diy {Monogram Paper Bag Album}

Was mid-April through most of May cray-cray-crazy at your house?

Here too.

Like time-hungry schedules got notice that the school-year smorgasbord was about to be put away and had to cram in as many more bites into its mouth as possible. 

Hardly time to savor. Hardy time to chew.

But now we are settling in with a big plate of summer relaxation in front of us and I hope you are too.

***

Amidst the scramble of recent weeks arose the sudden need for several gifts. 

Graduations. Mother's Day. Teacher thank-yous.

These paper bag albums were my go-to this year.

They are fun, simple, and easy to personalize.

Supplies and tools:

• Brown paper bags (I used the lunch variety you can buy in packs of 100 for a buck something at Walmart and such places) - the number needed depends on how many pages you want in your album. These were made with 8 bags.
• Double sided 12X12 scrapbook paper (mine was Beach House by Colorbok)
• Children's handwriting paper
• White cardstock
• Ribbon or lace
• Adhesive 
• Scissors 
• Papercutter 
• Large scalloped circle punch
• Hole punch (mine is the Crop-A-Dile Big Bite - I adore that thing)

Fold over the top of each bag about an inch. No exact measuring needed. Eyeball it.

Stack the bags all facing the same direction like pages of a book with the folded over ends as the binding.

 

Punch two holes through the whole stack at either end of the folded over 'binding'.

Tie lace or ribbon through the holes.

Cut patterned paper to 12" X 4 3/4" pieces. One piece for both sides of each bag except the back one - it only needs one piece since the back side doesn't have paper added to it.

Fold a 4" flap over on each piece showcasing the flip side of the paper design. Adhere the flaps down.

Adhere paper to pages and cover.

Cut circles from handwriting paper.

Adhere a handwriting circle to each page and to the cover.

 Cut large letters from patterned paper. I made these by drawing each letter in reverse on the backside of the paper and then cutting it out - a stencil could be used instead if free-hand isn't your style.



Adhere a letter to the circle on the cover to create a monogram effect. Graduate's first name initial, teacher's last name initial, "M" for mom. Take it and run where you wanna go.

 Cut white cardstock into mats for 4x6 photos. 4 1/2" by 4 1/2" gives a quarter inch border around pictures. I wasn't adding pictures to these but leaving them blank for the recipient to add their own photos so I added labels to mats to indicate their purpose. 

For a very special gift you could add photos... sky is the limit on ideas there.

Adhere mats to pages.

All done!
Happy little handmade gifts.
My favorite.

***

Happy summer Sunday to you!
Love,
Raimie

Earth Day Party

What do you think about on Earth Day?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?
Save the trees?
Endangered species?

I like to think about The One who created it.
I wonder at the majesty of His design, the intricacies of each minuscule detail, the thought and love that went into making it as a place for us to live.

I think about taking care of it.
Not because that is what popular media says I should do but because if you are given a precious gift then it speaks to the way you care for the giver in the way that you take care and treasure what they gave you.

I want to care for this ole' earth like a traveler... Be happy while I'm here. Marvel at what I see. Think about how to spend each day wisely. Take advantage of the time. Take only pictures, leave only footprints. Leave it nice for the next folks traveling through. Remember we have somewhere to go to when the trip is over.

I am thankful for what He created.
I am thankful for all that I have been given.

{You Are My World Greeting Cards} - Globe crayons attached to the card-fronts were made by melting blue and green crayon pieces in an egg poacher and letting them set up before popping them out.

Happy Earth Day!

***

Head-gear for "Recycled Hat Day" at school

*** 

We had a little Earth Day party at my mom's house, just us, when the kids got home from school. Jeffrey and Prosper are still gone. I am missing my little boy.

Black and white construction paper triangles and basic globe print-outs became a fancy streamer for the occasion.

Old canning jar lids, more print-outs, and some fabric salvage strips became place-tags.

I kinda do thrive on the reuse-recycle thing, I guess!

The table was set with dishes and treasures I scavenged from all over in my mom's bungalow. I love her style. Any time we have a party or dinner there it is like browsing a great antique/thrift store for goodies to go with the theme.

An after-school snack that looked vaguely like the world with a heart around it. I was just satisfied it was obvious enough that the 1st grader got it.

Four stations to keep the kids busy while supper was cooking.

• Snack
• Newspaper flowers (pictured in the centerpieces)
• Animal coloring sheets
• You Are My World greeting cards (shown above)

They all loved it. Well, let's be real, the boys loved it for a while and then went to play with Legos. The girls loved it all the way through to the last drop of wax. That is close enough to perfect for me.

