Upcycled Light Fixture Terrarium

Recently, Pinterest and Tumblr have had me lusting over pretty pictures of succulents, many planted in geometric containers that look like or actually are glass light fixture domes.  Never one to turn down a good upcycling project, I went searching for the materials to make this happen last weekend.  Here is what I came up with:

I call this a diy, but once you find the right materials, this is the easiest diy ever!  Hardly any explanation needed.

I found these cute succulents at A Lot of Flowers in Fairhaven (they were about $5 each). I love that one of them looks like a rose.

The key to this whole thing is finding the right light fixtures.  When I went looking, I really had no idea what I was looking for or how I was going to connect them.  You could of course use just one dome and leave it open on the top but I really wanted the enclosed look.  To achieve this, you need to find light fixtures that are uneven on the bottom like this:

I found mine at an amazing recycled building materials store that we have here called the Re Store ($3 each). When I first saw that the bottom was uneven like this (anyone know why?), I thought hmm that's okay I guess. It took until I found a second one for me to realize that this meant the two halves could just click together if you turned one upside down! The assembly process is simple:

1. Turn one of the dome upside down (or I guess the right way since that's how it goes on the ceiling!) decide if you want to cover the hole. I put a small clear lid over it.  Succulents do not need much water so you shouldn't have seepage anyway, if you are caring for them correctly.
2. Cover the angled bottom with rocks. I just covered the bottom but you could add more, if you want them to be seen on the sides.
3. Add soil and transfer plants in.  I also added some shells for decoration around the plants.
4. Now, just line up the uneven edges of the other dome with the bottom one push down to click them together and ta da!

Now, I just have to decide where to put it!

Cheers,

Life Lately: Snow and Spring

I don't know about you, but in the last couple weeks I have been getting a bit of cabin fever.  The warmer weather (compared to the teens and twenties we had for a while) turned my mind to thoughts of flowered dresses and planting gardens.  Although I know that these things are months away, it was like a part of me was itchy to be outside and ready for spring.  Yet at the same time, I absolutely love snow and have been jealous of all the fluffy white stuff the rest of the country has been getting.  In northwestern Washington, we seem to either have dry below freezing temperatures or wet and windy but never wet and cold at the same time.  This week it was in the 40s with wind warnings but then it snowed this morning! All this to explain my conflicted state of mind. Here is a little bit of snow and spring:

Last weekend, my mom came up to visit and we spent some time poking around my favorite bookstore where I found this gem for $3

 I might use it for a project one day, but for now I just love to look at it. I wish I had more space to grow flowers. Right now all I have it my porch, so I have to be as economical as possible.  I discovered a great online tool for doing just that. The site is called Smart Gardener and it allows you to digitally lay out the space of your garden, including telling you what plants will grow well in  your climate and creating to-do lists for the season.  I can't wait to plant my garden, but I will need some more containers first.

Day two of my mom's visit we went cross country skiing at White Salmon Road on Mt. Baker.

When we reached the top of the ridge, there was too much cloud cover to see much of the view but the you get the general idea.  It snowed the whole time, and as we started back, the wind kicked up making visibility difficult.  I'm glad we turned back when we did.

I had a bit of a second Christmas because my mom brought up with her a box of fabric given to me by our friend Kim.  Thanks Kim! Here are some of my favorites:

In other news, my office recently moved to a new location where I have more desk space than I could ever need.  I'm thinking that I should definitely get some houseplants for one end.  Anyone have any favorites that are hard to kill?

Always,

Design your own fabric with Spoonflower

So, last week I spotted this beautiful little number floating around the internet:

Via

For the untrekie among you who can't tell, the fabric is a draft of the USS Enterprise; and it is beautiful.  $45 is a bit steep for a skirt that would take less than an hour to make, and once I saw on the Etsy listing that the maker had the fabric specially made, the hunt was on!  A Google, Amazon and Ebay search turned up nothing.  Then, my friend Courtney showed me this site called Spoonflower.  At Spoonflower you can design and buy your own fabric, wallpaper, decals and gift wrap.  Not a designer myself, I was happy to find that you can buy fabric with the designs that other people have submitted here (the designers get a commission too).  Bellingham lacks a decent fabric store like Fabric Depot and sorry Joanns, but most of your fabric is outdated and just plain out of stock.  Spoonflower has tons of beautiful and modern (and nerdylicious) fabric offered in many different types of fabric.

Here are some of my favorites:

While pursuing the designs, we realized that we had just so happened to stumble across the very fabric that had sent us on the search in the first place!

Lucky for me, Spoonflower was having a 24 hour sale where you could get a swatch of any fabric for absolutely free!  My roommate and I both got one and our lovelies arrived a few days ago:

I'm really glad that I found this site and I hope that I have a project do to soon that necessitates the buying of copious amounts of beautiful fabric!

XOXO

Working on

Not dead, just busy.
Here are some snippets of what I have been working on:

Hope to have some finished stuff to show you soon!

Cheers

Tis the Season

Since this is my first Christmas as an adult (read has a B.A. but still wears footie pjs), I decided to make Christmas cards.  Obviously, I couldn't mail them to you all. So, I made you this lovely gif so you could see it for yourself:

Cheers!

Embroidered shoes

So, I might have mentioned this before, but I am not incredibly good at finishing projects. I absolutely love to dream them up and plan them and find all the bits and pieces for them but, then I lag behind in the actual assembly (it's just less interesting!).  About a year ago (okay over a year ago), my roommates and I bought fake TOMs shoes to personalize.  Two painted them but, because I lack that particular skill, I chose to embroider mine.

Dandelions are kind of a huge thing with me.  Not to sound super "omg I found them first so no one else can like them" but, I had quite the obsession with picking and wishing on dandelions in middle/high school.  Nary a dandelion in seed could I pass and not pick it.

