DIY Green kitchen cleaner

For Christmas I put essential oils on my wish list because I have been curious to try making my own cleaners. The last months I have been reading books and websites about a greener lifestyle, and I realized I want to be more conscious about what we eat and the products we use. Making cleaners is one of the easiest things to do to make your home a little healthier and minimize the use of harsh chemicals. 

I ordered spray bottles on ebay, and used the following three ingredients to create kitchen spray: vinegar, lemon and essential oils. Vinegar prevents bacteria growth, removes odours and discoloring, and lemon removes dirt and stains. In addition, eucalyptus works well against grease, which you find plenty of in the kitchen. 

For these 300 ml bottles I used 

- 1,5 dl water

- 0,75 dl vinegar

- the juice of 1 lemon

- 10 drops essential oil. I used lemongrass and eaculyptus

Mix everything in the bottle, shake well, and you're done!

There are plenty of recipes online for window spray, bathroom spray and more, 

How to hang a rug on the wall

If you have a rug, blanket, or other textile you would like to hang on a wall, here is one way of making that happen. You should not nail it directly to the wall, as it might rip from the strain, so though it sounds like a simple solution, it will not last. Here is how I hung my Peruvian blanket. 

Materials: 

Your rug/blanket

A piece of wood trip the same width as your textile

Sanding paper

Velcro the same width as your textile

2 eye hooks

Glue/nails and a hammer

Needle and thread

Fishing line or other rope

Step 1: 

If you have good glue, use it to attach the hooked end of the velcro to your trim. You can also use small nails like I did. Remember to sand your wood first! 

Step 2: Attach an eye-hook to each end of the wood trim.

Step 3: Sew the other end of your velcro to the textile. This is the most time consuming task. Just be patient, and use a good, sturdy needle.

Step 4: Attach the two pieces of velcro, and hang your rug on your wall! 

DIY: Heather Wreath for Fall

I love to bring a little piece of nature inside, so while out on a hike the other day I picked some whortleberry heather (tyttebærlyng) to make a small wreath.

Materials: Heather, moss and dirt from the woods.

Trim the heather, discard the moss and dirt and bugs that came with it.

Use wire to make a circle the size you want your wreath. 

Attach small bunches with wire. I used three little twigs in each bunch.

Continue wrapping and adding more heather all around the circle. 

Decorate with pine cones if you´d like, and hang it on the wall.

What I Wore: Wedding Edition

Finally I can share details of the dress that I worked on for so long! My wedding dress was a cap sleeve, ivory lace, round neck, sheath gown with a sash - to use all the wedding terminology... The store didn´t have my size, so it had to be taken in a little, which I decided to do myself. This was a lot harder than I had thought, mainly because I wanted it to be impeccable. In the end I settled for about 99% satisfaction, and with only a week left before the wedding there wasn´t really anything else to do about it. I loved wearing the dress, it was light and airy and comfortable, not heavy and itchy like many of the other wedding gowns I tried on.

Another challenge was that the fabric was very thin, so I had to add extra lining. I found the perfect silk slip to go underneath, and when everything else was done, I basted it to the dress and plan to remove it so I can reuse it for something else later. I also changed the back of the dress to make a V-neck instead of a round collar, added lace to make tiny cap sleeves, and a ribbon sash around the waist. More on the dress process here. 

I loved my vintage accessories. Early on I knew I wanted to wear the bracelet my grandma gave me. I also wanted to have something borrowed, and was lucky I got to choose between several vintage pairs of earrings from Mike's family. I settled for a pair of white rhinestone clip-ons from the 1950s, but there were some other really pretty ones too.

I was very happy I had a cardigan. Despite the sunny weather, Ålesund was quite windy on June 28th, and because of the sun we had to resort to pictures in the shade. I had first scoured Etsy for hours to find the perfect, fun and vintage cardigan. I found it, ordered it... but it never arrived! So a week before the wedding I went to the closest mall, found a very plain peach cardigan and settled with that decision. In addition, for parts of the photo shoot I was actually wearing long-johns! You can't see it, but it's there.

Matching shoes and nail polish with my maid of honor was the closest I got to a cohesive bridal party look. (Though I did make sure the best man had a neutral colored tie.) But since we were all wearing flowers I think that settled the matter if anyone was in doubt. 

I wore the veil for the ceremony and some pictures, but decided to leave it off for the rest of the day. To be honest, a veil is kind of in the way, especially if there is any wind or lots of hugging involved. The cap and lace matched my ivory gown, but the tulle itself was a very different shade of white. It is more noticeable in the pictures than I thought it would be, but that´s not a big deal.

