Easy DIY tassel

Happy weekend, all. We are counting down the days in February! I have an intense dislike of January and February, so the darkest (literally) part of the year is just about done. : ) Once we get to March 1 and I see the daffs poking up out of the ground, we have turned a corner.

I'm looking forward to starting a little container gardening project this weekend....it will be completely experimental, but if it's successful, I will be so excited!

Today, I want to share an easy tassel that I made. I love adding a tassel with my purse. I made this one out of a buff-colored leather.

I started with a key fob. This one cost about $2 at the hardware store. I used a small scrap of leather and glued it together to attach the tassel piece to the key fob.

I used my hot glue gun. There are other types of craft glue you can use, but I didn't have anything else on hand!

Next, I cut a piece of leather into a rectangle. I had bought a bag of leather scraps at the craft store for about $8 a few months ago....it will last be a while! I used my rotary cutter to trim the edges and make the skinny cuts to create the tassel. I cut them about 1/4" widths.

As you can see, my piece is only about 3" wide. I laid my scrap onto one of the ends after putting a line of hot glue along the edge.

Then, I started rolling the tassel from the scrap piece end until it is all rolled up.

I made sure to put a little extra glue at the edge and wipe off the excess glue. If you wanted a little more bling to it, you could add an upholstery tack....or a little piece of colored leather for a bit more flair.

I love to add it to my purses.....on my black purse.

And on my current blue metallic blue one.....

Could be useful for some accessories, too! Enjoy the rest of your weekend, you lovelies.

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Meet the Flinstones

Hey, there....I hope all is good in your part of the world.

Let's see....what have I been up to lately?

Well, I am trying hard to get/stay caught up with my favorite shows (I wrote "shoes" by accident--yes, I am trying to keep up with them, too).....Grey's.....The Good Wife....Downton Abbey....Modern Family....my latest obsession, Mad Men, season 4, and my newest FAVE....Nashville! I'm can't get enough of that one.

We painted our basement over the weekend...many projects to come with that. I'll post pics soon. We also hosted our nephew for a few nights. He's 11, so needless to say, my kids were very excited to have him here. My son actually cried when his dad came to pick him up. :(

And last, but most certainly not least, I participated in our school lip-synching show. The teacher act. All cartoon skits. And guess who I was? That's right, Bam-Bam.

How does one make a Bam-Bam costume? Take notes...

Cover beloved orange college cap with black triangles cut from felt squares.

 Cover orange skirt borrowed from friend, too.

Make pom-pom for hat. I used my phone to make it the right size!

Attach pom-pom to hat.

Add a club, nude-colored cami (layered over another for support and coverage) to resemble small boy. Also add husband's belt with a bone.

Okay, so Bam-Bam did not wear leggings, but what would be WAY too much skin showing.

And the last accessory for Bam-Bam? Duh....Pebbles, of course. My good friend.....

Done and done.

New to us

Happy V Day to you all out there. I hope you have a very nice one. I certainly will...spending this day with my 10 to 12 year-old students is an experience like none other. Love is in the air, people!!!!

We were recently gifted with an armoire that has been in my husband's family for many, many years. I am very excited about it! My in-laws are starting a kitchen renovation project, so they decided to pass this one along or sell. Um, we'll take it!

This whole piece, which is huge, is all made of tongue-and-groove. So, the top piece you see holds it all together once it is assembled. We had a merry time trying to put it together! What I think is really neat about it? When my husband's great-grandparents moved, they moved all of their belongings down the Ohio River in a boat. So this piece went along, just unassembled.

Cool skeleton key...

As you can see, there is a LOT of storage. I am excited about this....but am fearful of it getting junky. I have a big problem with that in large storage pieces.

All of the hooks are there that they would use to store their cloto thes. I think all of them. Hmmm...it is so good to be a 21st century girl!!

Small lined drawers at the bottom.

Pretty cool, huh?

I love keeping things like this in the family, you know? There's nothing in it yet, but I'm planning to clean out one of my dressers and put everything in there. I'm just so tickled to have it.

Eradicating the peachy off-white

If you've read my blog at all in the last few years, you would know that we inherited a lovely peachy off-white color in most of our rooms. Other than being bland, it makes me feel as if I am living in a mental institution.

I'm pretty excited....we are preparing to eliminate quite a bit of the P.O.-W. in our basement. But right after Christmas, we painted our powder room bath. Now, not only was the wall color bothersome, it was light enough to show all of the dirty handprints my children would leave as they would enter and exit the bathroom. We just couldn't take it anymore.

A few before shots...

It has really good features to it....pedestal sink and nice light fixture. So....we I chose a dark, sort of green/brown. It looks brown sometimes and sometimes a really dark green.

And after?

We added some black framed prints. This one is from an art shop in Bergen, Norway.

Here is a silver sign for the door, given to us by my Norwegian cousins. WC stands for "water closet" and means bathroom, if you didn't know.

The cabinet was a Craiglist find for about $20. It can be recessed into the wall, but I like the cabinet look.

Be gone, peachy off-white. I'm coming for the rest of you.

Victory declared

I'm back from our professional conference. Let's just say I was pretty whipped when I arrived back home. 

Our presentation was a HUGE success. We were just amazed! Our session was about our class of students with multiple special needs. We thought we would have maybe 15 people there--and half of those being our friends and family. It was standing room only! We had close to 100 people.

Wow! It was an amazing process......from applying to present, to the hours upon hours of work, to actually getting up in front of people and doing it to just relishing the feeling of a job well done.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to some more time to myself and being home. I'm not sure yet what do with all of the extra space in my brain at the moment, so I'll just try to enjoy the emptiness a bit.

There is this to occupy us for a while....

Looks like fun, right?

Good news/bad news

You know, ever since the holidays....or maybe BEFORE the holidays, I have had this perennial feeling of, "If I can get through just this one thing, I'll be fine and things will let up." I guess you just never know what's coming around the bend.

January was a blur of child's birthday, school stuff and basketball games. In case you don't know, I direct our school's basketball pep band. Four games in one week. Hm.

So, to give you an idea of the conglomeration of events that been going on in my world, let's play a game I play with my students. It's called Good News or Bad News.

I'll pick Bad News first. A student at our school was killed in a car wreck two weeks ago in a huge 90-car pileup. She was just 12 years old. Needless to say, it has rocked our world and it has been quite a trial to help the students through this, much less for all of the teachers to deal with their own grief. This little girl lived down our street and has two brothers at my school....one of whom is in the same class she was in. They were twins. This is the first time I have ever experienced losing a student that I had in class. It is one of the saddest things I have ever experienced in my profession and one I never want to repeat.

Okay...how about some Good News? Next week, I will be presenting at our state music education conference. Wow. A 90-minute presentation! With two of my colleagues. We have spent HOURS working on this and it has been quite an experience. We will be sharing how we teach our class of multiple-disability students and I am so excited for us to share what we do. And hopefully help out someone else who teaches them as well. Can't wait. I have been thinking about my outfit as well, lol!!!

So, needless to say, it has been quite a month. At least it has made January, my LEAST favorite month, go by quickly. We painted our bathroom....finally!!! I will post some pics of that. I'm planning to try my hand at a little project to go in said bathroom.

And it's snowing today. I love it! Hope you are staying warm where you are.