Syd and Goose

Summer Projects

I have to confess-my craftiness has taken a severe nose dive recently and so I don't have much to show you. I'm not sure how inspiring white felt and yellow feathers are-any extra time that I've had has been devoted to making Snoopy and Woodstock costumes for work. So until I get those finished, I'll show you what I plan on making after the Peanuts leave town...
The pillows in the photo above are made from handkerchiefs and cotton. I'm going to make this for a friend who just had a baby girl-instructions found here.

I would also love to learn how to make a patchwork quilt or more realistically, start small, placemats maybe?

One of my biggest summer projects is going to be putting our wedding pictures into an album-such perfect timing with the debut of the Martha Stewart Crafts line.
Hopefully this post will keep me organized and inspired-what are your summer projects?

window boxes

A few of the many things that I dream about when owning our first home are window boxes. I'd put them in every window if I could-something about waking up to flowers right outside of the bedroom window, or a kitchen window box filled with fresh herbs. A glossy black box filled with green plants hanging down the sides-a daisy filled box painted white...



Oh, and check out this pretty little window box-love, true love.

~top picture from freefoto.com, second picture from hooksandlattice.com, last two pics from marthastewart.com.

Martha Gets Off Of The Floor

and onto a bookshelf. Finally, I've organized my magazines and books-it was overdue let me tell you. Piles of magazines were slowly starting to take over the corners of our living room and it wasn't a pretty sight!

As much as I love IKEA(and I do, I really really do) it becomes a black pit after the first 45 minutes- feet get sore, hunger sets in, inevitably an argument breaks out. In our case, the arguing started in the bed linens and ended at the lighting...Is it just me or does the whole experience leave you exhausted? I was SO looking forward to the frozen yogurt cone after checking out, you know, reward myself for not completely losing it after lugging three heavy baskets upstairs, walking against the pedestrian traffic back to the kitchens to make sure they fit a specific shelf, only to come back downstairs to find that same shelf a few measly feet to the right of my waiting husband. How could we have missed it? We then got in line to find that the yogurt machine was broken. Horrors!

A good friend of mine brings chocolate with her when she goes to IKEA, otherwise she says she can't make it through and will abandon her cart and leave. Can't wait in those lines with low blood sugar!

Here are my Marthas, finally in magazine holders and organized by month.
Have a great day-tomorrow is Friday!

I've Got the Pom-Pom Fever

I've been a pom-pom lover ever since I was the proud owner of the white socks with little pink pom-pom at the heel in fourth grade. I loved those socks! You were also the coolest if you had your very own roller skates with the giant pom-poms and even cooler if you and your pom-poms could do the limbo. I was always the one with the pom-pom-less rental skates hanging onto the carpeted walls. I may not have been cool, but I was determined and somehow found myself in the finals of the limbo competition at Sir Skate. As I was turning the corner, I gained some speed(big mistake), felt everybody's eyes on me(sure that everyone was admiring my grace and speed), leaned back and smack! hit the limbo pole and wiped out in front of everyone. It also didn't help that there was an MC commentating on the events.

I was lucky to find an old pom-pom maker yesterday at the thrift store and made the three pom-poms in the top picture. It's pretty hard to trim them evenly but I have a feeling that we will be seeing many pom-poms around here. Nobody's safe...

Martha has many pom-pom crafts on her website and in her magazines. Here are some that I especially like




I think I'll be on the lookout for some thrifted roller skates or roller blades- so if you happen to see someone rolling down the street with increasing speed, please just admire my grace and pom-poms and pretend you don't hear me crash into the bushes.

Martha Inspiration

I am a Martha Stewart junkie. My magazine collection has gotten a bit out of control- there is at least one type of Martha magazine in every room of the house. Weddings, Kids, Baby, Living, Blueprint, and Body and Soul have collectively started to take over.

The first MS magazine that I bought was during finals in college. I remember that it was pure escapism for me then- everything was so well ordered and pretty. No chaos or stress in sight. Since then I have been hooked and it still provides a nice break from reality and a good excuse to procrastinate. So, instead of cleaning  and organizing the mess around me today, I flipped through my Marthas and dreamed about these well ordered, clean and pretty spaces.