My wedding garb was really a DIY and budget effort. In total, the outfit cost me around 4000 kr, and a little more than half of that was for the dress and everything I needed for alterations. An added bonus is that with some minor updates, everything but the veil can be used again. Or is there any other occasion than your own wedding that calls for a juliet cap veil?? It would be sweet to use it again.

Dress: A Dolce & Gabbana knock-off from a small dress shop in Tallinn, Estonia
Slip: Else Maries Undertøyssalong, Skien
Veil: Vintage, via Adorned in Grace
Cardigan: Cubus
Red sandals: Esprit
White pumps: Vintage (already owned)
Bracelet: Inherited from my grandma
Earrings: Something borrowed - they were Mike's great-grandmothers
Handkerchief: Inherited. Also Mike's great-grandmothers
Hair and makeup: Anniken at Fri Frisør
Flowers: Blomsterstua Ålesund

Photos: Irene Lovund

Kraft wedding programs

Yesterday I somehow ended up on Google+, and while I was there, I changed some picture settings. Today I had a comment on an old blog post saying the pictures were missing. At first I thought I might have reached my storage limit (is there such a thing on blogger?), but quickly realized what had happened. Reversing that was harder than I would have thought, but about an hour of googling and trial and error, all my pictures are back where they were. Lesson of the day: Keep your Google+/Blogger photo albums public, and DO NOT delete any of the pictures. 

After this warning, back to some wedding chatter. There really isn't any plan of order for the wedding posts, they just happen, in case you were a little confused by my blogging lately.

Making the wedding programs myself was a given: I have experience with layout and design from work, and it was a great way to save money. Since we and our guests speak two different languages, I thought it would be helpful with pretty detailed programs, which is actually very common in Norway anyways.

First: Ceremony programs

These were pretty straightforward once we had decided on what to include in the ceremony. The order of the service and text for the hymns were all on the inside. On the front we used the illustration from our invitation, and the names of the all people involved in the ceremony were on the back. This was printed on medium heavy kraft paper in black and white. I made separate English and Norwegian copies, and since it was a small wedding, our lovely greeters knew who needed which one.

Secondly: Programs for the party

This project was a little more complicated. The contents of this booklet included the program and menu for the evening, some local barn history (!), a short presentation of each guest, fun facts about American and Norwegian wedding traditions, and our guest book. Writing these pages took a while, but I enjoyed it! I didn't get to ask our guests if they liked it/found it helpful/entertaining, but I know my dad couldn't stop reading it the day we were setting tables...

The cover is printed on heavy kraft paper and the contents is normal white printer paper, to save some money and increase readability. Everything was stapled together, and each folder got a piece of washi tape on the front where the guest name was written. Which meant no need for place cards! One of the deciding factors for assigned seating was in fact these programs, as I couldn't figure out another way to get each guest a program in their own language.

I just love mail, and even before we were engaged I pinned a postcard guestbook. I started collecting vintage postcards, but for the longest time had no idea how to actually use them. The solution I ended up with was to tape a postcard in each wedding program, hoping guests would write a greeting during/after dinner. It was never explained except in written form in the program, which might be why only about a quarter of the guests used it. So now I have a stash of amazing postcards waiting to be used, and that is no bad thing either.

Did you/would you have programs for your wedding?

RESOURCES
Kraft paper: Green Earth Supplies
Tape: WeXStore
Vintage postcards: Memory Saver and Hens Feathers on Etsy, and second hand stores here in Norway and the States
Fonts: Animatic and Channel

Photography: The nice action shots are by Michaela Nichole Photography, the others are taken with my phone in my kitchen.

Table numbers for book lovers

Our wedding party pictures have arrived! We are still waiting for our official portraits and ceremony photos, but I am excited to share some moments from our wedding reception. First up is some of the decor.

With only six tables it might seem unnecessary to make table numbers, but I still wanted to. It wasn't until a few weeks before the wedding that I stumbled upon a great idea I wanted to incorporate. Instead of simple numbers, we used quotes from some of our favorite authors to name the tables. The quotes were either on love and relationship or books and reading. 

To make the table numbers I printed authors and quotes and kraft paper, as well as corresponding cards with all the guests names in place of escort cards. The name cards were hung by the entrance, and the quotes were simply propped up against other decor on the table.

One of the quotes by C.S. Lewis were a part of our reading in church. I don't think it is common to use anything but scripture for church ceremonies, but I had read the passage "Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing", in Mere Christianity, and we thought it was so fitting for our relationship that we wanted to include it. 

