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Sequins and Misker Puffs

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A few folks asked about the sequin pillow featured in this photo from a few weeks ago, and I’m so glad you did! It’s one of my favorite things 🙂

The pillow is made from an old sequin tube skirt that my cousins picked up in a thrift store in New Orleans and gave to me for my 16th birthday. Judging by the style, cut, age of the sequins (they are like a super fine metal?), lack of tag or lining, I believe it was initially made as a Mardi Gras costume in the 1930’s or early 40’s. The matching top — a sleeveless, blousy sort of tank top with pearl trim — was sadly lost to a former roommate after an epic battle of Hungry-Hungry Hippos. At one point, in a monumental outburst of teenage flair, I wore the outfit together on top of my conservative school clothes, topped with a tiara and finished off silver orthopedic shoes from the local nursing home’s lobby-side charity shop. Holy crap did I know how to dress.

Few years ago I gave up on ever fitting my butt into a size 6 ever again, so I grabbed a slice of pie and my sewing kit, stitched up the sides, stuffed it with goose down, and in 20 minutes I had myself a majorly snazzy pillow. And I didn’t even get any pie on it!

Years have gone by and it has held up nicely. These days it sits in my living room, rarely seen without Lola in close proximity. Man, does that cat love her some sequins. Out of all the cats I could have brought home from the Treehouse shelter that day, it is no coincidence that I came home with the one that loves to rub her face on anything spangled, sparkled and sequined. If you come over to my house wearing a bedazzled sweater, 1. You are awesome and 2. Expect Lola pounce on your lap and start rubbing her misker puffs all over your chest. 

*Old School Breakdown for the Non Crazy Cat Ladies; Misker Puffs: The areas on either side of a cat’s nose scattered with whiskers and fur, most prominent when yawning or being cute in general. Which is always. 

Lola likes to sleep next to it in the yellow arm chair, and after a while the down feathers and old metal sequins really start to heat up….it’s only a matter of time until she wakes up from a nap and starts rubbing her face all over it, sometimes going so far as to bury her whole head inside and punch her paws back and forth like she is making biscuits.




Julia Child is in my kitchen (sorta)

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Like ten bajillion other people on the planet, I love Julia Child.

And not just because I’m a blogger and the whole Julie &Julia thing was popular a while back. No, I just think she’s the cat’s pajama’s. Always have. Always will. Yeah, I’m a decent cook, nothing special, but I know enough about the subject to recognize someone who loves it as an art. And even though I seriously doubt I could ever pull off Julia’s Duck à l’orange, I know the pleasure that comes from serving someone a dish that is made with love, enthusiasm and butter. Julia taught me that.

One of my earliest memories are of my mother standing over the kitchen counter attempting to read Mastering the Art of French Cooking, cigarette hanging out the side of her mouth, sweat on her brow, furiously beating a eggs in a bathtub size aluminum bowl. It went on and on for what seemed like hours on end, only to come to a sudden halt followed by a quick pop in the oven and an order for us to go play outside for fear that we would, get this, scare the soufflé. Who knew soufflés could get scared? Julia taught her that.

Julia’s Kitchen inside the Smithsonian’s American History Museum

If you follow me on Pinterest,you might have seen me going crazy for pegboard kitchens this week. I’m nuts about them. My current kitchen doesn’t have enough wall space to do one, so I am getting all excited about the prospect moving into a new space lined with pegboard and hooks. And yes, thank you, pegboard does indeed meet my threshold for what is considered excitement. Because I’m cool like that 😉

I don’t know if Julia Child gets the credit for coming up with the idea, but she certainly is most famous for bringing pegboard into the kitchen. Prior to Julia, pegboard was a material typically relegated to the garages or tool sheds, not suitable for gourmet kitchens. But now, thanks to her, it’s a common occurrence in kitchens across the world, particularly popular with urban apartment dwellers like me or anyone short on storage.

