Bling and flowers

I decided to treat myself on Valentine's Day (and I'm just now getting around to showing you) to flowers and bling MY way. :)

First of all, I saw these ranunculus at Bauman's Farm, didn't buy one, and had a dream about them. Next time I went I thought if they were going to haunt me in my sleep I'd better pick one up! The sparkly and silver "M" was found at Goodwill for $.99. It's a wedding cake topper I think but considering how my name is Molly and all I just couldn't resist buying this as a plant decoration.

 I just love the fluff and color on this one! And it had about 4 more buds on it, waiting to open.

This thing is super tarnished and as soon as I remember what I did with my polish I'll see about fixing that. But it does give it a bit of shabby charm.

Seriously, how could I resist this blingy M?

All potted in an empty pot I had sitting around...
Okay I'll admit the M makes me laugh, but I still like it. :)

It sits in my bedroom windowsill and adds a fantastic pop of color to all my neutral white tones.

What? You were expecting roses and diamonds? ;)

 

Be Mine - a giveaway from my heart to yours

It really warms my heart that 300 sweet souls have joined me and my adventures here at A Bit O' Shine.

I certainly never expected to make so many long distance friends when I started.


And since today is a lovey sort of day...


Where people share bits of themselves out of the fullness of their own heart...


Let me share a bit of my heart with you.
It helps that my love language (for giving love) is gifts. ;)


So here is a little giveaway for you dears. A pair of chocolate cupcake earrings - calorie free! ;)


All I ask is that you be a follower of my blog or a fan of my shop on facebook. Both would be twice as delightful of course so you would have twice as many chances to win. Just leave a separate comment letting me know which (or both) you follow.

And if you don't have pierced ears don't fret! I have non-pierced findings available just for you.
Giveaway is open internationally and ends Friday the 18th.



Thanks for coming along with me! I'm really glad you're here.

Sweet Romance

Every once in a while I feel the inspiration to curate a treasury on Etsy and last night as I watched part of the 2008 BBC Sense & Sensibility and then visited Emma Wallace's music blog and listened to her "Exceed My Expectations" song I was feeling all romanticle (which IS a word if you're one of the Little Rascals). Sweet sort of lovey cuteness that makes you smile. :)

Click [here] to see the whole treasury, but I've highlighted a couple of my favorites below.

Cutest. print. ever.

Art by Brittney Lee click [here] to go to her shop listing. Go to her shop so you can see it larger.

Hand-painted pendant by Heather Kent. Click [here] to go to her shop listing.

I love everything in this shop. They make all these realistic and gorgeous flowers out of leather - and some are wearable! Click [here] to go to the shop listing.

Also - since I was already in my Austen and Emma Wallace mood, here's an adorable video that EW posted on her blog - a lovely fanvid she found.

Mosaic Monday - chocolate edition

(click image to enlarge)

My friend and I decided to make caramels for Valentine's Day (as per Centsational Girl's recipe) and then dip them in chocolate.

It took forever for the ingriedients to reach the right temperature and there was some panic as it bubbled dangerously close to the top of a very tall pan but eventually we were able to pour and let set. Something didn't work out quite perfect because the caramels were softer than we anticipated. Add hot melted chocolate to an already soft caramel and you get the top right photo. Just to warn you. ;)

We let them set up overnight and then I laid them on wax paper and spooned a slightly cooled melted chocolate over them which worked much better.

By the way, they are delicious.

Be sure to visit Little Red House for other wonderful mosaics!

Felt Conversation Heart ring

Give your Valentine a little sugar without the cavities!

Materials:

-Two colors of coordinating felt (I used craft felt but wool felt would also be fantastic)
-heart and circle templates
-scissors
-hand sewing needle
-embroidery thread (approx. one 8 inch length for the entire project), divided into three groups of two strands each
-tacky glue
-hair elastic
-pen
-clothespins

To make my template I used a tiny cookie cutter and traced around it on the back of a cake box I dug out of my recycling bin.

When I compared the size of the heart to the size of my finger I knew it was too big so I simply used it as a guide to draw the size I needed within. The heart I used ended up being a hair shy of an inch wide and about 5/8 of an inch tall.

I have a huge bag full of felt scraps and as you can see it's not going to take much to cut out the heart.

I traced my template onto the felt using a regular ink pen but be sure to trim just inside your markings so you don't end up with this dark fuzz on your final product.

Once the heart was cut out I also cut two circles - one approx. 3/4 of an inch (18mm) and one approx. 1 inch (22mm) - out of my coordinating color of felt. (I used two cake decorating tips as my templates)

The hair elastic was an old one I had my bathroom drawer and was one that just didn't hold my hair back very well. I wasn't sad to put it under the knife, so to speak. :)

To make the ring, cut a section of the hair elastic just a bit smaller than the actual size of the finger (remember it is going to stretch when you put it on). Use the smallest of the two circles and tacky glue it to your cut section of hair elastic. I secured it with clothespins to hold it in place while drying.

While you're waiting you can make the "conversation" part of this project. Conversations hearts have brief and horrifically spelled messages so I chose "Luv U" for its brevity and because I knew it would be easy to stitch. :)

You could probably draw on a guide for yourself but I didn't want to chance there being dark marks not hidden by the thread. Freehanding is possible (as evidenced by mine!) but make sure to start in the top center and stitch the "u" for "luv" - this will assure your word is centered. Of course there's always the chance of a little crookedness (I knew you'd be too polite to bring it up yourself) but just remember that real (candy) conversation hearts aren't perfect either!

