Not Really Good at Nothing

It is Day Two of the Blog Every Day In May challenge and I already have writers block. Today’s topic prompts you to “educate us on something you know a lot about or are good at.” I find this very difficult, because I have come to pride myself in knowing a little bit about a lot… A jack of all trades so to speak. Honestly, there is not one thing I think I am really good at, or that I claim to be an aficionado at. I am just sorta good and many things… At this rate I guess I could write a post about being a good bullshitter, because finding satisfaction in being a jack of all trades is simply a rationalization of the fact that I never followed through with anything long enough to become an expert. I learned as much as I saw fit, which is a fancy way of saying until I got bored, and then I moved onto the next thing. Hardly something to be proud of.

So hmmm what to write about? I do always say I am a good sleeper, but that just comes naturally. I am not sure how I could write an entire blog about how to be lazy. I also think I am a good card player, but the Hubby says you can’t consider yourself good at something that is based solely on chance. Spoken like a person who is NOT a good card player. Let’s see, what else is there? Gosh this is getting depressing.

Ok I’ve got it. I stated at the beginning of this challenge that I was going to blog every day in May the EGG way. So instead of using this time to educate readers about something I am good at, I am going to make a promise or resolution to myself that I am going to start dedicating myself to projects and follow through with them so I can actually become good at something. For example, I am going to finally teach myself to sew. I have been wanting to learn forever, but could never pull the trigger on purchasing a sewing machine. My grandmother recently brought me her old machine so now I have no excuse. I am seeing many pillows and curtains in my future.

Story of My Life ~ 250 Words

I was born in California and raised by my grandparents. My family calls me Bess. My friends call me Bags. Everyone else just calls me Elizabeth. People say I’m spoiled, I think I’m “gifted”. The same people who think I’m spoiled say I’m not using the word “gifted” correctly. I’m an only child… Sort of. I have a half-brother in Seattle that I didn’t know about until after my father passed away when I was 14. I also have 5 aunts and uncles who are like my older brothers and sisters, and I have 8 cousins who are like my younger brothers and sisters. Consequently, I suffer from only, older, younger and middle child syndrome. I reluctantly went to college in Dallas, TX and eventually fell in love with the Lone Star State and have pretty much lived here ever since. My love for music took me to Austin, where I met my now husband. My love for him took me to Houston. We’ve been married for a year and half and have enjoyed the most amazing first year of marriage. The Hubby’s job provided us the opportunity to travel for extended periods of time to Singapore and Spain giving us more than just a taste of different cultures. Living overseas was quite an experience, but we are homebodies and are very glad to be home closer to family and friends. We’ve recently become new homeowners. Our life is centered around our cat BooBoo Kitty, which is very sad, but undeniably true. 250!

Notes: To read more about the “Blog Every Day in May” challenge, check out Jenni’s blog Story of  My Life!

Blog Every Day of May

Well it is May 1st and I have not blogged in nearly 4 months and I have to admit I really miss it. However, my lack of typing has been for good reason. Since February I’ve been working hard to put on an event here in Houston. I was hired to help put on the 27th annual Texas Crawfish and Music Festival in Old Town Spring, TX. Honestly, it was one of the most challenging things I have ever done. The hours were long and the learning curve was steep. It was definitely an adjustment from my every day life. On the other hand it was extremely rewarding, and I learned more about myself and the real/working world then I ever imagined I could have.

The event turned out to be an extreme success. Well, at least in my book. The numbers are still out, so we do not know what the bottom line will be, but according to me it could not have gone any better. Actually, maybe we could have done with out the Saturday cancellation due to inclement weather, but other than that it went off without a hitch.

Anyhoo, the event is over and I have slightly recovered and am starting to get back to my normal life. The Hubby has definitely missed a clean home and dinner on the table. He was a huge help through the entire process. He was super supportive and understanding and I could not have asked for a better partner. He too just started his own business venture and has been hard at work starting his own company. We both look at each other in awe, shell shocked that we are both able to chase these crazy dreams of ours. Usually there has to be so much more sacrifice and compromise in these types of situations, but somehow we have both been given these fabulous opportunities to do something we love and we are seizing the moment and not looking back.

I have decided to take advantage of the down time I have and not only do some laundry, vacuum the house and do an overall Spring Cleaning, but I am going to get back to blogging. I stumbled on Jenni’s  (Story of My Life) “Blog Every Day of May” challenge and I was intrigued. This could be the perfect way for me to get back to my little hobby that I had to put on the shelf for so long. Like many of the bloggers out there that decided, or didn’t decide to take the challenge, I found the ever day aspect very intimidating. I still do, but Jenni has supplied her readers with topics for every day to help inspire our creative juices. The topics she has chosen are not the type of things I normally write about, so I have to decided to use them as I see fit and throw in some of my own posts and pictures to give it an EGG twist. The point is I am back and writing again. I am officially accepting the challenge and will be blogging every day in may the EGG way!

