pallet shelves

As soon as I found out that I needed get a floor bed due to a bed frame being out of my budget, I knew I wanted a pallet to use as a headboard. 

The only problem remaining was finding a pallet. But! Low and behold, walking through the woods from campus to my house, I came across a whole mess of them sitting beside the path. All it took was a friend's help, some brushing off of spiders, and a day to dry in the sun. 

I decided to flip it around so I could use it as a shelf. And, while I have yet to put anything on it, it also works wonderfully as a pinboard.

suitcase bedside table

Thrifty, classic, and utilitarian. While it was tricky to get these cases on the plane, I was able to fill two of them up and fit them inside of my checked luggage. Then, it was a simple matter of carrying the middle one on the plane with me. Granted, I didn't figure on the handle snapping, or the latches wanting to open, but, without too much trouble thanks in part to my little brother being with me, I finagled in on and off the plane without too many stares.

And goodness was it worth it. Because my bed is on the floor, I didn't want a tall bedside table. They're just the right height o lean a pillow against and add a respectable amount of hidden storage. And they're a lovely olive green, which doesn't hurt anything.

crate shelves

I have always loved clean, unfinished wood. Such a glorious smell filled the room when I pulled these Home Depot crates from their shipping boxes.

I bought crates instead of a traditional bookshelf because not only do I like their more organic feel and nostalgia, but they can be configured multitudes of ways into many different types of furniture, far beyond simple shelving. They will also be wonderfully handy when I move in the near future. Here's to furniture that helps you move instead of having to be moved with difficulty!

jewelry storage

I have always loved birch trees...striking white trunks, the lace they make from sunshine, Robert Frost. As I was spending time out in the dirt weeding this past summer, I found this branch and knew I wanted to bring it with me. I thought about doing this wonderful tutorial by Mojomade with it, but I didn't have finishing nails and wanted to do something that wasn't as trendy.

Thanks to the layers of design in God's creation, I was able to use it as it was by simply propping it up in the corner. No nails, wire, or string, just a natural form, and one that I particularly love.

For bracelets, I'm using this artist's hand, something I have had in my room about three years now but have never used in this way. I knew I wanted to switch things up, and moving into a house has been very conducive to that. No longer in a familiar space, we're forced to come up with new solutions to old problems. It is a joy.

room tour

We are now all moved in. Everything has its place and (for now) everything is in that place. My roommate and I are reveling in all of the space we have. While it isn't all that spacious of a room, it is about the same size as one we were previously sharing with two other girls and four desks. I am really enjoying how it turned out. It is most certainly a testament to the fact that if you gather things which have utility and which you find beautiful, they will all work together. There are so many tidbits that it was too much for one post, so I will be doing individual posts on various things around our room. 

On living off campus. There are some very great joys in it, such as picking flowers on the way to class, having time and space to oneself, and putting nails in the walls, not to mention not having to be on the food plan. And yet, it is also difficult. Not in the ways that I expected, such as having to walk a mile to classes, or packing lunches, or having time enough to cook and prepare food. Rather, it is when classes are over for a few hours and there's nowhere to go, or when the Freshman still look unfamiliar even though we've already been on this mountain for a week and some.

There is a deep rut of separation now. Having been so deeply involved with my hall and friends on campus for the past three years, it feels bizarre. Word of mouth is so important here but we're not connected to it. We can't feel the heart beat and campus feels strangely rubber-like...one can touch it, but it just bounces back at you with no new information. 

Perhaps things will change. Perhaps the distance will be healed over. Perhaps this is the best thing that can happen...a buffer between remaining and leaving. I am content.

little things

I often find myself collecting little things - postcards, stamps, rocks, and the like. Unfortunately, I also become stressed with my surroundings aren't clutter free. This, as you can well imagine, becomes a problem with little things building up around the corners of my desk.

My solution? Glass jars.

Especially now that I buy my own food, it's really easy to find interestingly shaped containers. My current favorite was a delicious Indian Curry. Yes, I have bought food based on the jar that it came in. It has never disappointed me.

Now my little stamp collection is pretty yet contained while I can keep track of the coins that I find particularly lovely. Thankfully I have rocks from only two places around here (l to r: Wales, Ireland, Ireland) so far making it unnecessary to get them a jar...yet.

patches

The backpack that I have been using and will be using this coming summer has a story to it. It's the same backpack that my mother used when she studied abroad her junior year of college. It's a lovely green with old-fashioned clasps that are constantly confusing airport security. It also has patches from mom's travels across Europe.

