The Necklace Factory

I love bib necklaces. Like slightly obsessed (ok, more than slightly) and whenever I see someone wearing one I stop them, ask where they got it and gush over it.  I have a few - this one from Miss Betty Lou, this vintage one from Allora handmade and even a ridiculously fab custom one from my friend Julie, because (let's face it) she's awesome.  Basically I really love these amazing, big fashion statements.  My budget however does not so much.

We had Gianna's pictures taken on Wednesday and I knew we'd sneak in a couple, so I started searching Etsy for an awesome bib necklace for myself.  I found tons of amazing ones, but just really didn't want to pay.  Then I decided I'd try my hand at making one.  I kind of thought I'd hate it and it would never see the light of day, but I was very pleasantly surprised.  Here's what I came up with:

I made the rosettes using Haute Blue B's tutorial, and the pom poms from Little Miss Momma's tutorial.  Then I added some tulle in the background, a little bit of bling and some beads on the chain.  What do you think?  I kind of love it, and think it looks cool on.

{how cute is that baby?!}

Not wanting to be left out, Leila requested a mini one.

And here's how it looked on:

I'm having lots of fun making these necklaces, and may have to make them in every color of the rainbow!  Have you made any fun crafts or seen any awesome tutorials lately?  Let me know!

PS - have you entered to win the Much Ado About You calendar??!  I'm picking the winner tonight, and announcing tomorrow.  Good luck!

PPS - today is the last day for the sweet discount + free earrings


PPSS - Happy Valentine's Day!

Halloween Sneak Peek

I just finished Leila's trick-or-treat bucket....any guesses on what she's going to be? :)

Ribbon and Pearl Necklace Tutorial

Ribbon and pearl necklaces are everywhere right now, at a whole variety of prices. Leila saw one at Target and even though it was only $8.99 I told her I could probably make her one with things I already had at home.  I was right.

This necklace is super simple to make, and I will do my best to explain it.

What you need:

• 
  
  ribbon (about two feet)
• 
  
  matching embroidery thread
• 
  
  thick, embroidery needle
• 
  
  handful of pearl beads (or the real thing!)
• 
  
  scissors

First, cut your ribbon and embroidery thread.  About two feet on the ribbon, about a foot and a hallf on the embroidery thread.

Then, make a knot in your ribbon, about six inches down.

Start stringing your embroidery thread right through the knot, and then make another knot right on top of the existing one so you don't see the thread.

String a pearl.

{This is what the back will look like - don't worry, you won't see it}

Leave some space {I found out a handful of pearls down that if you leave a space as big as the pearl it works best} and then string another pearl.  Poke your needle through the back and come back up.

After every two or three pearls pull your embroidery string really tight.  This will magically gather the ribbon that you left spaces in between the pearls for.

Keep going until you've reached your desired length, remembering to pull the embroidery thread after every two or three pearls.  If you string any more pearls than that without pulling the thread it can get a little tough.

Once you like the length make another knot.

String your embroidery string through it, tie and cut it off.

Make another knot on top if it all to hide it.

Then {sorry no pics for this step} cut your extra ribbon at an angle, and heat seal it by holding an open flame right over it.

{Edited to add: nail polish is "Unripened" by OPI, part of the Go Goth Collection}

Last step - get your own, little Zoolander to show off their new necklaces!

Happy crafting!!  If you make one, please let me know! :)

Lulu's favorite shoes

Cute:

Cuter:

Cutest:

Not a bad way to spice up $10 Target shoes.  I was lucky enough to have my friend Erin teach me how to make rosettes in person, but if you're not as lucky as me, you can learn with her tutorial.  Or you can just buy some cute shoes for yourself!

Headbands!

I love headbands for the girls.  Love, love them.  A while back, Leila asked me to wear a headband when we were going out for frozen yogurt.  I borrowed one of hers.  Since then I've been borrowing hers a little more.  I'm kinda loving headbands for me too. 

Imagine my delight when I saw that it was headband week on one of my favorite blogs, Little Miss Momma.  A few nights ago, while watching TV I made a handful from this tutorial. 

the tulle one came out a lot cuter in person than it did in pictures:

and following this easy peasy tutorial I made a headband for myself!