Notes: Check out Jenni’s blog Story of My Life for all the challenge details. 

Pom Pom Flowers

It is no secret that I am obsessed with pom poms poof balls. I usually make mine out of tissue paper, but I decided to create some out of yarn to give them a different feel and texture. I love the yarn because it takes the paper poof and turns it into more than just a party decoration. You can truly use this flower poof as decor in your home and not feel like you have tacky fake flowers in your house. I have really struggled with this in the past, because I love the look of flowers in the home, but hate the price tag that goes with maintaining them weekly. I rarely have plants, because I pretty much kill anything that does not meow to remind me to feed it. I used to do fake flowers from time to time (don’t hate), but I feel like fake flowers suck the energy out of a room, where as real flowers add energy. The yarn poof balls are a happy compromise for the domestic goddess with a glitter thumb rather than a green thumb. 

Supplies

• Yarn
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun
• Wrapped floral wire

Directions

Step 1. Wrap the yarn around your fingers. Use 2 fingers with 75 wraps for a small poof, 3 fingers with 100 wraps for a medium poof, and 4 fingers with 150 wraps for a large poof. Be sure to not wrap too tightly!

Step 2. Carefully slip the yarn off your fingers and tie a piece of yarn (about 6 inches long) around the center of the wrap so it makes a figure 8. Secure the tie as tight as possible.

Step 3. Cut the yarn loops all the way around, creating a shaggy poof. Then trim your poof until the desired look is achieved. 

Step 4. Decide where you want the bottom to be and place a small dab of hot glue deep in the center of your poof, stick in your stem and allow to dry. Trim any remaining uneven areas, and then stick your flower in a vase and call it a day.

Notes: I would recommend using wrapped floral wire. I only had regular floral wire and it was a tad flimsy for my medium poofs. You could also get creative with the stems and use other materials, such as pipe cleaners or even real tree branches.

Ikea Stool Makeover

I have tons of furniture makeover projects piling up around the house, so I figured it was time to start one of them to get the ball rolling. I started with a very small project, mainly to see if I liked the design. I’m sort of testing it out for a bigger project I have been mulling over for a while now. Since everything went well, and I really like the finished results, I think it is a go ahead. For this particular project, I took a basic Ikea stool and transformed turned it into a much more attractive Ikea stool. Like I said, we are talking basic stuff here… A little paint, a little Modge Podge and craft paper, and voilà! Now onto bigger and better things. I see a matching filing cabinet and a fabulous desk in my future.

DIY Toilet Paper Roll Wall Flower

Living in Singapore has been fabulous, but it has put a little damper on my creative side. Not having all my wonderful craft tools readily available at my finger tips has been giving me anxiety, but finally I found a project that is simple enough for me to do while overseas without having to spend $$$ on tons of new $upplies. I am serious when I say this project is LOW BUDGET, but it does take a little time collecting the necessary supplies.

DIY Asian Chopstick Wrappers

Since I am living in Singapore for the next few months and much of the blog has been dedicated to our travels, I thought why not post some fun Asian DIY projects along the way. And what better place to start other than DIY chopstick wrappers? What a fun way to jazz up any Asian inspired dinner party. Not only do chopsticks alone add some necessary Asian flare, but making your own personalized wrappers will really impress your guests. These are made out of origami paper, but you can get creative and use whatever paper/design you like.

Supplies

• 1 sheet of origami paper 6 x 6 inches
• Tape (optional)

Directions

Step 1. Fold the sheet of paper in half. Open out and then fold both long edges into the midline and fold, so that the fold lines divide the paper into four columns.

Step 2. Open out so that the wrong side is facing up. On the top right hand corner, fold the corner over so that it is in line with the right fold line. On the top left hand corner, fold the corner over so that it is in line with the middle fold line.

Step 3. Fold the right side into the midline.

Step 4. Fold the left side over as photographed and fold behind. Secure with a small piece of tape if necessary.

