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.
{via}
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.
OK, this may be really old news to all of y’all, but it’s new to me: Hobby Lobby carries some of the exact same decorative pulls as Anthropologie!!! I’m not saying very similar or good knock-offs, I mean the EXACT same. You can imagine how my heart sunk when I saw a different colored version of what Peter and I really wanted to use for a hutch that we were fixing up a few months ago. (I never posted after pictures but I plan to do that shortly.) Our color wasn’t there when we went but it looks like they used to have it and for a fraction of the price. This is the color they had:
And this is what we wanted:
We tried to order them online, but they sent us the wrong ones and then told us that they were out. But they’re still listed on the website, hmmm. Now that I know that they’re at Hobby Lobby for $4 instead of $8, I couldn’t bring myself to order them.
So tell me: is this old news or is it new to you too? (If you’ve known about this for a long time, then please try to let me down gently.)
Images courtesy of Antropologie.com
I’ve been trying to think of what to do for Peter for Valentine’s Day, but instead I keep finding things that I would love to receive myself. My mother always taught me that I should always give people gifts that I would want to receive myself, but somehow, in this situation I don’t think that rule applies. Let’s take a look.
{Sarah and Bendrix}
{Paper Finger}
{Sew, Mama, Sew!}
{Pretty Peonies}
No, definitely not boy gifts, but they would be great for a friend and several of them could easily be reproduced. Head over to Sew, Mama, Sew! for a tutorial on how to make the hand-stitched valentine.
What are you giving your significant other for Valentine’s Day?
I just got back from a business trip in Chicago. Is it just me or does work become a million times crazier around the holiday? Either way, in this time of sparse writing I’ve managed to fix a few of my mistakes. Do you remember about a month ago when I got really excited about spray painting and forgot to clean the wine rack before I painted it and got spray paint all over my jeans?
I’m happy to say that I remedied both of these situations without spending any extra money. The wine rack was really easy. I simply sanded down the surfaces to ensure that I removed any dust. After sanding, I wiped it down to ensure that I wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes. In case you forgot, here’s what it looked like before:
Pretty gross, huh? And here it is now:
And just so you can admire how wonderfully dust free this really is, here are a few more:
Secondly, I managed to remove almost all of the spray paint from my jeans!! Before I give you the details, I’d like to make the disclaimer that I don’t know very much about stain removal so I’d only try this with clothing that you would otherwise be forced to throw away (or condemn to a life of “painting clothes”). After staring at my jeans in disbelief for a good twenty minutes, I brought them inside and began to route through the laundry cupboard. I realized that Shout wasn’t going to cut it for this job so I turned to the internet. A quick Google search later, I was sitting in the bathroom with hairspray and hand sanitizer. Several people on various websites swore it would get spray paint out of clothes. So I applied, rubbed and rinsed, and applied, rubbed and rinsed some more. I just knew that this was some fabulous little secret that would shock Peter with its dramatic results but after trying again and again, I still had bright red jeans. I slumped down in the bathroom, sure that my jeans were ruined forever when my eyes met the nail polish remover. This was an act of desperation but as I poured (with a heavy hand) the nail polish remover on to my jeans and scrubbed, I saw a difference. I knew they’d improved but honestly I was too afraid to wash them because it seemed like the final step that could set the stain and officially banish my jeans from the outside world. So they sat on the washer, got pushed onto the floor, and finally weeks later I put tons of Shout onto them and threw them into the wash. And guess what? They’re near perfect. There is one tiny red spot where there had originally been a quarter size stain but they’re completely work appropriate again! (Yes, we have a very casual dress code.)
I made a couple of novice mistakes this weekend but at least I learned my lesson. First of all, don’t get so excited about painting that you spray paint in nice jeans. After crawling around on the floor trying to paint the hard to get places, the knees of my jeans were completely red. I’m still working on getting the paint out. If I’m successful, I’ll do a follow-up post about that.
Secondly, ALWAYS dust something before you paint it–even if it doesn’t look dirty. We painted our wine rack red this weekend and now the red dust is staring me in the face. I think I’ll have to sand off the dusty parts and try again, but first I have to change!
(If you’re judging us then don’t feel bad. I’m judging us too.)
