Project #19 - Vase Makeover

Do you know this corner at IKEA right next to the check out counters?
In Austria it´s called "Fundgrube", which means "the pool where you find stuff" which acutally means it´s the Sales-Area. I´m pretty sure there is a special-Ikea-name for this in English...

I always have to look there when I´m at IKEA, and over the years I found some really great pieces, actually a real lot of my furniture.

One day I found a vase for under 1€. This one had to come home with me!
It was plain white, and I put it in a shelf and never used it.

Then, one day, I was dusting of my nailpolish-shelf and wanted to get rid of some of the older ones. But I´m rally a keeper, so I just couldn´t simply throw them away, and I knew I wanted to paint something with it.
So it happend, I painted the vase.

And it looked... Awful!! Wow, it was simply one of the uggliest things I ever did, really really really bad!
So I put it in the shelf again.

What happend next to this little vase? Inspiration came over me!

I had this little sticking-dots on hand (I´m a soon to be teacher, I always have those around).
I stuck them on the vase in a random pattern. My only criteria was to cover spots with really wild colour composition.

After this I spray painted the vase with matt white spraypaint.

At the end I used the exacto knife to pull the stickers off, and rubbed of the excess glue with rubbing alcohol.

Long story, simply product, great look.
I still don´t know what to use it for, but at the moment it simply looks better sitting in the shelf and waiting for it´s chance...

Enjoy!

EPP Not-Monday Morning EPP Count

I can´t believe it, and it´s not even Monday yet...

I have FINISHED the EPP top for my colourful quilt. On last Monday I had to sew nearly two rows, today I have finished PLUS I straightend the boarders of this EPP piece.

So here we go... Phototime!

First I halved the hexies on the long sides. I did this to get a straight finish on both ends, and after cutting this half-hexies off from one side I sewed the lose half-hexies in the empty parts at the other ends.
I did this while the paper in the cuted hexies was still in, this way I was able to keep the stiffness of the half ones and the sewing was simple.

My next step was to iron the whole piece, with special pressure on the edges.
Then I took out the paper of all hexies.

After cutting, sewing and ironing the long ends looked like this and I had to start with the other two sides.

This time I simply cut the edges off to get a straight ending.

It felt weird to cut off these even though this whole sewing has been so much work, but the result at the end was totally worth it:

And that´s it, I have finished the top of this colourful quilt.

In September I will start with the boarder, the binding, the wadding, the tacking, and the actual quilting, but this is a whole new story...
I also have to finish the pink and beige quilt to give it to a very special little girl by the end of September (at the moment same stage here)...

But first of all I have to finish my paper, only one more week to go, this will be a tough week, but I´m still positive I will make it!

So this is the end of this post, just to more pictures to enjoy :)

Edit:
Now it´s Monday, and I´m linking up the the MMSC on lifeunderquilts.

I hope I have finished at least one quilt next Monday when the MMSC is over. We will see...

EPP - Monday Morning EPP Count

Monday... Again... Wow, this past week went so quick, can´t believe we are back from our trip for more than one week!

This weeks progress:

One new row sewn to the colourful quilt, one started, after this one only one more to go! And the boarder, and the binding, but this will be a whole new story...

I also worked on the small hexies, total count 142!

I also started to knit a new cowl, this is my "I call for fall, maybe he can hear me..."-project, I will share some pictures soon.

If you are interested in my (more than) dialy updates, follow me via instagram: Prettylittlethingx

(I´m linking up with Jessica´s Monday Morning Star Count over at lifeunderquilts for some extra motivation. Look at all the other projects over there, they are fantastique!)

Project #18 - Paintsample-Dot-Wallart

If you know me, you probably know I L-O-V-E colour! Don´t get me wrong, I don´t like to dress like a canary, but I love to add colour to my outfits, my projects, my decoartions,...

When I go to the hardware store (Which happens far to often, they sell so many great things, don´t they?) I allways pick some of the paint samples. Not that I want to paint another wall, my flat is most definitely to smal for another paintet wall, but I like the look of them and simply need to have them...

So I ended up with a lot of sample stripes lately. And I knew I had to do something with them, I would be really sad to simply throw this beautiful colours away.

I had one wall in my living room right behind the TV which was in deep need of something.
I used to have black-flower-wall-stickers from IKEA there, but they´ve been there for more then 3 years and just didn´t look good anymore and started to come of, so I tore them away a few weeks earlier.

