batch of french soda pops. Mmmmmm. The leftover pom-poms got a super trim and the mister, mama a-go-go, and I enjoyed a lunch date in Los Osos. Tiny grafted cacti were obtained and I set up some sunflower seeds to sprout.

With the heat came a much needed affair with a chocolate malt, and more happy plants to pot up for the porch. There was a lot of yarn wrapping, and two houseplants were adopted so that I can begin my natural air purifier project. Now all I need are more plants and oodles of pots.

I managed three outfit photos this week and two of them included my favorite pair of too-big-for-me patched up jeans. The other focused on a skirt as I felt a need to take my new pair of pettipants out for a spin. I'm practicing to be an old fogey. I think I will be really good at it. Oh yeah, I also managed to wear flowers in my hair and NOT feel like a super dork. True, only the mister and the local porch lizard witnessed them and of course now you...

This week will be more of the same but hopefully more productive. I have so many piles of crafty bits to weed through. I'm tried of looking at them and knocking them over. Happy almost May!

cock-a-doodle-doooooooo

 

I do believe I danced  jig when I came upon this rooster head at the thrift sometime back in the fall. I already have a duck and I have seen the cows and the pigs and oh lordy, if I ever found a goat I think I would plotz...Sadly, mister rooster only had one eye and when the mister asked me why on earth I would bother with a one-eyed rooster I batted by greenish blues and simply said "It's a rooster"! He rolled his eyes and I then told him I was going to make it an eye-patch and after many months of me NOT making an eye-patch for it, this morning found the mister puttering about mumbling to himself something along the lines of marrying some kind of nincompoop as he pulled out black paper and snippety-snipped a tiny eye-patch for my one-eyed rooster noggin (complete with itty bitty skull and crossbones). Swoon...mr. a-go-go really is the bees knees...in fact he is off painting a shelf I picked up even though it is a balmy 85 degrees out. I hope I don't take him away from his own crafty work but sometimes a girl simply needs a shelf painted.

color me happy

I've been playing with creating color palettes from favorite photos. It's a bit of a time suck as I get caught up in it and want to do another one and another one and another one...so here is a smidge of happy to chase away my allergies blues...which combo is your favorite?

the week in review: april 7-14

 Another week spent with the usual suspects...allergies, work, allergies, and a little crafting. The coughing has been driving me bonkers and my allergies have left me feeling dazed and confused. It ain't all bad though...just annoying. Though if you had asked me Friday night I would have a different answer. Friday night was awful in the realm of allergies. Simply awful and it left me so very tired on Saturday I had to cancel my other plans. On the plus side, I got to couch potato-it on the sofa and read an entire cheesy romance that I re-found utterly delightful.

The weather has warmed up for the most part so we have been enjoying a lot of smoothies and fruit. The water table at school was filled with a lot of water and the flowers in the sister a-go-go's garden have been popping up all over. I did the thrilling exercise of dying rice and photographed a bunch of the mister's musical instruments. Etsy packages were both sent and received and a teeny bit of stash crafting happened in a fit of desperate crafting. In between it all there were more moments of normalcy and not so normalcy. We watched flicks on the computer, this one, this one, and this one and we enjoyed a guffaw or two from this guy and oh yeah, I beat the mister at feats of strength (you probably don't want to know!)

This is how my weeks usually go. Nothing fancy, just puttering about the casa, puttering about the preschool and maybe an errand or two or a hike thrown in for good measure but it seems my hiking days may be over for each time I venture out I end up on the floor in a coughing fit from allergies. Drats!

This week is full of the same though hopefully I won't have a repeat of last Friday night. Acck! Happy April!

make a beaded pom-pom garland

 Not really a photo diy but I think you'll get the gist of it. I've been on a pom-pom kick lately. I have a small pile of yarn but completely lack any fiber arts skills so I mostly use the yarn for gift wrapping. Over the spring break, the nephew and I were watching this episode of Doctor Who when I spotted a nifty garland hanging in the children's room. It reminded me of the elephant garlands that Cost Plus carries and how I keep meaning to make my own version and even have all the fabric sitting here, cut and ironed and waiting for me to DO something with it already. I had planned on doing a Valentine's Day version (see how long my piles hang around) and well...that did not happen...not yet at least.

 

The end of the month was fast approaching and I still had not thought of what I wanted to make for the april bed. The garland was perfect and so I set to work making pom-poms. I do not have a fancy pom-pom maker nor do I have the energy to make one from cardboard. I had a glimmer of a memory of my mamos teaching me how to make them using just my hands and so I did a quick internet search to refresh my memory and discovered this nifty video by Ez of Creature Comforts and I think I have linked up to it before. I prepped my supplies and popped 'em onto a large tray and worked on turning out pom-poms whilst watching various programs on the computer.

After I had a happy pile, I gathered up some embroidery floss, a large eyed needle, and a pile of smaller store bought pom-poms. Oh wait...that isn't true, I forgot I had had another idea for the bed and did some neon paint splattering to a pile of white pom-poms a few weeks earlier. I gathered those up along with the other store bought poms and did a rifle through my metal drawers to see if I could wrestle up some more beads.

Back to the sofa to work on stringing it all together. The best way to do this is while watching a program or movie so that you aren't really paying any attention to your stringing. You want it to be varied and not a direct pattern. Just knot your end, add some beads or a pom or a couple poms and then a bead and a homemade pom and so on until you reach the almost-end. 

 

 Loop the end and knot and you are ready to hang it all up. It will be a bit heavier than you thought it would be but you will probably be most pleased and develop a slight addiction to making pom-poms and more garlands. I know I did...

 

 

Here is another one I made for a birthday gift for one of the sisters-a-go-go. I went with purples and blues for her...see how customizable these garlands can be? Pony beads work great and the little jeweled beads at a bit of pretty to the whole thing. A darning needle will work just fine and easily pierce the pom-poms. The pony beads I used for the top garland glow in the dark which I had no idea until I went to bed that night. Have fun and get to wrapping that yarn!