If I Rub The Lamp Do I Get Wishes

My lamp base is one that can be filled with something. When I was little it had fake flowers in it. For the past year or so it has just had strips of green scrapbook paper while I thought of something fun to put in it. Last week sometime I had this brilliant idea to take my lamp and fill it with colorful pom poms. So that's what I did today.

{Click on the photo to enlarge.}

I didn't want the whole lamp to be full of pom poms. I knew I could form some sort of spacer for the middle. I just didn't know what would work best. I tried flower arranging foam first. That was messy and I didn't like it. So I ended up making a cylinder out of scrapbook paper. I turned the lamp base upside down and put a layer of pom poms at the top. Then I put the cylinder filler in place. And I continued to fill the rest of the base. I screwed everything back together and now I have a fun lamp.

Messy floral arranging foam. I got it at the dollar store so I didn't feel bad throwing it away.

Scrapbook paper cylinder filler. I had a few pom poms fall in but I got them out before putting the other end of the cylinder on at the end.

The finished lamp back on my nightstand.

I love this lamp so much. It's so much fun to look at now. It will be even better when I get a new lamp shade. :)

Lots of Updates

It's been a while since I wrote here. Let's see if I can do a little bit of updating. Sorry it might be a long post. ... I can do a tiny table of contents.

• Starburst quilt progress
• My new phone
• Instagram and photo-a-day
• Classical music
• Work
• Flower wreath
• Nail Polish boxes
• Gorgeous weather

That Starburst Quilt I have been working on is all sewed. As far as the top goes. I still need to measure out the backing and sew that piece and then send it off to the quilter. I still can't decide how I want it quilted. I love this quilt so much. It's awesome.

Please forgive the wrinkles. I did not take the time to iron after a sewed it all together.

I got a new phone earlier this month. I upgraded to a smartphone. I went with a Moto X, which is the same phone as Steven and Chad because it is the one I was the most attracted to. I really liked that I was able to completely customize the the colors of my phone. (See that website here.) I went with a white front, a mint green backing, and purple buttons. I also got a clear case for it. And I was happy that the phone came with a white charger. I just bought another wall charger and screen protectors for my phone. They should be here in a couple of days. I wanted a second charger so that I could keep one in my room at all times. And the one I have now I will use for travelling, like bringing to work. I decorated my cord with washi tape so that I would be able to keep track of it better. Also it just looks fun now.

Front and Back. ... It is much more mint green then what this photo shows.

More of the details.

My phone charger.

With my new smartphone I got the Instagram app in the hopes that I could jump back into that photo-a-day challenge. I have kept up and loved every moment of it. I have even taken a few other photo using Instagram. But I mostly use it for the photo-a-day. (You can see the current list I'm following on FatMumSlim's blog.) My username on Instagram is "khiggs_ute". I chose that because I like the nickname that my manager has given me. It works great for a user name. The original thought was to use just "khiggs", but that username was taken so I added the "ute" to the end. I like it. My username makes my smile.

Feel free to follow me on Instagram or my photo blog.

I have been listening to a lot of classical music lately. Like everyday. I listen to Classical 89. I like this station so much I was willing to make a donation. With the donation I received a gift. I chose a 5-CD set. I really like this set. It has great music on it and I do listen to it all the time. But I still like the radio station too. I am actually currently listening to this station. Ooh that also reminds me that I bought symphony tickets for April. I invited some others to come with me. We are seeing Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 3 from the Utah Symphony. You can see more information here.

Work has been fun the past couple of weeks. We have had the last few games for basketball and gymnastics this last week. The week before that we hosted high school basketball for 4A and 5A schools. We had to staff those events and so we all worked a ton that week. It was long hours and simple but annoying transactions. The Utah High School Athletics Association doesn't allow tickets to be bought with a credit card so it's a cash, or check, event only. That causes frustration with the customers but also on us because we have to send them to the nearest ATM. Which to be fair there is one just outside our office. Mostly on our end the high school events are long hours and lots of people. Now that those events are over with it is quite nice and slow here at the ticket office. I don't mind one bit.

My white flower wreath that I was working on a while is becoming more complete. A couple of weeks ago I bought a yard of felt and cut a bunch of felt flowers. Today I hot glued them onto my wreath form. It's so fun. I love it. I'm going to switch my twiggy wreath for this one. Maybe I'll make a bow to go with the season.

I don't hink I ever told you about my nail polish boxes. My polish collection had outgrown the one shoebox so I decided to expand into other boxes. To make them prettier using wrapping paper. The boxes with nail polish in the I made blue with a silver lid. And the third box that is silver with a blue lid has tools, remover, pads, and other nail accessories.

We have been having the greatest weather lately. I'm scared that a cold front is coming and we'll get snow. I'm so done with winter. Last Saturday I went on a walk around Oquirrh Lake with some friends and it was so pretty.

And that all can think of that has been going on in my life recently.

