Purple Monkey

Busy times here in Sweeneyville! Finally got moved into the new place over the weekend. Now begins the massive unpacking efforts.

I do have a purse to share from a few weeks ago. This was a special request for a friend of a friend. Get this: She likes purple, monkeys and skulls! This is a girl after my own heart.

It's hard to see in the picture, but the purple in the monkey is a fun glittery fabric. The same fabric was used for the lining. I learned the hard way to iron the wrong side of the fabric or the glitter would come off. I used a skull and crossbones button for the tab closure. This was a fun one to make!

Now, I should go unpack the kitchen. Or I could keep watching Heroes. Eh, we'll see. :-)

Fabric Panel

Here's another project I made for our blank, white walls. My requirements were that it needed to be fairly large, cheap and easy (insert "your mom" joke here). A fabric panel would fit the bill!

I've had this fabric for a year or so. When I spotted it in the store, I new it was perfect for a purse for a friend, but I also needed some for myself. I bought 3 yards, I think, with no project in mind at the time.

Don't you love it?

With the fabric settled, we headed to the hardware store for 2 pieces of 1" x 2" wood and a 4-pack of brackets. I believe we spent about $5 at the store.

Because The Hubs jumps at the chance to use power tools, he put the frame together for me. The first step was to saw the wood to the right lengths. I wanted the finished project to be 3' x 4', so he cut 2 pieces to 3' and 2 pieces to 4'. Yeah, it would be an inch or two off at the end because of the way we put the corners together, but I was okay with that. No pics of him sawing, but I think you can imagine what that looks like.

The next step was to drill pilot holes for the brackets. Here's an action shot...

With all four brackets in place, we had a frame that looks like this...

Here's a closer look at the brackets we used...

With the frame assembled, it was my turn! I laid out the fabric face down, and placed the frame on top. Then I cut around frame, leaving a couple inches of fabric around the edges. I was not precise, by any means.

The next step was to pull the fabric over the edges of the frame and staple the heck out of it. I started with one staple in the center of each side and pulled it taut, then kept pulling and stapling until there was no more to pull and staple. Once it was all stapled, I trimmed off any excess fabric. It looked a little something like this...

Here's a look at the corners. Not very pretty, but that's okay. I'm all about cutting corners on things that no one is ever going to see.

And that is it! Time to hang it on the wall...

Just to recap, the cost of this project was about 5 bucks and some fabric that I had on hand. This was a super simple and fast project, but I love the impact it makes in the room! Because I left the fabric relatively in tact, I can always pull it off the frame and reuse it! I just can't get enough of those bunnies.

Linking up to the CSI Project. The challenge this week is Wall Decor. Why don't you head on over and see what people are making?

Paper Blossoms

No new projects to report here, but look at this one from Lemon Tree Creations!

I love the simplicity of this project. It's so wonderfully pretty and easy to do. I can't wait to try this one out!

In other news, we're going to be moving in a few weeks, which has put a damper on the crafting and posting. On the bright side, I'll have a whole new place to decorate and post about.

You know, I started this post by saying there are no new projects, but that's not entirely true. The Hubs and I are officially looking to get knocked up! In typical Mel P fashion, I'm treating this like the ultimate DIY project, complete with extensive research and timelines. There's even a jingle, which I can't really share in this medium. Of course, I'm getting waaaay ahead of myself and looking into room design elements, but I've drawn the line at making any purchases before the bun is in the oven. Anyway, more on Project Sweeney-Baby as events unfold!

A Craft That's for the Birds

Wow, no post since Sofa Drama. I'll quickly provide an update and then move on to the good stuff. We bought a sofa and chaise from Ikea and we're exceedingly happy with it! Plenty of room for all five of us to lounge. (Two humans, two cats and a dog.) My plan is to post some pictures of the living room once I get a few projects done, so you'll see it then.

Speaking of projects, the living room is sorely in need of some color on the walls. Because we're renting, I don't want to paint, so I've initiated a couple projects to dress up the space. Enter the bird tiles...

These bird tiles are from Crate and Barrel's outdoor collection and I love them. At $50, the price is reasonable, but it's still more than I wanted to pay. In addition, they're the wrong color. I decided that, with the help of some paint, I could recreate something I'd be happy with.

With that, it was time for a trip to Michael's for 1'x1' canvases. Because they were running a sale, I ended up with 4 11"x14" canvases for $10 or so. The square canvases would have cost 4x as much! I have a bunch of paint left over from another project, so we were good to go.

