DIY Beaded Star Garland

One of the upsides of going back to graduate school in the fall is that I get to move out of the garbage-hole of an apartment I have been living in for the past two years.

The downside? I'm going from a three bedroom apartment that actually had too much space for me to even use... to a 289 square foot studio apartment. We do what we gotta do in the name of education/living within our means, right? Right? Shhh, let me believe that I'm not an idiot, okay.

I'm actually pretty okay with this major downsizing though because it gives me a chance to reassess my possessions and completely redecorate a small, cohesive space. Because of that, I'm currently working on creating just some small decorative pieces to take with me when I move so that my new apartment feels a little more personal. One of the things that I think is going to work well in my space is this cute little beaded star garland:

It didn't take that long to make, and I think it's going to work well in the more neutral color palette that I think that I'm going to go with.

Curious about how I made it? Here is what I did:

First, I gathered all of my materials: some string (I used hemp), small beads that the string can fit through, felt, a scrap of poster board, a pencil, sharpie/chalk for marking the felt, hot glue, and some scissors.

With the scrap of poster board, I started by creating the pattern for my star. I just free-handed my shape, but you could easily just print a star shape from Google and trace that if you want to be super accurate. I like to be wild and crazy and live life on the edge though.

Next, I folded a section of the felt over and traced out as many star shapes in a row that would fit. Leaving the pins in to help with the cutting, I cut a double thickness of the felt for each star.

I continued in this fashion until I had as many stars as I thought I would need. I ended up with three black stars and eight brown ones so that I could create an alternating pattern. That was it for the stars for now-- next, I tackled the garland part itself.

To create the garland string, I cut a really long length of string/hemp which was longer than I wanted the end product to end up. And by really long length, I mean like..... 10 feet. Homegirl ain't playin' around.

For each bead that I wanted to add, I started by tying a knot in the string.

After tying the knot, I would slide on a bead and tie another knot. Then I would move over an inch, tie another knot, slide on another bead, tie a knot, and continue on until I'd have five beads in a row (with alternating colors of course because why not).

After every five beads, I would leave a large gap for a star to go in until I had room enough for each of the stars that I had cut out. And that was it for the garland string. The only thing left to do was to go about adding the stars.

To add the stars, I would lay down a star, add a little hot glue to the center, stick the string down, and then sandwich another star on top.

I wanted to give the stars a little more polish, so I just whip stitched around all of the edges. Now that I'm typing this out it almost seems like this took a lot of work... but in reality this surprisingly didn't take very long. An afternoon's worth of work maybe?

However long it took, I'm pretty sold on this little creation. I can just imagine it hanging above the window in my future cardboard box of an apartment, which is kind of endearing.

For now though, I just have it hanging on this palette (that I made!) in my parent's house until I can take it to my new tiny-home. You know all those tiny home shows on HGTV? I've always wondered what it would be like to live in one, so I guess that's how I can think of my new studio apartment... Ayyyy, that's a cool thought.



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DIY High-Waisted Shorts

I just got back from a two week vacation overseas, and I returned home to realize that it is roughly one million degrees outside. And that's really great because I adore mega-heat and 1000% humidity (note my heavy sarcasm).

So, just like any other summer, I've taken part in my yearly ritual, which is to take some old and/or secondhand jeans and turn them into some shorts. Because ain't nobody got time for jeans in this kind of weather.

I've talked about making shorts from old jeans in the past (namely in this post, which goes into more detail about this process), and it such a simple activity that sometimes I think it hardly bears mentioning. But here I am, cause ya girl wanted to make a post on this lonely blog of hers.

The high-waisted trend has been around for a couple years now, and I've only been partaking in it for about a year and a half, but I can honestly say that I hope it sticks around. There's something about looking like a 90's soccer mom with pants up to her ribcage that I find completely endearing, and I mean that with complete honesty and affection. In the case of these shorts though, I don't think that my 90's mom self would really approve of rocking them because warning: I made mine pretty short.

I've found that the trick to making these shorts (or to even finding high waisted jeans) is to hit up your local goodwill and peruse all the sizes in the racks. I pay most attention to the size of the waistband and compare it to my own natural waist, which is different than shopping for jeans that will fit your hips, so just ignore the numbers. Mom jeans are much more forgiving in terms of sizing, I feel. Also, the easiest way to find mom jeans at a glance is to look at the zipper. Is the zipper as long as your whole hand? Then there's a good chance you'll be zipping those pants up to your eyeballs. Zipper only as long as your palm? Try again, compadre-- you're in weird mid-rise territory.

Once I found the pair pictured here, I started just like I would with any pair of pants that I would want to make into shorts. First, I tried them on and marked with a pin where I wanted my shorts to come down to. It's important to try the shorts on, rather  than just laying another pair of shorts on top of them and marking them that way, because the rise of these pants is going to affect the length of the shorts.

After trying them on and marking the length, I took them off, added an additional 1.5 inches of length so that I could cuff them, and chopped off one leg. I also cut them at a slight angle, just for funsies.

Next, I folded the shorts over and chopped the second leg off in the same fashion. I told you, this is a super easy project.

The last thing I did was to just cuff the shorts up, tack down cuffs with a few whip stitches, and call it a day. Simple, quick, and mildly tackily cute.

I actually have another pair of shorts that I still need to do this to, so I should probably get on that soon.... Guess that's my cue to go be productive!



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Sketchbook Update: Drawings on Wood

Actually, this is less of a "sketchbook update" and more of a "hey look at some of the art that has been consuming my life for the better part of the last year."

I know I've always had spotty attendance on this here blog, but I'm never really all that idle when it comes to creating things. And though I haven't been posting tons of refashions lately (though to be fair, I do have a few sewing related things to share once I photograph them) I have been busting my buns when it comes to my art related stuff.

As I may have shared (who knows-- I don't always divulge a lot of personal stuff on here for reasons), I received my Bachelor's Degree in Art Education back in 2014. Since then, I have been teaching high school art, but I've decided to take a new path and leave my teaching position and go back to graduate school to pursue my Master's. So the past year has been a pretty crazy time-- creating a whole new portfolio, exhibiting my artwork in across state lines, applying and subsequently being rejected by different schools; ya know, all sorts of fun stuff.

But I can happily say that I've been accepted into an amazing MFA program and will be going back to school (and teaching for the university!) this fall. What's the point of this whole story? It's just my roundabout way of explaining why I'm showing you a bunch of weird drawings on wood. So without further ado, here's just a handful of some of the things that I've been creating:

I've basically been drawing a lot of things about birds. Because let's be real-- birds are so amazing and important and wow.

I've also been working hard on trying to develop my own techniques, which have been this whole colored pencil/graphite on wood deal.

These certainly aren't all the arts that I have been working on, but I felt like sharing a few things to show that I'm not dead. Soooooo... yeh. I'll just leave these drawings here.

Now, I need to get off my lazy butt and photograph all the other crafty things that I've been working on.


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