Category Archives: Inspiration

Vote!

I can now see how people quit their jobs to run for political office. It is time consuming, and let’s face it, I don’t have spare time. For Samford’s SGA, I am running for the position of Vice President for Events. Over Spring Break, I tried to work on campaign posters. Since I don’t have any Adobe programs on my laptop, I played around in Word, but quickly gave up in frustration. I figured, why use technology when I am way more comfortable being crafty.

I stumbled across a poster awhile back that cut out the letters using an exacto knife, and I figured why not. The first poster did take a two hours, but the second, third and forth didn’t take long at all. I quickly became obsessed with the idea.

     

     

I found black poster board at Walmart, so for the two posters I made with it, I played around a little more. For my name, I only pealed back the black layer.

     

My thought process behind cutting out the letters was that when placed on a bulletin board, the colors of the posters behind it would shine through. It didn’t turn out exactly how I envisioned it, but I still liked it. Sadly, I only made 5 posters – so you kind of have to keep an out of them

A letter for a friend

Back in 10th grade, I found this tutorial at a craft store about how to turn these cardboard letters into fabric letters. My large S still hangs in my room at my parent’s house, soI think it’s safe to say that 5 years later, I have mastered this craft.

K is for Karlie, my dear friend who had a birthday coming up. Luckily, I had a ton of batting and scrap fabric so all I needed to make this was the cardboard letter. I started by cutting the batting (2 layers of it) to the exact shape of the K. I did this for both sides.

Next, with the fabric I had chosen, I cut out a K with extra margins. Layer the batting on top of the cardboard letter and then the fabric on top of that. I used a hot glue gun (but you can use any adhesive) to glue the fabric in place, attaching the margins to the sides of the cardboard letter. Just make sure the fabric is taunt. Do this for both sides.

With that complete, I took the other fabric and made a strip that I could use for the sides. To make this strip of fabric, I cut it out and then folded and ironed the edges to make smooth edges. Simply glue the fabric in place, folding back the final edge so no raw edges are showing.

And there you have it. It’s super easy and makes an awesome gift!

A few souvenirs

A trip to another country would not be complete without some awesome souvenirs. We visited the Medina at least once a day, so I took my sweet time scoping out all the different things so buy. And I’m pretty pumped about the items I ended up coming back with.

I purchased these pillow cases from an older woman in Meknes. We had stopped and looked at something nearby, but when I saw these, I knew I could do something really cool with them. We were told they are Berber designs. I ended up buying 4 total (2 of each design).

The leather in Morocco is so beautiful in all its many colors. We entered a particular leather shop in Rabat, and I came away with a beautiful weekend bag and this leather wallet. The leather smells rather funny (and it seems to get stronger the more you use it) but it makes it feel more authentic.

You would think that I would go crazy buying fabric, but alas, I only came back with a meter of material. I will admit, the amount of fabric places had was very overwhelming. I quickly fell in love with several patterns, but I asked myself, what would I do if I bought it? I didn’t know how much I should buy or what colors I would need. I finally decided to not buy every fabric I saw, despite the cheap prices. It may have been a mistake, but I figure, I always know where to go if I need fancy fabric.

   

I knew pretty early on that I wanted to buy a Moroccan teapot. They are just so beautiful, and America can’t beat their prices. So I bought two – the large one for my Mom and the little one for my dorm room. In Sale, I bought a few coffee mugs and these two cups. Hand crafted, they are the perfect companions in case I ever felt like making some mint tea.

I also purchased this bowl in Sale, and it might be my favorite thing I brought home. It looks like it belongs in a Anthopologie store, but it is definitely not made in China. It was made in the store I bought it from. The lady that hand painted it sold it to me. The bottom of the bowl even has the potter’s signature. And if you can believe it, this beautiful bowl only cost me $10. Talk about a great souvenir!

   

A cold land with a hot sun

When flying internationally by yourself, you really have to take a big leap of faith – trusting that God will not seat you next to a complete wacko for a 9 to 10 hour cross-Atlantic flight. This was the only nervous thought that crossed my mind as I prepared to travel to North Africa. Having purchased my tickets last summer, excitement was my main emotion. As the plane began its decent into Tanger, I knew that I had an amazing 10 days in store as I travel through the country of Morocco.

From a rooftop in Rabat

   

Looking out on the Atlantic Ocean and a well-known surf spot in Rabat.

