Janet of All Trades

I love color and it is evident in my home and the clothes I wear. Color, to me, is an expression of creativity. I have used numerous colors in my home and each one evokes a specific memory or emotion. They are colors that I have probably seen in nature,a photo,in a fabric or in the sky that I instantly fell in love with. I can't explain it but I have some emotional tie to each color. Then just yesterday I came across this book sitting on a work colleagues desk. Luckily I work in a color related field so interesting books and magazines on design and color are readily accessible.(Best perk of my job!) So I think it might help me with my color love by understanding the history of color. I have only read a few pages but I am intrigued and will be sure to blog about the interesting facts and if it has any insight to my infatuation. Hopefully will unlock the mystery of why I love color. Enjoy!

This year Christmas is all about trees and over the weekend I had Seven trees to decorate. I got five completed and only two more to go. One of the trees I made from burlap to match some of my other decorations. I first started with a large styrofoam tree. Next I took the burlap and laid the tree on it sideways. I then anchored the burlap to the top of the tree with floral pins. I proceed to roll the tree with the burlap. Once it was completely covered. I cut the burlap on an angle. Next I secured the back with more floral pins along the seam. At the top I sewed the opening shut since it was beyond the styrofoam but I wanted the tall point. On the Bottom I folded and secure all pieces with floral pins as well. It doesn't need to look pretty since it is just the bottom and no one will see it. To decorate it just a little I took gold braid thread,leftover from my cross stitch days and added it to the tree. Every 2-3 inches I wrapped a piece around the tree and tied it on the back s

This Holiday weekend I will be decorating for Christmas. This year I will have about Seven trees to decorate and still have to come up with some ideas for a few. So this Weekend list is all about trees and what they look like before I decorate them. (1) The main tree, nothing but lights right now but it will be fabulous once I am done. (2) The outside trees. I have 4 that need to be decorated to withstand snow and wind. This should be a challenge. (3) Sytrofoam Tree. This is big large one and have yet decided how to tackle it. (4) Lastly, these tree branches that will be part of a tree that I constructing out of them. So that is it for the Friday list and its time for me to get going so I can finish all these projects. Have a Nice Weekend and Enjoy!

Last year I made numerous twine trees to decorate my home. It was a time consuming task to wrap each tree with twine and then spray paint them silver and gold but they turned out lovely. So this year I am using them again but wanted to display them in a way that would tie into the Christmas tree (yet to be put up or decorated). So I started with some burlap and a frame. Frame is from the Dollar store and the Burlap (not shown) I bought online for $1.74 a yard. I first spray painted the frame gold. Next I cut a piece of cardboard the same size as the frame and used it as a template to cut my burlap. Then I wrapped the burlap around the cardboard and used my glue gun to secure to the back. This next step is not shown, but I covered the back with brown leftover t-shirt material. Then lastly I attached the gold frame to the top of the burlap with glue. And the tray is done and it was super easy! It could also be hung and used as a wall display with a ornaments hung from the burlap! or yo

Please don't forget to enter my giveaway here . It ends tonight at Midnight and you could win a $25 Gift Certificate to Tonic Living  and a surprise gift made by me. All you have to do it make a comment here  and you could win! Winner picked at random and one entry per person! Good Luck and Go enter!

I have seen so many uses for old book pages and I wanted to create something myself. I started by finding an old book and shredding a few dozen pages. Next I bought a foam tree form at that Dollar store.  Then I wrapped a piece of double sided tape about 3/4" from the bottom. Then I took the strips of the book pages and stuck them to the tape. I repeated this process all the way around the cone and learned to overlap them just a bit so as to get better coverage. Once this was done, I started anew row about 1/2" from the first one and did the exact same process as before. Once I got to the top, I cut a circle of book page to cover the top of the cone. I was almost done but it still needed a few tweaks. As you can see it looks a little like Cousin It and needs to be trimmed. So I randomly cut the strips and wrinkled a few to make it look more like a tree. Lastly I added a gold vine star to complete the project. You can still see a little of the foam at the bottom and to chan

I am starting to create some decorations for my home for the Holidays and I plan to use some interesting materials. So today I am going to share with you what the materials look like before and next week I will show you the after. Let's get started! (1) A length of leather cord. This will become something really interesting, I promise. (2) A old fruit basket. A little spray paint and some ornaments will make this look like a chic expensive item from a popular catalog. (4) Foam Tree. Now I have seen so many great tree ideas out there that I want to make all of them, but mine are different to I will just have to stick to my plan (I think!) (4) Burlap. I ordered this online and should arrive today. Lots of ideas let's hope they work out looking good. (5) Lastly. My Giveaway . Please don't forget to enter! End Nov 23rd at Midnight!  And that is the Before list. Please make sure to come back next week and see what I have created! Have a lovely Weekend and Enjoy!

I can't stop raiding my closet for T-Shirts to hack. My brain keeps thinking up new way to reuse these items and I can't make it stop. The latest idea started with a long sleeved t-shirt that was hiding in the back of my closet. It had all the possibilities that I was looking for so I first measured the sleeves. I did this to see where I should cut to make the shirt short sleeved. I cut both sleeves off at about 9"since I measured a few shirts in my closet and they all fell into about the 9" length. Next I took both pieces that had been cut off and cut up the seam and was left 2 pieces that looked like this. Next I took the two pieces and pinned right sides together and sewed along both long sides. I then took this tube piece and pinned it to the neck of the T-Shirt. I started with the back since if I made a mistake then it would be in the back and maybe not be noticed. I sewed just below the seam of the neck and the proceeded to work on the front. The front was a li