Bows

Image

Jumping the gun

Leave a comment

I was going to do a post on our coffee table but it’s in the process of drying in the garage so In anticipation of 100 followers on WordPress and in celebration of having hit 100+  likes on my Facebook this week, not to mention swiftly approaching 100 posts and two years with what started out as a little experiment, I thought I would round up some of my favorite posts. PS if you haven’t liked my Facebook page you totally should, I sneak in extra posts and updates there, so you should definitely click here. The hyperlinks are included in the text and pictures if you feel like checking out each post.

At the tippy top of the list will probably always be my series about my antique desk. I actually have another desk that will get a refinish this summer. I’m  beyond excited for that. 


If you want to see the whole series start here but here are the individual links 

Part 1… Part 2… Part 3 … Part 4
 

And bittersweetly to accompany my desk is the post about my mother in laws chair


Thanks to being in a new house I’ve had lots of great projects recently, my particular favorites being the hallway full of frames. 

And of course our new/old entertainment center soon to be joined by a mid century table which you may have seen a sneak peak of in one of my recent posts. 

Let’s not forget about remodeling that bathroom, that was pretty awesome. 


I’ve also got to give love to my Halloween makeup posts 

Of which this past fall’s look went a wee bit viral on Pinterest… Oh right did I mention I’m on Pinterest…. I’m on it a lot  my username is ItsybitsyBows… Cause TinyBows was taken 

And last but not least an early favorite is my clock turned lantern.

 

If you guys have any projects  you want to see drop me a line in the comments. 

Image

A house is not a home…

Leave a comment

…without a wreath. I’ve made lots of wreaths. I think I’ve got at least two blog posts on wreaths. You can find them here and here.  I figure now that Mr. Smith and I are finally settled into our own home it’s time I made a wreath for us. 

  
I used a pretty basic wreath form. As you can see here I already wrapped  a branch with some black twine.

  
I then just wrapped a couple of sections with some burlap ribbon to serve as my base.

  
Then it was time to pick out flowers and bits and bobs.

  
I felt like this flower needed a little embellishment so I added some hands of a clock. 

  
In fact I added the gears in another section. It’s the clock that I turned into a lantern last year, which you can see here.

  
I also warped a few keys into the vines

  
And easy as pie we have our own wreath for our own house. Finally 

Image

Late for a date

7 Comments

Okay, not late. In fact, very early. Halloween is over a month away but I couldn’t help trying out a costume. I was actually inspired by the clock I demolished then repurposed way back in this blog post here. 

I’ve always loved Alice in Wonderland but I’ve never been able to pull off Alice herself (ok maybe when I was like, 6 with glorious long blond hair) 

  
So enter the white rabbit

I started with a base of high coverage foundation

     

 Then went in with white cream to highlight or bring certain features forward. Making my nose and upper lip appear more protuberant. I started out using a cream face paint then just decided NYX shadow base in Milk would work better, it did. 

I then did some cream shadows to get a more herbavore face going. A stark shadow low under the cheek bone and under the jaw line and down the nose and a little bit of shadow to upturn the lips. I kept all of these shadows grey to stay with in the monochromatic look. 

  

  
Then I set everything and intensified it with powders, turns out I don’t have a stark white powder but a slightly pearlescent eyeshadow worked relatively well and added a little more dimension

On to a few details I used a black eyeliner to do the philtrum (that little cleft under the nose) and black and grey to do the eye brows. 

  

  
I gave the brows a very flat and tapered (almost permanently worried) look

And I used a baby pink lipstick set with shadow for the nose.

  
For the eyes I did a really simple smokey look just running black liner through the water and tight line and smudging it through the lash line and along the crease. I wanted to keep it messy and easy. To give it some color I used the same pink shadow (or blush) I used on my nose to blend around the crease of the eye. Liberal amounts of mascara or false lashes and the eyes were done 

I also applied liberal amounts of blush which you can see in the eyeshadow picture.  I took it from the apples of the cheeks up to the temple area. To make sure I didn’t lose the highlight effect I did touch up with the pearlescent white as a cheekbone highlight. 

  
Now the fun details. I just took a small detail brush and using the same pink as before began to draw a clock face around one of my eyes. Enter the crisis where I can’t figure out if I did the clock face backwards thanks to how my spacial reasoning sucks then you add mirrors to that. 

  
Once I was satisfied with the placement I started to intensify it with darker colors making it look as though it were a shadow or brand on the face. First grey then a little black. 

