Did you know that the Silhouette machine can cut fabric???!!!

Did you know that the Silhouette machine can cut fabric?

It can!

And it is awesome!

This past weekend, I loaded up a few of my goodies that Silhouette so graciously provided, and headed over to my sister in law's house to work on a project she wanted to complete.

Val had a few 10x10 canvases that her husband made for her and they were just waiting for a project.

In true engineer form, my brother in law initialed and dated his work.

Val went to her fabric stash and picked out a few different kinds of fabrics to use.

Silhouette has a fantastic fabric owl image that I bought to use for this.

It made the design so easy!

We knew that we would need to use spray adhesive to mount the owl to the canvas, so we didn't use fabric interfacing for the large owl shape.

This was the first fabric cut that we made and I was super impressed!

After we cut out all of the large owl base shape, we needed to get started on the details.

I took my clean cut fabric interfacing and cut it down to the size I would need.

I used an iron to adhere the rough side to the backside of my fabric.

Once the sheet cools, peel off the backing sheet from your fabric and you are left with fabric that can easily be cut and ironed on to any surface.

Look how clean the cut is!

Val started playing with patterns and shapes on the owls and once the base shapes were in place, she ironed them on.

After ironing on the base shapes, the small detail shapes were next.

Look how cute these owls are!

Val wants to use button eyes, but didn't have any on hand, and it was starting to get close to dinner time for her one year old, so we quickly finished with the main part.  

Just image button eyes.

He's adorable already!

Val used spray adhesive for the backside of the owl

and smoothed the completed owl onto the canvas.

Here are two of the four owls.

Who doesn't love a cute owl?!

If you don't have a Silhouette yet, and the fact that it cuts fabric has totally changed your mind on buying one, here are some great deals for you!

To get these deals go here and type in "holy" at checkout.
What would you cut on your silhouette?

Starting to prep for our master closet makeover

If you have been reading along for any length of time, you will remember mention of my master closet.

My master closet is one of the reasons I fell in love with this house.

My husband has his own walk in closet in our bedroom, and I have my own 15 x 7 foot closet {yep, it's big!} off of the master bathroom.  

I shared some of my inspiration for my closet here.

If you want a master bedroom tour, you can see my epic room makeover entry here.

{I came in second, so no room makeover by Vintage Revivals {bummer!}, but I did update it a bit myself}

My husband started to make changes to my closet by giving me a built in sewing area at the back of my closet.

After several quotes by local closet companies, my husband and I found Easy Closets.

**I'm not getting paid by them, in fact we paid them a small fortune for my new built in's.

If they want to knock some off the price for talking about them, I wouldn't complain!**

Easy closets was about half the price of the local companies and offered many of the same features.

One company looked like they bought the cabinets from easy closets and then charged me double for them to install them.

My husband worked up a plan, talked to a design consultant, we measured, and then measured some more, and then decided to place our order.

From the time we placed our order to the estimated time of delivery, we had a week.

A week to clean out my current closet, to demo the cheap wire racks, patch the walls and repaint, getting everything ready for the new closet built in's.

I spent an afternoon cleaning out my closet and taking things off of the shelves.

This is the left side as you walk in.

And this is the right side.

I have a lovely window on one side.

Standing with my back to my built in sewing area, this is the view of my closet and the cheap wire shelving that I had in there before.

My handy husband set to work taking out the screws,

which left huge holes in the wall in lots of various locations.

He ended the night of demo by patching the holes with magical compound.

This compound had to be spread in the holes several times {each time allowing for shrinkage} before being able to paint over the holes and pretending that the wire racks never existed.

After the compound dried and several layers were applied, I painted the spots.

You can hardly tell the shelves were even part of my closet!

This is the master closet after the shelves are down.

A different angle of the closet, 

{and messy sewing area}, taken from the bathroom

with the shelves removed.

The delivery of my closet shelving is scheduled for tomorrow.

39 boxes and 1,400 pounds!

I should bake the UPS guy some cookies while I'm thinking about it.

ps-if you are a facebook fan, you are probably shaking your head and saying "what?  I thought the closets were already delivered."  They were.  I wrote this post last week.  It's how I stay on top of things! Want to stay on top of things too? "like" me on facebook.

Mod podge vintage suitcase upcycle

While on my junk shopping trip in Seattle with my friend Mandi, I picked up this blue Samsonite suitcase from the Goodwill outlet.

Not sure what SP is, maybe salt and pepper? 

Susie Parker?

Shirley Potts?

Regardless, it's a plain old vintage suitcase that was in good condition and has tons of life left in her. 

She just needs a good makeover.

I literally had all of these supplies on hand in my craft closet.

I'm a hoarder what can I say?

All you need to give your own suitcase a little update is some mod podge, fabric, and my new favorite tool the mod podge roller applicator.

I'm all for basic supplies, but believe me, this roller applicator is beyond basic.

That bad boy was invented for a reason.

It makes big jobs with mod podge so much easier!

You literally pour your mod podge into your container and screw the roller on top.

I applied mod podge to the whole front of the suitcase in about three seconds.

After I rolled on a layer of mod podge, I lined up my fabric with the suitcase edge and spread it into place.

I folded the edges over the bottom and secured the fabric in place with more mod podge.

