Buttons!!!

I love buttons.

I mean it. I love buttons. 

I can't get enough of them. Buttons on clothes, buttons on jewelry, buttons on purses, buttons on shoes, buttons as eyes on my sock dolls... I seriously love buttons. I'm always oohing and ahhing over button crafts, but I complete surprisingly few of my own. One problem is the price of fancy buttons. Like everything up here, it's a bit high. And I'm cheap. Plain buttons are more than acceptable to me, but there just isn't a huge selection in the craft stores here. I've seen a place on TV (in Canada, of course) where there are rows upon rows, shelves upon shelves, aisles upon aisles of buttons. Thousands of buttons of all shapes and sizes, all sorted by color. Why can't there be a button cache like that here?!

But I'm not going to complain (much). I do have a large collection of random buttons to pick from, and it serves me well enough until I can find my treasure trove of color-coded button glory.

And believe me, I will find it.

Last night as I battled Audrey to sleep for the fourth time, I went to my Zen place - the place where I create craft projects in my head, where it's impossible to mess up and everything turns out amazing. I spend a lot of time in that place. Anyway, I found myself thinking of all the possibilities in a handful of buttons, and decided I need to have buttons in my hair. I almost got out of bed right then to craft for fear of forgetting this idea. But, as Audrey had finally given in and gone to sleep again, I decided to wait until morning.

Thankfully, I didn't forget. And here it is:

I love it. A lot. I know, there's a lot of love in this post. Deal with it.

Simple, but so fun!

The original headband, all boring and blah.

I didn't take step by step pictures, because, well, come on. I sewed buttons to an elastic headband. I think that's pretty easy to figure out. To be sure the knots in the thread on the back don't come out, I super-glued them. I think I'm about to make about a billion more, and maybe I'll add some fabric flowers and such. I'm already itching to go make more, so...

Yay crafts!

I'm super thrilled to share some recent craft projects I've completed, simply because I finally completed some! These awesome bracelets were easy to do, which is important because I am currently on a time-consuming-project hiatus. At least until Audrey gets older and learns what "Mommy's busy" means.

Here are some bracelets I made following this and this tutorial:

I'm also working on a bordered chevron friendship bracelet with some fun, bright colors. Once I get some more beads, I'll be making one of these bracelets too. I'm in a bracelet frenzy.

In the meantime, I've been working on this:

When I was little, my brother and I each had a string-art picture our grandfather had made for us. I remember staring at them for hours and tracing the strings with my fingers. I always wanted to make my own, but just never got around to it. Finally, with boatloads of bright embroidery floss calling my name, I decided to take a crack at it. Now, I feel like it needs some work. I like how the last two letters turned out more than the first three, and I'm on the fence on the "R", but I'm satisfied with it for a first try.

I wrapped a piece of wood in some burlap-ish fabric and stapled it on the back, then did the obvious parts: hammering and stringing. I just have to figure out how to get the eyeliner dots off now. Also, maybe capital letters would have worked better? Ah well, I still like it.

Those boatloads of embroidery floss I mentioned were actually becoming a storage nightmare. I found this idea, but I don't have any clothespins and really couldn't justify buying some just to store thread (sad face). So, I cut up a flat-rate box and used it! I'm already using chopped up old boxes and cardboard as a bracelet weaving loom, so it came to mind to do this:

Organized and tangle free! Yay!

Earlier today we went out and took a picture in front of a frozen waterfall along the highway south of our house. It's a pretty popular stop on our one and only highway, because it is beautiful in all seasons. Exactly a year ago, my hubby and I took a picture in front of it to display my giant pregnant belly. Today, we brought the product of said belly with us!

It tickles me to see the changes we've been through and to reminisce on my pregnancy. What a great year it's been, too! That's it for now, but I'm already scouring my list for something else quick and fun to do!

Faux Metal Wall Art

After seeing this tutorial, and this organizing idea, I had my husband saving paper towel and toilet paper tubes for a couple months. Then I dove in to both projects. I chose to wrap the toilet paper tubes in old wrapping paper scraps, but as yet have not taken any pictures. Soon.

As for the wall art, I love it! I think they turned out great, for a first try. I may add a couple more, but I only had a small amount of wood on hand to make the frames. Again, soon.

I'm finally getting more time to myself now that Audrey can play by herself for a couple hours at a time, so I've been working on a crib skirt for a friend who's expecting her second daughter in a few months. I really like how it turned out!

This fabric is so pretty but was a pain to work with because it desperately wanted to unravel on the cut edges. I ended up sealing all the edges with Stop Fray by Aleen and it worked like a charm, though it got a bit messy. The center rectangle actually caused me the biggest problem because I am not at all capable of understanding stretchy fabrics, and since I was attaching very un-stretchy fabric to very stretchy fabric, it got interesting. Luckily, I was able to maintain the measurements required and my friend said it fits the crib perfectly. Pics of it on the crib will come soon.

Next, I'll be working on curtains for her nursery window and some pillows out of the leftover fabric for when her baby is older. Makes me want to buy a billion kinds of fabric and spend days sewing. Days.

Recently, my sister-in-law invited me to join Pinterest. I've been avoiding it for a long time because I've heard tell of hours spent pinning and pinning and pinning some more. Though it is chock-full of ideas for crafts, home decor, food, etc., I just knew that I would lose any resemblance of productivity if I ever ventured forth into the land of Pinterest. Turns out, I was right. The past few days, I've been collecting hundreds of ideas for beautiful, fantastic, fun and adorable crafts and sewing projects, but I have spent no time actually doing any crafting. Whoops!

Maybe tomorrow...

Nursery

I've had these pictures up on Facebook, but I thought it'd be nice to put them here too. We put a lot of time into decorating Audrey's nursery and now, nearly nine months later, she's still not sleeping in it. On the plus side, she slept through the night for the first time in six months last night! Progress?

Anyway, here are just a few things we put together for the nursery that I love:

Organization for her many, many onesies.

A wreath for her door made out of scraps from her unfinished quilt.

My friend made these for my baby shower, so I took them home and hung them above the changing table. Audrey stares at them while I change her every time.

I

These days I've had some more time to do the things I want to do, as Audrey is playing more and more on her own. She's standing with the help of furniture and the other day she even stood on her own for a few seconds! She's been babbling and making all the fun sounds babies make, and has been just astounding us with her developing personality. I have to say, I couldn't imagine spending my days in any other way than with my baby girl.

I can't believe it's already been almost nine months since she was born! And soon she'll be a year old and walking and talking! What a wonderful year and a half it's been.