Put a Bird on it! An Easy Way to Decorate a Throw Pillow

 Before we get started, if you haven't seen the Portlandia 'Put a Bird on it' sketch, please feel free to watch it now.  Portlandia is one of those shows that are totally dumb but I keep going back to for some reason.  I can't tell you how many times I've quoted the Sacajawea sketch even though it's the most annoying thing in the world to watch.  


If there's anything I love, it's super easy crafts that you can use to decorate your home.  Today I'm going to show you how I put a bird on a throw pillow.

1. Get a plain throw pillow that you like.  I bought two apple green pillows for my couch.

2. Draw or print out the shape you want and then cut it out.  I wanted a bird on a branch, so I sketched it out on a piece of paper.

3. Pin the paper on felt and cut it out.  Don't make the mistake I did, buy non-pilling felt!

4. Hand stitch around the edges of the design onto your pillow.

5. Done!  See how easy that was?

Baby's First Birthday Infographic

You may be thinking, 'Wait, she has a baby?" Don't worry, I don't have a secret child I have hidden from all of you.  I do, however, have a very adorable nephew.  I made him this cute little infographic for his mom to put up at his birthday party.

Pretty frickin' adorable

Do you have a young child with a birthday coming up?  I might make one of these for you too.  But unless I love you as much as I love the Pattys (which is a whole lot) then you are probably going to have to pay for it.  Money doesn't grow on trees around my house, ya know? :)

Embrace Your Inner Mermaid-How to Make a DIY Seashell Headband

 Being both a redhead and a fish-lover, it just makes sense that I love the combination of the two: mermaids.  I had dreams to do a mermaid-inspired photoshoot, and I was lucky enough to find someone who would do whatever crazy thing I asked her to do.  Thanks Malae!  To make this vision come to life, I thought a seashell headband would be awesome.  So, here's how I (and by I, I mean Blake with a bit of direction from me) made it.

Step 1: Gather materials.  You will need some shells, a headband, a glue gun, and (optional) some thread.  The shells and coral were gathered from beaches in Hawaii.  The starfish were purchased (one in Hawaii, one here.)  I already had a bunch of sand dollars.

Step 2: Put a big glob of hot glue on the back of the shells.  If you don't care about the headband or the shells and want to keep this forever, go ahead and stick the shell right on there.  I wanted to use the shells later for another project, so instead Blake placed some thread inside the glue blob so that the shells could be tied to the headband.  Then tie the seashells onto the headband with the thread.  Trim the ends so they don't poke out.

 

 

Step 3: Model your new awesome mermaid headband.

Blake is so going to kill me

 

Am I crazy for asking people to put starfish on their head?  Maybe.  But I don't care because I love the end result.

A Decoration for Every Holiday

I just finished my first craft in pretty much forever, so I am pretty excited about it.  I saw this cute framed pumpkin on pinterest, but why stop there?  I designed one for every season and can keep this decoration up all year long!

January: Snowman

 

February: Heart

 

March: Shamrock

 

March/April: Easter Egg

 

May/June & August: Umbrella/Beach Umbrella

 

July: Star

 

September/October/November: Pumpkin

 December: Christmas Tree

 I'm sure there are lots of other fun shapes you could think of to use for the different times of year.  It's a really easy project that I think turned out pretty cute!

Decorating is fun!

I've finally started decorating our new place.  It just seems a bit pointless to decorate when there's not even baseboards or outlet covers lol.  So today I took Blake to Hobby Lobby.  I love that store so much.  They're always having sales.  All of their floral stuff was 50% off so I got some lovely flowers, greenery, and black pebble things for this vase that we have.  I also got two more stretched canvases (they come in packs of two).  I love the flowers, I think they look so great on our bookshelf by that picture frame with 3 pictures in it that I think is so cute.  With the canvases I plan on doing something like this:

Of course the only canvases that were square were tiny.... and the big ones would have to be special ordered and cost me a TON, so I decided to stick with my 16x20s.  I was thinking black background, and then the tree would either be white, apple green, or the color of our wall (we still have paint left over from painting, it's a light tan color). 

Tomorrow I'm going to Tai Pan with my mom since I have a gift card for there.  I am so excited!  I love decorating!

Here's some pics of the new flowers:

A real tree!!!

For the first time in my life I have a real Christmas tree!  (My dad's allergic to them)  I was so excited to have our own little tree to decorate however we want.  I chose turquoise and silver to decorate with, and I love it.  I think it's so pretty.  And of course I had a turquoise and silver fish to go on top of the tree.  The tree fell over the night that we set it up, and it crushed one of my turquoise ornaments, broke one of the snowflakes, and pulled the string out of the fish.  I was so sad.  So that's why the fish is kinda just sitting there.  And, the tree looks alot prettier in real life. 

Also, I am very sick right now.  Not fun.  I was sick like 3 weeks ago.  Stupid sickness. 

And.... we are officially moved in as of saturday night!  Oh my goodness that was alot of work.  Not only did we move all of our earthly possessions in 2 days, we also deep-cleaned our old apartment.  Our new place isn't completely finished, but it's liveable.  There's floors.  And some of the doors have handles.  Haha.  It's a work in progress.  We just need to get everything finished up and find some furniture in which to store our stuff so it won't be all over our bedroom floor, oh and set our bed up so it's not just a mattress on the floor, and..............

You get the idea.  It's really fun having our own little place though (actually pretty nice-sized place) and saving alot on rent!