About a year ago, I decided I might try sewing. I didn’t really want to invest in buying a sewing machine because I wasn’t sure how much I would use it. My grandmother was kind enough to “lend” me her small travel sewing machine since she doesn’t sew anymore due to her arthritis. Over the past year I have used the machine for small projects, like fabric flowers and the occasional pants hem. Recently, I decided to redesign our kitchen and wanted to first pick a fabric for a valence to design the room around.... 

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Normally, when I take pictures to post on the blog I make sure to clean things up, dust, remove any cheerios or boogers that might be lying around. So here’s where you get to see my reality! lol! We live in a townhouse that is plenty big for the needs of our family of two parents and two small children, but there isn’t a huge amount of storage and I don’t have a craft room. As a result, I have a small rubbermaid 3-drawer organizer plus two large rubbermaid totes that I put fabric and random crap into. Things used to... 

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As I sat here on my couch to write about my big bedroom reveal, I was trying to figure out just how long I have been working on this project. 3 months….definitely longer than that. 6 months, maybe. 9 months, surely it hasn’t been that long. But Sadly, I think it was last summer that we painted and from there I made most of the decor. My head is hung in shame. For a project that I was so excited I literally dreamt about it, how could it take me almost a year?! Oh well, moving forward, I will aim for my next room redesign (the... 

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Welcome to OPC’s The Better Half. My name is Jocie, and I love to craft and DIY my home into something wonderful. I hope you enjoy this tutorial on how to make fabric flowers. It’s been a popular article with over 100K pins and growing! If you enjoy this article, check out some other recent crafts and consider subscribing to The Better Half (email or RSS). Also, feel free to share this tutorial on Facebook and give it a +1. All the buttons float along the left side of your screen. Thanks!Making your own fabric flowers is... 

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“Good Golly Miss Molly,” these are fabulous chairs, and the best part was they only cost me $4 each! Last week, when I was outside playing with the girls, I saw that my neighbor had a bunch of stuff out at her curb for a charity pick up. So, my friend Jeanine and I walked down and I asked my neighbor if I could have her 3 small, kids chairs. Two of the them are vintage metal chairs with vinyl seats. These were rusted and the vinyl on one was torn. The third was a very worn and dirty wooden chair with lots of potential with... 

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Today’s guest post comes to us from Tanya over at Dans le Townhouse. Tanya and her husband blog about DIY, decor, and before/after projects as they work to renovate and fix-up their “formerly ugly 1976″ townhouse. I think Tanya and I must have a lot in common since we also have a formerly ugly townhouse. lol! Thanks Tanya for guest posting! If you are interested in guest posting for us, check out our guidelines and send me an email. We would love to have you! I think brooches might be the hardest accessory for women to... 

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Don’t worry moms, there are no naked owls in this post! Only exciting and titilating crafting verbage and detailed tutorials! hahahaI’ve been doing a lot lately with my homemade Mod Podge and woodworking, but most of it has been child oriented. I wanted to do another project that was for adults but classy and colorful. My cousin, Beth loves owls, and so eventhough I did wooden owls as a baby gift, I decided to upgrade the same concept. Beth – If you’re reading this, I have fallen in love with the owl and I may... 

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Instead of another project, today I’m writing about the motivation for Jocie’s how-to from yesterday – the chain of encouragement and kindness of which we are fortunate to be a part this month at OPC’s The Better Half. A few weeks ago, we received a gift from Karah at The Space Between as part of her Pass it on Project, a community-building chain of kindness she and a few of her other blogger friends decided to start here in the blogosphere. What is the Pass it On Project? Pass it On was started by a Karah and... 

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We have been very fortunate to have the BEST next door neighbors (which is extra important when you share a wall in a townhouse community)! Our neighbors, Justin and Jeanine, have always been very thoughtful – sharing toys, hanging out with the kids, and even shoveling our sidewalk when we cam home from the hospital with Lucy. They have a daughter Izzie’s age and they had a second daughter last week. So, I really wanted to make something special to celebrate thier new baby since they have been so good to us. When I wrote... 

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This is a post that ran originally almost exactly two years ago on One Project Closer, our main site. Since then, I have made a couple of additional types of barrettes and added their tutorials (complete with LOTS of pictures) to the original post. So even if you saw the original post, read ahead to see what new stuff I have been up to! A friend of my daughter’s always has the cutest barrettes in her hair. One day, I complimented them to her mother, Colleen, who said they were home-made. Since I enjoy crafts, I thought it would... 

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