Cartwheels In My Mind

hellO, baBy!

 Is it just me or is EVERYONE AND THEIR MOMMA getting preggers?!? Just this past year alone I know SIX people who have been bitten by the baby BUMP bug. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come for me. Don't get me wrong I want little Mudgies running all over the place someday just not NOWday. 

Recently, I helped host a baby shower... which was WAY fun. Baby showers are a good way to satisfy a little baby craving without diving in if you're not ready {like me}. Decorating for baby showers=AWESOMELY FUN TIMES PLANNING FOR& CREATING BABY gOoDs.  

There are soooo many amazing ideas out there for baby decor... I was beginning to have an overload of ideas so in the end I just decided to keep it simple:

Tissue paper flowers. Rubber duckie candies. Baby bottle banner. 

 


Did you know that adding a doily to your gift is a great way to show everyone that you can make a gift look pretty and save a couple bucks on those expensive gift bags? YEs, it's true. Plus, it spices it up your gift-wrapping life!!! In the words of Charlie Sheen:WINNING. Haha. {that was for all you out there that keep up with entertainment news} ps- I can't remember what wrapping paper brand that is... perhaps Martha Stewart?

This upcoming weekend I will be a part of another shower... You know what that means for Cartwheels, right? More {fun} DIY projects& ideas. Check out this SUPER cute idea that I have in mind. Elephant theme anyone? If you live in the deep south and have a love for {college} Alabama football then your answer will most definitely be YES. I just couldn't wait until next week to share my idea {and by MY i mean the-idea-that-is-being-borrowed} long though to show you this cuteness! Once it's a brewin' it's hard to keep it stewin'.

If you fancy this idea as much as I do you can print out the elephant bunting&cupcake toppers. See the link at the very bottom.

 

Happy Monday to everyone!  Go out&get crafty today!

::SHOUT OUTS& DIY's::

 hello, baby elephant image, elephant bunting&cupcake topper :  here

    Tissue paper flower: HERE.

 Duckie candy mold: HERE. How to melt candy: HERE. If you're wondering if it tastes as pretty as it looks the answer is YES.

  Here's a bottle similar to the one i traced and cut out: HERE. 

{1}. I used cardboard {cereal} boxes to trace the bottle on. {2}. Painted BOTH sides blue {2-3 coats of acrylic paint}. {3}. tied a ribbon around each bottle {double knotted on the backside}. You can cut out as many bottles as you want!!! 


 

Anatomy Of A Room :: A Vintage Nursery 02, Feedsack Pillow.

Happy Monday, my friends! I want to start off this post by apologizing...while sick last week I added some posts to the site from bed and apparently either forgot how to save them correctly or forgot the date. Either way, they didn't get posted...so I'm bringing them to you now! Better late than never, right? :)

Not too long ago, my friend Amy (Covey) sent me this old feed-sack in the mail, and as soon as I saw it I was super inspired and had lots of ideas for it.

(Here's a photo of an identical one that I found for sale on Etsy by seller tracytreasures13.)

I originally thought I'd use it in my kitchen since the side that's shown above has red and navy in it, but recently when I was cleaning out my art studio, it fell on the side that has only the black letters...and immediately I thought of adding lots of fun colorful flowers to it and making it into a pillow for Gracie's room. I just feel like the sack has that vintage feel that I'm going for, and the cream and black background with colorful accents are my favorite color combination.

The first thing that i did to design the pillow was to cut off a few little yo-yos from the huge quilt that is the main focal point of the room (you can see a bit of it here in the photo above)...that way it matched exactly. But then I added a few of my own fabric flowers with coordinating fabrics to add a little dimension since the yo-yos are so flat. To attach them, I just hand-stitched them directly onto the feedsack with a little bit of thin felt lining the inside of the sack to keep it from tearing. 

Then, to make the sack into a pillow, I took the original flat feedsack and filled it with quilt batting...packing it in tight enough that it has a pillow-like texture. I didn't worry too much about it being the most comfortable pillow in our home since it will be used for decorative purposes only, but I did want it to function correctly. 

