Pom poms and patience

Well, baby shower planning continues. My sister Sandy and I got together to make tissue paper pom poms which I found the tutorial for over at Martha Stewart's website. The tutorial makes it look so simple, just accordion fold eight pieces of tissue paper together, tie the center off and fan them out. Simple, right?


Not simple. 


Tissue paper is as delicate as, well, tissue paper. It tore, it got mangled, I personally had to throw one pom pom away due to its complete failure to do more then tear apart in my hands. The more it tore, the more impatient we became. Frustration and a serious headache took over and Sandy and I had to call the project quits for the night after making only seven pom poms. 


The next morning, I felt less violent towards the pom poms and was ready for another attempt. Here is what I learned. Pulling the fanned out tissue paper out one sheet at a time is a sure fire way to end up with torn paper, BUT pulling four sheets to the center at a time and then fanning them apart makes everything much much simpler because the four sheets of tissue paper are so much stronger then one! Suddenly I was on a roll and completed the remainder of the pom poms that morning THEN, on some sort of success high, went out and bought orange tissue paper and willingly made MORE! 


The results are so beautiful!

Finished product

Remember the little owlets I posted last week? Well I've completed the project! I made a baby owl mobile. The owls are tied around a cherry branch hoop with nylon line and the whole mobile is hung with raffia.

The morning after I finished my project we went to the baby shower! It was lovely, cucumber lemon iced water at every table, and a fully catered brunch. The hostess asked everyone to bring bibs which were hung on the tree, the mommy to be then picked her favorite one and the person who brought it (me!) won a delightful little goody bag. 

 All the pretty shower decorations

 Bibs in the tree

The bib I made

Robyn was so beautiful, I can't believe my dear childhood friend is about to have a child of her own!

Owl goodie bag full of owl themed loot for the new nursery 

Opening the gifts

The mobile!

It was a lovely day celebrating the new baby Robyn and Jarrid are bringing in to the world.

Old blouse New blouse

My little sister and I are so similar. We live in different towns but we will show up for family events dressed in the same shirt, wearing the same jewelry having never told each other that we had gone shopping. Well, we both have this shirt, in several different colors that we both love; and when my sister came home from her fabulous visit to India she brought home some silk; so the perfect thing to do with it seemed like make us both shirts just like the ones we both have!

One of the original shirts

So I made a pattern from the original shirt and created new shirts out of the silk that my sister bought me! 

New blouse made from Indian silk!

I can't wait to take the new shirt to my sister, I get to see her today, she is graduating with her Master's in Social Work and I couldn't be prouder of her!

Hoot hoot hoot!

Did you know that a group of owls is called a parliament of owls? It's true! Isn't that just the perfect name for such a wise and dignified bird? I'll tell you all one thing for sure, I have made at least a half parliament of owls this week!


I am lucky to have the space to store my leftover fabric bits which means that I can make many other littler projects out of them and I have loads of projects going for these scraps!

Fabric galore!

Since I've got owls on the brain I thought I would make some little owls to be a part of a bigger project (that I will share photo's with you of next week). So, for the start of the project, I made some tiny little owl body patterns for the little tiny owls.

4 inch owl pattern

I cut all the different portions from my multitude of fabric scraps to make 5 owlet fronts. 

I decided that their backs should be made from the same fabric as the main body on the front so I cut out solid owl shapes for the backs of all these little owls 

Owlet fronts and backs

Then I sewed the fronts and the backs of the owls together, turned them out and pressed them.

Owlets all turned out and pressed

The final project still has some finishing touches to be done and I will post the photos of the completed project next week, but I'm tickled by how cute these little guys are turning out to be!

Just for fun I put all the owlets with the mama owl. It makes me smile

Hot water baby

Last year I got seriously seriously sick, the only way that I could breathe was holding a hot water bottle to my chest. My boyfriend starting calling it my "baby" because I carried it around with me everywhere. Needless to say it was terrible, but I really got attached to that hot water bottle and I use it to solve all my aches and pains now (stiff joints, sore muscles ect.).

My naked "baby"

Throughout my sickness I "swaddled"the water bottle in towels but now I've decided to create a proper cover for my "baby" out of a super soft scarf. The cover has an opening in the back so that I can pull the water bottle out and wash the cover if I need to. 

Stylish new jacket for the "baby"

It's super snuggly soft and perfect for a sore neck or aching knee.  

Jewelry organizer

This weekend I painted a plain piece of pegboard to use it as a decorative place to hang my necklaces which have been tangled in a cigar box for far too long. First I painted it with several coats of white then created a hexagonal pattern with my cardboard template (which I made for the lampshade project, last week) and a sharpie marker. Then I mixed several different colors and painted in the hexagons. I didn't have any pegboard specific hooks around but I did have cord clips leftover from a training an extension cord in my last apartment which worked perfectly!

 Drying. Painted pegboard

All my necklaces neatly hung up!

I mounted the board with drywall screws screwed through cut pieces of cork behind the board to mount it slightly off the wall so that the hooks wouldn't damage the wall. 

I'm so pleased to have finally completed this project, it has been a long time coming. 

Inspiration: Citrus Country Fair UPDATE

Happy Friday everyone. Sorry that this one is late, blogger was down last night when I would have been posting. 

Last week I blogged about the pennants I'm making as decoration for the baby shower my sister and I are planning, today I wanted to post an inspiration board for our color palette and theme.

Our color palette is lemon, lime and orange with a country fair theme. We think that the bright colors and fun theme are just perfect for an outdoor, early summer shower. 

Image sources: Ferris wheel, fruit, tablescape, pinwheels

My sister has made what feels like thousands hundreds of pinwheels as table decor and we are making several hanging pompoms as well as pennant banners (50 feet and counting). The invitations went out last week and were beautifully designed by my brother-in-law who's talents are invaluable! We also ordered yellow, green and orange paper straws from Cupcake Social for an extra bit of fun!

The beautiful invitation and a few of the charming straws.

It is lovely to see the work coming together. Just a few more weeks until we get to throw the party! I can't wait to share the photos.

Hope you all have a great weekend.