I’ve had this old suitcase for about 9 years. It contains pretty much everything I know and own from my birth parents.
You see, I was adopted when I was 18 months old and raised by amazing parents! I grew up knowing that I was adopted and always wondering if some day I would meet my birth parents. When I was 16 I learned that my birth father had died in a fire in the 80′s, but that my birth mother was still alive and lived in the same town in which I was born. I had always hoped to meet her one day, but unfortunately that never happened.
In 2003, I received a call from a lawyer letting me know that my birth mom (Barbara) had passed away. He told me that I was the only child she ever had, and that she had placed me in her will. Needless to say I was shocked and full of unexplainable emotions. How was it possible that I was in charge of funeral arrangements for a woman I had never met?
After Barbara’s funeral, I was given a suitcase full of random things that had belonged to her such as books, letters, jewelry, antiques and lots of photos. I have been carrying it around with for years, hoping to find a special purpose for it. A few weeks ago, I saw a photo on Pinterest of fabric covered suitcases that A Beautiful Mess had crafted. I knew that would be just perfect for my old suitcase!
So my next project is finding something meaningful to do with all of the cool black and white photos from the suitcase (I’m open for suggestions if anyone has any). I then plan on refinishing the inside…perhaps I’ll make it a craft supply suitcase!
My sweet lil’ angel turns 6 tomorrow! I thought it would be a fun idea for him to wake up to a birthday banner wishing him happy birthday in his bedroom.
I had some some striped yarn and clothes pins on hand, but I wasn’t exactly sure what to do for the letters. I contemplated using stencils and painting something, but then the idea hit me to type some up and just print them from the computer instead. Did I mention it was 10 o’clock at night?
Luckily I had some glitter scrapbook paper on hand left over from our Christmas Whoville Party. I cut the scrapbook paper a bit larger than the printed letters and simply glued them on with a hot glue gun.
Voilà! The banner was finished and hung in his room 20 minutes later.
I absolutely love Spring! With all the flowers in bloom and the trees coming back to life it inspired me to add a little “Spring” inside my home too. I thought what better place to start than with the front door.
I picked up this grapevine wreath at Walmart for around $4.00.I’m not a huge fan of overly floral things, but knew that nothing says Spring quite like flowers! With that being said, I gathered together these supplies.
Supplies: leftover burlap, scrapbook paper, hot glue gun, push pins and scissors
The wreath was super easy to make. I cut different size layers of flowers from the burlap and scrapbook paper. Then I pushed the pin through the middle of the layers and glued it into the wreath with the hot glue gun.
The letter “M” in the middle and the blue ribbon for hanging is optional.
A few weeks ago I saw some great looking pillows on Pinterest that were made out of burlap and had stenciled letters and pictures on them. I knew that I had made pillows before, so I figured adding a stenciled bird on couldn’t be that much harder.
I started with my cut out one piece of burlap sized about 3 inches larger than my stencil. I like to give myself room to mess up because that tends to happen every now and then 
I then stenciled the bird onto the burlap and let it dry. After that I cut out a piece of fabric (I used the black and white one you see above) the same size as my stenciled burlap and sewed the two pieces together inside out and left 3″ un-sewn at the top for stuffing the fill. Once finished sewing, I trimmed off the excess fabric and turned it right-side out. I stuffed it and stitched it closed by hand.