Mom's mini-stash

My mom stopped sewing years ago in favor of boozing playing iPhone games volunteering on the local rodeo board.

It's a good thing, too; at ages 29 and 31, I no longer think it's appropriate for my sister and I to be wearing matching shorts outfits.

Her stash of fabric floated around for years at my Grampa's ranch (where I grew up) until I finally saved a little bit of it right before he was foreclosed on.

There's actually some really cute calicoes. I don't care what anyone says; I'm a sucker for quilting calicoes for dresses and tops.

Seersucker dots that my sister and I did indeed have matching outfits from, and Care Bear pillow panels from the 80s.

At least I only had to wear the outfits once-- sis had to wear them once as her own and again as my hand-me-downs.

Quite a bit of Western and cowboy themed stuff. Did I mention she volunteers for the local rodeo board?

I actually rather like it, especially the teal one.

She also has quite a few swimsuit patterns, including one or two Brooke Shields swimsuit patterns. A silly shark costume pattern (in fact, in the fabric there's some pink stripes that I recognized as the shark's "cone" to hold his nose up) that mom made for herself, but the costume was later worn by me and maybe even sis. Again with the hand-me-downs. There's also some ruffle-tastic 80s dresses that I'm honestly pretty into, but will have to learn grading to get them to fit!

(Love ya, mom!)

Eat your heart out, "Robin's Egg Blue"

Just kidding, Robin's Egg Blue, I still love you.

But this chicken egg is about to give you a run for your money.

I present to you, "Americana Egg Green"...

I know what you're thinking. "That's not very green."

Just trust me on this one. They're much greener IRL, and my mother-in-law's Americanas/Araucanas don't seem to be laying as green as they were a few months back.

But these hen's eggs can get very green. Case in point, these pictures I pinned...

Source: my.opera.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: en.wikipedia.org via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: knowwhey.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: cottagewoodhill.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: davesgarden.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: odd-dolls.blogspot.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Eggs weren't the only thing we brought home from our trip to visit the in-laws in Mendocino County.

We also hit the thrift stores. Husband didn't find anything, but I got a wad of bias tapes for 50 cents each, and this weird elephant fabric...

I liked it, but my Grampa just gave me even more of Gramma's stash. As in another, even larger Rubbermaid tub. Did I really need to buy more fabric? Husband ended up talking me into it.

It this loosely woven, linen-like white, with blue and red elephants screen-printed onto it. I haven't checked the selvedge for info. You can see I (husband) paid 3.25 for 1.66 yards. I thought it looked 60's-ish, or like nautical elephants.

On my Gramma

You know that bumper sticker, or license plate frame, that declares "She Who Dies With the Most Fabric Wins"?

My Grandma won. Sorry.

It wasn't hard for her. A near lifetime of collecting fabric, buttons, appliques, knitting needles, embroidery hoops, pattern books, ric rac and trim, thread... Well, kind of a lifetime, because she really did use it up. So when my cousin and I were clearing out her stash, we didn't come across any amazing vintage finds. We found recent stuff, because she was always crafting and using her stash. Even after she lost her home to foreclosure during the housing crunch, she was still attempting to make quilts in her cramped motor home that would become final place she lived.

In the late 70s and early 80s, I think it was, she owned a yarn and knitting shop downtown. I often wonder, as her oldest grandchild born in 1980, if I'm her only grand kid to remember it.

When I was a little girl, probably around 8 or 9, she worked at a local fabric shop. They held a sewing class for little girls, and of course Gramma had my cousin and I participate. We made pillowcases, one of the first things I ever sewed.

She was the fabric lady at our local WalMart. That was the job she held technically until she died, although she'd been on leave since the football-sized cancer next to her lungs sent her to the hospital months before.

That's one reason she comes up so often on this blog. Much of my knitting and sewing is stash-busting my Gramma's stash. And she taught me everything I know when it comes to knitting and sewing and crafting in general.

