Videos

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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Video: Dilettante’s Dollhouse Episode #8: Painting the Exterior

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Please note this post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using these links I earn a small commission but it doesn’t cost you and more money.

Happy Dollhouse Sunday!

I am so excited to share this post with you all as I am finally painting the exterior of the dollhouse!  If you remember in last week’s episode I primed the exterior. In all I did 2 coats of primer. For the white, I forgot (again) to bring the trim paint we had at home to the studio so I used acrylic paint instead and it worked great! It has a nice gloss which I liked for the scallops and the trim and it really pops against the soft pink color.

I know I have mentioned a bunch of times that the pink I am using is the same color of my studio walls and I just love that this dollhouse will have a piece of my first ever studio with it for years and years to come.

I began by trimming out the excess siding from the inside of the windows using my craft knife (affiliate link). I know I ended up taking a bit of the wood with it as well but I am not worried since I will be building my own windows along with the interior and exterior trim.

Once I did that I began with painting the scallops white. I also painted the underneath of the roof that hangs over and all the currently brown trim.

If I were doing this over again I would probably wait to attach the scallops and first paint the color on the lower part, then paint the scallop pieces and then attach them. It was a little fiddly painting where the scallops and the siding met but not at all hard and it came out really nice when I used a smaller brush.

I also noticed that some of the side pieces weren’t glued down the best so I added some more wood glue and attached them with some clamps to dry overnight. This worked perfectly!

I then moved on to the siding and painting it pink.

For the purposes of the video I just painted the front but for you blog readers I will give you some sneak peak information. I have (as of writing this) completed the whole exterior painting and it looks amazing!!! I am beyond happy with how it turned out. In the end it was about 3 coats of paint on top of the 2 coats of primer. I think if you were using darker colors you wouldn’t need as many layers but what’s really nice about the cardboard is it dries so quickly. By the time I finished both sides I was able to go back and paint the front and then move back to the sides. It worked really well and went much more quickly than I expected.

Here’s how it turned out:

The best part is that I can now move inside the dollhouse! I still have lots of finishing touches for the exterior-along with a fun idea for the “walkway” that wraps around the house on 3 sides-but some of those will require purchases I can’t make just yet. Instead I am going to move inside for next week’s video and the first thing to do is figure out how I am going to lay everything out inside which means deciding on the stairs. That also means building a template for the stairs so I can move it around and see where I like it best. I have an idea on how to do that so here’s hoping it works!

Well that’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed seeing how the dollhouse has progressed. I am just in love with this hobby! I can’t see how I could ever be bored with it 🙂

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

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Video: A Day in the Garden

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Happy Friday!

Today I am chatting all about the garden-with a little video tour as well. I filmed this back in May but if I am being honest the past month seems to have gotten away from me. Between birthdays, anniversaries it seems that the month flew by in a lovely wave. That and I have been busy prepping for my first in-person class that happened this Monday (it was so much fun! I can’t wait to do more!). Now that things have settled a bit, I am excited to be sharing with you all that I am up to here in the land of the dilettante.

I have decided to use one of my old channels to share my gardening adventures. You may remember last year I shared photos of all my cut flowers and this year I thought it would be fun to share some of my gardening chores and what I am up to in the garden. I’ll also share photos of my cut flowers because I just love them so much.

In today’s video I am having a bit of chat after spending the whole day alone in the garden. Can I just say it was bliss? The weather was beautiful, the neighborhood was quiet and I was digging around in the dirt-a perfect day.

I start off the video chatting and then give a tour of all the garden beds I have set up including a new one I made for my zinnias. Zinnias are one of my most favorite flowers. The are beautiful in bouquet, last a long while, bloom all season and come in a ton of colors-what’s not to love? So I have created a whole garden just for my zinnias. I used some rocks that had been part of our old front stairs and became part of a garden border around the house. Where these were the hostas had pretty much grown over so you couldn’t really see the rock anyway. I am so happy with how this new garden finished off this part of the yard.

We had a delivery this year of a topsoil compost blend. We had a delivery of it last year and used it to fill all my grow bags that went in my new vegetable garden and everything did so well! When the growing season was done we emptied the grow bags into the garden and then the delivery this year went to fill the vegetable garden and a few pots and new beds. My plan is to get my compost piles working so that I will be able to add my own soil amendments next year and not have to purchase any. I have always composted but I don’t turn it or really keep it separated so it takes longer. I am hoping to get my bins all set up soon so that with any luck next spring I will have loads of my own compost.

