Ohmygoodness, I am geeking out right now. And not just any kind of geeking out—Brit Lit geeking out! By now you all know how much I love Pride and Prejudice, but what you don’t know is that I have a second love. Her name is Jane Eyre, and I have loved her since high school. I don’t re-read Jane Eyre as often as I do Pride and Prejudice, but I really do cherish that book. So you can imagine my utter excitement when I learned about the Bronte-Along!
Basically it combines two of my favorite things: Brit Lit and crafting! Basically the idea is that Bronte fans from all over will read or watch the film adaptations of selected Bronte novels and create crafts related to the stories. Doesn’t that sound marvelous??? Oh, and the delicious icing on top of this amazing new discovery? They’re going to do an Austen-Along after they’ve gotten through all the Bronte novels!!!
The first Bronte novel is Jane Eyre, of course, and I am so excited. I’m taking the book with me this weekend while we’re visiting B’s family down in Klamath Falls. My mind is racing with a million different crafts that I could create, I cannot wait to get started!
If you’re interested in joining the Bronte-Along as well, just click here and sign up!
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Remember the Super Simple Scarf Tutorial that I posted a few weeks ago? Well, I’ve come up with a fun variation that I wanted to share with you!
The weather has been so nice and sunny here in our part of Oregon lately, and I felt that my black and white SSS Scarf just wasn’t “springy” enough. So I decided to make a scarf out of some white and light blue undershirts that my husband kindly donated to me. The only problem was that the light blue undershirt had seams on each side, so the fabric didn’t “roll” correctly when I pulled on the strips:
So I decided to cut off one of the seam pieces at the end of one strip:
I then tied a knot around the other side seam, which was now in the middle of my strip. This quickly and easily disguised the seam, so it wasn’t noticeable. I then proceeded to tie knots throughout the entire strip at various distances:
I did this for every strip, even the strips from the white undershirt. I did different numbers of knots and tried to create different distances inbetween my knots to create a very random look when all of the strips were put together. When I was done with each strip I simply tied the ends together, and that was the end of the strip that I covered with the band from the arm to secure them all together. If this doesn’t make sense, definitely check out my tutorial from earlier.
And here is the finished scarf!
I love love love how it turned out! The knots throughout the whole thing add some great texture, and I could not be happier with my new scarf!
I hope you try to make a Super Simple Scarf, either version is fantastic if you ask me!
Category fabric, fashion, mens shirt, recycled, tutorial |
Lately I have been obsessed with macarons. They are so pretty and delicate, and I just love looking at pictures of them! Even though I had never even tasted a macaron until my epicurean excursion I fell in love with them. And I wasn’t the only one! Lately there has been a macaron craze going on in the blogosphere, and everyone is writing about their attempts to make macarons. After reading about all of the trials and tribulations that have taken place all over the country, I felt extremely nervous about attempting to make macarons myself. Luckily, my friend Lindsey from Sweet Athena is also obsessed with macarons, and together we embarked on the journey to make marvelous macarons.
The blog that we found most helpful was Not So Humble Pie, particularly her three part Macaron 101 series of entries. There is a ton of information in the series, so try to not get overwhelmed. We ended up using her blueberry macaron recipe, but left out the blueberries. The instructions are easy to follow, and our macarons turned out gorgeous! I took a ton of pictures throughout the entire process, so bear with me…
Here are the ingredients that we used, plus water. (The white wine is optional) And my lovely Lindsey!
Measuring out the ingredients, and adding pretty food coloring!
Here is Lindsey piping out our lovely cookies, and the buttercream filling mixture!
Alright, and here is what you all have been waiting for. THE MACARONS!!!
For the first batch, we colored our macarons a greenish-turquoise and filled it with coconut rose water buttercream (pink) and orange flower water buttercream (orange).
Our second batch turned out a bit differently than our first batch…
As you can see, this batch kept its piped shape a lot more than the previous batch. So instead of smooth macarons, we got swirly macarons. We actually really like how they turned out! We filled the second batch with raspberry preserves, nutella, or a mixture of both!