We ate a chunk of the world for Supper:

New York strip, Idaho potatoes, Brussels sprouts, Georgia peaches, Boston iced tea, and baked Alaska.

It was delicious.

Side notes: The dessert was a Paleo-hack triumph and was met with great pleasure by our kids who usually have to skip dessert due to food allergies! Also, we apparently don't name vegetables after places in the US so we had to hop across the pond to Belgium for our greens.

After supper we all exchanged our cards and showed a little Earth-Day love by writing down and sharing some of our favorite things in the world.

As idyllic as this sounds, I must burst your bubble with some more reality... 

It was those boys again and it went something like this:

"Hey, Latham, I'm gonna put down Legos as my favorite thing."

"Oh, me too!"

"Boys, this is about Earth Day. You need to put down something that came with the Earth; animals, events in nature, weather, plants, things like that." 

"Ok. Plastic, to make Legos!"

"No, Plastic is man-made."

"What is it made with?"

"Chemicals."

"Then chemicals are my favorite."

"YOU CANNOT WRITE CHEMICALS ON OUR GLOBE FOR HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!"

"Ummm... OK?!"

"Hey, Jax, Let's go finish our Lego plane!"

"Yeah!"

[Boys exit]

[Moms shake their heads]

[Girls giggle]

[Moms start to giggle too]

Jax: What are you laughing at?

Kat: "Nothing. Happy Earth Day, Chemical-breath!"

And on that note I'll leave you.

Love,

Raimie Lu

Beautiful Mess Centerpiece

Surprise! I'm posting Monday's post today! My husband took our 3 year old on a trip for the weekend, our older two are playing with my younger sister and brother. And I'm excited about what I worked on today...
All good reasons to throw prior plans to the wind!

***

MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) International just announced next year's theme will be, A Beautiful Mess. Tomorrow, I have the honor of being part of a training session for MOPS groups from our end of the state. We will be celebrating the successes of this year and brain-storming ideas for next year and I'm super thrilled to be in on it.

A Beautiful Mess.

I like that.
Life is certainly messy.
And most definitely beautiful.

My responsibilities for the session included putting together the decorations and centerpieces. As the creative activities coordinator I guess that falls under my roof and I couldn't be happier.

Not one to break too far from my retro-vintage chic (i.e. junk) pile, I fell back on my comfort collection...

Buckets, garlands, Ball jars, musty bottles with rusty lids.

"I got a bucket, got a bucketful of sunshine
I got a love and I know that it's all mine, oh, oh oh oh..."

 Ok, Natasha Bedingfield, moving on.

Throw in a wooden crate, newly (finally) budding branches, doilies, and burlap for the welcome table. I'm a happy girl.

These are the centerpieces for each table. Wellies, jars, moss, rocks, markers for jotting down momentary inspiration, Forsythia, raffia, more burlap and a shelf-liner "puddle".

And just so you know, I am pretty much infatuated with this chippy cupboard door. Barely-there aqua and white. Rusty, painted hinges and latch. Scrumptious.

A beautiful mess.
A motherhood centerpiece.

Because mothering is a lot about finding only one boot.
Little boys playing with sticks.
Scraps of paper.
Rock collections.
Leafy green stuff trodden on the carpet.
Chipped paint.
Dirt in the cracks.
Little girls calling Forsythia, "For-Cynthia".
Putting a bow in it to make it look combed.
Scotch tape.
Running for a bucket.
Recycled egg-crate crafts.
Crooked cut-out hearts.

Motherhood is about mud-puddles.
And singing while you stomp in them.


Love,
Raimie Lu

diy {garland dress-up} and a GIVEAWAY winner

A few weeks ago I happened across a bag of unfinished quilt-blocks at my local thrift store. The colors in the fabrics made me happy and the price tag made me smile too. Without question they hopped right in my cart and came home with me. You may remember I used a couple of them for wrapping on Easter.

Then a while back My mom gave me this garland that used to hang in my little sister's bedroom before she outgrew the dolly theme and the pastel color-scheme. The garland was store-bought from the Simply Shabby Chic line at Target and I like it.

But it lacks pop.
Pizzazz.
Punch.

I kept trying to like it the way it was.
Nope.
Didn't work.

Had to fix it.

I folded over and ironed the tops of the pieces so that they were straight instead of arched.

I felt a twinge as I broke out my hot-glue gun to 'cheat' where someone else had so lovingly done it 'right' and hand-sewn these pieces together. 

The feeling passed.
I hot-glued away, happy as a lark.

I glued a quilt piece behind each of the triangles of the original banner.

It gave the garland a skirted-bunting look and a more vintage feel.