{it makes my daily messy bun much cuter!}

The best part about these headbands, is that to make all of them it cost me $3.99 plus I have enough headbands to make seven more.  All of the flowers were made out of whatever random scraps I had.  ALl I had to buy were two packs of headbands, which were buy one get one free at CVS.  Holla!!

Have you come across any amazing tutorials lately that I need to know about?  Let me know in the comments section!

Glitter toes

So, this is kind of random, but I thought I'd share since it's a fun (and easy) project for mom's with girls.  Last night Leila asked me to paint her toes glittery. Since she wanted ONLY purple glitter I simply painted on a base coat of polish, shook some Martha glitter over each toe, let it dry a minute, and then put a clear top coat on top of that.

                                                               Here are the tootsies, before I cleaned the sides up with nail polish remover:

they look a lot better today, since all of the extra bits of glitter have come off, and when I picked Leila up at MOPs today the teacher said she kept kicking off her shoes to show off her "sparkly tootsies"

On a side note, here is a picture Tony insisted on taking of me yesterday (38 weeks, 2 days pregnant)

After the initial worry of Gianna being born too early, I think she might fool us and be late.  We'll see.

Happy Thursday!

Tutu Cute

On Tuesday night, Mel, Heather and I had a sewing date to make some cute shirts for our girlies, using our pal Julie's  tutorial. 

Using a Target t-shirt, a fabric scrap and some tulle (and a lot of help from Heather!), here's what I came up with:

Leila loved it and insisted on wearing it to preschool on Wednesday.  Wish me luck as I attempt to make another one on my own!

$1 shoes = one happy girl!

I love Target's "dollar spot"  I think it's so smart that they have it right when you walk in, because I don't think I've ever left without getting a few things that I didn't really need from there.  I was at Target (or what I refer to as "The Red Dot Boutique" a few days ago, and they had some little girl's dress up shoes in pink and white.  Of course I had to get both.  That night we were watching "Up" and I wasn't really into it, so I checked through my craft stash and found some sew-on embellishments, and randomly started sewing them onto the shoes.

Leila thinks they're perfect for her wedding outfit:

The shoes are not fancy at all, and I sewed the embellishments on randomly, but she loves them!

And if Leila's happy, mama's happy!

I think the shoes will go great with the Princess Tiana blue dress up dress she's getting for her birthday.  It looks just like the one she's wearing here (also purchased at the Red Dot Boutique - holla!)  On a side note, is anyone else's little girl OBSESSED with playing dress-up?  I can't remember the last time a day went by that Leila didn't play dress-up!

Heading down south

Today I'm leaving for Southern California, to hang out with some really awesome women: Heather, Julie, Erin, Marta and Mel.  I'm making the long drive down with Heather and Mel, where we'll be meeting Julie (who Heather's already met), Erin and Marta in person for the first time - Marta's flying in all the way from Missourri!

We're going to have some great bonding time, crafting time, and put some *amazing* gift baskets together for Project 320!  (If you haven't donated to Project 320 yet - you still have time. It's for a wonderful cause, and every $10 donation gets you a raffle ticket into some truly amazing, amazing drawings!)

We all started out as blog and twitter friends, and I'm so excited that we're actually all coming together!

If you don't mind, please send some prayers and good thoughts for safe travel.  It's supposed to be raining (which means my mom will be double worrying) and being 28+ weeks pregnant, and in the car for seven hours will be interesting.

I'll be back on Monday, but if you want to hear about bits of the weekend just follow me along on twitter!

I hope you all have a great weekend! : )

Monogram Wall

Now I wish I could say I was cool enough to have come up with it on my own, but I am so not.  I was in spired by this post on one of my favorite blogs.

Here is what our wall looked like before (sorry for the glare)

and after:

my supremely talented friend, Heather made the silhouette of Leila {which my dad tried to steal right off my wall!} and will soon be offering custom silhouettes in her shop!  I think everybody needs one of their kiddo (or pet!) and it would make the most perfect gift!  She also helped me cover the G's with scrapbook paper.  Most of the frames were $1 or $2 in the clearance section at Marshalls that I salvaged with a little spray paint and sand paper.

Tony was in charge of the hanging and did not agree with my vision of having things tight together like the original one, so it's not exactly how I envisioned it, but I choose to pick my battles and that's not one of them I thought was worth an argument.  Oh, well!

