As I showed off in my house tour, my dining room fixtures look like this now:

They started as the same drop pendants, but with a thin marigold colored glass shade. The shade was so small that the fixtures disappeared in the room, and once I painted everything, the marigold color was just awful.

I bought two plain jane lampshades at Home Depot on clearance. Because the shades needed to hang from the ceiling, I needed shades with hardware conducive to that. Then I found this great fabric at a quilt store that had nearly every color I was working with. With all my materials, the rest was just a case of reverse engineering.

Since mine was track lighting, I had to completely dismantle the fixture so I could thread the shade on. I just made a note to myself which wire went with which wire, and it was way easier than you’d think.

Here’s how the lampshades started:

Then I just started peeling it apart. I took off the bias tape around the top and bottom and took note of these little ribbons covering the hardware.

When I had gotten the entire shade off, I used it as my pattern and cut out the new fabric around it. Then I sewed the new fabric together in the same way the old one was. I stretched the new fabric around the outside, and then put the lining on the inside. I just started gluing as I went, bringing the edge of the lining around to the front and gluing in place. I made sure to use those little ribbons again so everything looked nice and tidy and covered up.

Now to cover up the last of the mess. I made bias tape out of the same fabric (although I didn’t bother cutting it on the bias. I know there’s a name for this tape, but I can’t think of it.) by cutting a long strip two inches wide, folding each edge to meet in the middle and ironing (so now it’s 1″ wide) and then ironing the strip in half. (to make a 1/2″ strip with all raw edges tucked away inside.) I just glued that into place with Fabric Glue and they were finished.

One tip: if you use these shades as drop pendants, I’d recommend using a large washer in between the bulb and the shade. The big washer will hold the weight of the shade level better than a lightbulb on it’s own would.

Also: you don’t need to be too concerned about fire safety as long as you use the right bulb. Just don’t try to use a huge lightbulb in a small space and your makeover should work out just fine.

Last Christmas Atticus was included (in utero) in Bear’s immediate family’s gift exchange. He got some crazy cute clothes “from” his little cousin Kai (including the tiniest velor tracksuit ever made), and as a fetus he was responsible for his cousin Micah’s present.

Micah is really into his “guys.” He collects all kinds of action figures and spends hour after hour making up elaborate scenarios for them to enact. When you sit and play with him he scripts your every move, telling you exactly what you should say and what your guy should do. He’s so the oldest kid.

This past Christmas he was really into knights and dragons. Michaels was carrying a line of action figures that featured ornate and colorful dragons along with the knights on horseback ready to defeat them. Between his parents and grandparents, he was getting the entire set.

Since these were a little more expensive than the average toy, Bear’s dad Mike really wanted Micah to understand that these were special. He suggested that I make some fancy little bag to carry all his precious guys around in.

I happened to have this fabric in my stash. It’s like a flannel with some kind of a plastic treatment over it creating a snakeskin effect. When I first saw the gray fabric I immediately thought of a knight’s tunic, but I thought a simple bag by itself wouldn’t be special enough, so I added the gold lame. I actually intended to create a simple piping but failed miserably. Instead I ended up creating these gold ridges that transformed the bag into a dragon. My favorite kind of mistake. I made a simple casing, leaving both sides open to make a drawstring, and threaded through some leftover bias tape. I’ve become completely enamored with fusible web, so I ironed on the monogram and fleur de lis. I love to personalize gifts for kids. I think every kid loves to see their name on stuff.

This was one of the most successful gifts I’ve ever given. He immediately stuffed his guys inside it and insisted on taking it out to the extended family Christmas party. I got the biggest kick out of listening to him tell all his cousins about his “dragonskin bag.”

Even now, nearly eight months later, it still merits his attention. I asked his mom Mari to bring it with her to the house so I could take the pictures I forgot to take and he would barely let it out of his sight. I didn’t get the greatest pictures out of it, but I don’t mind. I’d much rather see him love it too much to let me.

One of the biggest adjustments for me in moving into this house was going from nasty crappy apartment carpeting to hardwood floors. There are so many things about having no carpeting that is just fantastic – especially to someone with OCD and three long-haired cats. I geek out on a regular basis about just how pretty the floors look, especially up against such vibrant paint colors.

