Peck Life

A Little Heart

The older I get, the more I love Valentine’s day. Not because of all the typical stereotypes, but just because it’s sweet and small. Decorations and gifts are minimal, yet it’s a good reminder to be thankful for the love in your life. This year, Sky helped me create some decorations for our mantel. By “help”, I mean he cut a million inch-long pieces of twine, ran around with scissors, and ate crayon shavings. It’s nothing big or extravagant, but just enough to remind us all what season we are in.

In case you are wondering, the print is a free printable found via Pinterest {of course!} and much more Valentine’s Day inspiration can be found here!

Christmas Crafting

We’ve been busy craft elves around here.

As “thank you” favors for Sky’s birthday party, I filled chevron bitty bags with printable holiday gift tags. All of the tags were found online for free, and printed on my home computer. Add a hole punch and some twine and you have the cutest little package of goodies. The cost of this project is almost zero! If you are looking for some printable tags, I’ve been sharing some here and here. Ohdeedoh also did a great round-up of Christmas printables. The tag pictured above is by Andrea Victoria.

To spruce up our mantel, I made some yarn trees. I never got around to decorating them but I think they look kinda cute just plain. It’s the perfect apple/kermit the frog green. I love it.

Fabric bags were also sewn. This time by both Josh and I. I’ve wanted to make re-usable bags for a while now so I was happy to finally get to this project. The fabric is Michael Miller, so cheery!

Although this isn’t a full blown craft, I just have you tell you that Metropolitan Market is my new favorite store for flowers. I don’t have one of these stores near my house but they did just open one about 10 minutes from work! It’s the best. The photos above are NOT ARRANGED. This is what happens when you get home late and everything needs to get in water – you just plop it all in one vase together. The following day, all the flowers got taken apart, trimmed, messed with, and turned into 3 separate arrangements. I’ve been itching to buy the Craspedia {yellow} ever since I saw it before Thanksgiving.

Tissue Paper Stained Glass

I’ve been meaning to share this really simple art project for a while now. As you can tell from these photos, there were still leaves on the trees! It’s amazing what a few weeks does to the yard. This would be a fun rainy day activity and the supplies are very inexpensive – you can get it all at the dollar store. Sky was more excited about the scissors but if your child is 2+, they will probably have a ton of fun!

2nd Birthday Invitations

I am in both shock and awe that Sky will be turning 2 very soon. We’ve opted to have a small party at our house this year with our families on Sky’s ACTUAL birthday, since it will be on a weekend. I’m still figuring out the details of decorating and food but one thing I didn’t waste any time on, were the invites. I knew I wanted to make them and I knew I wanted to try some ombre envelopes after being inspired by these dip-dye paper flower pots. Here’s a little peek into the creation and finished product!

If you decide to dye paper {envelopes especially}, a word of warning that it takes the “sticky” off the envelope flap. You’ll also want to flatten the envelopes after they’ve thoroughly dried. I pressed mine in between some heavy books for a few days and that seemed to work well.

The invite itself was creating using some clip art from Jessica Sprague {one of my favorite sources for digital graphics}, free fonts from Da Font, textured paper from Paper Zone, and my ink jet printer. I use Microsoft Publisher to design/format the invite – it’s one of my favorite programs for projects like this! I’ve removed the date/address but I promise it looks much cuter with more text!

I embellished the back flap with some fabric tape, but you could also use washi tape or stickers, the possibilities are endless! Don’t forget cute stamps!

Another Sign I Might Have OCD.

Remember the sweet nightstands I scored on Craigslist a while ago? Well, I finally got around to lining the drawers!

Did you know that the shelf and drawer paper selection out there is dismal? It’s hard to find anything remotely pretty. After LOTS of hunting, I eventually stumbled upon Chic Shelf Paper. FINALLY, some options! But, after measuring, it would have been almost $70. Not really within my “drawer lining” budget, especially for something no one really sees!

I soon realized I would have more options if I went with fabric or paper so after lots more searching and second-guessing, {a little about paper but more about why I can’t stop obsessing and must find THE ONE}, I landed here:

This is actually wrapping paper from Paper Source, one of my favorite stores in the entire world. At $3.50 per sheet, my total spending for this project was only $21! I also used a little bit of removable double sided tape in each corner of the drawer to keep it in place. I really like this paper, although it’s not like….to die for. It’s pretty and it works {it’s one of the few papers that was actually wide enough to fit!} and as Josh had to remind me a million times, IT’S IN A DRAWER. I guess I was hoping to find something that would spark me and be the perfect thing, but I now realize that’s unrealistic given how picky I am about EVERYTHING. Please don’t ask me why I feel the need to find “perfect” paper for the inside of a drawer. I think it’s a sickness, for REAL.

In case you are also in the market for some unique paper, here are a few of my favorite online shops:

Caskata Paper

Luxe Paperie

Paper Studio

Paper Mojo

Craft Project: Fall Bunting

A few weeks ago, I came across this image on pinterest.

