Secret Project Reveal: Sewed Party Favors

On day 113 I worked on a secret project and now it is time to reveal!

For the little give aways for my friend's shower, I made little heart pouches full of chocolate kisses for our guests to eat on their way home. Here are a couple pictures! Cute and sweet!

Picture taken by the lovely Laura!

Day 120: Seeing the world through the eyes of an almost two year old!

I went down to my parent's house today and spent some time with my nephew who is adorable, funny, and and so precious. He is constantly looking for different treasures like sticks and rocks. He also giggles and is stubborn and such a fun little guy to be around.

I know this technically isn't doing something creative but it was so fun!! Half of what I like about being creative and making things is using a different part of my brain. And spending time with my nephew uses a different part of my brain! I love seeing the world fresh again.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of the day.

A big gust of wind came and this was his look of his surprise!

Picking out his favorite rocks

Sharing his treasures

His collection of sticks

Searching!

Day 119: Decorating and Hosting

Time: All day almost!
Listening to: ??

Here are some pictures of a couple things I made for the shower and b-party for my lovely friend, Molly!

My friend, Annica, made the blue ones and I made the green!

Lilacs from Annica's mom!

A little chalkboard canvas I made!

Secret Project Reveal: Flamingo Embroidered Envelope Pillow!

My lovely friend's wedding shower was today so I can officially reveal one of my secret projects! Earlier I had embroidered a flamingo for her wedding invitations and then I added a few things to it and made it into a pillow! The absolutely best tutorial I've found on making an envelope pillow is this one. It is simple and easy to understand!

Here are some pictures:

Two lovely little flamingos!

The back--made from an old skirt I had. I thought the colors went perfectly with the front!

Molly and me with the flamingos!

Day 118: Baking Cake

Time: A couple hours
Listening to: Beyonce, Janis Joplin, Tallest Man on Earth

Tonight was filled with prep work for my friend's shower and bachelorette party tomorrow! Lots of cleaning and baking!

Here is something delicious I made:

In true bachelorette party form, we are having Better Than Sex Cake! Here is the recipe I followed. It looks so delicious, I've hardly been able to restrain from eating it up!

Also on the docket--Egg Bake. I've grown up with egg bake so it is almost a comfort food for me. The recipe is super delicious and super easy. Maybe I'll get around to sharing that later...

Day 117: Baking

Time: A couple hours
Listening to: Janis Joplin, Tallest Man On Earth, Iron & Wine

I got some bad news this morning that my Grandma had a pretty bad stroke. My Grandma was the queen of baking so tonight I spent some time in the kitchen.

 A couple recipes I worked on were dried strawberries and frozen banana bites. 

Here are my banana bites. Mine don't look nearly as pretty as the tutorial...but they are still pretty darn tasty!

Just For Fun: Beer Labels and Carrying Case!

I've had so many secret projects recently that I decided to show off a project I worked on last summer with my hubby. Nate likes to brew beer so for a friend's wedding he made a glutton free beer and I made the labels and carrying case for them.

I first embroidered the happy couple's faces onto some fabric. I think photographed it and turned it into labels for the bottles. I then couldn't stop so I added little finishing touches here and there! My favorite part is that I framed the embroidery piece and gave it to them so they could hang it up in the house. I thought it was so funny...as it clearly is.

Day 116: Secret Project

Time: An hour and a half
Listening to: Patty Griffin

I worked on something SO AWESOME tonight but I cannot share quite yet....

In the meantime, Patty Griffin is my favorite person to be creative with. When I am cleaning it is Beyonce. And when it is cooking, I prefer Janis Joplin or RadioLab on NPR.

I'm glad we've straightened that out.

Day 114 and 115: Knitting

Time: Two hours total
Listening to: Downton Abbey (day 114) and Murder She Wrote (day 115)

My knitting is coming along quite nicely. I realized the other day that my blue section is shorter than my green. What a drag! I don't have any idea how that happened. I'm not sure how I'm going to fix that as I'm super good at the basic knit stitch but not so good at doing anything fancy. Oh well, I'll just keep on knitting and will deal with that later!

Day 113: Secret Project

Time: Hour or two
Listening to: Downton Abbey (I"ve jumped aboard and love it!)

As I mentioned earlier, my friend's wedding shower is coming up and so today I was busy working on something for her! My lips are sealed...but I'll update oh so soon.

Day 109-112: Relapse (Book Overload!)

The Festival of Faith and Writing came into town and swept me into a tizzy of books, words, and more! I may not have been creatively producing these last couple of days, but it was a wonderful time of learning and encouragement!

I'll be back at it soon, though!

Day 108: DIY Store display

Time: Roughly an hour
Listening to: Store's Pandora station

Today a student worker and I put up a new display at our store. The idea comes from here. I originally had wanted to do that in our house because we are map crazy, but I never quite got around to it so instead I put it to use in the store I work at. Instead of maps, we used book pages to go with our theme. I love the play on adventures with books! I also limited it to one branch because we didn't have much ceiling space to work with.

 The picture's aren't great because it is in a hallway but I thought I'd still share. The paper airplane mobile points right into our store!

Dad, I put this picture in for you...can you tell why???

Other side view

Day 107: Secret Project

I worked on a secret project for my friend's upcoming wedding shower so my lips are sealed! Will fill in later, of course.

Day 106: Book mobiles

Time: 4 1/2 hours
Listening to: Into the Beautiful North (Audiobook)

A big book festival is coming to Calvin College this week and we are doing a fun book display in our store! Earlier, I showed you the book pinwheels that we made. Today I worked on the second part of the display...book mobiles! I followed the DIY from The Repurposed Library by Lisa Occhipinti. If you are interested in revamping old books, then this is the book for you!

