I had an Easter candy box printable in the queue to finish up and publish for you, but I wasn't really excited about it. Maybe I'll scrap it or maybe I'll save it for next year. This year I'm switching it up - a religious art printable. It's a simple message for any Christian-based church-goer. It serves as a reminder for me to stop and think of the big picture. I tend to get caught up in minutia very easily. This will have a permanent home in the office where I tend to waste my time most on minutia.  

DOWNLOAD HERE

So what kinds of plans do you have for this Easter? I'm busy working on Easter Sunday outfits, but I think I'll just be doing candy and dollar store toys for the kids this year. Nothing too fancy. I'm already going a bit nuts trying to get our easter outfits done. Not that Penelope really cares about that, or even is at all excited about her dress. She saw the blue fabric and told me immediately that blue is not her color. Hopefully she'll change her tune when I show her the finished piece.

I'm over on Make and Takes today sharing an easy way to display children's work, by layering/cropping. Click here for the full post.  

I'm sure everyone else figured this out a LONG time ago, but while I was making my favorite (and chewy) Molasses cookie recipe I discovered how I could make the perfect, perfectly round cookie balls. I had a small ice cream scoop at one point, but it would always get gummed up with the dough. I've also used regular kitchen spoons, but I don't ever get the perfectly consistent amount every time, and it seemed to take forever to round out those balls perfectly. My little ah-ha moment last week was to use a round table spoon as my scoop, and a small teaspoon to pop the dough out. I got those cookies onto the cookie sheet in record time and they all cooked evenly. BOOM! Mind blown, anyone? How do you get cookie dough onto the cookie sheet? Or does it go straight into your mouth like half of this recipe did into mine?

I've got another installment of the great Zero Budget Project. I don't know why I've been dragging my feet on styling our bedroom. It's not like it took that long or wasn't fun to do. I guess I just needed to channel the right creativity. I walked past these ribba frames while on a routine run to Ikea. They were $1.99 - and that spurred an idea. What if I did an entire wall out of these awesome cheap frames? I think the best part about these frames is that they're an inch and a quarter deep. They don't look as cheap as they are. So for just over $20 I was able to decorate this wall. Easy peasy. It took a measuring tape, a level and a pencil. I measured out the width of the wall and graphed out where each piece should lie. It worked out to 10 inches apart. I went through old artwork and cropped down the pieces that would work (really only taking the pieces I liked that were just about 5x7). I had a few holes in my 11 piece series so I looked through Penelope's stash and made a few new pieces as well. Curating, prepping, cleaning, painting and hanging artwork took a few hours. All the while Chris was MIA, it was fun to reveal the newly cleaned and decorated space to him. Making him excited about our space really makes my efforts worth it. The ribba frames come with these pre-cut mats, I didn't use any of them for the artwork on display so I sandwiched an engagement photo of ours in between two of them using a flower frog (from Gather & Hunt). I didn't go with any specific style or color theme with this gallery, and I like it that way. I went with pieces that I liked and tried to arrange them in a way that would make them balanced. I believe I made 5 pieces specifically for this gallery, it was a much-needed exercise to bust out the watercolors. Details on each painting after the jump. I painted this last night. I've painted a few versions of this very iris (1, 2), but the one that I still have was too big to be cropped into one of these frames. I had some blue in the gallery already, so I wanted something that would balance out the blue, so I painted another one. It was a great exercise, and been much too long since I busted out the watercolor! This is how Chris asked me to marry him, but it's not his own. It goes back to how my dad asked my mom to marry him. They were staring at the stars talking about the universe and he popped the question. Totes romantic. This piece you've seen before. You can read about it here. While searching through my portfolio of old artwork, I came across a few sheets of paste paper I made back in my bookbinding class in college. It's so pretty, I had to make some artwork with it. So I lettered a phrase I've seen everywhere, but I still love it. The four hearts on the bottom are the four of us that make our We. I went through a serious phase where I painted really graphic flowers. I'm not sure that's my style anymore, but I still like it. Maybe it still is my style. The background on this piece is a cropped mono print that Penelope made in art class last summer. I cut the E last night. I didn't want to paint over this, so I just hand cut an E and placed it on top. This piece was a demo I did while teaching watercolor classes in California. I loved our time in the SF bay area, this reminds me of all of the things we did while there. More graphic flowers. I painted this while demo-ing during that very same watercolor class. This was based on a photo of my mom's garden back when they lived in Utah. More graphic drawings. I believe I made this my senior year of college while prepping for my senior show. I did computer-based pieces that had a very similar aesthetic. This is based on that LO VE poster, was it Warhol that did it? You know the one that's on two separate lines? I wish I knew who the artist is. If you can enlighten me, please do! Leave it in the comments. Here's the last part of our bedroom that needs to get resolved. This frame is much too heavy to hang on the wall (It's well past 35 lbs). So I'm looking into getting a new mirror for the space. I'm having a hard time finding a reasonably priced mirror that's not boring or too cheap looking. Any suggestions?

