garden party!

i was looking through the older archives of martha's craft of the day [super fun website the by way!] and though most of these ideas were technically easter-related, when looking through them in rapid succession i kept thinking what a beautiful garden-themed little girl birthday party they would make when put together! check out these images, beautiful as only martha can make them [source links are beneath each picture]:

[hanging tissue paper flowers]

[paper basket centerpiece]

[flower cupcake stand]

[lollipop flower cupcake]

[paper daffodil votive candles]

[mini flower pot cakes]

and then, of course, have you seen kara's birthday party ideas blog? seriously, don't plan another party without it. you will be inundated with inspiration, ideas, and photos of beautiful parties! inundated, i tell you. and these would be perfect with the garden theme:

mason glass drinks in a picket fence box and party favors in tiny buckets! [the little eyeball-looking things are earrings on a card, to give you an idea of how tiny the buckets are!]

[from garden shower featured by kara]

and to keep things from being a little less super-girly and more lovely-nature-y, i'd add pretty much everything from the through the woods party she also featured. especially the moss and tree stump decorations, and the smores bite kabobs!
ok, who i am i kidding- i would love someone to throw this party for me! why should little kids have all the fun [and hard work!] and then not remember it? nothing beats a fun over-the-top birthday theme!

messy miracles.

i'm super excited to add a new little wee one to the gallery of messy little miracles over at the petite bee facebook page!

ladies and gentlemen, beautiful little miss h:
check out the whole gallery anytime, and don't forget to email me at petitebeehandmade[at] gmail.com if you'd like a picture of your favorite messy miracle in his or her favorite petite bee bib added to the gallery!

polka dotted packing tape!

edited to add:
[today i just happened to find myself back at michael's... ahem... and discovered that all of their 'dollar store' stuff, which are called 'fun finds' if you want to be technical, were 30% off! so i got 4 more rolls of this awesome tape for only .70 cents each. hurrah! fun finds indeed. also picked up a couple rolls of a gorgeous green damask print tape that was just calling my name. now i'm in search of a tape-related project to use my super pretty tape!]

i'm pretty much a sucker anytime a regular store starts having a 'dollar section.' what is it that's so magical about something only costing $1 [or even 1 ish dollars]? it gets me every time. this was especially true a few weeks back at michael's when i saw a little bit of polka dotted green goodness peeking out from one of the 'dollar section' shelves full of office supplies:

green. polka dot. packing tape.

what could be better for petite bee? i snapped up 3 rolls right on the spot [i think they were like $2.50, but still!] and may have to get some more, i love it that much. it looked so cute on my orders i shipped out yesterday. and since i always try to re-use any bubble mailer envelopes i can, it helps them stay together in the mail a little better while also adding a little fun!

i love getting real mail, and i especially love it when it's brightly packaged! hopefully one of these dotted little wonders is on its way to you!

night time crafting.

welcome to a typical night of crafting chez me... hubby is out fishing, wee one is sleeping soundly in her bed, and i'm starting with some slightly burned chocolate chip cookies and yes, every single season of gilmore girls at my disposal.
sidenote: why is the fine line between deliciously baked and terribly burnt so miniscule?

and, slightly less edible but arguably just as yummy, a nice little pile of craft supplies!
i've been stalking this little address file book on etsy for a long, long time. not that i have particularly transient friends or anything, but the main problem with a traditional address book is that each time any little detail [or the whole address!] changes for anyone, you have to completely cross it out and deal with page after page of not-so-lovely crossed out pages. thus the genius of a little card file where there's one neat little card per person than can be torn out & replaced each time you need to make a change! hurray!

it's the simple things in life, ya'll.

so i decided to start making my cards... updating addresses as i go... and they needed a little personality. so, perfect time to try out my new speedball stamp carver for the first time! and what could be better for an address card than an old school rotary phone?
add it to a regular 3x5 index card, and now i have awesome little stamped cards ready to be personalized with the addresses of our friends and families! [and that is my all-time favorite pen by the way].
so now, several episodes of gilmore girls later, i have bunches of super cute telephone-ed cards ready for addresses to go in a new address file book!

thanks for crashing my little craft-in this evening! come back anytime... i promise i'll save you some cookies.

a few of my favorite things...

today i got a glorious hour-ish block of time in my craft room with my spray paint. i left the door open, worked mostly in the back yard, enjoyed the sun and a little breeze... just enough to dry each layer as i worked.

spray paint makes me so happy.

i guess it's the combination of easy & cheap, the love of a quick makeover, the way your finger cramps up from squeezing the sprayer so long, or maybe it's just all the pretty colors! this is a sure sign of a good day:
isn't that yummy? it kind of makes me think of ice cream and chocolate. makes me want to paint everything i own... maybe it's the grown up version of coloring?

here are all the names of my favorite colors i'm using on several projects right now, in case you were wondering (because i always wonder).
i have to say that krylon has truly won me over with their little built-in sprayer that makes a big cloud of color instead of a little graffiti-like squirt. if i keep it up i may need to invest in a hardcore little grippy thingy to do the spraying for me. also, note to self-i do in fact need a real drop cloth [to use as an actual drop cloth] because i think it would blow around less in the breeze.

and here are my projects in progress, can't you tell my neighbors must love me? i guess every neighborhood needs that crazy girl who is always in the paint-splattered shorts, spraying multiple things at once spread out over a huge plastic drop cloth.
i can't wait to show the befores and afters on these!

inspiration: chalkboard paint!

i've been dying to get a little can of chalkboard paint and chalkboard-ify some surfaces just because it's awesome. truly, i think the only reason i haven't yet is because the feel of chalk gives me the willies a little bit. but with the availability of awesome chalk paint pens maybe that could be solved. and you're not even limited to black or schoolhouse green for your chalkboard anymore- the paint comes in amazing colors! it even comes in spray paint!

here are the beautiful chalkboard-ified things that are inspiring me right now:

chalkboard thought bubble and whale

chalkboard platter

framed chalkboard [or platter!] on your mantle!
love the numbered platters as well!

amazing glass kitchen canisters

corkboard and chalkboard squares

chalkboard on your fridge or inside a cabinet or pantry door

[easy list making! or if it's galvanized metal, it's also magnetic]

love the idea of a chalkboard backsplash.

and of course... the entire chalkboard wall [i love the combination here with the letters written in chalk and the vintage sign letter!] this just seems perfect in a kitchen. and there are so many beautiful and inspiring ways it's been done!

check out the bajillion links at the end of this post by the nester to see where everyone is using their chalkboard paint! if it were possible, i'd be painting this little bar/island/half wall in our kitchen... it takes so much abuse with thrown food etc [notice the high chair], and would be the perfect height for my little bear to color while i drink my morning coffee!

re-upholstery.

i just saw this cool video on etsy. i've always thought it would be pretty amazing to be able to re-upholster things [and i would start with my couches]. i can do a really simple seat cover, the padded wooden-bottom kinds, but that's about it.

Process: Upholstery with Spruce Home from Etsy on Vimeo.

i think i [not so secretly] harbor a desire to make my first million by turning free-on-the-side-of-the-road junk into unique treasures like the chair in this video. i truly do love random awesome discoveries from etsy.

mmm... organization.

i have pretty much taken up residence in this aisle recently:
and you'll never believe where it is... walmart! they have this new line of really cute, really cheap, nice quality office organization supplies! i've been working on getting all of my craft supplies sorted and stashed, nicely and neatly, so that in the precious moments of time i have to i go down to the basement to craft, i can actually find what i'm looking for.

i'm a firm believer that everything has to have it's place to be able to be put away. and since our basement is a 'hard working space' [as the decor blogs say], combining my craft area, a garage-type area, our attic-storage type stuff, and hopefully eventually a small playroom area, it needs to be organized to remain livable. oh, and all the walls and floors are unfinished, but luckily, we were given a large carpet scrap in great condition for the main area.

and seeing as how the craft corner has been in various stages, starting with this photo when we first moved in and progressing steadily over time to a truly frightful mess, it was time for some serious storage work:
i swear, i think everything in these boxes came out and multiplied itself by at least 10:
well, it had been a disorganized disaster long enough. i should have taken a better 'before' picture, because those don't quite do the chaos justice. we moved the main desk upstairs, and i set up my craft show table for some working surface.

i had some wire shelving cubes that i started sorting my fabric on, and ended up getting two more and the cubes (from walmart!) for storage in them. i LOVE that everything has it's place now, and i can just pull out the particular 'drawer' i need and have all the supplies right on hand for shipping out an order or working on a project. i'm hoping to spend much less time looking for and gathering up the needed supplies and go straight to working on something... before the inspiration is gone or the wee one is up from her nap!

i'm still working on it, but here's a little sneak preview of the almost-done craft room!

inspiration: drop cloth drapes.

i've been on a seemingly endless search for pretty and yet affordable drapes/curtains for our dining room. the dilemmas i'm facing? there are four large windows [which gets pricey quick!], two of which have an awkward corner in between them, i don't want to block out too much light, i have no idea what i really want the room to look like overall... oh, and all on a next-to-nothing budget.

i've heard of using drop cloths as curtains before, but honestly, they're about the last thing i would have thought of hanging on my windows having seen them in home depot:
but truthfully, after you wash them, there's really not that much difference between them and these gorgeous curtains from pottery barn except the ginormous difference in price tag!
just add some clippy rings and a simple rod, and you've got an inexpensive way to have large, dramatic curtains in any room! and as it turns out, blogland is full of creative crafters making this cheapo-option work more beautifully than i would ever have believed! here are some incredible examples:

outdoor patio drapes by heather bullard.

tie-back drapes [and some helpful drop cloth hints] by beneath my heart.

drapes with amazing placemat valances [don't miss these!] by living with lindsay.

totally glam living room by a penny saved.

i love the literally blank canvas feel of these... they can be left plain for a breezy beachy feel, or easily customized in about a million ways! they can be hemmed to whatever size your window needs, you can add a solid block of fabric or a print to match your room, any kind of trim you want, or even do some sort of block print pattern [which would make them look like the leaf ones i originally liked at world market, but decided i couldn't afford 4 windows worth]. and on that note, they're cheap enough to cover every window in the house!

i have a really large roll of pretty green grosgrain ribbon that i think i might add to make them similar to these ribbon-trimmed pottery barn ones. i think a little touch of color would make them look customized and much more expensive than they actually were!
the more i look at them and think about it, i think they'd also be perfect for the huge window in our master bedroom that needs a little something. i have a few other partially-finished projects for that room, so it's in a bit of a makeover stage anyway [in other words, this is the extremely 'before' photo!]:
has anybody else tried this idea and loved how they looked?

they're here!

when i ordered my mini moo cards last week i unfortunately didn't take the memorial day holiday into account, but they're finally here!

and i love them.

i have to say that i can learn a lot from packaging/presentation from the moo company. it is really simple and clean but still very personal. inside the pretty white bubble mailer was this pretty little white box with a pretty little pink sleeve:
and inside [also pink] were my little cards, printed exactly how i wanted/expected them! [even though all those little eyeballs on the front kind of reminded me of toy story]. i was a little worried that the photo quality might not turn out so great since the photo was originally taken with my camera phone, but moo did a perfect job!
the box even has wee little file tabs to separate your minicards from any other people's that you may collect!
and it's the perfect size to pop in your bag and have on hand any time you need one!
love moo. can't recommend them highly enough!

oh, deer.

we have a new friend living with us.
is it bad that i want to decoupage him? or get him a chic white cardboard friend.

and i hate to tell you buddy, but even though you are [were] male, this is coming your way next december... get ready.