Projects in the Meadow

Happy Saturday everyone!  It is kind of a dreary, cold day here so I decided to post about some of the recent projects that I have been working on.  I kind of go through stages as I've mentioned before....and right now I am totally in DIY project mode.  I just love making things for our home and for other people.  It keeps me busy which is a definite plus and things are so much prettier and SO much cheaper when you make them yourself (most of the time anyway!).  I have a lot of projects that are in the works but here are a few I have finished recently!

First up, I saw these adorable pinwheel wreaths on Pinterest and just knew I HAD to have them for my front doors for spring/summer.  These are super easy to make and SO fun.  It was a pretty cheap project.  You just need a styrofoam wreath form, ribbon to cover that if you chose (I just used cheap sheer ribbon in purple), and scrapbook paper to make the pinwheels.  You thumb tack the pinwheels on once you make them an viola!  Here is a great tutorial on making them if you would like to add some color to your doors! 

My cousin recently asked if I would make birthday cakes for her little girls' birthday parties.  Of course!  I love to get to bake and decorate pretty things.  I usually stick to cookies but I'm starting to dabble into cakes so I thought, why not?  I made these pretty little princess cakes for them and they loved them! 

 Now my biggest thing going on recently is that I'm learning to sew - yes, ME.  Learning to sew.  I never thought I would see the day.  But I bought a sewing machine and thought, no time like the present.  I wanted some curtains for our breakfast room but couldn't find a darn thing that I loved that wasn't an obscene amount of money.  And I'm not all about paying an obscene amount of money for things.  My Granny and my mom both sew, crochet, you name it so I knew my mom could teach me.  We spent a day learning to use my machine (it's computerized....she wasn't used to that!) and then we set to work once my fabric came in!  I went for very basic, easy curtains for my first project.  I found that the most time consuming part was the measuring, cutting, ironing, etc.  The actual sewing part wasn't bad at all.  Here I am looking like I just rolled out of bed when mom knocked on my door fabulous working on my project! 

 Here are my pretty-ful (I like to make up words) curtains hanging in my breakfast area!  I used clips to hang them up on the rods as I like this look.  They turned out perfect!  I'm so ready to do another sewing project now!  These were much cheaper than what I would pay for something that I loved.  I would say I have about $120 in this whole room of curtains right now including the clips (thank you JoAnn Fabrics for your coupons!). 

I have a few more projects that I'll be working on in the next week or so.  I am going to sew some pillows with outdoor fabric for our front porch AND my big project - painting a dresser.  I just bought a dresser on Craigslist so I could paint and distress it for our basement.  I paid $75 for a huge dresser and mirror and I just ordered my Annie's Chalk Paint to use for this piece of furniture.  I absolutely cannot wait to get started!  I'll post pictures as I go.  I just found out about this Annie's paint (I'm a big behind I guess) and it looks AMAZING.  No prep work?  Sign me up.