Then while hanging out on Pinterest one day, I found this tutorial.

I decided to make one for myself. I bought the wire, chain and clasps at Hobby Lobby. I really liked the dark color instead of silver. I wanted to make my friend one too and I really thought they’d be so easy that I could sell some [now I'm thinking I don't want to make that many!]

I started with the silver because I thought my friend would like that better and it was the recommended gauge (24) because it is easier to manipulate. I thought that it was more difficult because it was too flimsy and wanted to bend however. Since I couldn’t get it wound as tight it bunched up when I tried to wrap the sides. Doesn’t look much like a nest, does it?

Then I decided to try the darker, 20 gauge wire, which worked much easier for me. I made a nest with 4 eggs for myself and one with 3 eggs for my friend. The only thing I don’t really like about it is the chain. I love the way it looks, but every single link is open and it pulls apart VERY easily. Not a good thing when you have a 9 month old and 3 year old who like shiny pretty things. I wore it to church yesterday and it broke and had to be fixed once. It is easy to put back together, but I’m afraid I’ll lose it. I bought a different chain last night at WM to replace it with when I get tired of trying to keep up with it. It has solid links, but needs some clasps attached.

While these were pretty easy, they don’t look that much like nests in real life and I’m pretty sure I don’t enjoy playing with wire. Too frustrating and tedious for me. Perhaps if I had the right tools, but I don’t think I want to even find out. ;) I enjoy making a necklace here and there, but it’s definitely not my niche!

Speaking of nests, I finished my nest for my neck. Here is my scarf keeping my neck nice and cozy:

I think it turned out pretty, so I thought I’d share how I made it. Here’s the tutorial:

First, gather your supplies.
Wreath Form in the size you want – I used a pool noodle taped end to end, so mine is pretty large.
Fabric strips 3-5 inches wide – I used about 1/2 yard of white with gray polka-dots.
Wood letter
Mod Podge
Extra fabric for the letter and roses and bow
Ribbon for hanging
Glue Gun

Alright, plug that glue gun in and get it warmed up. Then attach the end of one strip of fabric to your wreath using a dab of glue. Start wrapping the fabric around the wreath and glue and repeat as needed with more strips until the whole form is covered. My pool noodle didn’t hold us very well with the hot glue [kind of melted a bit] but the fabric did stick and is staying on fine.

After your fabric is on, get your wood letter. If you want to paint it, go ahead. If you want to cover it with fabric like I did, use your mod podge and stick it on. I just cute a piece of fabric a little larger than my letter and slit where it would need to fold over. then coat the top of your letter with mod podge and lay the fabric over it, smoothing it toward the edges. Flip the letter over and start painting mod podge and folding the fabric to the back and gluing it down. After you get all of the edges folded to the back paint some mod podge over the whole back. When that is dry flip the letter again and coat the front with mod podge to seal it.

Now, you have to decide what other embellishments you want on your wreath. I tied a black polkadot bow near the top and tied the wreath to the hook with a wide black ribbon. I hung it on the door for awhile like that. I thought I wanted some fabric flowers, but I didn’t have time to make them then. So later on I made some rolled rosettes.

You can find many tutorials for making these, so I won’t repeat. They are so easy to make though! I used all three of the fabrics that I had used on the wreath. Then I just hot glued them onto the wreath.

This wreath is pretty simple to make, but it looks like it took a lot of work. It will also brighten your home and make it more welcoming. Enjoy!

Many headbands and a couple of rosette clips:

A fleece UK blanket for my dad:

Kameron’s robot quilt for his toddler bed:

This was a simple square patch quilt, backed with white flannel, quilted with simple lines. It is nice and cozy and was to go with the robot blanket I made him last year. It looks cute on his bed!

A pennant bunting for my niece’s wall:

A little hat for Kyler:

Cute reversible pants for Kyler:

These pants are the “quick change trousers” from Handmade Beginnings by Anna Maria Horner. I love this book! These pants took me awhile with 4 little ones to take care of, but the pattern is easy to follow and they are the most adorable things ever! I have plans to make more of these for Kyler. One side is Car fabric from Riley Blake with brown flannel on the behind. This reverses to Brown flannel with owls on the behind. The whole time I was working on these Taylor offered her two cents. She thought they looked huge and would not fit and made that known. However, they fit perfectly!

A house pouch for a little girl:

I made several of these in the summer of 2010 and when looking for a quick easy gift for a little girl I remembered them. I stuck some paper dolls in it for fun. The roof fabric and the paper dolls are by Sarah Jane Wright, my fave designer/illustrator. If you haven’t seen her work please go check it out. Fabulous!

The handprints are Kameron’s hands, Kristopher and Taylor picked what shapes they wanted to give each person and I just made snowflakes for giving our friends or keeping for ourselves. I am a snowflake fan!

We just have to add ribbon through the holes and wrap them up very carefully and then they’ll be on the way to their recipients (who I’m pretty sure don’t read my blog anymore, unless I tell them to). I hope they like them!

