Insert Punny Napkin Post Title Here

Try as I might, I was lacking on the post title inspiration today. So sorry.

For my brunch that I had, I decided to give some homemade napkins a go. They're cute, save on paper waste, up the ante fancy-pants-wise, and are a great excuse to learn how to sew mitered corners. In my usual thick-headed and stupid kill-as-many-birdies-with-one-stone-as-possible-even-if-every-time-you-do-it-you-say-next-time-1-new-thing-at-a-time fashion, I added on binding to that equation. I found a tutorial that said it was for beginners, so I figured "Hey...I'm a beginner!" without batting an eye...I recommend learning mitered corners, and then binding, and then combining the two together, but I digress.

The inspiration for these napkins came from this photo I came upon at the Purl Bee:

Cute right? I loved the simple main napkin with the fun border, and they just looked so pretty all together. Now, I certainly wasn't about to go and purchase a "spectrum package," so I took a different route with mismatched-but-matching patterns all tied together with the same binding. Here is what I came up with:

Now, I know that those don't look much like the inspiration napkins, so here's the story. After reading through the tutorial, I headed to Joann to see what I could find for fabric. Now, let me preface this by saying I'm cheap. Ok, got that out of the way. It just so happened that fat quarters were on sale that week, and since you can only use one coupon at a time, I decided the coupon was going toward the bias tape maker I needed to purchase for nice even binding. Some (extremely cute) high end fabric was on sale, but even at 30% off, it seemed too pricey, especially for a project that involved new sewing adventures (read: could go horribly wrong and end up with a mess of chopped up and sewing-machine-eaten fabric), so I opted to go for the fat quarters. It was more fun that way since I could choose a bunch of different fabrics! It took a while to settle on 6 I liked, but I finally narrowed them all down. Since the napkins were busy, I chose to go with plain edging, and I'm in a gray phase at the moment (especially a love for gray and white, hence the starting fabric with the modern botanic pattern that was the base for my selection), so I found a nice mid-tone gray that went with all 6 fabrics. I originally picked up matching gray thread, but later changed course and opted for a contrasting color since (again, in my dumbness), I decided to add another item to the newness list and try out a new decorative stitch for each napkin. That ended up being Ok, but seriously, I don't know why I keep doing this to myself.

Next up, I gathered my tools:

• 1 fat quarter per napkin
• 2 yards of fabric for the trim (the width is mostly irrelevant; by using 2 yards of fabric, you can create binding that does not need to be pieced together to go around the entirety of your napkin if you keep them to 17" square--finally used my noggin on that one)
• 1-inch bias tape maker (or whatever you'd like your trim width to measure)
• thread of choice
• a measuring implement
• a cutting implement (and mat)
• pins (not pictured, but extremely helpful)
• an iron for pressing the binding (possible to do without but...probably really hard)
• a sewing machine (unless you prefer to sew by hand, in which case, feel free to show me your napkins next century--I'd love to see)

For the vast majority of this project, I referenced this tutorial by Molly at The Purl Bee, which was mentioned above. She has lots of step by step pictures. I'll keep it basic.

First up, I ironed all my fabric for easier measuring and cutting. (It's recommended to pre-wash, but I was lazy and didn't. My napkins are permanently a little rumply since washing due to uneven shrinking, but I don't mind. If you think you'll mind, toss 'em in the wash, and consider using Shout Color Catchers if mixing different colors, especially brights and whites.) Then, I cut everything to size. It took me a while to figure out that (at least my) fat quarters were not all exactly the same size, cut exactly square, etc. so be careful in your chopping. Then I cut my bias strips.

In case you don't know what measuring looks like, here is a photo for reference.

Next, I ran the strips through the little tape maker and pressed 'em as I went. I'll admit, I was a bit intimidated by that little bugger, but it's quite simple once you get the fabric through the little opening. I found that pressing as close to the opening as possible made my strips more even. So then I was left with this nice neat pile-o-napkins-waiting-to-be-born:

Up next is pinning your border to the napkins. This is where I started to hit some bumps. Pinning along the edges isn't too bad (although, it did take a little practice)...but it was pinning the corners that was hard. Molly sort of skipped right over it in her directions (probably because she can do it with her eyes closed), but I found this to be the most difficult part of the project. I'm not sure if I can offer many words of wisdom as I'm still not a pro after doing 24 of them, but feel free to share if you have any tips.

