Oh, Pinterest. I love you so much, but you give me so many ideas* that I can never ever bring to fruition. I can't even tell you how many pins I currently have on my boards, but there are lots! Luckily, I get summer vacations so I can do a few fun projects each year. And most of them don't even require a sewing machine!
So, to move away from my typical "Look What I Sewed" posts, here are some of my non-sewing summer projects:
First, here's a Pinterest idea that I copied back last spring for a fabric-covered magnet board. Of course, the pinterest description usually says something like, "buy a cookie sheet for a dollar and cover it with cheap fabric." Sadly, in all my searching, I couldn't find a cheap (or even a not-so-cheap) cookie sheet that didn't have a lip on the edge. Instead, I just ordered some sheet metal from amazon. So this wasn't a SUPER cheap project, but it still wasn't too bad. The sheet metal cost about $8 for each piece. Of course, I made three, so it added up a little... Anyway, here are a couple of them in my craft room:
I decluttered my work tables by putting embossing powders, cards and envelopes, and various stickers on the boards. Plus the love notes from hubs! Have to have those handy to remind myself that he can be romantic... sometimes.
On the opposite wall of my craft room, I did the embroidery hoop project that's been making the rounds on Pinterest.
I kind of like mine more than others I've seen, simply because it seems so much more appropriate to use embroidery hoops in a craft room, rather than a living room or bedroom, as many of the other online photos show. So, yay for making my random art project make sense in my crazy mind!
My next project was not a pinterest idea, but instead one of my own that I've been wanting to do for years. At our wedding reception, we displayed the wedding pictures of our grandparents and parents, all of whom are still happily married, honoring their amazing examples of love, with the hope that we could follow in their footsteps. As a reminder of everything we have to live up to, I hung the five wedding pictures, along with our own, on our living room wall. This isn't necessarily a creative diy project, but I love showing it off because I think it is so fun to look at the beginnings of these amazing relationships.
A side note: all of the people in these pictures were married in their early 20s, and they've been married for 66, 62, 62, 40, and 38 years (and 5 - that's us!). Age doesn't matter; it's all about being committed for the long haul. Take that, all you people who told me I was too young to get married. :-p
Sorry... I'm back from my trip to my soapbox.
And finally, my favorite of all Pinterest ideas, and one of the first I ever pinned! It looks a little different than some of the other photos of the same idea (you gotta make it fit your own style!), but the idea was certainly not my own. I strung picture wire along an open picture frame, and clipped (using super cheap clips from IKEA) pictures of my family and friends. I LOVE the way it turned out!
All the important people in our lives.
I love that you can easily change pictures in and out. In fact, I already have some new photos that I'm thinking of using to replace others. And every picture tells a story, which is super important to us!
Heterosexual life-mates. This picture (from our wedding) reminds us that their "guy love" will never die.
So that's some of the fun stuff that I've been up to this summer. While the time to complete projects has decreased significantly now that I'm back in school, my Pinterest boards continue to remain very busy. We'll see what new projects come my way over the next few months.
*These ideas, while certainly not my own, have circulated Pinterest in so many different forms and from many different sources. At this point, I honestly couldn't tell you who the original poster was. If any of you know who originated these ideas, please provide me with a link, and I'd be happy to include the original source in the post.