• Source: A Spoonful of Sugar

DIY Wedding Cake Decor

Ok, so I like to think of myself as kind of creative. In other words, I have a couple of crafty bones in my body, however, I am the first to tell you that I am not an artist. I can’t draw and I can’t paint for the life of me. I definitely don’t think I could do something as artistically driven as decorate a cake and have it look professional. Well, that is until I saw this awesome DIY cake by Wild Orchid Baking Company on The Wedding Chicks. It is very reminiscent of my Poof Balls, which of course makes me love it even more! I wish I could get married again so bad. I could do that shit on the cheap this time fo sho! Check out how to become and cake artist…

Supplies

• Fruit leather (We used store bought for this project. If you wanted to match a specific color, then making your own might work better for you.)
• Round cookie cutters
• Small bowl of water
• Small paint brush
• Floral wire (tooth picks or skewers would work as well)
• Piece of foam

Directions

The Flowers:

Step 1. Using a round cookie cutter, cut circles out of the fruit leather. The size of the cutter you use will determine how large of a puff you have at the end. For these puffs we used round cutters that were 1/2” to 2” in diameter.

Step 2. Pick up a fruit leather round, and using your thumbs and forefingers, press the sides of the round together towards the center of the circle. You’ll end up with a shape resembling a ruffled “x”. Just be sure to press towards the center of the circle, so that you don’t close the “x” entirely. The open loops are what give the puff it’s shape.
(Repeat with other circles. For a nice full puff we used 6 fruit leather rounds per puff. You can use more or less depending on how full you’d like the puff to be. To begin to form a puff, press 2 of the ruffled fruit leather rounds together at their points.)

Step 3. If the fruit leather has begun to dry out, brush on a small amount of water so that they stick together. Add more ruffles until you achieve the desired puff shape. Set formed puff onto a piece of styrofoam. Use floral wires or tooth picks to prop up the fruit leather puff into it’s desired shape. Allow to dry out over night. Using the wires or toothpicks helps keep the puff from drooping or loosing it’s shape as it dries.  You may need to allow puffs to dry out longer depending on the humidity.

The Small Circles:

Step One. Add dots to your cake or cupcake design by cutting out small circles from the leftover fruit leather. Apply using royal icing or water, just like the puffs.

Step 2. Apply to a finished cake using small dots of royal icing, or if applying to fondant just brush on a small amount of water where you’d like the puff to stick.

For cupcakes: Set onto freshly piped frosting.

Notes: How easy is that? I wish I could get married again or at least one of my girlfriends so I can make this. Can’t find fun fruit leather colors? No problem. Make your flowers out of tissue paper, like Martha Stewart’s Pom Poms. Who says the flowers have to edible?

• Source: The Wedding Chicks
• Cake: Wild Orchid Baking Company
• Photography: Mark Davidson

DIY Stenciled Pillow

I found this Wit & Whistle project via Pinterest and I’m so happy I did, because it has inspired a whole chain of pillows I am interested in making. It is one of the last accessories my living room, and bedroom for that matter, is craving. Plus I am dying to take a sewing class and pillow pattern would probably be the best thing to learn on. I could start off basic and then add zippers and such as I progress. Another blog I follow, Rustic Living, made these awesome “Where He and She Became We” pillows that I just love. I feel very inspired to start fabric paint penning, but first I have to start sewing. I’ll get there. Eventually.

Supplies

• Blank pillow cover (I purchased a nice linen cover here.)
• Some cardboard
• Pencil
• Letter stencil (I have this one.)
• Fabric marker (My black Sharpie fabric marker worked great!)

Directions

After choosing your quote, stuff your pillow cover with some cardboard to keep the marker from bleeding through and to keep the fabric stretched out smooth.

Use a pencil to stencil your quote onto the pillow cover. If you mess up the spacing you can erase the pencil lines and redo them. You can’t fix mistakes when you’re using the fabric marker, so don’t skip the pencil step.

Once you’ve penciled everything in, go at it with your fabric marker! I found it easiest to use the stencil for the outline of each letter, and then remove the stencil to fill the letters in.

The packaging from the Sharpie fabric marker didn’t say anything about heat setting the ink, but I will probably press my pillow cover before I wash it, just to be safe.

DIY Ottoman

Design Sponge is one of the most amazing websites. They come up with some of the best DIY projects, and this one is no different. Contributing writer, Amanda Brown, took her Boxed Cushions one step further and made an Upholstered Box Ottoman that is absolutely fabulous. I love the sleek lines and geo fabric. While possibly pretty time-consuming, it seems pretty easy for the most part, but I think this will be a post sewing lesson project for sure. I wish I would have found this DIY before I put my shitty Ikea tables out on the deck, where they got completely ruined by the rain. They would have been perfect for this. WARNING: Don’t treat Ikea furniture like it is real wood, because it’s not. It is usually crappy particle board, which totally absorbs water and then distorts itself. Eww, it also gets moldy.