Paper Butterfly Mobile

I have a door sized window next to my front door at the shop.  I tried curtains and random displays, but really wasn't happy with anything until I put together these bright and colorful paper mobiles.  They were super easy to make and I LOVE my window now!

Supplies needed:

Cardstock or construction paper in a variety of colors

Scissors

Butterfly punch or template

Hot glue gun

Thick string or yarn

Weight for the bottom of the sculpture (I used an acrylic crystal)

Make a loop on one end of your string and hang it from something high enough that allows you to work.  The length should be however long you want your sculpture to be.  Tie your weight onto the bottom of the string.

Cut various sized circles out of your paper and cut each circle halfway through.  Put a line of hot glue 1/4 of the way around the outside edge of the circle and pull the other side of the circle in to form a cone.

Using a template or a butterfly punch, cut out assorted butterflies.

Attach two different colored butterflies back to back, with your string in the center.  Fold the wings of the butterflies away from each other.

Attach 3 or more of the circle/cones to each other and to the string, keeping the string in the middle.

When you're done, hang it in and enjoy!

Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to share your own version of this project.  For the music paper sculpture that's also shown in the window, go here.

Worm Farming

I'm a HUGE fan of vermicomposting.  We do it on a small scale at home, although we did add an additional worm "house" to our worm farm recently (if you live in Peoria, Illinois and you want to get set up with a starter worm farm, just leave a comment with your contact information and I can set you up with the person who made our new farm.  The new one isn't pictured here). Today I just cleaned all of the dirt (dirt = worm poop) out, and replaced it with some shredded junk mail, egg shells, grape vines, etc.  Eventually, we're going to try building a new worm farm out of a 3 drawer plastic container.  Until then, this is our farm:

We don't use the spigot.  We keep enough dried leaves and junk mail in the mix that we don't get too much liquid.

Empty bin

First layer is a barely moist piece of newsprint, then we fill it with vegetable scraps, junk mail (nothing glossy), yard waste, egg shells, etc. ( no meat/protein)

I mix some dirt and some of the worm castings from a previous batch into this mix.

   Add worms - we started our worm farm with a pound of red wigglers.  Sometimes our worms do great and reproduce and sometimes they go to the big worm farm in the sky. This year we had to get new worms.

Small batches of household waste take about a month to turn into this!

It's worm poop.

AKA, a bucket of the best fertilizer ever for our garden.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the system we've been using!

Sheet Music Paper Sculpture

I have a vintage paper obsession.  I've been collecting vintage paper (old books, wrapping paper, sheet music, etc.) for years and when my closet started to resemble a very special edition of "Hoarders," I decided I had to come up with projects or get rid of all of it.

First project - Sheet Music Paper Sculpture

I saw something similar to this on Pinterest, but with construction paper instead of sheet music. 

Materials needed:

Sheet music, cut into strips

Yarn, ribbon, twine or something similar

Glue gun

Weight for the bottom of the sculpture (I used an acrylic crystal)

Use a glue gun to attach the ends of the strips together to form teardrop shapes

You can also form circles and figure 8s.

Make a loop on one end of your string and hang it from something high enough that allows you to work.  The length should be however long you want your sculpture to be.  Tie your weight onto the bottom of the string.

. Put hot glue on one of your shapes and press it against another one of your shapes, keeping the string in the middle of both shapes and in the middle of the glue. Add circles, figure 8s and teardrops down the string and to paper that has already been glued to the string until you come up with something like this:

I embellished this sculpture with paper butterflies...

...and deer moss with vintage millinery flowers...

...and hung it in the window to brighten my day...

Self Promotion Saturday (Something Blue)

Everyone around me smells like sunscreen, so I'm feeling inspired by ocean things this week:

1.) Swim with whale sharks! Apparently you can swim or scuba dive with whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium.  Because my husband and I have a gazillion dogs and an equal amount of businesses, we can pretty much only take a 2 or 3 day vacation and this is exactly what we want to do.  So we're spending the remainder of the summer getting certified for open water diving, and in December we're going to swim with whale sharks.  Also, YOU CAN SWIM WITH WHALE SHARKS.

Awesome.

2.) After you're scuba certified and you've gone swimming with whale sharks, you should probably dive somewhere that has one of these amazing underwater sculptures by Jason DeCaires Taylor. (I wrote about these before here)

When you're done exploring the bottom of the ocean, you're probably going to be starving and you're going to want to go out to eat.  You should wear this headband:

(via my Etsy shop. If you like this, but want something slightly different, let me know. I make stuff all day, every day)

Also, this dress would look stunning on you:

(Vintage! via SloppyJos)

And these are delicate and lovely:

(Via ShopSomethingBlue.  Handmade, and she does custom orders!)

And finally, a gigantic recycled, eco friendly, seahorse necklace for people who like a big, bold, statement piece:

(via Me again!)

Next week I'm looking for mossy, forest, woodland creature inspired things.  If you have something that you think would fit, let me know by linking in the comments - I'd love to feature you! 

Have a great week!

80's Party

In addition to Hey Lola, my husband and I also own a small tavern and in this small tavern, I throw the occasional theme party.

I love a theme party more than cake, and I love cake a whole lot.

We recently had an 80's themed party which was surprisingly more difficult to decorate than I had thought it would be.  Eventually, we pulled it together with cassette tape streamers, Pop Rocks and Fun Dip, neon animal print bandannas and hats, jelly bracelets, Rubik's Cubes, vinyl records hanging everywhere and the best decoration ever - Pac-Man Garland.  Here's how I made the garland:

Supplies needed:

String

Cardstock (different colors)

Hot glue

Black Marker

Scissors

Circle punch or template

Cut yellow circles out of construction paper or cardstock.  I used the roll of ribbon to trace my circles - the size was perfect.

Perfect circles!

I'm an equal opportunity crafter, so Miss Pac-Man was invited.

I used the same roll of ribbon to trace the top of the ghosts and then cut the bottom freehand.  I also cut small white ovals for their eyeballs, filling them in with black marker.

This paper punch cut out the perfect size for Pac-Man Pellets.

I used blue string and attached everything with a glue gun.  Everything is double sided, so basically glue the back side of one piece, put the string in the middle and glue an identical piece to the other side.

We strung it all over our tavern and when the party was over, we decided to leave it up.  People comment on it all of the time.

If you have any questions about how I made this or if you made it and are willing to share, let me know in the comments!