bears. beets. brooches.

There's a new brooch design over at sweet and lovely, and it's featuring America's favorite Assistant (to the) Regional Manager! ;D I drew this and had a sample made so that I could wear it to the Office Wrap Party this weekend, and when it came in the mail I just loved it SO much that I had to make more for Sweet and Lovely!

I also drew Michael Scott, Kevin, and Creed but I don't have pictures of the finished brooches yet -- they're coming soon though! If they go over well I might add more characters but for now I'm just sticking with my own favorites in case I end up having to keep all the brooches myself, lol! I also drew a Carl Sagan one, too! I'm probably getting a little carried away with the faces-as-wooden-brooches thing but I am just so smitten with this little Dwight, I can't help myself!

collections: brooches

I thought it would be fun to share some of my collections here once in a while. Partially because, like I said in this post, I want to post more about my various interests, and partially because I just really, really like collections. I like having them, photographing them, lining them up, looking at them.. thinking about them.

I can remember in third grade we did some sort of project where we had to tell the class about something we collect, and I couldn't decide between my Disney VHS tapes, my pillows (I've always had a lot of pillows and apparently I used to consider them worthy of show-and-tell. Actually I still do. My pillows will probably be featured in a future installment of this series) or my Barbie dolls.

Now that I'm all grown up with no parental veto power over my desire to excessively collect a bunch of stupid things, I've acquired quite a few collections. One of my favorites is my brooch collection.



I started collecting brooches a year or two ago. I love being able to accessorize but I've never been a huge fan of necklaces or bracelets since I always feel the need to fuss with them. A brooch is a nice little non-invasive way of adding something special to an outfit. I used to have them tossed in a few containers on my dresser, but last week I found this dessert tray at Target (only $10! yay!) and knew it would be perfect to display my pins! I love that I can see them all at a glance and the chances of pricking my finger on one that mysteriously popped open is much slimmer now.

Here are some of my favorites!



The unicorn stick-pin was a gift from Solanah. The carousel is from modcloth. For Christmas I got one for me and one for my grandmom since we always used to ride the merry-go-round together when I was a kid :) I like to get her one carousel themed gift each year if I can.  The "Math is as Easy as Pi" pin is from amazon. That's my Pi Day pin! The Carl Sagan brooch is from The Science Boutique. I also have a glow-in-the-dark Marie Curie and a Nikola Tesla from them as well. The rainbow sweater clips and the dinosaur are both from my Sweet and Lovely shop. I'm so tempted to keep one of everything for myself ;) The constellation brooch is from Under the Shade of a Bonsai Tree (I'm a scorpio!) and lastly the cute little heart is a vintage find. I'm planning on wearing that one on Valentines Day (obviously.)



The I love Cats pin is from modcloth (although I think the amount of cat hair I have on all of my clothing advertises this fact without me having to spell it out lol) The kitty cats were a birthday present from Casey. The corn brooch was something I picked up when I had a pesky ear infection that wouldn't go away last summer. I was visiting the doctor so often I thought it would be a funny joke but nobody noticed. Oh well, I still thought it was funny :) The enamel flowers were lucky flea market finds (I love these so much but can't justify spending the $20+ people ask on etsy. I got mine for $1 each. woo!) The mod girl is one that I made from these wood cut-outs. I love this shop so much! I bought a couple other sets that I've turned into brooches too! And lastly the hot air balloon eraser brooch was a DIY on the blog last year! :)

eraser brooch DIY

Maybe this is just me, but I absolutely hate using really cute erasers to actually erase things. I never want to ruin them! But at the same time, I also seem to hoard cute erasers because they're so... cute. So I decided, in light of my new brooch obsession, to try turning some of them into pins!



It's pretty self explanatory -- get an eraser and a pin and glue them together! But I will say that this particular glue seems to work really well, and I'd definitely recommend it. When I first decided to try this I was worried that no glue would be strong enough to stick to the strange eraser material, but this is holding up fantastic! It's a gel consistency, so I think that might be it!

The pins that I got at the art supply store also came with little holes in them, so if your eraser is thick enough you could always use some kind of pin or screw to hold the back in place, too!

DIY: enamel pins

I really love enamel pins from the 60's, but I have a hard time finding them at my local thrift shops and the prices for vintage ones online, once you factor in shipping, tend to be too much for a little ol' pin. So I came up with this idea for refashioning some of the ugly ones me & my mom have been gifted (or probably re-gifted, lol) over the years.

All you need is a gaudy pin that has a pretty design hiding under the surface, and some *opaque* nail polish. (Any polishes that usually need 2-3 coats to cover your nails will not work here!) Then paint! It's really that simple! For the smaller areas I used a fine paintbrush, but for the rest I just used the brush that comes with the polish. Then seal it with a shiny topcoat, and you're done!

I wish I had had a cute little reindeer or poinsettia pin laying around the house, but this was the best I could come up with. At least now, though, when I see cheap shiny brooches I'll give them another look. If the basic design is really cute, they can be saved! :)