DIY Archives - and then they...

Matchy Matchy Heart Dresses

Posted by Carolyn on February 12, 2016 Leave a Comment

I still have so much fabric left over from the weekly photos I took of the girls during their first year. Alma and Harriet are outgrowing the dresses I made them last Winter. Valentine’s Day is coming up. So… I made some new dresses for the girls.

I have to admit that I never thought I would be the kind of mom who would dress her daughters in matching dresses. Turns out I am that kind of mom. I am totally that kind of mom. I’ve done it more than I expected, and I love it every single time. So be it. Can you blame me?

I mean, seriously. They are just the two cutest sisters that ever were. Especially when they make the same absurd random expression. Don’t even ask, I have no idea.

Gotta love ’em!

This pattern is my take on Shwin and Shwin’s amazing dress pattern.

Autumn Decor, 2015

Posted by Carolyn on September 25, 2015 1 Comment

Today was the day. While the kids were at school, I came home to clean the living room and decorate for Autumn. How pleasant this task was without little feet underfoot. Plus, I get the added bonus of surprising them with all the new Autumn decor when they come home! andthenthey autumn decor1 This year the mantel is a little more Halloween-y than in the past. I put our vintage Halloween postcards right in the center, and added some more spooky things. I love this sphere my grandpa made out of obsidian that looks like a magical eyeball crystal ball or something. It’s even spookier with my ghostly reflection in this photo… andthenthey autumn decor3 I can’t remember if I ever shared a photo of the fireplace all painted. I ended up painting the inside a charcoal color, and the outside just a plain white, whatever we had in the shed. I love how it brightens up the room. andthenthey autumn decor4 This next decoration cracks me up. I think my mother-in-law gave this to the girls last Autumn, but I couldn’t find the dowel for hanging it. It probably became a sword or a wand and had to be taken away. Anyway, the girls have been playing with this branch and I thought it would a perfectly spooky flagpole. I doubt it will last long, but it’s funny for now. Just watch out as you walk into our garage… andthenthey autumn decor5 Here’s our front porch decorations. The broom is actually my mother-in-law’s; she won it in a raffle and I picked it up for her. I’m sure she’ll agree that it looks really good on our porch, right?!? We’ve been collecting the mini pumpkins each time we go out to the farm. andthenthey autumn decor9 andthenthey autumn decor6 I’ve also meant to post about our new bench! Jesse built it and I stained it! Isn’t it amazing? We used reclaimed lumber from my dad’s old deck. I love the nicks and dings and nail holes. I’m so proud of Jesse, following in his woodworking grandfather’s footsteps. We bought a Kreg Jig for this project and it made the whole thing so easy and perfect. Now Jesse is inspired and motivated to make all sorts of things. I love that this is a new hobby for him because he’s really good at it, and I get awesome things out of it! andthenthey autumn decor8 And of course, I needed to get the fairies some new Autumn decor.

I KonMari-ed All The Things!

Posted by Carolyn on September 24, 2015 2 Comments

We read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in my book club, and I have to say, it really is magic. If you haven’t heard already about Marie Kondo’s book about how to tidy up for the last time, this post will tell you what the KonMari Method is all about. If you already know what it’s about, but don’t want to tackle the life-changing magic yourself, hopefully this post will help convince you.

The basic explanation for the KonMari Method is that you only keep things that spark joy. You don’t choose what you’re throwing out, you choose what you’re keeping, and you choose with joy. You hold everything in your hands and feel if there is joy. If there is, keep it. If not, thank it, and put it aside. I know that this sounds silly, and this one idea seems to have prevented a lot of people from doing the method. It feels strange to thank an object, but it really made sense to me.

On the section on clothes, she wrote about how there are things we buy, but never wear. I had a couple shirts I had bought for $2, but never liked to wear. Her philosophy on this is that I already got the joy out of them – the moment I got a great deal, that was the joy. But if they don’t continue to bring joy, that’s okay, let them go. Thank them for the joy they brought and move on. It was such a relief to be given permission to let go of something.