Next, it's sewin' time. Like I said, I opted for fancy-shmancy decorative stitching, which I think actually helped to cover up my still developing sewing-in-a-straight-line-skillz. However, it was a nice sampler exercise and resulted in some extra cuteness. The more intricate stitches made pivoting at the corners a bit more difficult (because of all the layers of fabric?), so they needed some yanking/prying coaxing to start down the new side, but aside from some extra thread buildup, it wasn't a horrible result. Sewing the binding together evenly at the end definitely took some practice and re-re-re-re-reading of Molly's instructions, but once you understand what to do, it's not too bad--just takes some wrapping your head around it. Promise. But consider having a cup of Pomegranate Patience on the side just in case.

So here they are all finished and ready for face-wiping. I think they came out pretty well! I think these little shark fins are my favorite. But I actually like all of them, and I purposefully matched certain stitches with certain prints by choice. I definitely recommend sewing on a scrap beforehand because there is a lot of variety within each stitch due to height and width adjustment, so make sure you get it right before you start; seam rippers are fun, but I had to use one for plenty of other mistakes on corners and binding finishing that I didn't want to have tooooo much fun. 

If binding seems (or should I say seams? har) a little intimidating, there are lots of other tutorials out there that just teach you how to finish edges with a simple mitered corner on the main piece of fabric, such as this one and this one.

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this whole sewing business. What about you all? Have any beginnerish projects you've tried or recommend? Let me at 'em!

Note: original Purl Bee image found here.

Pallet Time

It finally happened. I jumped on the pallet bandwagon.

The sad part is, I jumped on the pallet bandwagon about 3 months ago. But I got stuck on my project and set it aside for a long time until a light bulb went off in my head that said "Wow, you're dumb. Your original plan will work just fine, just get some longer screws." Der.

There are a LOT of pallet projects out there, as I'm sure many of you who read a blog like this are aware. Pallets are in vogue right now because being green and upcycling and being natural and using what you've got is all hip and cool. I consider myself to want to be all of those things, so I'm just as much of a bandwagoneer as the next guy (picture me hanging my head in moderate embarrassment, but not caring that much because it's the way I've been for a while.)

To get your little pallet-y brains churning, here are some of the bazillions of projects floating about on the Internets:

Is your bike always falling over? (That question is ten times funnier if you read it in Charlie's voice from It's Always Sunny regarding his "kitten mittens.") Do you enjoy wedging tires into vertical slots? Try this bike rack on for size:

Like plants? Kill them when you grow them inside? Want something that requires zero work except smooshing soil, potting mix, and your plants of choice in between some slats? Give this super simple pallet garden a go:

Prefer to at least look like you did a little DIY action? Use little planters and some plumbing rings for some industrial-natural awesomeness:

Want to bring the pallet love inside? Spruce it up with some bright paint, throw on some casters, and you've got yourself a brand new coffee table:

Like pallets so much you want to make sure they can hear your heart beating while you sleep? Consider whipping up a pallet headboard:

And this may be my all-time fave. Hopefully something similar will be incorporated into my *fingers crossed* not-so-distant-future-new-apartment-studio-space-that-will-not-be-shared-and-will-be-all-mine. How awesome would this be with some plexi-glass for a smooth work surface? It looks awesome and has a ridiculous amount of storage naturally built in. And for $free.99, I don't think you can beat the price (assuming you find someone nice to fork over some pallets free-o-charge):

So, after some perusing, I decided I wanted to get in on the pallet action, but with something I hadn't seen before. I knew I would probably use the whole pallet because I was hoping to use it as some space filler/art over the couch in our living room since that wall is about 1.5 stories high since it stretches half-way into the loft to create a bannister. Basically, we had a 14 foot fall of nothingness to fill. And I wanted something big.

I also wanted a clock.

So what do you get when you put those two things together? Wait for it...a pallet clock. Original right?

