Tree and Birds Dry Erase Board

I made this whiteboard about a year ago but then realized eventually that I never actually used it...

...so I turned it into a better and much cuter whiteboard for my mom for Christmas!

We have so much burlap leftover from my wedding that it's kind of joke between us to see what kind of crafts we can make with it. :P She also loves birds so I made a little birdie family for the branch.

(L-R: my brother, Mom, Dad, myself, and my husband.)

Much cuter than just a blah background, ya?

Felt Envelope Wallet

I love how the inspiration for new projects comes to me. It's sporadic and makes me feel like I'm a giant snowball running away down a hill...I love the rush! I started out folding laundry last night, saw one of my tie dye shirts I never wear and thought, "Hey! I should make a bag!" I then googled t-shirt bags and couldn't find anything I wanted but I did see some tie dye wallets and thought I should make one of those. I started out making a felt base and found some different fabric I liked better...then I was halfway done with one wallet when I noticed it looked kind of like an envelope..."Hey! I should put a stamp on it and sew little lines to make it look like one!" And then a few hours later I ended up making a larger one to go with it. It was an excellent night! I hyper-focused and worked on the both of them for about 6 hours straight, ending at 3:30 in the morning. Love, love, love that. :) I was proud of myself because for the first time ever I sewed consecutive straight lines with my sewing machine, and did a bunch of hand stitching, which I usually abhor because I am NOT a detail person.

 This is the little credit card sized wallet. 

 The little wallet with the larger clutch.

Envelopes!

I made one for my friend Hanna, too. 

Here's how the cards fit inside. 

The initial sewing for the little ones didn't take me long at all, but the hand stitching (which I had to re-do quite a few times because I'm still learning, took a while. I'm having a blast and I hope to make more soon! 

DIY Coffee Cup Ornament Tutorial

Recently I was at a Peet's Coffee store and saw some absolutely adorable little ceramic coffee cup ornaments, similar to the ones that Starbucks sells every year. I work for a Peet's Coffee and I think that their coffee is delicious, so with this and my crafty Christmas side in mind (why pay for something you can make yourself!) I knew I had to figure out how to make a similar ornament.

This was my finished product!

And here's how I did it:

1. Start with an aluminum foil base, to help support the body.

2. Roll out enough clay to wrap around it and 

wrap around the foil body, smoothing as you go.

3. For the top, make a circle slightly bigger than the top of the body.

4. And another circle slightly smaller than that.

5. Smooth them together and make a little indent in the top (where you would drink from)

6. Mold onto the body, smoothing as you go.

7. Stick a little wire loop (I used a piece of a paperclip) in the unbaked clay.

8. Bake, cool and then paint away!

My modeling clay said to bake at 275* for 15 minutes per 1/4 inch. 

These cups took about 10 minutes to be finished. 

You can obviously paint however you wish, be it Starbucks' red cups, Peet's cups, 

or some obscure little coffee shop that we've probably never heard of. ;)

-Rachel 

Driftwood and Sea Glass Jewelry Hanger

I posted my version of a "Pinterest Inspired Jewelry Board"when I first started this blog, which looked like this: (shudder...)

It was so ugly that it drove me crazy, so I painted it again and turned it into this:

Slightly better and more organized, but I grow bored of things quickly, so I decided to think of something new to make. I have two full bags of driftwood that have been sitting on my porch since Christmas and were feeling neglected, so I put them to work.

It was super easy. I just stuck thumbtacks into the driftwood and hot glued pieces of sea glass on the ends of the tacks. I hung the wood pieces by fishing line with white flat tacks in the wall. 

I love that my jewelry can be art when I'm not wearing it...especially since I rarely wear my necklaces for who knows what reason. 