Even though it's not perfect, it's perfect for the feel of that room. And that's the most important thing, right? And I sort of love that it's the only one of it's kind. 

What are YOU working on this week?

 

Anatomy Of A Room :: A Vintage Nursery 03, Bob Marley Bird Canvas.

Howdy, Howdy friends and neighbors!! Raise your hand if you are excited that it's Friday! I know I am...I have big plans to hit a bunch of thrift stores in Baltimore tomorrow. My favorite kind of day. :)

Anyways...I thought I'd pop in and share with all of you some nursery art. Now, some of you that have read my personal blog might remember something very similar posted there, but I took it apart and redid the whole thing so this isn't technically a double share. 

It IS, however, that very same Bob Marley song that I used before. We are huge Marley fans around here...we've usually got one of his cds playing at least 70% of the time. Anywhoo...this is one of my favorites of his and I just feel like it's the perfect quote for a nursery. 

To design it I:

1. Used the same paint color as the cabinet in the nursery so that it would be a perfect color match. (Random fact, for this blue I matched up the color of the Sassafras vintage patterned papers and then used it to paint my kitchen and furniture around the apartment.)

2. I used stamps from the teacher store to stamp out the lyrics using white ink.

3. I then just freehand cut out everything but the birds (JBS chipboard shapes) onto patterned paper and then adhered them to the canvas using permanent bond glue.

And voila!!! A one of a kind canvas that matches the room to perfection is born. Fun, right!? :)

It now sits on this little wooden dresser that was my dad's when he was a kid (sentimental alert!) with this little group of loveliness that i found at various thrift stores around here. I love used stuff! 

What are YOU working on this week? Don't forget to share your art in our FLICKR GROUP so that we can share it here on the site. We love art from our readers!

x's and o's my friends! And happy happy Friday!

C. Amet

Never Say Never...Ever.

Hello hello, my friends! It's been way WAY too long since our last post here on Cartwheels. Way too long since we've all been hit with a good dose of inspiration, and way too long since...well, just about anything has gone as planned in the always interesting world of the creativly insane Cheryl Ametewee. And yes, I did just make that term up...but since our last chat, I have gone through a completely totalled computer (thanks to one overly curious 2 year old and his love for orange juice and pretend typing.), $700 worth of damage to the lens of my camera, and much much more devestating than any of those replaceable items: the passing of one of the dearest people in the world to me...my Grandma Manz.  And although her death came with about a week of warning, I was struck almost completely helpless at the grief that hit when it did...

And that, my friends...is me sharing with you the story of a girl trying to do a whole lot of things while still living in the real world. And maybe, just maybe it was God's way of telling me that I can't do it all as quickly as I'd like. I'm trying though...with everything in me I'm trying. Which is why even though Nate built me a new computer and had it up and running at the end of last week, I don't have my big site/product reveal *quite* ready to share with all of you. I'm almost there though, and am hoping to debut it all over the course of this following week (I'm super excited to see what you all think!!). And the best part is that when I'm going through a rough time I tend to need lots of physical distractions...which is why I have over 40 new projects completed and just dying to be shared with all of you! (Broken camera permitting, of course.) And among those is the culmanation of a bunch of smaller projects that as a whole make up one of my favorites I've done in years...our nursery. Inspired by my grandma and her love for song, it is everything I wanted it to be and a whole lot of memories thrown in for good measure. :)

Here's a little sneak peek for you:

And on top of that, I have a new partner (the FABULOUS Elizabeth Mudge!), new types of art to share and lots and lots of give-aways to soften the blow of yet another delay. We will also begin starting up our regular daily art sharing beginning this morning with a fashion article by my afore-mentioned new business partner, so prepare to be amazed. :)

So there you have it: We are not a perfect site, and it's not been an easy start...but I hope the heart and inspiration of it will make you all want to come back each day again and again to see what we have in store for you, despite a few flaws here and there.

And here's to a much less eventful final 10 months to 2011. :)

x's and o's,

cheryl

Anatomy Of A Room :: A Vintage Nursery 02, Wall Art.

Happy Monday everyone!

