Blue Flower Earrings & Rings // DIY

Every summer for the past 8 or 9 years, my family and I have spent time with our friends from Idaho. They have two girls around my age and a boy that gets along well with my brother, so times are always crazy when the nine of us are all together. Yesterday was not only my last day of work and also the day that we met up with them! It's so exciting to see them again! There has already been a ton of laughter.

Last year, I had the opportunity to travel with them to many countries in Europe. This is the three of us girls at Neuschwanstein castle in Germany:

I am in the center and Taylor is on the right. Michelle is the one on the left. She has a six pack and is a beast at life. (She told me to say that, but she actually does have a six pack which is kind of ridiculous).

Today's project is really simple yet incredibly adorable. The idea can be applied to so many things, too!

I had quite a bit of fun snapping these pictures - they're all set on a bike rack!

Ready to learn how?

Mid-Week Sneak Peek: Please Excuse the Hard Hats

It's time for this week's Mid-Week Sneak Peek!

For this week's sneak peek, I'm giving you a little glimpse into a project that I've just finished. I'm working on writing the post, so keep checking back and someday you'll see it! It's gonna be awesome. I promise.

Can you guess what it is?? (It doesn't count if you're a friend and you've seen it in person!)

There's a zipper (gasp!) But I promise its not that scary.

Also, I'd like to ask you all to please excuse the hard hats! If you follow my blog, you have probably noticed that there have been a lot of changes. And I'm probably not done, either! I'm trying to figure out the perfect style, but it takes changing everything around to figure that out in my head. I wish I could make adjustments and save them without making them go live on the blog, but I'm not savvy enough to do that. Hopefully I'll make up my mind soon! In the meantime, I appreciate you bearing with me while I try and make up my mind :)

Now here's quick little recipe for you! Well, more of a description of what I made rather than an actual recipe.

Resources at the dorm are limited, but I still managed to whip up this tasty little dinner the other night.

Pear & Blue Cheese Flatbread:

Ingredients:

-pear, cut into cubes

-blue cheese

-mozzarella or other shredded cheese

-butter

-flatbread

-onions (optional)

I spread a little butter on the flatbread instead of sauce. Then I added shredded cheese, blue cheese crumbles, and some onions. I cut a pear into small cubes and then added that to the top. Bake in the oven at 350(ish) for 10(ish) minutes. See how exact I am with my recipes?

The sweetness of the pear and the, well, blue cheese-ness of the blue cheese balanced each other quite well and made a great combination! All the other kids in the dorm were quite jealous.

Enjoy!

High-Low Skirt Tutorial // DIY

I'm heading into my final week of work. How this summer has flown by! The good news is that I get to see my family in less than a week and I am so excited. I haven't seen my parents in a month and I haven't seen my brother in three months. This long distance thing is tough!

I have gotten a lot of crafting done this summer, which is nice. I'm trying to line up a lot of blog posts for the coming school year since it is difficult to sew or do any crafty things in a tiny dorm room. I am considering bringing my sewing machine to school this year, though. Maybe I'll have some room to store it under my bed...

Ready for this week's tutorial?

I gotta admit it, high-low skirts have come into fashion. 

I'm not exactly sure how, and at first I was hesitant, but now all I want to do is make high-low skirts. I absolutely hate high-low dresses (I lovingly refer to them as mullet dresses), but for some reason I love high-low skirts. Call me crazy.

My mom got this beautiful patterned sheer fabric at a yard sale for cheap cheap cheap (thanks, mom!) and as soon as I saw it, I knew it would make the perfect flowy high-low skirt.

I've seen tutorials that show you how to make a high-low skirt from an already even-hemmed skirt (I'm thinking of making one of those sometime in the future so stay tuned), but with this particular fabric, I had to be aware of the bottom of the fabric since it was bordered. 

Want to learn how I did it? Read on!

Mid-Week Sneak Peek

Hello! I hope your week is going well.

I'm posting today to introduce you to something new here at Elemental Carbon. In addition to the weekly tutorial/DIY post on Sundays, I will have something called Mid-Week Sneak Peek which I'll post around Wednesday or Thursday. In that post, you'll see this logo:

and I will give you a sneak peek of upcoming projects! Sometimes I might even have a tutorial for a quick project that you can do in under half an hour!

So stay tuned and check in for the mid-week sneak peek to get special previews and updates on all things Elemental Carbon plus a short tutorial every now and then!

For this week's Mid-Week Sneak Peek, I have a few updates about Elemental Carbon:

1. Today I am guest posting on the blog Grits & Moxie! It's my first ever guest post and I was so excited when Jennifer offered me a guest post spot. I show the Grits & Moxie readers how to make garland out of an old book:

You can view my guest post here. Thank you, Jennifer! 

