I am super psyched about all of them. I hope to have one of these finished soon so I can tell you about it in length, from beginning to end. I tend to be a person that likes to have many projects going at once so I don’t get bored. I also do this with my art so I can step away, adjust and make changes, and then go back to it. Below are pictures with a small description. Let me know what looks interesting to you.

I am working on a paper wall installation above our bed and I love it! This is just one part and I am slowly getting there but as soon as I am finished I will let you all know. This might be one of the first I actually finish….fingers crossed.

This project is turning the only closet in our apartment into an amaaaazzzzing closet that will hold our clothing, shoes, tools, sports equipment and so much more. I have already begun using it and it is almost finished so this is a huge plus for us.

Again, this is a shot of inside our closet but this is a smaller project, that is inside our closet. It will be a storage solution for screw, nuts, bolts, nails…etc.

Yeah, it is a Flacco shirt. And yes I am a HUGE Baltimore Ravens fan. I am from Baltimore and they are my team. Annick got this shirt from a friend of hers. Flacco played high school football in New Jersey and this is a shirt from the high school so that is why it is not purple. I plan on turning this shirt into a dress for Annick since it is so big on her.

I am creating artwork again! I couldn’t be more thrilled. This piece is of Rome, Italy. It is the first of many in my lates series. I love where it is going and can’t wait to show the final piece.

Oh my lovely Annick. I love this picture of her. I decided to take a picture of her for “Thank you” cards. For Annick’s 3rd birthday I wanted to send a more personal card, so this is one of many pictures I took. I now just have to make the actual cards. Her birthday was back in February….oops, so I should probably get on that. So to those of you that gave Annick a gift for her birthday….we didn’t forget and we are very grateful. You will be getting a “Thank you” card….eventually.

Soooo, thoughts? I hope to finish one of these projects over the weekend and as soon as I do, I will post it for you all to judge.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful holiday weekend.

 A few months back I introduced one of my on-going projects. It includes documenting my son Beckett each month for a year. I wanted to show his age in the picture in a fun and different way each month. I decided to show you all the pictures every 4 months. You can see months 1-4 here.

Above is month 5 (duh!) and below are 6, 7 and 8 months. Let know what you think. The goal is to be different each month and trust me, it is definitely harder than I thought. I am still trying to figure out what I’ll do for month 9 but I’ll get there. Anyway, enjoy!

 Have a great rest of the week and I hope Beckett’s face brings some smiles to yours.

I found this boat oar at one of my local antique stops for $5. I saw it and I immediately knew that I could do something with it.

 Before I knew exactly what I wanted to do, I had to change the color. I had some left over yellow paint that I used on a few pieces throughout our apartment and spring is on my mind so why not yellow? I sanded the oar down first as best as I could, then put on 3 or 4 coats of paint because the green color was so dark.

After painting it, I decided that I wanted to use it for my scarves. As I have mentioned before, I live in a loft so I try to be creative as possible with the space I have. I also try my best to make my storage solutions decorative as well as useful. The painted oar is a perfect example. Below are pictures after putting the hooks on.

I have yet to actually put it up on the wall and put it to use but as soon as I do put it up, I will post more pictures ASAP.  For now, I am holding on to it and trying to figure out where the best place is because I am also running out of wall space….boo!

What do you think? What else would you use it for? Let me hear your thoughts and thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy the first day of Spring!

Happy Tuesday!

I got this beautiful sweater from my friend Tracy (thank you!). I love it and wear it a lot. It is super cozy and is fun to wear. The only down fall was it didn’t have a way to close the sweater in the front. Tracy got it that way. When I got the sweater, I immediately started brainstorming on how I could come up with a tie or belt for the sweater.

 I was trying to figure out what the best material was and then I came across some scrap felt. I decided to use the felt because it was a great color and free.

I sewed the pieces together and then folded it over to make it stronger. I zigzag stitched then put it on my sweater.

It isn’t the best solution but I like how it turned out. It works and it was a quick project.