Some close-ups:

My pumpkins & gourds that I bought at the farmer’s market in town, love them! I spent the same amount of money on all of those as I would have (and have in the past) on one pumpkin at WM. Never again!

The whole shebang on my front porch:

Hope you like it! I know I do!

I haven’t started the other kids hats yet, but I do have in mind to finally finish my Estes Vest from the Interweave Knits Fall 2008. The last time i worked on this was about a year ago. All I have left is the edging and buttonloops and it will be done. Shouldn’t take too long. Maybe the mojo will stay long enough to finish it.

In other crafty news, I turned this little number that cost me $1 into something I just love. I got the chalk/bulletin board from a local thrift store and removed the cork. Then I painted it and covered the cork with fabric. I do still need to make some kind of piece for the cutout at the top. Thinking about using chalkboard contact paper so I can write my title in and change it whenever I want to. I bought some chalk markers and I love those too. If you have never used them, get some. They make chalkboards desireable again!

I also fixed (with nails, amazing) and painted this table and chairs that were mine and my sisters when we were little. We are going to use this for a our school table for now. While we would like to get something like this, it just isn’t in the budget now. This was free and will be big enough for 2 of the kids to work on. Sometimes you just have to work with what you have!

And, in garden news, we are picking green beans, banana peppers and tomatoes now. Just not as many as I had hoped for. My in-laws gave us tons of tomatoes though and some green peppers, so I can can and freeze some things for winter. I bought some corn from my favorite producer here and am working on it today. I am still hoping my second planting will be worth picking. The first was destroyed by deer, ants and worms – we only got about 5 ears. My cucumbers, gourds and cantaloupe are producing small babies now and I am hoping that they are able to grow to pickable goodness. I also have several cold weather crops to plant in a week or two so we have some yummy stuff for the fall. At least my flowers are beautiful!

mustard-y tan walls and vinyl flooring…so not working for us. We actually changed it to light blue first and some of our friends painted it for us right after we moved. We weren’t feeling that either though, so finally we decided on a light gray around the first of this year (after a year and a half of living here.) At first I thought gray would be dull and boring for a sunroom, but I love it. Our floor is laminate that matches our kitchen – I love it too! While I love blue and have it all over my house, I decided that since I’ll be using the sunroom as my “studio” partly I want something fun that is just for me and I’m going with pink accents for now.

The white cabinet holds all of my fabric and ribbons and part of my yarn. The laundry “room” is also in the sunroom and we have folding doors that go on there, but they aren’t up yet. I have blue accents in there because I know I’ll never tire of blue! *Edited to add – I forgot to talk about the blue window! This is a window that was originally in this house and they were all piled up when we moved in. I wanted to do something fun with one, so I scraped it a little to make it rough looking, then spray painted it blue and added a mist of white. In person it looks kind of speckled. I also added 3 hooks at the bottom which will hold small bags for rags and single socks. The words above the window are from Uppercase Living and I bought them long before we bought the house, but they were a perfect fit in there!* Right next to our sliding door we hung the coat racks. We found this winter that these are VERY useful:) Eventually we will have a shoe bench there as well, but someone is going to have to build one! I know what I want to make, just haven’t had the time and supplies.

On the other side of the room is my workspace. My sewing desk, a handme down from a friend is working out great, even if it isn’t white. It had a little round table with it that now has “stuff to get rid of” under it and my Epic 6 cutter on top. Above it you can see the owl family tree that I made. I bought the chair from a local thrift store and painted it white and recovered it with cute fabric (Kokka Trefle Schoolhouse/Playground) that matches my bulletin board that I also made. I realized while redoing this chair that I do not like to redo furniture and I do not like to paint furniture. I don’t mind the recovering part, but the painting and sanding and what-have-you is not fun. The chair has lots of mistakes too, but it will do… We have to replace the ceiling fan with a white one, fix the step up into the kitchen, and paint the trim around the windows, but I am very happy with the way the room has turned out. I like to just go out and sit there and look around. Eventually, it might be nice to have a big chair or loveseat out there for visiting or to accmodate children while I’m working. This room also goes out onto the deck/backyard and I can sit out there crafting while watching the kids play. Perfect!

Next up – hopefully tomorrow – GARDENING!

Here are some cards I made for the day (and some leftover for another day!) I also finally made the replacement purse for my mom that I started gathering supplies for a year ago, at least. I hope she likes it and that maybe it won’t wear out as quickly since I used suede instead of quilting cotton. It is the same shape as the last one I made her, since she said that’s a good shape. I found the fabric panel with the horses on ebay and the suede is leftover upholstry fabric from when I redid our kitchen chairs. The inside is lined with maroon cotton. I always have trouble picking out a lining fabric that looks good.

Card template found here.

We have a busy evening ahead with Taylor’s soccer game and Kristopher’s last cub scout meeting for the year. I am ready for summer and a little bit of a break. I’m not sure that summer is when I get one though!! Ha! We’ve got one or two trips planned and summer reading at the library and TNT at church and VBS (I hope!) and scout day camp and homeschool preparations! Doesn’t sound like much of a break to me… I’m sure we will have fun though:)

I hope everyone has a safe and good week!