Non-fabric home decorating projects

I just made this weekly calendar, inspired by pinterest. I got an 8x8 photo frame set and cut out rectangles from a set of historical European maps given to us by my MIL. The image on the left is right after I put the maps in the frames and wrote on it with dry erase markers to test their erasibility on the glass. Then I used a silver Sharpie to label the days of the week. We haven't quite figured out what the eighth rectangle will be for. Possibilities are the weekly menu, upcoming events that aren't quite on the weekly calendar yet, or a to-do list. My things are in blue, Jon's things are in red, and things for both of us are in black. I was a little disappointed by how light the silver Sharpie was, but I can get a paint pen and go over it sometime.

Making this calendar reminded me of some other framed home decor projects I've done, so here they are.

This is a set of vintage postcards I bought on a trip to France. Some of them have been written on, and luckily I was able to frame them without cutting them.

This is a set of three postcards we got on the same trip to Europe, but in Germany. The two sides are early Kandinsky prints, and the middle is a cute Max Ernst statue. Jon and I are Max Ernst fans. I did have to cut these to frame them, but they aren't as irreplaceable as the vintage postcards.

This is a photo cluster we have near our kitchen. It's pictures of us and our families. The glare on my grandmother (left middle) is due to the position of our kitchen windows, and I couldn't maneuver out of it. I am pretty pleased with how cute this is. I like the different frames and not-too-fussy placement.

Finally, a framed picture of us on the French island of Porquerolles. I decorated the frame with sea glass we found there. I had never seen sea glass before that trip, and it has become a hobby for us.

Back with more flowers

After a long sewing hiatus due to finishing my thesis (yay!), I am back in the sewing room. My first project was a bunch of mending , which was boring but allowed me to cross a lot of things off my to-do list quickly. But today I finally finished my first real project of the new year.

Early last year, I reposted one of those chain "comment on my post and I'll make something for you" things on facebook. Back in February, I made a tote bag for a friend who had commented on that. She has two adorable daughters, and I wanted to include something for them. Now, 11 months later, I have finally done that. I made these two flower hair clips out of the same fabrics I used for the tote.

These were from the same McCall's pattern set I have used for other pins. I made the one with the purple on the outside first and learned why they have you hand-gather. I'm a lazy hand-sewist, so I always do things on the machine if possible. I machine-gathered instead, and I could not get it short enough to roll into a nice flower shape, so I had to double it. (It's like a cone point of angle 4π, but the identification doesn't quite work at the ends.) In these pictures, you can see how one of the pins has one layer and one has two. I do think the hand-gathered one is better, but the machine one looks OK too, at least in my opinion.

The glue is still drying on the hair clip attachment, but I hope I can get it in the mail tomorrow.

I'm really glad to be back in the sewing room. I hope that I get a nice rhythm going on my sewing projects. In the search for the fabric I was using last night, I saw so many pieces of fabric I had bought with such big ideas and haven't gotten around to yet. They aren't even UFOs yet, they're unstarted objects. It makes me feel a little sad when I see how much I've bought without using, but I am also happy with how much I've done with some other things, like scraps I've been making into baby bibs and the leftovers from my wedding dress and my sister's bridesmaids dresses, which have been used for many placemats. (More bibs and placemats in the works this year, too!)

In other news, I'm taking a stained glass class right now. I got a Groupon for a class at this store, and I went to my first session today. At the end of the three hours, I had chosen a project, traced it, chosen and labeled the colors and orientations of my glass pieces, cut out the paper pattern, and started cutting the glass. To cut glass, we're just scoring it with a rotary cutting device and then basically cracking it. It's pretty cool. I'm excited to do such a different art project. I hope I like it when I'm finished.