Failure and a Vest.

As I have received comments from all of my readers, you guys have made me feel super awesome. Like so awesome that I thought I was the bomb-diggity. Alas, I am not. I was in the mind set that I could tackle any project and have it be a success. Well let me tell you, I have attacked two pretty awesome projects and they ended up being... not awesome. In fact, they were complete failures. Until I turned my frown upside down and got creative!

My original project was to make a maxi dress. Yep, this was the most embarassing one of all. So I was at Jo-Ann's with my 40% off coupon, and picked up some friggin sweet polyester/rayon stretchy t-shirt fabric for like $16. I had this awesome idea for a maxi dress, and as the project continued, it looked like CRAP. Seriously, I tried it on in front of my husband, and was literally embarassed. Which is saying something, because I've done some pretty stupid stuff in front of him! Anyway, I ended up tearing apart the entire thing and made a vest out of it... Here it is!

So I looked online for any instructions on how to make a DIY scarf vest, and it pulled up all these crazy tutorials with angles, and cutting, and surgers... not exactly my cup of tea. I need something simple and something fast. Soooo, I basically modified one tutorial I found, and it's SUPER easy!

All you do is get yourself ( roughly) one square yard of stretchy fabric. Mine was a poly rayon blend.

Okay, take your square and fold it in half. Next you are going to cut slits for your arms. Along the folded side, measure about 6 inches in, and then 6 inches down. This will be where you start the top of the slit. 

(If you have broader shoulders, you can bring it out a little further. I am rather narrow, so I only did about 5 inches. )

Now, you are going to make a vertical cut about 6-7 inches. Unfold it, and BOOM, you're done. You have a totally sweet scarf vest!

Here's what to do if you want to go the extra mile and make a tie for it. All you do is try on your vest and find where on your waist you'd like the belt to sit. Fold it in half again, and measure in about 9 inches from where you've marked it. Cut two 2 inch vertical slits, or wider if you already have a waist belt you'd like to use. If not, just take a long strip of fabric and slide it though your belt loops!

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy right?! I love it when I can take a crap project and either salvage it or make it something completely different. Isn't it the pits when you just completely fail? Have you ever had a project that you thought was going to be dreamy and ended up being awful? Were you able to redeem it and make it awesome?

Here is a sneak peek of me trying to dye some fabric ombré style! Full tutorial coming soon!

Creative Escape 2011

You guys. I just had one of the most fun weekends of my crafting life!!! I had the amazing opprotunity to attend Creative Escape 2011 with one of my BFFF's Hillary! If you don't know what Creative Escape is, it's a conference where you are able to attend different classes everyday, and make awesome scrapbook projects! It's idea was pitched 6 years ago to Doug Jones the owner of Bazzill Basics Paper, by scrapbooker Heidi Swapp. (Just wanna say that I personally know Heidi... used to babysit her kids and everything.) Anyway, my mother has attended Creative Escape a few times and I always wondered why she was gone for 3 days, and then came back with crap loads of scrapbooking stuff. Well now I know... because it's freaking AMAZING!

 

You would not believe how many smart and talented women attend and teach for this thing, and I was lucky enough to MEET them! Women fly in from all over the world to let their creative juices flow and be able to partake of the inspiration Creative Escape gives. The theme of this year's Escape was "Create to Remember." When Heidi gave the keynote speech last night, she explained that when we create something around a memory, it's far easier to remember. With scrapbooking, you are taking these moments and making them sparkly and decorative... we do this because they are WORTH remembering. It completely made me realize that I need to start scrapbooking A LOT more!

Here are some photos of the greatness:

 

"Welcome" Sign Class -- taught by Heidi Lynn Schreiber

 

Oh... there's Heidi, who is also Hill's sister. We had a good time goofing around in her class... and making hilarious comments.

 

We won this cupcake in a jar in her class, which totally was a dream, and devoured within about 1.5 minutes.

 

She also made this lamp... I was jealous.

 

Memory Book Class -- taught by Amy Totty

 Amy also had these books on display in her class. So talented!

Oh, and she made this lamp too. Obsessed. 