And, as allways, I browsed Pinterst, and ... I knew what to do!

My Inspiration:
paint samples from hardware stores + punches = DIY decor squares
Giant Confetti Wall
Polka Dot Garland

My paint sample stripes where stripes that looked like this:

Stripes with five rectangular squares with samples from light to dark. They are quite small in their hight, about 2,5cm, so really quick got rid of the idea to punch circles because they would be really small.

So I decided to cut ovals out...
By hand...

Two hours later I ended up with this.

Then came the fun part. I first tryed to glue them to som thread, but that din´t worked well for me. So I sewd long strings with my sewing maschine. And this worked really well!

I first had some problems with the thread, but the real clue is you have to hold the thread behind the sewing maschine really tight while sewing. (Do you get what I mean? I couln´t even tell exactly what I want to say to you in german...) Hope the photo will help.

Not good...

Hold tight!

I did different lenghts and think this really looks great. I simply taped them to the wall.

Do you like it?
I do!

What you need::
- paint samples
- scissors
- sewing maschine
- thread
- tape 

Enjoy!

Project #17 - Big Screen Wall Calender

I need to be a little more focused. And a little more organised. And I had to make a big calender, I swear I had to, there are toooooo many around on Pinterest.

So this is my turn on the big calender project...

What you need:
- big frame (mine is 70x50cm and I bought it years ago from IKEA)
- white (or if you like pastel colourd, but it has to be light) paper in the size of the frame
- washi tape
- exacto knife
- non permanent marker
- something to measure

It´s simple. Start by deciding what size your boxes will have. You need at least 5x7 boxes for the days (since no month has more than 5 started weeks, is it clear what I mean?)

Mine has really 7x7 boxes, even though the first row has no boxes.

Take the glass out of your frame.

Mark the size of the boxes with the marker directly on the glass of your frame You don´t have to do the lines, just little marks at the border are enough.

Then start by attaching the washi tape at one bordermark and strain it all over the glass to the mark on the other side. Do so vertical and horizontal.

Cut the overlapping tape with the exacto knife.

I decided to write the month in the top row, so I removed the tape there, again using the knife.

Now all you have to do is write the dates in the boxes with the non permanent marker, and you are done! (Ok hang it up would be great too...)

I thought about doing a second one for my dates in the next month, but I´m not 100% sure about it, also I don´t have the space to hang it, so this is it at the moment...
Please forgive me the bad light in the last photos, my hallway has no direkt light, the ceilinglight is aweful, but I like this place for the calender because I have to look at it about 100 times when I pass it.

So here we go...

Enjoy!

Our austrian road trip OR How we were able to get away from austrias hottest days of all years...

We started our road trip last Monday.
My boyfriend works as a techniquel engineer building Power Station, refineries and stuff like that, and I have worked a couple of years in construction companies, so you could say we are quite obsessed with building, constructin and techniques. Because of that our road trip had to have parts of techniques in it...
The other great part of this trip was, we drove all over the austrian mountains, went through a lot of tunnels and caves, and never had more than 20°C (68°F), while the rest of austira baked in over 40° (104°). It was the hottest week in austria since they do measurements.

HeHo, let´s go...

Danube - Austrias oldest Water Power Station - Ybbs-Persenbeug/Lower Austria

First Evening - City of Hallein

Dürnberg - Salt Mine - Slide

Medieval Castle Hochwerfen - Hochwerfen/Salzburg

Can you see the eagle?

Barrier lake and dam Kaprun - Kaprun/Salzburg

Austrias highest road - Glockner Hochalpenstraße

Quite windy...

We spend our third night there - 2262m height

A lot of tunnels

Austtias highest mountain (Großglockner) on the left, biggest glacier (Pasterze) on the right

Malta Dam (Malta in Carinthia, not the other one!)

Airwalk, 200m up in the air...

In the evening, no people! We slept high again...

VW GTI Monument at Reifnitz/Wörthersee/Carinthia

We´ve done it, yeah!

It has been our first trip as a couple all of our own, even though we are together for more than three years. I was a little bit worried how it would work, but it turned out great and we had a wonderful week. Yippieh!

I hope all of you can enjoy the week and the rest of summer, I can here fall somewhere, and I´m over the moon excited, I love season changing and am always looking forward for the next one :)