I'm in love with my monogram wall!

DIY Cake stand

I've been on the hunt for a turquoise cake stand for quite some time now, to no avail.  The clear one I have works fine, but it doesn't match my kitchen things.  Boo.  Anyways, I was at Marshall's yesterday and found an almost-turquoise plate for $3.99  I went next door to Michael's and got a sundae dish for $1.50, came home and glue gunned it together, and voila - diy cake stand.

It's not perfect, but it will do until I find the perfect one.

Kiddo and Mama calendars!

Leila and I seem to always have a crazy schedule of just things that we do, not in addition to all of the things that Tony does and the things that we as a family do.  Our calendar was looking CRAZY!  For a while I tried color-coating our various schedules, but we ran out of room.  SOOOO, for the last few months I've been printing cute, free calendars and putting mine and Leila's schedule on those and taping it right next to our family calendar.

JP Creative makes cute free calendars every month, and you can find this one here.

And The Tom Kat Studio has a really cute one this month, which can be found here.

Enjoy!

My latest find

<-- I found that little gem at a street fair on Sunday, from a lady who was selling some fun antique things. I haggled the price down a bit, purchased it and knew *exactly* what to do with it. That night when I got home I had to control my urge to run to Home Depot for some white rustoleum. I was strong and held out until early the next morning. I got my white rustoleum, and as soon as Leila and I got home went to town spray painting it.

It only took about an hour to completely dry. Tony hung it up in the bathroom for me, where I promptly filled it with all of the makeup and hair things he's always begging me to pick up off of the bathroom counter.

The counter is clear, and I have some great new storage for super cheap!

A typical Saturday night

I think I jinxed myself by saying I was "all caught up and done for the night" on my Facebook page because three orders JUST came rolling in. It's great, but my hands are getting tired!! ; ) Anyways, before I had three orders to do I had a smidgen of free time, and got to working on a couple of shirts for Leila. I got this cool Jim Morrisson shirt at a craft fair I went to last weekend. The company it's from is called Young Punks and they have (in my opinion) some pretty cool clothes! So, the shirt is totally a boy's shirt, but I looooove The Doors and had to have it for Leila. The only way I could think to girlify it was to add some crystals to the neck. Not sure if it completely did the trick, but whatever. I like it:

Then, I made a little tank top. I bought a "Make it Work" iron-on applique from Michael's a few weeks ago on clearance for .76 Didn't know what I'd do with it, but I love me some "Project Runway" and especially Tim Gunn. Target had their basic tanks on sale for 2/$7 so I picked up one in hot pink, added some crystals to the colar and voila:

I'm not sure how long it will hold up - the applique doesn't seem to be too high quality...possibly why it was on clearance. Anyways, again it's something I like that I made out of what I had lying around.

Go ahead, and laugh it up, be-jeweller haters. ; P

How Mommy's Decorate Easter Eggs

How do I decorate eggs? With Martha Stewart glitter, of course! I had some random craft eggs in my egg tower on the table and while they were cute they weren't doing anything for me. Leila was asleep and I was caught up on orders, when I remembered I had some MS glitter in my craft stuff. I only made eight eggs -- dayum, it was messy! I might make more in some other colors but that will be on a different day.



The eggs started out like this: And ended up like this:

Now my Easter egg tower is much prettier!

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Angel Face Designs is back and open for business! I finally got my workspace to be..well, workable. It's not pretty yet, but I can definitely get my craft on! I've added two new designs to my store - the "Mom²" and the "Team" necklace. I have lots more ideas and hope to be listing some more fun things soon.

Thank you all for your patience!!

Love, Heather

Getting the creative itch...

My work space is still not looking great. It's not this bad, but still not jewelry-making-able. I've been feeling the need to do something creative, but with my limited space and access to tools it's been hard. Fortunately I found a fun little tool that has allowed me to "be-jewell" things. I got this shirt for Leila on major sale at Baby Gap, and while it's cute it never jumped out at me. Then I decided to add some bling, and now I'm in love with it!

I can't wait for Leila to try it on! She loves bling as much as I do and I know she'll love it! Let the be-jewelling madness begin! Bwahahahaha!