Another thing I had a hard time with was my box of clothes from college. These clothes no longer fit me, but I’ve kept them. Perhaps I hold out hope to be that size again, but the reality is that if I were ever that size again, I won’t want to wear dated, old clothes. There was one skirt, in particular, that I have been holding onto. I have to admit that holding it, thinking about my memories of it, thanking it, and putting it in the charity box with all the hopes and dreams of the future owner all helped me let go of it. I know that all my memories will remain, even if I don’t have the skirt anymore. Memories of my sweet basketball skills included:

Jesse and I have been living in this house for almost six years. That means the last time we went through all our stuff was six years ago, and even then, we just threw things in boxes and moved them from one place to another. I know that I had some boxes that had moved with my parents from house to house and finally to my house, never having been opened. Honestly, knowing that those boxes were in my attic stressed me out.

We started with clothes, and brought each and every article of clothing out to the living room and created clothes mountains. There were things like the skirt that I was sad to get rid of, but knowing that they didn’t bring me joy anymore, it was easy to put them in the donate pile. The girls’ clothes were easier to do that my own. I have a few boxes of clothes for the girls. I’m keeping some outfits forever and ever. I’m keeping some to turn into a quilt or two. I’m keeping some to pass on to future nieces.

Next was books. Another thing in the book said that if you bought a book a few years ago and never read it, you will probably never read it. There will never come a time that you look at your bookshelf and decide that it is finally time. The joy was in the buying, and every time you see the book on your self, you feel guilty that you never read it. This was totally true for so many of my books! I would love to have a whole library full of books, someday, but I know that I don’t need to fill it with books that don’t spark joy. We sold a bunch of books, then donated the rest.

Kitchen and bathroom stuff was next. The kitchen was awesome, and my mom helped me reorganize all the things that spark joy. I love the flow so much better now. The bathroom cracked me up. We had so much crap! Serious crap. Expired pills, random broken hair elastics, four Sonicare chargers, old gross lotions. The photo above is everything pulled out of all the cabinets and drawers (not what our counters usually look like… haha!). It feels so much better to open a drawer and see everything and know that it’s all useful.

It took me a long time to get to the next part of the KonMari Method. This was the mementos and keepsakes. This was those boxes that had followed me around for almost two decades. The photo above is everything I’m getting rid of. That means that I’ve basically moved four separate boxes that I should have thrown out every time I’ve moved. Isn’t that sort of depressing? What you don’t see pictured are the two small boxes of photos and keepsakes that I decided to save. It seriously stressed me out, knowing that there were boxes and boxes of this stuff up in the attic. I knew that I didn’t want to just get rid of the photos, but the thought of putting the vast numbers of photos in albums was dizzying. Now I have a shoebox sized box full of photos. I can totally tackle that someday and get them all in albums. Not dizzying anymore.

I’ll get to the Autumn decor, Christmas, and other seasonal decorations as they come, but I’m not going to take something back up to the attic that I don’t want to keep there.

So, the verdict? I love the KonMari Method. It feels great. I feel more free. I love seeing tidy surfaces and drawers. It’s hard with kids since they grow so quickly and seem to play with so many things, but it’s worth it. I have gone through their toys a few times since the first time, and I can usually find a few toys that don’t spark joy anymore. I also really think before I buy them something new. Do they really need this item? Will it be something that sparks joy in the long-term? Usually the answer is no, and it’s easy to just put it back on the shelf.

If you’re wondering, I feel like the book has already served its purpose in my life, so I passed it on.

Summer Mantel and Fireplace Ideas

Posted by Carolyn on July 11, 2015 3 Comments

This week I finally got around to taking down the springtime/ Easter decorations on the mantel. I know, I know. We are solidly in summer. It was ridiculous. I decided to go with a colorful, beachy vibe for the summer mantel. And since I was taking photos and thinking about it, I decided to do some ~~awesome~~ crude mockups of how I can revamp the fireplace. These are my fireplace ideas.