What do you think? I was thinking of doing leather for a more permanent solution. Thoughts would be much appreciated.

Have a good week!

A few weeks ago I wrote about organizing my daughter’s art supplies. You can read the blogpost here to catch up. In the post I mentioned how I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do with all her paper…well above is what I decided to do.

I found the metal magazine holder at IKEA and decided that was the best solution. I don’t have any closets in her room so I needed something that wouldn’t be too obtrusive and that could go on a wall.

I put it up (all by myself!) and then used my handy dandy label maker and then filled it with paper. I am so happy with the result.

My daughter helped me organize, which was fun, so it is pretty accurate on how it will look.  There is one section for scrap paper (great for projects), the middle one is for construction paper or assorted colored paper and the top one is for drawing paper (white paper).

I still have her artwork that has collected over time. It is definitely something I struggle with but I am trying to be good about displaying her work and then putting a few pieces I want to keep aside in a portfolio. The rest goes in the trash unfortunately. I display her work on a large wall in our living room. I have a bunch of different sized frames that I painted all one color to make it uniformed but unique. I change it as frequently as possible. I have written about the project a few times. You can read and see pictures about it here and here.

I also want to eventually get a bin for small pieces of scrap paper for collaging and other projects. That is still in the works of where I will put it but of course I always have something in “the works”;)

How does it look? Has anyone found a better solution for holding paper that doesn’t take up a lot of room? Tell me your thoughts.

Have a great week!

I wanted to write and tell you all about it because I think every parent should try “forgetting” their phone for a few hours when they are with their kids. My morning was great. I watched my daughter have a blast in tumbling class while my 7 month old son dragged his body around the room. After class, all three of us went to our usual stop that we make every Tuesday. We went to my favorite coffee shop One Shot and had lunch, coffee (duh!) and some other goodies.

My three year old and I chatted about class and what we were gonna do later. It was so nice to sit and just hang with my little loves. Not once did I think about my phone or even need it until I wanted to know the time. (This is a good time in the post to point out that I just realized how many places don’t have clocks on the wall anymore…..so weird but makes sense since everyone has a phone.)

After lunch we went home and I put the kids down for a nap. Even when I got home, I still didn’t look for my phone until it rang. It was great. The world didn’t end and I didn’t miss anything.

Now, I will say that I am not a huge phone person anyway and I don’t have a job where I constantly have to check email or make phone calls but I still think that it was the best thing I ever did a long time. I challenge all of you to give it a try. Forget your phone for a morning or afternoon. Turn it off. See what you can accomplish or just enjoy your surroundings.

I would love to hear what you did while you turned your phone off. Did you actually do it and how long? Would you do it again?

Have a great weekend and maybe on a lazy Sunday morning you can “forget” your phone.

Now, when I say small it doesn’t mean it wasn’t chaotic. Let’s just say we are at the point where kids out number the parents and my daughter is at the age that it is “crazy time” when she plays. So imagine 12 or so kids at the same age running around our apartment…yes an apartment. But, it was fun and I didn’t really do much to prepare except make some food. The party was small in the sense that I didn’t decorate or go with a theme.

I would show you more pictures but there wasn’t much to take pictures of, but I am psyched about the one thing I did do for the party….goodie bags!

I wanted to do something special for all the little ones because they happen to be the children of my very good friends. I am so lucky to have such an amazing group of friends that have children that happen to be around the same age as mine.

So I went to Target and went to the dollar bin section. It is always the first area I hit when I go there. It is a great place to get little gifts. I picked up the tins there and wrote names on each one with a paint pen.

Above is a picture of some of the goodies I put in the tin. I put pencils, stickers, a bouncy ball (not shown), bug and a mini canvas. I always like to put some art supplies in goodie bags because it is something they can take time to do. Everything I put in the tin was under a dollar and I got either at Target or Dick Blick. Both stores are my go to places for gifts for many occasions.