Side note: If you have been there, or seen the movie Julie & Julia, you already know that Julia’s kitchen was donated and put on permanent display in the Museum of National History in Washington DC. If you ever get a chance to see it (it’s free admission y’all!) check it out. The thing is TINY. I always thought she was an impressive lady, but then I saw the room in person and thought about her producing all that food AND a television show in that tiny space…whoa, talk about efficient.

Click here to see Julia’s 1960’s kitchen in action, and a first hand account from the photographer who was lucky enough to sit at her table.

And while pegboard might not be categorized as trendy, I am so pleased to see it making a come back. There are some seriously groovy pegboard kitchens out there…I’m hoping mine will be one of them! Julia would be proud 🙂

Pegboard Photo Sources (TBLR): The Inspired Room, Design*Sponge, Apartment Therapy, Domino Magazine

Cupcake Flower Easter Basket and the Revenge of Chocolate Karma

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I have a confession to make.

Three years ago I stole a chocolate Cadbury bunny from a small child.

By stole, I mean, I quietly removed it from his mother’s shopping cart at Target while she was turned in the opposite direction.

Look, I’m not proud of my actions. I’m certainly not in the habit of removing things from other people’s carts, especially while a drooling toddler looks on from the front basket, but it was the Saturday before Easter and there were no more Cadbury bunnies on the shelf.

There would be no more chocolate bunnies UNTIL NEXT EASTER.

Do you hear me? A WHOLE YEAR PEOPLE.

It was a now or never, fight or flight situation.

I needed that bunny.

Later, as I sat there eating that bunny in the Target parking lot later that night, I thought to myself…. You’re a grown woman. This holiday is a celebration for kids and families and churches and wholesome stuff like that. Think about it; Is this chocolate bunny really worth stealing from a small child?

Answer: Duh.

Of course, Karma, the ever-faithful mistress of Truth, decided to seek her revenge this weekend. As I once again strolled the Easter isle at Target I arrived just in time to watch a little boy, probably around 8 years or so, struggle to reach the last Cadburry bunny at the rear of a very high shelf.

No joke. What are the chances? I know, right? Karma. Or worse: Chocolate Karma.

Plagued with three-year-old guilt, I assisted in reaching the bunny and placed it in his hands. Now, I could have taken it and made a run for it, but instead I gave it to him. I know, right? Sainthood.

With no more Cadburry bunnies on the shelf I settled for a bag of Cadbury eggs and the Lindt chocolate bunny featured here. Lindt is good chocolate too. Not Steal-from-a-small-child Good, but pleasant enough to photograph.

The flowers are made from cupcake flowers (click here for full tutorial). It came out nicer than I suspected. It would look nicer with a Cadbury bunny in the middle, but these are the sacrifices I make. For the children, you know.

Decorating the basket is easy. Just twist the cupcake flowers directly on to the basket until you feel it looks like a proper church hat. I don’t like messy tails and twister pieces showing. Luckily it’s easy to wrap some seam binding around the ugly bits.


These eggs are from ten years ago when I did a chocolate Easter tree. All the eggs were made of real chocolate.

And yes, I said chocolate tree. And you’re right, it was magnificent.

Most of the eggs got eaten right off the tree, except these ones, which are just superficially decorated with real chocolate in hopes I would not eat them in mid-November chocolate craving rage they would last . Yes, you heard right, real ten-year-old chocolate. I took plastic eggs from the store, painted them various shades of chocolate brown, then glued mini chocolate chips all other. Two layers of outdoor varnish, and look, still kicking!  They are way to heavy to heavy to hang on the tree, but they look nice in the base of the annual Easter basket. The chocolate chips are a little speckled, but amazingly, they have held up beautifully.

And who needs to buy Easter grass when you have colorful trimmings from making coffee filter flowers. Yes, I even keep my craft coffee filter scraps. They are too pretty to throw away.

