diy bookmarks

a few weeks ago i made some book marks to give to all of the lovely customers that buy things from the brandeye etsy shop. they were really fun to make and super easy.

materials:
-card stock or any heavy weight paper
-vintage ribbon or lace
-scissors or paper cutter
-sewing machine or needle and thread

directions:
-cut the card stock to the desired length and width. mine are about 5" x 2".

-cut the ribbon or lace to the size of the length of the bookmark

-with your sewing machine or a needle and thread, sew the ribbon onto the paper. i made mine all vertical, but use your imagination and place it anywhere you'd like. it'd also look good with the ribbon or lace layered with a few pieces.

-as an option you can use a hole punch to punch a hole at the top and put some ribbon around it.

and remember this about lace, "it's like pretty underwear."

and our garden

this year our back yard is actually looking pretty good i think. it's usually full of dirt/mud patches, but this year the yard is green (i'm sure most of it is weeds, but who cares) and the gardens are happy. next year i hope to make a raised bed to plant veggies in, but the only spot of the yard that gets (hopefully enough) sun is right off the patio. i really want to at least try to grow my own veggies! i have a bit of a black thumb, but i try. this year nature has been helping me and it's been raining pretty much every day.

so right now we have some herbs on the deck, which are wonderful to have.

and the flowers beds are in full force.


here are a bunch of daylillies, which are now blossoming in all of their orange glory.

and the other side...

and our little sofa area, which we don't use often enough. it is great at night with the lights lit and the fire going for smores. we need to use this more often!

urban garden

our friends ben and siobhan (check out her blog here) have a plot in a community garden a couple of blocks from their house in philly. these pictures are from a few weeks ago so i'm sure it's grown a bunch since then.

and a little radish.

plastic surgery for my shoes

i bought these shoes on sale last year and the bows really pissed me off. they would come untied all the time.

so i took them off...

picked some vintage buttons...

and sewed them on... voila... new shoes!

antique german enamel bread boxes

so apparently my lack of self-control was a good thing and these bread boxes i got for a steal at the auction are actually worth something. i wish i could go to an auction every week! although that might lead to divorce...

the bread boxes were made in Germany around the 1920's and are pretty awesome. i'm still keeping the orange one for myself, but i've listed the blue and green ones in the brandeye etsy shop.

the inside of the blue even has some German writing in it.

and the time has come, PET PORTRAITS!

i finally listed my first custom pet portrait! i am very excited and nervous at the same time. i'm always really critical, but people seem to love them, so here goes...

click here to go to the listing.
here are some examples

this one is actually the first one i ever painted, of mozzie of course.


and our punch.


and our friend melissa's cat, santucci.

vintage purses

i just listed some vintage purses in the brandeye etsy shop! check em out....

this one is lovely and tiny!

and a cute lavender one...

and this one i bought in high school! time to get rid of some stuff...

more daily rainbows

i wrote about our daily rainbow before, and here are some more pictures. every sunny day that our front door is open, the sunlight streams through the beveled glass window on our porch and creates a rainbow that makes it's way through our living room. it's one of the many things i love about our house...

diy 5th anniversary present

i was walking around michael's (a craft store), trying to figure out what to make dave for our 5 year anniversary when i saw the components to make a clock out of a slice of wood. perfect. so i bought them and got home and realized that i had the wrong size of clock parts, it has to be specific to the thickness of the wood. dummy! however a good thing came of it when i thought of a great idea for the clock. i was just going to leave it blank, but given more thought, i decided to burn a 5 into it.

diy wooden clock

materials:
slice of tree
clock parts (make sure it has the correct length, thickness of the wood)
drill
pencil (i used a yellow colored pencil)
wood burning kit
wine (optional)

directions:
1) find the spot that you would like the clock parts to go and drill a hole in the wood the size of the clock components. i centered mine and the drill bit was a little small, so i just kept working it to make the whole bigger.

2) follow the directions on the clock parts to insert into hole.

3) determine where you want your 5 (or whatever you choose to burn into the wood)and mark it lightly with a pencil. you could also use tracing paper and a pattern.

4)you should first practice using the wood burning tool on some scrap wood, as it takes some practice. i practiced on the back side, since i was running short on time! then, when you feel confident, go for it and burn your image on the front of the clock. make sure you are using the correct tool. i wasn't at first, as you can see the back sucks. the rounded end tip worked much better!

five years of bliss

today is our five year wedding anniversary. i am the luckiest girl.

peonies

my parents came to help us with our yard on sunday and my mom brought me these beautiful peonies from her garden. they are gorgeous!! she gave me some of her plant a couple of years ago, but it didn't get enough sun so it never bloomed. we moved in on sunday, so hopefully it's happy in it's new spot and blooms for me.

brand-eye on ebay

i just listed my first item on ebay. it is an awesome antique glass decanter from the 1920's. check it out here: on ebay.