I made one for my daughter too and she liked it so, I’m hoping the other little ones are enjoying the goodie bags as well. It isn’t anything too special but it is different and is personalized with the name on the tin.

What do you think? If you are a parent, would you like a goodie bag like this or something else? Thoughts are welcome and appreciated.

Have a good week!

]]> http://uniqueannick.com/2013/02/19/goodie-bags/feed/ 0 http://uniqueannick.com/2013/02/12/old-dress-jewelry/ http://uniqueannick.com/2013/02/12/old-dress-jewelry/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:05:13 +0000 marie http://uniqueannick.com/?p=701 This past weekend I was going through some clothing to give away to our local thrift store and I came across a jersey knit, coral-orange dress. I had no problem giving it away but before I threw it in my donate bag I realized that the color of the dress was too pretty and I had to think of something to do with it.

So, I made a few necklaces and bracelets. The necklace I knew how to make and I have another one like it but in a different color. I keep old t-shirts around specifically for this reason. T-shirt material is really difficult for me to sew and stitch together still, so I try to think of things to do with the material that is “no sew”. The necklace is one and below is a picture of my new necklace that can be washed and looks great with a white t-shit and jeans.

The other project I accomplished was a braided bracelet that I stumbled across while looking though blogs that I follow. I can’t remember how exactly I came across this specific blog but I will definitely be following it now. The blog is called V and CO. and it is a really fantastic blog. Here is the tutorial I found on the bracelet.  Below is a picture of the finished product.

I love how the bracelet turned out and plan on making a few more to give away. The picture above is the two-finger one and I really like the thickness. I haven’t tried the 3 or 4-finger on but plan on it.

As for the necklace….it is super easy to make. I plan on writing a tutorial on it and I meant to show you all how to do it in this post but I totally forgot to take pictures of each step so I will get on that. I will get it to you all by the end of the week or in the beginning of next week, so check back.

The hole is on the right side. Aren’t these pants so darn cute?!

Here is a close up of the damage.

The hole wasn’t too bad and I thought it would be easy to fix and mend since the jeans were bought with patches on them anyway. So, I went into my scrap fabric bin and found some really nice purple fabric and made a patch. I used two layers of purple fabric to make it thicker then used Steam-a-Seam 2 which is my favorite product I have in my sewing space. I ironed on the patch and then went to work with reinforcing it with stitching.

I decided to hand stitch some detail and to reinforce the patch because 1.) I wanted to do something a little more whimsical and 2.) I didn’t feel like changing the needle on the sewing machine to a heave duty denim needle…..yup I am a bit lazy sometimes.

I chose a really nice deep pink color to compliment the other fabric and had fun.

I was so happy how it turned out and think it will hold up. She has worn them once already and I know they will last in the wash because I use Steam-a-Seam 2 all the time and have put many things through the washer to test it and it holds up.

I thought the stitching was so cute that I did it with a pair of my own jeans that I couldn’t let go. Below are pictures of my jeans. Let me know what you think and happy mending!

My father-in-law asked us what he could build for us for Christmas. I immediately knew what I wanted….a train table with storage for the kids.

There is already three other pieces in the kids’ room that he has built (the changing table in the background in the picture above, the loft, and my daughter’s toddler bed) and I always get the most compliments on the things that he builds. It is also great that they are always beautiful, extremely useful and well built. All the pieces we have, I will use even when the kids start getting much older. The train table is no exception.

I sent him examples of train tables that I liked and other furniture that resembles what I was looking for and when they came to visit earlier in the month they brought it and it is awesome!

What I love about it are the drawers for storage. They can be pulled out easily by the little ones and they look great. The drawers can be  pulled out on either side too. The stain shows the natural wood and matches the other pieces in the room.

I was thinking of painting it but I think I may just leave it as is and maybe in the future do something with it when it changes functions. For now it is perfect for a play/craft table with lots of room for playing on all sides.

Below are more pictures of the table and some views from the loft. What do you all think? Would you want one like this? Comments and thoughts are welcome. Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks Pappa D, we love it!!!