Lola decided she wanted to be the chocolate bunny  in the middle of this year’s Easter basket. It didn’t go so well. Now working on a bigger basket to accommodate. Stay tuned!

   
 

Friday Flowers: Cupcake Flowers

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Good news: the grocery store finally started carrying giant chocolate bunnies. 
You know what that means? 
Giant chocolate bunny for dinner  Spring is finally here!
It’s been a while since I did a Friday Flower post. This winter has been too cold and gloomy to think of such pleasantries. But things are different now and I’m in the mood for flowers!
Y’all know how much I love me some cupcake liners. And even though there are some seriously nifty cupcake flowers out on the internet already (this one from Iceing Designs is my particular favorite!)…I thought I would do my own version. These are very easy, kid-friendly, and they scream HELLO EASTER!
Materials
  • Various cupcake liners. Or muffin liners. Or nut cups. Or candy cups. Or coffee filters. Any ruffly cup things will do the job.
  • Pipe cleaners.
  • Beads with holes large enough to easily accommodate pipe cleaners.
  • Faux flowers. You could snip from fabric if you are anti-faux flower.
  • Something pointy like an extacto knife or an awl.
Disassemble the faux flowers, exposing the hole in the center (or snip your own, just be sure it is fabric, not paper –you need something fabric as a buffer between the bead and the paper liners or they will tear too easily. Don’t worry, this will make sense in a minute.)
Stack up three cupcake liners in order of size, then use something pointy to make two small holes, roughly 1cm apart.
Thread the pipe cleaner through the bead, followed by the flower, then the two holes in the cupcake liner, pulling all the components together.
On the reverse, pinch the base of the flower and give it a good twist. The fabric flower in teh middle should stabilize it enough to prevent the liners from ripping, but don’t get too aggressive. Cupcake liners like to be handled nicely 🙂
use one of the pipe cleaner stems to wrap around the base, then secure with a twist.
That’s it! Gently pull back the petals, working from the outside inward.
Fluff and repeat! You can churn out a bunch of these in no time at all. Wrap the flowers around wires or dowels to display in a vase, or just use the wire to wrap them around everyday objects. I keep a couple tied onto the wire basket I use to store onions. 
And listen, if my onions like these cupcake flowers, I’m pretty sure someone you know will like them too. Try them out for yourself!

 Stay Tuned…Monday I’ll show you my Cupcake flower Easter basket. Wahoo!
 

Before and After: The Greenbrier Chandlelier

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Couple years ago I spent my birthday at The Greenbrier hotel, and Lord, was it glorious. Let me tell you something: if you ever find yourself in the middle of the Smoky Allegheny Mountains with time to kill and money to burn, go to The Greenbreir.

We are talking about sweeping staircases, flowered drapes, checkered floors, stripes and color everywhere. And I loved every floral printed chintz minute of it!

I took a lot away from that trip, in particular, a fondness for green glass. The whole hotel comes in every color of the rainbow, but green glass is a common thread. Suppose Dorthy Draper designed it that way as a play on the name but I appreciate it just for the aesthetics too. Sometimes you just like the look of things and there is nothing wrong with that.

Shortly thereafter I came across this chandelier on clearance at Target –cute, but way too girly for me. A coat of spray paint, three ‘cufflets’ made from bottle flowers, and a dozen emerald crystal drops later, I had my very own Greenbrier chandelier! It’s probably a little too low budget and funky to hang anywhere so swanky, but I am awful fond of it 🙂

Thatched Paper Wall

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Living Room at Casa Peaches

A few folks inquired about the book pages in the background of my photographs. I never mentioned it before because I put it up long before the blog began…but since y’all asked….

It was really very easy. Cheap too. AND apartment-dweller-friendly (read: it doesn’t damage the wall. Wahoo!)

If you come to my tiny place, you will see a lot of things, not just the one wall, covered in old book pages. It’s kind of my thing. Not like I invented it, I just like to use it everywhere. I love the visual texture it creates especially when used in mass.  It’s like a neutral.

