Guest Blogging today at Meremade

I'm guest blogging over at Meremade today! When Jennifer asked me to participate I couldn't resist in not participating in "Back-to-School" month on Meremade. I instantly knew what I wanted to make and thus I've created a customized notebook with supplies I already had in my craft room. What's wonderful about this notebook is that you can customize it to your own supplies, color pallet, and taste! I made this notebook for my friend Chisty's daughter, Chloe! She loves making  paper crafting, and when she comes over our house I give her all my cricut cut-out scraps. Chloe, just started Kindergarten, and I know she will need to work on her handwriting. This customized notebook (primary journal), should help motivate her to work on her handwriting. 

Make sure you head over to Meremade where you'll find the tutorial on how I created this cute little notebook! 

Craft Lunch: Fabric Rosettes

It had been a few months since our last craft lunch at work. Being that I've been super busy and traveled half the month of March, Sarah, from While They Snooze organized last month's craft lunch! She had been itching to make some fabric rosettes. Our goal for craft lunch is to always pick a craft that has very little pieces and parts, inexpensive, and can be typically completed within our hour lunch break. A majority of the time it involves hot glue. We have a co-worker (and very dear friend of mine) who is obsessed with hot glue, and one day she will start her very own hot glue blog. I swear she will hot glue anything, and when I mean anything... well, you get the point, that's a whole different blog post. 

Sarah and myself compiled a list of wonderful fabric rosette examples for everyone to read up on and choose which rosette(s) they would want to complete within the hour. Most opted for rosettes that required hot glue and a few brave souls opted for the hand sewn rosettes. 

Prior to our craft lunch I saw a blog post on Skip to My Lou with the top 10 fabric flower tutorials. This was super helpful and gave even more examples than the ones Sarah and I found prior to our invite; Little Birdie Secrets, Freckled Laundry, Tip Junkie, Busy B Family, and The Creative Maven are a few more tutorials that show case how to make fabric rosettes. 

Here is the group getting started! 

The hot glue guns were plugged in and the hot glue gun helpers were out and ready to be used!

Andrea, started working on her pink rosette. She followed the tutorial from lillyella. 

Andrea attached her fabric rosette to a hair tie, and wore it around the office!

Erica and Christy were two of the brave soles who decided to sew their rosettes.

Erica choose to make the Fabric Yo-Yo Flower from The DIY Dish. 

Erica's Yo-Yo flower was very nautical, so we had her salute the camera! 

Christy choose to make a hand sewn fabric rosette. It was a tutorial blend of Susie Harris meets Made by the Mama Monster!  

She made one rosette while everyone else who use hot glue made 2-3! 

Christy, modeling her new rosette. She hot glued the fabric rosette onto a pin back and pinned it on her necklace!

An up-close look at Christy's new fabric rosette pin! Make sure you check out her photography blog! She is amazing! 

Here is the two fabric rosettes Rachel made within 20 minutes! She is our hot glue gun queen! She used a thicker knit material that seemed to work the best. She followed the Made by the Mama Monster tutorial. 

Sarah, from While The Snooze, made a head band for her daughter. She wrapped the cotton t-shirt around the $1 headband that she got from Michael's. Then followed the Made by the Mama Monster tutorial. Cut out her own version of a leaf with a dark grey felt. Added a pink pearl embellishment to the middle of the flower, then hot glued all three pieces together! Super cute headband!!! 

Here are the three fabric rosettes I came up with! The first one is more like a rosebud than anything. I used a silk material that was a bit difficult to wrap. I also followed the the Made by the Mama Monster tutorial. My goal is to make these into a necklace... maybe next month I'll get around to showing these fabric rosettes love and glueing them down! 

Here is the same picture above, but I manipulated it using instagram! If you follow me on Facebook you saw this picture almost a month ago! 

I hope you will go host your own craft lunch or at least make a few fabric rosettes on your own! Super easy and inexpensive project to make anytime--anywhere! 

Tutorial: Fabric Bulletin Board {revamp}

A really good friend of mine gave me a beige on beige fabric bulletin board last summer. I knew I wanted it, but I also knew that the beige on beige was going to have to go! For months I looked for fabric, and thus I found this beautiful black and off white print. I scoured the ribbon aisles at Michaels Crafts and fell in love with this turquoise. Thankfully, Mr. Woodsy helped me with this project. I have the begining stages of arthritis in my hands, so gripping a nail gun is out of the question. I even have a difficult time using pliers without my hand cramping/freezing in place. It's sad and it stinks especially since I'm not even 30 yet! But I guess it's the facts of life. Thankfully, I have an amazing assistant to help with projects like these!

*A follower asked the question of how much fabric and ribbon did we use? I know for a fact it was less than a yard of fabric and less than one spool of ribbon. Wish I had the exact measurements, but I don't! 

First you will want to lay your fabric out, pattern side down, and draw a "T" line. 

Line up your old bulletin board with your "T" line. 

Cut around the old bulletin board. 

Tightly, wrap one side and begin stapling. 

Repeat with the stapling--pulling the fabric tightly, so that there are no loose ends. 

For the corners you will want to tightly gather the corners. 

Hold your thumb near the area you want to staple. 

... And staple! 

Then cut off the excess ribbon. (*I have to comment how much I love Mr. Woodsy... not only did he help me re-cover this board he uses pink scissors without any hesitation!) 

Next, you will start with one end of the ribbon and wrap it on the back of the board, followed by one staple! 

Here is another picture of how it looks when you first start your ribbon.  

After you secure one side of the ribbon, wrap it diagonally across the board, and staple it. Cut the ribbon and repeat on the opposite side, so that you'll have an "X".

We drew a diagram prior to unwrapping the ribbon off the old board, so that we could follow it for the new board. 

Now, this is where the challenging part comes in to play... start in the center of the board. Secure the ribbon, bring to the middle of the board (so that a smaller "X" will appear), staple it in place...

... then loop the ribbon around, so that you can bring it down to form another smaller "X". Repeat this until all four corners have been completed. 

Once the ribbon is secured, you will want to place a staple in the center of each of the "X's". 

Make sure that when you staple the ribbon you do this on a surface that can be damaged if necessary. Our staples were a bit long, so they went right through the board. Mr. Woodsy used pliers to fold the staples down. 

Next, you will want to work on the buttons for the board. 

Next, you will want to use pliers to snap the backs off the buttons. 

Backs have been removed from the buttons! 

Heat up your hot glue gun and get ready to start glueing your buttons on to the staples/ribbon. 

Place a small amount of glue on the center of the button. 

Press firmly on the button to secure it. 

Repeat until all button have been secured into place. 

I flipped the board over and applied a little hot glue to the edge of the fabric. In some cases the fabric was a little loose. I tightened it up by placing a thin line of hot glue on the edge. I then used my handy-dandy hot glue gun helper thimble to smooth out the glue. *no hot glue gun burns here*

Lastly, it's time to hang up this amazing little revamp project!

Make sure it's level... 

Voila! 

My laundry room is looking a little more complete... now on to find a new rug!