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March 28th, 2012 | by Emily | 
This last weekend, my sister and I hosted a baby shower for our sister-in-law Morgan. Morgan is due in just a couple weeks. We had it at my sister’s new house and it turned out great. I wanted to show you how to do a couple quick and cheap decorating projects!
The first project was inspired by a pin I saw on Pinterest.
I decided to do something similar after finding these cute planters at Hobby Lobby. First, I bought three Styrofoam balls that I found in the floral section at Hob Lob. I also bought three packs of floral pins which I found in the same area. Then I bought some white cupcake liners.
I decided that I wanted to make my flower pots a little different, so I dyed the rims of the cupcake liners. This was really easy to do. I just found three plastic containers and filled them with three dye baths and soaked the liners for a couple minutes in the bath. Then I took them out and let them soak on paper towels until they were dry.
Once they were dry, I just started pinning them to the Styrofoam balls. This was the fun part. I actually ran out of the white liners and ended up having to go to Hy-Vee for more, and ended up getting some pastel liners. This made for a nice pop of color in my bouquets. If you don’t look close, they actually resemble real flowers! That last for a long time.
The second project I have to share is a little chalkboard I made. I first found an old frame at Goodwill. I really liked the detail in the frame.. the artwork, not so much. I had some green spray paint at home that was a perfect color for the shower. And it was specifically for plastic, which was great because the frame I thrifted was plastic. I removed the artwork and the glass and painted the frame. While the frame was drying, I painted the back of the frame with chalkboard paint. I think I did about three coats to get enough coverage. Then once everything was dried, I assembled it back together. Then I freehanded a little design for the board. Since we don’t know what this little guy is going to be called yet, I just went with Baby Phipps.
Lastly, the final project is the bunting. This is what previously I was just calling little flags, but I guess it is referred to as bunting. This was a simple, fun project. I just bought 6 sheets of 12×12 scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby. I divided up the sheets so I could get 6 triangles out of each sheet. After I had them all cut, I used a paper hole punch to get two holes at the top to be able to thread twine through. And lastly, I dyed the twine blue… well, because I love dying things. I’m sure it would be totally fine left undyed, but I just had to do it.
The shower ended up really lovely. We had delicious cupcakes and food, great friends and family, and a wonderful time. Our family can’t wait to welcome this little baby into our lives.
March 22nd, 2012 | by Emily | 
My long-time friend, Denae, had her baby shower this weekend. She had asked me awhile back if she could commission me to do some paintings for her baby’s nursery. I thought, yeah, and actually that would be a good gift for me to give her for her shower. So she sent me some color swatches of some of the colors they had going in the nursery already. She also sent me some images of some of the furniture they had in there too. This helped tremendously. I also took the images she had of her nursery off of facebook to use as a guide as well.
Denae is having a boy and his name is Greyden. So I first designed these and I found a really fun font called “brewsky” that I thought would look really cute for a nursery. Then I bought seven 8×10 canvases from Hobby Lobby and went to town. I first painted them an off-white because I thought the white would look too stark. Then I transferred my design to the canvases using graphite transfer paper. Using my color palette, I then started adding in the colors. After I finished painting, I used an acrylic varnish to seal it up. I think they turned out fun and I think Denae was pleased. I hope they look good in the nursery!
March 6th, 2012 | by Emily | 
I love globes. I love them big, small, old, and new. I have been collecting them for the past couple of years. I have way too many for my small apartment to hold. I’ve been seeing some neat things done to globes on Pinterest and thought I might try something out!
{Visit my Pinterest globe board.}
I had this globe that had a dark plastic base, so I spray painted it blue first. Then I cut out the shape of the state of Iowa on sticker paper, stuck it on the globe, and painted around it. Once it was completely dry, I gave the globe a coat of acrylic sealer. Then I peeled off the sticker paper. Some pieces of the sticker paper were stuck down pretty good, so I had to use some rubbing alcohol to get it completely off.
Then I mounted it back on the base (after it dried, of course). And done! New artsy globe that reflects my love for IA!
February 16th, 2012 | by Emily | 
My friends Kelly and Andrew make up the duo of the award-winning design team, Basemint. They were up for (and won!) two ADDY awards and the ceremony was held last weekend. As friends, we went to show our support. The event was held at the Hoyt Sherman, and it was a classy affair. The awards show was themed in a 50s who-done-it style. So we wanted to dress a little retro for it. I didn’t have much that screamed retro in my closet, so I decided to wear a lbd and jazz it up with some retro accessories. For jewelry, my grandma Bonnie let me borrow some lovely pearl earrings. And here’s what I did for shoes:
It’s pretty self-explanatory. All you need is an old pair of shoes, mod podge, painters tape, white paint, and a paintbrush!
It was a fun night! I even got several compliments on my shoes. I definitely pretended I bought them this way.
February 13th, 2012 | by Emily | I’m blessed to have four amazing grandparents. Yesterday, my grandpa on my dad’s side, Grandpa Bob, turned 84. I wanted to do something special for him this year. My Grandpa Bob is a woodworker. He taught Industrial Arts in high school and even though he’s been retired for many years, he still is very active in the shop. As a matter of fact, these pieces are some of his most recent projects that he has made for Jessie, Jacob, and me.