Yes, I said neutral.

Neutral means beige and gray  and cream and navy blue, to some people…to others, like me, neutral means old books, brown craft paper, black and white stripes and Kermit the Frog green.

But that’s just me.

It might be a little heavy handed for some folks but I like it just fine. It creates a great textural base layer to display all kinds of other stuff. It’s also the one wall in my home that gets flooded with natural light every morning, so you will see it in my photographs a lot.

Hmmm…what do these projects have in common?

It’s like an apartment-friendly alternative to wallpaper. Just use a low-adhesive tape, like painters tape or removable scrapbooking tape. This wall has been up for over a year now and is doing just great. There was an especially humid stretch in the summer when I would find a page or two falling down every week, but big whoop! A little extra tape patched it up just fine.

If you choose to do this, the one thing you will need to be careful about is choosing the book. It needs to be big. It needs to be interesting. It needs to be an author you enjoy.

See, everyone who sees this wall is going to ask you “what book is this?” and it would be really embarrassing if you had to tell them it was some crumby thing you got at an airport concession stand. The book I chose was a three part volume: Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island.

Suppose I could have chosen something much more high-brow, but LM Montgomery is my childhood favorite. Plus, she is one of those authors who writes in a way that each sentence stands on it’s own –you can look at any page on this wall and find a wonderful passage. It’s a constant source of comfort and inspiration. I love it to pieces.

One day I will leave this apartment and I’m pretty sure I will shed a tear when it comes time to take down this wall. Maybe the new tenants will be Anne with an E fans too and I can leave it up.  Fingers crossed!

If you aren’t the literary type, there are all kinds of things you could thatch. What about yellow pages? Or sheet music? Or newsprint? (Anthropologie catalogue always does a lot of neato stuff with newsprint)….What about cookbooks? Wouldn’t it be cool to see a whole formal dining room covered in pages from 5 or 6 different cookbooks? They would all come together is different shades of cream and different styles of font….Oooo, I could just swoon. Someone do this and send me a picture!

The trick is to start with the edges, then work from the bottom up.

Must give credit where credit due: First time I saw a thatched paper wall was in the hallway outside Mrs. B’s art room. For a while in college, I toyed with the idea of being an art teacher and was lucky enough to serve as her aide for a semester. Things went in a different direction for me, but I learned an awful lot from Mrs. B, including the concept of layering children’s art work. If you have enough space to hang your kid’s art on it’s won with lots of space around, that’s great. But if you are a Chicago Public School teacher with 250 kids, white space isn’t really an option.

To address the problem and make sure every child could point to their work and be proud, Mrs. B took to layering their work like thatched shingles. The end result was a hallway filled with a riot of color and texture. The pieces would gradually change over the course of the year, but the overall feeling of joyful excitement never changed. Most important, the kids loved it 🙂

Thanks Mrs. B!

Friday Flowers: Sweater Felt Hats

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My felt flower bug is back in town. It started with that tutorial a few weeks ago and hasn’t simmered down since! The living room is now overrun with little nests of felt flower tuffets looking for good homes. Yesterday I went to sip my diet coke and there was a wool fuzz bunny sitting on the lip.

Now aren’t you glad you aren’t my vacuum cleaner?

These hats are just one of the ways I am using up my felt stash (just wait until you see next week). They are too easy to justify a full length tutorial. Honest, not counting the felting process, I spent less than an hour on each hat. They were so easy to make, you have got to try it for yourself. You need a cute new hat, don’t you? Of course you do.

And because we all know little kids tend to pick at things (and not so little kids too!) I used pick-friendly upholstery thread, exposed stitches, and bookbinders knots. I sort of like the little furry thread bits –they add such character.

