Wait, I Can Do That!

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I’m not sure about you but I am holding on to summer.

Cutting flowers from the garden. Munching on cucumbers, green beans and cherry tomatoes. I have no desire to see fall quite yet and I am happy wandering around in my flowing skirts and slip on shoes.

My working schedule, as a result, has been a bit off kilter lately. We have been enjoying lots of social time with friends and I have been getting more and more involved in our church sharing creative projects with the kids and helping out as best I can. It didn’t occur to me until yesterday, after I was once again beating myself up for missing my upload dates that, “wait, I can change them!”

For some reason, the arbitrary schedule I created when first launching my channels seemed to be etched in stone-a deadline that must be met at all cost. I started feeling myself dragging my heels uninspired to create. I am so grateful for the little voice that pointed out simply, “you could just adjust things.”

Huh, wait, I can do that!

So I did. I let go of some content that was just not inspiring me. I focused on the ones that still are and, I moved around when I will be sharing my content and as a result of feel amazing! I am inspired once again with the content I am creating and looking forward to my studio time which has freed up immensely giving me lots of play time.

And really, as creatives that’s what we need.

We need play time. We need fun. We need to be able to just mess around with our materials without worrying about the end result. Play time is essential to creativity.

So now I find myself, sitting here relaxing with lots of free time to just putter around the studio, have a cuppa and connect with you all. I hope you are finding yourself with some free creative time.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Video: Making a Hand Embroidered Journal Part II

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Hi everyone! Today I am sharing the second part in making my refillable, hand embroidered journal. I had so much fun making this journal and I cannot wait to share my plans with you. For now I hope you enjoy watching this video.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Miniatures Wednesday: Alice’s Dream Bedroom Series Episode #2

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Today I am sharing two quick projects I worked on this week for Alice’s Dream Bedroom. If you aren’t familiar, this is a room box kit I purchased a few years back and am just now getting around to putting together. I shared the first video in this series last month and I am happy to report some tiny progress is being made in between renovating my childhood dollhouse.

In today’s video I attempt to make the lamp according to the instructions, give up and make it my own way. I then follow suit with the quilt, using some fabric I had of my own and layering the fabrics a bit differently.

In the end I am really happy with how it all turned out. I am going to continue on and plan to share little bits of this project with you each week. I would love to have it done before fall when I want to share with you a bit of magical room box I made for fall.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Book Club: Used & Vintage Book Haul (Plus Some Fun News)!

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Hi everyone! I hope your week is going well. I wanted to share with you all some fun news-I have started a Book Tube channel! If you aren’t familiar Book Tube is a term for those channels that talk all things book. I have been wanting to create one for a while and now I have finally gone ahead and set it up along with my first video. I will still share all the goodies here as well so no worries about that changing but I am hoping you will like the additional content.

For my first video I am sharing a used book haul. I am so fortunate to have an amazing used book store not far from me where you can go and wander and easily fill a morning. I always find something and my most recent trip was no different.

I was really excited to see that they now have a vintage book section and I found a few great books there.  First up is a book called, “Ruth Fielding Treasure Hunting” by Alice B. Emerson.  I have really enjoyed books that are a bit historical fiction but that have a female detective or amateur sleuth and this one seemed like a perfect fit. There are other books with Ruth Fielding as well so I am happy to have more to choose from down the road. This has gone onto my TBR (To-Be-Read) shelf.

Next up in the way of vintage, or older books is book #1 of The Hardy Boys mysteries. (affiliate link) I was a Nancy Drew reader when I was younger and I thought this would be a nice book to add not only to my collection but to our homeschool books as well. The book shop had more of the mysteries as well so it will be fun to add to the collection. I added this to my TBR as well.

Another vintage book I picked up is “Lady Jane” by Mrs. C. V. Jameson. I don’t know anything about the story but I loved the cover and it had writing inside dated 1943 so it seemed like a nice collectible either way. I added it to my TBR as well.

