Leona Lane

Maple Leaf Pop-Up Market!

I'm so excited to fill you guys in on a little secret!! I got accepted to be a vendor at the Maple Leaf Pop-Up Market this summer! I'm so excited to have a chance to sell some vintage finds and handmade items at my own little Leona Lane booth!! This is the third year that the Blue Saucer has hosted the event - it's a fun little coffee shop in the little Maple Leaf neighborhood of North Seattle! The market is hosted outdoors and the whole parking lot is filled with a bunch of different vendors. Should be fun! 

Last month I cleared out a space in my office and have started squirreling away fun stuff for the show! And I've been dreaming up ideas for my booth and fun displays. Like that yarn and wire sign I made. And I've got a bunch of projects up my sleeve! Fun stuff!

That's just some of the stuff I've got stashed away... 

I hope some of you Seattle locals will have the chance to stop by! It's August 17th from 8-4 so jot it down on your calendars! Hope everyone is having a nice week!

 

 

 

EASY DIY | FAUX COPPER AMPERSAND

Well, I'm back from vacation... I've got to say, it was nice to take a full fledged break from work and the blog and just relax! Last week Joe and I road tripped around Washington and Oregon with our camper after the Memorial Day camping trip. It was quite the adventure - I'll share more on that later I promise! With lots of pictures of course!

Today's DIY is super super easy! After last month's post, a few of you chimed in and mentioned you were insterested in easy DIYs. This one should fit that bill for sure.

I've always loved the metal letters at Anthropologie, but they are eighteen bucks. And that's a little steep. I've always been looking for ways to make a knock of version but all the ones I've seen online look not quite right. So I decided to try my own knock-off but a copper version instead! And guys, I love how it turned out! It looks so fab! 

All you need is a smaller paintbrush, a Paper Mache Ampersand, and Martha Stewart Copper Paint. I was able to find all my supplies at Michael's but the ones I've linked look exactly the same. I love the Martha Stewart copper paint, it has a nice sheen to it. 

As far as directions go, find a nice sunny spot to sit. Shake the paint up and squeeze a little bit onto the ampersand, work up and down covering it evenly but with a thin coat. I tried to keep all my paintbrush strokes going in one direction and it doesn't look to "painted" from far away, keeping the coats of paint thin also seemed to help with this. Leave one side unpainted so you can let it dry, then come back and finish that side and you're done! Easy peasy! Then you just need to find somewhere fun in your house to display it!

 

DIY NECKLACE ORGANIZER

Today I'm excited to share the necklace organizer I made out of driftwood. We're still trying to pare things down over here. I must admit, I've lost some steam with the Great Unclutter challenge. But at least I've got a bag or two for the Goodwill ready to go. And now my closet is a little more organized and I can actually find my necklaces! 

I'm not a huge jewelry person. Actually here's a random fact for you - I never got my ears pierced. But I do have a small collection of bracelets and necklaces. Mostly costume pieces that I've picked up in random spots, and a few of Gram's pieces. She loved costume jewelry! One of my favorite things as a kid was to go through her jewelry when were playing dress up and pretend to be fancy! 

I had everything hanging off one measly little hook on my side of the closet and things were constantly tangled. It was frustrating... so it was time for an upgrade! The great thing about this little project is that the supplies are super inexpensive! I actually had everything around the house already. And I love how it turned out, even Joe likes it! It has a fun outdoorsy feel to it and I love the look of dipped ends. 

 

SUPPLIES
  Piece of driftwood
  Clothesline
  Scissors
  Paint
  Paintbrush
  Masking Tape

DIRECTIONS

First clean off your piece of driftwood really well. Decide how much of each end you want to be 'dipped' and tape it off. Once that is done, make sure you have a somewhere it can rest while the paint is drying. I put a piece of newspaper down on the floor and put a cardboard box on top of that, keeping two of the flaps up (to prevent the stick from rolling off). I also made sure the box was small enough so that the paint on either edge of the stick would not touch the cardboard while drying. Whew... hope that makes sense.

Now onto the 'dipping'. I decided to literally dip the end of my driftwood into the paint. Slowly submerge until it's almost to the tape but not quite. Slowly remove it. Let the excess paint drip back into the container. Then use the paintbrush to remove more paint, until there is good coverage but the paint isn't goopy or drippy. Repeat on the other side and then let dry. (I let mine dry overnight.)

