 Cockatoo blue, one of the Pantone colors of 2012 is one of my favorite colors. The hilarious Sadie over at Momcaster has done a post featuring cockatoo Blue Etsy finds. She included my faceted cockatoo blue agate and leather anklet along with a few other blue beauties.  1 Comment 
All Bracelets and Leather Anklets 
All Jewelry Organizers and Travel Bags 
All Earrings As always, all items ship for FREE and come in a gift box with ribbon, ready for gift giving. Two weeks ago, we took my three little "trouble-makers" to a photographer for new pictures. It was a circus! The four year old did great and was very cooperative (she loves getting her picture taken), but the 1-1/2 year old twins were difficult! My little man was all over the place and couldn't stay still long enough to be posed let alone let the shutter click. And the little lady was a bit nervous in the unfamiliar studio setting, so she didn't want to pose or smile. Well, thankfully, the photographer (Lisa at the Orem, Utah Fotogenix) was amazing! It seems like every photo she took turned out great and it was so hard to choose from all of them. When I got the disk with the images, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them. Canvas photos. But have you seen how expensive they can be? Well, the solution to that is to DIY. Lisa Winnett Interiors found an easy way to make your own canvas photo decor. The tutorial is found here. I went to Michaels and picked out my canvas. I like the square shape, and the most reasonable ones I could find with what they had in stock, were 12"x12". They just happened to be on sale - buy one get one free, so I got 4 - 12"x12" canvases for 7.99 plus tax. NOT BAD! Then I logged onto the photo center at Costco. They do 12"x12" prints for $2.79 - PERFECT! :) and they have them ready for pickup at your local warehouse in just 2 hours! I followed Lisa's tutorial - trim 1/8th of an inch off the bottom and one side. paint the edges of the canvas black. Mod Podge the photo onto the canvas and then at this point, I deviated slightly. A few years ago, I Mod Podged a 24"x36" photo to wood and for the top layer, we used a paint roller with a long nap, which added some great texture to the picture when you look up close. Then you don't have to worry about streak marks or anything like that.  A quick trip to Lowes and I found a 4" roller with 1/2" nap on it. With a handle, this was under $5.00. The photo below shows one of the canvases with the texturing while the mod podge is still wet. Of course as this dries, it becomes clear.  Since my pictures are in color and a little more formal, I skipped the paint around the edges on top of the photo. And here they are... I L-O-V-E how they turned out. Of course, it helps that I have the cutest kids in the universe! :)  Another great thing about this project is that it is pretty fast. Of course, it helps that I had done something similar once before, but I was able to do all three canvases in just about an hour. Also I should add that I was moving as fast as I could, knowing that trouble-makers two and three would be waking from their nap at any moment. 3 Canvases: $6.00 3 12"x12" prints: $8.37 Roller: $5.00 Black paint: had on hand Mod Podge: had on hand. Three 12"x12" canvas prints for $19.37! A quick search on the web shows the average price for a 12"x12" canvas print to be $79.99! Times that by three: $239.97! Ouch! I recently made a pair of earrings for a customer who requested a pair of 3 inch gold hoops.  These are HUGE! She said that her piercing holes were quite big (she used to have stretches and the holes hadn't completely closed) so I was able to make these with 16 gauge wire. The large wire makes them bold and beautiful!  I make hoops of various sizes in solid 925 sterling silver and 14-20K gold filled wire.  Even though spring isn't quite here, I am in the mood for a little spring cleaning. I've marked down all earrings* in my Etsy shop by 35%! Why have I discounted my earrings at such a high percent? I've got some new idea's and new materials that I have begun to work with and want to make room for them in my shop. ;) * Hoop earrings (Solid 925 Sterling silver and 14-20K Gold Filled) are not included in this sale. See the earrings section of my Etsy shop to see all earrings included in the sale.   As part of my craft room makeover, I made a slipcover for my office style chair. It was a simple project, I will walk you through the steps. It came together faster than I expected and a bit easier than I thought. If you've got some basic sewing skills, you can do this! :) This is the chair before. A plain and boring gray and black chair. 
First, I removed those big black arms (attached by screws on the bottom). They were too big to fit under my desk and they squeaked too, so I was happy to lose them. Next, measure the seat cushion. If yours is like mine, think of it as a square and forget about the round corners for a minute. For example, this chair is 19" x 18" just on the top. I added 7 inches to each side to wrap around and under the chair, plus some for seam allowances. So I cut my fabric at 33" x 32". Be generous with your measurements, you can always take away fabric, but you can't add it back on. Then I went to the kitchen and found a large plate. I placed it on each corner and traced the plate to get a nice round corners. 
 Next, zig zag or serge your edges if you like. Insert a button hole to feed your cord through, to gather the fabric and tie it over the seat cushion. Then, fold over the edges 1" and sew, down leaving 3/4" to gather and tie the cover on the seat cushion. As you go around the rounded corners, just fold and gather the fabric to keep the same shape going around. I sewed around twice just to make sure my seam was extra strong. 
Feed a long piece of cord through the little hole and around the inside of the hem you just made. I doubled my cord and gave myself plenty to work with (I use a 12' piece of cord, but had plenty left over).   Place your gathered slipcover over the cushion of the chair. I then turned my chair upside down and placed it on a stool to cinch and tie off the cord. 
Tie your cord securely. Cut the cord (ha ha) and tuck the ends in under your cover. Half way done! For the back of the chair, I took a piece of newspaper and made a rough pattern of the shape of the back of the chair (specifically the curve across the top). Cut out two pieces of fabric (generously of course), sew them together and slip it over the back of the chair (inside out). 
 Mine was too big and loose. I used a pen to mark the fabric and made some rough marks to know where to sew to tighten up the slipcover. (Arrows are pointing to my pen markings). Sew along your markings. I think I repeated this step twice to get just the right fit. (Pictured below) 
Once you get the right fit, turn up the bottom edges of the fabric. Originally I planned to gather the bottom of the back slip cover, but I felt it was too poofy and liked the look better just leaving it long and touching the seat cushion. 
et voila! C'est tout! 
The fabric I used is indoor/outdoor home decor fabric by Premier Prints called Loni Greenage. My four year-old daughter has a friend with Type 1 Diabetes. She was diagnosed with it shortly after her third birthday. Having a daughter the same age, I couldn't imagine how difficult that was for her family. After some major lifestyle changes, they have adapted wonderfully and she is doing great at managing her diabetes. Today I had the privilege of making her a medical ID bracelet. Since it is something she needs to wear daily, I tried to make it as fun and colorful as I could. I wanted it to be something she enjoys wearing. Something a little more fun than just a silver chain. 
All the beads are Magnesite "turquoise", that have been dyed these fun colors. I included a yellow teddy bear, pink heart and purple star. The medical ID tag is the one she has been wearing for a while. I hope she likes the new look! My brother-in-law will be cycling in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure fundraising event this June. All money raised is for the fight to prevent and cure diabetes. Last year he was able to raise $750 dollars and this year his goal is to raise $1000.00. You can learn more and donate to the cause here. When my young daughter made the transition from a booster chair to a "big girl" chair at the kitchen table, she had such a hard time sitting still long enough to eat. I suspected that it was the hard wooden chair and in a pinch, I had her sit on a padded metal folding chair. It really helped, she was able to sit still a little longer and let us all get through the meal. After sitting on that chair for each meal during the past year, the fabric was getting really disgusting. So, I replaced it. Here is the before picture: 
 The seat on my chair is attached with these plastic screw things. I just gently tapped them from the bottom with a hammer and the came right out.  The upper cushion was attached with three metal screws. I used a flat head screwdriver to pull out all the staples. Hundreds of 'em. I couldn't believe how many had been used to hold the original fabric in place. Since this was my first re-upholstery project, as I removed the staples, I paid attention to how the fabric had been pulled and placed with the staples.  I stapled the new fabric down and trimmed it up next to the staples to get rid of the excess fabric.  Repeated the same steps with both cushions. 
The finished product. It went pretty quickly, once I got all the staples removed. The fabric I used is called So Sophie, designed by Riley Blake. It is laminated cotton, so that all the spills can be wiped clean after each meal. Now that I've got the chair put back together, I am really tempted to spray paint the chair. I am thinking either the dark teal or the mustard yellow would look really good. We'll see how ambitious I get. :) And whether or not I could find the right color of spray paint. hmm.... I am happy with how it turned out and it was easier than I expected. I've got another identical chair, which I plan to do the same re-upholstery with. Guess I better decide if I am spray painting them first. :) Hooray!We completed the laminate flooring in the craft / hobby room (you can see more about the whole process here). We are so happy with how it turned out.   As I mentioned before, the two doorways were the hardest and gave us the most grief. They took pretty much a full day. 
Now we get to move all the furniture back in, and figure out the arrangements of the room. And it will be time to continue my organizing! 
It has been a busy week - for both working on the craft room and also for everyday life. After painting the ceiling and the walls white, I painted a lower portion of the walls in "Chameleon" by Valspar. It was my husbands first choice, and I love green, so I went with it. I wish I would have taken a picture at this point, but I didn't. The vibe of the room was a bit dull. My husband said that although he liked it, it did reminded him of camouflage green. A hobby / craft room is supposed to be a fun place, so I added a stripe of vibrant blue Behr paint that I had leftover from the twins nursery.  The blue really adds so much energy to the room and makes the wall color "pop". I am very pleased with how it turned out. I've also painted all the trim. I had to scrape away some caulk in the windows and put down some new caulk. Scraping it away is so hard. After attempting it with many different tools, I finally remembered a hobby knife set that I had. A new blade with a flat tip allowed me to cut through the caulk "like butter". I found the best tool for smoothing out caulk beads. In the past, I'd always used my finger to smooth out the caulk, but... never again! This tool is amazing. (I put links to these tools for anyone searching for help. Tools were purchased by me, and not given to me by these companies to review.) Day one of laminate flooring. We had high hopes and expectations that we could get this done in one day. Didn't happen. :( Thankfully, we did enough research and planning to do it properly. And we started with the most challenging spots first - the doorways. The room has a closet on the same wall as the doorway. The doorways gave us much grief and took up an entire day! In fact, the piece that goes into the doorway into the room isn't finished yet.  And so, this is where we left off for the day. I am pretty sure that the rest of the floor will go very quickly once we make it past the doorways. | About Craftyjules
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