I had grandiose plans for working steadily on Penelope and Felix's room through out the week, but it really boiled down to me working feverishly to get everything hung and set yesterday afternoon while Felix played in his crib. I don't even know what Penelope was up to. Definitely not twiddling her thumbs by the look of my studio.
I'm thrilled to bits to have competed their space. Now on to the next! It sure feels good to cross this one off the list. Remember the before:
It makes my skin crawl just looking at that. It's not that I'm a neat freak, it's just here nothing even had a place to go to. Not to mention, I found three enormous spiders in the process of cleaning up all this mess. Like the size of a silver dollar. Creepy.
This is a happy spider-free place now. I hung these colorful banners as backdrops for each bed. They're from my
senior show back in college, but I hadn't really thought about using them as decorations until just recently, when I found Penelope's bedding at Ikea. I immediately thought of how cute it would be with that particular piece, then it all clicked. I've been trying to think of different ways to incorporate masculine and feminine with each other, and these pieces were the key! At least I think so. They're so bright and cheery in the space.
I took one look at this plaid bedding at Ikea and had to buy it. She had been using an uncovered white duvet, so it was time to get something that looked a bit more polished. Even Chris welcomes this little addition
Vintage pillow from
MoxieMandie,
chevron pillow by me.
Above is the
Dachshund lamp from
Clever Tomato and love print from
Made By Girl that we've had for ages.
The dresser we've had since we moved to Utah, too.
I tried to keep everything relatively simple, but colorful. I made it a point not to hang artwork directly above Felix's crib. I know he will get to the age (and height) where he will pull the artwork down, which makes the space ideal for a decal. I would just hate for a heavy piece of wood to come crashing down on his poor little noggin.
I designed and printed the herringbone blanket last winter as part of a groupon with
Ink Garden. Instead of uploading a photo, I uploaded a repeat pattern and had the blanket made. Originally it was floating in the living room, but it works so much better here.
Penelope actually contributed a lot to this space, artistically. She made the above cloud and popsicle sculpture in her
art class. She was thrilled to pieces to see that I wanted to hang up her art. I was actually worried that she wouldn't be okay with me hanging it above Felix's bed, but she was so proud that they could both look at her decorations. Bullet dodged.
The
butterfly chair, rug and
boppy pillow we've all had on hand forever. I'm just lucky that yellow is a recurring theme through out this bedroom. Say hello to Earl Ledbetter!
On the left you can see bits of the debris from hanging and fixing up artwork. From left, Painting by me, F cut by me and elephant piece by
A Vintage Poster
Here's the doorway and closet area. We have a little bookshelf that I bought while at our old house, but we're not using it as a bookshelf anymore. Our books are almost all in the den which has two enormous closets with wall to wall shelves. More on that later. The balancing cactus toppled over a few minutes after I snapped this.
The piece up top is one of a circle/square series I did in college. It adds a nice texture to the graphic bedroom. The piece below is another piece Penelope made in art class.
Here's a glimpse of the closet all neatly organized. Mostly. This system works really well for me and costs a fraction of what an actual cute dresser would cost. At some point, I'll be putting in a shelf above the rod to store boxes of outgrown or seasonal clothing.
There were no pulls on the closet, so I cut two strips of leather and screwed them onto the doors. Chris prefers the blank doors, but I thought they were rather annoying to open and close. This little remedy was free and looks cool to me. If we decide to put actual handles on the doors at some point, the existing holes will be used or hidden.
Next to the closet, over on Penelope's side of the door I put in a little gallery wall. It's a mixture of art: dinosaur by
Ashmae (and fellow painter friend from college), peacock by
A Vintage Poster (with the addition of vinyl hand-lettering by me), P by
AnnilyGreen, Chromatography pieces by Penelope, hand cut design by me and a framed chalkboard. The chairs I've had for a few houses, I bought them from Ikea.
I bought some chalkboard contact paper for a future project, but I know I will have loads left over so I applied a small piece to the wall and covered it with a frame I've had for ages. I showed Penelope the chalk board and she was thrilled beyond the moon. I should find a better way to store the chalk than in an ugly baggie on the chair.
There you have it. I'm quite proud of this cheap space for Penelope and Felix. I spent $30 on the bedding at Ikea, but that was before I decided to do the Zero budget project. Maybe it counts, maybe it doesn't? Everything we either had on hand or repurposed from elsewhere in the house. I would have hit my goal on the head if I hadn't purchased the bedding, but I'm definitely not regretting that decision.
If money were no object, I would do something like this: Pen & Felix Bedroom Pinboard.