Actually, I think it's pretty cool. I picked up a wall clock kit at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coup for about $18 to get things started (it comes with vinyl number decals to actually create a clock face, but I bailed on those; I grew up with a number-less clock above my kitchen table and don't mind clocks sans numbers). I decided to up the contrast of the pallet against the wall, so I threw some stain on after a good sanding. Because there are an even number of slats on this particular pallet, I needed something to anchor my clock to in the center, so I picked up a wooden disk (again from HL) for about $1. A couple of screws later, and she was ready to clock rock.

The major snafu I ran into was how to get this baby on the wall. I'm not sure if you've ever picked up a pallet before, but I was suuuuper surprised to feel how heavy this thing was. I'd say at least 25 ell-bees if not more. Clearly, it had to be anchored into some studs, 3 being ideal for the ultimate safety-factor considering I didn't want to spend the rest of my time in my apartment perched on the edge of my couch waiting for a pallet to rip out of the wall and squash me. But how to do this? There are big negative spaces between the "front" and "back" boards of a pallet making screwing through the front into the wall impossible...but the slat spacing of the "front" boards makes it impossible to reach around/through and drill through the "back" pieces directly into the wall. So I used my noggin and picked up one of these steel hoozi-whats-its from Lowe's for around 5 bones. I figured it was perfect since it came with tons of evenly spaced holes all ready for hanging that could easily line up with any stud distances because there's a hole every 1/2 inch or so:

Here is where I hit the snageroo. A 3-foot bar was about 2 inches short to reach cleanly from side to side to be anchored on the same horizontal plane. But a 4 footer stuck way out on the sides and looked super lame. No one at Lowe's or Home Depot could cut it for me and I certainly don't have the tools or know-how to do it myself. So I half-heartedly looked around for varying sizes but knew it was no use. I chalked it up as a fail and pretended there wasn't a pallet leaning against my dining room table in my living room for 3 months.

And then I realized I was really dumb. Like...really super duper ultra dumb. With 2-inch screws, I could easily span the negative space on the back of the pallet to make sure the steel bar still fell even across the entire back. I would illustrate this with a photo if I had thought to snap one in my excitement for overcoming my stupidity and hurriedly finishing the project and getting this thing on the wall. Womp womp. My bad.

Long story short, after screwing the bar to the pallet, marking my studs, and putting some nice 2-inch anchor screws in the wall, this project was up on the wall in no time thanks to the ease of hanging because of the numerous holes in the steel rod. They just slipped right over the screw heads. It was glorious.

Anyone else come up with some original pallet art? Link to it in the comments below--I'd love to see!


Note: External pallet project images found here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Brunch Invitations

I love the idea of brunch. I pin images on Pinterest related to brunch like it's my job. Brunch is the perfect combo of breakfast foods (fav meal of the day), dessert food (favorite non-officially-recognized meal of the day), and girlie drinks. Honestly, what's not to like about brunch?

So as my internship dies down, I was trying to come up with a way to thank the people who have helped me the most this year. I've worked with such an amazing group of people who have all helped me mature and better understand not only my profession, but also the world of education and the realities that come along with it. I wanted to thank the people who made the biggest mark on my year, and wanted to do it in a way that was fun, meaningful, genuine, and "very mLe." After throwing around a bunch of ideas with the bf, I settled on a small Sunday brunch. And how could you have a girlie brunch without invitations?

I had been dying to use some new stamps I got for Christmas, but hadn't found a way to tie into cards since one of the sets I had asked for was very "scrapbooky" and didn't lend itself well to cards. After beeboppin' around on P-ville for a while, I found a few invitations that had the overall look and feel I was going for and then went with it from there. This image was the one I liked the most that helped me design the final product:

I wanted to try and stamp out the flowers myself using different shades of ink and different "petal" sizes, but unfortunately, the craft paper I was using soaked it up far too much for the effect that I was going for. So I decided to take the leap and make a --GASP--hybrid project.

I have never made a hybrid project before. It's either been all by hand or all digital--one or the other. No mixies. But I actually really like the way they came out! The flower leaves, large text, and heavy horizontal lines are digital. The rest is stamped or handwritten.