It took me a little bit to bring myself to it, but I've started putting patches from my own travels on it. The beautiful ones that are on it now aren't sold anymore so nearly any new ones I put on look very different. I did get one in Dublin though, which you can see from far away in this photo. And, today, I added an official University of Oxford one. It means so much to be able to use a piece of history and make it a little bit my own.

sweater

You know those loops of ribbon in sweaters that are supposed to keep it from stretching when you hang it up but really just cause a lot of trouble when you're wearing them? I've finally figured out what to do with them...put them in my hair like I do with everything else.

old Sweater + some thread + rice = magic.

My roommate Charis has a magic thing...it's a bag, filled with rice. You put it in the microwave for three minutes and BOOM! The most amazing neck warmer/stomach ache soother/hand warmer I have ever felt.

I've been making some out of old sweaters...the kind that's already been loved and is so very soft. I got three from a nearby thrift store. One turned out to be too wonderfully comfortable to cut up and the other two have become all sorts of things...leg warmers, mittens, hats, tea cozies, and these rice bags. 

All it takes is two rectangles to sew together. If you cut with a seam as the center fold, you only have to sew up three sides. Just cut, sew with a machine, and then finish up the last side by hand (after filling it with rice of course) and poof. Magic in two minutes. Or five, if you count the time it takes to heat it.

a very simple Christmas

With all of the traveling we will be doing in the near future, our family decided to keep our Christmas gifts very simple this year. The majority of the gifts were cards representing the trips we will be taking.

For my part, I made three gifts from one sweater (and which is not even close to being used up) and then made these cards from an envelope lining for the other three...

*** 4 April 2013: ice skating to Tim was definitely the best gift I have ever given. We had a simply wonderful day of wandering around trying to find the place, finally getting to skate, and toodling back again.

journaling kit

My most recent project is proof that saved sock bags can actually be useful and pretty.

Today I started compiling all the materials I'll need for my journal while in Europe. I still have a couple things to snag, and some of them I'll be getting in Oxford itself, but for the most part it's put together.

The brilliance of the sock bag I've been saving and which I can finally put to use, is that it is not only the perfect size, but it is also water proof. I can therefore take it in my backpack without worry of a deluge of rain ruining all my work.

contents
decorative tapes for putting in pictures, feathers, leaves, or other tidbits like tube tickets
small scrap book papers to cut as journaling squares or banners
scissors with which to cut the scrapbook papers and tape
library date stamp to mark the date, of course
pen, another of course

to add
ink pad
journal
(watercolors though I might not use them in the journal)
(brushes)

and the best part?
It'll all fit in the bag!

Simple Gifts

Once again, limited resources have pushed me to think outside the box. The result is one of my favorite creations yet.

Here's what I used:

36 small glass ornaments ($5 at Walmart)

1 borrowed sharpie

24 feet red yarn from an old project

five paint chips

hole punch

...and my favorite part?

paper towels

I wanted to make something for each girl on my hall and a few friends who work in the building. I wrote our hall name on one side and the year on the other.

Then it was only a simple matter of pulling the paper towel around each ornaments and tying it up with the red yarn. Our paper towel dispensers cut each into a lovely zigzag pattern, lending a lovely look to the end packages.

For the gift labels, I hole punched strips of various green paint chips. Names went on them with the sharpie and another knot in the yarn finished it off.

Meaningful, pretty gifts for all of these lovely ladies I adore for five dollars? Yes please.

ugh

I've had to start dealing with some of the little details of leaving. I am also being constantly reminded how bad I am at saying see you later. I'm excited to be gone just so I don't have to be leaving.

The tag is a Walmart paint chip of "Virgin Olive Oil"

The lining in the envelope is a map from an old encyclopedia.

quote board

Our room's quote board has taken a drastically different shape over the past week.

This lovely board, designed and created by the lovely and brilliant Hillary Eames (it's true Hillary...don't even), was wonderful in both function and appearance until some time last week when the delicate cardboard-duct tape bond gave up the ghost. That was something new I learned this week: duct tape and cardboard do not get along. I would not have guessed.

BUT! Now that that board doesn't work any more, we've strung the same string along the bottom of our book shelves lining the ceiling above our bookcases. I think it will continue to serve them sell next semester as well. So many good quotes up there already. I might share some more of them than are in this picture, but quite a few of them are ones that we couldn't put out on our hall quote board in our commons...mainly because they're just not funny out of context.

Anyhow! As I'm taking my mini-clothes pins with me to Oxford, I set up the new string using paper clips. I'd never done that before and it's working really well! Better than the pins actually because they can hold thicker pieces of paper with more ease.

Breathe in the Spring

If I have to be inside working on papers when it's so beautiful outside, I am jolly well going to have some flowers on my desk. Thankfully, my walk back from lunch passed by some lovely ones.

Put them in a jam jar.

The textures and colors are so varied even from such a small cube of space sprinkled with wildflowers. God's generosity and creativity astounds me. 