The last picture is to give you an idea of what the inside of a macaron looks like. Aren’t they precious??? We are so happy with all of our amazing macarons. They taste amazing, and look fantastic! It really wasn’t as scary as we originally thought it would be, so I highly recommend you try making some macarons yourself. If we can make them, so can you!
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I have two folders on my desktop titled ‘Craft Inspiration’ and ‘Sewing Inspiration’ that I am constantly adding to. Anytime I see a craft or sewing project, tutorial, item, etc that I love it goes in one of those folders. The items in the folders have become so expansive that there are now subfolders to help me organize everything into different categories. (I am a fool for organization, it is one of my favorite things). Today I was browsing through my ‘Craft Inspiration’ folder and came across this picture:
It is from a tutorial for stenciled plates that I found on Bloesem, a blog written by a woman who was born in Amsterdam and currently lives in Kuala Lumpur. It is an awesome blog. And the plates are awesome too! I am now dying to visit my local Goodwill store to see if they have any ugly china that I can turn into something quirky and gorgeous. The only thing that’s stopping me from running out this instant is that the project uses ‘adhesive aluminum’. I have no idea what that is, or where to get it. Any ideas? I’m thinking that I may just try using contact paper instead and seeing what kind of results I get.
Today is the first day of Spring Break for me, and my week has quickly filled up with visits with friends and family. I’m hoping to squeeze in some craft projects, but I’m suddenly faced with less free time than anticipated. Not that I’m complaining, I am so excited for all of the visits and trips that I have coming up!!!
PS-Check out my new Etsy Shop if you haven’t already!
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BIG news (at least for me, anyways)! I now have an Etsy shop! Yay! You all know how much I love Etsy, so my wonderful husband convinced me to finally put a shop together to see if anyone might be interested in my little odds and ends. It’s called Bouncing Ball Creations, because ‘Mariko’ means Bouncing Ball in Japanese. Right now I’ve only got a few pencil sets for sale, but I’m hoping to put more items up in the near future!
Here’s a peek at what I’ve got in the shop right now:
I have a few Dictionary Pencil Sets:
A Pride and Prejudice Set consisting of the words Pride, Prejudice, Wit, Reputation, and England.
An Alice in Wonderland Set consisting of the words Wonderland, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Cheshire cat, Hatter, and Rose.
A Glee Set consisting of the words Singer, High School, Glee, Cheerio, and Competition.
A True Blood Set consisting of the words True, Blood, Vampire, Were/Werewolf, and Louisiana.
And a Project Runway Set consisting of the words Project, Runway, Sewing, Model, and Fashion.
I also have some security envelope pattern pencil sets for sale, and some Romeo and Juliet pencil sets!
There’s also a personalized pencil set, where you get to choose the words that go on your pencil set. So take a look around, and I hope you like what you see!
Category dictionaries, dictionary, Etsy, paper crafts, pencil, recycled, security envelopes |
This past Wednesday my Leadership class held the first blood drive ever at our high school! It was a very exciting event, and a lot of students and staff members came out to donate and make a difference. Including me! So, needless to say, I’ve had blood on the brain lately. And when I think blood…I think True Blood! I am so in love with both the TV series and the Southern Vampire Mysteries series by Charlaine Harris. So in love. To the point where Eric Northman almost beats out Mr. Darcy for my favorite literary fantasy. Yep, this love is that serious. And I know that I am not the only one who holds True Blood so near and dear to my heart, so I thought that I would see what amazing crafts others have made to express their love. And what better place to look than Etsy? I am so excited to share with you what I found!
Isn’t this shirt cute? It says “Fangtasia Bar and Nightclub/Where Drinking and Biting Definitely Mix.” (by Prime9tees)
If my husband would let me, I would totally hang this amaaazing sign in my house! (by SawdustNStitches)
I love these bracelets, especially the ‘Godric is My Maker’ one! (by JackandElla)
And I’ve saved the best for last. Who wouldn’t want this amazing image hanging around their neck??? Okay, it might be a bit overkill, but I still love it! (by SheepNSassy)
Aren’t those fantastic? I love them! They totally made my day. Well, that and the fact that Spring Break is here! I am really looking forward to having some free time to read, craft, and hang out with friends! I’m hoping to get quite a few craft projects done this coming week, so stay tuned! I’ll definitely share them with you all!
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