DIY Boutonniere Sneak Peak
I spent most of Saturday night making these. My fingers are sore from hours of manipulating floral wire, but I’m pleased with the end result.
I’ll be back soon with a DIY breakdown. Hope everyone had a great weekend!
I spent most of Saturday night making these. My fingers are sore from hours of manipulating floral wire, but I’m pleased with the end result.
I’ll be back soon with a DIY breakdown. Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Well, sort of–okay not really. A couple weeks ago I did something that I’ve been wanting to do for a really long time. I attended a class at the Little Flower School. Coincidently, a reporter and photographer from the New York Times happened to be covering the class. So, last Thursday I was quoted and pictured in the home and garden section of the paper. It looked a little something like this.
See this awkward looking girl right here?
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That would be me. Surprisingly enough a couple of people actually found the article on their own and contacted me about it. I think the weirdest connection was a guy who I studied abroad with read the article while he was on a train in Tokyo and then facebook messaged me about it. Crazy! Anyway, you can read the article here. Below are my feelings about the class.
I’ve been longing to take one of these classes since they started popping up everywhere in the blogosphere, so you can imagine how excited I was when there was an opening in a class during the time that I was in Brooklyn. I was a bit terrified when I arrived because I really don’t have much experience when it comes to arranging flowers. In fact, usually when Peter buys me flowers I let him put them in the vase for me—wait, does that make me a terrible woman?
Anyway, I was immediately entranced by all of the beautiful flowers.
And despite my fear of doing horribly in the class, things turned out really well. I got a lot of hands on instruction and the teachers weren’t afraid to jump in and make suggestions. Everyone’s arrangements turned out beautifully and they were all very different. We each got lost in our own little worlds for a few hours and when we looked up the room was covered in discarded stems and wild looking little bits of art. It was amazing and worth every penny.
I can’t imagine having that many flowers at my disposal any time ever again. Two fabulous things came out of the class. First, I remembered how wonderfully satisfying it is to spend time away from the computer and create something tangible. Second, I realized that as fun as it is to make flower arrangements, doing one and getting it right takes quite a bit of time. Peter and I had originally thought about doing our own flowers for the wedding, but after having a little bit of hands on experience, I’m happy to outsource this task. Plus, Sarah recommended a florist who is just starting a business in Austin! How amazing is that?! Maybe I will recommend some of the really great flowers that we got to use like this scabiosa pod:
and this one:
and this black basil:
Okay, here’s one last picture of my arrangement from the Little Flower School website. I will venture to say that its a bit more advanced than my last stint with flower arranging.
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Gush! I’m envious of this beautiful world that Nicolette and Sarah get to work in.
Monday night I came home from work to a huge surprise from Peter for our engagiversary. Our actual engagiversary was last night but Peter and I often get so excited about holidays and exchanging gifts that we celebrate them a bit early. Monday after the surprise had happened, he told me that I just looked so tired and sad about the whole “springing forward” concept that he knew I needed to come home to something special. This is one of the many reasons why I love him. I don’t have any before photos because I didn’t know an after was coming but basically he took a plain cork board that I had and repainted it with some leftover paint from this and recovered it with some leftover fabric.
On top of this crafting project, he also bought me a home improvement book that I wanted from Home Depot (although he found it at Half Price Books), a pencil holder and some magazine holders from the container store (all of which I had recently discovered and then told him were on sale), and fresh tulips. But the best part is that this whole girl space didn’t exist Monday morning when I left for work. I had been sewing at the kitchen table and we kept talking about how we should find a home for the machine. When I walked upstairs on Monday it was so touching how he had taken the new and newly crafted gifts and combined them with other things we owned like the candle from Anthropologie that his mom got me for Christmas and the Ikea stand that we bought this weekend. He even brought a chair up to the desk and removed some of his more boyish art. You can see that in this post here.
Plus, you should’ve read the note that he wrote inside the home improvement book. *GUSH* It was just so perfect.
We’ve only ever pictured the office once and even then it was just a small portion of one wall, so let’s zoom out for a second and take a look. You’ll quickly notice that Peter has *a lot* of books.
I’ve tried to convince him to let me arrange them by color or even cover them in wall paper, but each time I send him into a panic attack.
(Do you love our nutcracker hiding on top of the book shelf?)
So that was his super sweet surprise, along with cooking me a fabulous dinner. He later confessed that reassembling the cork board was actually quite difficult. He said he knew he could force the whole thing apart and break it but gently easing it into submission was a whole different task all together.
I think I’ll try to reupholster the chair and we’ll probably add some more decorations to my wall space in the office to make it feel that much girlier. For a moment I wanted to add a chandelier to my side, but I realized that would be odd. What do you think I should add to my little corner?
Around Valentine’s Day I fell in love with these hearts from the Etsy seller Sarah and Bendrix, but I couldn’t bare to pay the $76 (item plus shipping cost to the United States) that she was asking.
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So, I went to the craft store and bought a heart shaped paper punch and some thick red, gray, and cream card stock.
Luckily, just about everything I bought was on sale. Don’t you just love that about craft stores?!
When I came home I started punching little red hearts. My heart punch is different than the one used by Sarah and Bendrix. Mine has a more defined point, but I like that about it. I also love that it lets you see what you’re punching before you do it.
Fold several of the hearts in half, positioning them in straight lines on the paper. Leave space for one (or more) different colored hearts and a few that have not been folded.
admi
I spaced the hearts further apart then they were in the original piece, but this choice is just personal preference. I carefully glued the hearts into place, making sure that the lines seemed organized. In my opinion the concept is interesting because it is a balance of order (the rows of hearts) and disorder (the apparently random nature of the folds). If both aspects were disorganized, then it would probably look like a giant mess.
Here’s the end result leaning against a wall:
We assembled ours using Yes Paste and an IKEA 9×9 Ribba (Shadow Bow). The total expense was less than $20 and now that we own a heart punch I could make a second one for the price of the frame plus an extra $0.50 for the card stock. For the next one I may try putting the hearts closer together and using a larger frame that would allow a border the size a a photo mat. Thoughts?
Meg over at House Notes is currently having an Anthropologie Inspired Craft Off. I didn’t manage to participate on this round, but head over to her blog to see some pretty amazing stuff.
This tutorial was the reason that I fell in love with ~Ruffles and Stuff~. I saw the picture of these perfectly embellished slippers and I swooned. I was uncertain about my sewing skills but the tutorial seemed so easy and I had confidence from my recent success of making a tutu, so I went for it. I left work and went straight to store, after store, after store searching for everything I needed. When I finally got home, I was so burnt out that I left the materials hanging in a bag on our closet door.
But last week, while Peter was out of town I pulled them out and decided to give it a try. Amazingly, it turned out really well. Here’s the boring before:
And here’s the amazing after:
If you want to do try it yourself, here’s what I did. I started with basic Isotoner slippers. I bought mine on sale from Kohls. I cut the seams to remove the the little bows from each slipper. Using a white cotton, peach cotton, and gold tulle I created three flowers for each slipper. I was a bit concerned about this step because I didn’t know how to make fabric flowers. I learned that several wavy circles stacked on top of each other works out pretty well.
Then fold each flower in half and sew a small little “x” into it. This keeps the flower together, without taking away its movement.
Finally, add three champagne pearls and sew the flowers on to the slippers.
Now prance around your house and relish in the femininity of your new slippers!!
Have you guys found any tutorials that you just had to try? How’d they go?