The first thing I did was paint the canvases with the same turquoise/teal color I used for the coffee table. What coffee table, you ask? That's for another post!

While the paint was drying, I went bird hunting. Because of the purse appliques I make, I have a ton of silhouettes saved and waiting to go. I picked out 5 birds from a collection of clipart so they would match. (I didn't want a cartoony bird next to a realistic bird.) A google search for "bird silhouette" will give you tons of options. Using Microsoft Paint, I resized the birds, then pasted them into Word so I could print them all on one sheet of paper. Cardstock, to be more precise.

The print on the left was to make sure I had the right size (the birds are about 3" tall) before printing on cardstock. I also adjusted the color intensity to conserve ink. Then, I cut out the birds.

Here are my cut out birds atop a print of the original Crate and Barrel tiles. I would be using the picture in the next step... Drawing the trees!

Because we apparently don't own a pencil, I used a metallic gel pen, which worked out well. It stood out on the blue, but disappeared under the next layer of paint. Referencing the picture of the C&B tiles, I drew tree branches onto the canvases. I wasn't going for an exact match, but it did take some of the guesswork out of the composition.

Next, I traced on the birds. I chose to make my birds legless, by the way.

With the birds in place, it was time to paint the branches. I decided to go with white for a nice, clean look. I also figured it would show up nicely against the blue. While painting the branches, I was careful to paint around the birds.

I wrapped the branches onto the edges of the canvas to make it look more finished. You can also see in the next picture that I decided to add some curls to the branches.

Now it was time to paint the birds! Again, I already had paint from my big box of craft paints. I decided to make the birds orange and black. As you can see below, the birds required two coats of paint. By the time I was done painting the second orange bird, the first one was dry enough to paint again.

And here's the finished product!

And from a slightly different angle...

So! For a grand total of $10 and some stuff I already had at home, we now have some colorful birdies to adorn our wall!

I'm updating this post with some new pics and a link to the CSI Project! The theme this week is Frames, Art and Wall Decor. Go check out the awesomeness!

Sofa Drama

Blerg. This is going to be a long ranty post. Thought I should warn you ahead of time.

From a previous post, you may remember my infatuation with a certain sofa. My love for the sofa was so much that I was going to order two. Well, due to space constraints (and monetary ones), I only ordered one, but I was still super excited. It's a custom sofa, so I expected it to take awhile.

And then I waited.

And waited.

Seven weeks later, the sofa arrives. Because I was at work, my husband received the sofa and my anticipation grew. Finally, I got home and found... it was the wrong freakin' fabric. (I don't have pics with me, so I'll have to add them later.)

I'll stop here and mention that the sofa that they sent is gorgeous. But it's not what I ordered.

The following day, I called the company to inform them of the error. They were very apologetic and was able to track the problem to the salesman who had keyed the information incorrectly. So then he called and was very apologetic. The solution was that they would order the correct sofa (which would take another 6 - 9 weeks to process) and we would get to keep the other until it arrives. Seems reasonable enough, right? However, in order to start the process for the new sofa they needed to charge my card for the new order. I wouldn't receive the credit for the returned sofa until they picked it up. The problem is that I don't have the resources to pay for two sofas and, the more I thought about it, I shouldn't have to.

So, a week later they pick up the sofa. I'm now waiting for my card to be credited and then I'll be purchasing a sofa elsewhere.

My problem is not that a mistake was made. We all mess up now and again. How you handle your mistakes reveals your character and they've made no effort to make the situation right. No offer to reduce the cost or expedite the new order, which is the very least they could have done. So, while I love that sofa, the company isn't getting my money.

Well, that was a lot of negativity. Just to throw in something positive, I'll mention that we're going to a super-amazing flea market tomorrow. I've heard that the quirky selection and people watching makes for a good time. I'm hoping to find some inexpensive crafting supplies. Vintage buttons and fabric and the like. In addition, I'm keeping an eye out for a cheap coffee table to refinish. It should be an adventure!

You Don't Know Me

I received feeback for the custom kitteh purse. She says,

"Amazing quality and craftsmanship. Couldn't be any happier!"

Here's my latest song obsession. You Don't Know Me by Ben Folds, featuring Regina Spektor. I find the video mildly disturbing, so you may want to close your eyes or skip ahead.




I just placed an order with Fabric.com that I'm super excited about. It was hard not to get carried away. Handbags with love birds, owls and woodland creatures are coming soon! Here's a preview...

