Light it up!

When we moved to San Francisco last year one of our lamps got it's shade crushed in the process. In the year since I have looked for a replacement shade online and around town, they are either too blandly boringly white or WAY to expensive for my shoestring budget. So as you might have guessed it has gone shadeless and sat in our closet for the past year. Well, inspired by a post on Apartment Therapy I have gotten up the gumption to make my own lampshade. I bought the washer top and the bottom ring online for less then $8 including shipping. 

The washer top ring for my lampshade

I had some neutral colored fabric in my closet and made a template for a hexagon to create a great pattern on my fabric!

Hexagon template

Pattern in process

I hot glued the finished fabric to the lamp rings and there you go....LAMPSHADE!

My trickiest project ever, accomplished for under $8.  I think that it turned out very well!

Friday clean-up

Today was a clean up day. Deep cleaned the kitchen (even the refrigerator (!) ) and cleaned up my sewing room. While I was cleaning the sewing room I found this amazing fabric that I've had for years but have never found the right project for it. Nothing quite suits the print of the fabric, any suggestions? I have YARDS of it!

Today I would also like to share another upcycling project with you. I have had this dress for about 6 years, I have grown tired of it in it's original form.

 The original dress (Sorry not the greatest picture)

I removed the red tie, red trim along the neck line and red tulle at the bottom. Replaced the red trim with yellow, removed the red tulle and embroidered yellow, pale yellow and white circles on the skirt. I bought a cute yellow skinny belt to finish the whole look off. 

I can't wait to have the opportunity to wear my "new" dress

Project: Finish the job

Today was a day for finishing projects. Each project was missing certain notions to finish the job so I ran to Britex (which is luckily within walking distance from me!!) to get some supplies and spent the rest of the day sewing. 


1st Project
Finishing a laptop case that I found a great tutorial for over at Crap I've Made. 
All that I needed was a zipper to complete this laptop case for my Giants fan boyfriend. 
I think he'll like it!

The dog's name is Marvin

2nd Project
I bet you didn't know that even though I make aprons for my clients all the time I have never made an apron for myself! Well, I finally started making an apron for ME this weekend and ran out of red thread when I was nearly done. I had to put off completing it until today but I'm so happy it's finished. I think it looks really cute and I am tickled to have an apron of my very own!

"L" for Laurie

3rd Project
This one, I'm embarrassed to say, has been over a year waiting to be finished. The missing item? Motivation. Terrible I know! I truly dislike putting zippers in but since I'd already done one for the laptop case I figured I could manage a second one. Now I have a summery dress to wear, which is great because it is definitely summertime in California. 

I can't wait for the chance to strut my stuff wear my new frock.

A hot day in the city

Friendly readers. I'm taking a break from sewing today, while I wait for my fabric order to arrive! 

Today it was quite hot in San Francisco and according to the weather report it's not cooling off any time soon. If you're anything like me; on a hot day you like a nice cold fruit smoothie, and personally, I like a scoop of granola on top of that. Well today I used the last of my store bought granola, and with no desire to leave the house I made my own!

It's so good, I don't know if I can stop eating it

I thought I'd share my recipe, created by me after reading quite a few recipes that all were far to large portions or had way to much sugar or dried fruit (not my favorite thing) in them for my taste.

Honey Vanilla Granola

2 Cups     Rolled Oats

1/4 Cup   Oat flour 

A dash of cinnamon

4 TBS       Honey

1 TBS       Brown Sugar

2 TBS       Melted butter or vegetable oil

2 TBS       Hot water

1/2 tsp     Vanilla extract

1/4 tsp     Salt

Preheat your oven to 300

To make oat flour, wiz 1/4 cup of rolled oats in your food processor or blender until it looks like a semi fine flour.

In a medium sized bowl stir together the rolled oats, oat flour and a dash of cinnamon and set aside. 

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter (or warm the vegetable oil), add the brown sugar, salt and the wet ingredients stirring until the sugar and salt have dissolved.  Drizzle this mixture into your dry ingredients stirring until completely combined. Pour onto a cookie sheet and firmly pack the mixture together across the sheet (I made mine approximately 1/2" thick), cook in the oven at 300 degrees for 30 minutes. 

After the first 30 minutes break the packed mixture into clusters and stir spreading your granola across the cookie sheet. Bake for approximately 45 more minutes or until the granola is golden brown, stirring every 20 minutes. 

Allow the granola to cool, it will crisp up nicely once it has cooled completely. 

Store in an air tight container. 

Enjoy!

Party pennants and a fine fox

All my friends and relatives are having babies! Yesterday I posted about a bag I made for a friend's baby shower. Today I worked on decorations for my cousin's baby shower which my sister and I are planning. (By the way, we might have missed our calling, my sister and I might be great party planners). The theme of the baby shower is "County Fair" with a lemon, lime and orange color palette. We are holding it in a family friend's beautiful backyard, I truly cannot wait to see it all come together. 


Today I made about 50 feet of lively citrus colored pennants. I cut the individual pennants using mainly fat quarters which were on sale at our Joann fabric store when we went shopping for supplies. I got about 6-7 pennants per fat quarter, depending on the "squareness" of each cut of fabric (some were cut a bit too crooked to fit 7). The choice to use pinking sheers was both decorative as well as preventative since they will help prevent the fabric from unraveling during the party. Stitched them on to grosgrain ribbon and voila!  Pennants for days!

I hung them in my living room for the effect. (I now need to have a party here!)

My second project of the day was another animal project. Specifically, my favorite animal a FOX!

For proof of the fox's "favorite status", the much prized "Secret fox" in my alcove. 

I decided to make a pillow with a fox on it for our bed. Started out exactly like the owl did in my prior blog. First I sketched out the pattern.

The orange portions of the fox pattern

Then I cut it out of the orange fabric and stitched it onto a sturdy white fabric, attached that to my pillow and there you have it, a clever little fox for my bedroom. I love him!

Upcycling and animals!

This weekend I decided it was about time that I did something with a canvas bag that has been sitting around my apartment for way to long over a year. Every time that I see it I think, "what a great bag, I should really do something to make it cute." But I always have a more pressing sewing projects to keep me occupied and I put it on the back burner

Great bones, great size but so "blah"

Enter a baby shower invitation, an owl themed nursery, and a seed of inspiration!




I looked up owl illustrations on line to get a feel for the basic bones of an owl for my owl pattern. Then sketched it out on an 8.5"x11" ruled paper (because it was available), cut apart all the pieces and I was ready to begin!

Owl pattern, drawn and cut apart

I had the perfect fabric scraps (available to me since I never throw anything away hahaha!)

Using my fabric scraps I pieced together a darling owl to make this bland tote bag something fun and adorable to give my friend her shower gifts in!

Hooty hoot!

Back after a long delay

Well well well, I started this blog and then seemingly abandoned it immediately after. The truth is I didn't abandon it, I took a job working on a movie about the 2004 Tsunami in Thailand and have been traveling since. 

View from my hotel in Thailand

Now I am back and ready to stay still for more then just one moment. I'm excited to begin blogging here regularly and share my sewing projects, my home decorating progress, things that I find beautiful and maybe every once in a while a recipe or two. I hope that you will find inspiration in my projects and find creativity in your own home.

I've been trying to do a lot of upcycle projects lately so next week we'll begin with that. Have a lovely weekend darlings!

My new flower obsession? These darling Craspedia Blossoms