It's an Internet Valentine's Day, Hartwell Pollard!

 

Hartwell's birthday is Valentine's Day. And this is his first birthday in school...okay, preschool. And since he's still little and still likes hearts, I tried to make it special for him. 

It turned out very internet-ie. I think I went to a different place for everything! 

First, we went to Cottage-Industrialist and picked out a Valentine for his friends. The alligator, of course!

Then I went to Blonde-Designs for the little sticker to hold the lollipop in the card. Hartwell did the "H," I did the "artwell."

Next I visited the long thread and saw their cute idea for recycled crayon hearts.

 

  

Cute, right? I just love them! 

Then, Bee fell asleep.

  

While he slept, I made some bags for Hartwell's teachers. I never did anything for Christmas, so I thought, "Now's my time!" I used a tutorial from Indie House, which I love and have used before. I added the bit of ribbon. They need a little something to hold on to when you zip and unzip. The pouches are filled with Hershey's Hugs and Kisses with a note that reads, "Hugs and Kisses, Love, Hartwell."

As if that weren't enough, I also made a little matchbook inspired notepad to go with the crayon. The paper is 4" x 5" and the matchbook paper is 4-1/4" x 11". Fold and staple. Then I used butyl to attach the crayon to the paper.

  

Since the little gift is a crayon and paper, we're planning on coloring! My mother-in-law, an excellent and speedy artist, drew some coloring pages for me and scanned them on over! I was going to show one to you, it's so cute, she drew Hartwell, but it's a pdf. Pretend it's here:

The last thing I made, was timed to be last. I didn't want any sticky fingers getting into them. Didn't stop Bee. He had that giant nap! I found these rice krispie hearts at Skip to My Lou. I didn't add the chocolate to them, but I did add sprinkles. Hartwell was very excited. He said, "Hey, that rhymes with me!" Heart does rhyme with Hartwell. Smart kid.

So, now, I'm almost positive I'm gonna have dreams about waking up late and missing the party. I'm hoping if I mention it to you now, it won't happen. I'm also hoping for a new, amazing handbag. If it's going to happen, maybe that purse will come with it.

One Nightstand. Cheap & Easy.

 

 

Hi Everyone! My mom brain kicked in and I sent the wrong link! But this nightstand is cute right? Here's the correct Thing I Love on Thursday.

Sorry, I'm new!

It's finished! I think it turned out pretty cute. Much harder than I thought it would be, but totally worth it. 

I started with a plain, pine bedside table (industry term!). I thought I would paint it some crazy color but was inspired by this:

Not Catherine O'Hara, although she is an inspiration, but that excellent wardrobe to her left. Or stage left. Or your right. Anyway, it's gorgeous and my wheels immediately started turning when I saw it in Penelope.

Before:

The first thing I did was paint the inside a teal-blue color, since I wasn't decoupaging it. But if I did it again, I would paint the whole thing. If a little blue peeks through it's much prettier than wood. 

Next, I cut the paper. I bought a scrapbooking stack with a palette I liked on sale for $8. It was this one, 180, 12x12 sheets. I went through the stack pulling out the pages I wanted and getting it down to the exact mix of colors. Then I cut them into 3"x4" pieces and put them in order by color family.

Blues, oranges, patterns, orange/purples, purples, blue/purple/oranges.This makes it much easier when you go to glue them to the table. Nothing too similar is next to each other.

After a poor start, I tried just using the ModPodge to adhere the paper, I decided to spray glue the bedside table and place pieces on. This is good for two reasons: 1. no wrinkling/bubbling and 2. you can reposition! Genius.

For the sides and the edges..it's tricky. For the edging around the table top I cut 4" x 1" strips, sprayed the glue to the backs of the strips and adhered them to the edge by kind of curling them under. For the vertical edges, I used 4" x 2" strips and centered them on the edge and wrapped them. Creating a border on the outside and inside. You can see it better in this photo:

Since the inside of the drawer was kind of gross, I just spray glued a 12" x 12" piece and popped it in.

 

To finish it off, I found an Anthropologie knob from a previous project that was resting inside my garage. I remember that knob was expensive, like $10, which is more than I spent on the whole project.

Here it is! All done and pretty. I walked into my bedroom after I redecorated this little area and I did a double take because it was so pretty. It needs some wall color, but still! Gorgeous!

Check out DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land !!
and
Metamorphosis Day!!

It's curtains for you. Curtains.

Last night I had one of those moments of inspiration and  ran to the basement to get materials to create a little valance for my kitchen. I just used scrapbooking paper and some crazy double stick rug tape I had lying around.

Previously, I had some super cool roman blinds I had made out of rice paper. Grommets and everything! But they weren't entirely functional. And eventually the sun kind of bleached them to nothing.

I took a dowel rod and affixed two wooden caps to the ends and painted them yellow. Then used cup hooks to attach the dowel to the window.

For the shade, I covered the rod with double stick tape and just wrapped the top of the paper around it. Then I trimmed the bottom with scallop shears. It's not perfect, you really have to be precise, but from a distance it looks pretty cute!

Advent Calendar!

 I've had this idea for an advent calendar in the back of my mind for a while. Then yesterday, I was at Big Lots and I found 8 x 8 Christmas scrapbook paper for $3. $3?!

So I bought a couple packs and went to town folding. It's a pretty simple origami paper cup that I learned in third grade.

The numbers I found here. (If anyone wants to create some 1-2" numbers that are printable through etsy, I would totally buy them!) I just scaled it to fit my page and printed it on matte photo paper. Then cut them all out. Which was nuts. Hence the 1-2" idea. Then I just need a punch.

Here's how it looks hung up. There is NO light in that area, so photographing this was heinous. I hate using the flash.

 

Hartwell has already instructed me to fill them with candy. I don't think he's over Halloween yet.

Bee's Birthday!

Thanks to my cottage industrialist for the google talk. She helped me figure out the bad asp mailing label. Seriously, Cameron, you should rent yourself out on google talk. $20/hour for inspiration and links. But not for me. I'd have to get a second job to support my habit.