1) Jacob & Morgan’s bedside table
2) Jessie’s quilt rack (he made one for me too)
3) Jessie & Josh’s side table
4) My side table
5) Another one of my tables
6) Jacob & Morgan’s table (note the clever raising and lowering mechanism)
Impressive, no?
The man is still very talented.
A couple weeks ago, when I went to stay in LeGrand, I went over to my grandparents’ house to visit. Grandpa had found this very old piece of wood when cleaning out a garage and saved it for me. He knew I would appreciate it and I could find something to make with it.
At first, I was interested in the wood because of the newspaper clippings that remained on it. These were from the 1930s and one was even an article about Lou Gehrig. I thought it would be cool to do something artsy with the wood where the articles could be incorporated. Then I thought it might be cooler to make him a sign for his woodshop. So I ended up painting over the articles. This was hard to do, but it was the only way I could get the sign letters to show up.
So I designed the sign in Illustrator. This was a tedious process because I didn’t find the right font I wanted to use for Grandpa’s name. I ended up drawing a font instead.
Once I had the design complete, I went to work on preparing the wood for painting. First, I used mod podge to coat the wood and give it a smooth painting surface. Next, I painted the white, and then transferred my design to the wood. Lastly, I painted the lettering. I wanted the sign to look like an old fashioned hand lettered sign.
Then I asked for my dad’s help. At first, I just wanted him to help me put a chain on the sign so grandpa could hang it in his shop. Then he sent me this sketch.
Way cooler!
Here are the shots from Dad’s welding process:
Once the welding was all finished, he coated it with a textured brown spray paint. I think the color is perfect.
The family all got together last night to celebrate both my mom’s birthday (Feb 14th) and Grandpa’s (Feb 12th). We had a great time together.
We gave Grandpa his gift:
And he loved it.
Happy Birthday Grandpa Bob!
Thanks to all who helped me with this project!
January 10th, 2012 | by Emily | 
We had our end of the year book club Christmas party this past weekend. Last year, we had it at Azalea. Or what was once Azalea, and now is the Kirkwood. This year, we got a room reserved at Django. I’m lucky to be in this group with great friends. We do a gift exchange with each other and the idea is to buy “bling” and keep it around $20-$25. That means, earrings, bracelets, necklaces.. accessories of some sort. It’s always fun to see what each other gets/gives. There were some great gifts this year! And to keep up with the tradition, I wanted to give the girls some sort of keepsake for our second year together.
I wanted to make something once again using books and this is what I came up with. I didn’t have the luxury of very much time this year so I wanted to make it somewhat easy to make. I found this quote by Shel Silverstein that I really liked:
“Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.”
― Shel Silverstein
I thought this would be perfect for a group of really creative girls.
So I first designed the quote. I hand-lettered and drew it all out on a piece of paper first, then scanned it in and flipped it so I could eventually transfer it onto a canvas.
Next, I went to the Salvation Army to find some old books I could rip apart. I bought four of them for around $3.99. I made sure I got some books that had a variety of page colors. Some with a yellowish tint and some more white. I wanted to give the canvas a variety of font sizes and colors.
Then I used mod podge to glue the ripped out pages to the canvas.
Afer that dried, I took a variety of colors and watered them down to make them more transparent and painted the canvas where the color could be the background for my quote.
Once that dried, I coated both the canvas and the paper with mod podge, and adhered it to the canvas.
Then I made sure there were no bubbles and smoothed out the paper so it was all smooth. Then I let it dry for 24 hours.
After it dried, I took foam brush and soaked the canvas with water, and slowly peeled away the paper. I used my fingers to get all the paper off. I did this a few times to make sure I got all the paper off.
Once I was happy with it, I sprayed it with a protective varnish to seal it off.
I can’t wait for next year!
January 3rd, 2012 | by Emily | 
This Christmas break was unusual for me for one reason. I had a lot of extra time on my hands and for once, I didn’t paint. The time leading up to the break, I spent a lot of time on commissions for people as well as working on some Christmas gifts of my own. So I thought I would just try to sit back and reflect on what I had done and take a sec and think about what I wanted to do next. And for right now, I haven’t come up with any ideas. And that’s ok.
Here is a commission I had for a Led Zeppelin fan. This lyric is from the song, Kashmir.
This is a commission that I did for someone who had seen this painting that I have done before and asked for the same one.
I love the story behind this commission just as much as I like how it turned out. A friend of mine was giving this painting to his mother. His mother’s name happened to be Dorothy and she had a dog named Toto. It was too perfect!
These next two were paintings that I gave out as gifts for family and friends that are expecting.
~and~
They are similar but I liked the verse so much that I repeated it.
I have some blank canvases at home that I’m trying not to just rush right into painting just yet, and that will be hard. Right now I still need to hunt for inspiration and plan it out.
Also, I have a website that I try to keep updated with the custom paintings I’ve done. Check it out!
http://emilyphipps.tumblr.com/
December 28th, 2011 | by Emily | 
I got some awesome gifts for Christmas this year. I was just stunned that my family #1, spent so much time on my gifts and #2, are that talented. I am one lucky girl.
