ohbrooke

Who Poofed?

Catherine Davis, author of the Design Editor blog {and cute Etsy shop “Print!”} sent us a great tutorial on how to make these beautiful napkin flowers. They are very similar to Martha Stewart’s tissue paper pom poms, but these use napkins and are slightly easier in my opinion, smaller and so delicate. Below are some pom poms I made using Catherine’s tutorial for my Valentine party tomorrow.

Here they are individually. So beautiful. A little time-consuming, but I made 6 while watching American Idol, so not all bad.

Here they are grouped in tree bark bowls I bought on clearance for $2.50 each at a florist closing sale.

And I’m toying with making them a topiary here in a tea light candle holder.

Here is Catherine’s Tutorial for these beautiful napkin flowers {$1.50 in napkins gets you 8 flowers}

Spooky Chandelier

I know, it doesn’t make sense, but I’m bananas for Halloween. I think it is so fun. And when I saw this picture {via Curious Sofa Diaries}:

You see how I HAD to make these. Okay, now showing these make mine look a little wimpy, but here’s the deal: I scoured Craigslist and wasn’t willing to drive 40 minutes for a $20 chandelier to make this work. I’m too cheap and too busy. So I created one out of balsa wood and cheesecloth.

The best part? You can store mine easier!

Neener neener. I can take mine apart and stuff it in my storage box {I’m making a big deal out of this because I’m suddenly embarrassed at what mine looks like in comparison to these super-cool ghosty chandeliers}.

So, here’s what I used:

• 2 pieces of balsa wood from the craft store {about $1.60 each}
• 1 pkg. cheesecloth from fabric store {about $5}
• black and white spray paint {hopefully you have something close to this left over from other projects}
• hot glue
• twist ties {you can use string or zip ties, or…}
• chain from the hardware store
• 4 battery operated tealights

Here’s how I did it:

Clear out four containers of baby food, pudding, applesauce, or similar container. I saved these from my baby’s breakfast and dinners, and the way he eats, it didn’t take long. But I also like the idea of getting chocolate pudding cups, popping in a movie and getting your containers that way.

I trimmed them to make them shorter {and a little wavy}, glued them to the ends of the balsa wood and spray painted them white {you see four sticks here because I made 2 chandeliers… I used the container lids for one of the chandeliers}.

And while you’re at it, lay out the cheesecloth and spray paint it unevenly with the black to get a ghosty look, and hit the chain with both black and white.

Shred the cheesecloth by ripping it to get those cool edges, and hot glue to the sticks, leaving them open in the middle so you can connect them.

Mark the center of the two sticks, stack them, and use twisty ties or string to connect them. I used the chain in five pieces so it would hang evenly, using twisty ties for this part too.

BOO!

Halloween Pillowcases

It was a tradition for me and my siblings to pull out our halloween pillowcases for the month of October, use them for trick-or-treat candy collecting, then file them away until next year. I am excited to pass on this tradition… and it’s a fun quick project to make the pillowcases. {How did this tradition start, mom?}

Supplies

• 3/4 yard fabric for pillowcase
• 1/4 yard fabric for cuff
• iron
• sewing machine

How to Make  a Pillowcase {20 min. project}

Lay the 1/4 yd. fabric face up on top of the 3/4 yard fabric {also face up}. Sew the top edge.

Open the cuff fabric and iron the seam flat.

Fold the cuff over and iron 2 edges, one that will tuck under the seam so no fringe is seen, and one that will become the edge of the pillowcase. I don’t pin because I’m lazy, but you could pin this to lay flat for you while sewing.

Sew the folded over cuff so it stays in place. I forgot to do this on the first pillowcase and did it as the last step instead. Either way.

Trace a regular pillowcase so you can sew two straight lines to finish.

Trim, flip inside-out, and voila!

Before and After: Cane Chairs

I didn’t think I could show my face until I had finished them. Why did it take so long? A combination of a four-month-old who just beat colic, and this chair not being the easiest to reupholster. But check out these beauties… I’m in love!

Hilarious how so many of us have these chairs. One reader had already redone her chair. Let me start by saying that this is not a project for the faint of heart. It did take some muscle and some patience, but look how cute! Totally worth it. Also note that I’m not a pro. Not even a semi-pro. I’ve only done mild upholstery jobs, so I just made this up as I went along, and it went something like this:

1. Remove the screws underneath the seat to release the cushion (My brother’s tip is to take pictures as you disassemble the chair in case you need to go back for reference when you’re ready to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.)