White Flower Wreath progress

Several months ago for a church Relief Society activity we made wreaths. We got felt of our color choice and a twig wreath. The idea was to make felt flowers (which I was all down for) and put them on the wreath. It would look similar to this one, which I do like. But I had a different wreath in mind. I wanted the flowers to be the wreath, like this one. I got the twig wreath though. It's been hanging on my bedroom door for months. I saw a wreath like my twig one that was spray painted bright blue. I kind of like that idea. Maybe I'll spray paint my wreath a bright color someday. Anyways, the reason for this post is because I am finally getting around to hot gluing all those felt flowers I made to a wreath form. I am about halfway done and I love it so far. Here is a progress shot...

I need to buy more white felt and make more flowers. And then I can finish this wreath. I think I'll hang it on my bedroom door when it's done.

Overflowing Scarves

Today I went to Target and got my 2014 planner. It is lime green! I love it. While I was there I got a couple of white tension rods. I have wanted to organize my scarves for a while now. And since I got a scarf for Christmas it reminded me of this project. I used tension rods in the side of my closet and now I can hang all of my scarves. I have two rods. One I use for the thicker knit scarves that I use a lot during fall/winter. The other rod I placed in front and a tiny bit lower than the other. I use it for my fashion scarves. I wear those all the time. I hung up all of my scarves and they look so lovely. I think I’ll keep my scarves a lot more organized now.

Before and After

Tension rods without any scarves.

Pom Pom Christmas

I saw this idea on Pinterest and I thought it would be fun to do for Christmas. So this past week I went to the dollar store and got several little packages of red, green, and white fuzzy pom poms. Today I strung them on some red thread. There isn't a pattern. Just no same colors in a row and I tried to make the three sizes somewhat random. There aren't a lot of the big poms in the bag and I like them. I think I'll have to go back and get some more bags so that my garland is really long. I haven't measured it. I just keep adding pom poms to the strand. I like it. It makes me happy. I want to do another garland with all the bright colors someday.

Framing New York City

Today I framed a tiny puzzle. I really like the puzzle and wanted to keep it. So I framed it. I already had the supplies. I used a black square frame I got at the thrift store, navy blue scrapbook paper for the mat, and the 7"x7" puzzle. I didn't glue anything I just let the frame sandwich it together to keep it in place. The frame needs to be repainted black someday but it can wait.

Binder Designs

My little brother comes home from his mission in a couple of weeks. So I designed his cover page and spine label for his binder. I really like it. I almost like the spine design better then the title page. The overlapping words are cool.

the spine label

title page

Frogs

Mom is in charge of Girl's Camp for her ward this year and I have been helping with a lot of her projects. The theme of the camp is F.R.O.G. which stands for Forever Reaching Our Goals. The whole week is frog themed and they have lots of frog stuff. In Mom's adventures of finding frog items she came across some really cute frog wrapping paper at the dollar store. So she bought several rolls thinking she'd use it for something. She's not going to use it. But when I saw that they were decorating paint cans to use as mailboxes for the Secret Sister stuff I mentioned that it would be cute to do one in frog wrapping paper. My mom agreed. So yesterday I got to decorate a paint can using some frog wrapping paper and scrapbook paper.

This can is used for the visitors. People that won't be there the whole week.

I like it without the label the best. (This is the back)

I cut out a frog with a blue bird to put on the lid.

Pinspiration: Drawer Dividers

I've been wanting to make drawer dividers for my bathroom for a while now. I wouldn't mind have fancy, clear, store bought ones someday but I wanted the drawer dividers now not later when I have money.

So I made my own.

I looked on Pinterest for some ideas. And I came across this post with dividers using balsa wood. I really liked them.

Inspiration: post on Pinterest, Original source here

So I got to work building my own.

I started by measuring the drawer that I wanted the dividers for. It's a 3"x10"x18" drawer. Then I went to Hobby Lobby and bought three strips of 3/23"x3"x24" balsa wood.

Here's my before shot. The drawer works as it is but I mostly wanted my makeup more accessible and out of that flowery case.

Before ...

And here it is after. I really like how it turned out. I can reach everything without moving other things that are on top. It still looks kind of crazy but it'll work so much better.

... After.

We'll see how much I like it after using it for a few days.

as always ... click the picture to see it bigger.

Purple Words

Last week I decided to make my two pillow covers with that Ikea wordy fabric. I really do LOVE this fabric. It's so fun.

So I took these gold pillows that I bought a long time ago and took off their covers. And then after measuring and sewing some five-minute covers and put them on my white pillow forms.

Gold pillows before...

Wordy pillow after.

The word pillows are residing on my bed.

I also wanted an accent pillow for bed too. So using the extra purple fabric I had I covered a smaller pillow using this tutorial. I think it turned out adorable.

Now my bed is all pretty. And comfy. I winterized my bed last weekend too. Meaning I put my second comforter on the bed. During the winter I sleep with two comforters. :)

Halloween decor

I don't have much in the way of spooky decor.

I have my three witches I made a few years ago and a giant spider. This year I made a web for my spider to be on and hung him on my bedroom door.

I found the spider web idea via Pinterest. How About Orange has a great tutorial here.

Before ...

After.

Spidey does get kind of lost because he is black too. But he pops off the door because he is 3D and the web is flat against the door. Maybe I'll hang him lower on the door so he is on the very bottom of the web. Either way I think the web is a great addition to Spidey.