A Simple No Sew Fabric Wall Art

I had been coming across this concept quite a bit recently and of course being a lover of all things fabric, it really captured my attention! It is making wall art simply out of wooden embroidery hoops and your favorite fabrics! Can we say SEW Simple! And it can be applied in so many different ways! Instead of struggling to choose a certain style or color scheme, I decided to pick my favorites and slowly begin building my collection. One of the walls in my living room has become the showcase for some of my favorites.

Here is the wall so far. The color has been so fun to see every morning. The kids love to stop and stare at it and pick a new favorite every day.

But hands down, both my husband and I agree that the good morning is by far our favorite! I found this embroidered beauty at a thrift store and was thinking of making it into a throw pillow, but this idea is helping to keep it beautiful for years to come! I have been able to take fabrics from bed linens, clothing, curtains, and embroidered tablecloths. The possibilities are again limitless! You do not even need to buy the hoops new! Most of us have them laying around collecting dust and they can also be found at thrift stores, garage sales, or on line for fractions of their original cost! It is a very inexpensive decorating solution! I stretched the fabrics tightly and then trimmed the excess off. The great thing is that I can go back and easily change the fabric out for a new print with no problem!

So, of course, I had to share some of the fun with my shop;) I put together a trio of hoops with a bold vintage bed linen print. I am looking forward to putting more collections together for others because, well.......I am just about out of wall space here at home;) but far from out of ideas to bring to life!

The Most Priceless Art...........

This Masterpiece is entitled " The Spider Who Wants To Be a Boy" ~by Bell Drietz

Why would I want to shop the galleries of the world for art when I have the mind of a precious child to captivate and pull me into their imagination. I have a crate full of stories and exploration, full of my childrens expressions and thoughts. And then there is the stack of picnic baskets that tuck away more of there doodles, oh and the drawer of the misplaced nightstand for the overflow. But, a collision has occured and it has made a beautiful mess on my walls. We have one finished wall in our basement amongst the more "modern industrial" concrete walls...you know, the walls that have not been touched since the house was built except for a coat of paint slapped on occasionally so it feels more like a real room:)- But what do you do with one silly wall in your semi TV room? Well at the same time as this question began building, so did the craving to showcase my kiddos fun creations instead of them being hid away. And that is how a happy medium was arrived at. With a trip to the dollar store and a few cans of spray paint, I was able to turn our rec room wall into a gallery for the kiddos. They have been pretty excited about looking at there art in frames. And I, well, I could stare at them for hours. Fun to giggle about some of their stories. So here is their debu....

"God's Zoo" ~ by Madison Drietz


Madison has been working on a zoo-she has Zeke the Zebra, Giggles the giraffe, Elly the Elephant, Lady the Lady bug, and more to be unveiled at a later date:)

Cole has a masterpeice of humor up on the wall called "Smell the Pitt-ur"

Now this picture was colored years ago and it just makes me laugh because everyone who sees it thinks it says, "smells the pits" which completely looks fitting-but! it doesn't, see Cole had just recieved a set of smelly markers when he colored this and it actually says "smell the picture" but is of course mispelled. Isn't childhood fantastic!
Joslyn has been painting up a storm this week and this is her newest work of art.
It is entitled "POT" oh, the joy of learning to spell. She has been the one most fascinated with them being put up on the wall and has helped me get them hung. I have a feeling it will continue to inspire her to create more. She is my little one who loves to draw whole books for me.


Bell's was about a spider who is dreaming of becoming a boy and she sure enjoyed telling the story. She even let us giggle while she shared and seemed to completely understand the humor in it. She is also the mastermind behind the bug which is on the wall and the "pile of poop" which we have not framed as of yet:) It is all about the mixing of paint I guess only a true artist could relate to. I am seeing art in a whole new way thanks to her!

What is New...

I thought I would take a bit of time to write while I am waiting for my "drowsy" allergy medicine to kick in. This past month I have been at war with bronchitis. At first I was simply thankful for it not interfering with the activities of my day too much, just was a bit irritating. But the last two weeks as it has been dragging out, it has kind of kicked by butt. restless night due to coughing up a lung, achy ribs and back from-coughing, weary from restarting my sentences over and over again because of-coughing, you get the picture. But with my second trip to the doctor this week, I think i am finally on the mend and starting to breathe again. So, there you go, that is why I have been absent here. As much as i love the blog, it is a bit of a luxury that I must let go of when other priorities leave no room on my plate.