I made five different ones and am pretty happy with how they turned out! It will be fun to see them all hung up and displayed in the space but for now I've strung them up around our apartment and we are trying to avoid bonking our heads on them!

Day 105: Knitting

Time: 1+ hours
Listening to: Becoming Elmo

What a fun little documentary about the guy behind Elmo! I'd definitely recommend it. I've been really getting into documentaries lately and while this one isn't quite up there with Young @ Heart...it still is so good! I never knew all the history behind puppetry! What a fun world to delve into.

So anyways, I knitted away this evening. It was the perfect thing to do after having friends over for dinner and then walking all around for Art Downtown in Grand Rapids. I twisted my ankle earlier this week so it may not have been the best thing to walk so much...but it was so fun! How could I resist?!

Here is a picture of my pretty yellow yarn! I have to admit...this was before my latest round of knitting so it isn't quite up to date. Oh well!

Day 102, 103, and 104: DIY (Yarn wrapping)

Time: 3+ hours
Listening to: Radiolab on NPR

I wrapped wine bottles today! So easy to do with a hot glue gun, wine bottles, and yarn.

Day 101: DIY

Time: Oh...an hour and a half?
Listening to: Murder She Wrote

So a couple months back, we got some giant foamy packing materials sent to us at work (see propped up white mass in picture below). Instead of throwing them out, a couple of us nabbed them for craft projects. With the two I grabbed, I thought it would be fun to make some little word pillows out of them!

As you can see in the picture, I first drew out my letters and then cut them out. I drew them out a couple times so you can see a few stray marks here and there. I have my fabric cut out and now I just need to figure out how to assemble these!

Day 100: Cooking and an Easter Extravaganza!

My husband and I hosted Easter this year!

 Easter is such a special time to spend with family and today I was really reminded of how blessed I am. My parents came up to visit our church for the first time and it was so nice having them there. Our organist really was rocking out today so it was fun to hear all of the pipes blaring! It was also really special because the choir sang "The Lord Bless You and Keep You" which is a song that my mom and I used to sing together when I was a little girl. She'd come upstairs to my room to tuck me in and we'd sing together. It has always been a special song for us and it was such a surprise to hear the choir start singing it!

After church, my brother and sister-in-law came over, too! Everyone brought different elements of the dinner so we didn't have to make everything..whew! We did tackle the ham this year and I was pleasantly surprised to find out how easy it is to bake a ham! And so tasty. We have enough leftover ham to last us this whole week...and beyond! We used a spiral ham and put some pineapple juice/chunks in the bottle of the pan while we cooked it. Then we just followed the directions and put the glaze on top when it told us to! Luckily, my dad tackled carving it so I didn't have to do that. We also had mashed potatoes, rolls, roasted veggies, fruit salad...mm mm mm! So delicious. I ate so much I can't believe I'm still thinking about food...

Isn't this picture adorable?

We also had Easter baskets! Isn't this picture awesome? I love Laura's expression!

We then decorated Easter eggs! We do it every year...since a couple of years ago. It is fun being creative with my family!

Day 99: Painting on Driftwood

Time: One hour
Listening to: The great outdoors!

I've had a pile of driftwood and rocks on my porch for a while now and I figured today was the perfect day to do a little painting!

Day 98: Relapse (oops!)

I had the day off today because of Good Friday so you'd think I'd be super creative with all my free time. NOPE. I woke up, cleaned a bit, read a 582 page book, and fell asleep for hours. I then went on a lovely walk with my husband downtown and took pictures down by the river! It was such a fun little date!

So here are some pictures from our fun little date!

Day 97: DIY Store Pinwheel Display

Time: A couple hours for assembly
Listening to: Pandora

I'm mixing business with pleasure with today's post as my creative time happened at work! When things slow down in the textbook world, I have to do something with all my energy and this time I decided to focus on a new display. A big writing festival is coming to town and I thought it would be perfect to do a display out of books. This is round one of the display. The cashiers at our store made the pinwheels so it was a nice group collaboration!

Day 95 & 96: DIY (Yarn Letters)

Time: A handful of hours
Watching: Buck

And the D is finished!  The curves made it pretty tricky but once I figured out what I was doing, it was a breeze! I only burned my fingers oh, a half dozen times or so...

Day 94: Knitting

Time: One hour
Listening to: Murder She Wrote

I'm loving Murder She Wrote on Netflix. I grew up watching the show and so not only is it a little walk down memory lane, but it is also just great! So anyways, I hunkered down on the couch, grabbed my knitting, and solved a little mystery with Jessica Fletcher.

Day 93: DIY (Yarn Letters)

Time: 5 hours
Listening to: Sherlock

Has anyone else watched the tv series Sherlock? I started watching them today and was hooked from the start. I now want to start reading Sherlock Holmes immediately. But I have about 20 books on hold for me at the library so I'll have to put it off until later...

So I think I made up for my sick week by blasting out 5 hours of creative play! It all began by working on some yarn letters for my friend Molly's upcoming wedding. Here is the M:

Isn't that quilt behind the M super adorable? My Grandma made me that for my 16th birthday!

I'm working on the D right now but it is a bit trickier...all those corners. I also ran out of glue sticks so that ended the project for now. I know, a rookie mistake, but it happens to the best of us.

Once I ran out of glue, I still had creative energy flowing through my fingers so I grabbed my knitting needles and went at it! My yellow is really coming along. I believe I have 20 rows done already!