IS•LY | I Still Love you

A little history:

When I was 12 or so, my mom found a pom pom kit that she used ages ago. I tried making pom poms out of it (there may have been Japanese instructions), failed miserably and gave up. Then just over a year ago, I saw an adorable post by Jenn over at Ambrosia Girl about kid friendly Christmas Decorating ideas by Martha. They were all pom poms. I died. I made a bunch of white poms for my Christmas tree. Then I made a bunch of poms for winter hats. Then I made more poms for my Christmas tree this year. Then ALT happened.

At ALT, I met so many cool people with fabulous style. Each person was trendier than the next, wearing unique handmade jewelery and accessories to make anyone swoon. One of the many stand out pieces that I remember was Erin’s necklace. I remember things like that. Erin had the raddest embroidered necklace on from etsy seller spinthread. I want one.

As soon as I got home to some internet, I googled spinthread and was delighted to find so many cool things! Mostly I was blown away by her pom pom headbands and her crazy curly hair. You need to check it out. AND buy one of her headbands. Too bad they’re not in my budget. Boo.

My sister modeling the elastic pom since my hair is far too short for that sort of thing. Isn’t she so pretty?

I had to make some sort of accessory right away with a pom pom. I’m such a copy cat. I used some of my yarn stash (very small) to make one, but I wasn’t getting the volume that I had hoped for. Then it struck me, I have 5 yards of white jersey fabric, why not cut strips and use those to make the poms? It was perfect. I’m going to make my pom poms out of jersey from now on. For sure. There are a few tricks to getting it just right, so I thought I’d include a little tutorial on how to make them, just in case anyone else is interested in making some outlandishly large poms for head ornaments.

• Materials: scissors, needle & sturdy thread, cardboard sheet ~ 3×5 inches, knit fabric cut into 1/2 inch strips
• When cutting fabric, cut strips parallel to the stretch so each strip. Run each strip through your fist, stretching the material slightly. Each strip will curl around itself, forming a hollow string.
• Wrap each string around the card. The longer the card, the larger the pom. Don’t worry that the string isn’t continuous, just keep layering each segment on top of the other.

• Once you get a nice pile of jersey wrapped around the card, you’re ready to tie it off.
• Before removing the pile of strings, tie one side of the loop off. This helps to keep the strings organized when you pull it off the cardboard.
• Carefully remove the pile of strings from the cardboard.

• Tie the entire bundle with string as TIGHTLY as possible. You may need some extra hands for this part.
• With your awesome sewing scissors, cut each loop in half. You’ll want to do this over a garbage can, it gets messy. After you’ve cut each loop, fluff the material out to make a ball. Trim the ball down to a round sphere, fluffing as you go.

Penelope loves this headband, even though the pom is nearly the size of her head. I can’t get enough of her wearing the headband, either. I think I’m going to be making more. LOADS more.

• Put them on headbands, elastic bands, teeshirts, newborns or in a basket for admiring. Enjoy.

To download this tutorial, Please click the download button above. This tutorial is free for personal use only. Thanks!

Ok, I sort of alluded to it last week, but it’s official now. I started a flickr group called ‘I Still Love Handmade’. Fitting, no? I’ve been thinking a lot about starting one; but mostly since the community building session at Alt. I think it might be a little fun for you to do some showing and telling. It may end up being a time suck for just me, because I just love to see what you’ve been up to.

{click on the image above to join the flickr group}

In celebration of the new flickr group, I’m hosting a little competition this month!

Whoever wins the best flickr group photo for the month of February will get all sorts of cool prizes. I haven’t picked out the prizes, but rest assured there will be a hand-bound book, some calligraphy and other goodies in there. You’re going to like it. PROMISE. So please, join my little group and show off what you’ve made! It can be anything! A drawing, a refashioned shirt, the awesome dinner you made last night, you get the idea! Please post a picture or 12, just as long as it’s made by you, photographed by you and very PG.

I really hope you’ll participate. I’ll keep you posted as I figure out what exactly will go to the winner.

This contest ends February 28 at 11:59pm MST. Winners will NOT be chosen randomly. 3 judges (me & two other guest judges) will vote on a winner. Judges’ entries are not considered part of the contest. Multiple entries are encouraged. You must have a flickr account and entries MUST be added to the flickr group pool to be entered. Am I forgetting anything? Sheesh. Comment or email if you have questions.

Good Luck!

