Yarn wreath for Mom

A year ago I showed you a couple of yarn wreaths I had made to hang on our doors. I decided to make one for my mom for Mother’s Day this year! To get some ideas I looked around on Pinterest. Have you been to pinterest yet? If not, why not? It’s fabulous! Anyway, I found some inspiration that led me to this. I made my very own version of one of the wreaths, and this is how it turned out.

And here is Mom with it on Mother’s Day, as posted on Facebook:

Making this one made me want to make some more! It’s sort of addicting. Making the felt flowers is pretty fun. The hardest part is guessing on the size of what you cut because it’s hard to tell how big the flower will turn out! Here’s a tutorial I would like to try out next time.

Office picture collage

This is the final project I worked on last weekend. I have been meaning to replace the framed poster that was hanging in our office on the same wall as our desk and computer. I wanted to change it up. Recently I acquired some budget friendly items and I decided that it would work to hang them together in the office:

One 8×10 photo canvas from canvas people which I got for free ($49.99 value) and paid $14.99 shipping.

One 8×10 photo canvas from winkflash which I got for free ($49.99 value) and paid $8.99 shipping.

One 11×14 photo poster from Snapfish which I got for free ($6.99 value) and paid $2.99 shipping.

One matted picture frame (for 11×14 photo poster) from Big Lots for $12.

One photo frame which I purchased a couple years ago from Target clearance.

Two pieces of wall art from Goodwill for $1 each.

I started with all the recently acquired items and then added the picture frame I had to complete it. I am pretty happy with how it turned out!

Clockwise from top left: Trev and I in Sheboygan by Lake Michigan, Laguna Beach from our CA trip last March, Spring trees last year on Theo Wirth Parkway 1/2 mile from our house, a dahlia from my garden last summer.

Here’s where it is in the office. Looking at this photo makes me want to do some organizing!

This is in the same room where I have all my scrapbook stuff, as well as my dresser and closet! We live in an old house, and the closet in our bedroom is barely big enough for Trevor’s clothes, let alone both of ours. This room isn’t completely *mine* but almost, but don’t feel bad for Trevor- he has his work from home desk and video game room downstairs.

The Slide Lamp

The second project I’ve been wanting to complete for a while and finished last weekend is a slide lamp! I originally saw this idea on She’s Crafty, a TV show I didn’t know existed until we canceled cable over a year ago. It looked like a fabulous idea! At one point I mentioned to Mom that I had hoped to make one. Several months ago she gave me a small bag of old slides that she didn’t want to keep. Most of them were of a parade and of Mom and her brothers and other family opening Christmas presents when they were kids. I knew they would be fun to use, but I didn’t have enough yet. Well, when we were at my parents’ for Easter Mom handed me a whole shoebox full of slides that were her great aunt Linda’s, (so my great great aunt). All of these slides were taken on trips she took, some in California and the southwestern states, and many on her travels in Europe. They appear to have been taken in the 60’s, and a small percentage of them have people in them. Once I had this box of slides I knew I could make my very own slide lampshade!

On Friday my friend Jen and I went thrift shopping and she helped me find an old lampshade I could tear apart to use as my base. It was $1.40 at a small thrift shop near her house. Not long after that we found a lamp at the Salvation Army for $5.99. At a craft store I purchased parchment paper to attach to the back of the slides, and 225 jump rings that I would be using to attach the slides (with a glue stick). I was really excited to make it, so late that night I started attaching the parchment paper to the slides while we watched TV. On Saturday I completed the project. It did take quite a bit of time to put this together, but I’m really happy with the results.

I have the lamp on an end table in our living room, which is the perfect spot.

I don’t know the stories behind any of these pictures, but it is fun to imagine. The strangest slides I found where a pair- one of an ambulance, and one of a woman on a stretcher going into the ambulance!

With the help of two Jens: The hoop wall.

I finished off the month of April working on projects I’ve been meaning to do for months! Here’s the first one I completed.

I saw this on Apartment Therapy and had to do one in my house!

I have been seeing lots of similar wall art, and had discussed it with my cousin Jen. She got me started on the project by sending me three little works of art for my birthday that she had made for me.

How cute are they? After she sent me those, I couldn’t wait to get them on the wall. I found some embroidery hoops at a thrift store, and then the other day I decided I wanted to get everything else. My friend Jen went to some thrift stores and crafts stores with me to get everything else I needed, and Friday night I made all of my hoops while Trevor and I watched the final season of Friday Night Lights on DVD.

I cross-stitched this one:

The rest I just put fabric in. Trevor helped me hang them all up on the wall in our front room. So this is what you see when you walk in our front door now:

I love how it  turned out! I bought the mirror at IKEA for $9.99.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

Now if only it were in a place where I’d actually see it more. 🙂