2. Elemental Carbon now has a facebook page! (woot woot!) It is something I had been contemplating for a while, but I wanted to let the blog grow a bit. So pretty please stop on by and be sure to like Elemental Carbon! You can find the page here or by clicking on the facebook logo on the top right of this page.

3. Elemental Carbon is now taking sponsors! Well, kind of. For the rest of this month and the whole month of August, you have the opportunity to do a free sponsor swap. Click on the "Sponsor" tab at the top of the page (or click here) and follow the instructions through Passionfruit so that we can swap ads! I still have a large 250x200 ad spot left and if you choose that one, you will get a feature post on Elemental Carbon about you and your blog. Exciting, huh?

4. Notice all the changes? Elemental Carbon has gotten a new look! I tried to go a little more simple than it was before. I'd really appreciate any and all feedback - the good and the bad (as long as it is kindly said!)

Now that you've been updated, have a great rest of your week!

Mustache Necklace // DIY

I got really excited yesterday. 

Why, you ask? Because I was on the blog Swenson Love! I did a button swap with Jess for the month of July and yesterday she did a group post about all of her swappers. It was a really sweet little feature and I love her blog. You can check out her sponsor swap post here. Thanks, Jess! It was fun swapping with you!

I have now started accepting sponsors myself through a sponsor swap! Check out the new sponsor page to learn more.

Since last week's Nook/Kindle Cover DIY tutorial was so long, I have something a bit shorter for you this week!

This is a super easy project to do. Even if you can't find the exact materials to make this, you can still apply the idea to other jewelry making supplies that you can find. 

Today we are making a mustache necklace!

I'm pretty sure my mom would hate this style, but mustaches are one of the quirky nerdy trends right now. When I found this silver mustache at Hobby lobby, I knew it would be a super cute, super easy project.

Want to learn how? Read on!

Nook/Kindle Cover // DIY

I currently have 271 pictures waiting to be cropped and/or edited for this blog. And I haven't even finished taking pictures of completed projects OR gotten half way done with my loooong list of projects to do this summer. I'm saving all of that work for my midnight shifts when I'll need entertaining and can use my laptop at work. So get ready for some great stuff coming up this year on Elemental Carbon. I promise it won't disappoint :)

I'm going to try and start doing more sneak peeks during the middle of the week, so be sure to come back and check what's coming up!

I used some of the money I am making from my summer job and splurged a bit. I bought myself a Nook SimpleTouch with GlowLight (that's a mouthful!) We get to read at the front desk for my job so I have been using it a lot.

When I first bought it, I looked into cases and covers for protection, but they started out at $35 which just won't cut it for me.

So like all crafty people would, I made one myself! I didn't have any tutorial to go off of, I just made it up as I went! I ended up staying up until 1 am making this cover the exact same day that I got the nook. I was too excited!

I am quite proud of how it turned out. It ended up being $10-$15 (much cheaper!). And a lot of the supplies (like extra fabric, extra elastic, extra double sided fabric tape) I can use again for other projects!

Hello there!

I found this gorgeous fabric at JoAnn's (big surprise, huh?) for $6/yard. I got half a yard (and now regret not getting more!) so the fabric ended up being only $3. Plus I had some left over.

This tutorial can be adapted to make a cover for just about anything!

Want to learn how to make one yourself? Read on!

You'll have to bear with me - it's quite a long and wordy tutorial, but I tried to be as specific and detailed as possible. (Lots of pictures, too!)

Lengthening a Dress with Lace // DIY

I have been off of work the past two days and I got to enjoy a quick little road trip up to Indianapolis with my parents. It was short, but still very fun and it was great to see them again. It was sad to see them go! 

You may have noticed (or you may not), but I have made a few more cosmetic changes to the blog! I'm pretty excited about it.

My mom and I hit some antique malls on the drive up to Indy, which is always exciting. It's rare to find cheap old clothing at antique stores, but I ended up snagging a dress for a refashion project at a good price! I'll be sure to post that tutorial another time. But as for today, we have another awesome project!

Finally, you guys get to look at a new face! 

This is my friend Lauren; isn't she beautiful?

So here's the story: Lauren had a dress that she loved, but after shrinking in the laundry a few too many times, it became too short. She told me the problem and I knew that together we could create a great solution!

We headed out to Hobby Lobby and found this really pretty lace trim that would make the dress a better length. After sewing it on the bottom, we had our finished product and she was thrilled with her new dress! It's amazing what a little lace and sewing can accomplish.

There are tons of pictures for this tutorial since I had a helper! Read on for instructions!