Yarn Hangings

When I was eight years old I had this awesome hand loom. It had alternating action and it's own shuttle. I made a few things on it but I could never get my stuff to look right. It was years later before I was Indian weavers at work and learned that you shouldn't pull the thread to tight across so the weavings will lay flat.

By then my little loom was gone and I never went back to it. I of course still knit and crochet. But when I kept seeing these awesome weaving projects popping up on my Instagram feed I knew I had to give it another go. 

There were so many things I never really thought about before. Mixing different textures. Changing yarn gauges mid project. Adding in a splash of glitter or fringe.

I love that these projects are a great use of leftover yarn scraps. This didn't stop me from getting a few new balls of yarn. Like these gold metallic laced white, rainbow colored, and some extra chunky pinks and whites.

I love how these triangles turned out. Plus, I love a good fringe. 

Playing around with abstract patterns is a lot of fun. I love the touch of warmth these add to a rooms decor.

I made quite a few. One for Nandini's room (as soon as I can commit to a hanging up a little hook somewhere).  I put a few in my Etsy shop. A fun and unique handmade treasure. Makes a lovely gift too. 

Just a little bit of luck.

 I am that girl who always took the phrase 'stop and smell the flowers' literally.  It's not uncommon to see me bent over random rose bushes, or pulling down lilac branches to have a good inhale.  Lately of course I have been getting all woozy over the smell of my newborn.  I love to just smell the top of his head or, weirdly enough, his breath.  It's like heaven and I want to savor it.

We were out taking a walk today after school.  Most of the plants around here are still pretty shriveled up and brown, including the lawns.  We aren't used to much cold weather and even though it wasn't that bad here relative to the rest of the country it seems it will take our plants a wile to recover.  Somehow, one house in our neighborhood has this gorgeous lush green lawn.  I stopped to admire it, because that is totally normal (what can I say? their grass really is greener) and I saw a four leaf clover right in front of me on the sidewalk.

I can't tell you how many times I have looked for four leaf clovers, especially with Avinash who is fascinated with them.  He is pretty happy whenever he finds a regular three leaf clover and will just rip one of the leaves in half to make four.  I however keep looking for a real one, but didn't know what the secret to finding one was.  When it finally happened, I was so so soo excited to find.  And, on St. Patrick's Day (also the day of Holi and my parent's anniversary) no less?  Wow.  I had the new baby in his carrier on my chest, so I'm sure his good luck had a lot to do with it. He is definitely our Lucky baby.

One good turn deserves another so I am offering a little project life freebie for my blog readers. I turned the brush script title I made for this "so lucky" layout into a card for PL.  Just right click the image and save it.
You can check out my other freebies here, or follow my Free Printables board on Pinterest.

 I also designed two other printable card sets, which are available for sale in my Etsy shop.  Thank you all for your support!  I try not to deluge this space with shop posts but I'm always tickled when someone leaves me a note with their order letting me know they are a blog reader.  A good way to get some extra goodies for sure ;)

Letterpress and Glitter: Holiday Projects

I am at home right now.  We are spending extra time here for Thanksgiving since at 8 months I won't really be able to travel for Christmas.  We have family in town and it is a ton of fun to hang out with them again.
One of my cousin's let me help her with a scrapbook she was making for her dad.
She had done all the leg work in terms of photos and words, so really I just had to put it together.  I brought a small box of crafty stuff here (in our only bag so large it had to be checked, I'm crazy - I know), so I had a limited supply to work from.  I am proud to say I got it all done in one night.  I used neutral cardstock to print out the words and then pasted down pictures.  I used simple embellishments like washi, a few tags and some enamel dots here and there.  I stamped names on it because I really had no letter stickers or anything with me.  I think the effect was simple, classic and cohesive.
I make a lot of scrapbooks but I rarely see people looking them over in person on such a large scale.   It was really fun watching people look through it all night.

I have a new item in my shop too - letterpress cards!  I had so much fun creating these cards, most of the letterpress plates are from Studio Calico.  I used silver ink and a little red and teal as well.  I just love that color combo so much.

My washi tape samplers have obviously been really popular so I added a holiday set as well.  This set is cool because it comes with red and gold glitter twine and glitter ribbon.  Check out the Christmas washi tape sampler here.  I really had fun with the colors here, lots of red, green, silver and gold with pops of teal, chalkboard and lime.

I also added these gorgeous handmade, layered, die cut and glittered acorns.  So cute for wintery and holiday projects.

I have also been working on custom die cuts.  You can get custom 12x12 pages made or custom sets of polaroids.  I make these a lot with people's initials for weddings and stuff.  If you have a silhouette machine I have a couple of freebies you can get here: Merry&bright and stacked arrows.

Thank you to everyone for all your support of me and my Etsy shop this year.  Use the code WASHI to get 10% off any order!