Inside the fort, full of orange trees and street cats

   

Inside the fort – Outside the fort

Afternoon mint tea and nous-nous

Looking out on river between Rabat and Sale

Rabat acted as our hub for the week I was there. As the capital of the country, there were surprising not that manly tourists. We found ourselves in the medina at least once a day. And the city might have had the most beautiful view of ocean. Further north, we traveled to Meknes, an old imperial city outside of Fez. We stayed in this city for 2 nights with a day trip out to Fez. I adored Meknes, and the guest house we stayed in. We paid to take a cooking class lead by a local who was in graduate school studying English. (The tagine we made was out of this world!)

   

A beautiful (and huge) door right outside the Meknes’ square and medina

View of the square in Meknes - the market starts back in the far corner

Our guest house in Meknes with cooking school on 1st floor

   

Orange trees lining the streets – the alleyway leading to the guest house in Meknes

   

Carriage ride to the train station

Traveling to Fez and stepping into its medina was like stepping back in time. The medina was huge! Sadly it was Friday, so many of the shops were closed down for the afternoon, but we were still able to view the famous tanneries from the rooftop of a leather shop. Plus, the city had mapped out these wonderful walking tours that you could follow by colored signs.

The tanneries in the heart of the Fez medina

Awesome walking tours in the Fez medina (note the green sign)

   

A sign of democracy and sweet wall message in Fez

My flight back home flew out of Casablanca, so we traveled down a day earlier to check out the city. To be surprise, Casablanca is not the huge tourist attraction you would think it would be. Though we did check out the two things that were “tourist-y” – the 3rd largest mosque in the world (located right on the beach with this huge, beautiful square) and the Morocco Mall (something you would think belonged in Las Vegas or Dubai).

World's 3rd largest mosque in Casablanca

   

The three of us in Casablanca

I didn’t take a million pictures like I wish I did, but what made this trip so amazing was its constant sense of adventure. There were no museum lines or major tourist attractions. Instead, we wondered around the medina markets, full to the brim of people, food and crafts. We ate and shopped among the people who lived there, with lots of help from my brother and sister-in-law’s Arabic skills. It was a trip all about the experience. And the experience blew me away.

A year later…

“For the Love of Felt” is officially 1 year old today, and all I can say is thank you! You, the readers, are what drive me to keep posting. And despite my infrequency this fall, you kept returning to read and be inspired. I hope to have some new and exciting things for this blog’s second year (maybe even some fun giveaways). So keep coming back and I’ll keep posting.

Another school project

Junior year of college brought about another “creative” project. This time around it was for a grammar class. The basic idea was to pick a medium (book, song lyrics, magazine, etc) and find different types of sentences or sentence transformations in it. I picked my favorite book of the summer, Water for Elephants. And though the “creative” side of the project only counted 10 points towards the total, I couldn’t help but go all out.

I call it a banner. The main character in the book first realizes he has joined the circus when he sees a sign reading, “Benzini Bros Most Spectacular Show on Earth.” I found a font at dafont.com and used it as a template to cut the letters out of felt.

  

The rest was made with scrap fabric. I hand stitched the felt letters to my main piece of white cotton. Then I used fabric to make little pockets. I somehow had to incorporate the different sentences into my creative project, so I made put each sentence on a card – the pockets hold the cards.

       

And since I love having details, each pocket contains cards with a certain theme. Like above, popcorn bag = snacks. (Others = animals, performers, freaks and trains)

   

The good news, I got all ten of those points. If only you could major in arts and crafts.

Spin Art is the best

I uploaded pictures from my camera today and found this little gem from the last month. For Welcome Back Week, we had an “art” day, meaning free Pastry Art’s baby bites, free caricature artists and my favorite, free spin art! We put a clothes line out between two trees for people to hang their spin art to dry, but secretly, I do this so I can collect all the abandoned and the forgotten ones for myself. Truth be told, spin art makes the best stationary. Here, I used it to write thank you letters to people who helped us out during the week.

I use them as post cards, simply drawing a line down the middle. I think the extra paint on the back makes it look even better. If only I could have my very own spin art machine, I could start a business.

“I’m a hard, hard worker everyday”

I know, I know, I know. It’s been awhile since I last updated my blog. Even my grandmother pointed it out to me. But it’s not that I have abandoned it; I have just been very, very busy. Homecoming has consumed my life, along with school work and being in charge of the yearbook, but as of Sunday at around 4 p.m., it is finished. I have survived.

I couldn’t be more excited with how the week turned out and the feedback I have received so far. We did some things that have never been done before (like s’mores in Ben Brown) and the traditional things were even bigger than before (like the bonfire). Happily, I will break down the week for you. (Photos provided by Hilliary Hallman)

Monday – to start the week off in a big way, we had a velcro wall, caramel apples and fresh kettle corn (you could smell it all the way across campus).