Since returning to stay/work at home, I’ve got the nesting bug all over again. Sheesh! It’s like I’m 8 months along, but with out the swollen feet & belly. Since I didn’t have a nursery to decorate when Penlope was born (I only had a closet) so my brain is just swimming with ideas on how to make miss P’s room adorable.

While it feels like I’m swimming with ideas, it still seems that my ideas have to percolate for about a month before they happen. Naturally. This one incubated for a good few weeks, and I think my hesitation was mostly because the project seemed a little daunting. Hardly. 

I had this idea to make a scalloped border around the top of Penelope’s room with contact paper. Contact paper has served me well in the past, so I thought I’d give it a try. I only have a “during” photo, but I’m sure if you put on your imaginary hats you’d see that it was just incredibly plain before. 

Applying the contact paper was definitely a two person job and took us about an hour or two to apply. Honestly, that was the hardest part of the whole thing. It got pretty tricky pulling off the lining paper and smoothing to the walls without creating a few air bubbles. My new yudu squeegie came in handy for smoothing everything out. 

Once I made the template, cutting out the scallops was a cinch. I think it took me under an hour to cut them out. Contact paper is so easy to cut out! Seriously, all I had to do was score lightly along the template and I got perfect cuts every time. I’m really happy with how it turned out. 

Penelope’s room is starting to look better, but I’ve got a long way to go. Something needs to be done about her bare walls! I’ve got a few ideas up my sleeve. You’ll be seeing more of her room as I get them done. 

Isn’t Penelope a crack up? She seriously thinks she’s hiding. I love that girl.

We went to Provo today to visit with friends and family. I couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgic, seeing some old haunts (particularly Diego’s – YUM). While there, we ran across loads of yard sales which reminded me of the yard sale Chris and I had when we left the area over two years ago. Which then reminded me of the window bench and coffee table that I so proudly made and sold at that yard sale.

This bench was made almost entirely out of windows from the house I lived in while single. Besides windows, I used plywood, foam, fabric and screws.

I thought this thing was so stinking awesome, but I couldn’t bare the thought of moving it all the way to California (it weighed close to a metric ton). Thankfully, it went to a good, loving home.

This was one of many of the projects that Chris and I embarked upon while we were dating. I knew that he was the man for me when he started to get excited about miscellaneous projects like this one. It’s been a long time since we’ve started a project like this, pretty much a year and a half (remember this one?). Now that we’re in a house of our own I’m dying to work on some projects. And believe me, we have loads of projects that lie ahead.

The second DIY project I’ve done recently is a flash sock. Now, it’s a little silly that I did a DIY for something that costs as little as $10 (some are listed for $30+ which I think is also silly), but I had the materials on hand and I didn’t want to wait for the sock to come in the mail.

What I used:

• For the exterior, diffuser part I used white felt and white plastic from a picnic spread. I’m sure you could fuse plastic bags together and do the same thing. Although, you would want to make sure they were plain plastic bags.
• For the interior reflective top I used the shiny metal bag from a Pop’s cereal bag
• I used elastic cording to attach the sock to the flash and white thread to sew it all together.

I ended up hand sewing the sock together, which wasn’t hard but a little more time consuming than if I had done it with a sewing machine. Despite the freakish appearance my camera takes when I use the sock, I really like how the photos turn out.  Check it out:

The flash sock helps to avoid over-exposure and softens all of the hard edges usually created with the flash. It’s also interesting to observe that my sock warms up the photos ever so slightly. Interesting, hu?!? While my flash sock works on my pop-up flash, the sock idea is really optimized for an external flash.

Do any of you readers have an external flash that you love, or know of one I could get on the cheap? I’ve been thinking of getting one, and would love some pointers from users/camera enthusiasts and not salesman.

I haven’t been posting many DIY projects recently, which is mostly because we’ve taken a 3 month long vacation from paying rent. Despite my lull in DIY-ing, I still have managed to make a few projects. The two most recent projects fit in my camera case. Here’s the first:

I have a giant camera bag. It may not be super huge, but it’s a little bulky when paired with a diaper bag, stroller and squirmy toddler. On occasion I like to avoid the additional bulk and pack my camera into my purse/diaper bag, hoping that nothing spills or gets into the sensor.

You can tell how enthused Chris is just by his signature sneer.

I’ve been meaning to make a case like the old school leather case my dad’s old camera has, that wraps around the camera. Not wanting to work with leather, I broke into my mother-in-law’s stash of neoprene and made the case. The pattern’s not gorgeous or glamorous, but it’s very convenient to be able to toss my camera into my purse and use it on the go and protect it from the contents of my purse and my clumsier habits.