I put together this print using a nebula photo and the star trek federation logo. I found the frame, which was the perfect size and matches the color of our cabinets in there perfectly, in my frame hoard. I have a hard time saying ‘no’ to inexpensive frames at goodwill and garage sales – at least I’ve been using them (see here and here for more recent projects using my frame stash)!

If you have a trekkie in your house, or are just excited about the new movie (we loved it!), you can download the 16×20 or 8×10 prints in pdf format here and here, respectively. The links above go to google drive  - to download the files, just go to file -> download.

I was a bad blogger and didn’t take any before or process photos, but there was nothing amazingly new or creative in here – just some fun updates. We painted the wall a fun seafoam color (Sherwin Williams emerald satin paint color-matched to Behr Botanical Tint). You’d think such a tiny room (5′ x 7.5′, including the shower/mirror/dresser/towel cabinet/medicine cabinet that take up a good chunk of the wall space) would be fast to paint, but with all the edging around those items taking up wall space and some tiny nooks and crannies between them, it took about 5 hours all together (which is still not bad for a paint job, I think).

I did all the cutting in by hand using this brush suggested by Young House Love, which I loved and cost less than $5. It was so much faster than taping for me, and even using fancy tape and all kinds of tricks, I can never seem to get great lines using tape.

We also framed out our mirror and added a fun star trek design I’d whipped up in photo shop (you can see it in the mirror in the first photo) to add a little bit of a finished touch and some personality. More details on those projects coming soon!

I decided on a twist on this common sign seen on pinterest. I love the double statement about believing there is good in the world and being that good. I definitely tend to want things to happen without actually doing anything about it, so this is a great reminder for me too

To make the sign, I got the following supplies from home depot (and I have most of each of the wood stain/paint supplies left over for future projects, yay!):

• 4×8 sheet of 1/4″ birch plywood: $
• wood conditioner:
• dark stain (color): $
• light stain (golden walnut): $
• test pot of white paint: $

I started by having Eddie help me cut the board down to 3′ x4′, and used the wood stain conditioner on the entire front of the plywood piece. I then stained the entire piece with the light stain. I cut out the letters I wanted to be the light wood color with my cricut, and made a grid using a ruler and masking tape for aligning the stenciled letters.

Once the letter stencils were applied (and the masking tape removed), I stained over the entire board with the dark stain, being careful to not let the stain get too thick around the edges of the letters. I had tried several techniques on my scrap piece of plywood for staining around the vinyl letter stencils: with/without conditioner (conditioner definitely helped), mod podge or wood glue to reduce bleeding (affected the stain in a not-good way), and more, but always got minor bleeding. The stenciled letters weren’t perfect, but they turned out pretty well (small imperfections add character and a hand-made touch, right?).

I then cut the rest of the letters out with my cricut on normal computer paper, and traced their outlines with a pencil. I painted them in with the white paint, but thought it was a bit too crisp. I ended up going over that area with the dark stain again. If I did this project again, I’d paint the white letters before doing the dark stain.

To finish it off, I painted the edges of the plywood with some black acrylic paint. I couldn’t nail any picture hangers to the back because it was only 1/4″ thick, so I used gorilla super glue (it says it bonds to wood and metal) to attach some saw-tooth picture hangers to the back (its been on the wall for about a month now with no problems!).

Here’s a zoomed out picture of the whole wall. To the left is our coat closet and then the front door, and to the right is a window and then the kitchen/eating area. That whole area between the TV and the right of this picture was previously empty, and I’d been meaning to put something there for ages and just never got around to it. Until now!

Along with some frames of pictures of our little family and a robot print, the two main pieces are a sign I made and a printer’s tray I’d gotten at a garage sale about a year ago.

I’ve seen this ‘believe there is good in the world/be the good in the world’ quote all over pinterest, and decided I loved it and wanted to make my own version. You can see a tutorial for how I made the sign here!