After making the original invitation (the craft paper part), I decided to draw up some directions since navigating in and around my building can be difficult and kind of confusing. I simply slit a line at the bottom of the invitation and slipped the bottom of the directions sheet through and then let the baker's twine hold the upper portion in place. It's not super sturdy, but I'm not exactly planning on using these to support my weight while skydiving. I liked the 3-dimensional idea so much that I went back in with my craft knife and raised up the flower leaves for more dimension and texture. It only took about a minute per invitation and I think it added a really nice final touch!

I'm finalizing the menu and definitely utilizing Pinterest to help me. I'll share ideas as I go!

The stamps I used are from Ali Edwards "Today You" set, and the large vellum flower is from Hero Arts. The butterfly punch is Martha Stewart.

What about you guys...are you as enamored of brunch as I am? Sigh. I love brunch.

Note: Gray/Black invitation image found here.

Stripper Smack Down

No no, not that kind of stripper. Sheesh. Paint stripper. I've been meaning to blog about this for a while but I lost the photos and finally located (most of) them today. Last summer, sitting next to a trash can on garbage night awaiting doom at the dump, I spied a furniture piece friend in need of some help. Not wanting to be totally creepy, I didn't take a photo, but rather sent my boyfriend to fetch it after dark. Not creepy at all. She came with some black knob hardware that was in pretty decent shape, but I forgot to snag a pic before beginning plastic surgery. So here she is partially naked and ready to begin her transformation:

Being extremely paranoid about bugs and critters, I wiped the entire thing down twice with antibacterial wipes and a strong bathroom antibac spray before even allowing her on the patio. Upon getting a good look at her, I was pleasantly surprised that the dresser was all wood, and though it had a LOT of layers of paint on it, was in pretty good shape. I wasn't feeling the off-white vibe, and since she was all wood, I decided to strip 'er down to see see the grain hiding underneath her layers of color (as it turned out, there were a LOT). I was hoping to end up with something like this gorgeous lovely from Kate over at Centsational Girl.

Being the semi-green person that I am, and hearing good things from Centsational Girl about Citristrip, I decided to be nice to the earth (and my lungs), and strip the paint the green way. (Excuse the blurry photos; my poor little point and shoot was on death's door at this point. She's since gone to camera heaven. May she shoot in peace).

I laid out all the drawers on a big ol' piece of cardboard to catch any drippings, etc. Note: a 3 inch border is SO not enough to accomplish this. If you try this yourself, go big or go home. Trust me. It beats trying to scrape up stripper drippings off of concrete so you don't get charged/chewed out by your landlord.

So I painted on a nice thick layer of orange goop (aka: Citristrip) and let it sit for the recommended amount of time. After 30 minutes, I had this.

Once again, excuse the awful pics. If you could see what was going on there, you'd notice that there was very minimal bubbling. I had never stripped anything before, so wasn't sure if that was normal. So I gave it another 15 minutes. Then I had this:

That seemed like an improvement. Thinking that was what I was looking for, I gave it a scrape. (Spoiler alert: that is SO not enough bubbling). After scraping off maybe 10% of a single layer of paint and 100% of the stripper, I was left with a pile of orange goop in my tin and whole heck of a lot of paint still stuck on my dresser. Fail.

I figured it was time to chalk that one up as a failure (both earth-wise and financial-wise), and go for the old school hard-core nasty-bad-for-you-and-the-earth stripper. I'm not sure if it was the kind of paint that was used that was the culprit for the lack of effect; judging by the impact Citristrip had on the above-linked project at Centsational Girl, it may have been since hers was clearly latex paint and peeled off in a nice clean sweep. And mine...well...didn't. Enter chemical-ville stage right:

Take 2:

After only 5 minutes, this bubble party was goin' on.

And after another 20, she was ready to rock.

