Fancy Yarn!

I got some super fancy new yarn a couple months ago and I finally have a break to sit down and knit with it! I am all excited to knit up some Christmas presents for some family members. I will post picture as soon as Christmas passes! I have also finally gotten busy on knitting Jack's blanket that I started and stopped 2 years ago. Yes, really 2 years. I am knitting blocks that I am going to assemble into something like a log cabin quilt. Should be interesting. I am using a bunch of homespun yarn that has been sitting around my house forever. It feels good to finish and project and destash at the same time!

Pot pretties... coming soon to a blog near you!

Pot pretties.. hmmmm. Whatever could she mean? *sweet dorothy gail voice*

Remember these pots from last year? Well, they are getting a make-over. Oh yeah. Check back.

Farm Birthday featuring sock horses

In october we had an amazing birthday party for Lucy, who turned 7!  It is hard to believe my girly is 7 already!

My friend Beth made an awesome 3-D farmhouse cake. Recipe wasn't too hard and was found here: Family Fun Farm Cake. The cake was a big hit with all the kids and we had to ration the "farm animals".

At the party we made some cute hobby horses, roughly based on thesehobby horses. Of course, I forgot to take pictures of any of the finished horses, so use your imagination. If I can find anyone that did take a picture, I will post it. I got some string mops and crew socks from the dollar store. The dollar store mops were perfect because they were super short. Like mops for little people (it's not cool to say midget, is it?). We took a sock and stuffed it over the mop so that the strings filled the bottom of the sock forming the horses, um, snout? nose? muzzle?. I just left the socks loose and open around the handle of the mop. The strings did not try to jump out of the sock at all, and it worked very well. Next I cut some lengths of string and using a plastic canvas type of needle, i pulled the yarn through the sock and then back up very close to where i went down. Then I tied the two ends together. I did this all over the mane area. I cut 2 triangles from felt and hot glued them where ears should be. Finally we sewed buttons on for the eyes.

Then we raced horses. Fun.

Lucy's favorite part: Beiber posters for her room.

2010 Projects in Review

Projects from 2010

Fabric Strip Curtain, rug and curtains - Jan. 2010

Sun on a Snowy Day Wreath - Feb. 2010

Coffee Cup Rack - March 2010

Pretty Pots - March 2010

Plant Cell Cake - April 2010

Teacher gifts on the fly - May 2010

Summer Dresses - June 2010

Water Bottle Carrier - June 2010

Iron on wall "vinyls" - July 2010

Operation New Board - July 2010

Hang up laundry separators - Sept. 2010

Menu Board - Oct. 2010

Scary Spider Wreath - Oct. 2010

Hobby Horses - Oct. 2010

Menu Board

I found this coolio menu board tute. I used a frame I already had. I bought a metal sheet at Lowes and some cute little cutters. Adan cut it down to size for me. We primed it and painted it with spray paint primer and spray paint chalkboard paint (found at Michaels). I popped it into the frame, and woila! Handy Dandy menu board. Of course since I have made it, I can't find chalkboard chalk ANYWHERE!!!!

Scary Spider Wreath

This cutey pie wreath was just in time for Halloween. It was all dollar store items. I got a wreath that was like sticks intertwined.. not sure how to explain that, spanish moss, and plastic spider rings. I found the sign there, or maybe at Michaels.

I did a few things differently from the tutorial. i did not paint the spiders. I just got various colors and some skeletons and centipedes, and just glued them right on.

WARNING - The moss is helllllla messy. Put newspaper down on your work station.

Another warning - I actually found real spiders crawling on it at one point and was afraid to bring it back in the house. Realism, baby. We don't play around in this house.

Tute found here.

Hang up Laundry Separators

We have a tension shower curtain rod in our laundry room. As things come out of the dryer, I hang them up as needed. It was becoming a pain in the ass to figure out which was whose, and whose was which. So i got a nifty idea. At the store they have those round separators that divide the size 12 from the size 10 and so on. I needed some. So i made some.

