fun projects in our first apartment

We moved into our first real apartment (we were housesitting for friends for a month) a week and a half ago. Almost all of our furniture was given to us, which is so great. We want to get a few small things still, but we have everything we need and then some! I'll post more pictures up once we get things looking a little nicer. For now, here is one of my first projects:

I had seen pictures of bookshelves arranged by color and wanted to try it, but I thought Colin would veto it and say we needed them topically arranged. He surprisingly was for my color rearrangement, especially when he saw that I got kind of excited about it. It was a little harder than I thought it would be and I had to quit and gather steam for a few days in the middle to finish, but the finished product makes me smile. (The corner in the lower right was reserved for cookbooks, which I thought I would never use unless I kept them together.)

Another project is now making new and fun covers for throw pillows. I found a guide for using wool sweaters here and made this one on Saturday, but my sewing machine has stopped working for the time being (again) and I have to figure out what's wrong with it before I can make some more. I've already gone to Goodwill to get a bunch of half price 100% wool sweaters.

I was in a stationery store the other day and saw this. I came home and made it to hang above our bed. (I already had the mobile with clips.) It's a bit juvenile, but for now it's the only thing hanging in our apartment and I like it.


I really want to do this somewhere and I am in love with these painted trees, but I don't really want to mess with painting the walls and having to repaint them later.