 Gettin' my tan on at the pool

 Amy Totty handed these to Hill and I just before her class started... we had way too much fun.

 Hills and I not taking anything seriously.

And some dessert on the last night (which wasn't that great =/) and a little goody about Heidi Swapp.

Needless to say, I had a blast! It was so fun to be creative and meet those women, but most of all to spend some time with Hillary. We laughed so flippin' hard the whole time, and I want to publicly thank her and her family for inviting me to attend.

On a different note, I'm excited to inform you that I have quite a few new projects coming up. They include: pillows, ombre dying, doileys, and Halloween decor. Get excited.

MIA

I haven't blogged in close to 2.5 weeks. I have felt SO empty! I'm sorry I haven't provided any updates either. I feel really really lame!

Here's why:

So the first weekend of August was actually our first vacation of the summer. The husband and I planned a trip up to the mountains with some friends for the weekend, so we headed up to Fossil Springs in Strawberry. The day we got there we hiked down to where the falls are. Well, there were a lot of people there, and by a lot of people, I mean a lot of drunk people. Anyway, my husband was standing on the edge of the huge pool, and underneath some cliffs. Some kids were having a little too much fun on the rope swing, and shook some rocks loose on the way down. Ben just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and took a boulder (the size of a couch pillow) to the head. He was carried up the trail, took an ambulance to the small neighboring town, and air-vacced to Scottsdale. He had emergency surgery to repair severe lacerations to his head, and we later found that 4 of his thoracic vertebrae had been fractured. We spent 3 sleepless nights in the hospital.
It's amazing he wasn't killed or paralyzed, or has any damage at all to his brain. He is currently in a brace and will be for 2 more months. The staples in his head come out in a few days.

That being said, I spent a lot of time in the hospital doing NOTHING! The only thing I have "crafted" was putting the pads on the plastic part of his brace correctly. However, I spent a lot of time blog hopping and wasting WAY too much time on Pinterest. Do you have a Pinterest account? If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up... it is so choice. (Ferris Bueller anyone?) Since being home, I've been working like crazy (since he can't) and putting all of my time and effort into making sure he's taken care of. Things are starting to wind down, so there will be new projects soon!

Here are some cute ideas I came across while "pinnng" and blog hopping!

Thumb tack vase fillers
found on

www.landeeseelandeedo.blogspot.com

A fancified baby onesie... I'm a sucker for baby stuff.

found on

www.acoupleofcraftaddicts.blogspot.com

Curtain rods hung from the ceiling to create a canopy bed

found on

www.dressdesigndecor.blogspot.com

 

Cute Cute Cute reclaimed wood art

found on

www.cornerhouseblog.com

 

Freakin AWESOME zebra rug

found on

www.vintagerevivals.blogspot.com

 

Stenciled and Painted Pillows

found on

www.tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com

 

Family Sign

found on

www.jmbredsguardfamily.blogspot.com

SUPER cute stuff, huh? I love it all. Anyway, Halloween is coming up!! Yay! It's like my favorite holiday after Christmas. I still make my husband dress up with me. Anyway, keep an eye out for new posts featuring some fun Halloween Decor!

Oh, and my birthday is tomorrow, the 24th. Is it sad that I'm not even excited? 22 seems so lame... Who knows though? Maybe it'll be the best year of my life!

Finding YOUR Style

 The following was written on Tuesday, my day off from work. My apologies for the delay. I've been pretty lazy this week.

No DIYing or Craftliciousness today. Today was a poop day. So for this post I will be talking about Finding YOUR style. But first, I'm going to tell you why I had a poop day.

Last night I planned my day with the best of intentions.

Expectations: 
Wake up extra early and look super cute
The hubs and I were going to go look at houses this morning (because we're looking, yay!)
grab some lunch
then I would be off to do some thrifting!
I had planned on finding something grand at Goodwill and making it awesome
Then doing a full DIY post.

Reality:
Woke up at 10AM because I felt sick all night and didn't fall asleep till around 3ish
Took a shower only to find that I only had about a nickel size amount of shampoo left and no conditioner. Frizzy curly hair day.
Looked at some houses and found one we really really want. Pretty much the only un-poopy thing today.
Husband wanted gross food, so he dropped me off at Anthropologie while he picked it up. Anthro has a killer sale right now, but we don't get paid till later this week, so I couldn't get anything. =(
Didn't eat any lunch, but headed off to Goodwill instead. Didn't. Find. Anything.
Went to another Goodwill. Again, nothing.
Breann, I said to myself, think outside the box. There has to be SOMETHING good here.
Nope, nothing. BUMMER.
Got some Costa Vida to ease the pain and went home to watch a movie.
Decided to watch Step Up 3, which by the way, was a compete waste of time.
Started to blog hop and slowly began to feel like more of a failure.
It was a POOP day.

Then I realized, we all have poop days. I decided to get over it, and instead write a helpful post on finding your style instead. Boo-yah... Poop Day can suck it.

Please keep in mind when reading this, that I am no professional designer. I didn't go to school for Interior Design and only have my OWN experience. Everything I give advice on is based off of my own decorating successes and fails.

I discovered most of my decorating fails took place because I didn't know what my own personal style was. I knew when things looked good and when they didn't, but I couldn't pin point what exactly I wanted my house to look like.

Color Palette:

I think the best thing to start off with is determining a color palette. I have found, that the best combinations start with mostly neutral colors with pops of color.

My faaaavorite color palette right now is whites and grays, popped with yellow and light blue. Here's an example:

 

I love these pops of color, but they're not too obnoxious. Very soft...

Some have a hard time determining a color palette.... I for one thought that black and red was awesome. Wrong! Black and red made everything look so dark! I started to add creams and beiges to that and it looked a million times better. If you aren't sure what colors you love... go with all neutrals! It'll give you a clean canvas, and as you play, you'll find colors that you love.

 

Neutral walls and decor, but then popped with the orange chairs.

 

Neutral couch, walls, and rug, then popped with blue door and red pillow. dreamy.

Styling:

Finding your style can be super hard and confusing! It's hard to determine whether or not you're classic, eclectic, vintage-y, or modern. What helped me decide how to style my home is starting with the center of my room. What's the center of the living room? Duh, the couch. What's the center of the bedroom? Duh, the bed. Pick out furniture that you love. Why? Because furniture is effing expensive, and you need to pick out pieces that are quality because they will last you a long time. When shopping, keep in mind pieces that will match your color palette. A black couch is not going to go well with light airy colors. And a white couch isn't going to match brown, red and gold tones. My husband and I went with a dark brown leather couch and a dark wood sleigh bed. We made it neutral, so that we could build off of it. After you've found your pieces, don't be afraid to PLAY. 

Go to different stores and look for things that catch your eye. When you find a style you love, you'll be able to work off of your centerpieces and implement your color palette. 

Pottery Barn has super classic style... their stuff is gonna look good for a long time!

 

Anthropologie is super eclectic. Decorating eclectic-ly is going to ensure that you won't walk into everyone's house and see the same thing. Very fun!

 

Are you more of a vintage-y girl? Google local boutiques and antique stores in your area. If you're into DIY stuff like me, the vintage look is SO easy to pull off! All you need is some sand paper, and you can tie that look into almost anything! 

 

Love the modern look? Think symmetry, and solid colors. Kind of like the Apple store. Very cool look... you'll feel super fancy.

 

Keep in mind, that you don't have to be just one style. I'd say I'm a good mix of classic and vintage. 

Don't be afraid of accessories either. They can always be changed! I can't tell you how many frames I've re-painted, pillows I've re-covered, and walls I've re-decorated. Style is constantly changing, don't be reluctant to change with it. EMBRACE IT!

Walls:

 Having the right walls can either make or break a room. How many times have you been searching for a home, walked in, and seen a hideous color slapped on the walls? I think walls are VERY important.

 One thing I always remind people of is that having lighter colors on your walls will make a room appear BIGGER. I'm not saying that every wall needs to be painted white, but please don't paint them some hideous army green... I'm begging you.

Also, you can do more than just paint! There are so many options! Don't be afraid to explore textures!

Here are some fun examples!

   BRICK!

Board and Batten

 

Wood

I don't suggest it for every single wall, but having a patterned accent wall looks very cool!

 

I heart Chevron Pattern!!

 

dreamy

 

stripey!!

Well, that's pretty much all the advice I can think of for now. Most important, don't be afraid to PLAY! Everyone has decorating fails, so please don't give up! We learn the most from our mistakes. Keep shopping around for things you love. Everyone has a different style, just make sure YOU love it!

If there are any questions, please contact me! I'm not an expert, but I love a challenge! Love all of my followers! Hope you guys are getting super craftlicious!!

P.S. Can you PLEASE visit and follow my friend Hillary's blog?!!!  

www.itsprettymagical.blogspot.com

Basically, you'll pee your pants because she's hilarious. Seriously puts a little more brightness into my already blinding days. Do it, I know you'll love it.

Skirt of Awesomeness

So besides breaking my back making a few of these :

 

I discovered this little blog and it's a dream! It's called Cotton & Curls, and she takes old thrifted clothes and makes them AMAZING!!! Anyway, she inspired me to DIY some old crap clothes of mine into something wearable again. We start with the mini dress.

Have you seen these guys? 

Super cute cotton mini dresses. I swear everyone and their Mom looks good in them, except for me. My problem? I'm a freaking Amazon and I'm so tall that the skirt part comes up right beneath my chesticles, making it waaay too short. Therefore, my freaky long chicken legs are exposed and my butt's about to fly out. NOT CUTE. I don't need to add that it makes me super uncomfortable. Anyway, it's been sitting in my closet for a while now, and I just can't bear to part with it. Unfortunately, the only way to wear it was with leggings, and let's be real, I live in Arizona. Not gonna happen. I needed to throw it away but I came up with a different plan, Muahahahaha!

I decided to turn it into a skirt... it's super easy, and here's how!

Step #1- cut the top off just below the armpits

Step #2 - Decide how thick of a band you want at the top, turn inside-out and pin. Mine is about 3 inches. If the band is loose around your waist I recommend buying some elastic tape to sew inside. Mine was pretty form fitting so I didn't need to.

Step #3- sew about a 1/2 inch from the top. I recommend using a zig-zag pattern if you're working with stretchy material... it just seems to hold better.

Sorry no picture of this step... it's a little difficult to maneuver a camera whilst sewing. =) Also, I sewed with black thread, so it's basically impossible to see anyway.

And, boo-yah! You've got a fancy schmancy Skirt of Awesomeness that is long, form fitting, and just looks dang good.

 

Photo Edit using: Instagram and Photoshop CS3

 Do you love my modeling? I didn't want to strap on heels, so I decided to stand on my tippy-toes which made me fall backward. Snapped this little gem just in time!

Hope everyone is having an awesome week so far! School starts here pretty soon in AZ... I can just feel the anxiety of children, and the relief of parents! OH, and that cute ASU banner... yeah, you could have one of those sitting in your house. Enter the giveaway and it just might be yours. Seriously, go enter... so worth it.

P.S. I'm looking to get a new sewing machine... the one I'm using is stolen from my Mother and I'm pretty sure it might be older than me. Any suggestions for a good one, on the cheaper side? I'm trying to keep the budget around $200... Let me know you Craftlicious ladies!

Blog Award?!!!

Yeah, I got a blog award. It's pretty crazy. Who would of thought little ol' Breann from little ol' Get Craftlicious could get an award? I can't, but that's probably because the only thing I've ever won is a leg wrestling match with my younger brother when I was 10. Anyway, I feel very special right now! Here are the deets!!

The Liebster Blog Award 

It is an award used to highlight smaller blogs that are less known (blogs with less than 300 followers).

The Liebster Award is one you accept with the intention of paying it forward. 

When you accept the award, choose 3-5 other blogs that you feel deserve more followers, 
and pass the word on to them.

After accepting the award, you are supposed to share 7 things that the blogging world 
doesn't know about you.

I was nominated by Michelle from Our Wonderfilled Life. Michelle is a new bloggy friend and she has an amazing story. She's the Mom to 5 boys, 4 of which are quadruplets which I think speaks mounds about her! She's beyond creative and so, so sweet! Please visit her blog, I know you'll be pretty dang impressed.

Here are the 7 things the blog world doesn't know about me:

1. I am a dancer. I did dance all through jr. high and high school, and even though I'm not currently enrolled in a class, I am a dancer at heart. When an amazing song comes on I can't help but start to choreograph in my head. Current song I'm choreographing to right now is Sail by AWOLNATION.

2. I love all music except for country and oldies. (Like Beach Boys oldies... sorry if that offends.) I listen to everything from Classic Rock, Reggae and Ska, Rap and R&B, to Alternative and Pop. Current obsession is Fleetwood Mac and Katy Perry. Like I said, (almost) everything.

Crap, this picture makes me laugh so hard. =)

3. I do not forgive easily. It is something I struggle with everyday and I am trying my best to overcome. My husband tries to tell me it's a good thing, because that way people won't take advantage of me. Whether good or bad, it's a trait that I want to improve... I want to love everyone, regardless of whether or not they've offended me.

4. I have been told I have a Grace Kelly-esque look about me. I will gladly accept this compliment. 

5. I love GOOD food.... I think I was spoiled in the sense that I have been exposed to great cooking. Trying new restaurants is a fave of mine. Also, I like butter... lots and lots of butter.

6. I have a favorite movie. I think this is special because hardly anyone can think of a movie that's #1 on their list. Mine is Meet Joe Black. It's a very long movie and is in general very slow, a good lazy day movie. However, it has a beautiful story and some of the most incredible writing. Plus it's got Sir Anthony Hopkins and BRAD PITT! What more could you ask for?

"Should you choose to test my resolve in this matter, you will be facing a finality beyond your comprehension, and you will not be counting days, or months, or years, but milleniums in a place with no doors."

7. I love my husband more and more everyday. We have several friends and family members who have suffered through, or are currently in the process of getting divorced. I'm so grateful that we can look at each other every day and still feel an enormous amount of love for the other. He is the greatest blessing I have been given and truly a wonderful man. Plus, he's super hott... with two "t"s!

So there's 7 things you didn't know about me! I'm pretty cool, huh? Just kidding!... but seriously.

Here are my choices for the Liebster Blog Award!

Alexis from Alexis Laughs

Hillary from It's Pretty Magical

Michelle from Our Wonderfilled Life

Pam from www.pamelabowman.com

I chose each of these blogs very carefully. Mainly because they're hilarious. These are amazing women, so you really need to check out and follow their blogs. For reals.

Hope everyone has a great week, can't wait to show you what I'm working on!!! I love being Craftlicious. Oh, and don't forget to enter the giveaway. Only a few more spots are left!

Giveaway change-up

So I posted about a giveaway a little while ago. Only a couple people have entered, and I think I know why... I made it way too confusing! Haha, I got a couple e-mails about it! ANYWAY, I'm changing it up.

Here's what to do:

• Be a FOLLOWER
• "Like" the Get Craftlicious Facebook page
• Leave a comment below telling me what your favorite project has been on Get Craftlicious 
• If you are having an issue leaving a comment on the blog (which a lot of people are having issues with Blogger lately) You may leave your comment in a Wall Post on the Facebook Page.

When there are 20 comments, I will randomly select one person to be the winner. To speed up the process tell all your friends, family and enemies to be a follower and "like" the Get Craftlicious Facebook page!

Simple enough, right? Here's the prize:

A Pennant sign, saying whatever you want, in whatever colors you want. I will ship it to you, even if you live in Antarctica. Although in all fairness, if you live in Antarctica you're probably doing better things than reading my blog. =)

 

This one was made for Alexis Solomon, one of my sponsors. Check out her hilarious/ insightful/ cute blog! www.alexislaughs.com

Let the entries begin! Seriously though, you better enter. =)

P.S. So I added a playlist. I used get annoyed with playlists on blogs until I decided one day to just listen to them. Turns out you can learn a lot about a person from the music they listen to. So I hope you enjoy my playlist... I think I have pretty great taste in music, but I'm biased.