Welcome!

This blog is now exclusively devoted to crafting in general, and the shop in particular! Pretty much all of my personal content has been moved to a new blog, one that is intended primarily to help keep our family and friends in the loop. (If you are interested in following the new blog, you will find it here.) This blog will continue to feature shop news, new listings, sales, giveaways, and all of my share-worthy crafting exploits.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Give-Away Number Two: A Necklace! (Closed)

The colors and designs that are popular in jewelry right now are fantastic.  Coral, turquoise, and royal blue?  The earthy antique brass and organic shapes?  Yes, please!  And I have the honor of working on bridal jewelry designs for not one, but two brides right now!  Each has her own style, and brainstorming with them has provided me with a ton of new ideas and inspiration. I've been haunting Pinterest, Etsy, and Fire Mountain, searching out new elements and trying to narrow down my choices to what I absolutely must have to work with.  I got my first round of new goodies last week, and my first batch of new jewelry is ready to post:



http://www.etsy.com/listing/105120794/antiqued-brass-and-peach-rose-drop



http://www.etsy.com/listing/105131963/22-wire-wrapped-carved-sage-green

http://www.etsy.com/listing/105120110/18-wire-wrapped-aqua-rose-necklace

http://www.etsy.com/listing/105119158/antiqued-brass-and-aqua-rose-drop


http://www.etsy.com/listing/80013181/22-asymmetrical-antiqued-brass-orange

http://www.etsy.com/listing/105215123/28-wire-wrapped-cerulean-glass-and

http://www.etsy.com/listing/105124498/18-19-adjustable-antiqued-brass-wire

To celebrate, I am continuing my give-away series!!



This time, I'm giving away this fabulous tiered necklace in antiqued brass!  It's 21" at its shortest, and just shy of 24" at its longest.  I will happily shorten it for the winner, if it's too long. The rules for entry are essentially the same as before.  
  1. To enter, you must leave a comment on this post.  
  2. Up to FOUR additional entries may be gained by following this blog; sharing a link to this contest on your own blog (snag the give-away banner!); "liking" my page on Facebook; and/or sharing a link to this give-away on your Facebook wall or timeline.  Please leave a separate (different!) comment for each entry, and indicate what it's for (FB, following this blog, etc.).  If you post this to your own blog, please include a link to the post in your comment.
  3. The contest will close at midnight eastern standard time one week from today, on Monday, July 30, 2012.
  4. This contest is for the 24" tiered necklace only.  The winner/recipient will have the option of having the necklace shortened, but not lengthened.
Once again, good luck, and thanks for your help in promoting The Green World!

***UPDATE***
I've decided to extend this give-away until Wednesday!  You now have until midnight on August 1 to enter, and I will announce the winner on Thursday!



Saturday, July 21, 2012

As Seen on Pinterest: "Land of Nod Inspired Floor Cushion"


A few years ago, I made a pair of bean bag chairs from Amy Butler's gum drop pillow pattern.  I was sure that I'd blogged about them at the time, but I couldn't find the post in my archives so I'll tell you about them now.  The pattern said to fill the pillows with polyfill, but I wanted bean bag chairs for lounging in front of the TV.  I spent a small fortune on the tiny polystyrene beads used for filling bean bags, and had Brandon help me get them filled.  They made great bean bags chairs, and lasted us through a good four years of abuse use.  Recently, though, I noticed that one of the seams on the brown one had started to come open, and was leaking those filler beads. It wasn't bad yet, but I knew it wouldn't take long for them to be all over the place.  

Enter Pinterest.  I'd seen and pinned this tutorial for Land of Nod inspired floor cushions quite some time ago, but happened to see it again right around the time that I noticed the bean bag leak.  Coincidence?  No, I think it was Destiny.

photo from original post on Living With Punks
Ok, so maybe it wasn't Destiny, but it certainly was convenient.  I headed on in to JoAnn's to get some home dec fabric, and lo and behold, they had the perfect brown and cream floral on clearance for $5 a yard.  They didn't have the ready-made piping in the right color, though, so I snagged some quilt binding and made my own.


If you've never done piping before, it's actually pretty easy.  This is the tutorial I used the first time I did it, and it helped a lot.  Since I bought the quilt binding, I got to skip the part where I have to cut the bias strips, which made me very happy.  All I had to do was open up the binding, press it flat, cut it in half lengthwise, and voila! I turned 3 yards of quilt binding into 6 yards of 1.5" bias tape.  


And I didn't have a compass, and really didn't want to mess with doing that anyway, so I just went looking for the biggest circle in my house, which turned out to be the lamp shades on my bedside lamp.  I ended up with a 16" circle, instead of her 17" circle, and I decided to make the outer panel 10" instead of 9", so it would be a little taller.


When it came time to do the handle, instead of folding the ends in on themselves and stitching it to the top of the outer panel like she did, I stitched them into the outer panel when I pieced it together.  


My fabric was only 45", so I had to add about 7 inches to it to make it long enough to go all the way around the circle.  That 7" panel was just about the right width, so the handle was stitched onto it at either end.  Then I went back and top stitched it with the X, and I think it looks a lot better.  The only other thing I changed was to fill it with the polystyrene beads from my leaking beanbag, rather than using polyfill.  