I love the look of antique printer’s trays filled with goodies and memorabilia, so was so excited to find one at a garage sale last year. And then … it sat in my garage for a year. womp womp. We finally pulled it out and cleaned off some of the dust and grime with some watered down soap. I put some of our favorite cute and memorable items inside – an L.E.D. serotonin molecule (what makes your brain feel happiness!) that was one of the first things I made my husband when we were dating, some tiny penguins I’d collected over the years, some shells we collected on our honeymoon, and more. We still have lots of gaps to fill in, but I can’t wait to pick up some new treasures and have a place to display them!

1. Wooden State Plaque – if you have access to something like a jigsaw, this would be a great project for a mom who is proud of her state/country!
2. Lace Clay Dish – great for holding small items like jewelry, or just for display on its own!
3. DIY Floor Mat – make a custom-sized floor mat for your mom’s kitchen or entry way to match her decor.
4. Photo Blocks – can be arranged to show any of 6 pictures. Moms love photos of their kids!
5. Clay Pot Critters – with spring just starting, these would be a great gift to put on a porch or in a garden.
6. Self-Watering Seed Starter Pots – if you start soon, you could gift some cute little plants for a garden!
7. Colored Vases – these pretty vases are easy and cheap to make (try goodwill for glass!), but are no longer water-proof, so try gifting them faux flowers (bonus – they last forever!)
8. Embossed Metal Decor – a simple project that could be made with any design or quote.
9. Terrarium Necklace – this would be a great gift for a mom who loves jewelry and gardening!
10. Bath Bombs – these fizzy balls would be a great gift for someone who loves to be pampered!
11. Cupcake Bouquet - for the mom who has everything (and isn’t on a diet!) try this adorable edible cupcake bouquet.
12. Birds’ Nest Necklace - If your mom likes jewelry, try making her something like this fun necklace.
13. DIY Infinity Scarf – it may (or may not!) be warming up wherever you are, but a gauzey infinity scarf would still be great for spring!
14. Etched Glass – etching glass is surprisingly easy, and the possibilities are endless!

And to go with your gift, here are some great free printable cards!

1. I love this card from Make Merry Events – it’s the one I used last year!
2. All four of these are from Pumpkins & Posies.
3. This fun card is from Sweet Muffin Suite.
4. This cheerful card is from Mufn Inc.

Its split into categories such as home decor, sewing, and seasonal. You can see a preview of a few posts in each category, and then you can click on the ‘more’ arrow to see more of my posts in that category.

Its still a work in progress, and I’ll be adding more of my older posts as I get a chance. I’d love for you to check it out here, and I’d super love any feedback via comments on this post or email (starsandsunshineblog at gmail dot com). Thanks!

If you follow a lot of blogs (hopefully including this one!), you may have heard that google reader is apparently shutting down soon. I’m super bummed because I love using google reader to follow my favorite blog in one place in an organized way, but it is what it is. I’ve been using feedly lately and am pretty happy with it, but another popular option is bloglovin.

Feedly is a lot like google reader (you can even log in with your google reader account). It has several visual layout options for you to play with (via the four icons in the top right of the picture below). If you want to get started with feedly, just visit http://www.feedly.com. If you want to follow me there once you have an account, you can search for starsandsunshine.com in the sidebar or click here.

Bloglovin is easy to use and add new blogs too. If you want, you can follow Stars & Sunshine on bloglovin too!

And of course you can still keep up with Stars & Sunshine in a variety of other ways through the buttons on my sidebar, including email, instagram, pinterest, and facebook.

I’m still not sold on either feedly or bloglovin, so if you love one of these (or a different feed reader!) I’d love to hear about it.

I’m just posting a few step-by-step photos because Talitha at Love, Pomegranate House has a great tutorial for this simple flower here. If you haven’t visited her blog, you should! She has gorgeous pictures and lots of fun projects

I actually found I got better results if I used different sized pieces of paper for different sized petals – I used 1/4 sheet 8.5″x11″ paper (4.25″x5.5″) for each of the darkest petals, 1/6 sheet 12″x12″ paper ( 4″x6″) paper for the outer row of medium petals, 1/9 sheet 12″x12″ paper (4″x4″) for the inner row of medium petals, and 4″x4″ squares for the inner petals.

I kept even my outer ring of petals as close together as I could, and tried to line up each row such that the points of that row lined up with the middle of the previous row’s petal opening. To hang, I used a loop of ribbon on the back and a 3M hook on my front door.

