a day of crafting...

So today is Sunday and, unlike every other Louisianian, I spent the afternoon/night crafting (GO SAINTS!). 

It was time well spent! First up is a photo of the bird mobile I made

from yesterday'spost (please excuse the lighting...I hung it in my hallway underneath my 

light fixture so it's not the best photo).

As you can see, I used 2 sticks (my husband and I hiked around on the hill behind our house this

afternoon to find the perfect specimens) and crossed them and tied them together.

I then glued moss in a few places, just because I love moss, and hung them form fishing

line from a cup hook in the ceiling. I made another one with a single stick for my niece. 

I was really pleased with how they turned out!

While traipsing around outside, I found some larger sticks that I couldn't live without

so Cole (my darling and handy husband) dutifully brought them inside, all the while looking at me

like I was kind of crazy.  I borrowed the idea of hanging sticks over my front door from my friend, Kayla 

(she did a beautiful Christmas swag thing with limbs, pink lights and moss and her bird liked

perching up there so much that she decided to leave it!). So here's that...

I'm thinking about making some fabric birds to stick up there since I don't have a real one to

enjoy it. If I had taller ceilings, I would have fastened the limbs from both the ceiling and the wall 

and hung the little paper birds from them and combined the 2 projects...

I really like the simplicity of it though.  

Ok, I'm tired from all this crafting and typing.  Please send me pictures of your

own bird mobiles if you get a chance to do this little project!

And I'm going to say it, for the first and final time....
WHO DAT!

a lot of time on my hands...

I am sitting in my LAST interior design class...EVER...and I am surfing the net instead of learning about Thomas Chippendale.  But c'mon, it's a Saturday! It's so hard to sit in a classroom when I really want to be antiquing and garage saling....so I'm passing the time by finding new fabulous things for you to drool over.

 

 Although this centerpiece/candleholder from moss online comes with a hefty pricetage, it's still 

nice to dream.  This would be precious as a faux birthday cake if the the birthday girl is on a diet

or paired with a vintage tablecloth just for everyday enjoyment.

Up next is a diy project from Martha Stewart...this whimsical little bird mobile

would be a wonderful handmade baby gift.  I'm making one just to hang in a corner of my office. This how-to

also includes the printable bird template from Martha Stewart and for even more instruction,

check out the video as well.  Have fun!

P.S...I'm using an actual stick for mine and gluing dried moss on it instead of the

little flower cutouts. There's lots of options to make it your own!

Here are the instructions and supplies:

     Flower craft punch
     Leaf craft punch
     Hot-glue gun and hot-glue sticks
     Monofilament

Bird Mobile How-To1. Print templates onto heavyweight paper. Cut out shapes with a craft knife. Punch holes where marked.

2. Assemble birds, running white glue along the slits to secure pieces in place. Thread a 6- to 12-inch (depending on how low/high you want your bird to hang) length of embroidery floss through each hole.
3. Cut 12- to 18-inch lengths of 1/8-inch armature wire with wire clippers. Wrap with brown floral tape. Repeat with a couple different lengths of armature wire. Attach 3 to 4 lengths together to form branches.
4. Punch flowers from pink card stock. Punch leaves from green card stock. Punch a hole in the center of each flower and bend petals upwards.
5. Double-knot embroidery floss a quarter inch from one end, then cut 2 inches down from knot, creating a stamen (knot and above) and a stem (below the knot). To stiffen embroidery floss, dip it into glue and run through your fingers to spread glue down floss; let dry.
6. Feed the "stems" through the holes in the center of the petals to create small flowers. Hold a flower upside-down by stem, put a dab of hot glue onto the underside of the hole, and add a leaf. Repeat with all punched flowers.
7. Use floral tape to attach flowers to branches. Tie birds to branches, balancing against each other, to finish mobile. Tie a length of embroidery floss or monofilament to the center of the mobile to hang.

Pretties!

I've come across some pretty things lately...

and this little cupcake ring is one of them!  If Strawberry Shortcake were 

ever to get married, this would be her engagement ring.

I've uncovered a few really lovely Etsy stores lately as well.

This print is called "The cat and the canaries" and it's by Samantha Battersby.  Her Etsy shop is

Matou en Peluche and she's got many other wonderful little prints.

This one is called "Pork Chop Casanova" and it's also for sale on Etsy

at stellalola....so cute...

and it has a little doll to match! LOVE IT!

"People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy."

-Bob Hope

Bon Soir= Good Nite!

lily-sitting...

I'm sitting at my parents house with Lily Belle asleep beside me on the couch as they meander through the streets of Paris.  It's 10:00 P.M. there so they're probably watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle.  So I'm meandering through the internet looking for things to make me happy:

Here's one! This pretty little poster would look beautiful in a bathroom, or really anywhere.  I'm very much into the color purple nowadays.  Buy it!

French word of the day: Amour

simply, love. fitting, I think, for a place to find new things to love.

"Be pretty if you can, be witty if you must, but be gracious if it kills you."

Elsie de Wolfe (Interior Designer in the early 1900's)

In her autobiography, de Wolfe calls herself a "rebel in an ugly world." Speaking of herself in the third person, she says that her mother said often that she was ugly, but "just what ugly was she did not know... Now she was to know." Arriving home from school, she found that her parents had redecorated the drawing-room:

She ran [in]... and looked at the walls, which had been papered in a William Morris design of gray palm-leaves and splotches of bright red and green on a background of dull tan. Something terrible that cut like a knife came up inside her. She threw herself on the floor, kicking with stiffened legs, as she beat her hands on the carpet.... she cried out, over and over: "It's so ugly! It's so ugly."

I cannot number the times I've felt the exact same way.

my first post...

I have no idea where to begin...there are so many things going through my head tonite but I've decided to make a plan for my future postings:

1. a newly discovered bauble for the home 
2. French word of the day
3. words of wisdom (not from me, of course, but something I've stumbled upon)
4. anything else of interest to me and, hopefully, to someone else

We'll see how that goes! Bon Soir!

Marna Elizabeth