Crafty Monograms #2- Reeds!

To continue on about how I'm in love with monograms, I'll show you another monogram I've made. This one is my monogram and it's currently in my room at school.

Honestly, here's how it happened: I finished T's moss monogram and said "Self, if you were to make a monogram representative of YOU, what would be on it?"

After deciding that covering my monograms with gummi bears and Reese's would be a bad idea, I was left with the only other thing I could think of: Bassoon reeds.

Bassoon reeds? What's a Bassoon? Isn't that the Oboe?



Ahh, let me show you.


I graduated from high school essentially a self-taught bassoonist. After finding a teacher who would give me a chance, I headed off to college to become a music educator.

That's me. And my bassoon-not-oboe. (You'd be shocked at how many think it's an oboe!)

So here's a bassoon (not oboe, friends...) reed:

Long story short(er,) they're two little teeny weeny pieces of cane, shaved and tied together in a very specific way to make everything vibrate and "speak" and such. 

How do you know if your reed works right? 

You "crow" them! You basically blow into them and see what kind of sound they make. 

Exciting stuff! 

Anywho.... back to the monogram.

There was no online inspiration for this monogram, so I relied on my own ingenuity to get the job done.

How-To:

1.) Scour the craft stores for wooden letters. This was more difficult than I thought, because typical wooden letters are A) small and B) expensive. I wanted neither. 

2.) Find a letter at Hobby Lobby and rejoice when it's on sale.

3.) Come home to discover a website that allows you to make any font/size/thickness of letter you want and shed a tear.

4.) Buy some snazzy ribbon. I got mine at the Dollar Store, actually. They had a pretty turquoise and a pretty bright pink!

5.) Rule of thumb: If you're covering the letter in something solid, you don't have to paint the letter. However if you're going to cover it with bassoon reeds, peanut butter cups or gummi bears, you're going to need to paint it. I recommend a bright, happy color. I chose some lime green paint that I already had on hand. 

6.) Rinse your bassoon reeds in a hydrogen peroxide-water solution to get them germ-free. No one wants germy reeds on the wall!

7.) Attach your reeds to the letter with hot glue.

8.) Rip the reeds off of the letter because they're not all at the same angle. Then re-glue the reeds.

9.) Burn your fingers on hot glue as you rip the reeds off the letter once again. Make sure you've planned out how everything is going to look BEFORE you glue it. You'll save your fingers this way!

10.) Attach a ribbon to the back with a staple gun or hot glue.

Or, if you're me, both.

11.) Run your fingers under cold water and take celebratory pictures!

The different color threads make this reed letter so fun! The possibilities are LIMITLESS with what you can attach to a letter. 

Here are some of my other favorites:

Yarn-Wrapped Letters

Glue-Designed Letters

Pearl-y Letters

There are more crafty posts to come!

Until next week, friends.

-Shelbylicious

SL

Crafty Monograms #1- Moss

Okay, I'll admit it.

I fell for a trend. I'm absolutely sold on monograms.


I'm not sure why, either. Maybe it's because I think my first initial is cool? Nah, probably not. Maybe it's because Pinterest has shown me that the world of wall-hanging monograms is a vast one; you can make your monogram as fun or as timeless as you like!

I'm going to show you two monogram letters that are currently hanging in my room. There have been many, many more that I've made, but I'll start with these two beauties for today.


Let me start off by saying this: When I first started dating T, a majority of our time on dates (usually walking through the park) was spent ogling trees, flowers, and moss. But mostly moss.

I learned SO much about moss that year!


For example.....

Look! A Club Moss!

A Bryophyte? Who knows. Anywho....

I took the inspiration for T's moss monogram from this blog. 

I simply love this idea! I would post the step-by-step, but they already did so I'll recommend that you go there and try it! 

I have some tips though: 

1) They really DO have sheets of moss with webbing on the back at the DOLLAR STORE! This truly is a remarkable discovery! We have a Dollar Tree here and they had the sheet moss readily available. 

2) A little goes a long way! I had a 10" letter and I used 2 packages of moss with a bunch left over.

3) If you want a more "unkempt" look, you should try the loose Spanish Moss that can also be found at the Dollar Store! It'll make a mess, but spraying hairspray on the finished product will help hold the moss in place. 

Here's the finished product!

Stay tuned for Crafty Monogram #2!

Lotsa Love,

Shelbylicious

(SL)

A Brave Walnut's Journey

I'd like to tell you a story!

Here goes...

Our Freshman year, T would always bring me sweet bundles of wildflowers from his Biology labs in the woods.

Fields.

Bogs.

Mountains.

Lakes. Come to think of it, I'm not exactly sure where his labs were.

Anywho... One day, he brought me half of a black walnut shell instead of a bundle of flowers. 

He sure is sweet!! Just look at him! 

I stared at the walnut shell for a couple of days and excitedly told T my idea: 

Let's take advantage of the fact that this walnut shell looks like a heart, dye it red and hang it around my neck!

After showing him an online example, he was on board and we began to ponder the concept. How do you take something so rough (and dirty... and rough.... and did I say dirty?!?) and make it wear-able while maintaining that "rustic" ESF-y feel? 

That's a good question. 

We've got it down to a science now! Here's the short-of-the-long of how we do it:

Step 1:

Don your "Shelbylicious" apron that your boyfriend's mom and Grandmom made for you.

Step 2:  

Use your extra toothbrush and scrub all of the dirt out of the inside of the walnuts.... making them squeaky-clean for step 3!

Step 3: 

Put your walnuts in the microwave to dry them out... But that's another story for another day. Don't try it at home, I'm pretty sure that I just got lucky that time!

Step 4: 

Burn your fingers on the hot (but now dry!) walnuts. Hand them over to the ESFr who is eagerly waiting to use his shiny Dremel tool. 

Step 5:  

Use your shiny Dremel tool to sand the roughness off of the face of the walnut, revealing the beautiful patterns in the shell of the nut. 

Step 6: 

Pretend your Dremel tool is a light saber. 

Step 7:

Switch your sand-y Dremel to a drill-y Dremel and do some kind of angled thing that allows you make it necklace-y. This is the hard part: The Lord doesn't make every walnut the same thickness, so most of the time they splinter off and break. 

Which makes T and I want to cry. 

And by T and I, I mean just me.

Step 8: 

If it broke- cry. If it didn't- take celebratory pictures!

Step 9: 

Do some things to make it colorful, sealed/protected, and hang-y (I can't reveal ALL of my secrets!)

Step 10:

Ta-Da! We did it! Make T cookies to celebrate the success (might as well while you have your apron on...)

There it is, in all of its glory! Want one? Check out our Etsy Shop for more information. 100% of profits go to a good cause! More on who the proceeds go to will be posted soon!

'Till then,

Shelbylicious

(SL)