Latent Function

I am always astounded at the creativity that comes out of restricted resources. At a gift exchange, every single person on my hall wrapped their contribution differently and they were all lovely. The materials ranged from material to newspaper, from film, to duct tape. I wish I could have gotten a picture of each one.

One of my favorite latent functions of college, I must say.

Hazzah for Sociology.

Happy and Glorious and Wonderful

Last semester was rough. This semester will also be difficult, though God has blessed me with a great deal of healing. He is gracious and gentle with me. A couple days ago, everything was looking bleak. I couldn't put my finger on why, but it felt as if the sky was falling and that my room was the only safe place, despite how lonely it was. THEN! Lo and behold, I remembered a beautiful thing.

One of my dearest friends (the heart behind writing on my hand for those of you who read it) knew that this semester was going to be difficult and gave me one of the most beautiful gifts I have ever received.  She took paint chips and wrote quotes, words of encouragement, scripture verses, inside jokes, and funny little blurbs, put them all into an envelope, and put them into my hands. I have never felt so blessed. This particular day I reached into the envelope for one of the very last cards thinking "God, life feels as though it's falling apart and I don't see the joy...show me the joy."

This is what I pulled from the envelope:

If anyone has any doubts as to whether God is creative, whether He has a sense of humor, or whether He has a personal relationship with each of His children, here is evidence that He does. Though, the first two I believe have no better proof than the fact that the Platypus exists.

So. Here are the happy, glorious, and wonderful things I remembered and happily crafted out of words:

When I was a little girl, my family home schooled. We lived on a sweet, safe, and happily boring street in Sunnyvale, California near San Jose. With the size of the house, all three of us children shared a bedroom that was neat and tidy. We each had a box for our personal belongings and a rainbow traveled around the top of our bedroom wall.

Life was predictable. Cheerios for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and my daddy home for dinner.

I often think of the summers we had in those early days. We would pack up the car, drive out of the hot concrete landscape, and find ourselves somewhere where you couldn't see any buildings except for the small bathhouse. It would always look so close until night had fallen and my little brother needed to be taken to the bathroom in the dark.

My father, a sailor without an ocean at the time, reveled in setting up the tent in a formulated, taught, and generally ship-shape way. It wasn't until I went camping with friends much later that I learned that putting up a tent could be a simple business.

I never worried about bears or wild creatures when we were camping because I knew I had my glinting little Swiss army knife (it seemed so threatening then) in the mesh pocket over my head. It seemed as though all we needed to survive was a box of matches, a Swiss army knife, and the biscuits my mom made in the dutch oven.

The other place I felt grown up in besides the woods was in the little ballet studio I took classes in at about age seven. I overlooked how my mother walked me into class and focused instead on how I must look just like the dancers I saw every year with my dad. We always went tot he Nutcracker for my December birthday and to the old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films. The brilliant color of the ballet and the elegant black and white of the theater impressed me. I decided that I would participate in that magic somehow, someday.

Trade Hooks for Hooks. Done.

I've wanted to make feather earrings for a really long time.

However, everyone is wearing them.

No, I'm not hipster...I just prefer to not follow fads.

Besides. There are so many wonderfully different types of earrings.

It's a shame to wear the same ones as everyone else.

Because of this,

I was walking past yet another fishing tackle isle and wishing I could go fishing when I thought

"hey...those have feathers...and lovely shiny discs...and they're for fishing...which I love..."

So I stepped into the middle of all the lovely trinkets and twine to check and see whether it was actually affordable.

$2.50 per lure.

$5 earrings.

Not bad at all.

A perk I did not expect was wearing them in wind.

The spinners twirl and jingle.

They're so light however that they don't pull on your ears.

Very little weight...big impact. When you think about it, fishing flies were designed for that in the first place!

Beware though.

They have potent pun potential.

I didn't realize it until I wore them today and a friend said

"Ha! They're a-luring!"

I think it's funny but if you can't stand puns, be careful about wearing these earrings.

the easiest

HOW TO

you've ever seen

Take two matching (or not) fishing flies or lures.

Remove the fish hooks.

Place onto earring hooks.

Put in ears.

Enjoy.

Scarves Up

For Pretty's Sake

Decided I wasn't really using this shelf correctly. It used to have sweatshirts and jackets and scarves and meds and nail polish remover bottles. It was a "take one thing and then end up having to put everything else back in place" type of thing.

Scarves are now hanging from my bed frame making a colorful, sentimental curtain along the end. Jackets are hanging on the door, all folded over and crammed on the towel rod. A dictionary, encyclapedia, popori, collected acorns, and other things that make me happy now fill the space.

It's now a place of stillness...words and thoughts yet quiet. Perfect to stare at and remember when everything else is going crazy.