2. Remove all of the staples and fabric. (I used needle nose pliers because it’s what I had, but my brother recommends an upholstery staple remover) Save this fabric because you’ll need it as a pattern to cut out your new fabric.

3. Sand your chair so the paint can stick well.

4. At least 2 coats of spray paint. My ultimate FAVORITE spray paint of all time – and will never stray – is Rust-oleum Painter’s Touch. No they didn’t pay me to say this, and they wouldn’t have to. I love this stuff like I love Cheerios for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The applicator tip is big like a can of hairspray so you don’t get carpal tunnel from spraying, and the coverage is by far better than any other brand. You can get away with less coats. The reason I chose spray paint for these chairs is because there are no brush marks, the caning on the sides would have been a disaster to paint with a brush, and it’s quicker. You can do a few coats within 15 minutes of each other. Note: I started with matte finish, but didn’t like how it felt so the top coat on these chairs is semi-gloss. Much better.

5. On to the cusions. A bazillion staples need to be removed, and you need to try to salvage the fabric as much as you can so you can make a pattern out of it.

6. My chairs had the original upholstery with the buttoning, so all of these buttons needed to be removed, again I used the needle nosed pliers.

7. The cushions were a little worn and needed some extra quilt batting to beef them up, and since I wasn’t going to do the buttoning, I filled the holes like Heather did to smooth it out. (Good thinkin’ Heather)

8. Used the old fabric to cut out the new fabric, plus a little extra. I wanted to be able to pull and tug on the fabric and then trim later. My fabric was directional and I bought 3 yards for both chairs and it was PLENTY. Probably would have been okay with 2 1/4 for both chairs. (btw- fabric was $5/yard at Home Fabrics in Pleasant Hill, CA)

9. The back piece facing out goes on first. I centered my directional fabric and stapled it tightly in the center working my way out. Pull hard and get that fabric tight. I used a PowerShot heavy duty staple gun and it worked great. Definitely an air compressor and nail gun would have been even better, but I didn’t have one – and they scare me. You can rent one and get even better results.

10. I had to make sure my fabric was straight before I nailed the whole thing down.

11. LOTSA staples.

12. Removed buttoning, filled holes and added a few layers of batting to the back cushion

13. Staple, staple, staple.

14. Trim the excess. This is where your piping will go.

15. Okay, this is where I got janky. I used the original piping from the chair because, lucky me, it matched my new fabric. As far as online tutorials go, I fail because I haven’t taught you how to make your own piping, BUT, looking at it, it doesn’t look too tough to recreate. the tough part is attaching it to the chair so you don’t see the staples. This is where the air compressor would have been great, but would have taken great precision, and since those things scare the bejeebies outta me, I glued. Yes, in the spirit of “I’m not a pro, let’s wing it,” I glued the trim. Wood glue. Seems to be holding up nicely. If I didn’t have the original piping I would do one of three things, recover the piping with a sewing machine. If you take it apart you’ll see how it’s constructed quite easily. Or I’d buy cording and glue two widths of it, or what Heather did was use nailhead trim. I’ve had a hard time getting nailhead to sit straight, but she looks like she got it down.

16. Last row of piping on the chair base and replace the cushion.

Create Your Own Wall Stencils

I wanted to do some geometric shapes on the wall in the baby room, so I created a stencil. Start to finish on this project is about 1-2 hours.

Pick your shape

You can trace fabric, freehand, or create your own shape. I used one of Tristan’s Photoshop brushes.

Trace your shape

Trace your shape onto the stencil surface. I used leftover shelf-liner {contact paper}. It has a sheen on it, which means it won’t get soggy or ruined like paper would. You can also use posterboard to create the stencil.

Cut out your stencil

I added thickness to my shape. Remember that if you have a shape like mine, you need to leave pieces of the inner portion attached to the outer portion or you’ll have a hole.

Start stenciling

Tape your stencil on the wall with blue painter’s tape. You may need to use your fingers to hold parts of the stencil down to get a crisp line.

I’m using a mini roller cover I had, because I thought it would work best, but you can use a stencil brush, foam brush or sponge.

Get in the corners

I always think it adds interest for your stencils to round the corners. Just use your free hand to help lay the stencil flat in the corner.

If your stencil gets yucky…

Just wipe it off, let it dry, or make a new one.

Clean Up

You can always fix mistakes. Keep a wet paper towel nearby. If you pull your stencil off and see that the paint has bled, you can easily wipe it off. Once it’s dry, just touch up with the wall paint. You should go back and fill in the gaps that were left by the stencil, but in this case, I like how they look. I’m going to keep ‘em.