Also, it's nearly impossible to take decent pictures inside my cave of a bathroom. My apologies. :)

Burlap and Jute Note Board

Ever since Sean moved into his apartment last December, I have been wracking my brain for something to put on the wall in the dining room. It's blank, white wall stared at me day after day with a cold and taunting look, but practically the moment we got home from our honeymoon, I knew exactly how to vanquish it! It normally takes me a few days (or months) to figure out how I want to work a project, but never have I been inspired to make something so quickly and had all the materials at my fingertips. It was awesome! Our living room was full of our wedding decorations...which included burlap, jute, and clothespins. Bingo! I've also had an old canvas that I grabbed for free on Craigslist and never knew what to do with.

I tacked some twine around the back and then spray painted some clothespins with our leftover wedding color spray paint.

I originally intended to use it for notes and such, like a bulletin board, but I never ended up hanging anything on it because I'm an OCD spaz about balance and symmetry.

After it hanging exactly like this for a month...
(Aren't those dahlia's gorgeous?)

I decided to turn it into a photo display board.

My husband and I took our film SLRs out the other night and had fun taking pictures of fall...turns out it was the last sunny day we'll see for a while. Not that I mind, rain makes my heart happy. :)

Seattle Lines.

I'm sitting on my comfy couch with my kitty snuggled in my lap and crafting stuff strewn about the room. I've just started a new job where I get to make people silly coffee drinks every day and get to know them as people instead of customers. Because I get to turn off my mind while I make coffee and pretty much just clean and talk all day (my dream!) I have had such a surge in my creativity lately! I am actually thankful that I don't have a creatively draining job, because I get to use it as an outlet when I get home!

This drawing is something that I made for my boyfriend for his birthday last August, but it's been framed horribly so I never took pictures of it until now. I took this picture on our way to the Seafair parade in Seattle last summer and I loved it because of the strong lines. Also, the train, lights, old buildings and Space Needle poking up in the back ground are such Seattle things to me.

  

I took this picture, turned it grayscale and printed it out and traced it meticulously for a few days. 

I followed the structural lines and tried not to add any fluff that would distract from the linear qualities. I messed around with making a copy with some color and bolded lines, but it looked messy, so I went back to this one.

Here's the finished product. 

It's simple but was a lot of fun to make. I'd like to experiment with more in the future.

  

Sea Glass Mobile

I have been planning to do this for quite some time with my bigger, less finished pieces of sea glass. It is, to date, my absolute favorite thing I have made and it brings me such joy every time I see it spinning in the sunshine. It was really easy to make, I just hot glued pieces of sea glass to fishing line and tied them to a piece of driftwood.

I love how bright the green ones are in the sun!

Sea Glass Art

Sean and I made a trip out to Port Townsend with his family last summer and by accident we found a great little beach for finding "mermaid's tears"sea glass. I had only found bigger, jagged pieces before, which I found out later aren't really mature pieces of sea glass. On my discovery of these perfect little pieces, I was enchanted even further by the dance between glass and the sea.

These are a few of my blue pieces we've collected.

I've never known how to display these tiny tears before. I've tried them in glasses, bottles, jars, and trays, but nothing really made me happy. I finally decided one day to just make art out of them! I've been fascinated with starfish lately so I knew that's what I had to do. 

Here's what I came up with!

I found two shadow boxes at Goodwill for really cheap. I loathe sports themed boy stuff so it didn't hurt to cover these up.

I managed to have a decent pile of little brown pieces in my collection. I tried making a green one, but I didn't have enough and I wanted them to complement each other.

I set out the first one pretty quickly but the second one just never looked as good at the first one so I had to keep tweaking them for a few hours. 

By that time, there was no way in heck I was going to move any of those pieces to glue them down again, so what do I do?? I pour Mod Podge all over them and hope it works!!

It took a few days to dry and then I noticed that they were too shiny for my liking, so I lightly scrubbed  some of the Mod Podge off the glass with a sponge. I was left with a halfway natural and halfway glossy starfish. I like it because sea glass is usually slightly glossy looking when I find it, from the sea water and I hate to lose that beauty when it dries. 

My little Catpanion always comes running as soon as I get down on the floor. Since I do almost all of my projects on the floor, it never fails that I have the fuzziest (and most distracting) assistant. I don't mind though, it's nice to have the company. :)

-Rachel (and Kitty)