Whoops, my bad

So you know when you aren't going to school or work on a regular basis, and you start to relax, and lose track of what day it is? That just happened to me

No worries, I'm back on track now, and here to present you this week's tune

Here is Knee Deep by Zac Brown Band

An older one, but always good on a nice day!

Speaking of nice days, I hope you all are experiencing the lovely sun that has just hit Vancouver! Happy Tuesday,

♥ Olivia

Cat Teepee

Hey guys!

So last week my friend Alexis texted me to ask what I was up to, and I had to lie to her because it was too embarrassing to admit I was making a teepee for my cat on a Saturday night

"Cat Teepee's: For people with lots of friends that lead busy lives"

Oh my life...

But I feel like I have a good excuse! 

My best friend Kennedy and I are looking for a place to live next year, and it will inevitably be a small University student apartment. So since there wont be a lot of room, I need something for my cat to sleep in that doesn't take up a lot of space, but that is visually appealing... hense the cat teepee!

I've never made a teepee before, so this is my version of what to do!

What you'll need:

♥ A Cat Basket- I just used the one I already had. Since she loves this basket, I thought it would make her more willing to sleep in her teepee, plus it saved me a lot of steps in making the base

♥ Sticks- I had a whole bunch I had collected in the woods for a previous project. Just find the longest, straightest, sticks you can!

♥ Yarn- Or any string

♥ Fabric- I used some leftover unbleached cotton from when I was making tea towels, you'll need about 2 meters

♥ Needle and Thread (not pictured)- Or a sewing machine... I strongly recommend a sewing machine unless you want to be sewing all day!

♥ A couple buttons (not pictured)- Or Velcro

♥ A Ruler (not pictured)- As long as possible!

♥ Scissors- The sharper the better!

♥ Fabric Markers- (optional). You could also use paint or a sharpie, if your not planning on ever washing the teepee

I started off by securing the sticks to the 4 corners of the basket with some yarn

Once I had them all secured, I tied the 4 sticks together in the middle with some more yarn

Next your going to have to measure out your cuts

I've made a little template (above) that shows you roughly what you are cutting. The orange square in the middle is your basket, the black lines sticking out of the orange box should be equal to the length of your sticks, and the bases of the triangles are equal to the length of each side of the basket.

If you are looking at the template above and thinking "what!?", then you're probably looking at the bottom triangle. That one isn't a triangle at all, its two strips of fabric that are overlapping. This will be the entrance to the teepee! The black circle is the button

I recommend measuring out every triangle individually, because your sticks are most likely not perfectly straight, and that will change the length of sides of the triangles

Here are my triangles, all cut out and waiting... don't worry if they aren't perfect! Your cat most likely wont notice ;)

Once  you've cut out your triangles, sew them together... the purple lines in the template above are the ones that get sewed together

Once you've sewed together all your pieces and you have wrapped the cover over your teepee skeleton, you'll probably have a weird flap sticking out on the side

I secured mine down with a nice big button so that the teepee would still be removable

I also added a smaller little button so that the two entrance flaps would sit together nicely

Now the fun part... drawing on the teepee!

I was imagining drawing some beautiful Coast Salish inspired designs on my teepee, possibly featuring feline related pictures, like fish or birds... but I'll be honest when I say the creative juices were NOT flowing

Lucky, that was easily remedied with a quick Google search of "teepee designs", that lead me to this post by Faye over at You Are The River... she and her friend made a gorgeous human sized teepee, and thought up this dope design which I totally copied... thanks Faye!

If you're a fan of contemporary design, I strongly recommend checking out her blog if you have a free minute, some very cool stuff going on over there!

And there you go! 

Nice and cozy

Cat the cat, checking out her new digs... she doesn't like change so she was pretty suspicious at first!

She loves it!

But on a hot day it's always nicer to sit outside in the sun, regardless of whether you're a cat or a human!

Righty-o guys, I have to make a welcome home sign for my sister, and then head off to work!

Love you guys!

♥ Olivia

Featured Nail Polish of the Week

Alright alright, happy Thursday!

Hope you guys woke up to sunshine and chirping birds, and not a hungry cat screaming in your ear like I did ;)

Today's featured Nail Polish of the Week is called Karnak, by NYX

I have loved this colour for a while but I was getting to the bottom of my bottle, so I went over to Save on Foods (which is the only place I know of where you can get NYX products in Canada), and found it in the dollar bin, along with a ton of other gorgeous NYX shades (and some not so gorgeous). I guess they are discontinuing this line of nail polish, so if you like the colour above, get it while you can!!

I love this colour because it's very subtle, it goes with everything because it's a neutral colour, and it just looks classy!

If you want to check out my past Nail Polish of the Weeks, click on the pretty "DIY BEAUTY" link on the side... I made those myself with my limited Photoshop abilities ;)

Have a great day, folks! It's almost Friday so hang in there

♥ Olivia

DIY Tribal Outlet Cover

Happy hump day!