First of all, my mom and dad gave me a bed frame that my dad welded for me. Yeah, that’s right. I couldn’t believe how cool it was. It just blows my mind every time I look at it. It’s perfect. If I had to design a bed frame myself, it would look like this. He got it so right. He used a sheet of steel diamond plate to build most of it. Here are some pictures of the work in progress.
He even got the colors so right. They are so me. He actually used the colors I’ve used to design this blog. It’s just perfect and it turns out, it goes with everything I have. Like my quilt, (which my sister made me), my lamp, my accessories, and of course, Abe. Yes, it weighs 10,000 lbs, but it’s not going anywhere for awhile. Here are some shots of us assembling the frame.
See how well it goes with my stuff?
It even has a built-in shelf to store stuff on.
It’s just one of the coolest gifts I’ve ever got. Ever.
And then I opened my next gift. Yeah, it’s a handmade knitted sweater from my sister. I don’t even want to know how much time she spent on it. It’s so awesome. It’s so warm, I love it. I live in a drafty old apartment and this wool sweater is going to come in handy this winter. I can barely figure out this knitting thing.. some day, I know I will.. but this just blows my mind that she can make this stuff.
So I made out pretty well this Christmas. I’m very grateful.
I gave some handmade gifts myself for people this year, that post to follow soon.
November 22nd, 2011 | by Emily | 
My friend Kelly and I still give each other gifts for our birthdays. Now that I think about it, she’s really one of the last friends that regularly exchanges gifts with me. I think it’s fun. I always get the best gifts from Kelly. She always makes them super creative and thoughtful. The gift she gave me this year was really awesome. She knows my love for coffee and that I have started collecting globes, so she gave me this really great basket of coffee from around the world as well as a globe!
So, I try to be creative in return when it comes to her birthdays. One year, my mom, Jessie, and I made an apron for Kelly’s birthday.
This year I wanted to buy her one of these. I’ve seen them all over pinterest and I think they are really cool. They are cardboard animal trophies. Cool, right? For around thirty bucks (ha bucks) you can get a cardboard trophy online. I was just about to purchase it, when I thought.. wait, I could make this! And out of something a little more durable than cardboard.
So I searched pinterest for a template for a buck trophy. I came across this one.
It was too small for what I envisioned so I took this template and blew it up about 200%.
After cutting out the templates, I traced them onto a sheet of luan underlayment that I got at Menards.
After tracing, Dad helped me cut out the shapes with a jigsaw so I could then cut more precisely on a scroll saw. This was my first attempt at using a scroll saw. I watched him do it first then I took a swing at it. It definitely takes some getting used to. It is really fun but I really need more practice.
Once I got all the pieces cut out, I assembled them. This was the fun part! It was like putting together a puzzle. I had to go back a few times and make some wider cuts to make sure everything fit. Once that was done, we secured it all together with some hot wood glue.
Then of course, I spray painted it green. #1 because I can’t leave anything unpainted and #2 green is Kelly’s favorite color.
It’s fun to look at it from all different angles. If you look at it straight on, it doesn’t really look like a buck but once you move around, it comes to life!
I can’t think of too many people that I could give a green buck trophy to as a gift and they would love it as much as me. Kelly is one of those friends.
November 10th, 2011 | by Emily | 
Lately, I’ve had a new obsession: Buttons. It all started when I was thrifting and found this awesome shirt that I loved everything about, minus the buttons. So I went to Hobby Lobby to get some new black buttons. I was sort of disappointed in their selection, but I ended up getting some basic black ones. I sewed them up and the shirt was as good as new! But then it got me thinking, my grandmas were sewers, I’m sure they have some really cool old vintage buttons that I could borrow/have. Well, turns out they did! And they had some real treasures!
Project 1
I found this Gap pink striped sweater while thrifting. I loved that it was striped and that it was a cardigan. I didn’t like the pink, or the buttons. Solution- switch out the buttons with some of the cool ones I found in my grandmas stash, and dye it a color that I would wear!
For Dying, I mixed two of my favorites to get a golden orange: Sunshine Orange and Golden Yellow.
I like it much better now.
Project 2
This button search proved to be a bit more difficult. The reasons being the size and quantity of buttons I needed. I couldn’t find the right amount of all the same size and color in my vintage button collection, so I turned to ebay for this project. I had a sweater I found thrifting that required 10 large buttons. I looked on ebay for a few days until I found it. They were a really cool yellow orange color that I just loved. So I switched out the buttons and once again, dyed the sweater a color I thought would compliment the buttons.
Project 3
This cowl is something Jessie knitted for me. It’s perfect when you want to stay warm and look cool but don’t want to wear a scarf.
I loved the color of the cowl how it was and I just happen to find the perfect button to compliment it in my gram-stash. I just put the cowl on how I would wear it normally, found a place where it would naturally fold and sewed this sweet button to it!
Thanks Grandmas! Couldn’t have done it without ya!
Grandma Bonnie, Grandma Bev, and The Geeg! (that’s Great-Grandma Doris)
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