But first, the mantel. I couple favorites this season are the birds in the nest. I got the nest jar for my birthday from some great friends. It actually has the green bunny as its top (you can see the bunny above), but I thought the birds would be cute for summertime.

I also have my white bunnies front and center. These are a favorite possession of mine. When we left Azerbaijan quickly and unexpectedly, our lovely host family gave them to us. They were always on display in their home, and it really means so much to me that they gifted them to us. They are usually, if not always, on our mantel.Now on to some ideas. I have wanted to do something with the fireplace since we moved in. You might remember that we used to have a big ugly woodstove in the fireplace (you can see it in the photos here). That’s been gone for about a year, and we’ve just been living with the empty fireplace.

I think the first step will be to paint the inside of the fireplace. Black, gray, or white, I suppose. Here’s what it looks like now:

I think painting the inside black would look the best, because then it would draw attention to whatever we put inside. Some ideas for what to put inside are a big bowl, like this one shaped like a shell:Or some logs on their side. I’ve seen this done a lot, but I came across this cool idea on The Art of Doing Stuff, and did a little mockup of how it would look in our fireplace (the image of the logs is their photo, I just edited it into my fireplace):

I think that’s really fun, and it would be cool to do different colors for different seasons, or just have them all painted in bright metallics.

Next, I tried to see what it would look like if we painted the bricks, or installed white tiles over them. For fun, I threw some logs and a grate in the fireplace. Seriously amazing photoshopping here, folks.

One thing that I’ve wanted to do for a while is sew up a long cushion for the whole fireplace. Here’s what that would look like in blue:

That reminded me of Young House Love’s amazing fireplace makeover, so I cropped their fireplace and added it to my living room.

Obviously, this is a totally different fireplace that goes to the ground, so we’d have to do things differently. This is also the most drastic since we’d be covering all the bricks and installing tile and building a whole new mantelpiece.

What do you think? Any other ideas out there? Please leave me a comment with your favorite fireplace makeover, or some compliments on my photoshopping skills!

Christmas Dresses

Posted by Carolyn on January 12, 2015 1 Comment

For the girls’ Christmas dresses, I used Oliver + S’s Fairy Tale pattern (the same one I used for Harriet’s baptism dress) and solid fabrics from Piece By Piece. Alma got to wear her dress to the Nutcracker, and Harriet got to wear her dress to my dad’s Rotary meeting, but unfortunately, Alma was really sick on Christmas, so we skipped church, and didn’t have the kids wear their fancy Christmas dresses to Christmas Eve dinner at my dad’s.

Luckily, we’re really lazy and still have our Christmas decorations up, so before we went to Alma’s birthday party, we had a quick photo-shoot with Jesse’s old sled, decorated with some Christmas boughs.

It was Jesse’s idea to make Alma’s dress look like a Christmas tree. I thought it could be awesome or ridiculous, but I decided to go for it anyway!I raised the waistline and lengthened the skirt, and added a few extra layers. I think the tiers of green look really sweet, and I love the petal sleeves in this pattern.

For Harriet, the initial idea was to make it like a poinsettia, but in the end, I decided making petals would be too much, so I just lengthened it, and added the dark red lining, longer than the dress.I love how the Christmas dresses look Christmas-y, but are plain enough that they can wear them all year long. I also love how Harriet was totally mugging for the camera. She seriously cracks us up, all day long.

Secret Rain Message DIY

Posted by Carolyn on October 20, 2014 1 Comment

View post on imgur.com

Back in the sunny summertime, I did this project. I made a secret rain message DIY using NeverWet spray paint. I’ve been waiting for the perfect day to take raining photos – starting with a mostly dry sidewalk and ending with the secret rain message!

(I can’t figure out why the last part of this photo is just black, but I’ve stopped caring enough to figure it out…Edit: apparently it’s fine. Go figure)

Finally, last week we had just the day! I can’t wait to see how it holds up with the foot traffic and heavy winter rains and possible snow.

It’s fun to see it appear like magic, and it’s fun to see the letters stay (mostly) dry all day long. If there’s a lot of rain, the water sort of seeps into the letters, but you can still see them very clearly. Alma loves to say, “My letters!” when she sees them on the porch.

For my instructions on how to make a secret rain message, check this out! I would love to see if you make it yourself!

Quilted Infinity Scarf Tutorial

Posted by Carolyn on October 16, 2014 1 Comment

I’m starting a new series of projects that have been on my Pinterest boards for far too long. I’m going to actually start creating the things I pin, and posting them on here. I know, it’s crazy. Without further ado, I give you the quilted infinity scarf tutorial!

Infinity scarves seem to be all the rage these days. I didn’t have an infinity scarf, so I thought I’d try making one. I like to wear scarves because, as a teacher, I have to be pretty modest. A scarf is a great way to cover up when a shirt is just a little bit too low-cut.

This is a great project, because all you need is two fat quarters, some leftover batting, and some embroidery floss. I’ve seen some tutorials around the web – here’s my take on it. It took me about an hour to complete, so it’s pretty simple!

Start with two fat quarters, cut them into 6 inch strips. Mine ended up being about 6 x 21 inches.

I used two fabrics from Joel Dewberry’s Birch Farm line – “Barn Owl” and “Horse Blanket.” I bought my fabric at Piece by Piece, but if you don’t live locally, I think you can get it at Southernfabric. I wanted mostly neutrals, and the pop of light blue is perfect for my capsule wardrobe.

Sew the short ends of each fabric together to create two long, skinny strips.

Cut your batting to be 5 inches wide by the length of your strips. I made mine a little longer than the strips, just to make sure I had enough. Mine was 5 x 63 inches. Now you have three long strips to work with.

Put the batting on the wrong side of one of your strips, as sew together using a basting stitch (which you will later remove, it will just hold everything in place until you quilt it).

Put the other piece of fabric so the two fabrics are facing, and the batting is on top.

Sew along the long edges, leaving about 9 inches open on one side. Leave the ends open, but trim them so all three layers are the same length, and line up. Turn right side out.

This is where I got stuck. This next step totally baffled me. What you need to do is stick one end through the tube of fabric and pop it out the other end. I’ll try to explain this so it makes sense. Reach in the opening on the side and grab one of the open ends. Pull it through to the other end, and pull it all the way through so both ends are lined up. I hope the next three photos help make this more clear.

The last photo above shows one of the ends inside the other. Go ahead and sew this closed.

When you turn it back right side out, you’ll have a full circle – infinity!

To close up the hole, you can either just hand stitch it closed, or edge stitch the entire scarf. I like the look of edge stitching, so I did that with white thread.

To quilt the infinity scarf, you have more options! You can machine quilt it, or hand quilt. I’ve been liking quilts with big stitches, so I went that route. I just took some embroidery floss and quilted an easy line right down the middle. I used all 6 strands of the floss because I wanted it to look thick. I didn’t pay much attention to keeping my stitches even, but I did try to keep it in a straight line.

There you have it! A quilted infinity scarf! Let me know if you make one – I would love to see photos! I think I’ll be raiding my fabric stash to make more of these!

How to Create a Secret Message For When it Rains

Posted by Carolyn on July 29, 2014 3 Comments

This is my favorite project ever. Probably because I love rain so much, and it is the middle of summer, and there is no rain in the forecast at all.

It was actually really easy, and pretty fun! And the results were exactly as cool as I expected!

Here’s a quick little rundown with instructions so you can do this yourself!

First pick what you want the message to say. I wanted to use a quotation about rain – that celebrated rain. I also wanted it short enough that it would fit well on my front porch, and wouldn’t be too labor intensive to make the template. I picked “Let the rain kiss you,” the opening line of a Langston Hughes poem, “April Rain Song.”

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

Exactly how I feel about rain. Perfect.