As you can see here, I used a lot of different colors (remember I’m stash busting)…but this would also be so fetching with just one or two colors. Can you imagine a red hat with tiny little white blossoms all over? Or a green cap with yellow and orange blooms? Or what about monochromatic—like making the hat and blossoms out of the same old wool sweater? Yeah, that’s the ticket!

PS: Special thanks Brendan and Stephanie for supplying the models. It’s nice to have friends with ridiculously beautiful children, isn’t it?

Friday Flowers: Making Sweater Felt in the Washing Machine

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Everyone loves felt flowers. Especially me! They are cheap, easy and add a dash of happy color to any outfit.

There are plenty of great tutorials already out there that use inexpensive, old reliable store-bought craft felt. Problem is, I avoid using craft felt whenever possible. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a great material to have around the house, but making your own felt from old sweaters has mucho advantages.

Felt made from wool sweaters is:

  • Thicker
  • Cheaper
  • More colorful (and if you can’t buy it – dye it!)
  • Cleaner
  • Healthier*

*Important note on felt in general: Anyone who has cut or sewn any sort of felt knows that it generates fiber dust faster than most fabrics. Problem is, unless you are working outside, those fibers get into the air we breathe. Dust from natural fibers like cotton, wool, silk, etc, are pretty easy for our respiratory systems to filter, but dust from synthetic fibers, like the acrylic used in most craft felt, can cause serious respiratory irritation. Personally, it doesn’t make me cough or sneeze but it does give me a headache after 30 minutes messing with it. This leads me to believe it is something to avoid, or at very least, avoid messing with indoors (Update: Sara had a great suggestion when it comes to cutting acrylic wool “why not buy some little doctor’s masks from the pharmacy?”…good idea Sara!) Y’all feel free to compare and draw your own conclusions. If you are working on a project where you need multiple yards of felt, consider looking into something made from cotton or wool. Chances are it will cost 4 times as much as the fake stuff, and it will not come in nifty colors, but it’s a fair trade for keeping your home and family healthy. 

Man, that was a downer. 

Now back to the fun stuff!

The Magic Bag: Making Felt the Easy Way
Anyone who has accidentally thrown a wool sweater in the dryer knows how easy it is to turn knit fibers into felt. There are lots of ways to approach it, but I like to use the Magic Bag method because it means I can felt while I do my other laundry. This saves water, energy, and money (major bonus when you live in a city apartment with giant coin operated machines!)


The Magic Bag
Get yourself an old pillow case and fill it with:

  • Wool. Take yucky old thrift store sweater and cut away any seams, cuffs, collars or fancy edges (save them though—they could come in handy on future projects. More on that next week!)
  • 1 teaspoon of soap shavings. I like to scrape them from a bar of old fashioned ivory soap, but most any soap will work, just be sure it isn’t “moisturizing” or “with conditioners” or stuff like that.
  • 1 teaspoon of baking soda. This helps the detergent really scrub and fluff up those fibers.
  • 1 large old towel or pair of jeans, or both. Most anything with a scrubby surface.

Put them all together in the pillow case, making sure there is enough room to wiggle around. Tie it off with a sturdy rubber band and throw it in the washing machine with your other hot water laundry, same as always. Adding detergent is fine but no fabric softener. Wash on the hottest setting possible.

The combination of hot water, abrasive detergent and constant agitation, will make the yarn FREAK OUT and turn to felt in no time. When the wash cycle is finished, pull your items out of the bag and inspect. Pull a scrap piece of wool from side to side. It should be reasonably stretchy.

Can you still see the individual strands of yarn?
If the answer is no, then you have felt!
If the answer is yes, then put it back in again for another wash cycle and try adding another towel. If you can set your machine to repeat the “wash” cycle more than once (turn back the dial) then just repeat that process over and over til you get what you want.

Once the wool is felted in the wash, you are ready to cut it. I like to cut mine while it’s still damp from the washer (keeps the fiber dust down) but you can also dry it at this stage to encourage the fibers to puff up. Either way is fine.


