friends – Page 8 – emerald city diaries

a pinterest christmas: magazine bows & chalkboard art.

welcome to the fourth week of a pinterest christmas! {see the first, second, & third week posts}

even though it is the day after christmas, i wanted to share two projects with you because it is still the holiday season, right?

first up, magazine bows. every year i try to re-use as much as i can when it comes to wrapping presents. last year i wrapped all of our presents in re-used paper grocery bags & added real red ribbon for a festive touch. this year i knew i was going to wrap in paper grocery bags, but i wanted to make my own bows.

{original pinterest link – recycled bows}

supplies:

magazine/newspaper/catalog/book pages
paper cutter or scissors
double-sided tape
ruler

you start by cutting the strips of paper. for each bow you need nine strips in all: the three long strips are the original length of the magazine page; the next three strips are one inch shorter than the original length; the two strips are two inches shorter than the original length; and the shortest is three-and-a-half or four inches.

once the strips are cut, you will start looping & taping. {i started with the longest & went down in size order.} take a strip & fold it in half. open the strip back up & put a small square of tape on the middle of the fold. loop the top part of the strip & attach the end to the tape square; add another tape square on the taped end of the strip, loop the bottom part of the strip & attach the end.

repeat with all of the strips. make a circle out of the shortest strip. to assemble the bow, start with one of the biggest strip loops & add a square of tape to the middle. stack another big strip loop on top of the first one, alternating the direction. add a square of tape to the middle of the top loop & add the last big strip loop, alternating the direction. repeat with the remaining five loops being sure to alternate the direction of the loops to form a bow. finally, add a tape square & attach the paper circle to the center. ta-da!

second up is my chalkboard art i added to our chalkboarded entryway. there were lots & lots of pinspiration posts for this project. {see my christmas pinterest board here}

i knew i wanted to put a fun holiday phrase on the wall & scoured pinterest for ideas. once i figured out what phrase i wanted – may your days be merry & bright – i sketched a few ideas of fonts & form. i also decided to add color for a bit of a pop!

{my initial sketch of the letters & layout – sorry for the blue picture, my white balance was off!}

{the festive art as you walk into our house.}

{thinking about taking on this project? feel free to leave questions in the comments, and i’d love for you to comment with a link to projects you make inspired by mine.}

ready for some more {p}inspiration? check out these ladies this week and throughout the month of december:

{mondays} amanda @ without a doubt – Christmas Cards & Wrapping

{tuesdays} sally@ chacha and mogo & kendra @ The Gilbertson Family – mistle toes

{wednesdays} – michelle @ this grey house – sock vase

{thursdays} –maggi @ Greg, Maggi, & Rodney & abbi @ The Pena Family

have you been {p}inspired by any christmas projects?

my long weekend in pictures: idaho edition.

{driving thru snoqualmie pass to start our roadtrip from seattle to boise. luckily we had dry roads!}

{crossed over the 45th parallel. even though we were driving farther away from the north pole, it seemed fitting that this sign said north pole. very festive!}

{my two teams went head-to-head in the las vegas maaco bowl game on saturday. #gobroncohuskies the broncos pulled out a win but it was an awfully close & nerve-racking game.}

{i caught up on magazines during half-time. thanks for saving all your mags for me mom!}

{my mom & i made caramel this weekend. twice. it keeps coming out too hard. any suggestions on how to make soft, chewy caramel?}

{watched the seahawks destroy the 49ers. happy for the victory & happy we weren’t in seattle for all of that rain!}

{merry christmas eve from my parents’ house!}

we have had such a wonderful weekend in boise. my being so relaxed has directly resulted in the very few pictures for this weekend post – my apologies! i hope you have had a wonderful pre-christmas weekend too! how was your weekend?

my weekend in pictures.

{addressing christmas cards.}

{blog views from all around the world. isn’t technology amazing!}

{shopped the target + neiman marcus collaboration late friday night (it was already december 1st on the east coast!) & got some goodies without worrying about the herds of people at the store. #ilovetheinternet #thewestcoastisthebestcoast}

{enjoyed colored sugar sprinkles on my morning grapefruit.}

{the late fall seattle downpours have been slowly seeping into our basement. though it is not more than 1/2 inch of water in some places, we decided to get a sump pump and drainage ditches put in this week. #myhouseisamoneypit #pleasestopraining}

{my grandmother thoroughly enjoying the candy bar at peaks. she pointed to a topping & asked me what it was, i said “its rock candy. so basically sugar,” & she started scooping it into her bowl by the spoonful. love her!}

{if you can’t tell that is a purple christmas tree on top of the crane that is renovating the uw football stadium. #merrychristmas #godawgs}

{we watched groundhog’s day on saturday night. how have i never seen this movie before?}

{the cutest husky waiting outside for his owner in queen anne.}

{brunched at the 5 spot with our neighbors on sunday morning.}

we tried to keep the weekend relaxing without a lot of to-dos. it was nice to just hang out & enjoy the time off, but the rain is pretty miserable. i guess that is what we get for living in seattle. how was your weekend?

our trip to peru: part iv.

