summer-to-fall sweaters

While we were out this weekend, I accidentally wandered into the Gap to see what their sales were like. That's when The Boy said: "Now that you've gotten into sprucing up old things to make them usable again, you should do that with clothes, too." [Read: Can we please leave this store?] But hey, maybe he's on to something...

Here are some old Target sweaters that have lost a bit of their form. A few days ago, I saw this clever lady revamp one of her sweaters and I decided to give it a go. It's still too hot for sweaters, but I can at least have a fall-inspired wardrobe, right?

First, I measured how much I wanted to cut off based on how short my sleeves were on the shirt I have on:

[PS: that dog follows me EVERYWHERE]

Technical, I know. I added three inches and cut it right off, saving the scraps for the cuff and a future project.

I rolled the sleeves up and stitched them in place. Then I sewed on the strip to hold the cuff, along with the adorable button.

Later, I realized that I should have put the button in the middle of the sleeve, not the front but meh...what can you do? Better luck next time :)

As for the other sweater, I just cut the sleeves right off so I can rock a sweater vest.

It'll be cuter when there's a shirt underneath, so just go with it :)

Sometimes I like to party....click here to see where I link!

fall makes everything better

The good news is, I work from home. So unless I run out to check the mail or water the plants, I won't know that it's 92 degrees outside. This might be the exact definition of denial. Perhaps. Don't care :)

The fall decorations couldn't have come out at a better time. There's this "thing" I have in my foyer that's been an eyesore since we moved in. It's a beautiful piece of furniture, but it just wasn't working for the space. Do you ever have pieces like that? And to complicate things even more, it's a family piece so it can't [read: Hubs doesn't want it to] be painted or altered in anyway. It just needed some light sprucing. Buuuut, every time I thought about it I was like mmm don't feel like it. Thanks for asking. Maybe next time.

Then it happened. Labor Day Weekend. And I was like wait, what? I need somewhere to put my bowl full of acorns? Okay! You see where I'm going with this? I figured you might :)

The task at hand:

See how I thought it would be okay as long as SOMETHING was on top. Pitful.

Step 1:

Get hype.

Step 2:

Prep the materials: burlap ($2/yd), Dollar Tree pumpkins (spray painted white), candle thingies (Goodwill finds + superglue) and ball thingies ($2/each with a Pier 1 gift card)

Step 3:

Fluff up your wreath and salvage the frame from the Clown Incident.

Step 4:

[sigh]

Oh, glorious day :)

Hooray for Fall! Link up to the party at The Inspired Room!

when you say crazy, you mean...

This is what happened: I finished setting up my home office. And my office shares the space with my craft room. And in the process of straightening things up on my desk, I stumbled into the craft side and started feeling a little jittery. Like I needed to do something. So I scanned through my blog roll for the day and saw two things. Two beautiful bits of inspiration: Decor Chick is getting organized and in the process, I caught a glimpse of her toolbox and the ladies over at The CSI Project are hosting a Mod Podge Party. Music to my ears. And what do you know, I have a toolbox AND Mod Podge. Hollerrr.


I knew when I bought Sassy [my toolbox, duh] that she was going to need a facelift if she was going to live in my craft room. Let's face it, that blinding neon yellow just doesn't go.

She could stop traffic. And not in a good way.

And where else in my whole entire house can I be as girly as I can be in here, my very own craft room? No where, I tell you. It just won't fly with that burly submarine officer of mine. So I rooted out my Mod Podge, my pile of scrapbook paper and some paint and got to work on adding some frills to my girl:

Oh, I did just do that. I totally painted her snaps purple and Mod Podged some scrapbook paper to her front parts. I did it. I was in the middle of it all and thought, "Am I really doing this??" The answer is YES. And any of you, finding yourself in my situation, would have done the same thing [maybe not, but keep that to yourself] and you would be proud to show it off. Please don't judge me.

Check out the other Mod Podge creations going on today...

lighten up: bookshelf backdrop

Ok, two things to tell you:

One, after living in this house for two months, I almost have the living room complete. Cue the Hallelujah chorus.

Two, I have had a recent obsession with brightening

things up. I don't know why, but I want everything in my house to be white, white, white. Light, light, light.

In our living room, I have a shelf that holds the collection of knicky-knacky things that I love too much not to display. A pair of Korean ducks that a friend gave us as a wedding gift while he was teaching in South Korea. An antique bird cage that my mom bought me for my birthday. Hand-bound family recipes (OLD ones) from The Boy's aunt. Our wedding verse, written in Chinese, from my maid of honor while she was living overseas. Okay, maybe it's a shelf for our international wedding gifts, but whatevs. You get the general idea.

The problem is that most everything on the shelf is dark and wooden. And the shelf is dark and wooden. And I felt depressed when I looked in that corner because you CAN'T SEE ANYTHING. Darkness...uuuggghhh, I hate you.

This picture may not look that bad, but it really is. It was sad. So what's a girl to do? I'm all about sprucing things up, but sometimes I don't want it to be too permanent in case I change my mind later, which I almost certainly will. In that case, paint wouldn't do. Fabric? Only I didn't want to glue/staple it on, because of that whole "nothing too permanent" rule. And then I found a piece of posterboard. Cha-ching! Perfect.

I just cut the posterboard to the exact size of the inside of the bookshelf, covered it with some fabric and glued the edges down along the back (xoxo spray craft glue!). Then I inserted it into my bookshelf. The individual shelves hold it against the back, so there's no need to attach it. Nifty, eh?

Much better. Also - totally by accident, the fabric is almost identical to the wall color. I wasn't sure if I'd like that, but it flows so much better. Your eye doesn't get caught on a busy fabric or a contrasting paint color, it just shows off my beauties!