DIY Cork Board and Thumb Tacks: Craft Room

I've been turning our spare bedroom into a little craft station for myself. .. Right now it's a mess! That's my "stash everything in here" room! haha! Anyway, when I have it more set up how I want, I'll do more posts about it :) For now I'm just going to show you my pretty corkboard I put together for my wall. 

I found this big wooden frame at my thrift store for $2. 

The backing looks like cork but it's not. So I had to buy some sheets of cork, which I found for $2 for a pack of 2 squares at the dollar store! I picked up two packs since one wouldn't be enough. 

I just hot glued the cork right to the frame backing. You can see how it hangs over the side.. so I used my little exacto knife to cut the edges off.

To cover up the obvious lines I bought a fat quarter of fabric at Walmart and glued the sides down to the back of the backing. I guess I didn't take a photo of this part, but you can just imagine this process :) Pretty simple and easy. I wanted fabric that wouldn't stand out and be distracting from the pretty blue that I painted  my frame, so I picked some out that look super close to the color of cork. Here's an up close look at the fabric. You'd think it was cork from seeing it father away, which is what I was going for.

And here's my new pretty corkboard! 

I just used a plain ole bottle of acrylic craft paint and painted about 3 layers on. Then painted a couple layers of a clear coating. 

 Ready for more F.U.N ?! 

I made my own cute thumb tacks too! 

I took all these little odds and end..

{buttons, tiny crochet flowers, fabric covered button,

and a glass marble that I mod podge to some fabric} and hot glued them to some plain thumb tacks I had.

cute, cute, cute! Right?!

I'm throwing my sister a baby shower when we go home to California for Christmas! 

{by the way, my sister finds out today if it's a boy or girl! eek!)

It's super nice having my own little area for all my craft stuff! Usually it's ALL OVER the apartment! I'm definitely going to be working on this little area {I call it my craft station}, so there will be more posts to come!

p.s... today has been the most beautiful fall day!

... again with the romantic-y dreamy mood.. 

Crochet Ruffle Scarf

Wow, It's like I've been avoiding blogging like the plague! ... Not really, I just haven't had anything great to blog about. I do have a bunch of projects I'm in the middle of, but it could be ages before those are done because, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before, I tend to procrastinate things. I'll try to work on that.. cause I have some things I really want to share!.. before I get gray hairs. 

This week I was feeling in the mood to make a scarf. I haven't done one in a great long while, so I bought some pretty yarn. I love this color. It's called Pale Antique Rose. Isn't that a pretty name too? I was planning on just making one of my normal scalloped scarves, but I decided to try and make ruffles instead. I didn't follow any pattern for making ruffles, I basically just figured it out on my own.. 

Ta- da!

I like it and can't wait to wear it! .. Well, I CAN wait, .. cause really I'm not looking forward to winter gracing us with its presence again. I'm rather sad about the summer ending, but now that fall has started showing itself, I don't mind it getting a little teensy weensy bit cool. I love fall. It makes me all romantic-y and dreamy and I want to go buy pumpkins and put them everywhere in our apartment and burn yummy smelling candles all day long--(big breath for air!) 

back to the ruffly scarf I made...

Lovely, right? :)

I thought I'd share the tiny little instructions on how I did the ruffles in case anyone's wondering.

So first things first, I made the foundation row 210 chain stitches long. 

Then I did 3 rows of double crochets.

For the ruffles on the first side (which is the opposite side of the foundation chain stitches) I did 3 double crochets in EACH stitch all the way across.

(no skipping spaces at all).

Like this.. 

(the gray ovals represent the stitches you are stitching into)

 

For the other side of the scarf I did things a little different. I alternated between 3 double crochets in one stitch, and 2 double crochets in the next and continuing in that pattern. 

Like this..

I did it this way because I was finding that the foundation stitches seemed to be a bit scrunched and closer than on the other side of the scarf.. When I was doing 3 double crochets in each stitch everything was tighter and the ruffles were smaller than the other side. So by doing it this way, to me it seemed to even them out more to look like the other side.

And yes, the ends will look a little strange too. So what I did for the ends was just add double crochets right along the ends to make them rounded. Not sure how to explain this part, but I just put double crochets anywhere on the ends to get it across and connect to the other side's end with a slip stitch.

Here's a photo of the finished ends which might help with understanding..

They aren't perfect, but they look SO much better then if I hadn't finished them this way.

So that's my ruffle scarf! 

I'd love to make a few for my shop too, so we'll see that how that goes!

If you make your own ruffle scarf I'd love to see it!
Feel free to leave your a link to your own ruffle scarf blog post in a comment
if you make one!!

New Items in Shop!

Hi Friends! 

I have some new items that I've added to my shop! I think you'll love them- I do! :) 

The Sweet Blossom Earrings come as a two pair set for $11.00.

I plan to add single pairs to the shop as well.

and also.....

Necklaces are priced at $8.00 

I was really excited to finish these necklaces and add them to my shop! 

I think they are so pretty! 

Just had to share! 

Hope you stop by my shop and have a peek!

Monochromatic Outfit

One of my favorite fashion blogs that I follow has recently done a 21 day clothing challenge on her blog and I've loved seeing everyone's links for their outfits. One of the day's challenges was to put together a monochromatic outfit. HUH?? What's monochromatic you ask? .. that's okay. That was my first reaction too. 

Taken from Wikipedia: 

Monochromatic colors are all the colors (tints, tones, and shades) of a single hue.

I was kind of excited to learn that and thought it would be fun to try to put together an outfit following this rule... er, whatever it may be called. 

So here's my monochromatic outfit I put together for church today.

Skirt thrifted- $4, shirt thrifted- $1, cardigan pretty sure thrifted, belt thrifted, shoes Bizou- $3 brand new, necklace made by me, earrings Law Students Crafts, bracelets dollar store.

 How'd I do? :) 

I thought the bright belt kind of brought some color life into the outfit!