It's about to get pretty personal up in here. FYI.

Last weekend we took a last-minute trip up to Oregon to see Chris's grandpa, Tom. On Wednesday we got the news that he was diagnosed with aggressive pancreatic cancer that's already spread to the liver. It's not looking very good. Chris and I looked at each other and both felt that if we were going to see him any time in the near future, we would have to leave the next day. So we made our preparations and packed up the car. The travel was grueling - Felix and Penelope were sick (vomit and diarrhea) on the car ride up which made the 14 hour trek last over 18 hours. Longest. Day. Ever. I was so glad that Chris was right along side me to help with clean up and keep it all in perspective. But boy, did it sure pay off. We were able to see Chris's grandparents, and they got to meet Felix for the first time. I think the best moment was when Felix and Gramps fell fast asleep on adjacent recliners. Felix was so sweet with Gramps, giving him some really great hugs and lots of knucks (bones). What struck me the most about this trip was how delicate life is. It's crucial to focus on loved ones and building them a legacy. You never know when someone will be called away from this life. Just days before Grandpa Tom was in the hospital with his diagnosis, he whipped up two side table lamps (above). From scratch. While we were visiting we wandered through his workout room, drafting room and workshop to see so much evidence of hard work and creativity. It was inspiring to see all of the things that he's made, some new and some old, and look at all of the details. He's made everything from side tables and lamps to bikes (15 bike frames from scratch!), golf clubs and buildings (he's an architect). Being in their home made me think of how I want to decorate my own home. I'm having a really hard time nailing down a style that's my own (that Chris can call his own, too). I want to put things in my home that are beautiful, meaningful and/or useful. Of course it doesn't need to be perfect, my home will never be close to perfect; but it's given me new perspective on the artwork and objects I put on display. It's also made me think about my DIYing. I've pulled back on home decor DIYing lately (Chris and I used to DIY home projects all the time), and I think I know why. If I can't do it right, I don't want to do it at all. Laziness doesn't need to be in my DIYing vocabulary (even though it often times is). Look at that side table and lamp. There's nothing lazy about the construction of either of those, and those are the kinds of pieces that are meaningful, beautiful and useful. They also decorated their home with unexpected pieces with a story or great history. The above is a light fixture from the old SF bay bridge. They flipped it upside down and mounted it to the ceiling. It's a huge piece in the room, too. It's simply stunning. Original artwork was all through the house. And in a wide range of styles. This was my favorite of all of the pieces. I love this style from the late '70s - dark, slightly impressionistic with the most delicious color combinations and brush strokes. I also noticed a lot of tapestries on the walls in varying styles and colors. Color schemes are really great, but I love all color and the variety it brings. I really should branch out of my crutch colors more often.

• • • 

This visit was so important for us to take, and we will never regret those grueling hours on the road with screaming and sick kids. It reminds me of when I was able to say good bye to my grandma several years ago. Back when I was in college and without a car, a friend asked me to drive with him to a wedding up in Salt Lake (40 miles away). He gave me keys to his car while we were downtown and I decided I needed to go shopping with the time I was going to kill. Then my mind turned to my grandparents who were just blocks away. Surely I could visit and go shopping, but which to do first? I decided to call them and see what their plans were and go from there. My grandma picked up the phone, which was a huge surprise. Because of her Alzheimer's and Dementia, she left that up to grandpa. Not knowing who I was, she politely said that I could come and visit and I hung up the phone. I got the distinct feeling this would be the last time I would see them together, but I brushed off the feeling thinking that I was going crazy. We had a great visit, grandpa snapped a picture of grandma and me and I said goodbye. Grandma gave me a hug and said, "I love you." It felt like she was saying it to me and not a girl she didn't remember. It was a special moment. I went home and three days later she passed away. Upon hearing the news I took so much comfort in the visit I was able to have. And I'm so grateful that we could take the time to visit Chris's grandparents. I don't think we'll be able to see Grandpa Tom again in this life. It was a really hard goodbye for all of us, especially Chris who looks up to him in many ways.

