Out of the Kitchen Tuesday #3

Ok, so I'm not good at consistency, and it's been a while since my last Out of the Kitchen post. I have all of these ideas and no time! I finally got to do something crafty over the weekend. On Saturday I spent the day in West Marin with my duder and got to work on a craft project while he did some work for one of his clients. I love spending time in West Marin! Especially getting up for early morning walks in all the natural beauty there.

On my walk this last Saturday, I took Moose to see some sheep. He was both cautious and curious, but the sheep all came out to see him. They came right up to the fence, but Moose kept a pretty safe distance. He's truly a weenie.

After a super tasty breakfast at The Station House, we headed over to Kris's client, me with craft bag in hand. I got to peacefully work on this button headband while Moose slept on the floor next to me. 

I've had this idea in my head for a quite a while, and I've been collecting buttons for it for a couple of months. I was so excited to finally work on it! I love anything with buttons.

I sewed the buttons onto a piece of elastic, after several rearrangements to find the grouping that I liked best. 

Sewing buttons is extremely relaxing, I find. Even though I did break one of my needles in the process and stabbed my thumb pretty good. 

Then I trimmed up the elastic on the back so that there were no bits hanging out behind the buttons. 

The next step was a simple hot gluing to a plain headband! Voila! 

I love it! I can't wait to make more in different colors! If you see any good vintage buttons for sale, I would be stoked if you linked me to them :)

Yay crafts!

Out of the Kitchen Tuesday #1

As I mentioned the other day, I've been feeling particularly crafty.

Sidebar: Whenever I say "crafty" I think of the Beastie Boys song. "She's crafty! And she's just my type!" (RIP MCA).

Anyhoodle, back to my post!

I'm going to try to post something crafty every Tuesday... we'll see how it goes!

So, my downstairs guest bathroom has been pretty blah since I moved in over a year ago. (Jeez, get on it, Aubrey.) I have a hard time deciding on color schemes and decorations and stuff like that. Recently I had a good friend of mine, Haya from The Calculated Kitchen, come stay with me for a few days (which was so much fun). There's nothing to inspire home improvement projects like knowing you will soon have a house guest.

One of the ideas I wanted to actually do, was make a sign for above the toilet that says "Have a Seat". Silly, I know, but I thought it was cute. I had gotten some little canvases on sale at Michaels, and thought I should put one of them to use.

I started with my blank canvas and some pretty paper (also from Michaels).

I then covered my canvas with the chosen paper.

Then traced my lettering onto the paper...

Then I got to painting! I'm sort of a turquoise fiend, so the colors I ended up on for my bathroom are turquoise and orange. I thought the turquoise paint looked good on the paper I chose. 

The only problem was, the letters weren't thick enough to really stand out against that busy background, so I did have to outline them all in heavy black ink. 

Once the lettering was all done, I added a small paper flower to the corner and woo! Finished product! It's now hanging in my bathroom, looking pretty, and the paper flower matches the flowers I made for the vase next to the sink. Excellent. 

I'm thinking of doing another couple of these and adding them to my Etsy shop. Would anyone be interested in something like this? I think it's cute, but I could just be a whackadoodle...

Tartlet: Out of the Kitchen

Lately I have been in a super crafty mood. Like, super crafty. Crafts and I have had an interesting relationship throughout my life. Growing up, my mom was (and actually still is) the queen of arts and crafts. THE QUEEN. Which was pretty awesome as a kid. There were always fun projects to do and mom would jump at the chance to do something artsy with us.

In my college years, I began to have a resentment towards crafts and craft mess. I started feeling overwhelmed by the disorganized nature of crafting and all the bits and pieces that went along with it. It probably doesn't have to be that way, but in our house it was. Art materials basically exploded all over my parents house when I was little, and has stayed that way to this day. Because I had no idea how to organize stuff like that, I began to just avoid it. 

UNTIL NOW! I am not sure what's happened, but the crafting bug has bitten me once again and I find myself wanting to buy yarn, fun paper, paints, and all those wonky edge scissors. I kind of blame Pinterest.

In any case, this brings me to my point. I'd like to perhaps add a section of my shop called Tartlet: Out of the Kitchen, in which I sell items for the home, beauty, paper things, etc. Just stuff, that isn't edible. What do you think? Is this me not being focused? Am I too ADHD to stick to one business idea and go with it? I guess we'll find out!

Here are some of the things that have inspired me lately...

Adorable pin cushion. SERIOUS ADORABLE! 

From http://www.flickr.com/photos/happyfind/4245132667/

Cute little drawstring bags.

From A Little Red Ribbon

Hand lotion bars.

From Kinda Crunchy Kate

And more!! I also kind of want to do a line of one-off, hand drawn greeting cards. I have already done a couple, but don't want to put them up until I have some more done.

TOO MANY IDEAS!

I've also been fooling around in the Tartlet kitchen and have come up with some more goodness, including salted caramels, and chocolate bark. I will be putting these items up soon!

Hopefully you will see a whole bunch of new stuff in my shop, as I branch out into other areas, outside of baking. And if not, well, there goes my ADHD again :)