Burned silk flowers and their multiple uses.....

{Silky Flower Hair Clips}

I know, I know.....these are on every blog and are in no way original, but still......I think that they are so pretty!  And recently, I have worn them a few places and people have asked me how I made them.....so here's a quick tutorial....

Somewhere along the way, I lost the picture of my thrifted scarf......I got a sheer white scarf at Gift and Thrift for $1.00 and it has been burned into a multitude of projects.....so pretend that you saw it!

I also used an old shirt that I never wear......ignore the fly-swatter....as soon as it gets warm in Lancaster County all the flies come out....grr!

Cut circles out of your silky fabric....truly, I didn't measure (why is that not a surprise!)....you're burning the edges....they are going to be random anyway.....why worry about a perfect circle???

At first I was really nervous and was afraid that I would catch the house on fire....but it more melts than flames....although it will flame!  It might be wise to have a bowl of water nearby and nothing flammable real close by.....

Alternate idea......I made some minature flowers.....sewed them together in the center....added a little pearl and then hot-glued it to a ring-form.....it is sooo cute!  It gets noticed everytime I wear it!

I also made a bunch of different layers with coordinating fabric and then sewed (and hot-glued) them to a black sweater.  Some of them were a little floppy....they needed another touch of hot glue!

I made the sweater during the winter....yeah, I am just getting this post up..... but I think that I may try embellishing a plain white t-shirt with some spring patterened burned flowers....now I just need to find a spring-y/summer-y scarf to burn!

One more suggestion.....just take a plain white t-shirt and add twisted fabric flowers up in the corner!

 

And finally....I used this t-shirt from Goodwill....

I know....adorable "ain't" it!  I made twisted fabric flowers to glue into the center of my silky flowers.....

Since I am trying to grow my hair long and we're entering that 'ole awkward-ponytail phase, I can hot glue these flowers to an alligator clip and throw it in the back of my hair by my ponytail and feel cute!



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Mother's Day....

{My Mother's Day in pictures...}

 Planting flowers......

........and more flowers!

 

Listening to geese......

 



Planting the garden.....

Roasting marshmallows.......

........giant ones!

Enjoying the sound of laughter (and a tad bit of arguing)..............

Watching the sunset.......

 

"I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart;

I will tell of all the marvelous things you have done.

I will be filled with joy because of you.

I will sing praises to your name, O Most High."

~Psalm 9:1-2

Gratefully..........

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I'm working on a new project....

 {My daughter's room....}

So life here has been a little crazy.......while I anticipate the end of our homeschooling year, it also brings with it a TON of work!  We live in one of the more regulated homeschool states which means.....PAPERWORK and TONS of it!! 

So I have been in the midst of putting together our portfolios, ordering new curriculum for next year and writing lesson plans.....which means that not much crafting is taking place....

But I am working on my daughter's bedroom and at the moment my hubby is correcting my bad angles that I cut with the miter saw, so I am hoping to reveal it this week!

So here is my "before".....

When we moved to Lancaster, I was pregnant with my daughter.  It was a huge ordeal....each of my kids came very early and she was almost born at 29 weeks....a crazy story that at some point I will share.

We moved at the height of the housing market, so it was actually more affordable to build rather than buy....exactly what a 30 week pregnant woman on bedrest with 2 other small children wants to hear!

While we  were waiting for our house to be built, we lived in an apartment/townhouse.....the was infested with mice.....14 of them to be exact.  They mocked me....sticking their little heads up through the stove, running over my silverware......it was a nightmare!  (And there's still so much more to the story.......)

By the time we moved into our house, I had a 3 month old baby and was suddenly, abruptly, unexpectedly thrown into the world of homeschooling!

So the fact that my daughter's room has pink walls it quite an achievement!

It's not that I have avoided doing her room, it just that her room has a lot of emotion packed into it....memories of some of the hardest months of my life.

But I decided....it's time!  It's time to cover the horrid color of pink that I picked and go with something vibrant that suits my vibrant daughter!

Enter....Behr 520E-1 Tropical Breeze in eggshell....

Some beadboard wallpaper.....

 

And I'm really excited about what I am going to do with this wall.....

It has something to do with what's in these boxes from IKEA!! 

Stay tuned!  I'll try to reveal it all this week!

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How to fix a clogged drain.....

{Bathroom grim at it's best!}

Warning:  GRAPHIC photos of moldy bathroom, grimy, drain-clogged goo to follow.......

I'm growing my hair long.....my husband has been asking me to do this for 14 years and I've always found an excuse not to.....I'm now out of excuses......

What that means in real-life is a constant supply of CLOGGED DRAINS!!  (It's not just me....my daughter has long hair, too! )

So I am making this post for myself so that I have picture instructions for next month when I need to do this again!

Now I realize....not all drains are alike.....if you happen to have one like mine, you are in luck, if not....go ask your husband for help! LOL

So.......crawl under you sink and look at the pipes.....your drain-plugger thinger is attached to stuff underneath...(Sorry....I have no idea what this stuff is called! ) 

I needed to squeeze the clip that was attached to the skinny metal rod to remove it.

After I squeezed it together I was able to slide it off that skinny metal rod.....that made that skinny metal rod loose....do you see the big screw in the top center of the picture....

You want to remove it.....remember "lefty loosy, righty tighty!"  (See Dad....I learned something! )

Once you have loosened that screw the whole piece will slide out of your pipe......

*Now here's an important little note......you've now made a HOLE in your pipe...any water you run will pour OUT OF THAT HOLE!! 

(Yes...the first time I did this, I didn't know about that wee-little hole and had to use about 5 towels to soak up all the water...grr!)

Once that piece slide out of your pipe, your drain-stopper-thingy will come right out of the drain......and this is where it's about to get GROSS!

There was just no way to crop this photo.....every time I did, it made the drain-stopper bigger and the mold come closer to the viewer!

The first thing I do is stick a paper towel down the drain to get the first round of gunk.....

And then I spray lots of this......like mist hanging in the air a lot!

Truly...it's like a science experiment down there.....hair + toothpaste = a substance that could be used as a weapon of mass destruction!  The smell alone made me want to vomit! (.....but I take comfort in that fact that we ALL have drain innards that look like this! )

If you drain is really bad (like mine!), you may need to dive down there with the needle-nose pliers.....

And for anyone still reading this post.....just work the directions in reverse and put everything back together.....always making sure to CHECK FOR LEAKS before you walk away and call the job done!

Happy plumbing!!

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Thrifty Thursdays #8.....

{Thrifty Thursdays #8}

One of my favorite things aboutThrifty Thursdays  is seeing all of your amazingly creative ideas!!  I look forward to each and every link that gets posted!

One of  my favorites this week was this ugly turned gorgeous thrift store clock....

{Ticking Away}

We've all seen them....sitting unwanted on the shelves of Goodwill, but West Furniture Revival bought one and brought it vibrantly back to life!  I will be scouring the shelves of our Goodwill to make one just like that!

If you are still looking for a last minute Mother's Day idea, Angie at The Cellar Door Stories turned cupcake liners...

....into a beautiful bouquet!  Love it!

{Cupcake Liner Bouquet}

Quatrefoil is appearing everywhere right now (along with Chevron designs...) and JessaJill gives an awesome tutorial for how to make a Quatrefoil canvas!

{Quatrefoil Canvas}

I love all of her pictures and step-by-step instruction!!

two friends. two cities. made this custom piece of art work from lattice wood....

'

{Lattice wood art}

...an inexpensive idea for creating some custom artwork!!

Finally, Viv from the V Spot created this wonderful outdoor chandelier....

{Blue Twig Chandelier}

.....from twigs!!!  So pretty!!

Thrifty Thursdays

So......it's time again to share your creative....(and thrifty) ideas! 

Here are some very simple suggestions for the link-up:

1. Please become a follower of Thrifty Decorating

2. Be sure to link to your POST and not your blog.

3. Please copy and paste my link button somewhere in your post

or blog so that others can link back.

4. Share some comment love....We all love to get them!!

Don't forget....once you've linked at Thrifty Thursdays, you can go over to link up with Thrifty Thursday at Saved by Love Creations!