Do I really need to explain this? Fabric swap and destash on March 30 in Provo, Utah. I've got a fun pile of fabric I'd like to swap out growing in my studio, maybe you do, too? Leanne and I can't wait. We've been talking about doing this for months. The idea; you can swap, sell or buy fabric! Bring fabric and/or cash to the swap. Once you sign up, I'll email you fabric tags for you to label fabric size, contents, and price (if end up selling instead of swapping). Space is limited, sign up here to reserve your place and for directions to the swap.

I'm over on the Lifestyle Crafts blog sharing a couple of tips: how to make a stub book and how to make a leather enclosure! I made the above stub book, and I'm so excited to gift it to a new mom. I designed custom plates for this project, but the artwork could be used for any number of things. I definitely plan on using my new plates for cards and envelopes, which I'll be sure to share. That being said, I'm offering the above artwork (graphics ganged up for a custom plate and separated for other projects) to you for free, well sort of. The artwork is free for personal use, if you simply follow my blog. You can follow this blog's RSS (google reader is dying so choose something else), email, facebook, twitter, etc. See the left sidebar, then you can click the button below to download the artwork. If you'd like to license the artwork commercially, email me through the contact form above. Yes, I'm bribing you to stick around. Click here to read more about how to make your own Baby's Firsts book.

Here's another bit of fabric I picked up while at JoAnn. All of their fashion line fabrics were something like 30% off, and I have been eyeing this print for some time, so I went for it. Unfortunately/fortunately, I didn't buy enough fabric. I only got a yard, which would not be enough to accommodate long sleeves, so I got creative. I had plenty of leftovers from this skirt I made, and it just so happened to be the same type and weight of fabric I was able to make it work. It's comfortable, light-weight and springy. For some reason, though, it still reminds me of a golf shirt. Perhaps it's reminiscent of a vest and shirt underneath? Still. I love it. I got clever with the back and pieced it, the top is just plain and about an inch below the bust line, I have a seam with a pleat at the middle of the back. Since this particular fabric can be a bit clingy in the wrong way, this turned out to be a great detail. To make this back detail look right, I had to make the top boxier and I added length to the back compared to the front. I used the same pattern for this tee as I did with the previous color blocked tee. It was fairly quick to sew up, but I noticed that the construction was different (lots more pinning) due to the type of fabric I was working with here. Outfit Details:

• top: handmade
• bracelets: handmade
• skinnies: Pac Sun, refashioned
• shoes: Target

My sewing confidence has definitely gone up in the last couple of months, which is perfect timing. I'm gearing up for some really fun handmade outfits for Easter Sunday. Let's hope I can keep this sewing confidence up until I finish those projects.

Last weekend I participated in the very first Salt Lake hosted Vintage Whites Market. I participated in the event by teaching a calligraphy workshop. We had a blast. I had so much fun hanging out with some incredibly inspiring women (VWM, Shop Ruche and Gather & Hunt). I was asked to do some chalk art for the entry way for admission and pricing, much like the one I did for Alt Summit. I didn't have much time to do the lettering and unfortunately for me, it was a retro chalkboard with a sheen to it; impossible for actually chalking up. I tried to prime the surface by rubbing chalk all over it, but nothing would stick. My chalk marker wouldn't even make a mark, so I had to get creative. It was midnight and I needed to use what I had on hand. So I thought I would see how chalky paint would do. Here's what it ended up looking like. The paint worked well and I'm really excited about this new method - I couldn't wait to share it with you. So here we go:

Make Paint out of Chalk

Soaking chalk was not about to work in the amount of time I had. So I researched. I realized I needed to phrase my query, "How to make paint out of chalk" as to try to avoid how to make your own colored paint that could be used for making chalkboards. Confusing, I know. I found this tutorial, but I thought the technique lacking. I'm not going to rub chalk on my brush until I get enough chalk dust so I busted out the micro planer instead. Much faster. I bet if you had a fine cheese grater or some sand paper, that would do, too. I didn't need a ton of chalk dust - I think for the large project I did for VWM, I used less than a stick and a half. I mixed chalk and water a little bit at a time until I got the consistency of heavy cream and grabbed a brush I no longer cared for. I'm sure you could do some really fun things with sponges and even food coloring. I haven't tried yet. I noticed the chalk doesn't show up at first, but there was no need to run over each line twice. See below! See how vibrantly the white chalk shows up after it's dry? Again, no need to run over your lines twice. It shows up so vividly on the chalkboard, but it's just like regular chalk and erases with little to no effort. I don't have a legit chalk eraser, but it came off just fine with a microfiber cloth. Bonus, right? Now there's a whole new way to participate in the chalking trend! We have the above chalk board in front of our house. It's been since December that I've written a message on there (I would letter out different phrases each month). I think now that our front porch is clear of snow, I might start the monthly phrases up again. Got any suggestions on greetings I should write on this baby?

