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

New Recipe Blog

There are a lot of recipe blogs out there and I enjoy looking at them but honestly 95% of the recipes I look at leave me thinking "Oh, I bet that's yummy...I'll never make it." Either it takes too much time, has weird ingredients, or just sounds too overwhelming.

My sister has noticed this too and decided to start a blog dedicated to cheap and easy dinners. What a great idea! She's going to post easy-to-make, regular dinners that are good for the mouth and the budget! She's interested in getting ideas too so if you have any good dinners email her at penniesandrice@gmail.com. Check out her new blog...

Pennies and Rice