    

Fun fact: The t-shirts we sold for the week sold out in less than two days. I guess you can’t beat Comfort Color long-sleeves, especially with the design (created by the Kaleigh Warwick!)

Tuesday – We had s’mores in Ben Brown, but since we didn’t want to buy fire pits (we had nowhere to store them) and we were told fire barrels are too much of a hassle, we used a sterno flame. We did a lot research for this, to make sure it wasn’t poisonous or anything. (Good news, it isn’t!) We actually bought cans from Sams Club. The whole thing was relatively cheap, and so much fun!

    

Wednesday – We brought back the Samford Homecoming tradition of wings and mechanical bull. We had 2500 wings to pass out. But this year, due to a ridiculously cheaper price, we had a bungee bull come instead of the mechanical one. It was hilarious to watch, since it is your friends who are trying to knock you off the bull.

Starting on Wednesday, we laid out a vinyl banner for people to sign in support for our football team. On Friday, we sent the banner over to Athletics to hang it up in the football team’s field house. By the end of the week, the banner was full of names and messages.

    

Thursday – We served over 1000 cheese biscuits from Jim n’Nicks (they said it was the largest order they had ever received) along with ice tea and lemonade (to make an arnold palmer of course). Plus we had two high strikers to play with. At one point, a professor in the Business school came out, and in fury of rage, took the mallets back to her office (to be fair, they were pretty loud and annoying).

Friday – We woke up on Friday to a cold and rainy day, so we moved everything inside and had to cancel some things. But for how tired I felt that morning, the move inside was welcomed. It was our day with a lot of free giveaways – buttons, cupcakes, croakies and rally towels (we made them for Saturday’s football game). We also had a free, Samford-themed photo booth.

  

  

   

And those were just the events during the day. We also had a few evening events, including a trivia night on Monday and a movie on the Quad (featuring Ferris Bueller) on Wednesday. And then, to kick off the weekend activities, we had the Homecoming Bonfire on Friday night.

The event consisted of a prep rally-type program. The marching band and the cheerleaders came. We presented the Homecoming Court and the football team along with head coach Pat Sullivan came and said a few words.

      

And we concluded the night with a concert featuring the band Caleb from Nashville. On Saturday, we were in charge of the Homecoming parade, and it was a great success. Then all the traditional game day events kicked in including tailgating. Mom and Dad were there, so it was nice to just chill and eat a hot dog before the game. Our grand finale was the halftime presentation of the Homecoming Court (you can visit Samford’s website for those pictures) With it all done, I went back to my parent’s hotel to kick of my shoes and take a break. It was a fantastic week! And though it was crazy and stressful at times, I wouldn’t change a moment of it. Happy Homecoming!

PS – If you picked up on the Avett Brothers reference in the title, you’re my new best friend.

The 50th Post

It dawned on me when I logged onto my WordPress dashboard that this post would be my 50th. A small mile stone, but one that I think should be celebrated nonetheless. So for my 50th blog post I thought it would only be right to highlight my top 5 projects that you might have missed.

#5 – Look to the Stars

This project is one of the few that I have kept for myself. I simply love everything about space, especially the stars. And working at a nature camp during the summer has taught me to love the constellations stories. This project was super easy to make, and it is simply one of my favorites!

#4 – A Scarf in the Snow

I know we are in the middle of the summer, but I still love the braided scarf I made the week my family and I were snowed in for a week this past January. I ended up giving it away as a gift, but I keep thinking that if I ever sold one of my projects, this would be a best seller! I love its sweetness and simplicity!

#3 – Finishing My Quilt

For those of you who follow my blog, you might recognize this one as being blog post #49 since I just finished this project last weekend, but it belongs in the top 5 because it is the most legit sewing project I have done to date. I have always wanted to make a quilt, and I am so proud of myself for finally pulling it off! (Plus, I think it turned out adorable!)

#2 – Anthropologie Inspired

This project brought about the most hits to my site in one day (over 100 visitors). I was amazed at how far my blog reached with this project, with friends sending the link to friends. It was such a cool and relatively easy project to make. Plus, I have great memories of the night I stayed up to make it in my dorm room with my roommates and I all in the same room, working on things and just hanging out.

#1 – A Little Bit of Outer Space

I feel like it is only fitting that the top spot belongs to the project that started it all. After making the solar system using felt, I knew I needed some sort of medium to display the projects I was making. It was the project that inspired the blog’s title (For the Love of Felt), and it pushed me in the direction of making more elaborate crafts. I think it will always be my favorite!