Another tried and true recipe for you today. This recipe doesn't come from my mom's stash, but from Chris's! He lived in Portugal for a few years and while there he found this custard recipe. He made it just about every afternoon for something like 3 months (and gained something like 20 lbs). Point being, this recipe is simple enough for a single man to make during a short lunch break and delicious enough to crave every day. That is, if you're a custard/pudding person.

Whinnie the Pooh's Baked Custard

makes about 9 small custard cups or 6 medium custard cups

• 3 cups whole milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup (or vanilla)

Preheat oven to 375º F. Grease a 1 quart baking dish or 6-9 custard cups (place cups in a 9x13 filled about halfway with water). In a medium saucepan, heat up the milk to a simmer, not boiling. While waiting for the milk to heat, break eggs into a medium mixing bowl and whisk together sugar and salt. Pour hot milk into the bowl and stir. Add vanilla or maple syrup (the real stuff). Pour into baking pan or cups and bake. Bake custard cups for 20-25 minutes, bake dish for 30-35 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. The custard will still be giggly when the knife comes out clean. Cool and serve. Enjoy it plain or Serve custard with cream, fruit, maple or caramel syrup. Trust me, this stuff will disappear quickly.  

The OCD gal in me has been wanting to do this for ages. I have this strange obsession with unifying things. Like spices. I typically buy my spices in bulk, so they've not been pretty. Not at all. Having these new jars around has been so nice. My house is a complete mess these days, so I can at least open up my cupboard here and see this pretty sight. This is what it looked like before. A complete mess. And it took me forever to look for the right spices when I needed them. I found these jars here, they're not actual spice jars, but I like that they're wider so I can actually fit my measuring spoons in and they were cheaper than the spice jars. It's not like it was a huge price difference, but I liked these. It seems like a really lame thing to spend money on, spice jars, but it's worth spending $20 to have a cupboard that's always neat and tidy. What little things to you spend money on to keep your home organized? I'd love to hear!

Not long ago, I was reminded of how fun it was to cut out leather into fancy shapes (much like my mom's cookbook). Which spurred the idea of making some jewelry. I do love me some bracelets that don't get in the way when I'm typing. I thought I'd share with you how I did it and a printable template for you. Penelope sure loves wearing them, too. I'd love to see her start wearing more jewelry with me. Mommy daughter jewelry, how cute would that be? Let's get started!

Supplies

• leather - vinyl or felt
• jewelry findings - chain, jump rings and fasteners
• Xacto knife
• pliers
• tape
• cutting mat
• scissors
• hole punch (not pictured)

You don't need a whole lot of leather for this project, a small scrap will do. I've used magnetic fasteners here and I love them, I don't have to have any help or coordination in order to put the bracelet on! Print out the template (two templates offered - angular and leafy) and cut it out and tape on leather. Be sure to tape all the way around the border. Cut the cutouts first. Go slowly and try to remove any fibers from the corners. Cut the border out and remove the template from the leather. Punch a small hole in each end. I used the 1/16th inch hole punch from a craft store. Put the leather piece around your wrist and measure how much chain you will need. Gather your findings and assemble the findings to the leather first. Then attach the clasp - especially if it's a magnetic clasp. The magnets will stick to everything so it'll make assembly more difficult if you do it the other way around. Once you're finished with assembly, wear with pride! If you're going to make the leafy one, you'll want to take the two ends (pictured on the left) and attach them with one piece of chain in a v formation. attach the clasp to the middle with a jump ring. Enjoy! Download the printable template below.

All printables and tutorials are subject to the following terms of use: Everything you see here is available free for personal use only. I love being featured all over, so if you do feature this project, link to the original project. If you would like to use this project for commercial use, please email Melissa using the contact feature above.

