You may have noticed things have slowed down around here. Like, “slowed down” is an overstatement. More like ground to a halt.

A few months back, I decided to start a new blog called Kitchen Treaty. The theme is one I’ve touched on occasionally here on The Hazel Bloom: vegetarians and meat-eaters CAN live together.

I’m super-excited about the new venture and I did think at one point I’d be able to maintain both blogs, but it quickly became apparent that it wouldn’t be feasible. So I’ve been focusing solely on Kitchen Treaty, and I’m really excited about where it’s headed.

Meanwhile, I’m slowly moving all of the posts here on The Hazel Bloom over to Kitchen Treaty (I talk a little more about that here).

Kitchen Treaty is all about recipes, but occasionally I’ll continue the The Hazel Bloom tradition of posting a little something about the rest of our world – DIY goodies, upcycling, decorating projects, travel, things like that – in the “Beyond the Kitchen” section over on Kitchen Treaty.

It’s been just over three years since I started The Hazel Bloom, and it feels like a lifetime! Amazing how our blogs can become such an integral part of us. I’m sad to let it go, but I’m so excited to continue blogging over on Kitchen Treaty. Thank you for reading, and I hope you’ll come over and have a look around!

Gosh, it was a loooong time ago that I posted about this thrift store find, a big, old gold plastic flower clock, I assume from the 70′s or thereabouts.

About a year after I posted about it, I finally got around to removing the clock part and spray painting the whole thing. Originally, I wanted to paint it a bold, bright color like red or lime green. But after some thought, I decided to go with plain old white. The better to pop against a colored wall, you see.

Well, the spray painting didn’t go that well. Some of the surface of the clock sort of curdled. I don’t know if it’s just because I didn’t clean this thing well enough (lots of nooks and crannies, ugh) or if I should have primed it or what. Or maybe it was just too humid outside. I don’t know. Anyway, I got discouraged and back in the garage it went for about another year or so. Man, the unfinished, part-way done projects I have around here. Surely everyone has projects like this that take forever to get done, right? I’m not a hoarder, am I? Don’t answer that.

So anyway. We finally got around to getting the guest bedroom in ship-shape, and when we needed something with impact above the bed, I immediately thought of my poor tucked-away, curdled paint flower-shaped thing. After pulling it back out, I realized the curdling wasn’t really all that bad. You don’t even really see it unless you’re up close.

As for the middle part, where I’d removed the clock, I’d been thinking I’d place a round of mirrored glass in the center. But the exact perfect size isn’t exactly a breeze to come by.

And so I had this little brain-click: why not just use a piece of scrapbook paper? So I dug through my scrapbook paper stash (again with the hoarding) and came up with this neat green number.

Perfect.

This trash-to-treasure wall art finishes the room perfectly. Yay for upcycling (and letting go of perfection … and, yay for hoarding, too!)

This recipe can now be found on my new blog, Kitchen Treaty – the direct link is below. It is no longer available on The Hazel Bloom.

I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, but I do hope you come on over to see Kitchen Treaty. It’s a food blog (and my new labor of love!) with easy vegetarian recipes so delicious you won’t miss the meat, flexible one dish two ways recipes with optional meat add-ins for the carnivores, universally-loved drinks and cocktails, scrumptious desserts, and lots more.

• Continue on to Honey rhubarb brown betty
• Read more about the change

This recipe can now be found on my new blog, Kitchen Treaty – the direct link is below. It is no longer available on The Hazel Bloom.

I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, but I do hope you come on over to see Kitchen Treaty. It’s a food blog (and my new labor of love!) with easy vegetarian recipes so delicious you won’t miss the meat, flexible one dish two ways recipes with optional meat add-ins for the carnivores, universally-loved drinks and cocktails, scrumptious desserts, and lots more.

• Continue on to Glazed Greek yogurt lemon poppyseed muffins
• Read more about the change

This recipe can now be found on my new blog, Kitchen Treaty – the direct link is below. It is no longer available on The Hazel Bloom.