I repeated the process with the top of the suitcase as well.

I folded the corners and cut the excess fabric off.

I took a smaller brush and secured the fabric edges down with a layer of mod podge.

Trim off your extra strings and there you have it!

Isn't this the cutest upcycled vintage suitcase you ever did see?!

Keeping your home stylish while raising a family

When we moved two years ago, it felt like we had made a transition.

The kids were 5,8 and 11 at the time and while they still played with toys, it wasn't like the days when they were toddlers when I transformed our formal dining room into a play room.

We no longer had plastic kitchens and bins of toys lining the shelves in our dining room.

Probably because we now had a bonus room with a HUGE walk in closet that stored all of the kids toys.

Our kids had gotten to the point that they weren't home all day every day, and they didn't need toys to entertain them while I got work done around the house.

They had school to occupy their time, friends to play with outside, and big kid things that were more fun to them than toys.

However, we can't limit every evidence of kids living in our house to our bonus room.

I have always wanted our home to be kid friendly, but still feel homey and stylish at the same time.

I'm sure it's not the best kept secret around, but I am a door junkie.

I love to have a mess of toys, crafts, or whatever on one side and be able to close it off with a door so that no one is the wiser!

I don't like visual clutter.

Case in point, my now 7 year old, still has lots of kid stuff.

Toys and collections that his older siblings have traded in for books, musical instruments and shoes {yes, my daughter is a shoe horse!}.

This is Owen's closet in his room.

I love being able to close the doors and not think about what is behind the doors.

 When the doors are open, built in shelves that my husband made help Owen store his legos, robots and science kits.

We haven't banned toys downstairs, but the only place that we have kid toys is in our entertainment center.

Again, I have doors that I can easily close to contain the mess.

The kids can find puzzles, books, drawing paper, Lincoln logs and leapsters in the cabinets.

I have never wanted our kids growing up in a house where I cared more about the furniture and decorations than I cared about their well being or their development.  Most of our furniture and decor is second hand and has been bought at garage sales or on craigslist.  If a vase gets knocked over and broken because they are having a nerf war, so what, I paid a dollar for it.  

Drawers in my buffet may be filled with crayons and coloring books instead of the latest home decor magazines, but my kids know that this is their home, not a magazine photo shoot.  

We may not have the nicest furniture from the most upscale stores or the latest trends in home decorating, but my family lives here.  I have three kids who tromp through the house in muddy shoes, kids friends who break things and a house that we live in.  My kids and their childhood experience mean more to me than the upholstery on my couch.

So remember, the time that your kids live with you is short.

You will one day have your house back and you will be able to keep it clean for longer than 20 minutes.

Just not today.

If you are anything like me, in life, sometimes we all wish that we could close the doors to our messy selves and only let our pretty exterior show, but that isn't always the case.

I had the opportunity this week to view a sneak peek of the newest Lifetime reality show Pretty Wicked Moms and thought it was fabulous!  I'm a sucker for crazy train wreck like reality TV and this show totally fits the bill!  

Pretty Wicked Moms is a cast of six young moms {well, one mom is a dog mom...does that count?}, living in the Atlanta area.   Sad to say, but as a stay at home mom for the past 15 years, I have encountered just about every one of these moms at play groups, birthday parties or Bunco nights.  If you have young children, I think you can relate to these moms or at least know a mom who is just like one of the cast in this unscripted Lifetime reality show.

All of these moms want to portray a perfect life with perfect kids, but their "closets" are a total mess, they just close their pretty doors and hide all their dirty little secrets and now you can get a behind the scenes look at what those little secrets are!

Tune in to watch parenting like you've never seen before with the first episode of Pretty Wicked Moms on Tuesday, June 4, at 10:00 pm ET/PT on Lifetime

I look forward to catching more of this show when it airs. Set your DVR's!  You won't want to miss it.
FTC DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENT Holy Craft aims to provide unbiased editorials. However, I wish to disclose that from time to time I may receive free products or other compensation from companies for blogger reviews

Winner of the Mombo nursing pillow

I drew a number using Random.org to pick the winner of the Mombo nursing pillow.
True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:3Powered by RANDOM.ORG The winner is Lauren.

Lauren said...

I would love to try this! I'm due in August and am hoping to breastfeed my little girl.

Lauren, watch for an e-mail so that I can get your address to send this off to you.

Are you local? Have a teen driver? Want to join me at the EMP?

Hey local readers, I'd love you to join me at the Drive it Home Show, presented by the National Safety Council and Allstate Foundation, Tuesday, May 21, If you have tween, teen, or are concerned about teen driving safety, it will be an informative (and entertaining!) event. Please feel free to share this post with anyone who might like to attend. Details are as follows:

What: Drive it Home Show, presented by the National Safety Council and Allstate Foundation

When: Tuesday, May 21 from 7pm - 8:15pm

Where: EMP Museum - Level 3 (325 5th Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109)

Price: FREE!; no tickets required

Parking: Pay lots are available near the museum and metered parking is available on the side streets across 5th Avenue N.

BONUS: You can enter in the sweepstakes at the event for a chance to win gas cards and a brand new car!

If you'd like to attend, click here to register and when checking in, let them know that Clever Girls Collective sent you. Hope to see you there!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.