Hang your photos without holes!

A post at the beginning of the week?! I know, crazy! I had this idea on Saturday and happened to have most of the supplies, and the rest I got today, so with out further ado~


I have been looking for cute ways to show off photos and art I've gotten, because there is no room for picture frames. However, just using thumb tacks to hang pictures isn't so cute, besides the fact that it leaves little holes in your lovely art or photos. You can use alligator clips, but I wanted something a little more fun. So, I came up with this easy idea.

 

All you need are some clothespins, ribbon, and some cute decorations. First, I painted some nice, bright colors. Er, you can't really tell in the photo, but the two that look sort of light blue are actually white, and the ones that look a little yellow are actually bright yellow! Next, I covered them with fake flowers. I just hot glued them on, but I felt they looked a liiiiitle bit plain, so I did a little decoration on the bottom with Sharpies

The colors ended up making them look a little Easter-eggish...oh well, still cute! Then you take a long piece of ribbon and tie little bows on the end. Spread the ribbon flat on a table and lay the clothes pin evenly across, then hot glue them in place.

The bows will cover the pins you'll use to hang them in the wall. Then, just hang it where you want it and clip your photos/art in!

 

The great thing about this is that you can use whatever you want to decorate it so it can fit your room!

ps: the lovely artwork is by amy and amber

A Litte Bonus Project

Hey guys! I feel so bad about taking forever to get my next project up, and its actually still not done! :( But I have another project that I did before I had my resolution, and I thought I would share that with you today. Unfortunately, I only have the after photos, but really, its obvious to tell what it would have looked like before.

Awhile ago I was given a gift certificate to Michaels, and I really didnt know what to do with it. I was looking up and down the isles and found these cool cut pieces of wood that still had the bark on the sides. They were for engraving with fire or something, I don't really remember. However, for the past few weeks I'd been looking for something to hold my necklaces, and this would be the perfect backboard! I bought one and went home.

Next I bought some knobs from the hardware store. Later my sister informed me that a local store sells vintage ones for $2 a pop! I was a little bummed that I didn't know that beforehand, but you can keep that in mind if you want to do this project! These are my two favorite knobs I got:

I asked my dad to screw 7 holes in the wood for where the knobs would go, then I screwed them in and voila! a new, adorable necklace hanger. Here it is in action!

Cute, right!?!?

From sweatshirt to mittens~

Hey everyone! Coming up in February I'm going to go up to the snow, and I was thinking I need a good pair of mittens to weather that cold. But man, it's hard to find cute, warm ones. So of course, I decided to make a pair myself! It started out as this sweatshirt that, while warm and nice, was too small for me.

 I decided this was the perfect material to make my mittens out of. So I cut it up! My first idea was to make them out of the sleeves, but I messed that up. Instead, I made it out of the body, which worked quite well. Its really simple all you have to do is make an outline of your hand, about a half inch away all the way around. Do it at the bottom, so the bottom hem will end up where your wrist goes. It should look like this:

  

Then you just sew on the line! I had my mom do that part for me, because I don't know how to use a sewing machine! (I want to learn soon though.) Then you just them out and turn them inside out. Make sure the cut pretty close where the thumb meets the hand or else it will fold weird. Now you can decorate however you like! I decided to go pretty simple, just three (really cute) buttons on each cuff.

 

By the way, I'm sorry about all the weird colors! The above photo is the closest to the color of the fabric. And that's it!! Cute, right?!?

Its really great that these are made of sweatshirt material, because its sooooo warm. Most mittens are knitted, and all those are super cute, but those little holes let lots of cold air through. Not gonna happen with these! :)

I'd love to see how you customize yours.
xo, caro

From peanuts to pencils!

Hey guys~! The first project, aren't you excited? I cut it pretty close to the deadline this week, problems kept coming up!

For this first project, I decided to go with something reaaaally simple, anyone can do it. All you need is a can, felt, scissors and a hot glue gun.  I transformed a boring old peanuts container to a cute pencil/brush/scissors/anything holder! Here it goes.

A while ago, my mom and I were a little obsessed with peanuts. That's where this huge container came from:

I was using it to hold all my colored pencils, but man, was it an eyesore. I got the idea to transform it from this adorable owl dress. One night, my friend Brenda and I spent and hour or so cutting out all these little leaf shapes!

We actually cut out a bit too many, got kind of carried away! Next, just hot-glue the leaves in an alternating pattern. I did the top layer first, then down from there. I only got burned once, woo-hoo!! Here's the end product:

I think it's pretty darned cute! Now, with that peanut container you could peel off the label and there was that shiny silver underneath. I left it that way for now, but might go back and paint it blue later so it doesn't stand out as much!

So there's my first project! Whew~! Let me know if you try it. xo, caro


ps, sorry about the picture quality! I'm saving up for a better camera.

And so it begins!

Hey everyone! (Everyone, at this point, is no one, but hopefully that will change!)

I just started this blog and I thought I'd give a quick intro before my first project. My name is Carolyn Rowe and I am 18 years old, living in California (the Bay Area, to be exact!). I go to community college and am going to transfer after two years, all about saving money. I own a cute mutt named Daisy and I recently dyed my hair pink; I'm loving it!

But right now, most of my friends are in different cities! I've been pretty lonely and spend a lot of my time shopping, which is an expensive habit. I'm not very good at window shopping! I wanted something more productive to spend my time on, and I always feel good when I make things, so I made a New Years Resolution to make one handmade/up-cycled thing a week. That's where this blog comes in! To keep me motivated, I'm going to post my projects here along with DIY guides, in case you want to try some of them out. At least one DIY a week, that means at least 52 projects!

I'm also going to post some other things, like possibly an outfit a week! Not too sure yet, so stay tuned~ I'm a friendly person so feel free to comment any time. :)