I hope you all had a great weekend...we went to a local farm that is currently making a killing off of all the parents selling into the whole fall/pumpkin patch craze (raising my hand in the air...waving it wildly from my perch on the old wagon holding 2 bales of hay and there-by qualifying it as a full fledged, ticketed hay ride.). But from all the photos I took on our trip, it was the ones that I snapped by the side of the road by the wildflowers on our way back to the car that I loved the most...

And just like that I knew what the main artwork on Gracie's nursery walls is going to be.

Once I decided which photos I liked the best, I used the vol25 eyecandy overlays to make them into quirky pieces of art that I can have printed on canvases (I like mpix for canvas printing!) to create the right mood for the rest of the room.

I'm thinking a big print of the one where London is kissing her and then smaller ones of the others. I don't feel like they are the best photos ever, but I do feel like they fit the feel I'm going for...what do you think? 

Prepping these photos for printing has gotten me in serious make-over mode. I can't wait to decorate an entire room at once (not going to lie...it's my first time...usually I get bored and start in on another and then come back to it!)

Speaking of fun things for her nursery, I wanted to share the quilt I found at a local flea market. It is the biggest yo-yo quilt I've ever seen (big enough to steal from the edges to make projects throughout the room!) and it made completely out of the inside of old feed sacks. So yeah, that was pretty much one of the happier days of my entire existance...and what I'm basing the feel of the entire room on (I feel like the photos went with it). I love that there are enough colors that I can really use a wide variety if I want.

And with that, I'm going to close for now..but later I've got a my first handmade project for the nursery...a feed-sack pillow. So be sure to check back! And if you have inspiration that you think might fit into this whole plan, please share them either in the comments or on our flickr group. I'd love to hear your opinions!

Anatomy Of A Room :: A Vintage Nursery 01.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Remember this post I did sharing Gracie's little space in the corner of our bedroom? Well, it turns out that allowing an 8 month old that already has a tendency to wake up and want to rock at all hours of the night to sleep in a room with a mother that works nights is not such a fabulous idea after all. And I've got the dark eye circles to prove it.

So back into the spare bedroom she went, and it is now Londerpants that sleeps next to me at night...all night, which I'm so very thankful for. :) And for London, making the space a little more boyish wasn't bad at all...a little tricky folding to hide the pink on the blanket, a couple vintage advertisements for trains above his head and he was good to go. Gracie, on the other hand is about to get the nursery make-over of a lifetime.

But before I can dig fully into her room aside from cleaning it, I am on a major hunt for amazing inspiration. I know that I want it to be girly and handmade and vintage, but aside from that I'm keeping an open mind and trying to pull ideas from all kinds of different places in hopes of making hers the coolest nursery ever.

So today i got my Etsy on to begin my search, and I thought it would be fun to take you all on the ride with me. So here's what's inspiring me right now in the land of handmade and fabulous for sale:

1. Holy Mobile Cuteness!! I wasn't even thinking of her having a mobile until I saw these sweet little goodies from Pink Perch.

2. I love this photo print so so much...I feel like the artist has captured the look, the feel and the very scent of childhood in one photograph.

Source: Decorative Photography

3.Crib Bumpers...something SO important to a crazy baby that shows no fear...and one that looks this good makes me drool. No really. Her stuff makes me want to buy everything she has to offer. You should check it out for yourself! (Source: Aunt Bucky)

4. I pretty much love this tree decal from WowWall if i could get it in another color so that it would stand out against the white walls in Gracie's room:

4. And i feel like she needs lots of great pillows with cool prints:

From HawtHome...

and From Zillows:

And finally, I love love love these pillows by Plonka Home:

And that, my friends...is why this girl doesn't want to sleep until the decorating is done. There are so many amazing, diverse things out there that sometimes it makes me think that the whole decorating proecess would go faster without me ever looking online for inspiration...because once I start I can't stop! But I'm not going to lie, I have no regrets. None at all. Because I can't wait to try out some of my Etsy picks!

Which ones are your favorites? Or better yet, do you have any to share that I DIDN'T post? Because I would really love that!