Take the clothesline and wrap it tightly around the driftwood twice, just inside of where the painted edge is. Tie off tightly with a square knot. Repeat on the other side, leaving enough length in the middle for hanging. Trim the excess off. Hang it up! Now find all your necklaces and organize them!

4 DIY Projects with Vinyl Letters

Hey guys! Do you ever get on project kicks or is it just me? Apparently I've been channeling my inner five year old self recently, because I.can't.stop plastering letters on everything. More specifically, vinyl letters - like the plain black ones from Office Depot. (at least its not the rainbow colored SandyLion variety I was into back then... anyone remember those?)  I can't be the only kid that had a sticker book, but anyways, onto my more adult variety sticker projects. 

I love these vinyl letters for a couple reasons, they stick really well but are still semi-repositionable. They are cheap. They are also beautifully simple, they let the rest of the project shine while getting the point across. I think they look fun, yet don't take themselves too seriously. And if you ask me, those are some top-notch sticker qualities - you know, if anyone was wondering ;)

The first project (above), is literally a five minute project. I took a thrift store picture of an outdoor scene and spelled out the word explore directly onto the glass and added a little period at the end for good measure. Sums ups my sentiments for this coming year pretty well. 

This planter was the one that started it all. I'd been wanting to make something like this for months! I honestly can't remember what first sparked the idea. I knew as soon as I unpacked those stickers, I would be trying it out! Of course I had no idea that it would spark three more projects. This is another five minute project. Take a white planter and simply spell your phrase out. It was a bit tricky to get the words looking straight on the curved surface but I was able to move them around a bit until I was happy with it. Fun, graphic and easy-peasy. My fern is happy too! So check-plus.

I decided to make a mini command center in our hallway in front of our bathroom with two clipboards. The top clipboard has a notepad on it - for writing daily to do lists and writing notes to each other occasionally. The bottom clipboard is for keep track of more long term projects or in this case my list of goals for April. The top clipboard I simply covered with contact paper and then labeled with today at the bottom. The bottom clipboard is painted with chalkboard paint. 

This last project is a little journal for our camping adventures with the scamp. Totally inspired by these awesome Field Notes notebooks. All you need to make this is an art journal, mine has gray paper inside. Some contact paper to spiffy up the cover, and vinyl stickers plus a sharpie to write your title on the front. And boom, personalized journal! I could see this project being tweaked for so many other uses. 

Thanks for letting me share my latest little sticker craze with you guys! What do you think, would you try any of these? I'd love to see your projects!!

Lucy's Baby Book

Maybe I shouldn't really call this a baby book. It is really more of a journal. Before Lucy was born, I searched high and low for the perfect baby book, but somehow I could never find the perfect one. Most of the books I found had too much information to fill out. Writing in her book would seem like homework! I know that even my own baby book was not filled out all the way. Who has the time? Yet I wanted a way to record her major milestones and keep track of how fast she is growing. So I decided to use a journal as her baby book.

I bought this one at Barnes and Noble. It is super simple, beautiful, and the writing lines are light and spaced well (very important!) I kept the front cover as is. I chose this book because it has an adorable illustration that depicts the city of Venice. It's pretty girly, but not super pink. Inside the cover, on the "title page" I used some small letter stickers to write "DEAR LUCY" and I added some washi tape for a bit of decoration.

The fun part has been adding to it! We started out by using it in the hospital as a guest book. As each guest came to visit me, I had them write a little letter to Lucy. I really want her to know about all the people that love her, even those that met her when she was very small. I admit, I forgot to have many people sign it in the hospital, but fortunately we had lots of visitors at home too.

As you can see above, I also added the little card that was displayed in her bed at the hospital. I also had the nurse stamp her feet in the journal, which was so nice! (And why not a quick photo of this in action?)

Lucy is six months old now, and even now I love to look back and read those letters to her from the early days. Having my friends and family write to her really adds a lot of character.

Now it's pretty much only me that writes to Lucy. I consistently write in it every couple of weeks, which is enough to record those major milestones, but I would actually like to write to her more often. One of my main goals for her first year is to write to her weekly. I think I will also get the book out for others to write in again, and maybe even bring it to work with me! My coworkers really love Lucy.

I hope you like this idea to record a baby book in journal format. It is so easy and fun! So much better than doing a homework assignment every week or month. I also love that because this isn't a true "baby book," I can continue to write to her until she's much older. Maybe forever! I love you, Lucy!