I started these, got bored, then realized that it was going to rain for the next six months so even if I finished them I wouldn't be able to wear them.  I picked them up again this summer and finished them just in time for the rain to start up again.  Oh well...I guess I can wear them next year!

Fabulous fall

I don't know what it is like where you are but, I hope you are having as wonderful of a fall as we are here in the Northwest.  September started off terribly stormy but the last couple weeks have been absolutely perfect.  Crisply cold days with heavy fog in the morning that sinks down in the valleys and then lifts for sunny days.  Today is the first all-grey day in a while.

This morning I attended a breakfast/brunch for the women of my church and then Kirsten (of Kirsten's Cupcakes and Things) and I stopped at a nearby park to wander around and take pictures. (Side note: did you ever notice that the words wonder and wander are so close? I always wonder while I wander.) It was an adorable little park on the top of a hill.  Not creepy at all said Kirsten. (little did we know what awaited!).

Giant spiders! As we were leaving, we noticed this beautiful dew covered spider's web.. and then another ...and then another! We realized that the field was absolutely full of them. I'm sure that I saw at least 20.  They were very pretty but also a little creepy. Just in time for Halloween I guess.

As I was putting this outfit together last night, I was looking for a sweater/dress combo when I realized that my Capezio wrap is the perfect height for this dress with the tie in the back.  I love tie-back dressed but sometimes the bow in the back can make an unseemly bump and just be annoying.  The wrap fit perfectly with it and I don't know why I never thought of it before.  I can become so easily caught up in wanting to buy new clothing items all the time, when I need to remember that there are really hundreds of combinations of the clothes that I already have to wear, if I just get creative.

A quick note about this sweater.  I don't remember where I got it (Mom probably knows) but I remember pairing it with jeans and shoes of the matching color and little heart barrettes in middle school (definitely stole from my mom!).  It really is the first time that I remember intentionally putting together an outfit. I remember feeling cute and confident for about the first time (middle school is hard yo).  I didn't try terribly hard in high school, finding clothes that actually fit was really my only goal.  But I look back on that outfit as an important point for me, so this sweater is close to my heart.  I will have to start wearing it to the ballet class at the Y that I am starting soon.

New car had to get in on the photo action too!

Always,

Re-dyed jean shorts

I have been on a bit of a dyeing kick this summer (as you will see in the next couple posts). It can be a lot of work but if you are patient and do it right, you can get some really great results for very little money.

I finally bought a new pair of work pants, since I have been wearing the ones above for about two years.  They are ripped and stained with all sorts of lovely greases and oils. I really wanted to make something wearable from them instead of cutting them up for scrap so, I decided to bleach and dye them.  Here is how I did it:

Supplies:

old pair of jeans

bleach

bucket

dye

salt

gloves

dye fixer

1. Cut the legs off your pants quite a bit longer than you want the shorts. No use dyeing fabric you don't need.

2. Create a bleach bath of about 2 gal water to 2/3 cup bleach. Just don't use too much bleach or it will eat away the fabric.  Since the concentration is so low, it will take a while to bleach the blue out completely.  My pants were a pretty light color to start with but it still took about 3 days. I changed the bleach bath and rinsed the shorts about 4 times during the process.

3. Now you are ready to dye your shorts! I used a dark color because my pants were still stained after I bleached them but if yours are clean, you can bleach them pastel if you want.  The process here varies depending on what brand you use and what method  you choose. I like to use liquid dye because even though it costs more, it makes less of a mess because the powder tends to get everywhere (don't sneeze!).  I also always dye in a bucket inside of a utility sink.  I like to use a dye fixer after to help the dye stay bright after the upcoming washes.

4. Finish the legs of your shorts however you like. Roll 'em, hem 'em or just plain cut 'em off!

Note: I used kelly green dye first but the color just wasn't what I wanted so I re-dyed them dark green. Remember that dyeing isn't an exact science.

Second note: If you will notice, the stitching on the pants stayed the original color and was not bleached or dyed. This is because the thread is synthetic, not cotton, so you will keep the contrasting stitching.

Stay bright!

Afghan Update: August 12th

You might have forgotten about this project since I haven't posted about it since April, but I'm still chugging away making crochet squares for my afghan.  I've started adding purple around the edges, so that I can connect them all so that's a bit boring, but here are the new squares that I've made:

I wish that I could have crocheted during my trip to Spain (5 hour layovers are booooring) but it would have been just ridiculous to try to bring all that yarn with me around the country.  I hope to have the blanket done for when the cold weather sets in.  We have been having a bit of muggy overcast days here in the pnw but I have high hopes for a beautiful fall to come.

In case you forgot, all the patterns that I am using come from this book:

Stay stitchy!

Makin' do

With four people living in one apartment, the kitchen table can get...um disorganized.  I've been wanting an organizer for the table but just haven't been able to find what I wanted in stores.  Most desk organizers are one sided and I needed something that could be accessed from any angle and sit in the middle of the table. Piling everything at one end against the wall just wasn't working anymore.  You can get these really awesome wooden, spinning organizers at craft stores but, they are more than I wanted to pay. So in a moment of frustration last week, I just thought "fine then! I'll make it!" So, I did.

I went and pulled some cardboard from the complex recycling bin, cut it up, painted it purple just for kicks and glued it together with a hot glue gun.

It's literally a glorified cardboard box, but guys, IT'S PURPLE.  Much better than the actually shoebox that was sitting at the end of the table (okay maybe still is. step 1. make organizer step 2. organize).

For those of you who follow me on instagram, you might recognize the first photo in this post.  Follow me on instagram (user name: chickaddie) or click on the widget to the right to see more pics.

Cheers,