laced up earbuds

if you look closely at the photos above you can see a sad little progression. the first photo shows you what happens when your loving husband washes your earbuds. now, to give props where props are due, the earbuds still worked even after a wash, rinse and tumble in the dryer (way to go sony).

now i don't know about you guys but at casa de dehart we are on a budget. even 10 bucks for new earbuds feels frivolous. plus i'd seen these cute laced earbuds on etsy and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try and make my own. mine do not look as perfect as those worked up by Chozin, they work for my purposes . . . making earbuds cute and functional again.

so here's how i worked mine up. as you can see up top, i first patched any of the melted places with electrical tape. if i were into black and white minimalism, i could have stopped there. but i'm not. i really love apple green. so I snagged three "skeins" of DMC embroidery thread in a lovely green color and went to town.

the easiest way to get started was to tape this to a little table and begin by tying a knot at the base of the earbuds. from then on out (because i wasn't really sure exactly how to go about things) i made up my own rules. :) for those of you who never made friendship bracelets back in the day, check out Honestly WTF's tutorial here. if you did, then you know how to do the basic knot bracelet. that's basically what I did all the way down the cord.

this is not a quick project. i kept tying and tying and tying . . .

at this point i started thinking . . . "maybe i could leave that last earbud undone." because dude, it's a lot of tying!

i'm pretty pleased with the final product. not only do the earbuds have a nice solid weight but the cord doesn't tangle!! (cue the hallelujah chorus) i can also guarantee that captain awesome (my darling husband) wont' be snagging these beauties and telling me he just got our headphones "mixed up." lol

enjoy! play with your earbuds! have fun. there's not much you can't do to dress up your gear with a little imagination. let me see what you come up with!

Snuggly Owl Pillows

so a few days ago i finally gave in and made my daughter moose and zee (from nick jr.) snuggle pillows. she took them to my mother's and shabam . . . my niece called a few hours later wanting her very own snuggle pillow.

instead of making the smaller pillows, I decided to make them each an owl of their very own. this meant another trip to hobby lobby (it's a semi daily trip) but what came of that trip were three very cute little birds.

this afternoon i actually just sat and freehanded the outline of the birds.


now i have to say, every project needs its own inspiration. this afternoon i found mine:


armed with john mayer and keith urban crossroads on cmt, i started cutting out three different owls. one for my niece, nephew, and of course, emily.

once everything was cut out, i laid the pieces out to make sure it looked exactly as i wanted it to. never mind the hottie in the background. he was keeping me company while i worked.

and then it's time to begin sewing. the beautiful thing about these little critters is that just like there's absolutely no right way to lay them out, there's also no right way to sew them up. i let all the stitches show on these guys. i was a sloppy little seamstress. but i think it just makes them cuter. what do you think?

on each of these, i left just a bit of room to insert some stuffing. i didn't stuff them tightly; just enough to give them a little "poof." once they were stuffed, i ran the open area back through the sewing machine and stitched it closed.

all that was left was to line the birdies up and show them off.