I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, but I do hope you come on over to see Kitchen Treaty. It’s a food blog (and my new labor of love!) with easy vegetarian recipes so delicious you won’t miss the meat, flexible one dish two ways recipes with optional meat add-ins for the carnivores, universally-loved drinks and cocktails, scrumptious desserts, and lots more.

• Continue on to Glazed vanilla bean cookies
• Read more about the change

I made this! It was easy. It was fun. It was inexpensive. It was totally copied from someone else.

Like lots of things these days, it all started with Pinterest. I spotted this super-cool piece of DIY wall art while browsing the oh-so addicting site and pinned it to my ever-growing Things I Should Make board.

Crystal from the idea-packed blog It’s Doable created hers back in January. She was inspired by a photo she found on Pinterest too.

Pinterest is pretty cool.

So I emailed my sister a link and said, “Let’s get together and make these!” And then we did.

You cut scrapbook paper into leaf shapes and glue them onto a painted canvas in a flower shape. That’s pretty much the gist. Mine was a combination of bright, warm colors – red, yellow, lime – with a shot of pink here and there to make sure it’s girly enough. It went above the little play corner I’m still putting together for my baby daughter.

She’s only three months old so the play corner is really a diaper changing area at this point, but she already loves the bright colors and contrast.

My sis made hers with black, white, and red paper.

And my adorable six-year-old niece even got in on the action – as it turns out, this is a really terrific craft for kids too.

These are so, so easy to make, and, I think, look really special. I love the colorful contrast and the whimsical air it adds to the room.

Here’s how we made ours.

Scrapbook Paper Flower Wall Art

You’ll need:

• Canvas in the size of your choice (I used a 16” x 20” canvas)
• Acrylic paint in the color of your choice, but dark colors like chocolate, black, and dark gray work really well – the dark background creates a terrific contrast with lighter-hued scrapbook papers
• Large foam paint brush
• About 10 sheets of 12″ x 12″ scrapbook paper in the colors and patterns of your choice. I recommend at least four different patterns.
• Scissors (an Exacto knife and mat work too)
• Hot glue gun or, for the kids, a glue stick should suffice (or have them arrange the leaves and glue them yourself)
• Matte Mod Podge (optional)

Directions:

1. Using the foam paint brush, paint the canvas with the acrylic paint. You’ll want to paint at least two coats. Let dry completely.
2. Cut leaf shapes out of scrapbook paper, in varying sizes. Mine range from 1″ – 3″ long and are as wide as 1 1/2″. No need to be spot-on here. A range of sizes adds to the charm.
3. Cut a circle out of a piece of paper of your choice. I used the bottom of a glass to trace the circle before cutting it out.
4. Place the circle on the canvas, slightly to the left and bottom of the center of the canvas. This is the center of your flower.
5. Starting with the larger leaves, lay the leaves around the center of the flower, and continue laying leaves on the canvas in the flower shape of your choice.
6. Once it’s just right, use a hot glue gun to secure the paper to the canvas. When you get to the edge, you can either trim the paper at the edge or wrap the paper around it and glue it for a wrapped-canvas look.
7. This step is optional, but I like how it gave my canvas a finished look. Using the foam brush, I brushed matte Mod Podge over the whole thing to help completely secure the paper to the canvas. Be warned, though! This may cause some of the paper petals to buckle and warp. I was able to smooth some of the leaves out (and the rest seemed to smooth more when they dried) but the finished product isn’t *perfect* perfect. It’s perfect enough though. So – proceed cautiously with the Mod Podge.
8. Put it up, step back and admire your handiwork, you talented artist you!

More goodies like this:

• More Wall Art on the Super-Cheap: Floating Frames + Postcards
• Free Art for the Taking
• Wall Art on the Cheep
• DIY Burp Cloths from Fabric Scraps
• The Nursery!