So I know I said I would be making a post on how to make your own Tissues Paper Pansies, but I'm having some issues making the template for the petals, so that will have to wait till next week!

Instead, today I present you with my DIY Tribal Outlet Covers

Last week I had a few days before my last exam, so I came home to procrastinate

I was going through our garage, looking for something to do, and I found a whole box of outlet covers (don't know when we'll never need 30 outlet covers...)! So I slapped on my thinking cap and this is what I came up with

What you'll need:

♥ An outlet cover- you can just steal one off the wall

You don't need to turn off the power, just make sure you don't stick your screw driver in the wires!

♥ Colourful Sharpies- Or any other permanent marker... try to find as many colours and thicknesses you can find

Optional:

♥ A tiny ruler- Strongly recommended, to help you draw a straight line.. obviously... if you don't have a small ruler, use a old gift card or whatever (that's what I did!)

♥ Screw Driver- To put your outlet cover back on the wall

♥ Nail Polish Remover- In case you make a mistake you can just wipe it away

♥ Sand Paper- So that the colour sticks on better... I actually wouldn't really recommend this because if you make a mistake, it is a lot harder to wipe away (as described above). But if you are really confident that you wont make any mistakes, then go ahead!

♥ Tissues- Tissues, paper towel, a piece of paper, etc. Whatever you can clean your sharpies off on

♥ Mod Podge- To seal in your design

Alright, ready?

Use your ruler (or London Drugs gift card, in my case) to start drawing some straight lines

Make sure you angle the pen so that it isn't pressing right up against the ruler as you draw. I found that if it did, then the colour seeps in under the ruler and makes a mess on your outlet cover. If this has happened to you, no worries! Just use some nail polish remover to wipe it away

Add in some nice details

It might be daunting at first, but just look at different the colour combinations that you think look good together, and start drawing

The best part of this DIY is that you can just sit, relax, and get creative

If you aren't feeling particularly artistic today, feel free to just copy my design :)

Sometimes when you use a light colour beside a dark colour, some of the darker ink will get on your lighter sharpie, and the next time you go to use it, you get a bit of a mess. To prevent this, every time I used a pen, I just wipe it off on a paper towel

Once your done, seal it in with some Mod Podge! 

Do NOT use clear nail polish. I tried this and it just smudged everything and made a big ol' mess

If you are adamant on using nail polish, test it out first on the back of your outlet cover

Mod Podge shouldn't smudge the sharpie

And there ya have it!

Hope you all enjoyed this little tutorial

I'm going to get back to tanning in the sun... it's a beautiful day today!

See you all tomorrow for my featured Nail Polish of the Week!

♥ Olivia

Goooood Morning lovely people

If you live in Vancouver than you probably woke up to sunshine this morning, beautiful!

Today's tune is Youth by Daughter, enjoy!

Oh, and I almost forgot

I showed my grandpa my blog and he really wanted to be on it, so here he is

Grandpa and Grandma

Awe how cute! Say hi to grandpa... although he doesn't speak a word of English, ha

Have an excellent day

♥ Olivia

DIY Goodbye Cards

Yeah so.... it's been a while, hey?

Whoopsie daisy! I know I promised that I would stop dropping off the face of the Earth unannounced, but things have been pretty much insane these past two weeks!

♥ I celebrated my 19th birthday ;) Woot woot, and for all of you that don't know, 19 is the legal drinking age in British Columbia, so things are going to start getting a lot crazier around here! (but probably not... this is a crafting blog... how crazy can it get?)

♥ I went to my first open house

♥ Had all of my exams and just finished my last one this morning, so I am officially done my first year of University!! 

♥ Got a sweet job as a hostess

♥ Said bye to my mom, who left for a few weeks to work in a hospital in Haiti (go mom!)

♥ And I also packed up my room at school! And let me tell you, I am so happy to get out of res

The building I live in is about 60 years old and from the looks of it it used to be a prison. Very happy to be back in my room at home, where I actually have space to stretch!

But one thing I'm pretty bummed about is saying bye to all my friends and floormates in residence

I've met some pretty amazing people this year, and not all of them are coming back next year, so I thought I would make them each a little card to say bye-bye

I was at this amazing little boutique by my house and they sell these adorable little chevron bags, so that gave me a cute little idea for my cards

What you'll need:

♥ Chevron Bags- Check out your local boutique... maybe you'll get lucky? Otherwise, no worries, you can find them all over the interwebs, for example here! They come in lots of different colours and you can even find polkadot bags! Cuuuute

♥ Washi Tape- So I finally gave in to the voice inside my head and bought myself some Washi Tape. If you guys remember from one of my earlier posts, I was complaining about the price of Washi Tape, so I made my own (you can find the tutorial here). You can make some, or you can buy it at any craft store!