The other authors we chose were Brandon Sanderson, A.C. Doyle, Emily Brontë, Oscar Wilde and Steven Erikson. Some of these are contemporary writers, others have published books considered classic. Coincidentally, this summer we have read books by two of the authors above.

We didn't plan on a theme for our wedding. However, with our invitations, these table numbers, and the books we used as centerpieces, a book theme slowly emerged, and we didn't mind at all. 

Photography: The amazing Michaela Nichole Photography

Restyle Sunday: Drawstring pouch

"An old shirt with stains that won´t come out, 
gets a new life as a drawstring pouch."

My husband (!) said he wanted a drawstring pouch, and I offered to make him one. I had never done it before, believe it or not, but the construction is really simple. I offered him a few options from my stash of fabric, and he decided on this one from a shirt that got ruined. After making one of these I would like to make a few more. They are perfect for traveling, to keep socks and underwear in one place, or as a shoe bag. This tutorial is for a pouch with lining. If you make it without a lining there will be a lot less work.

1. Cut two rectangles from the back of shirt, one slightly bigger than the other. My measurements were 19,5 cm x 62 cm and 19 cm x 56 cm, but you can scale up or down in any direction depending on what you will use it for.

2. Sew the sides together all the way on your smallest rectangle, but leave 4 cm at the top on the largest one. This is will be the opening for the drawstring.

3. Fold the top of the lining over 1,5 cm and press.
Turn the other pouch so your seams are on the inside, fold the top over 3 cm and press.

4. Flip both of the pouches. With the "wrong side" of the fabric facing each other, put your smallest pouch over the largest. Pin together 1,5 cm from the top, leaving an opening for the drawstring on each side, and sew together.

5. Flip the pouch again, and sew a topstitch along the edge for stability.

6. Thread your strings, tie them together, and you are done!

Wedding Garter DIY

For the wedding, I was not planning on wearing a garter, and certainly not do the garter toss - that would freak me out! It seemed like an annoying thing to wear and yet another thing to spend money on, but then one day I looked through my stash of ribbon and realized I had everything I needed to make my own.

You need: 
- Elastic lace
- Needle and thread, or sewing machine
- Measuring tape
- Embellishments: Use whatever you fancy, like ribbon, rhinestones,
beads, flowers, charms etc

This is one of the easiest things you can make for your wedding (easier than a DIY veil for example). The project took me about 20 minutes, including taking the pictures!

First, measure your thigh where you want your garter. 

Use measuring tape, or wrap the lace around your leg.

Sew the ends together, with either sewing machine or needle and thread. 

Now try it on to make sure its tight enough! Adjust if needed.

Find your embellishment and decide where you want it to go.

You can sew a small bow like me, and add your something blue.

An easy and cute garter that you can make yourself.

Restyle: Floppy straw hat

When we cleaned out our office building, I found this straw hat. In all likelihood it would have ended up on the dump if I hadn´t rescued it in the 12th hour... That sounds little dramatic perhaps, just like the drama of this huge floppy hat! I think it will be perfect for the summer, on the beach or in the park, providing some shade for my fair skin. The rose ribbon was the only problem. An easy fix, as all I had to do was to rip it off and attach a new one.

I used a glue gun to attach the new black ribbon, and secured it with a few stitches here and there around the hat, just like they had done with the old ribbon. Now the hat looks a lot more classy, and I am ready for some hot summer days.

And my hat box was almost used for its intended purpose, it is just slightly too small. 

Envelope liner DIY

I got the question of how I made the envelope liners for our wedding invitations, and thought maybe some others would be interested as well. It is a very simple way of making your mail fancy and extra special.


What you need:

- The envelope you want to line
- Paper for lining
- Paper or cardboard for template
- Ruler
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Glue

STEP 1: Measure your envelope. Subtract a few millimeters from each side, and keep in mind angles like the one above. You can let the liner stick half way down the envelope like I did, or line the whole thing. This isnt really necessary, and if your liner is expensive, this will cut the costs.

STEP 2: Make a template on sturdy paper or cardboard. Be more accurate than the drawing above suggests. (It´s not my actual template - I cheated a little bit)

STEP 3: Make sure your template fits the way you want inside your envelope. Here the sides are slightly more angled than the envelope, which you may or may not believe was done on purpose.

STEP 4: Cut as many liners as you need, with the help of your template and a good pair of scissors. You can also use a paper cutter if you have one. 

STEP 5: Glue your liner to your envelope. To avoid wobbly paper, let it dry under a stack of books or something, to keep it nice and good looking.

Voilá! You have a pretty lined envelope!