Time to scrape. Now, I am not wearing gloves in this photo. Nor did I test for lead paint, so...don't do it my way. However, I DID wear a mask, and since there was no dust (I was stripping, not sanding), I wasn't too worried. However, not wearing gloves was a bad idea and I don't recommend it. I got chemical burns all over my hands and forearms and they HURT. You don't notice when you get it on you, and then all of a sudden  you think, "Hmm...my arm hurts. What is that? Ow! OWWWW!!" Then you look down and see a tiny little dot of something on your arm and think, "Was I stung? OW! OWW!!! WTF??" Then you swipe your hand over your arm, and it helps a little bit, but then your hand starts to burn and your arm continues to get worse. After that, you run around your patio like an idiot looking for something to wipe all your skin on, such as a large tarp, grass, or nearby garbage bag. Just sayin'. Wear gloves. And not the latex ones--they don't work for this business. You actually need the chemical hazardous ones. Not that I know from experience or anything...


Ok, so back to stripping. Paint. Stripping paint. This tool is handy because of all of its shapes and nooks for getting multiple surface types. It's like a torch of awesome.

For easy paint removal/picking uppage, I just placed my bin at the end and sloughed my pile of goo right off the end and into the bucket. You should really use a metal receptacle, as the stripper can burn through plastic over time, but I had used mine with the lame-o Citristrip and knew I'd need another one later to denature the stripper.

After round 1, I hadn't reached wood. So I did another...and I uncovered this little gem. There was a different poodle on each drawer, some kind of decal. Cute but...not really. Interesting, but off it went.

After the last round, I was left with this. It wasn't perfect, but it was a major improvement and I decided to sand the rest off.

Before sanding, I wanted to deactivate the stripper so that I could handle the piece without that God-awful burning. So I grabbed some odorless turpenoid and a stripper scrubby (that worked GREAT by the way) and gave her a good rub down. It caught some little stripped bits here and there that I missed with the smooth scraper. Plus she was neutralized and ready to go!

This is where I would show you the after of her all cleaned up and ready. I KNOW I took those pictures, but I can't find them for the life of me...they should be with all the others one taken at the same time. My computer must have gotten hungry and eaten them. It's too bad, because the wood grain was quite pretty...although that's a bit of a giveaway for the fact that she ended up NOT stained or I'd take a pic right now. Oh man, are you totally on the edge of your seat? I know you are. Don't lie.

A Video Review: The Pippa

I have certainly never done a video review before, but I decided to give it a go. This video is pretty long (about 19 minutes), as I haven't gotten to the point to learn what to cut out and what to leave in (it's much easier when it comes to written stuff...but I've had a lot of practice doing that, so hopefully this will get easier over time). I'm still learning the ropes of iMovie as I go, but I think I managed to come up with something that can answer peoples' questions about the Pippa!

It's a little nerve-wracking to purchase something that's $250 without getting to see, touch, and hold it in person first. I found a few reviews, both written and video, that were helpful, but they didn't really gather everything into one place. So I decided to have a go at a Vlog review! Like I say on my fashion page, and like I said above, I'm no fashionista and I'm certainly not a video-editing pro. But it was fun, and I'd love to hear feedback on what things to cut out, what people like, etc.

I do have one disclaimer: my lovely Canon Vixia HFR10 is a great camera, shoots awesome footage (especially in daylight), and is very user friendly for a beginner videographer (if you can call me that) like myself. However, the internal microphone picks up a subtle clicking noise within the camera that I have since learned is the auto focus. So excuse the clickity-clack chatter in the background, but sadly I have no external mic which is the only remedy I have come across!

Since the video is a bit long, here is a general breakdown of certain parts so you can skip to certain sections if you'd like!

• Intro and Background: 0:00
• Purchasing the Pippa in North America and the "Database": 1:25
• Packaging: 3:05
• Pricing: 4:10
• General Overview and Description: 6:15
• Sizing Comparisons: 11:05
• Leather (Color, Feel, and Texture): 13:00
• Some Nice Details: 14:25
• Carrying and Storage Options: 15:20
• Closing: 18:25

As a second caveat...after embedding this in my blog, I have no idea what on earth YouTube did to the lighting in my video; before and after each scene it gets really dark. That's certainly not showing in my editing on iMovie--sorry for the techno effects! Live and learn!

If you have any specific questions about the bag, I'd be more than happy to help if I can--feel free to leave a comment :)