Some other books are “The Photograph” by Beverly Lewis (affiliate link), Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart (affiliate link), “The Bad Beginning” (affiliate link) by Lemony Snickett and “The Reptile Room” (affiliate link) both books I haven’t read and am excited to finally read. I picked up “The Sisters Grimm: Tales from the Hood” by Michael Buckley.  This is book #6 in the series and I haven’t read any others but it looks like something I might be interested in.  Lastly I picked up “Cracking the Code:  Secrets of the Blue Hill Library” by Emily Thomas. This gives me all the cozy mystery feels and I think I am going to enjoy sitting down with this one.

So that’s my haul! I also picked up 3 books for the kids that I didn’t mention and all in all spend $30 which seems like a pretty amazing deal to me.  What books are you reading right now? I would love to hear! Be sure to link to your book related posts below-I would love to add more books to my never-ending TBR!

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

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Video: Making a Hand Embroidered, Refillable Journal

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Happy Monday!

I hope your week is off to a lovely start. I am on my own for a few vacation days and have been having such a nice time. I have gone for ice cream with a friend, gone shopping, gardened and harvested a load of green beans, lots of reading and spent an entire day in my studio. I really cannot ask for anything more.

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using this links I earn a small commission but it does not cost you any more.

Today I am sharing with you an exciting project that came to me a few days ago. I wanted to hand embroider a journal cover. I have a pattern I purchased a while ago that I hadn’t used and decided to embroider it on the cover of a refillable notebook. It’s really simple and fun to do and I hope you will join me.

I am sharing the process in 2 different posts. The first post will be making the signature and sketching out or transferring your embroidery design and the second post will be embroidering the design and adding the embellishments and elastic to hold the signature.

I used a combination of book pages, magazine pages, scrapbook paper and ledger paper to make my signature. You can used anything like you of course-have fun! Maybe you want to use watercolor paper or mixed media paper or just copy paper from your printer. It’s your journal so I hope this post inspires you to make a journal that you will love to pick up and use.

I attached the pages together using my favorite 3 hole pamphlet stitch and set it aside.

Next I took some embroidery fabric (affiliate link) and sketched out the design I chose. A light box would make this really simple but mine was out of batteries so I made do.  If you would like to purchase the same pattern you can find it here.

There is so much you could do with your cover-including just using regular fabric and skit the embroidery part. If you don’t like embroidering you can just pick out some fun fabric and use that. You could use canvas fabric and paint your own cover-there really is no limit! If you do choose to embroider I will be sharing a video of that, along with putting the hole thing together later this week.

I do hope you enjoyed this post. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to comment below.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

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Dollhouse Sunday: Wallpapering the Living Room

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Happy Dollhouse Sunday! How have you all been?

I have a few updates to share but I will save that for another post because I am so excited to share that I am finally working on decorating the interior of the dollhouse!

If you read my last dollhouse blog post you know I was working on deciding where the stairs would be going. I was so grateful for the tips and suggestions that everyone offered-thank you! We went ahead and cut the hole for the stairs (when I say “we” I mean my husband-I am still working on my precision with power tools). I filmed the process and I will share that with you in the next video. I wanted to have the hole cut before I started adding any pretty bits-like wallpaper!

I created a wallpaper design using Procreate on my iPad and I have it for sale in my Etsy shop if you are interested in purchasing it for your own dollhouse. I printed it on sticker paper which made things so easy because I just needed to peel the backing off and stick it down to the cardboard wall board I made last time. The nice thing is you can print it as much as you like and even on fabric if you want to make some coordinating throw pillows which I just may do!

Once the wallpaper was attached I used my Gorilla Wood Glue to attach it to the dollhouse wall. I added some clips to hold it in place while it dried and I worked in sections. The cereal box I used as the wall board is sturdy enough to give you a nice surface but flexible enough to fold over without creases so you can add glue bit by bit.

I plan on adding crown molding and baseboards to cover any gaps and of course I will have window frames to finish that off as well.

I only did the wallpaper halfway down using the bottom of the window as my divider and I plan to do white paneling the rest of the way. I have finished my 6 months of no spend (and I’ll share about that in another post) so I was able to purchase some glue spreaders and the material to make my paneling. I am still committed to using what I have first so hopefully that will yield some fun and interesting content to share.

So that’s it for today’s post. You can watch the full video below and please let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to try and answer them for you.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante