Categories
accessories adults anthropologie antique autumn bag blog boho booties boots bucket bag camera cardigan casual cheap chic clothes cute denim design dresses esty etsy fabric fall fall fashion fashion favorite funny h&m hair style handbag handmade happiness hilarious hip humor ideas infinity scarf inspiration j.crew jeans jewelry joy leather leaves life nature necklace Nordstroms oversized sweater oxfords pencil skirt personal style rustic scarf skirt skirts SNL statement necklace style trees trendy tribal Uncategorized vintage wardrobe

Large and in Charge (Scarf!).

The great thing about this being my blog is that I can write any of the ridiculous nerd-tastic, groan inducing things that come to my mind (i.e.: calling this blog: “large and in charge scarf”) Here is an accurate representation of what I look like and feel like most of the time:

gandalf

I do love Gandalf and have welded more than one walking stick in my hand and demanded no one to pass. :/

But, Im pretty sure the only person who reads this is my mom. So…hey mom!

________________________________________________________________________________

Back to my scarf….The weather outside has turned, the leaves are changing and there is a damp, chill in the air, which doesn’t bother me one bit… This is my favorite kind of weather,  the changing in weather only reminds most people of what what is to come after: the dreaded Midwestern Winter, but still I love it and relish being outside at this time of the year even more so than in the summer (probably because it feels like my natural average temperature runs about 102 degrees, so the summer feels like one big, hot, sweaty, smelly anxiety attack for me).

I really love Fall in Michigan…out on a walk the other day we saw a heard of at least eight deer, four of which were fawns, right down the street from me. I sat and watched them for over 10 minutes until they had enough of me staring and disappeared into their kingdom enclave in the forest. It was magical. I never get sick of all the nature that surrounds me here- last Christmastime, I looked out of the window of there house and saw a gaggle )?) of wild turkey, a few deer and several Red Cardinals in the trees surrounding me…take a picture of that and it put it on a Christmas card folks!

SCARF. A customer came in to my work the other day in what looked like the warmest, comfiest, huge, knitted scarf I’ve ever seen. So, naturally, I asked where she got it and it was made for her by her sister (of course). But that got me thinking how I needed one just like it and found one….

oversized scarf

baggy scarf

This is the biggest, thickest, warmest infinity scarf (at a moderate price) that I have ever had and Again, H&M is where I came across it for $12.95:

hmprod

 

(while returning “mom jeans” that I bought thinking I could pull them off and was utterly appalled at just how much they look like “mom jeans” and not “cool jeans…I don’t think I have the skinny figure to pull them off…) Again: here is an accurate representation of me in mom jeans:

momjeans

Some day, when I am an actual mom, I will wear my mom jeans with pride (And to embarrass my children)  but, today is not the day.

 

 

Categories
accessories art lesson bright cheap colorful colors crafts creative cute design diy easy etsy felt flowers necklaces original projects trendy vintage

Felt-tastic Necklaces


Happy New Years!!!! I hope everyone had a fantastically memorable New Years Eve. Mine was definitely memorable but not so much fantastic.  We listened to a really horrible 70’s cover band (in TIGHT COSTUMES!) and watched a bunch of surprisingly limber, but incredibly inappropriate drunk old women dance.  Next year, I’m not even going to try. I will be at my house, with my husband and my dog; which is always what I wish I was doing when I am out on New Years Eve.

Anyways. Back to felt. fantastic felt! felt-tastic.

Felt. I love this stuff! I’ve been hearing a lot about felting crafts in the past few years- it seems to be what all the cool kids are crafting these days- but,  as usual, I am running a little bit behind with the “trends” and have only just fallen in love with felt! And fell hard! 
So I thought I would share this felt flower necklace craft that I’ve adapted from a couple of different crafters….I love Martha Stewart’s fabric flower necklace and have unsucsessfully attempted it several times but my flowers don’t look anything like Martha’s. And I KNOW for a fact that I picked up the felt flowers from some creative and inspiring crafter on the internet but I cannot find the website for the life of me! I’ll add the links in when I find them.  
Making the felt flowers are super easy. All you need are felt squares, which come in so many different bright and fun colors (Michael’s has them for $.29 per 8 x 11″ sheet), permanant marker, craft scissors, tacky glue (the clear kind works the best) and random circular objects of various sizes!  They come in so many bright and fun colors too.  Just trace various sized circular objects and cut them out. 

 The next step is cutting the felt circle by cutting in a circular spiralliing motion. Then, starting from the inside, with the smallest circle, overlap the layers to create wider and wider circles. Dab some clear tacky glue every once in a while on sections of the felt and then a dab of clue and the ending tip to keep it together.

Once you have a good amount of completed felt flowers, (as you can tell from the above pictures of my felt flowers, I got a little OCD and made way more felt flowers than is needed), then you need to make the base of the necklace. I’ve used a kidney bean shape to create a curve around the neck, but you can do anything really. 

 Using needle and thread, arrange the flowers and sew them onto the backing. I also threw in some

colorful beads. 
Thanks to my beautiful friend Mary who was nice enough to be my felt-tastic model!

Categories
antique apartment art birds blue floral gardening happy home decor jars living peacock feathers picture frames spring trays vintage

changing things up.

Lately I’ve been feeling restless and claustrophobic in our small Chicago apartment…I think we have officially outgrown the 900 sq ft space. We’ve been looking at houses to rent and that has only made me more antsy and unhappy with our place.

Maybe it’s the changing seasons or the feeling that I have no control over several areas in my life right now…whatever the psychoanalysis might be…I’ve changed a few tiny things up in our apartment and it has seemed to make a huge difference.

It all started with these two vintage looking shabby chic gardening trays (at least thats what I think they are supposed to be) I found at Marshall’s.

And then took off with some left over antique blue Ball jars from our wedding, antique dishes, moss stones, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a peacock feather, seashells, and bird ornaments.


I think I basically took all of my favorite things and put them in these boxes. And now being able to look at them all the time makes me happy!