DIY Recyclable Shopping Bag

A little over a year ago, before our big Black Friday shopping outing, my sister gifted me a super awesome reusable shopping bag from Gap. It is nylon, light, and small enough to fit in my purse. I try to use it everywhere I go so I don't come home with a bunch of bags I am just going to get rid of. It also held a heck of a lot more than would fit in your average Forever 21 or Old Navy bag. When I was shopping for fabric for a different Christmas gift I was making I ran across this adorable fox fabric at Joann's. My sister and I had just had a conversation about how foxes were going to be the next chevron and the fabric almost perfectly matches the way her basement is decorated. So I had to get it. I had also noticed that she used her Gap shopping bag a lot, and maybe needed another one.

Above is the finished product - and how you would stick it in your purse. 

Below is what it looks like opened up.

And how it folds...

The secret is this little pouch attached to the top hem of the tote bag. 

It allows the whole thing to fold into itself and become discrete. 

I just used the one she gave me last year to engineer the pattern for this one.

Admit One

I made this Admit One ticket holder for my musical-loving sister for Christmas. I think I might need to make myself one too. I realize it matches absolutely nothing in her house, I just don't care! It was too cute not to make. Good luck finding somewhere to put it Kate!

I actually got the idea from another blog I read, written by a crafty old friend of mine I went to school with. Check out her inspirational blog here, and her Admit One project here. Like Ashley, I went hunting for shadowboxes at Michaels. They were having a crazy good deal that day, so I picked up a plain black one, about 8x10. I also searched around for theater-looking letters and background. I found the most beautiful piece of scrapbook paper for the backing - it is textured and glittery and inky black. I just glued it right to the back of the frame with hot glue. Then I added some shiny textured letters, securing them with hot glue as well.

For fear she would open the gift and have no idea what it was for, I took some old tickets and taped them together to put in the box. They are not musical tickets (because those are for my own scrapbook) but they are WMU tickets, which I thought would be funny (my sister went to WMU's rival school). Go Broncos! 

I also learned it is incredibly hard to take a picture of a frame during this project. 

Any tips out there? Yikes!

Gray Kitchen!

This week I broke down and did something I really did not think I would do... I repainted a room in my house. I always thought that once I had the house set, and had painted the walls I wanted painted, I would be content. I should have known better...

I do think it is fitting that the first room to be repainted is the room I painted first when we moved in.

So now it is gray. A big improvement I think! There was just too much green in there before. Now it feels a little older and more sophisticated.

The room has come a long way... here is a comparison with a couple weeks after move in. Since then we painted the cabinets and updated the hardware, and now we have switched out the paint color and updated all of the plugs and light switches.

I also made a new valence. I did a tutorial for the curtain that was there before.

I think the gray really makes the white cabinets and trim look sharp. 

Today T.J. and I celebrated our Christmas a little early. I love this crackling fireplace "movie" on Netflix. It really set the mood! If you want to read about T.J.'s gifts, he is writing about them on his own blog today. Read about them here.