Celebrating sunny orange and yellow!

What an odd week it's been - such lovely mild weather (in the 50's! In Iowa - in January!), and yet a little gloom in our home as we had to say good-bye to our 12-year-old dog, Bugs.

We got Bugs from our local rescue shelter in 2003 - he was a new arrival, a stray rounded up from a neighboring county. He didn't even have a name yet! But he had a soulful look, and a calm disposition in the midst of all of the chaos of the shelter, and we brought him home. He was a loving family pet for the next decade.

Maybe it's a combination of losing the dog and being stuck inside at work during all this beautiful weather that had me yearning for some sunshine - and I found it, in one of my all-time favorite color combinations: orange and yellow!

I first knew I was in love with these two colors together when I was about five years old. Our dance teacher's assistant had a hobby of making beaded rings, and my mother agreed to buy them for my sister and I. We could pick any two colors we wanted for each ring, and after looking at all the beads I decided on orange and yellow. I remember my mother making a point to ask me, "Are you sure? They're kind of loud." I was sure, and soon I had my cheerful, sunny ring. I've been a fan of orange and yellow, together, ever since!

I can always count on these happy colors - even if they are LOUD together - to bring on a little cheer.

Do you have a color combination that you love... that makes others question your judgment? :)

Make a can opener cozy!

Today I got to cleaning off my kitchen counter top, which had become a bit of a (ahem) storage area, and I got a little fixated on the ugly utilitarian look of the electric can opener. Decided I needed to make a little cozy-cover for it, and knew I had just the fabric to whip up a cute, quick project. Here are the materials I used:

2 cloth napkins (you could also use kitchen rags or towels)
1 stem silk flowers
Hot glue or Fabri-Tac

My fabric was actually a pair of red-and-white-striped kitchen rags. I didn't have a plan, but my original idea was to build a sort of fabric "box" complete with formed corners. Because of that plan, I started by sewing the two rags together, but ultimately decided I was making things way too difficult. I settled on just laying the rags right-sides-together, and cutting out a dome shape.

I pinned and sewed the whole thing together, trimmed my seam to a quarter inch, clipped my curves, and hemmed the bottom. Once turned right-side-out, it looked cute, but a little plain and even boatsy.

Obviously, embellishments were needed. I settled on a sprig of small silk daisies that I had on-hand - there isn't really a theme in our kitchen right now except perhaps "out-dated 70's stuff with red accents," but I thought the daisies would fit in better than my go-to choice of romantic roses.

I separated the daisies and leaves from the wire stems, and knew I was going to attach them to the cozy with glue. (I like to use FabriTac instead of hot glue - it works great for a project like this, and I don't burn myself. If you're adept with a hot-glue gun, go for it!) One problem, though, was that the backs of the daisy blooms didn't lend themselves to easy gluing. I simply clipped off the excess yellow bit, and was left with enough surface to apply a good dab of glue.

I pressed everything down into place, let it dry, and fitted it over the can opener. Here's the result:

It's not as complicated as the constructed "box version" I was going to make, but I sure like it - it only took about 15 minutes to assemble from start to finish, and it goes great with my red cannisters!

I've linked this quick and easy project to Making Monday Marvelous over at C.R.A.F.T. Dozens of fun, creative ideas - be sure to click through!