I hope you have a great weekend! I will be hanging out with my husband, celebrating our sixth anniversary and scheming the next room for the
Zero Budget Project. What are your plans?
Here is our entryway/formal living room. I'm not a huge fan of the formal living room, it never gets used. So we're making this into the informal music room. I plan on having plenty of seating for impromptu jam sessions, but I don't feel the need for a couch or coffee table.
I would like to eventually invest in a piano for me and for this space, but I know that won't happen right away. I'm mediocre at best, but I sure do love playing. I grew up playing the piano and eventually the organ at church on Sundays. I love busting out the church hymns loud and at double speed. I would also like to eventually invest in an assortment of musical instruments like drums, tamborines, maracas, ukeleles and thumb pianos; but I see those coming in slowly with time.
I'm planning on mounting Chris's guitars to the walls with their amps below. He talks about collecting more guitars, so I want to keep enough space on the walls for his collection to grow.
I think the biggest struggle I will have with this space is to keep everything looking clean without looking like I pushed everything up against the walls. Any suggestions?
We'll be having guests over tonight for a small family party, so I'm hoping I'll be able to make a lot of progress today. I'm pretty sure I'll have this room just about finished by Friday. Wish me luck!!
No make up yesterday. We ran serious errands so I just wanted to be comfortable and cool. I love this stretchy belt. It gives my dress shape, but because it's an elastic belt, it breathes and is far more forgiving than my other belts.
dress: thrifted + refashioned
belt: thrifted
bracelet: 
I quickly saw that they were the perefct waist size for Felix, but long and wide. I just had to simply cut off the disgusting flowers and trim up the legs a bit. I used Felix's go-to skinnies as a template and went to town on them.
I should have added rad knee patches for awesomeness and functionality, but I didn't. Kids this age really wear their clothes hard. Especially when crawling. I really should've thought about that, but laziness got the better of me.
I'm working on going through Penelope's and Felix's closets to put away the tight clothes and replenish their wardrobes with duds ready for fall and winter weather. It's fast approaching us in our new neighborhood. We're expecting 6 feet by the beginning of November.
Two houses ago I was experimenting with leather and made this on a whim. It's a huge statement piece that I don't wear very often, but when I do it's always fun.
This is an outfit from last week. I have about 2 pairs of pants that fit me at the moment, and they're in the wash, so I've been wearing dresses and skirts a lot. This might be a bit fancy for the day-to-day, but it was a fun outfit to wear.
Saturday, I took an existing bar in a closet where they won't be used and installed a closet system there. The room is really coming along, hopefully it'll be ready for a big reveal on Friday!
I still found some great deals. I bought Penelope some practically never-been-worn soccer cleats and felix some brand, spanking new leather stride rites. These shoes aren't much to look at design wise, but they're well made and they provide great support for helping him walk.
This little dude is now 17 months. I can't believe it. He still seems like a baby to me with his continued love for cuddling and lack of motivation to walk. It's hard not to get frustrated that he's not developing as quickly as I would like, but I've got to enjoy each phase while it lasts. I know he won't want to cuddle with me forever.
Similar: 
I don't normally do this sort of thing but the timing was perfect; I had wanted to experiment a bit with painted letters. I didn't go very far out of my comfort zone with the lettering here, but I'm happy with how it turned out.
Writing this out got me thinking that I tend to have crutches. I'm pretty sure we all do. Sometimes it's a ruffle, sometimes it's leather, sometimes it's lettering. I'll be hanging this up in my sewing studio to remind myself to get beyond my normal crutches and really try something new. I hope you do, too.
Click the button below to download a printable 8x10 version of this quote as well as image sizes for desktops, tablets and smart phones. All graphics are subject to the terms of use below.
Click below to learn how to make this simple craft. You'll be able to whip one up in about 15 minutes, as long as you have the supplies on hand. Oh, and I bet this would work nicely in a vegan leather, felt or even denim. With denim, cut up as directed and let it naturally fray, or use fray check to keep it from unravelling.
This is the perfect craft for little remnants! Hope you get as much use out of your fringe necklace as I have.
Supplies:
Cut out your leather about 3x8 inches. You will likely cut it down as you move along. Cut strips about 1/4-1/8 inches apart with an X-Acto knife, about 1-2 inches from the top. Be careful and use a cork-bottomed ruler! You don't want to slip up and cut your finger! I've done this before, it SUCKS.
