So one weekend while I was sitting across from my boyfriend eating lunch I saw him staring at me with such concentration. I turned around me to see if he was looking past me, but there was nothing there. When I ask him what's going on he bluntly says: "You need to clean your earings." Yikes! If my boyfriend is noticing it then they must be dirty! So right away I knew I had to find a DIY Jewelry cleaner on Pintrest. I found one that had the most repins and seem to be quick and doable, and it turned out it was great and I love it! Common household items that I already had so it didn't cost any money either!
Small bowl
1 Table spoon Salt
1 Table spoon Baking Soda
1 Table spoon Dawn Soap detergent (Why Dawn? I'm not sure)
Continuing with some ecofriendly blogpost in honor of Earth Day, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend and work with some wonderful people at the Bart Blue Sky Festival last Friday. Don't forget to take public transportation whenever you get the chance. Keep the sky blue. ;)
3 girls and all of our items packed into this cute little Mini.
Earth Day is around the corner and things just kind of lined up so that I havethe perfect ecofriendly post to honor Earth Day! So I've started interning with Ecomonster for the past couple of weeks now and I've learned so much! One of the things I found out about was FabMo.org, a nonprofit organization that gives away free "scrap" fabric that otherwise would have been thrown away by places such as textile companies. Here's a cool informative video about FabMo.
Lucky for me, when I found out about FabMo, their next event was a week away so I signed up for a selection slot right away. Their website is pretty easy to navigate and you can sign up for 45 minute slots available 3 days at least once a month. They have multiple time slots available to ensure that they don't get over crowded and so that you can always get a fresh batch of fabric to look through.
The parking lot is small but if you pick an early or late enough time there should still be plenty of parking spots. There's only one or out of their little warehouse area and immediately you can see a full table stacked with fabric. I'm not going to lie, I got a little giddy seeing it. At the door there were a few volunteers standing and talking to other folks searching the room and checking people in. A volunteer greeted me and checked me in an explained how things work since I told it was my first time there. You're free to walk around the room, majority of the fabric is in the middle table and back wall had some rugs and carpets, vinyls and other scraps in other sections. Then she showed me against the check in wall they had 3 different bag sizes and the suggested donation value. After that I was free to roam the room and stuff my bad full of goodies. :)
Huge piles of fabric to rummage through on the center table. they were organized by size and set in short stacks all across the table. Everyone kind of just roams around looking through stacks and that is exactly what I did too. There were stacks of fabrics in all sorts of sizes. The most popular sizes were place mat sizes (no cutting/sewing required).
Along the front there were baskets of trim and tassels all organized in boxes.
Roles of vinyls, fabrics, and rugs! After a few minutes the volunteers got everyone's attention and mentioned that the "Fabric Fairies" will come out and bring more fabrics if we organized the stacks to make sure that others can have an enjoyable experience looking through organized stacks of fabrics. Everyone laughed and all sorted the closest stack of fabric. Nothing but smiles and cheers at that time.
At the end of my 45 minutes I managed to grab a full bag of all sorts of goodies. I left my donation at the door on my way out and thanked them for such a great experience.
Here's my free* haul from FabMo. I'm in love with this place and I'm probably going to be going again next month and as long as my schedule allows me to attend their selection events. I can't wait to give these rescued designer fabrics a new life!
It's good to be back everyone. :) Here's a mini update on my life after my adventure with SJ Made. I was whisked away on vacation with my mom to Washington DC. (I'm going to create a pin board and write a blog post on that once I get my pictures off my camera). Once home from vacation I had to deal with a dead graphic card on my computer. Since I don't have the $300 (quote from the Apple store) to get a new one, I'm using my boyfriend's and sister's computer in the meantime. Unfortunately my camera doesn't register on my boyfriend's computer so I can't get my photos off.....First world problems right? Luckily I have a wifi camera so I was able to email myself a few photos to get this blog post done. However, I still don't have a permanent solution for my computer problem, but hopefully soon. Now that everyone is caught up on my personal life, here's the DIY blog post you've all been patiently waiting for.
My friends are getting married in a couple of weeks and I couldn't help but make this hanger for the bride. I love making these personalized hangers for my bride friends. It's something that not too many people think about getting for their wedding day because most of them cost between $20-30 on Etsy and trying to keep within your wedding budget buying a wedding hanger might not be on the top of your list. But little do people know, this is an easy do-it-yourself project you can do that adds an instant wow factor in photos of your hanger for your wedding dress (or any bridesmaid dress). I don't have a pin for this, since I learned how to do this for my sister's wedding some months before I started my blog but hopefully you'll be inspired to pin it. :)
What you'll need:
1 wooden hanger (Bought @Target)
Floral wire
Pliers & cutter (scrap cloth)
Print out of the words you want to have "written"
Drill (for hole in hanger - not pictured)
Glue gun (not pictured)
Floral wire is super flexible and easy to work with which is perfect for this project. The downside of that is that any bend you make in the wire leaves stress marks, and the pliers can be a little rough on the wire leaving nicks on the wires. To fix this, I just wrapped some scrap cloth around the pliers in order to soften up the rough edges.
A few things to keep in mind before you start:
Getting the letters to your liking will take some practice so cut off a small piece and bend and unbend it a couple of times to practice some hard letters
Layering up on the wire is okay because people will look at the hanger straight on
The print out that you have will be a guideline so try to keep it as close as possible. But also keep in mind that a guide is just that - a guide. So don't freak out if your letters aren't matching perfectly. As long as you have the correct general size to fit in between the hanger, you're good to go
