I bought these little chairs 5 years ago. And wow, they have been through a lot. They were in pretty rough shape…

…as you can see

Recovering them had been on my list for a very long time. I bought the oil cloth ages ago and then it just sat there, staring at me. Finally I just pulled out my staple gun and went for it!

And it was so much easier and faster than I ever imagined. Took me an hour or two tops!

Any projects you are finally crossing off your list this summer?

I never seem to remember to buy sidewalk chalk, but we always have the ingredients on hand for chalk paint. Making chalk paint is super easy; drawing with chalk paint takes a bit of practice.

Our first attempt turned out mostly colorful blobs, but the second time was a success. I was doodling quilt squares [sewing nerd!] and my kids wanted to learn how to make them too. They told me their log cabins had roofs, obviously.

chalk paint

materials

• muffin tin
• corn starch
• food coloring (the cheapy kind, not the gel kind)
• water

directions

1. Put one tablespoon of corn starch in each muffin tin cup.
2. Mix in a tablespoon of water (or a smidge more) into each cup.
3. Put one drop of food coloring in each cup.
4. Mix well.
5. Grab a paint brush and go outside!

Be warned, fingers and toes will get painted.

But other cool stuff will be painted too!

I took all the homemade, wonky, gluey hearts down from the wall in my kids’ room and it looked so sad and bare. The room needed some cheering up! First I was thinking I would let the kids go crazy with washi tape, then I thought maybe we could make some paper flowers and tape them up, but then I saw this amazing wall.

My daughter and I headed to the craft store to buy some [faux] flowers. I’m usually not down with fake flowers–or even buying that much plastic at once–but I have to admit some of these flowers are very,very pretty. The weedy looking ones are my favorite. I do believe I’m the only woman in the world buying plastic weeds.

Luckily all the fake flowers were half off, so we went a little crazy picking them out. My daughter fell hard for the bubblegum pink roses covered in fake water droplets. I was not so smitten, but she was so in love. When we got home I was messing with the flowers to see if I could get them to look a bit more natural and when I pulled back the petals on the rose, it turned into this absolutely gorgeous bloom. You can see how the rose looks closed and open above.

To hang all the flowers on the wall, I cut the bunches apart with a wire cutter and trimmed most of the leaves off as well. Then marked five rows on the wall. Working from the top down I simply taped each flower up so it was in line with the one above it. My rows aren’t perfectly spaced or perfectly straight, but the it’s the contrast of orderliness and nature I was going for–that’s what drew me to the first photo of flowers on the wall. Also, it’s just plain awesome to have a field of flowers on your bedroom wall.

For 20 dollars and an hour of our time, we managed to get spring to come a bit earlier in Wisconsin. Not bad, not bad at all.

So this is where we’re at with the room so far (here are all the before pictures). I told you my brother built a bunk bed, but I didn’t tell you it was a cloud bed! He built the loft bit and then we cut out clouds from some scrap wood. I made patterns out of paper first to make sure it was randomy and to see if the clouds would be high enough to function as a guard rail. When I was about half way through cutting them out, I freaked out and thought it might look too dorky theme-y, but I think it turned out okay. What do you think? Now the big question is whether or not to paint them. I think maybe I’ll paint some white, but not all. And maybe one striped like this awesomeness.

I think we’ve chosen a color for the wall–those are all paint chips taped the wall. It’s called cotton balls, really it’s just white. Not that exciting, I know. But I am excited about that big board up there. It’s a quilting board (or something like that, I don’t know, it’s got a graph on the back) that my neighbor gave me a looong time ago. It folds out one more on each side, so it’s pretty big–maybe too big? Anyway, I’m going to paint a map of our neighborhood on it. I grew up “out the back road” so there wasn’t a lot I needed to know to get around. But we live on an actual block! So I thought the kids might like to see the way we go to the library and the store and their friends’ houses on a big map. I’m thinking I need some sort of projector for this project. And I haven’t decided what to do about the places: pushpins? polaroids? have my kids draw pictures? shrinky dinks? Any ideas you have would be fantastic. The baby’s crib will be under it eventually, so pushpins might be out.

This is the closet, or was the closet. Now it is my daughter’s desk (my son got the bunk bed, she got a desk, even steven). I’ve got a few ideas for this, one of them being paint the entire sucker white.  I’m sure there will be more ideas in the future, because I’m taking a class for this very purpose. It’s called Playful Learning Spaces.  It’s an e-course designed to guide you through creating thoughtful spaces for your children to play in and learn. It sounds like the perfect class and comes just at the perfect time for me.

And now for the surprise: the creator of this wonderful class, Mariah Bruehl, has kindly offered to give away a spot in her class to one of my readers! But you have to be snappy, because class starts tomorrow! You have until 5pm central time to drop your name in the hat (that is, leave a comment–sharing some input on the room if you’d like). Good luck and I’ll see one of you in class!

THE GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!

Celeste from on-hand modern is the winner! Congratulations Celeste!

This idea came about when Abbey from Aesthetic Outburst threw a fabulous birthday party with a “hand-stitched/granny chic theme” and as one of the decorations she painted a cross stitch design on a pumpkin.  The whole party was beautiful, but this idea was extra awesome and I thought maybe I could cross stitch for real on a fake pumpkin. The project turned out even better than I hoped and so I’m sharing it with you. I know there are only 5 days until Halloween, but this is a quick-ish project and the pumpkins will last forever.

How to Cross Stitch on a Pumpkin:

Materials

• a fake pumpkin
• thick yarn
• a bamboo skewer (the ones you use for kebabs) or an ice pick or something similar
• a yarn needle
• a pencil

Directions:

1.) First you need to choose a design. I found some great, simple Halloween cross stitch patterns here, but feel free to design your own. It’s easier than you think, I made a bat and a boo! by playing around with Xs in my sketch book (go ahead and copy mine if you like). Just remember, simple is better for this project and try not to put any of the design near the hole on the bottom of the pumpkin because it’s very hard to stitch there.

2.) Next, transfer the design to the pumpkin. To do this, I looked at the pattern and then with a pencil I made very light dots for where the ends of the Xs go (see photo above). I thought about coming up with some complicated way to get your pattern perfectly onto the pumpkin, but really I love the look of free hand cross stitch and I don’t think it needs to be perfect.  If you want, you can lightly draw all the Xs on the pumpkin because the yarn will cover them up anyway.

3.) Now you need to poke all those holes. Take the bamboo skewer and poke straight down into the pumpkin.

4.) Ok, time to cross stitch. All I know about cross stitch I learned five minutes before I started this project! Thread your yarn needle with a piece of yarn no longer than your arm, no need to tie a knot. Stick you hand in the pumpkin (if you hand doesn’t fit or it’s a squeeze, do yourself a favor and make the hole a little bigger) and insert your needle into one of the holes you’ve made.  It can be difficult to find the right hole. To help, take your skewer in your other hand (the one not holding the needle in the pumpkin) and stick it in the correct hole, then by feeling for the skewer on the inside you can find it and draw your needle through. I started sewing at the bottom of my design and Xed my way around until I was done. It’s fastest to sew with both hands: one staying in the pumpkin and one out.

And that’s it. I think this project could go so many ways. A ghost done on a black pumpkin with some super fuzzy white mohair would look super cool. You don’t need to stick with cross stitch–any simple embroidered design would work. Go crazy with it and if you do be sure to add it to the elsie marley flickr group so we can all see! Happy Halloween!