We had some filler left in that beanbag, and the first one turned out so well that I had to make a second one. I was originally going to make them exactly the same, but I accidentally cut the strip for the outer panel at 6" rather than 10".  I stared at it in consternation for a moment, then decided it would be cool to have 2 cushions at different heights.  (Photography props, anyone?)


I am in love with the way they turned out. They match my decor to a "T".   I even got the piping right.  I had to sacrifice some of the filler from the green bean bag for the second cushion, but I don't care.  The new cushions are perfect.  They're really full, so they're really firm and don't sink down too much when someone sits on them.  The big one is the perfect height for Elora, the little one is the perfect size for Kaylie.  They can be stacked for extra height.  I like sitting on them, especially when playing with the girls at the coffee table. 


Seriously, what is not to love?  I'm already wanting to make more.  My MIL has requested one.  Or two.  And how does it work, if I want to offer custom cushions in my shop, since I got the idea from someone else's tutorial?  Would any of you purchase something like this?




Printable Give-Away Winner!


The contest has closed for the first give-away in my 3-part series!  I had the random number generator at random.org select a number for me:
And commenter number 5 was...Kelly!


Congratulations, Kelly!  You have one year from today to redeem your free printable design.  Contact me via e-mail when you're ready to start, we'll get your design put together!  

Stay tuned to The Green World, I'll be announcing give-away number two on Monday!




Thursday, July 19, 2012

Beachy Things

We finally made it to the beach last weekend.  (I say 'finally', but really, we're way ahead of the game compared to last year.)  Elora asked us Friday if we could go to the beach "to get a shell for Mama", and we said, sure, we'll go on Sunday.  She then spent the next 48 hours asking, is it Sunday yet?  And when it finally was Sunday, the question changed to, is it time to go to the beach yet?  We got a later start than intended (we always do) but we did make it out there.

Did you notice that Elora isn't wearing a swim diaper under her suit?   She is DONE with diapers of all kinds, even at night and out and about!

Unfortunately, we were there right around lunch time and the sun was pretty intense.  We were all  wearing SPF 85 sunscreen, but we still got some sun.  
We did stay for about 2 hours.  Brandon and Elora were in and out of the water or playing in the sand the whole time.  Kaylie and I just stood in the surf, played in the sand, and had a snack.  (Elora was too busy playing to eat a snack.)  I wish I'd gotten more photos, like of the wall and pool that I built between Kaylie and the water so that the waves wouldn't get her, since she liked the sand but not the random waves.  They'd just wash against the wall and fill the pool.  We ended up with a few other kids playing with us, scooping out sand, and looking for periwinkles and sand fleas.  But we were too busy having fun to bother with the camera.  We did get a family photo, or at least, we tried. 


We had another beach-goer take some pictures of us all together, but one of us (me or her) managed to bump the aperture dial and it was turned waaaaaay too low. This is as much detail as I could get out of it.  It's kind of a neat picture, though.

And yes, that goofy picture on the left was the best shot of the front.


Saturday night I up and decided that I had to have a new swimsuit cover-up.  I still had my Anna Maria Horner Little Folks viole squirreled away, so I dug it out and went to work.  I didn't use a pattern, or even a tutorial, I just made it up as I went.   It's shirred around the high waist, and the bodice (such as it is) is made from 2 triangles, gathered at top and bottom. It took me 3 tries to get the bodice pieces right, and two tries to attach the straps, but it turned out ok and I even have enough fabric left to make another little sundress, one that can be worn to places other than the pool or the beach.  

PS:  Don't forget about the giveaway!  You have until tomorrow to win a custom designed printable of your choice from The Green World Shop!



Friday, July 13, 2012

Custom Printable Give-Away! (Closed)


I have spent much of the last few days working on the Shop.  I now have 5 birth announcement designs available in the shop, and they're all completely customize-able.



I started out doing just classic pastels and only a handful of fonts, but those got boring.  Fast.  So I started thinking about the colors that are hot right now in fashion and design.  This is my new color palette:


And I expanded my offering of fonts, double-checking the licencing on all of them:


And then of course I had to start plugging the new colors into my designs.  These are my favorites:




I don't know about you, but I am digging those bold colors.


And now that I have your attention, to the give-away!  Next Friday, one week from today, I'll be giving away a free custom announcement design!  Here are the rules:
  1. To enter, you must leave a comment on this post.  Up to three more entries may be gained by following this blog, sharing a link to this contest on your own blog (snag the give-away banner!), and/or "liking" my page on Facebook.  Please leave a separate comment for each entry, andindicate what it's for (FB, following, etc.).
  2. The contest will close at midnight eastern standard time on Friday, July 20, 2012.
  3. This contest is for the design only.  The winner/recipient will receive a high-quality digital file, and will be responsible for printing his or her own invitations.
  4. The prize "announcement" can be made from any of the templates available in The Green World Shop, and can be customized any way the winner wishes, including making it into something other than an announcement.
  5. The prize does not have to be redeemed now, but can be redeemed at any time in the next 12 months.
That's all I can think of now, so hopefully that covers all the bases.  Good luck, and thanks for your help in promoting my 'new' shop!



Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Green World Shop Is Open!


I'm officially back in business!  Along with my jewelry, I've also added something new: custom printable birth announcements!  I turned Rebekah's announcement into a template:  


 So far, I only have the one design up, but more are on the way, along with some other goodies that I have in various stages of completion.  Some are just waiting to be photographed and posted.