Next, I found an old cardboard box, opened it up, and drew the letters on. I used a ruler to make sure all the letters were the same height, but just did it freehand. If you wanted to have it more precise, you could certainly print out your quote and copy it onto your cardboard.

Next, I used an x-acto knife and a cutting mat to cut out the letters. We found the Rust-Oleum NeverWet at our local hardware store. It is kind of spendy, but we found it on sale. I think it was about $15. Considering it was the entire cost of this project, it wasn’t that bad.The directions say to clean your surface of dirt and debris. We took it a step further, and Jesse pressure washed the whole front walk. The cleaner the surface, the better, I figure!

I used painter’s tape to tape the template onto our front porch landing. I also used the tape to fill in the letters R, A, and O. There were a couple places where the cardboard was lifting up a little, so I made little tape bubbles and pressed everything down nice and firm. The directions also say that it holds up better if it doesn’t get much foot traffic, so I placed the template to the left of the landing, since people tend to hug the right hand side as they go up the steps. I don’t think it will get a whole lot of foot traffic where I placed it. Next, I just followed the directions that came with the NeverWet. There is a base coat of which I did two coats. Then I did four super light coats of the top coat.

It says that it can leave a light white, frosted appearance, and you can kind of see that. You really have to be looking for it, though. The photo below shows what it looks like when it’s dry. What do you think? Can you tell where the letters are? Maybe a little, but not enough to bother me!You are supposed to let it cure for 12 hours, but I waited almost a whole day. Since there is no rain coming anytime soon, I had to manufacture it. I just poured some water on it to see what it did. It was pretty amazing! The water just rolled right off the letters! And the letters feel totally dry. Super fun! I love it! I want to do this all over the place! I will be sure to post updates during the winter months when it will surely be wet all the time. Here’s hoping it holds up! Let me know if you do this yourself! I’d love to see more of these!

Busy Sewing

Posted by Carolyn on June 18, 2014 1 Comment

Right now I’m working on making a quilt for Alma’s new twin sized bed (!). She’s still choosing to sleep in her ‘baby bed,’ and we’re not pushing the issue. Since we got mini cribs for our kids, I was worried that they would outgrow them quickly. Alma totally fills up her crib, and so I thought she might be uncomfortable. Apparently she is not, since she keeps choosing to sleep in it.

Anyhow, I’m making her a full twin sized quilt. I’ve never made a quilt using any sort of sizing guide. I usually just make a quilt using triangles, squares, strips, or some other shape and sew them together until it’s about the ‘right’ size for a baby quilt. This time I’m using a real pattern.

I’m using the same blues and pinks and corals that are in Alma’s room and doing a sort of transitional ombre.

Since I’ve been working on the quilt so much, I haven’t had much time to create much else. Also, I’m trying to get back into the swing of things now that I’m totally not working at all anymore for a few months. Yay summer vacation!

Here’s a sneak peek of some of the fabrics that are going into the quilt:

A New Quilt For A New Cousin

Posted by Carolyn on June 5, 2014 2 Comments

Alma and Harriet are getting a new cousin very, very soon, so that meant it was time for a new quilt! I love this one. It is so cheerful. I’m also really happy with it because it uses only fabrics that I already owned. That means that there are already memories, love, and other babies connected to this quilt. I can see pieces from sheets I made for my friend’s baby, parts of quilts for two of my nephews, Alma’s Halloween costume/apron, Alma’s and Harriet’s weekly photo projects, Harriet’s baby quilt. You see, lots of love.

Our new family member is being born far away in Minnesota, to my step-brother and his wife. They chose to wait until birth to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl. We did this with Alma, and really loved the experience. I think this quilt will be perfect no matter who they have.

The quilting got a little wonky, but hey. Whatever. Gives it that homemade-with-love character. You can’t buy that in a store!

We are all so excited to meet you, little baby. You are already so, so loved. Even though I know it will be quite a while before I get to meet you, I’m glad your parents will be able to wrap you up in this quilt that I made for you, with love.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: