I am so so sorry for my long absence of late, but I'm in the final days crafting for my book and even a spare hour to blog is impossible to carve out.
So...I promise I will be back in a few weeks with more great posts, and even some sneak peaks into the world of producing a 100+ project craft book!
Don't give up on me...great things are on the horizon!
(Here is a photograph of my son Oliver "helping Mommy work." His understanding of work is going to be very hard to clarify.)
{via I Spy with my Salad Eyes}
If you don't love confetti, you don't have a soul. Ok, maybe it's a mess to clean up, but even the cheesiest of metallic confetti has a glittery, sparkly, ephemeral impact. Check out these surprising ways to use it....
Put a packet of confetti in your wedding invitation. I'm beyond in love with this one that I found on Pinterest!
How awesome are these tube confetti throwers from Oh Happy Day? Love love love...
I still love the confetti gift wrap that I blogged about two years ago!
Love the look but hate the mess? Try a stamped table runner (you can use a pencil eraser, a wine cork, or a sliced carrot) that gives the illusions of confetti like this one from Love Luxe.
Yes, you heard me. And yes, you are reading The Violet Hours blog. I know, decorating with fruit may sound super grandma to you, but after you look at this post, your mind will be forever changed!
Oh Happy Day always gets it right, and this fruit balloon garland proves it. I'm obsessed!
I specifically sought out a pineapple wallpaper because I won't deny that I love it. And how perfectly crafty is this color-by-numbers one by Jenny Wilkinson found on Design*Sponge?
Call me crazy (Michael-husband, I hear you the loudest), but I could really get behind a glass fruit chandelier in my life one day. Found via Pinterest.
What is it with pears that make us love them so? I love all three of these lovely dolled up plastic pear crafts. Sources: Glitter pears, We Heart It; Chalk pears, The Empty Nest; Jute Pears, I Should Really Be Sleeping.
Oeuf never ceases to fail when it comes to their garlands. I'm in love with this crocheted cherry one.
If this pomegranate iPhone wallpaper were real wallpaper, it would be in my bathroom.
Almost as good as Willy Wonka's lick-able wallpaper, these bananas from Flavor Paper are scratch-n-sniff. For real.
Are you inspired now? But just pick one. You don't want your home looking like a giant fruit salad.
I am so not alone in my love for Instagram. It has definitely pulled ahead as my favorite form of social media. At this point in my life, I have time to look at pictures and not much else!
Some of my Instagram pics are among my favorite I've ever taken (like this one of my daugther Sommer at her first music class), and I'm desperate to free them from my digital devices and let them live in my world so I can actually touch them. Here are some great ways to do that...
LMNOP blogged about Origrami, a service that prints postcard-quality prints of your Instagram photos. And then packages them in that amazing box. I'm doing this. Even if I have to pay shipping from Australia.
I love the way A Beach Cottage arranged Instagram photos of a beach vaca on a wall in the shape of a heart. Because face it, who doesn't love the beach? And Instagram. So if you are a shutter-happy photographer on one subject, this project will visually link the imagery and colors nicely.
Seriously, this is a dream of mine: a huge frame with hundreds of Instagram photos. If only I had the wall for it. Found via Because I'm Addicted.
Young House Love framed their Instagram photos in jewel cases. Always a fabulous, photograph vehicle. (PS...I'm so proud to share a book publisher with them! How on Earth did that happen?)
I was driving to Michael's the other day, and heard a fascinating report on NPR. The author of a new book called Drunk Tank Pink, Adam Alter, was discussing with Ira Foster how hidden currents, from reactions to color to our attraction to certain letters of the alphabet, affect our behavior and thoughts in significant ways.
The term "drunk tank pink", I just learned from this website Color Matters, is the name that was given to the color that was used in jail cells to calm violent prisoners. It was discovered that this hue (R:255, G:145, B:175) had a calming influence, even affecting a person's heart rate, but could then create adverse effects after about 15 minutes of being subjected to it.
Then there's the story about the head football coach at the University of Iowa who painted the opposing team's locker room pink to weaken their performance on the field. Rumor has it that the visitors would cover everything with newspaper as best they could before entering the locker room to derail this bubblegum assault.
So naturally I began to think about pink in a new way...little girls clothed in pink, sleeping inside pink walls, chewing on pink plastic giraffes. Do we push this pacifying color onto them or is it a biological attraction?
A few years ago I blogged about this project by South Korean artist JeongMee Yoon on Parents magazine's Goodyblog. Starting with her 5-year old daughter Yoon
conducted a documentary-esque study of children and their possessions.
She orderly arranged their belongings, from clothing to pencils to
books, in their bedrooms. The resulting photographs are astounding. The diptych is of a set of twins that both started out in the pink world, and then went their separate ways to pink and purple.
I am usually not drawn to pink for my 1-year-old daughter Sommer and much of what she wears is hand-me-downs from her brother (she survived the winter being mistaken for a boy in a navy-blue coat). I'm curious to see how it all shakes out; if one day, she'll be fighting to paint her half of the room blush or bashful.
I pinned this photo from a French blog a while ago as aspiration. This is my goal for how I want my kids' room to look. Loose, fun, casual. I'm on my way, for sure...we have a knitted bunting, a mushroom table lamp, a poppy, apple green side table, cool wallpaper from Fine Little Day...and now, we have a toddler bed.
Yes, Oliver has graduated, and thank goodness! Poor Sommer has been waiting for her fashionable, Kalon Studios Caravan crib for months now. We got Oliver the Gulliver bed from Ikea; now I just need to hack it a little bit to give it some European style. I wanted something simple that could compliment the Caravan, but at a lower price point. I plan to style it like a little day bed, and honestly, I can't wait to start pinning textiles.
Tonight will be the first night as a big boy. Must mark it down in the calendar.
My 2.5-year-old Oliver loves rockets. He calls them rocket-planes because they fly like planes; they don't sail like ships. Der. He sees rockets in everything from a water bottle to a random pile of blocks loosely dropped into a pointed formation. So naturally I invented a rocket craft for my book...and after scouring the web for my competition, I'd say it's pretty original. Alas, I can't post it yet, so here are a few other ideas that I heart that aren't the typical cardboard tubes and streamer flames.
Rockets live so naturally on a garland, like the one above from Guusjes Appeltaart, a Dutch blog. She made stamps of rockets, stars, and flying saucers to create these gorgeous forms. I just love them.
Bonus points go to a rocket craft that can actually fly, like this cute project found on Dollar Store Crafts. You blow through the straw to make it soar through the air. Big fun.
Here is the elegant version of a rocket craft...those gold letters really take it up a notch! Apparently it's a party favor (so says the blog, My Garden Party).
Rockets make natural bookmarks because of their shape, like this one that I saw on Pinterest. Add a little weaving lesson that doubles as flames and you're ready for take off.
Now why haven't we seen this idea a gazillion times? It's genius...a cardboard rocket "playhouse". And notice, the aliens are made from bottle tops. It's pretty amazing and really gets me thinking about how I would do it. Nice work, Se7en!
ps...I promise to come back next week with a recap of Sommer's 1st birthday party, as promised! It's been a crazy week of book production!