I centered my messaged heart onto the center of the large (1 inch) circle and stitched around its border.

Once the glue on the small circle and hair elastic was dry, I took a leftover scrap of embroidery thread and put a couple of stitches across the elastic. I don't know that it's necessary but it made me feel better.

Then I applied plenty of tacky glue to the top of the small circle and placed it in the center of the large circle (this should hide all of your stitches from securing the heart). I again used clothespins to secure it while drying, placing four total around the circle.

When it dries you'll have a sturdy, wearable token of affection for your Valentine made with humble scraps and throwaway items, but more importantly made with love!

Do not run away before you read the explanation

Doily flowers.

Wait! Come back! It's not as bad as it sounds I promise!

Or maybe it is...I did snag these out of a "going to Goodwill" pile (tell me I'm not the only person that does this to people?)

If it makes you feel better I don't intend on keeping them, I just wanted to see if I could make something from them since I was all in the mood for pink and red, it being Valentine's Day and all.

First one is easy! It's just a little guy - might have been a coaster even - I freehanded a stem and leaves onto some paper and cut them out, put everything on a white background and put them into a frame (from Goodwill of course) that was painted white. Of course as soon as I was done with this idea I thought of how much cuter it would be if the stem and leaves were done out of fabric. I'll leave that for you to try!

I have not yet learned to crochet since I'm still working on getting some knitting concepts down BUT if you do crochet and you make a set of small, scalloped edged items you'd like to give as a gift, I think it would be really cute to do this:

Make a cone or tube from paper and pinch the doily, coaster, dish rag, what have you, directly in the center and poke it into the opening until just the top is showing. It makes a cute little flower shape. Wouldn't it be fun to give a "bouquet" of those to someone?

Okay now I have to put everything back in the Goodwill pile and try to behave myself. (Haha!)

What do you mean it's last minute?!

I still don't have all my Valentines done.

But there's still time! Because it's not the last minute until...well...it's the last minute.

Jen of JLH Jewelry (stunning work - I've bought a few pieces from her) has made some Browncoat Valentines for any of you Firefly flans fans out there. All you have to do is print and cut.

I made this birthday card using stuff I found at The Vintage Moth - but you could easily make it into a Valentine's deal. I admittedly did not have a lot of time to devote to it and nearly misspelled "birthday" - horrors! Normally I would have printed the lettering but I was really running behind! But the effect looks pretty good despite my sloppiness. I mean the contrast in colors and the layers not my horrible handwriting which is normally much neater.








There's also picnik which is great for modifying images you find.

I did this one for my friend's aunt. I went camping with Karen and her aunt and uncle and cousin this summer and there was a whole weekend's worth of Tom Selleck jokes from the men in the group because Karen's aunt made a comment about him. Well I know her aunt will appreciate it anyway.

And last but certainly not least there's Cap'n Wacky's Gallery of Unfortunate Valentines. It's not a place to GET Valentines but a place to stare in bewilderment at the strange images and wordings of cards past with a sarcastic and silly commentary on each.

I'm sure I'll get many of you looking at me askance over that one but it does tickle me.

Now get back to that cutting and gluing before it really is the last minute!

Poetry in motion

The fad may be over but I am still totally in love with magnetic poetry. I remember a professor of mine (a lit and poetry prof. of course!) had some on her office door. I sometimes had two classes in that building close enough together that I could stand there and arrange the little pieces into brilliant prose (brilliant, haha!).

With that as inspiration I came up with an idea that will allow you to be a poet (even though you didn't know it) and yet won't clutter up the refrigerator.

If you care to find your own rocks that could be a fun excursion, but I just bought mine in the floral department of the craft store (I've seen these in non-craft stores as well).

For the words I printed them using a semi-frilly font. I then cut them out with a pair of funky-edged scissors and glued them to the rocks.

If you have skills with penmanship you could just use a Sharpie and freehand the words directly onto the rock.



As to which words to choose? I went with the classic piece by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Print out several lines of the poem or verse of your choice making sure to leave room between the words for cutting. Once the words are adhered to the rocks they can be arranged to say anything (although hopefully it will all be nice stuff!).

Place the rocks in a tray or shallow box. Fill the bottom of your container with luxuriant fabric for a romantic look or sand for a rock garden effect.


Have fun!

More Valentine's decorations at no cost

In my love of all things outdoors I rescued a large birch branch from the yard after a windstorm. I put it in a vase and decorated it for Christmas. You can see my original post on that here.
But with all the colors around for Valentine's day I couldn't leave my "tree" out of the fun!

Using the same technique as I did for the window decoration in Friday's post I made a few extra hearts - remembering to cut them on a fold this time! what a time saver - and applied the same kind of wash with my Tomato Spice paint.

While those dried I cut the edge of the newspaper (the part that's blank) into thin strips about four inches long. Using a gluestick I glued their ends together forming a loop.

Then it's just a matter of applying glue to the interior of the heart and threading the end of your loop through the opening and closing it all up. Make sure you press down directly over where the loop is under the heart paper. I went to pick up a few and the loop came right out!

Now my Charlie Brown tree has joined us in the Valentine's festivity.

Easy peasy! (and don't forget free!)