And here’s our front door. We also just redid the areas on both sides of our walkway. Before we had just grass on the side next to the house and some plants on other side, so I’m really excited for it to be a bit more balanced out. We’re still planning to plant some flowers in between the bushes and the walkway, but we haven’t decided what to put there yet.

A few things:

• Please link to the blog post about your PP, not your blog home page.
• Jamie and I will each be featuring some of the craft goodies from the linky party in the next month! (see October round up)
• This linky is only for the 100+ people that signed up for Package Pals in March.
• The linky will close in one month (May 1st), but as with all linkies, you can view ‘em for forever!
• Feel free to grab either button for your blog posts!

Click on the image below to view the link party and add your own.

I saw this on pinterest (if you use pinterest, follow me here!)one day, and knew I wanted to make it for our bedroom. For right now I just used navy and white yarn I had purchased for other projects, but I’m planning to add in some other colors in the future. Making the yarn balls just from yarn sounded like a waste of yarn and seemed like it would be hard for me to keep them circular, so I used some magazine pages as the centers.

I just cut some magazine pages in half 3 times (to divide the page into 8 pieces), crumpled them up into a ball, and then wrapped the yarn around them until they were covered. Once the magazine page was covered, I cut the yarn and tucked the ends under some of the yarn wraps to keep them tidy and in place. They didn’t all end up the same size, but I’m actually quite happy to have a range of sizes because it makes arranging them more organic and less like assigning colors to pixels in a grid. I found that I got a good size for the thickness of my frame by cutting the page into 8 pieces.

For now I put a heart together, but I’m excited to periodically change them out in different designs (an ‘E’ for our last name, polka dots, chevron, etc.) and add in some other colors when I have an excuse to buy some yarn in the other colors I’m hoping to bring into our predominantly navy and white room

You can see my initial post about the photo ledge we made for our bedroom (along with several links to tutorials for the other hand-made projects I’ve made for our bedroom!) here.

We loved these ledges from ikea for their flexibility in changing out frames and decor, but wanted something longer (the longest ikea ones are 45″, and we wanted at least 60″). Here’s what you’ll need to make your own: Supplies:

• Lumber: 1×2, 1×3, and 1×4 in the length of your final shelf
• Primer (
• Paint ( is plenty, I used un-tinted white in semi-gloss)
• Screws (I used (6) 1.5″ #6 screws for assembly and (3) 2″ #6 screws for attaching to the wall)
• Wood putty

Tools:

• Electric drill
• Paint roller & tray
• Putty spatula (like this)

Our home depot was actually out of 1x2s and 1x3s, so we actually got a 1×4 and a 1×6 and cut the 1×6 down to a 1×2, 1×3, and some leftover with our table saw. Once you’ve got the lumber, start by priming and then painting each piece. Then clamp them together, pre-drill, and screw to assemble. You can see how the pieces go together below:

My center board was noticeably warped, so we did lots of clamping. Note that you don’t need to clamp the whole piece at once (I only have 4 clamps!). we started at one end, lined up the ends of the boards, and clamped about 6″ on either side of my screw (less on the ends, since you want to anchor the ends securely close to the edges) then pre-drilled, put in the screw, and moved the clamps.

We screwed the back (1×3) on first, and didn’t worry about covering those screws since they’ll be against the wall. When we attached the front, we made sure to sink the screws in past the face of the wood so we’d be able to cover them up.

Once everything was assembled, I sanded the wood around the screws on the front since there was a bit of tiny splintering. I then filled the holes with putty. After that dried (read your putty instructions, mine said two hours for deeper holes so that’s how long I waited), I sanded the putty even with the wood finish and painted over it.

Voila – seamless photo ledge! To attach it to the wall, we first found the studs and marked them vertically with painters tape. Then we lined up the shelf where we wanted it – cenetered over the headboard and at a height we liked. We attached the shelf to a stud on one end with the drill at an angle so the screw is below the front lip of the shelf – this makes the screw invisible from the front. We then used a level to make sure it was nice and flat, and attached the shelf to two more studs in the same manner.