  
Pop on some ears pin up the hair.

  
And put on your bunny smile.

I don’t have all my accessories yet. There will be a giant bow tie and of course my clock lantern. But I’m pretty happy with how it turned out for a first attempt. 

  

Image

Lemon aid 

Leave a comment

When life gives me lemons…. I remind myself how much I love lemonade, seriously it’s an addiction. Know what else I love 

Put it this way, when life gives me scraps, I make bows.

  
When we were visiting Mr. Smith’s Aunt she kindly gave me a ton of amazing (adorable, wonderful, darling, “OMG I need this in my life!”) scrap material 

One stipulation… I had to make bow ties for her new yorkie… 

  
Oh what a hassle that would be (can I just inform anyone unfamiliar with tinybows that statement was dripping with sarcasm) 

I got started right away

  
Just use the same template found on this blog post for my felt hair bows and cut two pieces of the bow loop part of the template. 

  
Cut them at the same time with right sides facing towards one another and take into account seam allowance

   
Sew the two pieces together (still with outsides facing towards one another)

  
Then turn the piece right side out and flatten your seams. If needed (or wanted) you can iron it to get the seams to cooperate, I didn’t because the bows tend to be a little fluffier if you don’t flatten the seams with an iron.

  
Then cut a small rectangle of fabric about 1 inch by 2 inches and sew the long sides together with right sides facing together and again turn right side out

As a tip I had to use a pencil or sometimes a crochet hook to turn the pieces.

  
Then sew the two ends of the bow loop together.

  
Sew the center piece to the side of the back seam of the bow loop.

(Optional if you plan on attaching it to a collar) Sew a small strip of elastic on top of the  center piece

  
Wrap the center piece around the bow loop and sew it on the same seam as it started

  
Here comes the hard part, you have to stretch the elastic and sew it to the remaining centerpiece so that it rouches the fabric and allows the elastic to stretch

  
Trim any excess fabric and elastic and sew the end to the opposite side of the back of the bow 

  
You can of course adjust the size of the pattern based on how big you want the bow for your fur baby but the elastic allows it to easily stretch over the latch of a collar.

  

  

Image

The things you can’t say 

3 Comments

No I’m not taking a page from George Carlin. A lot of you might be too young to understand that, besides this is the internet technically you can say anything. However this is my 50th post and shortly after Tiny Bows’ one year anniversary. So I would like to thank all of you for reading my random ramblings. 

There have been a lot of thank yous this week. Over the last month Mr. Smith and I have had an overwhelming outpouring of support from friends, co-workers, family and even complete (and sometimes anonymous) strangers.

When something as tragic as the sudden death of a loved one too early in life happens no one is sure what to say to you. We are finding that we aren’t sure what to say in response, at least not in a way that adequately describes the gratitude we feel. 

We could have gone out and purchased generic thank you cards, but as you may be able to tell from the other 49 posts it’s not really our style. It also just didn’t feel personal enough. 

  
So instead I got a stencil and some brown paper tags

I then learned that I’m really terrible at stenciling unfortunately so is Mr. Smith. Luckily we found the stencil worked pretty good as a sort of stamp

  
Then we just glued the brown paper to folded up “fancy” paper. If you want to get technical its linen resume paper 65lb weight (aka super thick and textured). Folding it in quarters means it will fit in an A2 envelope perfectly.

  
Of course I had to leave my mark on the thank yous as well so I used a punch and some fancy paper to make tiny bows to cover the holes in the tags. 

    
While we were gathering supplies at the craft store Mr. Smith found a stamp he liked of a creepy tree.

  
So he decided while I was in the shower to put a hallmark on the back of the cards. 

  
As you can see we ran with it. 

I mean really ran with it…. Check out CreepyTrees.co

  
These cards still won’t express everything we want them to, but I hope everyone who receives one knows that they were made with love, and laughter and it is in part thanks to all of them that we can still do the latter. 

  

Image

Meta Bows

3 Comments

Guess who can actually see what they are doing now?

  
Yeah I broke down and got glasses. I knew I needed them when cross stitching was getting hard, but with one of my new jobs it was actually getting to the point where I would have to stop what I was doing just to let my eyes rest.

So enter my new glasses with bows on the bows. 

   That’s right, there are so many bows at this point it’s getting a little meta. 

Image

The Mouse

Leave a comment

I thought I would take a minute to try to explain something I know I’m terrible at explaining. We will see how well this goes? 

