Weekly Inspiration Linky Party April 3rd

Happy Friday, wether it's a Good Friday or just plain ol' Friday for you! 

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it!

We're preparing for our Easter celebration around here! This past week my sister Sherrie and I decided to try silk egg dyeing. It's an easy process, it just takes some time to wrap the raw eggs in silk, a secondary layer of fabric and then secure with a tie of some kind, then you boil them with some vinegar in the water. We had mixed results and realized the the wrapping/creasing of the fabric pulls the fabric from the egg and leaves gaps in color on the shells, even with this learning curve we got some great results and would definitely do it again next year, we even saved our silk to use again next year. You need 100% silk ties, which I collect, so I had plenty of material to use, and they say you can use them more than once, so you don't need a ton of them, I cut up about 8 ties.

We used this tutorial from the blog Our Best Bites for silk dyeing our easter eggs. 

Here are our results, we are thrilled with our first attempt. Pretty good huh?!?! It was fun and a great way to repurpose old ties.

My other inspiration and obsession this week has been Roz Stendahl, she's a journaling artist. She has a great sense of humor, love of nature, especially dogs and birds and is a great sharer of inspiration. I am going to use her enthusiasm as a catalyst to start journaling regularly. I have been wanting to journal for years and always think, I'm no good at drawing and sketching so I'm not gonna do it, BUT I've realized it all takes practice. SOOOOO, like quilting, I'm going to put my effort towards PRACTICE and NOT being perfect. 

This page is from Roz Stendahl's blog. 

She uses color and absence of color so well, I just love her art journaling. She's started a International Fake Journal Month, where you take on a journal for the month of April and pretend to be a fake person keeping a journal...it's a way to silence your inner critic, because it's not really your journaling and art work, it's your fake person doing  it...I like this psychology...it speaks to me!!!

I've also been watching Design Recharge an interview with artists and designer's. Diane Gibb is a designer who is the host and although I don't consider myself a designer, I seem to find lots of inspiration from her guests, there's always something I can learn and use in my own work from creative people. It's where I found Roz!

Show us your inspiration this week!

Nini~

An InLinkz Link-up

Red, White and Blue I Love You!

I made this red, white and blue flag out of scraps to hang outside for the summer. Summer holidays are all about patriotism and I just love a good flag waving tradition!

 I wanted it to be rustic and tattered so I tore all the red and white strips from my scrap bag. A scrap using project is always good for me, I love the fact it was gonna be trash and I rescued it!

I am also a collector of yardsticks and rulers, so I made a sleeve to hang it just big enough for a piece of a yard stick.   You could use a dowel or even twine fed through the sleeve.  I had assistance from Mr. Nini for attaching it semi permanently to our porch railing.

 I attached the fabric strips by putting a wide hem in the blue fabric's opposite end and cut slits in it, fed them from the back, tied a big knot in the top on the front side to give it that rustic look I like so much!!

It's perfect to leave out all summer long and it can be thrown out when it's faded and worn. It took no more than an hour to make and cost nothing!

Happy Summer and Happy Independence Day!! Go make something!

Nini~

The Bursting Valentine Heart

I have this friend...the one that guides me into all kinds of trouble....uh, I mean inspiration!! She found this great tutorial for a bursting heart pillow,  we both decided we didn't want a pillow but would make it a wall hanging instead. We made them for a quick lil inspiration project at one of our guild meeting. Here's what we made:

My bursting heart

Fabric wedges in a heart shape. My block is 12 inches, very small and tedious work.

Helen's Bursting heart, hers is much bigger, a wise choice for a more professional result. Look at all that beautiful quilting. Helen is an amazing long arm quilter you can find her here!! She has information there if you'd like her to quilt your quilt!

Here's where we found our inspiration and directions blue susan makes...

Happy Valentine's Day, go make something fun!
Nini~

Happy New Year! 2014 is Gonna Be Great!

Chelsey and I want to wish our friends a Happy New Year!  We are looking forward to a creative, fun 2014 with lots of laughs shared while creating, surfing and traveling. Here's a peek at our holiday celebrations, projects both edible and not!

Our crazy and fun family get togethers!

Homemade marshmallows, biscotti and macarons!

Gifts were made.

We hope you like what's in store for 2014...starting with our new look on the blog! Just a preview of fun things to come!

Go make something fun!!

Nini~

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well I can't believe we're upon another Thanksgiving! There are so many things here at Nini and the Sea that we're thankful for we have had a wonderful year full of family fun, good friends, traveling and lots of sewing. We sewed and sewed and sewed some more to attend our first craft bazaar.  We have some fun planned for the 4 day weekend and we plan on being very busy having fun on the slopes and in the sunshine this winter.

Chelsey and I have some plans to improve our blog and teach our readers some things along the way as well as celebrate our love of modern quilting.

We're all set for our Thanksgiving celebration we are in charge of stuffing, and a little sweetness for our dinner, we've chosen butternut squash gnocchi with an orange juice brown sugar glaze and the finale.....pies, apple and pumpkin of course!

Butternut Squash Gnocchis

I must say these gnocchi's are so good and much easier than I thought they would be to make! If you wanna give them a try click here.  Check out the video it really helps!

Happy Thanksgiving!  We hope you have much to be thankful for, we know we sure do!

Nini and Chelsey~