Super cute right? Well, I decided to make my own, and you can too! All you need is some burlap, fabric markers, and bias tape. You can also use twine or thread to sew the flags together but given my remedial sewing skills, I opted for something a little beefier so I could actually see where I was stitching.

Happy Fall!

Craft Project: Index Card Calendar

If your anything like me, you might find it difficult to document life each day. I can usually recall big stuff like vacations or fun events but the day to day little things? Not so much. When I saw this calendar idea, I knew this was my chance….I could write something down on an index card every day…that doesn’t seem hard. Oh, and get this, you use it year after year after year….perfect. It will last forever! It’s also super easy to make! Here is my finished product:

Like the design*sponge post, I hunted for vintage postcards to use as dividers. I have an entire box of random postcards but none of them seemed cool enough to use in this project. I ended up finding some really unique postcards at an antique shop but they were $3-$4 PER CARD…eek, more than my budget for this “inexpensive project”. That’s when I stumbled upon Ashley Ann’s layered bookmarks. I loved this look so much and I knew I could mimic it for the dividers. Plus, I’m obsessed with my twine and tape and this gave me a good excuse to use it!

I used the date stamp to create an index card for each day of the year and then created dividers with scrapbook paper and decorated with random doilies, paper, tape and twine. The berry baskets are from Garnish because at the time, I couldn’t find traditional green/paper berry baskets. Now, they’re all over the place! But, I like the ones I have because they are pretty sturdy! If you don’t want to wrap it in fabric, you could also paint it or just leave it au natural.

I love how it turned out…it’s on my nightstand now, somewhere I will remember to use it!

Happy crafting!

DIY Glitter Letters

We recently threw a bridal shower at work for two of our co-workers, Jill and Diane. I was partly on “present duty” and we ended up making some super cute gift baskets filled with items off their registries, plus other fun goodies. To adorn the baskets, we scored some cardboard/paper letters at Paper Source but decided they needed to be spruced up…..with GLITTER of course.

So, with minimal supplies {glue, foam brush, glitter}, we completed the transformation:

 

I think they looked better in person but at least you get the idea! Pretty awesome huh? It actually didn’t take long and the only tricky thing was trying to let them dry without “touching” any surface. Before I glitterized, I stuck a really skinny wood dowel through each letter. This gave me something to hold onto and then we tied string around each end of the dowel and suspended the letters {from our mountain bikes} in the garage so they could dry.

Here’s a little more glitter inspiration:

Also, Pugly Pixel has some wonderful free blog bling {Glitter Eye Glass Frames} and tutorial for DIY Glitter Tape! Go glitter!

It’s the little things….

I’m detail oriented. So, naturally, there are lots of small bits and pieces of life that make me happy…like almost in a weird way, a little too happy. Here’s just a little of what I’ve been enjoying lately:

What little things make you happy??

Bulletin Board Makeover

I’m so happy this project is finished enough that I can share!

I had a really old bulletin board in the closet.....I remember having through most of high school….which means it was about 12-14ish years old? Creepy! I had always saved it with the hopes of turning it into something fresh and new. Funny how having a kid puts projects like this on the backburner! :) It looked just like this, same colors and everything:

It was ok I guess, but the Ivory had turned to a nice shade of dust and it was time for something new: cover the old with fabric and put it in a cool, chunky frame.

I purchased a fun print from Fabric.com but OF COURSE it was on backorder and I had to wait almost a month for it to show up! So worth it though – I just LOVE this fabric and since I’m too scared to use it elsewhere in the house in large quantities, I thought this would be the perfect project to rid myself of my neutral problem. Even though I love color and prints, I always revert back to the same safe colors when it comes to decorating. So, I’m trying to start small and one day, maybe everything won’t be so TAN.

Aside from covering the bulletin board in fabric, Josh built me a frame from some leftover baseboard trim we had in the garage. Here’s what it looked like before I painted it {See that green stuff on the floor? That’s grass from our lawn mower!! haha}:

I knew I couldn’t stay with plain ol’ wood so I decided to go with some Martha Stewart paint from Home Depot – Aegean Blue to be exact. I love all the colors and you can get a sample bottle for only a few dollars, PERFECT for small craft projects!

Want to see the finished Product??

The color is a little off in this picture, just because it’s so dark in our basement and I had trouble editing, ugh. It’s hung right above our sewing/craft table, so hopefully it works out as a spot to post current inspiration or projects. Now, I just need to come up with some cute thumbtacks. I really love the types made from buttons and also anything fabric covered, like these or these.

Also, in case you are wondering, here is a quick price breakdown, all this for roughly $10!

Paint Sample: $2.94 for 8 oz.

Fabric: $8.98/yard {but I only used a small portion for this project}

Frame: free! {minus the labor by Josh, thank you honey}

Happy Crafting!