But even if I didn't inherit a large part of her stash (about three Rubbermaids of fabric, various notions, knitting needles, at least one Rubbermaid of yarn-- I even took a bunch of her clothes), and even if she'd never taught me anything, it's still her that I inherited my creativity from. She loved decorating her home with things she'd made and made over, long before DIY was a "thing" with countless mommybloggers mommyblogging about it. She toll painted, she  made cheese, she tatted, she made the BEST candy.

Don't get me wrong; she wasn't all about sewing, knitting, cooking, homemaking, and crafting. She'd mastered all of the things a woman of her era was expected to master, but was far from old fashioned. She loved to travel and did so independently. She loved books and even worked at a bookstore or two-- mysteries were her favorite, and again it's her I inherited my love of Science Fiction from. She wrote stories, and even full books that were never published. She was entrepreneurial and an excellent businesswoman. She'd even gone to school for accounting. And she did it all while wearing red lipstick. (I even created a pinboard with all of her interests.)

Of course, lots of people have Grammas or Nannas or Nonnies or Grams whom they love and cherish. But I especially miss mine, and can only hope she would like what I'm creating from her stash.

I've mooooved...

No, not my blog. In person, I've moved off the ranch.

That's why I haven't posted in a while; I'm still settling in. That, and my 10 month old is keeping me busy.

I'm still a ranch girl at heart, and would take rural living any day over urban or suburban. But... it's nice to have a little space of our own after sharing the same house with my parents (and sometimes adult sister and brother) for over two years.

Project: DIY Nursery Letters

When I was a kid, I was always super disappointed whenever I perused personalized souvenirs. You know the ones; keychains, license plates, and shotglasses that come already emblazoned with common names. I could never find my name.

So now, I love the chance to personalize anything I can. That's carrying over to purchases for my son, too. So even though nursery letters are becoming pretty cliched, I still wanted to make some. In fact, since his first name is so short, I decided to plow forward into his middle moniker as well.

They're pretty straightforward, so I'm not going to insult your intelligence with a tutorial. I wanted the "cobbled together and collected from various sources" look, so they intentionally have different fonts and paint designs.

UPDATE: I've had lots of people landing here looking for ideas to DIY their own, so even though I didn't photograph a tutorial, here's a list of what I did (see below the new picture for a list of tools and materials):

1. Shopped at local craft and hobby stores (and one big box chain!) for mismatched letters.
2. Sketched out the letters on paper (see the new picture below), and drew designs on the letters so that I wouldn't have the same patterns too near each other.
3. Came up with a color scheme, and just like the patterns, sketched it on paper so I wouldn't have too much of the same color too near each other.
4. Lightly sanded the letter with a fine-grit sandpaper. I was mostly looking to smooth out the manufacturing imperfections.
5. I considered priming them, but didn't! I got right to painting the base coat on each letter. Some took more than one to get the base as dark as I wanted it.
6. Once they'd dried, either free-handed the next design layer, or started applying painter's tape. (TIP: paint the base coat over the painter's tape before changing colors. This'll keep the second color from seeping under the tape).
7. Finished each one off with a layer of clear spraypaint! DUNZO.

DIY Nursery Letters
Acrylic craft paint on wood
Letters: From Richard's and WalMart, $1.99 - $2.49 each, approximately $18 total
Paints: On sale for 50 cents each at JoAnn (Purchased in Navy, Cobalt, Orange, White, Black, Yellow, Red, then mixed)
Foam brushes: $1.99 at JoAnn
Crackle medium: $2.49 (Used on letters "T" and "L")
Clear spray paint finish: About $3.69 at WalMart, KRYLON in Satin
Total project cost: Approximately $29

Mood board: Robots in space boy's room

Here's a work in progress mood board for the boy's room, which I told you before started out as "Robots in Space". But the thrift store sold that robot/rocket fabric and now has these cool dino curtains....

I think the more important thing in the above mood board is the color pallette; reds, oranges, gradient blue and grays. It's something I'm pretty stuck on (which is why I stuck that Harry Potter poster in there even though he has nothing to do with either robots or space), and while the theme is fluid, the colors have stuck!