Excuse the craptastic pictures. I guess I was shakey that day!

I made circles on a piece of cardboard.

I used a jumbo coffee cup for the big and a little bead container for the middle.

I cut out the circles and made a slit from the outer edge into the inner edge. Then, I wrote names on each circle

And then I slipped the circles onto the shower curtain rod. Taaaa daaaaa! Fancy and organized. (Oh, and I did turn the white one around so they all show brown.)

Iron on Wall "Vinyls"

I have always admired those cutesy wall sayings.
"Home, where your story begins"
"Splish, Splash, I was taking a bath"
You get the idea.

I really did not want to fork out $50+ to get fancy stick on wall sayings that I can't take with me when we move. Every tutorial I found online had to do with fancy cricut machines and vinyl sticky sheets. Stuff I don't have.

SO.... I found these instructions on how to do it yourself with out a fancy cricut.

Basically you use fabric to iron on your letters! I bonded the heatnbond to the fabric, cut out my letters, and then ironed them onto the wall. It was a pita getting them on the wall semi straight because the wall was not straight across... part of it was taller than others. I know.. that sounds like a lame excuse, but please consider that this house was built by the military.

And I am convinced i was holding the camera crooked when i took the picture. Yeah. That's it.

Operation New Board - Completed!

Remember the mission??

So... New board is done.  Thanks for the fabric input everyone. I ignored all your advice and went with the Revolutionary War toile because I will never ever ever use that fabric.  That fabric has been sitting alone and ignored in my fabric closet for 6 years.  Okay, not alone.  Sitting with 300 other cuts of fabric in the closet, but ignored by all of them.

I love it!!

Water Bottle Carrier

I have been walking with a friend, and I decided I needed something to carry my bottle and my cell phone.

I really just winged this pattern. I measured around my bottle and the height and i cut the pieces and sewed them together. The pocket was a bitch because canvas doesn't stretch much at all. Eventually I got it as close to good as I could and I called it quits. I already had the fabric and webbing, so it was a free project!

Operation New Board

My ironing board has given me a mission.

The mission is called Operation New Board.  Operation New Board consists of ironing board makeover a la Vain and Vapid.

The old board is icky. That hole has gotten huge and raggedy during the last 6 months.  The ironing board is crying out for a successful completion of this mission.

Your task is to help me pick the fabric to cover my ironing board.  All of this fabric is in my closet and begging to be chosen for this mission.

 
 Carebears










 Green






 Cream with Red flowers

 Blue with flowers

Toile with Revolutionary war scenes - cream with dk blue

American Flag (doy)

Camo in browns






This message will NOT self-destruct in 5 minutes.

Summer Dresses

Summer Dress time!

I made a pillow case dress. I hate making these. Pain in the ass. I hated doing those rolled hems.










Next I made some shirred dresses. These were so freaking easy that I made 10. I started out with this pattern, But it just wasn't really super understandable. Then I made one of these dresses (the first one, but I did a different fabric on top.) It wasn't quite right either. So.... I ended up with my own style of fun.

Basically I took a rectangle of fabric. I used the full width of fabric, and measured out the length i wanted, based upon where i wanted the dress to fall on Lucy. Sometimes I used a complementary color on top, or I used a color on top, a diff for the skirt, and then a strip of the top color at the hem.

I prepared the straps as in the SewMamaSew pattern. And then I attached the straps as in the pattern also, but I did not leave a casing for the elastic.

Next, I shirred the top, about 16-20 rows. I just used the pressure foot to measure the distance from the previous row. I did not sew especially straight, but you can't tell in the end.

Okay, after the shirring, I used the iron on a steam setting to shrink up the shirring. It still seems super big though.

Next, sew up the sides to make a tube with the shirring going around the top. Then hem the bottom.

The end.

Oh, to make this fit, wash and dry on high. It shrinks up super well.

