A Quick Mother's Day Treat

So I'll start by saying that if you happen to be Marty, my own, personal mother, STOP HERE! Ha! Spoiler alert!! You'll be seeing this very shortly in person, so Happy Mother's Day in advance!!

Let me say that I am becoming very aware of the fact that I'm an extremely good shopper! I have an eye for bargains, and I know exactly what styles I like to work with. That being said, my space is extremely limited as far as storage and workspace. I've put myself on a shopping freeze (except for my monthly kit subscription...I need my Scarlet Lime!!), and I'm forcing myself to use up the enormous stash that I have. 

I picked up a cork board at a crafty store for $1 (before the shopping freeze!), not knowing what I would eventually make with it (but seriously, for $1?!? I could come up with something, surely). I have a bag of flower petals my best crafty friend was getting rid of (free!), and a super huge stash of Thickers -- one of those craft items I like so much I never want to use! Add some American Crafts ribbon, some Craft and XL Glue Dots®, and you've got yourself an awesome cork board for someone special!

Quick, easy, inexpensive, and a Mother's Day present your mother might actually use :)
Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!

I wrote this blog post while participating on the Glue Dots design team

Playing Along with The Play Date Cafe!

I always check over with The Play Date Cafe to see their color creations for the week, and this week was irresistible! I've been feeling in a creative rut recently, so this was the perfect pick-me-up to get going again.

Here is the inspiration picture (which I kind of love!!) they pulled their colors from:

And here is what I came up with!

I love this color combo, and I love even more that a new paper pad I got from Basic Grey matched this combo perfectly!! I'm kind of excited about this card, too, because it's going to a special cousin who's graduating college soon. So proud of her and the accomplishments she's making in her life!!

I love these pins from Little Yellow Bicycle, and I'm always looking for a chance to use them :)

I stuck everything down with Glue Dots, and I added an extra little dab of Elmer's Craft Bond on the stick part of the pins to keep them in line.

So, congrats, Heather! So proud of you.

EcoScrapbooking eBook Launch Party

 

 You've made it to my stop along the EcoScrapbooking eBook launch party!! If you missed the first few posts, click here to start at the beginning!
My name is Erin and I'm glad you've joined us today. I first want to wish Danielle a very happy belated birthday, and much congratulations on releasing her book! She's put a lot of hard work into this project, and I'm so fortunate that she included me in it.


Eco-conscious scrapbooking has always been in my brain, but I'd never put a name to it until I met Danielle! I love repurposing old or found items and including it in my work. There's something about using vintage materials that gives pieces just the right 'look'!


Check out Danielle's new eBook, EcoScrapbooking: Crafty Ideas for Eco-Conscious Scrapbookers by clicking here! Feel free to check out the PDF version here, as well.

I thought I'd throw whip us a super quick and easy eco-friendly project for you. I know this eBook is about scrapbooking, but I love the reuse of these materials to make a mouse pad!

My workplace was redoing their logo, and all of their current promotional items were getting tossed. Although I knew I didn't have much use for 23 mouse pads, I couldn't see them get thrown away, either! I was sure I could repurpose them.


I trimmed my paper down to the size of the mouse pad, ran lines of Continuous Glue Lines around the edges, and adhered the paper. See? Super easy!! I finished it off with a top coat to seal the paper.

 

Kudos on your eBook, again, Danielle!!
Keep of hopping, folks! Thanks for stopping by!

Danielle Hunter | EcoScrapbook

 Zaira Sierra | Hacer Scrapbooks

Lisa Troch | The Cherry on Top

Cathy Sanders | What's up with Cathy

Jules Hollis | Inspired Jules

You are here --->  Erin Bullock | Deeply Rooted Life

Go here next! --> Stephanie Medley-Rath | Scrapworthy Lives

Renee Joy | Charms Buttons & Bows

Andrea Friebus | Lights C.a.m.era Action

Jody Spiegelhoff | SpiegelMom Scraps

 

 

Materials for the mouse pad:

• Mouse Pad
• DCWV The Green Stack 8x8
• Continuous Glue Lines
• Mod Podge

String Art for baby Quinn

Hey, crafters!!

One of my best friends just had an amazingly beautiful baby girl, and I used some Pinterest inspiration to make this super cute wall hanging for the nursery.

I started by printing off the letters in the size and font that I wanted my text to be, and taping that down to the board.

I used a clothes pin to help hold the nails as I nailed along my printed letters

 (it was about here that my hand started to cramp...

 And here are the nails finished.

 Next rip off the paper from around the nails, are you're left with...

 This!