Alternative Method
Get a big old pot and boil the wool on your stove. No agitation required in this method, but it could take up to an hour and will make your kitchen smell like sheep.

Will any sweater turn to felt?

No. Generally, natural fibers work best. After enough of these, you will be able to feel a sweater and know if it will felt, but you’ll have to read labels until you get the hang of it. Here is a quick-n-dirty list of popular fibers and their success rate:

Wool: Great
Lambs Wool: Excellent
Wool with 10% Something Else (spandex, rayon, cotton, polyester, etc): Fine, but anything more than 10% is risky
Alpaca: OK in the washer, but the boiling method works better
Camel: Fine, but it smells horrendous when hot
Cashmere: Sorta…it felts but remains thin and never puffs up nice and thick
Angora: Mixed results…100% angora is no good, but vintage sweaters made from angora AND wool are like the Holy Grail; they come out big and pillowy and soft. I wish I had a sample but I gave them all away and more sweaters are hard to find.
Cotton: Nope
Rayon: Nope
Silk: Nope

And don’t limit yourself to sweaters! Coats, hats, gloves, scarves, blankets work great too.
And don’t limit yourself to solid colors! Use the stripes and patterns to your advantage. 

How do I make the flower?


1. Cut a rounded circle sort of thing roughly 10″ in diameter.
2. Cut a spiral shape.


3. Make incisions around the outer edge of the spiral every 1/2″ or so, making sure to leave at least 1/4″ remaining at the bottom.
4. Snip the corners of the individual petals. Note: Some thicker weaves and fibers will puff up so much with step 5 that you can even skip step 4.


5. Throw the spiral in a hot dryer. This will puff it up and suck the loose fibers into your lint trap.
6. Optional: If the drier puffed it up too much for your taste (top), you can flatten it out with an iron (bottom). I happen to like it puffy, but some fibers will create curly/twisty petals that will be easier to work with after ironing.


7. Starting rolling at the center of the spiral (if you can still recognize the center!) making sure to keep the bottom edge lined up. this process is easier if you give yourself a base after 2 or three rolls around, but you decide for yourself.
8. Once you finish rolling, your flower should look like a cinnamon bun. Stab the needle and thread straight across the back of the flower and repeat several times over in multiple directions.

Note: You will want to use a thick sturdy needle and thread. Thin cotton thread will break. If you don’t have button thread or upholstery thread on hand, try dental floss.

Another Note: I know you are thinking you can skip the sewing and go for a glue gun. You would be right, although the results never come out quite as nice; the glue bulks up the back and the excess globs are hard to conceal, but if you think you can get around it, then go for it.


9. Stitch on pin back.
10. Cover your handy work with a leaf and your done!

Experiment!  Expect your first attempt to come out a little wonky, but you will improve quickly. Once you make a few of these, you will find them very addictive and easy to do. These pins make great gifts but you can also do plenty of stuff with other parts of the sweater, then embellish with the flowers…think vests, hats, capes, cuffs! More on this in the weeks ahead!

Or don’t even bother making the flowers; look at the felt as a special something you can add to other projects.Imagine a pillow edged in ric-rac or pom-pom trim…now imagine it edged in sweater felt trim. Cool huh?
 

Since you can make 6-12 flowers out of a single sweater, I tend to make them in batches. Pick up a few sweaters and you can start mixing and matching colors and consistencies. Its always good to have at least one green sweater for making leaves. A few years ago I was REALLY into making stuff out of sweater felt. I gave felt goodies to everyone I knew and sold them at a couple of craft fairs. Eventually the fun fizzled out and I haven’t touched the stuff in two years. This morning I opened up the giant Tupperware bin full of spirals I cut years ago, just waiting to made into flowers and scarves and caps and capes and cuffs and stockings and ornaments and …..what’s that? What is that I hear? Why, that’s the sound of something fabulous coming down the pipeline!

Happy Friday Y’all!