ReMarthable Martha!

Back in 2008, I had the pleasure of joining a bunch of scrapbookers at the Martha Stewart show when she first introduced her brand of scrapbooking and crafts products. Today, I had the pleasure of being a guest of a guest again and it was awesome of course!

Today's Martha Stewart show featured the launch of the Simply ReMarthable contest, gorgeous Japanese flower arrangements by Kenji Takenaka , and a meatless roasted tomato lasagna recipe from Brucie's owner, Zahra Tangorra. Lastly, also featured a 'Tangled' birthday party invite how-to created with the use of Martha's 'punch around the page' punch.

Always an awesome day to be able to be in the presence of awesomeness! Here are some pics:

Gorgeous flowers (mostly sweet peas in all colors!):


Gorgeous Martha on her awesome set:

Until the next post!
- KRAFTY pearl

Before & After: Curtains & Grommets

One of my 2011 goals is to organize and maintain my craft tower. It's a Metro commercial shelving unit on casters from the Container Store that I customized for my craft storage needs. I love it because it's adjustable, sturdy and mobile. But it is somewhat industrial looking and as much as it is organized, it still stuck out like a sore thumb sitting in the middle of my living room. After some brainstorming, I decided to give it a softer, cozier look and cover the mess by adding curtains to it!

I bought really cute teal printed Boodalee bed sheets that I found on Gilt Groupe a few months back. After some cutting, trimming and sewing, a single bed sheet was turned into two pieces of curtains. And with some finishing touches, I now have curtains to camouflage the tower.

Here's a quick how-to:

You'll need: fabric, grommet kit*, hammer, s-hooks**

*Recommendation: Get the 'General' grommet tool kit that can be found at Home Depot. It comes with everything you need to set grommets along with the grommet pieces.

**Recommendation: Get the Lehigh s-hooks that can also be found at Home Depot. It has a nice deep hook that will keep the curtains on.

Set grommet with the backside of fabric up. Hammer in the lock using the grommet setter:


Once locked, the hole is reinforced from tearing and the front side will look like this:


Hook s-hooks onto craft unit:


Hook fabric onto s-hooks:


Voila! Finished curtains!

That's it for now. Hopefully next time, I'll share some of my paper craft work!

Until the next post!
- KRAFTY pearl

Oh My Blog!

Hello, world! It's 2011 and I'm finally blogging! My name is Pearl and I like all sorts of crafty crafts... from scrapbooking to letterpress arts to pottery, I love it all. So naturally, this blog will be centered around all of the above and more.

Where do I begin? Let's see... let's start with scrapbooking. There are many reasons why I love this craft. There's a bit of a record keeping, there's a bit of designing, there's a mix of different mediums and there are often pictures and photos.

For a much better description of what it's all about, watch this video from Cooper-Hewitt about the history of scrapbooking. It's a panel discussion over 1.5 hours long so if you can't get through the whole video, here are some of my favorite moments to fast forward to 9:13, 31:45, 32:41 and 40.01 ("scrapbook" defined).

Until the next post!
- KRAFTY pearl