They have proven a bear to keep clean though. I always thought it was a simple sweep and mop on a regular basis, but that never seemed to cut it. Even after we finished the majority of the construction and I was finally able to scrub the floors, it never lasted. We walked around with black gritty feet for the first six months we lived here. I used to go stand in the shower at least three times a day just to wash off my feet. I bought three different brooms and four different mopping solutions, and the problem was always the same. The floors looked gorgeous for a couple of hours, and then the first time anything touched it – a foot, a sweaty can of Coke, a kitty paw – a mark was left and all my work was ruined.

I finally found the solution after asking around, and this was recommended by some wood floor installer guys. It’s fantastic.

Before I found my long-term solution, I kept trying to find ways to make the life of my clean floors last a little longer, and since I never successfully managed to keep the cats from walking across whatever I just mopped, the best short-term solution was to use coasters to keep anything I could from touching the ground.

Here’s my little simple tutorial for you. If you’ve ever sewn at all these will probably be intuitive, but if you haven’t, this is a great place to start.

1. Cut your fabric pieces to size. You’ll need one square cut to 3″x3″ for the center, one square cut to 4″x4″ for the back, two short sides cut to 1″x3″, and two long sides cut to 1″x4″, along with some kind of batting cut to 3″x3″.

2. Sew the sides to the center piece. Start by sewing the short side pieces to the center piece across from each other and press open. Then sew the long pieces to the other two sides and press open.

3. After you’ve pressed the front, lay the front of the coaster onto the back of the coaster, right sides together, and sew all the way around, leaving an inch or so open at the bottom.

4. Turn the coaster right side out through the hole you’ve left behind, and press. Stuff with your batting.

5. Sew around the outside of the coaster with a cute topstitch to close up your hole and to keep your batting in place. I also used a tiny stitch width to do an easy machine quilt around the flower pattern.

If you have a great memory, you might recognize these fabrics as left overs from an apron I made. The teal cotton was so heavy that it was impossible to get a crisp edge. If I had used a quilters weight cotton I probably could’ve made it look much less homesewn, but I was going for using up stash. For the stuffing I just used some fleece I had left over – again, using up stash. These coasters are not only ridiculously simple, but you can toss them right in the washing machine when they get nasty.

Ever since Christmas my nesting has hit hyperdrive. I’ve had a million and one projects lined up patiently waiting for me to finish up construction and painting and Christmas, and I was trying to race through and finish them before the Rookie arrived to demand all of my attention. Of course, he kind of thwarted my plans in about five different ways, but I’m still doing my best to make dents in my plans here and there.

Last summer I was at Urban Outfitters and came across a collection of 10 matching frames in a variety of sizes, just perfect for doing a great grouping (what do you know, they still carry them!). I snapped them up and immediately had plans to fill a wall with them. I imagined filling them with great fabrics or scrapbook papers, something really colorful and graphic. Then I proceeded to set them in a corner of my studio and ignore them for six months. That turned out to be a happy accident, because over those six months I completely changed plans and came up with something I am just wild about.

I decided to use them on a wall in my studio, which made me think of using them as an inspiration wall. I love reading craft blogs and seeing magazine clippings and paint swatches and fabric samples all over the walls as one big gorgeous creative mess, but I’ve never really been successful in using one. Mainly because I don’t seem to have enough hard copies of what inspires me. I usually just use my bookmarks folder as my inspiration wall. But thinking on the topic of inspiration walls got me thinking about a different form of inspiration, so I began collecting quotes that really moved me in a creative direction.

Once I selected all my quotes, I braved my limited Photoshop skills and made jpegs of the quotes all decorated up, then had them printed as photos at Costco.

I cut pieces of paper to the sizes of the frames, and taped them up on the wall until I found the magic grouping that made me happy.

I just love it. Instead of sewing when I’m sitting at my desk, I find myself staring at it. And every quote is so meaningful to me, it totally kicks my butt in all the best ways.

Here you go. My gift to you. Feel free to download for personal use, but please credit me if you use them online. I hope you find them inspirational.

I am not afraid. I was born to do this. – Joan of Arc.

Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality. – Dalai Lama

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. – Steve Prefontaine

I am not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down. – Henry B. Eyring

One hour devoted to the pursuit of beauty and love is worth a full century of glory. – Kahil Gibran

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Scott Adams

If you want to move the world, you first have to move yourself. – Deiter F. Uchtdorf

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. – Marianne Williamson

We don’t have an eternity to realize our dreams, only the time we are here. – Susan Taylor

I believe that what we want to write wants to be written. I believe as I have an impulse to create, the something I want to create has an impulse to want to be born. – Julia Cameron