Emma's Modge Podge Wall Hanging

So my wonderful friend Melody Ross taught me at Brave Girls Camp how to use modge podge to create art.  I had the amazing blessing to attend as staff-which was just amazing and I hope hope hope to go back as soon as our schedules allow! It was amazing, uplifting, spiritual, fabulous experiance that I will always hold close to my heart... and if you go to the website, she has these fabulous little messages that she sends out every day and you should sign up because they are fabulous!!! (I think I use that word an little too much)...umm back to the point My daughter has been wanting flower painting in her bedroom, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do some fun, stylized, pop type art. (which is fun but i don't really want in my living room)  And a perfect opportunity to give her something that reminded her whenever she saw it that she is loved and perfect just the way she is. So here is the finished product...

 

First I cut wood to the size I wanted - you can use canvas but I didn't have any ... but I did have wood so I used that -

Then I painted a base layer of paint -

On top of the paint I painted the bottom half -afterwards I wished I had done the top too- with modge podge and layed down tissue paper...

  

of course you put a layer of modge podge on the bottom and the top...

Then I painted another layer of paint.

While it was drying I cut out tons of different flower petals, laying them on the table as I went to see how it would look.

When the board was dry I used more modge podge and started laying down petals with the modge podge...

 ...  The awesome thing about this type of work is that you can do almost as many layers as you want.  This ended up being pretty 2 dimensional and kitchy art but it can also have a lot of depth and movement from all the textures and layers but that wasn't quite what I was going for a fun playful hangin

once I was done laying all that I wanted to modge podge... I added some fun little paint here and there, I did dots on some of the flowers and swirls on the background- which thinking about it now I should have done the swirls before I laid the flowers
 

When it was all dried and done I took about 10ish different ribbon, knotted them together, and stapled them with a staple gun onto the back.  And yes this is a piece of beadboard.  That all I had on hand so I used it and it worked!!   And also yes this photo is out of order, I couldn't seem to move it, so here it is in the middle of the process,...whoops!

Heres the fun swirlies... and some more dots around the swirlies...cause I wanted to..
  

Around the outside of the piece I painted a pink boarder- mainly because I never get things framed and so it helped finish the piece off, But what I was actually going with this is that inside the pink boarder I wrote in silver the many things that I adore about my oldest girl... creative, daring, zesty, adventurous, imaginative, thoughtful, lover of life, girlie... etc  I want her to look at the art and know that life is fun, optimistic and escpecially that she is loved and perfect just as she is.  Here is the pen that I used...
 

Then I hung it on the wall!!  
 

A little detailing... um above⤴   and below ⤵ I just wanted to point out that since i did do it all on beadboard I needed to hang it in a stud, so it has two hooks.  Next week I am going to be switching some rooms around in our house and at that point this will be moved to a new wall, hopefully that wall will have a stud exactly  where I want to hang it, and then I won't need two hooks! positive thinking!!!
  

 

Honestly, emma helped with it a little too much design wise and colors (which don't flow as much as I would like but she likes them and thats what counts) and I ran out of modge podge to do all the different layers and things that I wanted... melody gave an amazing example with soooany layers it was fabulous. But Emma loves it so that's what matters! (and the cool thing about modge podge is if you don't like it, layer over it...so I might fix some issues one day when I get the bug!  

(also i did one for my bedroom, and I'll show you when I get around to it)

Up next this week...jocelyns curtains, a new addition to my kitchen made out of an antique footboard and a tutorial on how to make bread

Brit

Sunshine Daisy Quilt Tutorial

Soooo, I found a fun find on craigslist this week, a lady selling all of her grandmothers vintage material, granted what she had was an astounding amount of fabric , most of it was ugly ugly but I found a fun garbage bag full!!!  As soon as I found this yellow on yellow print an image popped in my head and I knew what i was going to make!  I call it the sunshine quilt!  

 

Please dont laugh at my process but this is how I make stuff... I dont tend to be very specific when I am first cutting, I cut more material than I need and then size it down to exactly what I need it to be once I lay it all out.

1. I cut out of the yellow on yellow about how large I wanted the baby quilt to be, (ended up being almost exactly a yard)

2.  Then I cut out of cream on cream print from the little old seamstress a rectangle that looked pleasing to my eye that would fit in the middle.

3. I cut out a TON of 3 inch wide and very long strips of all different creams and some of the yelllow print, and quite a few of long flower petals.

4. Then I laid them all out, with the rectangle in the center and flower petals forming an off centered flower in the middle and switching all the stripes around until I found what worked for me.

 

5.  I sewed the 2 sets of 4 long strips together at 1/4 inch seam allowance), then the 2 sets of 4 short strips, (although this can be done in any order :)

 

6. Next up was the flower, a normal person uses wonder under ( a fabulous material that binds with an iron one fabric to another) but I didn't have wonder under and so I pinned that flower like it was going out of style!

 

7. Then slowly and carefully (which I am terrible at, I like to sew fast) I zig zagged around the petals, (you need to play with the zig zag a bit on some scraps before you find the right width and length and such)

 

8. Once that was sewn together I sewed the short sides to the flower rectangle and then finally the long stripes onto the rectangle (of course ironing my seams down as I went)

  

9.  Then I found the thinnest batting possible to fit between the back and the front  of the quilt.

10. I like the envelope finish the best when it comes to binding quilts, it just looks cleaner to me.  So you do this by laying down the right side of the back of the quilt facing up with the right side of the top of the quilt directly on top of it facing down (so right sides together) then placing the batting on top of the wrong side of the top of the quilt.. I hope that makes sense.. then pin

 

11. Sew along the outer edge, leaving at least a 6 inch gap in the middle of one side so that you can turn the quilt right sides out. I like to double pin the spot that i am going to leave open so that I remember to actually do it, half the time i forget!

