This Lil' Birde Loves: Baby Della Grace

I have a precious friend named Kandy.  She has two beautiful daughters named Keilah & Karrah that have become my adopted family.  And a few weeks ago, Karrah had a sweet little girl named Della Grace!  Kandy is just fabulous, so as a grandmother, her name is "Yetta" like on The Nanny.  Love it!

But when I found out Karrah was having a girl, there was a pause of about 3 days before I started working on baby clothes.  And I keep adding projects!   I can't help it.  They're just so cute & itty bitty!

This onesie day gown was one of my first Della Grace projects.

It's a little blurry thanks to the iPhone camera, but I just love this fabric for baby things.  This gown is very similar to the one I made for my friend Kelli a while back.

See, isn't she just beautiful?!

And such a beautiful mommy, too!  Thanks for letting me dress your little love, Karrah.  Now I just need to hold her and love her and get my baby fix before we get back to sewing!

This Lil' Birdie is Crafty: Brown Sugar Honey Body Scrub

This Christmas is involving quite a few homemade presents for me.  One of my favorites was given to me a few years ago and I can't stop making it for myself.  So for Christmas gifts this year, I decided to share the love.  (Sweet friends that might get this as a gift from me: just pretend you've never seen this and act surprised, okay?  Okay!)

Here's what you need to have amazingly soft and yummy smelling skin this winter!

1.5 cups of brown sugar
1/2 cup of EVOO
1 tsp vanilla extract (here's your yummy smell)
1 full tablespoon of honey (this is specifically a help for dry skin; you can leave this out if you want, but I LOVE honey!)

Mix it all together and put it in an adorable little mini Ball canning jar (I found mine at Target for less than $5 for a set of 4).  A pert bow, a little scrapbook paper tag (can you tell I haven't made mine yet?) and you've got an adorable gift for neighbor friends, teachers (except in Alabama where our "ethics" law say you can't give teachers gifts anymore), or pretty much anyone!

Don't worry if the oil separates from the honey and sugar, just mix it back in and rub-a-dub-dub!

Linking up with Petite Hermine's Sunday Linky Party and The Girl Creative's "Just Something I Whipped Up" party!

This Lil' Birdie is Prepping for Fall

8 yards of burlap fabric, some brown ribbon, mums, and fake pumpkins.  It's official... Fall is here!

{Source Unknown but here's where I found it}

I found this picture in the many many hours I spend on Pinterest, and I have to say, my handcrafted version of this will be on our door as soon as FH decides where the nail needs to go (which will probably be around Christmas).

{Again with the not knowing the source... Pinterest!}

And then, of course, there's this...  While I'm not the biggest Halloween fan (I don't mind some decoration but nothing scary), this is adorable!  Who would've thought?  Buttons on a pumpkin!

{Found on Pinterest but originally from here}

But these are so cute, too!  Good thing I bought 3 faux-pumpkins!  But can I just say, not having a Hobby Lobby nearby is cutting into my creativity -- the nearest one is about an hour away!

Fall means the glorious return of cooler weather and sweaters and boots and comfy and cozy...

{Source}

And I wish my fall wardrobe looked remotely this fabulous.

Goal for Fall:  look effortlessly chic.  Need:  all new clothes.

Like this...

{Source}

And this...

{Source}

Fall means it's finally time for shopping.  And crafts.  And hot chocolate.  And fall festivals and Halloween costumes. And all things wonderful!  Oh, how I love Fall!

Happy Fall, y'all!

P.s. If you're not on Pinterest yet, you really should be!  I can get lost for hours on this site with absolutely no remorse!

This Lil' Birdie Is Resourceful

So yesterday I showed you my little desk fixer-upper rearranging.  And I told you I would show you my bulletin board project.  And here's the step-by-step!

What I used:

- Bulletin board
- Open-back frame
- Glue gun
- Scissors
- Screw driver
- Shower curtain (trust me on this one)

I bought this open-back frame at Hobby Lobby for half off $25.99.  Pricey for my budget?  Yes, but I couldn't find anything else I liked as much, so I just went with it.

It's a 16"x20" frame, and you'd be amazed how hard it is to find a cork board to fit.

So I found this guy at Target for $6.99, and decided to cut it to size.

Easier said than done.

I started by ripping off the border.  Again, easier said than done.  This is where the screw driver comes in.  For leverage.

It took oh about an hour.

But that wasn't the end of this project.  The bulletin board was still too big for the frame.

So I measured twice and cut sixty-two times until I finally had something that remotely resembled a 16x20" rectangle.  The edges were all sorts of jagged because my scissors weren't sharp enough and I ended up using the screwdriver to cut the bulletin board down to size.  Don't judge me.

Here's where the shower curtain comes in.  A few weeks back when I visited my lovely sister for a girls' day, we found this shower curtain at Target.

Home Feminine Shower Curtain, Target

At the time, my plan was to make basic elastic-wasted skirts for the two of us (because really, that's a LOT of fabric for 20 bucks!).  Then I decided to take a little square and cover a bulletin board.

So I ironed it (*gasp* yes, I do own an iron) and cut it to fit the cork.

Then because I'm the absolute laziest do-it-yourself-er EVER, I took my handy dandy hot glue gun and glued it to the board.

For the corners, I just lopped off one side (see above)...

Fold the other corner down....

And then fold that corner up and glue.  Ta da! Corner are done (they don't have to be perfect 'cause they're going in the frame).

Then wiggle and worm it into the frame and you've got an adorable sweet little bulletin board!

Sorry for the lighting change.  Had to go outside on that beautiful day!

And this guy is perfect over my desk...

Sweet big flower brooch,  picture of me & the boyfriend, and an on-going list of paint colors I love... Inspiration!

Tis The Season To Sparkle

I LOVE Christmas!  It's my favorite time of the year!  Christmas carols, cold weather, twinkle lights, glitter, garland, oh it's all wonderful!

I like to enjoy my Christmas as long as possible, so I decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving, and this year was definitely no exception.

And I wanted to share my holiday world with you!  And just so you know ahead of time, for every "crafty" thing I show you, I'll post a tutorial over the next few days including a few recipes and LOTS of hot glue :)

Christmas isn't Christmas without a cute wreath... I got the idea from The Eclectic Owl & her adorable Alabama wreath.

Close-up.  Love it!

My bare lil' Christmas tree.  To explain, yes, I own a HUGE 7 foot pre-lit artificial tree.  Yes, I have the space to store it as well as the space to put it up.  No, I didn't put it up this year.  Why?  Well, mostly cause I'm lazy and didn't wanna haul the whole thing out, decorate it, and then have to un-decorate it and put it away.  And partly cause I'm lazy and didn't wanna have to haul the whole thing out, etc....

So instead I have this lil' baby adorable tree ($29 at Hobby Lobby, folks!).  It wasn't pre-lit, so I went ahead and strung up a Dollar Store strand of lights.  How do you do your lights?  I zig-zagged back and forth and missed the back of the tree.  Growing up, we wrapped all the way around.  Again, I'm lazy.  I do things my way.

My colors are gold, cream, and crimson...

But this just looked a smidge boring & so I pulled out some of my lime green ornaments from my "bright" colored days....

And we ended up with this!  Now, I've still got some major tweaking to do (which will include adding some burlap birdie ornaments!!!), but I have to say, I absolutely love artificial Christmas trees because I get to position the branches where I want them.  No offense to God & His Divine wisdom, but it's durn near impossible to make a real tree bend where you want it.  Plus, they make me sneeze.

I pretty much hate that bow at the top.  The ribbon is adorable, but it didn't make a very good bow.  I'm thinking about ordering this...

Burlap ribbon from Ballard Designs.  Hi, my name is Ashleigh, and I'm a burlap addict.  (P.s. Thanks, April, for showing this to me!)

Wouldn't that make a beautiful bow?

And of course, there's the GORGEOUS tree skirt that Sister made for me.

Yeah, it's a little big for this tiny tree (and tiny table), but it's still cute & will be perfectly perfect for years to come!

Let's get one thing straight, I hate ornament hangers.  They're just not pretty.  So I was inspired by our baby's first ornaments at work, and this year, I hung all of my ornaments with ribbon...

Like this!  Shimmery, glittery gold for red (and green!) ornaments, and a pretty red grosgrain for gold ornaments. 

And if you look at that picture of my tree + skirt, you can see some presents hanging out under there (!!!!).  I'm a simple Christmas paper kinda gal, so I used basic craft paper from Hobby Lobby ($3.99 for the BIG roll & it was half off!) with some red velvet ribbon (the kind most people use for bows) and this is what I came up with...

Sweet and simple Christmas gifts (after I took this picture, I added ribbon down the side of the package you see here... made it look precious!).  I'll tell you how to make this bow later (it involves hot glue...) and I'll even show you my fool-proof way of wrapping boxes (trust me on this one, I wrap more gifts on a daily basis than you wrap for Christmas!)...

One last thing to show you and then I'll end this longest post ever...

I live in an apartment (I'm sure we've talked about this before) and so I don't have a mantle.  I'm making do this year (like every other year) with my hall tree...

It feels very Pottery Barn-esque, doesn't it? (Apart from the yoga mat/ work mess on the right... sorry, it'll be gone tomorrow when I head back to work!)  And don't you LOVE that window pane up there at the top?  Thanks, Sister, for hanging it.  And thanks, again, to April for going to the Antique Store with me to find it!

The Christmas trees at the top used to light up different colors, but now that they no longer work, I'm considering spray painting them a creamy white & bedazzling them in cream glitter.  What can I say, I love some sparkle! 

And there you have it.  My Christmas decorating is done.  Well, I lied.  Of course, I have some other pretty things to add around the apartment (coffee table, bar in kitchen, dining table, etc.), but these are my big ones!

How are you decorating this year?  Anything new or all the same traditions you've always had?  Share & link to your pictures so I can get some good ideas!

This Lil' Birdie is Crafty: Kitchen Artwork

I think kitchens need a little artwork too.  But I'm not a big fan of rooster prints or anything like that, but I did figure out a really cute kitchen art idea not too long ago.

My grandmother passed away last year (God bless her sweet sweet soul) and my sister and I split her many many sets of beautiful silver.  Some sets were fully matched, and then there were some random stragglers like these...

These guys were just destined to become kitchen artwork (they told me themselves)... and here's how I did it!

To start with, these were in some serious need of a good cleaning.  Since I didn't have silver polish handy, I used the next best thing...

Yep, that's right.  I washed my grandmother's silver with Comet.  And it worked wonderfully!

A little water, a little Comet, and look how pretty!

All cleaned and purdy.  Yes, there's a new one in this picture from the last.  One was in the Comet cleaning bowl when I took the first picture.

So I bought some shadow box frames from Hobby Lobby for half off not too long ago, and some scrapbook paper, and I covered the inside backing of the frames with this paper...

And it makes the perfect background for silverware artwork!

All I did was take a tiny bead of hot glue to the back of each piece and stuck it on the backing.  Do I recommend everyone hot glue their grandmother's silver to the back of a shadowbox frame?  No, not really.  Did it work for me?  Yes!

Then I just popped the backs back into their frames, used my favorite Halcyon Green to accent the frames, and voila!

Finished product!

I decided to hang these on the only real wall in my kitchen, and it just adds a cute little touch that was definitely missing before!

This Lil' Birdie is Crafty: Pretty Flowers Tutorial

I have a confession :  I love flowers.  It's a problem.  Thing is, though, I don't particularly like real flowers.  Except these...

These are alstroemerias.  They are my favorite flowers.  But they die.  And I don't like that.


So I decided to dedicate my love of flowers to things I can wear.  I might be a *tad* too old to wear this...

But I will never ever ever be too old for these...

Look how sweet and romantic and pretty!  I am currently obsessing over all things flower pin related.  But let's face it, I'm boutique on a budget around here, and I can't justify $10+ per flower, and I know me.  I would never be content with just one color or style.

So me being the crafty little birdie I am, I decided to make a few different styles and colors myself!  And I decided to share my how-to with you!

What you'll need:
- Lightweight fabric (I used a pretty polyester lining fabric)
- Hot glue, well at least, I used hot glue.  You can use some other sort of glue, but then where's the fun in the searing pain when you accidentally glue your fingers together?!
- a lighter (trust me on this one!)
- a pen or marker (I used a fancy disappearing ink pen, if not you've got to be a lot more careful about how you cut your fabric... you'll see)
- small round piece of felt for the back of the flower
- some sort of pin or clippie for the back of the flower (I used these...)
- decorative beads or even an old button!

So here's what you do...

Start by tracing four different size circles onto your fabric (I used measuring cups - 1/2 cup, 1/3 cup, & 1/4 cup & free-handed the smallest one).  I was making three different flowers, so that's why I have about a billion circles here.  You'll only need 4 circles in different sizes.

See the lines on the outside of my circles?  That's my disappearing ink pen.  So if you don't use one or if you use a marker, you'll have to carefully cut on the inside of the lines so they won't show.  I'm a lazy lazy birdie, so I use disappearing ink so I don't have to be careful.

Now to get your edges all curly and pretty like mine, you'll use the lighter to slightly singe the edges of the fabric circles.  Do this carefully; watch your nail polish; and your hair.

Next, dab a little hot glue on each petal and stack them together to form your flower.  The pretty pink pearlies are my "pretty" for the middle!

Because this was never going anywhere near little lovebug babies, I just hot glued the pearls into the middle of the flower.  If I were actually going to put this on a baby (which is absolutely presh presh!), I would sew the little pearlies on with some serious thread and make sure they weren't goin' anywhere!  But since this one is for grown-up me, glue it is.

Now, for the attachments...

Glue your felt circle to the back side of the flower.  And then...

Glue your pin to the TOP of the felt circle.  This is very important to always glue it to the top.  If you don't, the flower will "droop" when you wear it.   On this one, I also added a little alligator clippie just in case I decided I wasn't really too old for this...

Well, okay, I wouldn't take it that far.  But how cute are these little flowers?! Make them as big or as small as you want to.  My next project will be making them into paci clips!