I was pricing out some fabric for a youth activity for church and I came across this floral fabric at JoAnn. It's cute but perhaps a bit too much for something for me (I'm such a selfish sewer, I rarely think of projects for Penelope and Felix before projects for me). I had to buy it, though, the colors and drape were so nice. So a project for Penelope it was! Penelope certainly has a shortage of church-appropriate dresses these days. She has been growing by leaps and bounds. The travails of growing up! I wanted to make a cozy transitional spring dress that could work on cold spring days. It's about 10-20 degrees colder on the mountain where we live than down in the valley, so I'm trying to boost all of our wardrobes with light-weight long sleeves in preparation for spring. With her recent spurt in mind, I made her a simple jersey dress that hits just below her calf. This should fit her for at least the next year. I hope! I used one of her shirts to draft up the top, but I just estimated around the sleeves since I made just a batwing sleeve so I wouldn't have to inset sleeves (I'm lazy, I know). I then attached the batwing top to a rectangular skirt (about 4x Penelope's waist). This fabric has a four-way stretch so to keep it from losing its shape, I reinforced the waist seam with narrow elastic. It's all on the inside, so you don't see it. It's soft enough that Penelope doesn't even notice it. For the hem finishes, I just made bands at the neck, waist and bottom hem. It was easy enough and I had enough fabric left over to do that. She's pretty thrilled with her new outfit. Her reaction when I showed her the finished dress was just priceless. I really wish I had it on camera. I can't help but feel so giddy to see her say, "Oh mommy!!! It's for me?!? *gasp* It's so beeeauteeful!" The success of this project has really gotten me excited for Easter outfits. I have the perfect fabric in mind for all of us. I'll have to upload sketches soon. Growing up we had a family tradition of new church outfits (matching, sewn by my mom) and I plan to try to keep that tradition as long as I can. Do you do that? What are your plans?

I thought I would share more of my mom's tried-and-true recipes that she's passed down to me. This week: coffee cake. This recipe is good at all altitudes (from sea level to 6300 ft elevation). Cooking times have varied, but flavor and texture have not. It's a simple recipe. Back when Chris and I first got married I lost the original cookbook that my mom had given me and looked to a cookbook given to us for our wedding, and the ingredient list was 5 miles long! I didn't have the 30 ingredients it required! This one is much easier with 11 ingredients. Let's make some together, shall we?  

Tried and True Coffee Cake

Makes 1 9x12 pan - enough for 6 people

• 1/2 cup oil (for denser, moist texture use: 1/4 cup oil and 1/3 cup greek yogurt)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 3 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons salt

Preheat your oven to 375F and grease a glass 9x13 baking pan. In a large bowl; whisk oil, egg and milk. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir and fold into batter until smooth. Pour into greased 9x13 pan and sprinkle with streusel. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and let sit for a minute or two before serving. Serve with Greek yogurt or unsweetened whipped cream and a little maple syrup (the real stuff!).  

Streusel Topping

Makes about 1 cup

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1/2 cup pecans (optional)

Melt butter, combine ingredients with a fork. Crumble evenly over coffee cake batter.   So, I had to get creative getting this picture. I set aside one slice of coffee cake for shooting this recipe, but Penelope had different plans. She massacred all of this cake, save for a tiny sliver. She's obsessed with this breakfast. Who would fight dessert for breakfast? I never do.  

Either I'm a utensil hoarder, or utensil holders are made much too small for the utensils required for making yummy food. I think it's the latter. I dreamed up this idea while my sister-in-law was still in Utah, and she helped me on it. It just took 1/2 inch acrylic an acrylic heater bender thing, glue, a drill and some string. I found out that a local business sells acrylic for a reasonable price. For a 4'x8' sheet of 1/2 inch acrylic, it was $140. I bought the whole sheet, intending to use most of it for coffee tables. Turns out 1/2 inch acrylic is a bit too thin for coffee tables. Lesson learned: research before buying. They also sell small scraps for cheap, this piece could easily be made out of one of those scraps. They also have black and white acrylic. The utensil holder is base-less, there really is no need for a base, since this rarely if ever gets moved (I've had this for 3 months and I've only moved it for the sake of this picture). The holder is 9 inches tall, 18 inches wide and 3 inches deep. It's basically a 9"x42" sheet of plastic that's been bent, and the seam joined in the middle back. Bending it really easy when you have an acrylic heat bender, but if you don't have one of those and are in a DIYing spirit you can make one of these. The problem that I ran into after I begun using it was since it was too wide, the utensils would fall to the bottom and make it nearly impossible to fish out. To remedy this, I drilled a few holes and thread some string from front to back creating little utensil sections. The white strings are hardly noticeable - Chris didn't notice anyway. I love having my utensils out of drawers and within arm's reach of the stove top. And I also like that it's pretty. I like having clean, pretty things in my home.