I had to take up some straps today. It’s the bane of my fashion existence, apparently I have a short torso or something?

At any rate it’s an easy job, just put on the dress and pin up the straps at either the front or back seam (possibly both if they are super long) 

This was only an inch so the front got it, luckily due to having a tie in the back the bust was adjustable or it might have been a bit big too.

  
So once you have your straps pinned you just start sewing, nothing fancy or new. This dress had a seam along the front I could hide the new seam in. 

  
Then I took that excess material created when tucking up the strap and started to sew it down. This is where things get a bit odd. It’s a simple whip stitch running through only the underpinning of the dress so it doesn’t show on the outside of the garment… Yup I’m terrible at explaining things…

  
At any rate it makes that flap and the rest of the dress lay flat, without cutting away the excess and risking fraying. It also means that flap of fabric won’t catch on anything, particularly in the wash. 

  
(I never said my sewing was pretty, but it’s effective)

Soooo I took a dress that was originally priced $70, worth maybe $40, I paid about $25, and made it fit like it’s …. Well I still wouldn’t pay $70 for it… 

  
All done the dress lies nice and flat and you can never tell they were taken up … So technically I lied a bit like my cross stitching it’s pretty from the front but the back is a mess. 

Image

Silly Rabbit

Leave a comment

Easter always sneaks up on me. It’s the only holiday that I “celebrate” ( I should say recognize in a completely secular way) that follows the lunar calendar. Meaning it isn’t celebrated on a specific date (for example december 25th or October 31st) or specific day (like say, the fourth Monday in November) so you never really know when it’s coming. Clearly the bunny does what it wants

IMG_2942[1]

Generally i have my seasonal desk vinyets changed out a good while befor a holiday but.. Well, one thing and another I put it up Wednesday. Luckily it’s more springy than anything else. So it will stay there for a while looking slap dashed together.

IMG_2943[1]

I was going to do a little tutorial on how I made the cute little ribbon flowers for it. I was actually channeling the flowers from a friends wedding last year. She had the most beautiful decor I’ve ever seen. Which considering I worked in the industry is saying something.

IMG_0279

Apparently she and I were on the same wavelength this week, because without her even knowing I did this little project she has offered all those flowers to me!!!!

IMG_2947[1]

I will definitely be reverse engineering some for a tutorial at a later date. I also have a feeling that despite lack of storage space or a date the boyfriend ( we decided fiancé is too grown up a word) and I will be hanging on to at least the majority of them until we can have our dream backyard reception/housewarming. Though I think some will need to be sacrificed as a couple of wreaths are in order as well, you can’t just give me flowers and expect me not to make a wreath for you.

Until then back to the grind of fixing the bathroom. For progress reports follow Tiny Bows on Facebook. 

Image

There Will Be Bows

4 Comments

Adulting is hard was the alternate title for this.

However, the last couple of weeks has proved to me that despite all attempts to avoid the dreaded adulthood, it has caught up with me. Not only did I somehow get engaged I also managed to land a (nope) two new jobs, I’ve revisited my graphic design days and rediscovered how much I love publisher, I’ve somehow managed to save up a good chunk of a down payment on a house and … Stop… It can’t all be good all at once. Enter the bathroom sink of doom.

So I wash my face every morning and every night, as one should. The other night I was washing my face as usual but when I was done I heard this steady drip drip… the pipes are fine almost like new. However the basin of my sink looks like this.

(and yes that is teal paint stuck to the basin of my very old sink)

Upon further investigation it turns out the drain and tiny fractures in the basin are in fact the culprit. Soooooooooo. Of course it’s not a standard size, and of course I can’t find anything suitable, and of course the cabinet is actually nice but has a kick plate to the floor without tiling under it so if it’s removed I then have to retile (and the tile is actually kind of nice too). Looks like despite all efforts I might have a big project on my hands.

I’ll just ignore that for now and make bows. Bows always make life better.

First I’ll need some felt and hair clips.

And a template, you can find it at this website. I actually used a different one but now that I’ve found this PDF one I’m super excited to use it.

Or you can click on FeltBow  … assuming I have this technology thing figured out

Then just cut the felt from the template

Sew the ends of the large pieces together.

Then sew the back to the circle through the narrow center to create the bow shape. Then just wind the tiny strip of felt around the center of the bow to cinch it and sew it tight.

(That’s not blurry at all… Sorry)

You can then secure it to a hair tie or adorn a wreath what every you would like.

Aaaaaahhhh….. yes life is back to blissful again.