Yard sale score

I went to a yard sale this weekend and got this sewing desk for only $5!

I can't wait to fix it up! What color should I paint it?

Felted Gnome Family

I love the look of felted creatures! I couldn't stop thinking about trying it so I headed to Joanne's and bought some wool roving, which is just loose wool before it's spun into yarn. There are better places to buy wool online with loads of beautiful colors, but I just wanted a few packs right away that I could experiment with. I watched some tutorials on YouTube (you can learn anything on YouTube!) and got started. It is really easy. All you do is stab stab stab the wool with a barbed needle on a foam block until you get the shape you want. You can stab pieces together if you want to attach them. Pardon my uneducated terminology, I am a newb with needle felting.You can also use the wool to punch designs into other things- like purses, hats, bags, anything really. Here is a pic of loose wool with the barbed needles and foam block.

 

I got home and here is what I came up with! I love gnomes so the idea of making a gnome family was an obvious choice for me.  

 

The gnome family is resting on a felt pad that I hand stitched some embroidery floss around the edge for some interest. Then I felted a little pond and some stepping stones onto the felt pad. I also felted a mushroom table and used brown felt to cut and shape into little coffee cups. This only took me an hour! I would love a huge stock pile of fun colors so I can start felting some more fun creatures. Care for a cuppa??

Re-writable Menu Board Tutorial

I saw a tutorial online to make a re-writable menu board and it inspired me to take the same idea but use it as a way to keep track of where the local Farmer's Markets were open on each day. Living in Seattle, we have them in different neighborhoods all throughout the week. I can never keep track and sometimes finding even 5 minutes to get online and look it up isn't worth the effort with a wiggly baby. So now I can keep my favorites listed right on this board and know in advance, maybe even plan my day the day before!

First, I found a frame I wasn't using. Since I wasn't mad about the color, I painted it! I started with green but changed it to maroon. I am sure there are better paint types out there, but I used what I had. For a $1 frame, it doesn't really matter.

I found some pretty scrapbook paper for the background, this was a woodland pack I had on hand. I used the glass from the frame as a template to cut to size.
I printed the days of the week with the header "Farmer's Market" or you could type "Weekly Menu" or even "Weekly Chores". You can find funky fonts here. They are free and super cute. Who doesn't like free! If you need help figuring out how to install them onto your computer, leave a comment. Whatever you need to keep you organized! I used funky edged scissors to cut the days of the week paper.

Now you just write in whatever you want on the outside glass with dry erase markers. I just have one neighborhood written in so far, it's the only one I can remember. And I am not even 100% sure... Good thing it's erasable ink! If you are using yours as a menu board, write in what dinners you are going to have each day. I have bigger ideas for a menu board that involve painting an entire wall in my kitchen with chalkboard paint, after we remodel it but I don't know if I can wait that long!

Seattle Art Musuem - Free day!

The first Thursday of every month the museums in Seattle have free admission. Last month we checked out the Burke Museum at the University of Washington campus. Annie wanted to see the dinosaur exhibit and we made a new friend while we were there. Today we went downtown and went through SAM. It has some fabulous exhibits and I highly recommend it. Annie's favorite installation was the exploding cars as well as some Northwest Native American art, since she studied it in school. On the way to SAM, the Cooking Channel was outside Westlake Center giving out free Molly Moon's Fro Yo from a Food Truck. I got Salted Carmel, so good..

FIY our favorite place to park anytime we go downtown is at Pacific Place Garage. It has the cheapest rates of anywhere I've found (so far). I can also get to and from the garage very easily now so will probably not be parking anywhere else if I can avoid it. Since I am downtown anyway, I like to walk around a bit and take it all in- so I would rather not park exactly where I am going anyway. I love seeing the city, the sound, the mountains- it is just a gorgeous site.

Pardon my dust..

I am feverishly attempting to renovate my blog from a simple background to something pretty and chic. There are great websites out there to borrow backgrounds and headers from- particularly shabbyblogs.com. I am having issues centering the header and not making it so large so you have to scroll over. Blogger actually has some cute fonts so my fonts will be coming from there. Anyway, please pardon my dust during this blogger renovation!