that's tuft

Last weekend I took another class at The Needle Shop! (remember these 1, 2, 3, 4 ?)

I get their news letters and when I saw that tufting was on the new class list I signed up right away.  Just in case you don't know what I'm talking about, "Tufting" is an upholstery term, it's something you see a lot on headboards, couches and chairs (the buttons that sink down into the fabric and create a 3D diamond pattern).  I've always wanted to learn and it turns out it's much easier that I thought!

Unlike the ottoman class, we didn't make a completed piece of furniture, like a headboard (there are too many variables to do a project that big in a beginners class).  Instead we each upholstered a 2" by 2" piece of wood.

The most complicated part is figuring out your spacing for the buttons, but once you do and you drill the holes in the wood you get to take this awesome foam cutter thing and cut your holes in the foam...

Then we made covered buttons to match our fabric.  It was so much fun!!!!!!!!!!!  I always thought you needed some crazy machine to make buttons, but it's so simple.  You just need two chintzy pieces of plastic (that come in the button pack) and a hammer (or really strong fingers).  It was really satisfying to make all these...

Rachel (owner of The Needle Shop) was so surprised at how excited we got over buttons.  And the excitement didn't stop there.

Even though we were just making a sample piece I still bought some fun fabric. I tried to center the buttons in the flowers, but I think that's a more advanced move, so after the first tuft I gave up on that idea.

It turned out really great, and now I just want to tuft everything in our house.

I'm still not sure what I'll do with my doll's bed sized headboard, but I'll let you know when I come up with a crafty idea!


p.s. Speaking of the newsletter, our tufting class was the first one The Needle Shop had held, so Rachel took some pictures for their facebook page and the site, and guess what showed up on the most recent newsletter...

Hahaha!!! A ridiculous picture of me next to a cozy cat!

mani monday

Happy Monday!
Did everyone have a good weekend?

The Man and I had a great Sunday together.  We ate lunch at Jerry's Sandwiches, which was so delicious and a nice break from the healthy food kick we've been on lately.  Then we popped over to Edgewater Antique Mall where I scored a pink Pyrex divided dish.

They had quite a few things I would love to have in my home, but I didn't want to go overboard so I stopped myself at 1 piece....although, I think I might go back for this set of glasses:

I can't stop thinking about them and their blue scalloped gradient gloriousness!!

Anywho, on to my nails. This week I went with a simple pattern...

I love a little black a pink!

Next week Wild Ones and Typhoon are playing a show in Chicago, I'm so excited to see them play and paint their album art on my nails!!

mani monday ~ st. patty's day nails

Happy St. Patrick's Day

To be completely honest St. Patty's Day is one of my least favorite holidays.  People wake up bright and early on the weekend just to make sure they are fall-over-drunk by 10 am. It's just not my cup of tea.  But I'll take any excuse to paint my nails in a holiday theme!

I was going to go the basic rainbow and gold route but then The Man had a brilliant idea...

hearts, stars and horseshoes, clovers and blue moons, pots of gold and rainbows, and me red balloons!!!

Lucky Charms Nails!!!!

When I was a kid my parents never bought sugary-terrible-for-you cereal, so breakfast at a friends house was always a special treat.

mmmmmmmm, marshmallows.

mani monday

Melt Melt MELT!!!!!

It got up to 52 degrees today!! How fantastic is that??

I saw grass! Grass! On the ground!

Of course, it is Chicago, so we know it's not over, but it's a relief to see that there will be a light at the end of this horrid dark dank frozen tunnel this winter has been.

Since it's brightening up a bit I went with Neon this week.  

Orange to yellow gradient with pink polka dots on top.

I love wearing Neon polish.  It's so bright and it only gets more intense as the day gets darker.

Have a Happy Monday!!

portland mani

Well, I definitely missed Monday.

We got back from our trip to Portland on Tuesday afternoon and I already miss it like crazy.  We had such a great time, it was one of the best trips home I've ever had.  Amazing food, fantastic company, and it was above 40 degrees!!

For our trip I painted my nails as a homage to the soon to be replaced Portland Airport carpet.

#pdxcarpet has over 4,000 photos on instagram, it's really funny how intense people have gotten over it.  Poor little airport just wants to do a little updating and the weird world of Portlandians goes wild.  Only a few of my friends recognized the pattern, but it was worth the response I got from strangers on instagram.

So you might be thinking, jeeze Aly, you got that background color way wrong!  But in reality the carpet is more like the photo below.  It was hard to get a good picture of the nails without the light distorting the carpet color, so I took the photo below on the way home (when I had a little more time and we weren't itching to get out of the airport).

Oh Portland… I'll love you forever and ever.