♥ Shipping Tags- Unless you have a box of these in your drawer, you cannot call yourself a crafter! Jokes. But seriously, these are an absolute crafting must. They are just so cute! You can buy a box of about 200 of these at Staples or where have you for about 3 dollars

♥ Baking Twine- This stuff is seriously pretty expensive. It's like 12$ per roll... for some string! But it is sooo cute. But I'll share a post with you guys in a little while about where to find a good deal on this stuff!

♥ Jelly Beans or other small yummy goodies

♥ Stickers, ribbon, glitter, or whatever else you want to use to decorate your cards with

And you are ready to go

I'm just going to go through the steps I took, but ya'll can just do whatever you want. Get crazy!

First I added some black stripped Washi Tape to the bottom of the cards I was making for my male friends

I knew they wouldn't want any part of the lacy flowery cards I had planned for all my female friends

Threw on some blue and white twine that matched the bag, just keeping it simple

Write on a little message

I would recommend writing with a thin tip sharpie pen. They write so beautifully, and the shipping tags are thick enough that the ink doesn't bleed through

Throw my card into a bag

Sprinkle in some jelly beans, and you're done!

I did the same thing for the girls' cards except I added a lacy sticker to the bottom instead of Washi Tape

I honestly have no idea where you can buy this. One of the highlights of my life (I lead a very exciting life) was when I found out that my boyfriend Alexander's mom used to work at a scrap booking company, and she hooked me up with a bunch of dope scrap booking materials, like this lace sticker :') Nicest lady around!

If you are really into this lace, I'm sure you could find it at Michael's or any other craft supplier!

Then I topped the card with a tissue paper pansy

If you want to learn how to make your own tissue paper pansy, stick around because I'll be posting the tutorial on Wednesday!

Cute hey?

And there you have it, folks!

Again, sorry for disappearing on you all, but I'm back and with more energy than ever! Do I sound invigorated? Because I feel like a FREE BIRD

Hope to see you guys again tomorrow! Goodnight

♥ Olivia

DIY West Coast Jewelry Hanger

Hey there all you lovely people

So I promised to make this post a while ago, and it's taken me a while to get to... sorry! But here is it!

Better late then never, right?

So last month one of my very best friends, Mo, came to visit me from Montreal

Vancouver was starting to see its very first sunny days, so we headed to the beach, collected tons of neat stuff, and decided to make a craft out of it :)

I was thinking about the new place my friends and I are going to get (my first apartment!), and considering possible themes for my room... and with all the gorgeous nature surrounding us here in BC, I thought what better theme than the West Coast? With the forests, mountains, and chilly Pacific Ocean, it's gonna look fresh!

I was also in desperate need for a jewelry hanger, seeing as all my pretty accessories were sitting in a box, impossibly tangled... so that's why I made myself a West Coast Jewelry Hanger

We got tons of sea glass, some cool looking shells, and HEAPS of drift wood

I absolutely love drift wood. It comes in so many interesting unique shapes and sizes, and is nice and bleached from the salty water and sun

We also collected a hammer, some small linoleum nails, wood glue, superglue, tape, a drill, and a sanding stick from my dad's garage

With all our materials gathered, I picked out some interesting pieces of wood

I used mostly twisty pieces so that my jewelry would stay on the hanger better

I then sanded out a little notch in the little piece of wood so that it would be easier to adhere to the stand

I then picked out a longer, straighter piece of beach wood (which will be the stand part of the hanger), and taped down the smaller piece that I just sanded in a t shape

Once it was taped down, I used a hammer to stick a small linoleum nail (left over from my String Art project) through both the smaller stick and the longer stand

Just to make it extra secure, I took some Lepage Carpenter's Glue, put it on a small twig, and shoved some glue in between both pieces of wood

Keep picking little pieces of wood and nailing them to the longer... you can see mine in the background of the picture above

After finishing the nailing portion of the project, I then realized that I wouldn't have any place to put my earrings, so I found this very cool looking flatter piece of wood, and used a drill to make a hole in it.

I then slid this piece of wood onto the bottom of the stand part of the hanger

I picked out some pretty seashells that could hold the earrings, and super glued their bases

And I stuck them onto the flat piece of wood

It was lookin' pretty good!

While I was making my hanger, Mo was working on a very... interesting frame :p

Well done Mo

I spiced it up by super gluing on some pieces of sea glass... I think it was the perfect touch!

And there you go! A West Coast Jewelry Hanger

If you see any jewelry you like, leave me a comment and I'll let you know where I got it from

If you want to make some of your own  jewelry, may I suggest checking out some of my tutorials, such as:

DIY pearl Bobby Pins

DIY Leather Braided Knot Bracelet

DIY Quartz Necklace

Alrighty, TGIF people!!

I just had my last day of classes

Yeaaaaaah!

Have a great weekend guys, see you Monday

♥ Olivia

ps. You guys may have realized by now that my deck is being renovated right now so the back yard is a complete mess (which you can see in most of my pictures) :p Just thought I would mention it in case you guys think I live in a construction site