Good Blogs?

I'm looking for some good craft blogs that any of you may know of. I do have some with great tutorials and things that I really love but they are also so focused on advertising that sometimes it really starts to drive me crazy! Unfortunately it's easier to find these types of blogs because, well, they advertise . . . duh right? I'm wondering if any of you know of some good craft blogs out there that are basically just women enjoying a creative outlet and posting about some cool projects they come up with.

Any suggestions?...

Shutters Interior Decor

I have been waiting for this project for a long time! About a year ago I went to DI with my sister and we found these beautiful shutters for only $5!! The color was beautiful and they were in great condition. We decided that I had to buy them! :) How can you turn down a find like that? Now I just had to figure out how to use them . . . but I wasn't worried about that.

Since we were going to be moving in just a few months I kind of put the shutters on my mental back-burner for awhile. I had the beginnings of the final product going and it just slowly came together. My husband wrote a beautiful poem a few years ago that I have wanted to hang up somewhere in our home so I decided to incorporate it into this project. This one was a little pricey-er but I'm very happy with it!

Materials:
~ Shutters
~ Fabric
~ Poem
~ Shelf
~ Paint
~ Things for shelf
~ Things to hang shelf/shutters

I bought this little shelf at Robert's and painted it brown to match the shutters. The things on the shelf are just things that I had lying around my house.

The trickiest part of this project was figuring out how to put the poem onto the fabric. I didn't just want to slap a piece of paper on top so I decided to create a "frame" with fabric. I sewed four little tubes and ironed them out flat. Then I hot-glued them into place around my poem. I really like how it turned out!

Here's the view from our bed.

Here is my husband's poem. Click on the picture to enlarge and read.

Total Cost:
~ Shutters: $5.00
~ Fabric: $0.00 (extra from my table runner - here)
~ Poem: $0.00
~ Shelf: $1.00
~ Paint: $1.00
~ Things for shelf: $0.00
~ Things to hang shelf/shutters: $3.00

Shutters Interior Decor: Total Cost ~ $10.00

The Mobile is Hung Up!

Our baby mobile finally got hung up :) My amazing husband took care of the whole thing for me! Doesn't it look great?!



For close-up shots of the mobile and the step-by-step instructions see this post here (or you can just scroll down about 1/2 inch too :) It's right there...)

Baby Mobile

This project was inspired by one my sister made for her baby (who was born a few hours ago!). She made the cutest mobile for her baby girl so I copied her design and just changed the shapes of the paper.

Materials:
~ Scrapbook paper
~ Fishing line/twine
~ Sticks
~ Hot glue/Wood glue

First I went and bought two sheets of scrapbook paper. I was happy to find out that they were on sale! So I got two double-sided sheets for $1.00! Wahoo! I decided to do butterflies and leaves (my sister did cute little birds). The bedding we got has cute leaves on it so I used that as my inspiration.

I bought this twine (which was also on sale!) to connect everything together. My sister just used fishing line but I didn't have any and wanted to try the twin look since I was going to use leaves. I thought the twine went with the theme I was going for :) Next I had to find some sticks to hang everything! I just went to the park down my street and found two cute sticks.

Don't you love the detail on this pink paper?!

I did three different shapes of butterflies (two each) and cut out a bunch of leaves and started connecting it all together. To connect the two sticks together I used hot glue which I held in place for 3 minutes and then added wood glue on the top of that. To connect the paper cut-outs to the twine I just used a dab of blue. To connect the twin hangings to the sticks I tied a double knot, hot-glued the knot and then wood-glued the knot onto the stick.



I haven't hung it yet because our crib isn't set-up and I want to make sure and get it in the right place :) But here it is!!

Baby's View

Two of the strands have butterfly - leaf - leaf - butterfly and the other two have leaf - butterfly - leaf.


Total Cost:
~ Scrapbook paper: $1.00
~ Fishing line/twine: $2.00 (I'm thinking it was a little less but can't remember for sure)
~ Sticks: $0.00
~ Hot glue/Wood glue: $0.00

Baby Mobile: Total Cost ~ $3.00

Sewing Machine Woes

I know I've been way lame at posting projects! I just want you to know that I have two projects half-way done but I can't finish them because MY SEWING MACHINE IS BROKEN! I'm so sad! I was working on a project and it just stopped working. I can move backwards, I just can't move forward . . . weird right? Luckily it's still under warranty and I live pretty close to a Bernina dealer. Hopefully I will have it fixed soon!!

I have a project coming that doesn't require a sewing machine. I should have it done by the middle of next week so don't give up on me!

Crocheted Burp Cloth

This project is kind of funny and I almost didn't even post it, but I figured what the heck :)

Materials:
~ Yarn
~ Crochet hook
~ Needle
~ Thread

Four years ago my roommates and I got really into crocheting. It was really cool . . . except that it only lasted a few months. In those few months I bought this really fun fabric and was planning on making a scarf out of it. I ran into two problems: 1. I crocheted it really tight so it was too stiff to become a scarf. 2. I ran out of yarn, it was only about 2 feet long by the time I finished. I probably should have just thrown it away but I was so proud of what I had done that I just couldn't bring myself to do it! So I hung on to this 2 foot, stiff crocheted "scarf".

I finally decided that I had to do something with this or else get rid of it. I decided to fold it in half, sew it together and make a burp cloth :)

Haha, definitely not one that I would give to people but hey, it works for me :)

(And I did cut off that extra piece of yarn lying across the top . . . just ignore that!)

Total Cost:
~ Yarn: $3.00 (I bought this four years ago so I don't remember exactly)
~ Crochet hook: $3.00 (again, an estimate)
~ Needle: $0.00
~ Thread: $0.00

Crocheted Burp Cloth: Total Cost ~ $6.00