That's the way I stripe it...

 Well, it has been a long, long, long time since I last blogged, but that is about to change. I have many, many, many DIY projects to share. First up is my striped duvet.

A few months ago, I saw this striped duvet from West Elm via Pinterest. Honestly, $70 is not bad for a duvet, but when I saw this nearly identical duvet at Target for $25, I was sold. That was until I got home and realized the bright white stripes looked absolutely horrible with our ivory trim. So what's a girl to do? First option... paint the trim. Yeah, that's not happening. Second option... search near and far for a navy and ivory duvet. Nowhere to be found (at a reasonable price). Third option... make my own duvet.

Here was my plan.
-Get two navy queen sheets sets ($18.97) and one ivory queen flat sheet ($14.99)

-Cut the ivory sheet into 5 twenty inch strips.

-Fold each strip in half, making it a ten inch strip and sew it closed.  (Now the ivory is doubled up so you will not see the navy through it.)

-Lay one navy sheet flat and then lay the ten inch strip across it. Pin it in place and top-stitch it along both edges.

-Repeat, repeat, repeat, and repeat.

-Once all the stripes are sewn on, pin the other navy sheet to the front of the first sheet so it is inside out.

-Sew along the outsides but leave one area undone to create an opening for the filling.

-I was intimidated by buttons, so I chose to put in a zipper. I forgot to write down what the cost, but I think it was like $6.

So in total, it cost me roughly $60 and a lot of man hours, but that also includes two fitted sheets and four pillowcases I would not have received if I bought the West Elm duvet. I am extremely happy with how it turned out. I love my super thick, bold stripes that don't clash with the trim. And that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I stripe it. :)

Also in this picture, there are 5 more DIY projects that I'll break down in the near future... and that's just this side of the room.

Elijah's Skip Hop Tree Top Friends

It has been quite awhile since I last posted. I haven't had a whole lot of time to craft, but recently I had a reason to...

 One of my childhood best friends had a baby last week! :) He is a precious little boy named Elijah. He has a super cute nursery theme and his mama wanted some matching accessories. I painted her a set of canvases and wooden letters to decorate Elijah's nursery walls.

Skip Hop Tree Top Friends

 

I hope little Eli and his mama like them! :)

Tutu and Two

It has been a little while since my last craft project, but last weekend I finally had another reason to make something. One of my good friends has an adorable little girl who turned two last week. I wanted to make something and thought what could be better for a two-year-old than a tutu!?


It was quite easy. I took elastic and just sewed two edges together to make a stretchy waist band. Next, I cut tulle into long strands. Then I tied the tulle onto the elastic. Lots and lots of tulle...

And I thought Juliet needed a cute shirt to go with it as well. :)

 

T-shirt from Hobby Lobby, bag of lime green sequins, white and pink felt,  and a little patience

Who said that 2's have to be terrible? They can be fabulous!

Happy Birthday to my favorite two-year-old!

Hold Me Close.

This is probably the most difficult project I've attempted so far. I don't consider myself an artist. I'm more of a crafter. When I paint, it is normally patterns or cartoony type objects. A few weekends ago, I found this giant framed painting at a yard sale for $5. It was from a hotel that had recently redecorated, so the painting was "meh," but the frame was really nice. I decided to step out of my comfort zone and paint something a bit more difficult than my norm... I decided to paint my favorite picture from our wedding.

I just really love the composition of this shot. To me, it just feel extremely intimate. I also love the flowers as the focal point. My bouquet was beautiful. My mom and aunt worked themselves to the bone on the flowers for our wedding, and I loved every single thing they put out there. They really made my dream wedding come true. So here's my attempt...

Happy Pictures Need Happy Frames

Dane and I have been married for nearly eight months... and I had yet to put up any of our wedding pictures around the apartment. For this project, I decided to go extra thrifty. I took a trip to our local Goodwill and found a few old, plain, CHEAP frames. Each of them were $2 or less. You can see why.

 

Who doesn't want a Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel?

I had a few other frames from the dollar store and Michael's.

Add some paint and some scrapbooking paper and here you go... 

The finished product.

To give some reference or reason as to the color choice, these are in the same room as these paintings.

Never FELT Better

I've decided to make a few changes to my blog. I don't have enough interesting stories to tell in order to keep up with a everyday-life-blog, but I really enjoyed sharing a few of my recent craft projects. So, I've decided to make this blog all about one of favorite hobbies... Taking something ordinary, boring, or dated and making it into something new and exciting.


So here is the first post under my new blog name: Color Me Happy!


A few years ago, I saw a friend of mine turn a few plain onesies into adorable, personalized onesies. I thought this would be perfect for my little niece/nephew Baby Nichols.

Supplies: Plain Onesies and a rainbow of Felt and Thread

A Little Night Owl

 

I made this one really hoping that my big brother would like it :)

Baby Nichols is gonna love "Haddadi"

Finished Product

Bright Polka Dots and Happy Animals

Last weekend, I went to visit my little sis-in-law in Starkville. If you didn't know, almost everything shuts down around 5 or 6 o'clock. So, as we usually do, we decided to get creative. We got a few canvases and decided to spend our Saturday night painting. Earlier that day we had browsed a few stores and I had seen some really cute paintings of a monkey and a giraffe. My older sis-in-law announced a few weeks ago that she is having a baby... and they are not finding out the gender. When I saw those paintings, I thought they'd be perfect for a gender neutral nursery. So, I decided to make my own and if they didn't match how they decide to decorate the nursery it'd be okay, because paint and canvas is inexpensive and reusable.


Here is the finished product...

 After making the monkey and giraffe, I remembered there is one jungle animal that is very important to our family. T - I - G - E - R - S !

I wrapped each canvas in ribbon so they're easily hung and extra cute :)