12. Trim off all the left over egde, or serge it, then turn the quilt right sides out.

 

13. Once its turned facing out pin the edges so that the edge, when doing the finishing stitch looks straight and even, and clean. Making sure that the opening you left it tucked in together and looking like the rest of the edge, I pin this part really close together so that it says nice and perfect (at least that is the goal)

14. Do the finishing stitch around the outer edge very close (1/4 inch) , beautiful!

15. Then I pinned the center of the flower on top and did a zig zag around that,

 

16. And to keep the quilt from bunching in the wash, I did a bit of stitching in the ditch.

To stitch in the ditch just set you machine to sew a straight line and then as closely as possible stitch along the seamline from one end of the quilt to the other.  I did one row on each side of the quilt.  

 

And done!!!

 

  Wouldn't it just look so pretty in a room like this

or this...

FYI for those of you who live in eagle, this quilt was made for an auction that is going to be held at the Palmers house on Monday the 19th in the evening, it is a benefit BBQ and Auction for a friend that has cancer, to benefit his wife and children with all the expenses they have at the current time, if you want any more info give me a call and I hopefully gave help :)

Brit 

Canning Introduction

This week for our sister Friday we will be canning apricots! We have an amazing mother that has taught us in her art form of canning. On Friday I'm going to post the process & recipe for apricots, I thought today I'd give a bit of an intro into what you need and where to pick out fruit.
First you decide the amount of apricots you'll need. For instance, I want 28 quarts (a little more than 1 every other week) which i believe equates to 56 lbs of apricots (2lbs per quart). To find the fruit you need, or to see what's in season in your area check craiglist and the classifides... We like yo find organic but you tend to fond tiny larve worms so be careful not to bite into one! After a few years of going to different orchards you figure out which places have the best varieties of different fruits. I think we go to 3 different farms because they all do fabulous in price & taste in different fruits. ( or find friends that have fruit trees and get their leftovers)

In the photo you see almost everything you'll need, to can minus the sugar, water, and fruit! The actual canner, pot for sugar, saucepan to boil the lids in, lids, rings, jars, bubble remover, magnet for the lids,jar lifter outer, knife, freash fruit sprinkle, thermometer, and a bowl for the yucky pits & yucky fruit. You'll also want lots of washclothes around and towels for the floor because the floor becomes one huge sticky yucky mess.

I'll be back on Friday to walk you through canning apricots with TONS of pictures!!!!

Talk to you soon!!
Brit

Blog posted here.

Journal Making

My sisters & their hubbys had a big work project this weekend, and since it's our first weekend with the blog I didn't think we could skip our sister Friday post! So I thought I'd post on something all three of us love- journaling! We go through the journals and so we tend to make them instead of constantly buying new ones. Now I've never taken a class or really have any technical know how on really how to make a journal but this is what I do...
I measure the paper & cut (or tear) 40-50 pages out of drawing paper (sturdy but not too heavy like cardstock) then I cut two peices of heavy material & see the
together to create an heavier cover, add some decor to the outside, punch holes with my croc-o-dile, and bind together with some twine and WALLA!!! I've got myself a journal!! ( I don't actually need a journal at the present moment, so I'm going to put this on our etsy store, but that's besides the point :) )
Have a fabulous Sunday!
Brit

Blog posted here.

Hello Hello new friends!!

So, my sisters and I get together every friday, almost every friday to help each other in life and on projects, make things, experiment with chocolate and really so that we have an excuse to get together! Our hubby's have termed our one day each week as "Sister's Friday"  we don't plan anything else on our fridays (at least thats the goal) except for each other! I will be blogging the things that we make either together on fridays or what we make separately during the week, what books we are currently reading,  Also on this blog we will give tours of our homes as they change and progress into what we have envisioned in our mind.  If you feel the desire to visit our esty store, please do!  We call our store, Sister's Friday... Imagine that!  

For the first thing project to be posted I am sharing with you the glass mosaic that I just finished.  I was inspired by my grandmothers mosaics that she made.  I have always wanted one, but the ones that we have of hers are already spoken for! So I made my own!

Heres the picture that I used... I took this in Hawaii a couple of years ago from the tallest swamp in the world (but it was a drought so the ground was nice and dry) looking down onto the ocean...ahhh what a view!

 Then I painted the wood board, so that I had a guide for placing the tile changing the image a bit so that it would be more stylized for the glass work...

(the weird things on the bottom are my stools... my impromptu easel! 

So I started by pricing our glass tiles, and holy moly those are expensive!! So I went to thrift stores... and found glass anything until i could carry no more glass, (or if the glass was an ugly color, or too wimpy) then I went home and as I needed colors I would smash the vase until i had glass chunks of about this size...

Then I took some pliers (yep pliers!  I bought a glass cutter for this specific project but for the life of me i couldn't get it to work the way I wanted and so I improvised...which usually works better for me anyhow) and broke the glass into about this size pieces... 

sometimes i used bigger pieces, depending on what i was depicting, like the clouds and the flowers are really big pieces, the pieces above are the  leaves on the trees.

Next I glued and glued and glued and glued and glued and glued,... you get the idea, heres a picture of a close up

 and the final image... My stud of a man hung the mosaic on the wall and took a picture of it with my furniture, but sadly you are going to have to wait for that because I didn't want to have to wait for him to get home from work to get it!  So because of my impatience, you'll have to be patient...sorry!

Here's the finished project!  Well almost finished I need to put a frame around it, but that's going to have to wait for another day!

 

Enjoy...and i look forward to our blogging fun!

Brit