Making A Crib Skirt Tutorial

Measure the length for the crib skirt

I have the mattress at the highest setting for a newborn, but you should make the crib skirt to hit about an inch off the ground from the lowest mattress setting. Mine was about 12 or 13″ long.

Cut out your 3 pieces

{front and two sides, no need to do the back}, using the height you just measured and the width of the crib. I added extra fabric so I could do a pleat in the middle.

Cut out your crib skirt panel

This is the piece that tucks under the mattress. I pieced this together from fabric I had, no need to make it look fancy since it will never be seen.

Hem the bottom of the front piece

Making a pleat

Mark the center of the front piece.

Measure equal distance from the left and right and create a pleat by folding the fabric and pressing it with your iron, and pin in place. {I had lots of extra fabric, so I did this twice for a double pleat.} Do this equal, left and right.

Pin the pleat together so it stays in place while you sew.

Attaching the pieces

Cut and hem the ends of the front piece. Hem all panels to the side pieces {no need to hem the top}.

Sew right sides together of all sides and the main piece.

The finished crib skirt

Iron everything to make it crisp, and you’re done!

Making a Hamper Liner

Remember I bought this cute metal bucket for a hamper in the baby’s room? I made a liner for it…

Project time, start to finish: 20 minutes.

Step 1

Measure the bucket from the bottom to a few inches over the rim. Also measure the circumference of the bottom. Sewed all pieces together {two sides first, then bottom. This is shirting material which has stretch: great for sewing the circle part evenly, and wrapping the fabric over the bucket}.

Step 2

Measure how far you want the liner to overlap.

Step 3

Add trim. {I always sew the trim as I go, then cut the piece to the right length when I’m almost to the end… this eliminates cutting it too short or too long. I also pin as I go. Eek! Classic case of the non-trained seamstress}

Step 4

Connect trim.

Step 5

Iron and stretch onto bucket.

Adapt for your project

Using the same technique, create liners for your organizing baskets, laundry baskets, storage bins, boxes, etc…

Blog Tip: Make Your Own Favicon

You know, that little icon in the URL and tabs?

This only works if you have somewhere to HOST the image. If you have a blogspot blog, and no hosting server at all, you will unfortunately be unable to play.

Make your Favicon

Make an image that is 16px x 16px {I use Photoshop to make all my images, but you could crop a logo or existing image you have to these dimensions}. Save it as “favicon.jpg”. You can get an .ico plugin for Photoshop, but it’s easiest to go to  http://favicon-generator.org/, browse to your favicon.jpg file, and download the generated favicon.ico file.

Upload your Favicon

Drop this “favicon.ico” file in the root directory of your hosting account. It might take a few minutes for your site to read it.

If you have a blogspot blog, and you have this file hosted somewhere else, add this line of code between your <head> tags {be sure to change “path/favicon.ico” to the actual path to the image, in both instances}:

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”path/favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
<link rel=”icon” href=”path/favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>

Pant Alteration Tutorial

Preggo pants. *sigh*

I’d love to have some cute ones but I don’t want to spend the money on pants that I’ll wear for less than a year.

My friend gave me these Junior “Jolt” brand jeans that were comfortable, but made me look like a moose {especially paired with a tent-like top}.

So. I. Fixed. Them. I had nothing to lose.

Here’s the before:

Step 1

Put the pants on inside-out. Sit on the ground and take a pen to mark the inside of the leg you want to trim down. You can do anything… boot leg, straight leg, skinny, etc. It was easier to do this sitting down with legs stretched out, rather than standing up. These jeans had cute button pockets that I didn’t want to mess with, which is why I chose the inseam to trim.

Step 2

SEW! Be sure to reinforce the seam in the crotch {ugly word, I know}. My stitching didn’t go all the way to the end of the pantleg, I left the bell shape at the bottom.

Step 3

Trim the excess fabric and flip right side out.

Here’s the result:

And in honor of the great fashionista Maegan…

image from …love Maegan

Blog Tip: Creating Background Images

You can make a background image out of anything. I like to create mine in Photoshop. The easiest way to make a background is to create a pattern that will repeat. Here’s an easy monogram background that I made (with the help of Tristan’s Photoshop brushes {thank you!}.

Upload the image via your FTP, or in WordPress you can use your Media Uploader, or in Blogspot use your Gadget Picture widget to upload an image. In any case, you’ll want to get the URL where the image was uploaded. {For Blogger, I uploaded via the picture Gadget and saved. Then I reopened the Gadget, right clicked on the image, chose ‘properties’ and copied and pasted the URL of the images. I don’t use Blogger much so tell me if there is an easier way to do this}.