I am planting my vegetables in the ground this year except for my potatoes which are growing in grow bags. I find it really easy to grow potatoes this way. It doesn’t take up space in the garden and they are so easy to harvest when it’s time.  I mention in the video the cloches for the tomato plants. I don’t think they were necessary and I lost a few plants anyway. I think it was more because of the cloches rather than the cold. Fortunately I had some extras to replace the ones that didn’t make it so I won’t be shy on tomato plants this year.

I hope you enjoy the little garden tour. I plan to upload gardening videos every Friday so if you love gardening I hope you enjoy them.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

The cut flower scatter garden is from Renee’s Garden and can be found here.

The sunflower scatter garden is also from Renee’s Garden and can be found here.

Video: Dilettante’s Dollhouse Episode #4 Creating Roof Shingles from Cereal Boxes

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Please note this post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using these links I earn a small commission but it doesn’t cost you and more money.

Welcome to Dollhouse Sunday!

I have to start off by saying, “thank you” for all the lovely comments and new subscribers to my channel. It has been so much fun reading everyone’s suggestions and thoughts and I am so happy I decided to share this journey!

I also learned something very interesting about my dollhouse from Kathy McNeely at My Mud Life Studio. Turns out that she has the same dollhouse! She rescued it from a yard sale about 15 years ago and apparently there plans with her dollhouse. It seems they were plans you could purchase which is really fun for me to know. I knew it was made by a family friend for me but beyond that I really didn’t know much about it. It’s amazing the wonderful things you can find out from the creative community!

So this week I am really excited to share my shingle project! I had been thinking and imaging this process for weeks and I finally decided to give the interior wall paper scrapping a break and work on the roof.

Using cereal boxes for chipboard I measured, marked and cut my pieces to size. The shingle depth is 1 3/4 ” (or 4.445cm) and the length of my cereal box. I then marked 1/4″ (0.635cm) from the long edge to make a straight line so I would know where to line up the second row of shingles to.

The ridge vent was the length of my roof and 2″ (5.08cm) wide. I marked a line right down the middle and then gently folded it over the roof to get the crease started. Once that was done I used a bone folder to make a nice sharp crease. I applied Gorilla Wood Glue (affiliate link) to the chipboard and then applied it to the peak of the roof. I held it down for a bit while it took hold but it really came out very nice! It is so satisfying to see a project come to life like this.

In next week’s post I am going to be spackling the front of the dollhouse and painting the roof shingles. I cannot wait to share that with you.

I hope you have a wonderful week and thank you for visiting my dollhouse.

 

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Video: Drawing Faces-An Art Journaling Challenge

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I wasn’t sure if I was going to get today’s post and video up. I was experiencing some computer issues but thankfully I sorted that all out and am sharing with you my latest journal page.

I really enjoyed making today’s spread. Normally I start with the background but today I started with the focal image and then worked out. I have been wanting to draw more faces in an effort to not only better my skills but also to find my own style. I was very aware as I was drawing this lady about the thoughts in my head. I was trying so hard to make her look happy, then I was doubting my abilities at all, and finally I remembered some unicorns I drew when I was young.

I was so proud of them and immediately felt I had a talent for drawing. I don’t remember what happened but I let go of drawing then and when I tried to start up again, I just felt as if I wasn’t able to because I wasn’t an artist like other people.

It had me wondering how many things in life I stopped doing or kept doing because of what other people thought about it. I am always amazed at the revelations that can come about when we make a little space for our creative expression.

I hope you enjoy today’s video. What is something you love to do but never felt you could claim it for yourself? Maybe today you can.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Music by myk – Reflections – https://thmatc.co/?l=321D4BE6

Video: New DigiKit Reveal & Journal Play

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I have some really exciting news today. I have finally launched my first digital art journaling kit! I am so excited to share this kit with you in today’s video along with an entire process video to give you some ideas on how to use this kit.

If you aren’t familiar, digital kits are kits you purchase once and can then print out as many times as you would like to use in your projects. The kit I am sharing today is perfect for spring with butterflies, birds and lots of flowers. You receive 10 pages along with 3 pages of tags. I had so much fun creating this kit and I have 2 more that are almost ready to share-hopefully within in the next week. If you are interested you can watch the video to see all the kit has and visit my shop here to purchase.

I started out by making the tag. I printed the kit on regular weight copy paper and then backed the tags onto some chip board I had. Then I took different elements from the kit to collage on the tag finishing off with a ribbon and a handmade journal charm.

Starting in my journal I added some soft pink and blue gray acryllic paint and then tore up some more pages and glued them down. I added lace and a few more charms along with a pocket to hold my very thick journaling tag.

I am so happy with how the page turned out! If you have any questions about the kit please do comment below and if you happen to make a purchase let me know how you end up using the kit.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante