Personalized Special Date Canvas

Yesterday, a good friend of mine had all of us over for a 31st birthday celebration. I wanted to get her a little something as a gift but was struggling with ideas. As I get older, I am finding it a bit more difficult to give gifts to one another and I have to get the creative juices flowing. We are no longer 5 years old and content with Barbie dolls or Hot Wheels cars. We are adults now and anything we want/need we typically just buy the item ourselves.

Here's what I came up with. My friend and her husband were married in October of 2011, so I incorporated their wedding date into the piece as well. I had not been to her house in a while but knew she was decorating it in a coastal theme. Turns out the colors I picked went really well with her living room decor.

Happy Birthday friend!

Acrylic paint on canvas

Smocking

My name is Virginia and I love smocked clothing. 

Hi Virginia!

Who can resist smocked clothing? I am "friends" with numerous smocked auctions sites on Facebook. Daily they post adorable clothing at discounted prices. However, the discount prices are still outside of my budget.  I have been looking for a place that offers smocking classes or someone willing to give lessons; but can't seem to find any in my area. So I'm turning to you guys for help. Do you know of anyone or any place that maybe willing to help me?

God and germs

What do God and germs have in common you may ask? They are everywhere! 

I came across this saying one day on Pinterest: "Wash your hands and say your prayers because God and germs are everywhere".  I thought it was brilliant and witty all at once. I knew I had to do something with it.

Since we moved into our townhouse a little over two years ago, I had been looking for some sort of art to put up in our guest bathroom. The wall looked empty and the former tenants had kindly left a nail in the wall. It was just begging for something. I had thought about many different options. Maybe a picture? But then I thought it might be odd to put a picture of people in a bathroom. I mean that is the place you use the bathroom and shower. That just seemed awkward to me... Maybe a print? But I looked at some at HomeGoods (one of my favorite stores) and could not find anything that fit the color scheme... Maybe a storage unit? Too complicated... So when I came across this saying on Pinterest (my favorite site incase you have not caught on to that), I thought it was perfect and decided to try transferring words on to canvas. 

So far you have only gotten to see a sample of my sewing skills, but the majority of my previous projects have been some sort painting onto canvas. This was my first time transferring words onto canvas, so the space between words is a little off and the lines are a little crooked. But if you don't focus on it too much you won't even notice. 

Brief descriptions of my process:

1. Typed up the saying on my computer. Picked style and sizing of font. Printed out.

2. Arranged words so they would fit onto the canvas size I had bought.

3. Put wax paper over the print out and traced the outline of the letters with a pen.

4. On the back side of the wax paper, traced the letters again this time with a pencil.

5. Put the wax paper on to of the canvas, and retrace so that the pencil led would be pushed onto the canvas.

6. Paint the letters.

7. Add green circular design (Probably should have done this before the letters but I didn't think about it until afterwards).

I have to give my husband credit for the idea of the green circles. He said it looked to plain with just the words. I liked it before but I loved it after I had added some detail to it. Thanks Josh!

Here is the finished product.

I also want to let you see how much better the guest bathroom now looks with the canvas hung on the wall.

Before

After

Shhh...

I am working on some other projects but they are gifts so you won't see or hear about them till after I've delivered the gift. I want them to remain a surprise. 

In the mean time, I will post about some projects I have already done around the house. Stay tuned. I plan to post later on today 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! The day of green, rainbows, gold, and leprechauns. How did your family celebrate? My family celebrated by all wearing green. It was also our turn to provide snack for our bible fellowship class at our church. I took this opportunity to incorporate a bit more of St. Patrick's Day. I made a spinach quiche, a broccoli quiche, and rainbow fruit kabobs (a purple grape, two blueberries, a green grape, a piece of pineapple, a piece of cantaloupe, and strawberry). Yes, I did find the idea for the fruit kabobs on Pinterest, so I cannot take full credit for them.

Fruit kabobs

As St. Patrick's Day was approaching, I thought what my daughter had in her wardrobe to wear in honor of the holiday. She did not have any clothes with green on them. I looked at the typical children's clothing stores that I shop at for her and was not impressed with their selection. They had cute St. Patrick's Day clothes but nothing that I felt was church appropriate for her. My almost 8 month old daughter wears a dress to church every Sunday.

Before I had my daughter, I never paid attention to St. Patrick's Day. In fact, a lot of the time I would even forget to wear green on March 17. But now I take a closer look at ALL holidays on the calendar. Holidays have a whole new meaning now. I want to decorate everything to celebrate the holiday. Stay tuned for Easter...

I very happy with the finished product and I believe she looks quiet adorable in her dress. But it was definitely a hard process to get to the finished point. The pattern was a bit harder to read and follow then I anticipated. My mom, husband, google, and youtube were a great deal of help during challenging times. 

First for me - Completing the buttonhole stitch on my sewing machine.

Front

Back

My beautiful daughter in her St. Patrick's Day dress

A Purple Easter

Preview of my family's Easter outfits

This will be our first Easter as a family of three. At our church they set up a huge cross and everyone puts flowers in it. It is tradition for many families to take a picture in front of this cross. My husband and I have never taken that family picture. Now that we have a daughter, I plan for us to take this picture. I saw the dress for my daughter in a catalog and instantly fell in love with it. I had to have it for her. I knew my husband had a matching tie so I started my search for a matching dress so we could all color coordinate. 

Last week, on the same day, both my daughter's dress and my dress arrived. I just had to share this picture of our clothes all together. What a cute family they make!

Daughter - Oriental Trading
Mine - Old Navy
Husband -  He actually got the suit at a church yard sale for $15 plus alterations and my cousin brought his tie while she studied abroad in China.

Shopping Trip

This morning I went to my local Joann Fabrics to get supplies for some projects. Just a preview of what is to come...

Southern Charm

Growing up in the midwest I was completely oblivious to stylings of southern culture. I knew nothing about sweet tea, SEC football, smocked dresses, seersucker, big hair, hair bows, and monograming. Who knows what my life would have been like if I had grown up exposed to these elements. 

A little background on myself...I was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. While I ultimately graduated from Purdue University with a Bachelors degree in Accounting I spent time also studying architecture and interior design (as well as personal training, which lasted only a week). After graduating, I moved to the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC and married my brilliant, charming husband, Josh. Moving to Virginia opened my eyes to a bit of the "South". Yes, I realize that Virginia is not the deep south, but it definitely is crawling with southern flair. 

Once in Virginia, I started my career in the fast paced, high demand environment of tax accounting. After a couple of years in accounting I realized that accounting was not God's plan for my life. I decided to follow my heart and became a preschool teacher. I remained in this positions until the birth of my first child, a daughter, in July 2012

Living in the "South" has opened my eyes to the charm and elegance of southern design. This along with my love of the great outfits I have seen for my daughter have inspired me to start Southern Charm, Northern Girl and create my own charming projects. The Southern Charm, Northern Girl blog is a way to document my journey as I start to implement southern culture on my daughter's wardrobe; and hopefully, turn it into a successful business. My goal is to provide southern style ideas and products for everyone regardless of geographic location.