Whimsical Easter Tree

The inspiration for this project comes from my childhood memories of Easter.  My mom made a little Easter tree every year with forsythia from our yard and egg nests that she had made with colored eggshells, ribbon, and chicks.  The fragile eggshell nests were saved from year to year; I’m amazed that they lasted more than a year or two. 

How she did it with real eggshells, I don’t know, because I tried at least 6 times and could not crack an egg neatly down the middle to save my life.  After having a big breakfast of eggs, I decided I’d just have to use the plastic ones.  Much easier, if not quite as elegant. 




This project required plastic eggs, 3/8” ribbon, chicks, nesting material, a glue gun, and some kind of branches.  My color scheme of pink, orange, and white was dictated by the ribbon in the $1 bin at Michaels.  I also got a package of 15 tiny chicks for under $2 on sale.





Start by cutting a length of ribbon about 5” long and tacking with hot glue to opposite sides of the eggshell to form a loop.





Attach more ribbon horizontally around the top edge of the eggshell, covering the edges of the loop.





When you get all the way around, cut the ribbon so it overlaps the original edge by about 1/2”.  Fold that 1/2” over and glue it to itself to form a 1/4” tab.  Glue the tab down over the original raw edge.





This will give you a nice finished edge.




Tuck some moss or Easter grass into the egg, add a chick, then hang it on your branches.  I used my faux-sythia.




Voila!  A cutie-pie Easter tree!




Keep an egg carton to store your nests in for next year.

Make Your Own Typography Spheres

{Chocolate giveaway is still open!}

I originally posted this project in April 2009, but I’ve decided to re-run it for CSI Project’s Typography challenge, because not too many people saw it back then, and because I still think it’s pretty neat! 

 

A couple of months years ago my friend Dixie and I were in Pottery Barn and saw a display with some ceramic alphabet balls. I don’t even remember looking for a price, but they were not on the website, so apparently were not available through the catalog.

We both loved the look and started brainstorming about how to create such a thing. Dixie thought of ping pong balls. I ran with that, and remembering some rub-on letters that I had, gave that a try. It worked great!

Coincidentally, the very next day I had an online gift certificate I needed to use. There were only two stores that I recognized that accepted it; one was Coldwater Creek, so I started there. I couldn’t believe it when I stumbled upon their Word Play Letter and Number Spheres! They were on clearance, and I got them for just a few dollars for the whole set.  They came in  large and small, and Dixie and I got both and divvied them up.  They no longer carry them, but I have since seen these type of ceramic alphabet balls in a number of places, usually for anywhere from $1 to $2 each!

 

I decided to go ahead and try one of the ping pong balls, just to see if it would work, and to give you the option of making them if you wanted to.

 

 

I got the little package of ping pong balls at Walmart, but they have a logo on them. If you were going to do this for real, you would want to get blank ones (check Ebay…they’re really cheap).

 

 

I cut out the rub-on letters individually, held it down sort of curving around the ball, and just rubbed it on with the stick. If you look closely at the top photo, you can see that each ceramic ball has the letter several times. Six, to be exact; four around the diameter and then one top and bottom.

 

 

Next, I gave it a few coats of glossy ModPodge. You can push a pin into the ball and use that to hold it while you brush on the ModPodge.

 

 

I then stuck the pin into some floral foam to let it dry. Obviously, if you were doing a bunch of these, you would need a lot of pins and a lot more foam to stick them in. Really, it could be anything that would support it and allow you to push the flat end of a straight pin into it. Maybe clay or playdough.

 

 

Here, I’ve put the ping pong ball in with the ceramic ones. It’s the ‘U’ on the top left. If it wasn’t a slightly different typography, I don’t think you could tell!

This was really quite easy, and you could make a bunch of them without too much effort.  But if you didn’t want to make the whole alphabet, you could always just spell out a special word, or your family’s initials, or whatever.

I’d love to know if you try this!  Have fun!

Organizational Inspiration

Despite having written myself a list of goals for the year, I have yet to start on anything.  I decided to review some of my better organizational projects over the past couple of years in the hopes that it would motivate me.

Summer 2009:  I took my pantry from A to B, and then when I decided the wicker baskets weren't working, from B to C.  Today it still pretty much looks like C, and just occasionally needs a little tidying up.

Fall 2009:  my master bathroom vanity area goes from A to B when Craig and my dad turn my vision into a reality and make medicine cabinets for me from leftover kitchen cabinet doors.

January 2010:  the computer desk gets cleaned up and all the paraphernalia hidden away behind a simple fabric curtain.

March 2010:  my kitchen cabinets get a little more user-friendly when Craig makes me a second pull-out shelf on the top.

December 2010:  I created safe ornament storage with plastic cups.

Linking to

Favorite Projects of 2010

Visit Southern Hospitality

I've got two favorite projects of the year (and let me just say that looking at everybody else's quantity of fabulous accomplishments makes me feel like a bit of a slacker!).
The first is my powder room vanity.  Not to brag, but I really think this was a rare stroke of genius on my part. I'm pretty good at copying things I see, but not the greatest at coming up with unique ideas, and to my knowledge, this is unique. 

For the story behind how I used my great-grandmother's antique mirror to create a "wash stand" out of the builder-grade vanity, see this post.

My other favorite project is my bedroom nightstands.  The one on the left was $10 on craigslist, and the one on the right was $46 at an antique mall.  I painted them both Heirloom White.  I love that they are similar, but not identical.

For befores and afters, and to see the old clunkers they replaced, see this post.  For more of the master bedroom makeover, go here.

What's your favorite project of 2010?

Front Door Wreath

I’ve been using the same Christmas wreath on my front door for the last several years.  I still like it, but I was ready for a change.  My inspiration was this Wild Berry wreath from Better Homes and Gardens.



I already had a twiggy wreath that has served me well in many capacities for the last 9 years.  Most recently, it has been my spring wreath.  I like the wildness of it, but for the Christmas wreath, I wanted to tame it a little.   Plus the branches stick out so much they grab at people’s hair and poke at their eyes when it’s hanging on the front door.  So I gave it a trim.



I bought some berry things at Michaels (pretty much everything Christmas is 1/2 off), and then cut them into individual picks with wire cutters.  Don’t be boxed in by what you see on the surface; always be thinking “how can I make this work for what I need?”.



After this I didn’t take any photos.  Bad blogger.  But I just tucked the picks in around the wreath and hot glued.  I also added silver ornaments.





I like it.  I’ve never hot-glued anything to it before, I’ve always been able to easily change it out for the next idea or season.  I hope I’m not going to be sorry about that later.  But for now, it’s good.
More Thrifty Gifty coming up this week, and the PB, RH, BD Knock-Off Party is this Friday!

Shower Curtain Pillows

I hope those of you who’ve seen this already don’t mind a bit of a rerun.  I’m reposting part of an old post for today’s pillow challenge at the CSI project.

Back in the summer I whipped up some pillows for my living room.  The area rug in that room is green, and so I wanted to carry that through to the accent pillows for the sectional. I started with some feather-filled pillow forms, a shower curtain, and a silk skirt, all picked up for a buck or two at thrift or consignment stores in the last year.

When I was originally planning this out in my head, I  knew I wanted to use a button closure for the shower curtain pillows, but was not excited at the prospect of making button holes (my sewing machine has become very temperamental of late).  But guess what?  Fabric shower curtains have a row of button holes along the top edge for the hooks.  It was brilliant! Basically, I just cut the shower curtain into strips, folded them over envelope-style with the button-hole edge positioned as the top flap, and sewed up the sides.  I made two of these.

 

 

For buttons, I went through my old button jar and picked six, all of them pearly white, but different designs.

 

I cut the skirt into front and back panels and sewed up three sides, and used a zipper from one of the original pillow covers for the fourth side.  I kept the skirt's contrasting edge for interest. The polka dot pillow (there are two of them) came from Target.  For a time they were selling just pillow covers for $4.99.  I decided not to worry about whether or not all the different greens work together, and instead think of it as fresh and fun.   Nature puts all different colors of green together, right?

I like my pillows cheap and comfy!

 

 

 

Before and After: My Favorite Room

I know I’ve posted bits and pieces of this before, but the CSI Project is having a Before and After party, so I decided to put it all together.

Our bedroom before:  messy, neglected, frumpy, yuck.

After:  paint, new lamps (JC Penney-$50 each), new bedding (duvet cover $60, 2 Ikea velvet pillows $15 each), new nightstands ($10 and $46).

 

Ikea curtain rod ($20), and curtains ($10):

Garage sale plates: $3 for set of 4

Total makeover (not including paint): approximately $280.

Having a bedroom we love:  priceless!

Don’t forget to enter the Willow House giveaway!