Here’s the whole thing with all the decorations I have up there for now:

And here’s where you can find tutorials to the projects in that image that I’ve made myself and shared on the blog:

• Tufted headboard (part 1 and part 2)
• Table lamps from glass vases (and hidden monograms!)
• Easy watercolor trees
• Fabric covered monogram (coming soon!)
• Stenciled ‘watercolor’ canvas
• Yarn ball shadowbox

It is actually a ledge with a lip (just like the IKEA ones), which you can see a bit better from this angle:

I filled it with a combination of things I already had around the house and a few projects I made just for this ledge. I’ll be sharing tutorials for making the ledge and a few of the projects you see here over the next few weeks, and I’ll update this page with links to those tutorials.

• Photo ledge
• Tufted headboard (Part 1 and Part 2)
• Table lamps from glass vases (and hidden monograms!)
• Easy watercolor trees
• Fabric covered monogram (coming soon!)
• Stenciled ‘watercolor’ canvas
• Yarn ball shadowbox

I love how flexible decorating this shelf is! Other than the projects I made just for this ledge, the accessories will probably rotate and change out.

The card above is one I made for Eddie for Valentine’s Day last year. Our bedroom was pretty much only navy and white, but I’ve been wanting to add in some lighter blues, greens, and purples so this has been a really fun place to start doing that. I’ve got some fun fabric set aside for decorative pillows for our bed too

What you can’t see very in these photos is that my ceilings are 10′ tall, and even the highest things on this ledge only come up to maybe 7.5′, so I need to add some hanging art over the ledge at some point too. Lots of work left to do in our bedroom, but this shelf is a big step in bringing in some fun art

I used 18 ga wire for these, which I think was about perfect. Making the names turned out easier than I thought – I just used a combination of flat and round pliers to bend the wire into the names. For most of them, I sketched the names out on paper to test out how I wanted them to look. Surprisingly enough, security didn’t give me a hard time for having the pliers in my purse on either trip, but I have plenty of pliers so I was willing to lose a couple pair before I tried taking them on the plane. Having pliers in my purse even came in handy around the office the next couple days in a couple random instances – I might start carrying them around more often

After forming everyone’s names, I hammered them a bit flatter (with a jewelry hammer and block like these) to make them a little more durable, and then bent them slightly to fit better as bracelets. I finished them off by attaching  them to some chain and a lobster clasp with 4mm jump rings. When I gave them out, I brought some extra chain and pliers so I could shorten/lengthen as needed, and ended up turning one into a necklace, which also looked great!

Here’s the Package Pals (PP) timeline and info:

• Sign up using the form below, by Monday, Feb. 25th. The first 100 people will be included in the March Package Pals (PP)!
• We will pair you with one other crafty person. You will each send and receive one crafty package in the month of March.
• We will send each of the 100 PP’s an email by Friday, March 1st, letting you know who your package pal is.
• Send your PP a crafty package by March 31st, 2013!
• We will have a linky party set up on April 2nd for everyone to share their package pal goodies!
• You can chat with all PP’s (and me) on twitter with #packagepals

Tweet something like this: I just signed up for @stars_sunshine & @thecraftblog #packagepals. Crafty snail mail is my favorite thing You should sign up too!–> http://bit.ly/ZlsXVo

• You do not have to have a blog to be a part of package pals.
• PP is open to everyone everywhere in the world! Please note, if you are outside of the US, you will possibly have to ship a package outside of your country. *I will do my best to pair people in their country of origin, but I can not guarantee it.
• If you have more questions, check the FAQ and then if you’re still not sure…email me at starsandsunshineblog at gmail dot com.

Here are some crafty ideas that are easy and inexpensive to ship from me and Jamie @ C.R.A.F.T.:

• lacy clay bowl
• map frames
• dino photo holder/magnets
• pillow cover
• a hex nut bracelet
• personalized coloring book

You could even send your package pal crafting supplies for a certain project on their to do list or general fun crafty things like bakers twine, lace tape, Elmer’s painters, or our favorite crafty book, Young House Love !

Here’s a spunky button to add to your side bar if you have a blog and decide to participate in the March PP!——-

Signups are now closed!