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Decorative Hand Soap

{Mother's Day Gift Idea.....} 

So....it's hitting me that Mother's Day is practically here.  YIKES!   For whatever reason, Mother's Day is never truly relaxing for me because I have a MIL and a mother to buy for.  It's not necessarily the buying, but the thinking of creative, heartfelt gifts to make the day special.....do you have this problem, too?? 


So, while browsing some of my favorite blogs, I found this!

Homemade hand soap!!!  Isn't it adorable!  For a complete tutorial check out Homespun with Love .

She made it with only these materials......from The Dollar Store!!!

I'm seeing it tucked in a cute basket with some new dishtowels and potholders??

What are your gift ideas for Mother's Day?



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$1.00 Birthday Party

{Birthday on a budget!}

When Mindy emailed me saying that she was going to try to decorate her friend's daughters 1st birthday party for 99 cents I have to admit that I was rather doubtful that she could do it!


Well......she did it!

Using what she already had around the house and a BOGO offer for 98 cent streamers, she pulled it off magnificently!

 

In fact, some of the guests were so fooled that they commented, "This is way too much money for a first birthday party."

 

If you get a chance, hop over to a {day} with lil mama stuart to see all the details of how Mindy designed this gorgeous first birthday on an amazing budget!

Thanks so much for sharing it with us, Mindy!!

 

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GW lampshade redo...

{Fabric Covered Drumshade}

I found an AWESOME deal at GW recently......a lampshade for $1.97!! Now, mind you, the lampshade that had been on my floor lamp was a wedding gift!! So it was almost 15 years old.....had moved between at least 3 states and even more residences because we rented and owned in some of those states!  The poor thing was ready to retire!

My Materials:

Fabric

Cheap drum shade fixture

Trim

Spray Adhesive  (Note to self....do not get on fingers!!)

Okay......so I am going to tell you the right way to do this, not show you because in doing this I made ALOT of mistakes!  I now know how to do it the right way, but I was not about to rip off the fabric ONE MORE TIME!!

Piece of advice #1......if this is your first attempt at covering something circular choose FLORAL fabric and not stripes!! Stripes become annoyingly crooked as you go around an object!

If you ignore piece of advice #1, then I would suggest that you cut TWO strips of fabric.  One long strip of fabric just gets wrinkled when you try and make it go around something circular....I think that it probably has some mathematical tie to circumferance? pi?.......one of those circular math concepts that I chose to ignore in 6th grade......

Because I am totally and completely lazy, I didn't "measure".  I just folded over the fabric leaving an allowance of about 3 inches on each side and cut. 

Now.....if you choose to ignore my advice about cutting it into the 2 strips and you are still choosing to do stripes, then you need to leave ALOT more allowance than 3 inches! Probably like 6-10 inches......it's that whole circle thing again.....

While it looks like I had enough allowance to tuck under, I didn't!  As I went around to circle and tried to keep my stripes straight, I started to run out of fabric!

You can see from the picture above (and below!) how close I was coming to the edge of my fabric....

Using your spray adhesive, spray the drum shade and then carefully stretch the fabric to fit.  With stripes, you've got to make sure that they are perfectly straight......I was so wishing for flowers at this point!  Just keep working your way around the shade....spraying and stretching until you meet your starting edge.

{I discovered that if you move fast enough....you can actually remove the fabric if you have put it on wrong and it's crooked!}

Once you have the fabric adhered to the middle part of the shade, start to hot glue the top or bottom edge down, working your way around to circle.  Do the same for the other side

Don't be fooled by my photo.....the other side is a tad bit crooked and it has bumps....grr!  And I have absolutely no idea why there is a tiny photo within that larger photo or how to fix it!

Originally, I planned to put trim on the bottom, but when I started gluing it, it just looked stupid!  I'd like at some point to get beaded trim like Sarah did at Thrifty Decor Chic, but I'm going to need a coupon....it's kind've expensive!

Overall, I am really pleased with my cheap drum shade redo. At some point, I am going to probably go and buy floral fabric and try again! But I need to decide what color I am going to paint the walls first!



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