The most genius part of this project is this pencil. Hollow out a mechanical pencil and cut the tip off of where the lead usually comes out. Thread your string through and use this little device to wrap your string around the nails...

Can't take credit for this idea...thanks, Janny!

 ...like this!

Close up of the wrapped string

Get creative!! Spell out anything you'd like, use whatever string you'd like...the possibilities are endless!!!

A LaLa-Lovely Bed for the Lalaloopsy Room!

I just finished telling you all about the new Lalaloopsy bedroom that my little one got for her third birthday. As a part of that renovation, her bed went from a small toddler bed (that was a built in piece) to a big girl twin bed. I searched around the web a bit, looking for a perfect bed frame for the little princess, and I found this:

Bed from Wal-Mart

So. First of all, I love the tufting. So cute. Second, what princess doesn't love pink!? I thought the color, while having the possibility of being extremely overbearing, would compliment the colors of the room nicely. At $200, it wasn't a bad option, but...I'll say it again...I HATE paying for something I feel like I could make!!

I'll admit, I've never made a bed frame, let alone a headboard. I knew I needed a little help structurally here, and my mother in law found this at a second hand store:

It's wicker. White wicker. Not really the hugest fan of white wicker, BUT...look at the shape of it. It has the same gentle curve along the top, which was one of the parts I liked about the inspiration headboard.  ---and look!!

Seriously?! $7.50?! For all of you keeping score, that's about 4.89 pounds over in England, 7.61 dollars up in Canada, and 408.83 Rupees.

Bargain!!!

I wanted a plush head board with soft fabric, so I headed to JoAnn's (coupons in hand!) and got a roll of batting and some material. After I cleaned off the head board pretty well, I stapled down two layers of batting, then cut away the extra.

Next, the material was stretched over the batting and stapled down (this isn't rocket science, here) :)

And lastly, I gathered up random sized, shaped, and colored buttons from my ginormous stash and started randomly tufting. I used the wicker to my advantage here and tied my floss onto the little pieces to hold the tufting.

I think the final result was worth the $20 I ended up spending on it!! So I wonder if I can use the $180 I saved on other crafting supplies now... :)

A Lalaloopsy Birthday - and New Bedroom!

So I realize it's been FOREVER since I last posted! I've been traveling like crazy for work, and I've realized that the few moments I do have at home need to be focused on my kiddos. Because of all of that, I'm JUST getting around to posting about my (not-so) little girl's Lalaloopsy birthday party and new Lalaloopsy bedroom! I am completely thrilled with how it all turned out. My family was able to drive down from Ohio to celebrate with us, and she had a wonderful weekend with them.

Her cake was just a bit over the top, but I really couldn't help myself! I just kept adding, and adding, and adding...until there was absolutely NO MORE ROOM to add any more!!

Her bedroom was my favorite part of the whole thing. She has an incredibly tiny room that, until the redecorating, only had a toddler bed. She's getting to be tall and lanky (could it be genetic?), so the switch to a twin bed was a must.

We found super huge vinyl wall clings that added the perfect touch.

I try to contain her growing collection of Lalaloopsy dolls on top of her bookshelf, but it looks like I'm going to have to find more space if any more are added!

And now to my favorite part of the decor...the plush tree and clouds!

Let me begin by saying that yes, I own a sewing machine, but it's mostly used for scrapbooking. I am by no means a great seamstress. I hate buying things that I'm pretty sure I could make.

After flipping through Lalaloopsy books and studying the pictures on their packaging, I knew the look that I was going for. I bought a few coordinating fat quarters and material for the base of the tree and got to stitching!

To me, the technique (and I use that term loosely) that 'made' these pieces is the extra stitching around the edges. After praying that I wouldn't completely jam or break the sewing machine, I flattened the edges of the stuffed pieces and shoved it back through the machine, pinching and praying with each little stitch. Not only did it make the pieces fluffier (here I go with horrible terminology again...the extra stitch packed the stuffing in tighter, making it fluffier...make sense?), but it gave it the look that I was trying to replicate from all of the pictures.



The extra stitching wasn't as evident on the clouds, so I added a hand stitched border using blue floss



And then came the dilemma of getting these 'pillows' attached to the wall. I essentially wanted to hang them somehow, so I stitched a few loops on the backs and hung them using the teeny tiniest of those removable wall hooks. They work perfectly!!!

Here's a list of where we found everything, in case you're looking to create a Lalaloopsy bedroom for your little princess!!

The bedding is from Wal-Mart

The wall clings are from AllPosters.com

Her cute little chandelier is from Lowes

Picked up the fabric at JoAnn's