But here are some highlights that I at least had pictures from.
Bell has been enjoying her art easel that she got from her GG(Great Grandma).


Joslyn decided she wanted a horse, so she hijacked my stash of boxes to create her mustang. So we now have a horse residing in our basement-sorry to my lovely customers, my studio is no longer pet free(Haha). Joslyn can bury herself in a project for hours when she gets an idea. I love hearing her say, I LOVE ART. She has been known to very dramatically claim she could not live without art.
Madison is my little lady who loves listening to old records and dancing around. I put together a collection of old record waltzes for her last Christmas. Talk about a fun treasure to hunt down. But this week, the waltzes got to her and she just had to have a partner to dance with her. So I found her digging through crates of Cole's old clothes that do not fit Noah as of yet. This is what she put together for Noah. It really was pretty darn cute! And Noah was quite the sport in it all. He loves hopping around to the music too.

We were able to finally dig up our carrots! They were excellent, kind of ruins it for me wanting to buy them from the store! Next year, there will be a whole lot more carrots growing in our gardens, that is for sure.
While Matt was able to take a vacation day to hang out with an old friend and catch U2's newest tour-which they were able to actually be in the inner circle , center stage for-I am so jealous. I spent the day with my folks, which was wonderful. We sat outside and had lunch and dinner on the deck while the kids played in the tree house my Dad had built for us kids when we were little. Noah took an awesome nap on Grams and gramps floor, thanks to Grandmas's great rocking skills! She has the touch! i can't remember the last time I was able to rock him to sleep!


And speaking of my folks! Dad has now been in his new job for 2 weeks-praise the Lord! After almost 2 years of searching for a job! If you know anyone going through jobloss or difficulty in finding a job, please remember to keep praying, I can tell you from watching my parents go through this, that it is so hard and so discouraging,words could never do it justice. prayer for the Lord's peace, and comfort, and guidance is always needed!

And we are still enjoying the Park across the street from our neighborhood. Our neighborhood is an older one, so it does not have a play ground in it like all the new developments do, but we are blessed to have something even better five minutes walk form our front door! We have Phillips park aquatic center, sledding hills, zoo, island, gardens, and playground and picnic site. Can't beat that! So we are enjoying that all times of the years.
And now, here are a few things I have been working on in the shop.
I love old books that have seen better days. So I have begun to cut tags from the pages of them. The kids love helping me choose what we try to work into the tags. Just a fun little extra to play with. I was blessed with a sizzix die cutting machine last Christmas that my husband brought home from a white elephant exchange!!! I have put it to use -a lot!
I have also had a chance to restock on patches. I enjoyed making them just as much as always! The perfect way to use scraps! I am hoping to begin framing collections of them soon. I will try and write up a post soon on how I make them.

Well, I am very sleepy and need to finally rest my head on the pillow. Toodles lovelies!

What To Do With Vintage Linens #7

This project is not completely sewing, and actually could be done very easily without a sewing machine! I, being completely obsessed with vintage bed linen prints used some of my favorites for this. It takes such a small amount too!

After deciding to keep my Friday night quilt, it was given a focal spot on my living room wall, but of course, it was not as simple as just hanging it on the wall, it then needed "something" to compliment it. So I dug through my crate of old decorations out in the garage to hopefully inspire me, and sure enough, I came across some of my old painted picture frames. I had robbed them years ago of their glass for some other project making them just perfect for my new project.


I have always loved the idea of framing fabric and making it art in itself, so I decided to do just that and to place them above my new wall quilt. I decided to actually quilt the fabrics I had chosen, because I will basically use any excuse to free motion quilt! But this part can easily be skipped.


You can quilt your fabrics or just leave them plain. You can choose to keep the glass in your frame or remove it. The possibilities are endless when framing fabric. Either do one large frame, or a multitude of little ones. You can use one fabric or multiple prints. Random or coordinating....you get the idea!

If you are keeping the glass in, it is a little bit easier to attach the fabric. But since I did not have glass in my frames, I simply stapled them in the back.


Here they are finished and up on the wall. It only took about a half an hour to accomplish, so if you are needing a quick solution for some wall, here you go!