Cut about 8 inches of wire and make a loop about 1/3 into the length of the wire. start twisting the remainder towards the middle. Line it up with your leather scrap to make sure the loops are about 1/4 inch wider than your strip of leather. Repeat the loop and coiling on the other side.
Apply glue to the underside of the leather and roll overtop your wire.
Use your fingers or a bone folder to press a crease into the backside of the necklace.
Attach your necklace chain to the fringe with jump rings. Alternatively: if you don't have jump rings on hand, or lack the patience to work with them, attach the chain to the wire loop before coiling and gluing down leather.
When separating jump rings, open perpendicular to the ring itself. You'll have a much easier time loading and closing the jump ring.
And just like that you have a rad necklace! Cut smaller strips for more rugged fringe or wider strips for cleaner lines. At this point, you might want to trim the bottom. Go for a straight crop, chevron or an asymmetrical angle. Enjoy!
I went out with my sister and her boyfriend on Saturday while the kiddos were gone. It was something like 70 degrees around our house, which felt a tad cold. The long sleeve dress seemed to remedy the 'cold' weather.
I just used a basic bright white (no pigments added) for the paint in a satin finish. Come to think of it, I probably could have gone for a semi-gloss, but what's done is done. With the white paint already on the walls, it took all of two seconds and $10 to create a virtually seamless white studio.
I realized that the corner of the room was really going to be the best place I'll have in the room (and the house) for lighting and space for a permanent photo backdrop, so I set out to buy some plywood and paint it white for a little platform. Lo and behold, while I was browsing Ikea's As Is department, I came across their corner table top in white. It's a much warmer white than I've used on the walls, but for $10, my work was done! I may recover this thing with a white vinyl in the future, but for now, it works.
Now I'm just struggling to get my dual monitors to have the same white balance. It's incredibly hard to process my photos with the screens so different from one another. I've spent hours trying to calibrate them to be exactly the same, but my iMac's screen is natively darker and warmer than the LED monitor. Chris doesn't notice, but it's a crazy difference to me. I need to get over it though.
I also had a heck of a time trying to get Felix to sit still for more than half a second so I could snap a couple shots of these adorable kiddos. Finally a little Mac plug kept him occupied enough. Penelope was accommodating, though.
I've been through so many different photography backgrounds in the last two years!! Let's see what we've had:
I did take the time yesterday to make something fun: Sweet Basil Ice Cream. Last year some time, I went to 
This recipe is delicious. I may have used more basil than it called for, but it's so good. The strong flavor makes it so you really don't need to eat a whole lot before you're satisfied. See the recipe with my notes below.
I have a bit of painting in the computer room and a whole lot of organizing in the craft/sewing room. I've been organizing here and there as I can, but seeing all of my supplies is getting me more anxious than ever to start working on projects.
I picked up these beautiful fabrics at 
The striped fabric is a rayon with a lot of stretch and structure. I'm thinking it would make a beautiful nautically-themed structured dress. One with pretty pleats and a tulip skirt. The floral fabric is a cotton jersey that's incredibly lightweight with awesome drape and great opacity. It would make for a fantastic pleated maxi in my opinion.
Have you ever splurged like crazy on fabric, just because you liked the way it felt? I don't have any set projects with these, but I bought a yard and a quarter of both, so I should have enough for most of the projects I'm brewing. How do you shop for fabric? By need or inspiration?
This post is sponsored by 
Art.com just relaunched their website (in the most amazing way) and to celebrate, they invited 25 bloggers to San Francisco to eat amazing food and talk about art. I was just thrilled beyond the moon to be included. The trip to San Francisco just so happened to fall on the weekend before we made our big move, which was perfect. I left the stress of packing house behind for my favorite city. The city that first inspired me to pursue art.
What kind of art do you gravitate towards? If I were to put any one genre in my home exclusively, it would likely be 
To me, the new 
I ended up lettering a bunch of name tags for friends and me. A girl can't help herself when given bright, fresh sharpies and name tags!
My favorite part of the whole night was the Italian sodas. Merrilee whipped one up for me, it was divine. I think I might have to have a permanent Italian soda bar at my new house at some point. 
I gave away some artwork as part of the sponsorship. I figured most anyone could use a fancy welcome sign for the front door or as part of a gallery wall in an entryway hall. That was fun to do.
It's been about two weeks since I busted out the calligraphy supplies, so I'm just itching to experiment with some different styles. The 
Shy of two months ago, we started really looking to buy a house. Chris is now in an awesome job that he loves, so settling down felt right. Getting a realtor also felt right. The houses we looked at didn't really. I could see myself making a few of them work, but with hesitation.
I remembered my friend