Navigate to your stylesheet.

For WordPress

In the admin section, Appearance/Editor, your file might be called “stylesheet.css” or some other “.css” file. If there are more than one, open them all and you’ll be using the longest one.

For Blogspot

In the admin section, under Layout/Edit HTML, your stylesheet is hardcoded all in one page with the blog. The styles are held at the top of the page between <style> tags.

Navigate to your body class {“body”}

Either replace the background image URL you currently have, or add this {replace my image URL with yours… be sure to keep the apostrophes and parenthesis around it:

body
{
background:url(‘http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lfC4pjYVJgg/SvNw_ngj-ZI/AAAAAAAADGY/bVToZrolTds/S226/b.jpg’) repeat top center;
}

This makes my background appear like this:

If you don’t have Photoshop to create backgrounds

Get creative. Download something from istockphoto.com, crop something out of an image using Picasa, or use another image editing software.

You are more than welcome to grab my “b” background and cover it with any letter you’d like to use.

Good Luck!

Blog Tips: Changing Colors

Your blog reads hexidecimal colors. They are represented in six digit values. I create these hex colors through my eyedropper tool in Photoshop, but if you don’t have this at your disposal, you can use 2createawebsite.com to generate hex colors. You can copy and paste any hex number {will look something like this: #B14646} with any hex number you have in your stylesheet.

A reminder on how to get to your stylesheets:

For WordPress

In the admin section, Appearance/Editor, your file might be called “stylesheet.css” or some other “.css” file. If there are more than one, open them all and you’ll be using the longest one.

For Blogpsot

In the admin section, under Layout/Edit HTML, your stylesheet is hardcoded all in one page with the blog. The styles are held at the top of the page between <style> tags {You can also use Layout/Fonts and Colors to paste your hex colors into}.

Your code should look something like this:

h1 {
font-family: ‘Trebuchet’, Arial, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
font-size:24px;
color: #333333;
}

**Just to be safe: copy and paste the entire code of what you are working on, into Notepad or Textedit, in case you forget a semi-colon, or something goes terribly wrong, you can put the old code back in a try again. Just a caution. You can’t miss a character or it won’t look correct and may break your page.**

Blog Tips: Changing Your Fonts

There are a limited amount of fonts you can use for the main content of your blog. If you see fancy fonts on a blog or website, they are likely a Flash file or a JPG of the font.

To change your font, locate your stylesheet.

For WordPress

In the admin section, Appearance/Editor, your file might be called “stylesheet.css” or some other “.css” file. If there are more than one, open them all and you’ll be using the longest one.

For Blogpsot

In the admin section, under Layout/Edit HTML, your stylesheet is hardcoded all in one page with the blog. The styles are held at the top of the page between <style> tags {You can use Layout/Fonts and Colors, but you’ll be limited to six fonts}.

Find any reference to  “font-family:” in your stylesheet. In Firefox, I like to use the Edit/Find function to find pieces of code, but you can manually look if you’d like. If there is a list of several fonts, like this “font-family: Century Gothic, Trebuchet, Arial, sans-serif;” it is saying this: “Use Century Gothic. If the user doesn’t have Century Gothic installed, use Trebuchet. If the user doesn’t have Trebuchet installed, use Arial, and if the user doesn’t have Arial installed, use a sans-serif font they do have installed.” Replace the first font with the one you’d like to display. Below are a list of web-safe fonts and how to add them.

**Just to be safe: copy and paste the entire code of what you are working on, into Notepad or Textedit, in case you forget a semi-colon, or something goes terribly wrong, you can put the old code back in a try again. Just a caution. You can’t miss a character or it won’t look correct and may break your page.**

font-family: Arial, sans-serif;

font-family: ‘Arial Narrow’, Arial, sans-serif;

font-family: ‘Arial Black’, Arial, sans-serif;

font-family: ‘Courier New’, courier, serif;

font-family: Georgia, serif;

font-family: ‘Times New Roman’, Times, serif;

font-family: “Lucida Console”, serif;

font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;

font-family: ‘Trebuchet’, Arial, sans-serif;

font-family: ‘Tahoma’, Arial, sans-serif;

font-family: ‘Palatino Linotype’, Palatino, serif;

font-family: ‘Impact’, Arial, sans-serif;

font-family: ‘Gill Sans’, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;

font-family: Copperplate Gothic Light, Copperplate, serif;

font-family: ‘Century Gothic’, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;

If you want to show more than one font

You can have different fonts for your titles and for your body copy. Look around in the stylesheet for any instance of “font-family:”. The titles of your posts are probably an H1 style. If there is no “font-family:” in your H1 style, add the entire line that you see above, and don’t forget the semi-colon!