Teacher gifts on the fly

Last night I realized that I needed teacher gifts ASAP! So, i found me some fabric, some extra apple jelly (yes, it is the trash jelly, shhhhh!), a Scentsy room spray, and a handmade heart shaped card. Oh yeah. All handmade. Cost = $0.00.

I basically winged the bag. Rectangle, sew up the sides, box the corners. The straps are rectangles with the sides ironed into the middle and then folded in half. I sewed it into the hem as I turned the hem on the top.

Plant Cell Cake

AJ's science project. Totally edible. I think this speaks for itself. HAHAHA

Pretty Pots

I made some cutie pie mosaic pots. It was pretty easy. First I taped off the top lip part of the pot and painted the bottom with chalk board paint. After it was dry I taped off the chalkboard paint part on the bottom so no grout would get on it. I used mosaic glue to glue pieces of tile on the top, close together, and then i glopped grout on the top. I used my fingers to make sure the grout went into all teh cracks and in between all the tiles. Then i took a damp sponge and wiped grout off the tiles and made sure it was all even and level-ish. Done!

I also made some non-grout type. They are just the flat bottom marbles from Walmart/dollar store. I got a huge amount of them on sale at Walmart when they ditched the craft department. I just glued them on. Done!

ETA winter was not kind to these pots. Most of the marbles fell off. Different glue is needed.

Coffee Cup Rack

I super love my new coffee cup rack! (That's, like, a huge amount of love) I made it yesterday and it was really easy. Okay, I didn't really make it. Adan did. He put up the bar, and he bent the forks. BUT it was my idea, and that counts, right? Okay, it wasn't my idea. I got it HERE

Sun on a Snowy Day

I love the soft feathery snowflakes of "dry" snow. I was driving home from my doctor appointment and the snow was falling towards my car. I felt like I was at Universal Studios in one of those 3D movies with the snowing jumping out of the screen to my face. My mesmerized staring at the snow hitting my windshield probably wasn't too safe though.

My new wreath is like a bright bit of sunshine on a dark and dreary day. It was so easy to make too. All you need is a styrofoam wreath and some fake flowers. Trim the stems off the flowers and then hot glue the flower heads onto the wreath, close together so you don't see any styrofoam in between the flowers. Glue a looped piece of ribbon on the back and VOILA! Bright and cheery wreath for your door!

I got all the supplies at Michael's but you might be able to find most of these things at your local dollar store.

Update to PVC bike rack

Don't be a cheapskate like me. Spend $5 on some PVC glue and glue your bike rack pieces together. If you try to save the dollars and just fit the pieces together, you will have a cute little pile of PVC pipe sticks with in 2 or 3 weeks.

Sharon's Photo Quilted Wall hanging

this pertains to 101 things #81 and the year of the FO.

Back in December, Sharon asked me to make this photo quilted wall hanging for her sister. Her brother and both parents died last year and it was something of a tribute to their memory. She wanted this for a Christmas present, but I only had 1 week to get it done and just did not finish. So it sat, half finished, in my craft room for 2 months. In March, she asked if I could have it done for the next trip she was making to visit her family. Here is her finished project. I am really happy with how it turned out, and most importantly she said she loved it and her sister loved it.

Knitted Shag Rag Rug Update

Update!! 3/20 This rug pattern came from a book called fast and fabulous low sew bathroom projects by Reader's Digest. This rug is neither fast nor very fun but i feel committed now. DARN IT! I am currently only working on this rug as i wait to pick up kids from school so I do MAYBE 2 rows per day. My goal for April is to finish this dastardly piece of no fun knitting so i can move on to something i might not hate.

New pic for ya! Please ignore my messy dining room table, and my shoes. I stood on a chair to take a pic from above. Yes, my tape measure is missing inches 1 - 3. I burned them with the iron. I don't like beginnings. The rug currently measures about 25 inches wide by about 9 inches long. After 6 weeks. I rock.