Millie's patchwork wall and room makeover

 We finally got around to doing the patchwork wall that my little and I had been 

talking about for ages and we love it! 

Most importantly, she loves it.

These are some of her treasures on top of her antique wardrobe.

She had a blue gingham Pottery Bark Kids valence and red gingham painted finials from there as well, that had hung on her window since she was a baby. I painted those expensive finials with Duck Egg Blue ASCP and threw a vintage tablecloth that I'd had over the rod. Didn't even sew it! 

 her window art that she and I created a few years ago. We found the window in my Grandma's attic and the best part? It was already pink!

one of my favorite spots on the wall with the sweet bird

her pink dyed coffee filter "m" that I made and gave her for Christmas 2011. 

I'm thinking about offering these in my Etsy shop. What do you think??

another of my favorite spots on the patchwork wall. It has the word "dance" and both of my girls dance

love the framed sewing machine and Eiffel tower. 

I had most all of the frames in my stash for ages, except the yellow {a .25 cent thrift store score!} and pink{that Millie painted herself!}

we spent about two whole days working on this and it was totally worth it and fun to spend the time with my girl! 

vintage sheet music tray

I've had this tray that I got from the thrift store for about $2.00, like a year ago, waiting for me to finish it.

I had mod podged some paper to it a while back, but decided to take it a different route.

 

I just spray painted right over the other paper and printed out some vintage sheet music.

The "French Opera" music (and probably some of the others) came from The Graphics Fairy, of course.

added a sweet little nest stamp...

it's not perfect and I love it that way

a little light distressing on the edges and corners....

I {love} it!

peonie love

My first few blooms of the season....

needed a special place to go. So here's a little project I did today and I wish I'd taken a before. I got this adorable bucket at the thrift store a long time ago for like $2 on half-price day. It was a gross, ugly black but I knew I could give it some love and find somewhere to put it. I primed it well with metal primer and tried out the cheaper spray paint they sell at Wal-mart. It's a minty-greeney-blue color and for this project it worked great! After the paint dried I antiqued it and sanded it in a few small spots.

I tore a little strip of muslin to fray the edges and stamped it with a writing/script stamp all along in it then a little birdie stamp at the end and tied it on for a cute touch.

to put the peonies in I stuck in a ziploc bag which sprung a leak, I'm assuming from the rocks I put in the bucket to keep it from blowing around so much in this Oklahoma wind. Plan B was an old plastic gas station cup that I squished in but it showed through the cut-outs so then I put a small square of burlap along the inside to keep it from showing. Sounds kind of like "If you give a mouse a cookie...."!

The plus side of the wind combined with the oh-so-lovely smell of my peonies, means that every time I walk through my front door, I get a little whiff of heaven.

                                                                     I'm linking up to...

male chauvinist book trashing~a wreath tutorial

I've seen all of these book page wreaths and I absolutely adore them so I decided to make my own Ginnie-fied version and share a tutorial so you can make your own. Honestly, it was a bit more work than I thought it would be....

You'll need:
a wreath form (mine was about 15 inches across at the widest point)
an old book (mine was over an inch thick and I used all the pages)
some patterned scrapbook paper and/or vintage images (check out The Graphics Fairy)
a hot glue gun and lots of glue sticks
burlap (about 4 yards of 4inch wide strips)
ribbon or seam binding(which is what I used, not sure how much)
Tim Holtz Distress Ink

First, you'll take your wreath and if it's like mine and you bought it for $1 at the thrift store (I seriously cannot believe anyone would think this was pretty! UGH!), you'll take all of the ugly junk off...

{click pictures to enlarge}

until it looks like this~

Next, you'll cut your burlap into 3-4inch strips (they don't have to be perfect or measured)

Using your glue gun, glue down the beginning end and start wrapping, overlapping as you go...

Overlap your strips and every so often put a little glue to keep it from sliding around. If your strip isn't long enough, just glue down another and start wrapping some more. This is not really going to show much.
Now you should have a wreath that looks like this...

Then you'll take your old school male chauvinist pig book...

and tear the crap out of it. It doesn't matter if they look "torn" when you tear them out (mine came out in neat sections), you can do that as you go...

When you start to make a roll for a bundle, take your Distress ink and 2 book pages or a book page and a piece of copied scrapbook paper (it's more pliable) or vintage image.

rub your stamp along the torn edges or you can use the neat page edges to age the paper

take your 2 pages and run a small line of hot glue (glue stick took too long to dry) along the top edge and stick them together. They don't have to be perfectly lined up and I actually prefer them to be uneven. It adds character :) Start rolling the paper into a loose roll.

When the paper is almost rolled up, run a line of glue so that the roll stays rolled up.

What you will have is this...

Again, take your ink pad and rub it on the end of the roll. You'll do this about 100 times!

Next, you'll begin combining random rolls together and tying them with your ribbon or seam binding. To make the best parts of the rolls show, I added a little glue to what would be the bottom side of the bundle.I made bundles of various numbers. I wrapped the seam binding around 2 or 3 times...

Begin gluing your bundles onto your wreath. If I did it again, I would probably glue single rolls around the whole wreath so there would be no gaps, then glue the bigger bundles on top. I wound up having to squish them in on the ends that were toward the center.

I wound up with spaces like this...

so I made some single rolls and cut them until they were the right length to fill in the space

and glued them into the space...

Keep making bundles and filling in the spaces....

until you have this! I love it's imperfect beauty~

you can see pieces of vintage ledger paper, french notes and labels...

I tried to give it an overall unifying neutral palette~

I love how the seam binding crinkles the more it's handled...

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and if you make one, I'd love to see pictures!

Edited: I'm linking this project up here!