Now, if we can just get moved out before my 5-month-old becomes a teenager and starts actually wanting a say in his room.

How to: Cake Bunting

If you haven't seen the practice of decorating a cake with bunting instead of piping on icing, well then, you probably don't visit Pinterest. Or Odeedoh. Or every crafting, caking, kid-ing blog ever.

I know, I know, bunting has pretty much reached "Put a Bird on It" status.

But it's so darn easy, and looks so cute! Way easier then trying to-- and failing at-- fancy frosting.

You don't even really need a "Cake Bunting Tutorial";

• I just typed up my message in Microsoft Word (making sure to hit the "tab" key at least twice between each letter)
• Cut the letters out in triangle shapes, free-hand, but I might try a template next time
• Folded down the top 1/4" of the letters (which was the bottom of the triangles)
• Placed the fold over a bit of yarn, and scotch-taped it
• Tied each end of the yarn onto two shish-kabob sticks
• Stabbed each stick in a cupcake
• Set it.... and forget it!

Quick and dirty, and less than ten minutes. Srsly! I didn't bother to make 'em two-sided, but it can be done. What's your cake bunting method? Probably a lot nicer than mine.

Happy 25th to my little brother.

Before & After: Bed to Bench makeover

It's hard to engage in too many DIY projects when a.) I have the LO attached to me pretty much most of the day and 2.) I don't have much of my own space here on the ranch with my parents.

But here's one of my dad's projects: an iron bed up-cycled into a cowboy bench. It was a gift for my mom.

You can see the headboard is the backrest and the footboard was sliced in half to become the arm rests. He welded horseshoes, a bit, and a steer head thing as accents.

I always think I got my desire to create, craft, and DIY from my Grandma, but it must've come via my dad.

I AM! IRON BENCH! DUUUUUH NUH, NUH-NUH-NUH.... DUH NUH NUH NUH, NUH NUH... NUH NUH NUH.

My dad also welded the front gate, which Flickr user Brave Heart snapped a picture of.

As long as I'm still on the ranch, I'm thinking of snapping a Barn Tour to really give a sense of my dad's design. Consider yourself warned.

How to display a beer coaster collection?

My sister Ariel is a big traveler and loves collecting beer coasters (like the ones pictured above from BuenaHelena) from places she visits.

Some time ago, we'd discussed her preserving them in resin so she'd have them forever. We brainstormed what she could use as a mold, and figured she'd need something to keep the ink from bleeding and suspending into the medium. That was a while ago.

Now, she has multiple shapes in her collection (making the mold situation more tricky) and has figured she really doesn't need THAT many coasters, if any at all. So she mentioned making a coffee table top. Good idea (I had similar plans for a vintage postcard collection), but, I had some other ones for her, all keeping with the resined-theme:

• If she ever buys her own place, she can make them into a counter top for a breakfast bar.


• If the resin wasn't too heavy, she could frame it and just turn it into wall art. The frame and resin would keep it from looking too frat house. This was her favorite idea.

I also Googled the topic and found this, which starts of good and ends on a facetious note. Still had some good ideas, though, including using them as postcards and luggage tags.

BuenaHelena, the blog the above picture is from, turned them into Christmas ornaments.

Do you have any ideas for an old beer coaster collection? If you've randomly stumbled upon this post, give us your ideas no matter how old this post is.

Giddyup Cake

 

I made this horse head cake for my mom's birthday.

She's a paint horse. You can see I just sort of slathered the frosting on with a spatula and butter knife as opposed to piping it on. She's based on this cake, and I for the most part followed that template when I cut the two cakes up and pieced them together, but when it came time to decorate the cake, I took some liberties. I left out the halter, used pretzels instead of licorice for her mane, and used M&M's for her eyes and notril. I also used used a rectangle pan for parts C & D instead of a square pan, which meant less wasted cake.

As cake decorating goes, I'd probably call it a Fail-- a cake only a mother could love. Both my brother and I though the cake looked more like a mule than a horse. But mom sure liked it and that's what matters!