If you are bored of these fonts

Try making them bold {font-weight:bold;}, or making it larger {font-size:30px;}, or making it all caps {text-transform:uppercase;} or changing the color {details in the next tutorial}.

Hope this helps!

images from webdesigndev.com.

Free Halloween Fonts

There are GOBS of free Halloween fonts on Dafont.com. Some of them are wingdings, but can come in handy if you’re working on an invitation or your very own kind of free decorations for your house.

To Install on Mac: Download the font. Unzip the packaged font. Open FontBook from your Applications menu. From the dropdown menu, click “Add Fonts” and navigate to the font files. If you already had Photoshop or another editor open, you may need to click off of the text layer and back on it to reveal the font in the type Palette. If you are working in Flash, you’ll have to quit and restart the program for it to show.

To Install on PC: Download the font. Unzip the packaged font. Open the Fonts folder from your Control Panel. Drag the font files into that folder. If you already had Photoshop or another editor open, you may need to click off of the text layer and back on it to reveal the font in the type Palette. If you are working in Flash, you’ll have to quit and restart the program for it to show.

Painting Tips

By now, I am half-way to Oahu, but I wanted to share some trusty tips that help me get through painting a room. Over the Labor Day weekend, I decided to finally paint our guest bedroom grey. And I found the PERFECT grey (Behr Premium Plus Antique Beige).

To my surprise, Behr (At Home Depot) has a new line of paint that is primer + paint in one. The walls are so new in our condo that I’ve had to prime EVERYTHING, which turns into a big fat hassle, and is probably why it has taken me a year to paint that final bedroom. BUT, with this new Behr Premium Plus Ultra, I was done in two coats.

Despite the fact that I have painted nearly 100 rooms in my lifetime, I didn’t want to use up a whole day to paint. 3-day weekend? I needed to do some movie watching and eating and shopping too. So… these are my tricks:

1. The Handy Paint Pail - This is a lifesaver. See how that brush is rested nicely on the edge of the pail? There’s a magnet there so you can set your brush down without getting messy. It also has a square lip on the opposite side where you can remove the excess paint from your brush before you start painting… no drips! I always start painting a room with this paint pail, so I can cut in the baseboards, door trim, window moldings, and ceiling. I don’t use tape for those jobs, you can see in the background of the picture, I just cut it in by hand, and with practice, you’ll hardly need to touch up afterward. I only have one of these pails, and I don’t lend it out, for fear that I’ll lose it!

2. But with my tall ceilings, I didn’t cut the whole room in at the same time. I needed a snack and a nap, you see. So I wrapped it up with a grocery bag, air-tight, and I can keep it that way for about a day or so without remorse. The paint won’t harden and your brush won’t dry up.

3. Same goes for the paint rollers and tray. When you let the room dry before the second coat, no need to rinse out the rollers just yet. Use a kitchen trash bag to tie them up tight for later.

4. And because this paint was particularly stinky in my teeny-tiny 3rd bedroom, we wore respirators so we didn’t go loopy. We ARE smiling under there…

One Year Later: Getting Stuffy

It’s been over a year now since we’ve lived in our condo, and the “new” is wearing off. I’ve been spending more and more time in my “croffice” {craft room + office} and I needed more room to work at my desk. So, out with the old {*gasp*}:

And in with the new:

So, this time I put the Ikea furniture together *off camera* and I was a little less smiley, little more *holy frick when will this be done* about the process, made a big mess, and finished in a show-stopping three days. Oy! I’m happy with the change, and the type-A side of me won’t rest until I sew a really cool modesty panel for below the desk {I’m told that my on-camera Ikea assembly will be part of a National Geographic show due to air October-ish. Don’t worry… I’ll post links when it airs if it turns out that the camera DOESN’T add ten pounds}.

Links to my new Ikea furniture {and DO get the pasta alfredo from the food court while you’re there}

Vika Alex, Ung Drill, Vika Amon, Vika Curry

And my FAVORITE part of the room, my new sasea boutique pillow cover! These are one of my favorite products from the {oh Yes!} party, and everyone agreed. This polishes off my black and white croffice theme, and makes my green chair look SO CUTE!

They have more ADORABLE pillow covers in their shop, and I’m keeping them in mind for gifts… you can’t beat the price of $15 each, and buy two get one free!