It hangs in the living room above the french-doors to our bedroom.
Much more happy and colorful.
Much more me.

(Sharing at Savvy Southern Style, Common Ground, and Redoux)

This project had me feeling almost guilty because it was so easy to do and I like the finished product so much. But for this mama, a quick 15 minute fixer-upper was the best way to wrap-up the afternoon while Pip napped, the older two were at school, and the chaos of evening had yet to ensue.

You do what you need to do to get your craft on and to create happy corners in your home.
Right?

***

I loved reading your comments on the giveaway post. Thank you for beings followers of my ramblings. Thank you for hopping from my old space to the new one. Thank you for your shares on Facebook. The cherries on top of your weeks were sweet indeed!

And we do have a winner...

A Tisket A Tasket if you would email me at joyfinderspath (at) gmail (dot) com I will mail you your goodies! 

Thank you!

***

Time to go wake up the apple of my eye.

Have a delicious day!

diy {Tomato-cage Chandelier}

I am probably the worst kind of gardener there is.

I admit it.

I love the idea of gardening. I want the vegetables and the flowers. 

I'm a rockstar planner/shopper/planter. 

But after that? 

I am a dead-beat gardener.

I don't remember to water or call. I don't weed, feed properly, or discipline. Half the time I forget to pick up the harvest on-time. I do not pay my garden-support.

All jokes aside, ask my poor husband, I'm bad. When he worked a job where he didn't have to travel we did ok -- a sorta limp-along ok, where I held up very little of my end and he pretty much dragged my dead weight. But we [read: he] managed to keep the thing alive and get some good out of it.

Now he travels. 

There is no garden.

The end.

Or not...

We moved a fair amount of gardening things along with us to this house, even though there are no plans to garden this year. I may wheedle some tiny flowers pots out of him if I'm good. 

I'm a rockstar wheedler.

Anyway, there is this stack of tomato-cages just sitting there.

They look so lonely and bored.

I had to help at least one of them out...

***

Tomato-cage Chandelier

Supplies:

• tomato-cage
• fabric
• yarn

Tools:

• fabric scissors
• heavy-duty wire clippers

The fabric I used was the backing off an old quilt. The poor thing is in pretty bad shape but I have plans for the front. It seemed a shame to toss this cheery polka-dot.

It was a bit of a chore to cut all the ties but I'm glad I did.

I cut the whole thing into strips about an inch wide (this project didn't take exacting measurements, thank goodness). It made a happy pile of polka-dot streamers.

Using the wire cutters I cut the legs off the tomato-cage right below the bottom ring.

I started wrapping the whole cage, tying lengths of fabric together as I went.

I left three alternating rungs without fabric-wrapping and then wrapped those in minty yarn (perfect for Spring). All the ends are just knotted at the bisecting rungs. I left the ends because I liked the raggy-taggy look.

Yum, makes me smile.

Who needs a garden? 

[wink]

I tied three more streamers to the top for the hanger.

But I needed something more to finish it off.

***

Pattern Posies

Our favorite little local thrift shoppe wraps all their breakables in old patterns and I'm in the habit of keeping a stack because it seems likely I will think of something to use them for, if only gift-bag tissue.

 I broke out my favorite scalloped-circle punch and punched away at a stack of pattern pieces. The circles became the raggedy pattern posies. These aren't an exact science either -- I'm not really into exact, if you can't tell. You just layer two or three pieces together and sorta 'smush' them into a flowery shape.

Thrift-store lace (again) and a quick needle and thread job. Not fancy stitchery at all.

Voila! A happiness-chandelier with pattern-posies on the side.

I started into this project an hour before the kids got home from school and didn't quite get done before they walked in. Felicity, not one to be left out of anything crafty, got busy using my scraps while I finished up.

She made these flowers with the tomato-cage legs, yarn, pattern posies and cupcake papers.

They may grace our table, play stand-in for our non-blooming houseplants, or bring a smile to a friend, I haven't decided yet.

***

Girl of my heart

Happy Friday!

Love,

Raimie

***

UPDATE:

Did you see the huge pile of strips that fabric gave me?

Well, I was curious about a smaller version of this project so I got to experimenting.

This one is made using only the top two rungs of the tomato cage. Otherwise the design is pretty much the same. I left off the yarn, it just didn't work on this size somehow.

I tied short strips around the bottom to give it some girly flare. This way it is a bit more lamp-shade looking.

I can see it as a front porch pretty or over a vanity. Maybe with something sparkly hanging down in the center? A friend said she thought she would hang her jewelry on it.

How would you use it?

Sharing at Savvy Southern Style, Common Ground, and Redoux