{this is the last of the peru posts, whew! part i, part ii, & part iii.}

{sacsayhuaman – cusco, peru}

{cusco, peru}

thanks for hanging in with us thru our many, many memories of peru. as you can tell, we had an absolute blast and would recommend peru & machu picchu to anyone looking for a great place to travel!

where have you been lately? is peru on your travel to-do list?

my long holiday weekend in pictures.

{rather than fix an entire turkey, we made acorn squash stuffed with wild rice & kale risotto for thanksgiving dinner. we ended up hosting a couple of friends for dinner which was fun. our first thanksgiving in the new house was a bit non-traditional, but a success!}

{priming.}

{painting. can you guess what room?}

{more priming.}

{we had so much rain this week & saturday was no exception as i headed over to woodinville for crafternoon with amanda.}

{the best kind of thanksgiving leftovers: pumpkin cheesecake & pecan pie. also, i love all things white & ceramic, can you tell?}

{woke up sunday to aaron making chocolate chip pumpkin pancakes!}

{& more painting.}

{i normally love upsets in college football, but i had to root for notre dame. go irish!}

{you know christmas is right around the corner when you get the nordy’s holiday shopping party invite in the mail! anyone want to join me?}

{cut lots of fabric this weekend. details will be up next week!}

{my two favorite people (well, person & dog) sunbathing on sunday morning.}

{the weekend is not complete without a trip to a hardware store, or two.}

{christmas trees!}

{#tistheseason}

{the first time our christmas tree has been too big to fit in the trunk.}

{aaron spend sunday evening – in the cold – putting up our first set of christmas lights. very exciting. we didn’t have time to trim the tree this weekend, but there she is in our front window!}

we spent the long weekend working on the house – think lots & lots of paint! as exhausting as it was, we are thrilled with the results & will be sharing the details in the coming weeks. we had a great thanksgiving & are looking forward to the holiday season! how was your weekend?

our trip to peru: part iii.

{part i & part ii.}

{the ruins continued – machu picchu, peru}

{the inkaterra hotet – machu picchu, peru}

{ollantaytambo – sacred valley, peru}

{sacred valley, peru}

more photos to come!

our trip to peru: part ii.

{sorry for anyone that got two emails about the first peru blog post last wednesday & friday. i was having trouble with the formatting & the post uploaded, but then was taken back down.}

{part i.}

{ollantaytambo, peru}

{inka rail – machu picchu, peru}

{the ruins – machu picchu, peru}

more photos to come!

tweet, tweet.

i have had a twitter handle for a while now – mostly because i wanted to make sure i could get the one i wanted, even though misha was taken, boo! – but i hadn’t tweeted anything for months.

when i was in indiana a few weeks ago, my cousin kendra convinced me that i should be tweeting. even if it is just a link to a blog post.

so, i have tweeted a handful of times. two to be exact.

i don’t know if how much i will be tweeting in the future, but if you are interested in following me, my handle is: mishacslower {same as instagram}.

do you tweet? if you do, leave your handle in the comments, i would love to follow you!

my weekend in pictures.

{we have been cooking from pinterest a lot recently.}

{attempting to catch up on my back-log of vogues.}

{yep, it is officially hot water bottle season in seattle.}

{we saved the seeds from two pumpkins to roast this weekend!}

{sadie waiting patiently for aaron to get a latte.}

{ordering my sandwich at which wich in the u district.}

{really joann’s? christmas stuff? it isn’t even halloween yet!}

{spray painting with my go-to chalkboard paint.}

{we debuted our halloween costume at ben & sarah’s annual ghouls near greenlake party.}

{me & mary alice at the party – aviators were borrowed.}

{we met up with ben & sarah for sunday morning breakfast at wholefoods. apparently my husband erik ordered my latte this morning.}

{sadie was a cuddlebug on sunday morning.}

{thanks amanda for hosting crafternoon – it was so great to see you, george, & madeleine!}

we had a fun fall weekend, but as always, it went way too fast! how was your weekend?

thirty before i am thirty.

the weekend before last – when we were in indiana – i was able to check another item off my thirty before thirty list thanks to our friend colt!

number twenty-eight: attend an NLF game. i always assumed that the nfl game i would attend would be a seahawks game, given that they play roughly eight games per season in the city i call home. obviously i haven’t made it down to a game in the almost seven years i have lived here. i digress. when we got to colt’s house on friday night, he surprised us with tickets to the colts game that up-coming sunday. to say that we were surprised would be an understatement. aaron is an avid colts fan, being from indiana & all, but had never seen them play at lucas oil field, & obviously attending a game was high on my list. we got to tailgate outside the stadium before the game started, & once inside at our seats, we experienced what a fun stadium lucas oil is. the roof was open to let in the sun & the crowd was great. the colts ended up losing a close game at the last minute, but it was still fun to be there cheering them on in person!

go colts!

have you been to an nfl game this season?