postcards on the edge- of the hallway

My mom picked up these wire ornament frames from Pottery Barn- for less than a dollar apiece! I wish she had bought even more, there are so many things to do with them!



The silver wire frame holds a 4x6 photo. They originally came with a red velvet ribbon, meant to hang on the Christmas tree as an ornament. However, I immediately had other plans for them.




I took some 1.5" (ish) green satin ribbon from my stash, and threaded it through the top wire loop of one frame, behind the photo, through the bottom wire loop and then through the top wire loop of the next frame, and so on. I made a little loopy at the top so I could hang it on a nail, and secured the ribbon with a few hidden stitches in matching thread.



See how the ribbon covers up part of the wire frame? Behind the ribbon I used some yarn to tie the frame together. This might not be necessary if your ribbon is wired or thick enough, but with three frames chained together, I wanted to make sure they stayed together.



Instead of using photos, I used three postcards I bought when I went to France eight years ago. I love the idea of changing these out seasonally for other postcards, photographs, or even Christmas or birthday cards.

Other ideas:
-Place a festive photo in it and tuck or tie onto an existing wreath
-Glue patterned scrapbook paper onto the back of photos, and use ribbon to tie from a chandelier
-turn the frames sideways and tie the frames together or string onto ribbon for a garland (they are pretty lightweight)

new blog love

I've taken several days off from blogging daily since I finished my 101 Things goal to post daily for the month of October. It was a great exercise, but difficult to come up with something useful every single day, especially as my day job was busy, I was training for my marathon, and was trying to get those baby blankets finished (result: still only ONE done). I'll try to post more often, instead of once every quarter like I was!!

Blogging daily has also forced me to find new and different blogs in an effort to find inspiration and new craft projects. I've realized that a lot of crafty projects by crafty people are created out of necessity- a need for a themed baby blanket, a need for a certain knit hat, a need for a child's costume. I don't have children (Bristow would eat anything I made anyway!), so it's hard for me to craft original projects because there are very few things I need around the house that I can make. Except clothes, but the baby blanket project taught me I'm a crap seamstress (I wrote "crap sewer" first, but thing it looks like soo-er, not so-er. ha!).

I've stumbled upon a few different blogs lately:
One Pearl Button- I think I found her through CraftZine but now I can't find the link
-Sweater Cloche and Gloves- she remakes the cutest things with old sweaters. I want to start knitting and sewing more now!

Zakka Life- I've found this previously a few times, but am loving some of her older projects (or, okay, ALL of her projects). I'm sad we don't have cute Japanese stuff in my town.
-Christmas Star Wreath
-Christmas Card Luminaries, which would be great for using up the hundreds of leftover xmas cards I have from last year's projects
-Vase made out of recycled bottles

Crockpot 365- I've been reading a lot of coupon clipping sites lately, and one of them linked to her. She's gluten-free AND is making a new slow cook recipe every day. Insane! But she has some delicious ones I want to try!!
-Like this Autumn Sausage Rice Casserole. Must have. NOW.

blue and green equals art

I finally hung some pictures in my house. Only two years late! Story of my life.

The downstairs of my house is painted green, and I've been accenting it with blue- blue glass vases, blue pillows (to come), and artwork with touches of blue. I have a large, gorgeous photograph I bought at Penrod several years ago. It's of a bright blue door somewhere in Santorini- I love it, and I can't believe it's been hiding in my closet for two years. It's my first and only true "art" piece so far, and I even tried to find that door in Santorini when I went four years ago. Alas, I couldn't find it. I did, however, take many other "blue" photos in Greece (pretty easy to do; everything there is bright blue!) and I am going to accompany those with some other "art."

I took some square frames from the clearance section at Target- three bucks apiece last winter. I added some pages taken from a calendar we gave my Mom last year. It's a page-a-day type of beaches from around the world. I picked four of my favorites and hung three on a column in my dining room, and added another to an end table that was missing something in my living room.




(sorry the flash blew it out so much)

There are over a hundred photos left, and I didn't want to waste them! I took some photo coasters that had been sitting empty and unused, and cut up four other calendar pages for those. I didn't want a recognizable "beach scene," so I picked four aerial shots that had texture to them- they are all water, but it's hard to tell when a small section is used in a close-up.



Tomorrow I'm going to finish using some of the other calendar pages in more square frames. I love making art out of found pages like this...it's professional photography, but it didn't cost much, and I'm recycling the pages too, in a way.

thrift scores!

I went to four Goodwills on Saturday for their 50% off sales, and I scored some major loot.


Brand new Halloween decorations- from Target's 06 seasonal collection. Two of the ghost bags are for my neighbor kids, the napkins and a ghost bag are for my Witches Caldron swapee. Not sure what I'm going to do with the purple spideys yet...maybe swap them? And as for the pumpkin, well, you can never have too many!


Sparkly silver purse for my sister, who lost her silver wristlet. Then found it again right after I gave this to her.


Almost-queen sized thrifted Springmaid flat sheet. It's quite a bit longer than a queen bed, and almost as wide. It's super soft, but still kind of smells like perfume even after washing. The curtain is a Shabby Chic Target curtain, and I didn't realize it was a curtain and not a table runner until later. But it perfectly matches my freshly painted bathroom!