Btw, if you've thought about ordering from Joann online, I'd think twice about it. I ordered some stuff just before the holidays for Christmas presents and was disappointed.

For starters, they sent partial items. For example, they ran out of some fabrics and sent 1 yard instead of the 2 yards I ordered. When you're talking about fabric, this can render the item useless. Such was the case for my projects. Secondly, you can't return or exchange in store. Granted, I should have read the return policy before I ordered, but seriously?

So now I have a bunch of fabric that I can't use and have to make a trip to the post office to return. (Does anyone else hear the world's smallist violin?) I ended up with enough fabric to complete 1 of the 5 projects that I ordered for.

I emailed Joann and got a canned response about how they're forwarding my concerns on to the proper authorities. I doubt that anything will come of it, but sometimes you need to vent. Multiple times, it seems. At the end of the day, I'll still shop at Joann because I've never had a problem in store. However, I won't be ordering online again and that's disappointing.

Here's a pic of a bracelet I forgot to post. This one's a gift, so it's not available for sale. I found these handpainted glass beads at the International Gem and Jewelry Show, which is what sparked the new jewelry making obsession. I wish I had picked up more of them now because I absolutely love them.

Slap Fight

I got in a slap fight with one of my cats over orange chicken. I like to think that I won, but you never really know with a cat.

The custom purse I was working on is complete and shipped. The requestor wanted a purse with silhouettes of her cats in their typical poses. I really like how this one turned out.

I just introduced jewelry to the Etsy store! This was the perfect opportunity to break out the micro studio I got for my birthday. It's actually much bigger than I expected. As you can see below, it takes up the entire dining room table.

Overall, I'm very happy with the pictures of the jewelry...

I tried retaking pictures of purses with less success. The camera wants to wash out some of the bright colors. I'll have to keep practicing with different settings.

And now, back to watching Dexter!

A Tale of Two Sofas

I've been decorating the living room in my head!

In the coming weeks, we'll be finalizing our move to the Chicago area. We're trying to sell or give away as much as possible to make the last move easier, which puts us in the market for... a new sofa! Initially, I thought I wanted a sectional. One sofa doesn't give both of us enough room to lay down and, let's face it, we're sofa layers. As I was shopping, I had a hard time finding a sectional that I liked and in the right color (my heart is set on gray). Then I found this beauty!

I love the shape and it's an awesome deal. No, it's not a sectional, but I love it! The solution is that we'll have to get two of them, of course. The color shown is Oyster, but it also comes in this amazing gray textured fabric. It reminds me of boucle.

I'm very excited! Just need to figure out how we're paying for it.

One project I'll definitely be undertaking for the living room is this fantastic wreath made of torn book pages.

Love, love, love it! Thanks to Living With Lindsay for the idea and tutorial. She made this for about $2 with items from Dollar Tree. It has a wonderful vintage vibe and would be awesome if you used a book that has sentimental value. If you could bring yourself to do it, that is.

Shop-side, I won a bid on Etsy's Alchemy, so I've been working on a custom purse. I'll post some pics when that's done. Should be cute!

Threadbangers!

How am I just now discovering this site?! Threadbangers is chocked full of fantastic fashion and decor DIY projects, with a focus on reusing and recycling. They have tons of video tutorials.

Below is an instructional video on how to fuse plastic bags to make a laptop bag. What a fantastic idea! I'm not an avid recycler by any means, but I do hate being wasteful and this is like getting free fabric! I can't wait to try it out and see what I can make.

Times They are A'Changin'

I've gotten really behind on my blogging. I would almost feel guilty about it if anyone actually read this. :-)

As mentioned in a previous post, I've been unemployed since the company I worked for (rhymes with Schmircuit City) went out of business. I work in the field of retail space management, so my options are limited to retail headquarters. The Richmond, VA area doesn't have many more left, leaving me to pursue opportunities elsewhere.

So, elsewhere we will go! I've accepted a job with a company located near Chicago. I'll be very vague about my future situation for the protection of my job.

Anyhoo, my world has been occupied with interviews, planning, packing, etc. Unfortunately, this hasn't left much time for purse making. Once I'm relocated and settled I'll have more time to devote to crafting and blogging. Especially since I'll be leaving by hubby behind for 6 months to finish school.

I'll be making a headboard for the new place. Maybe I'll take some pics as I go and blog about that.

I'm very excited about the upcoming move. While I love this area, I've been here most of my life and am looking forward to having new things to see and new areas to explore.

If you, good reader, happen to be from Chicago, feel free to comment give me some ideas of cool things to do!