Handy Pants

Books of 2011

2012-02-09T11:04:00.000-08:00

SOOOO I just realized that I have a HALF COMPLETED list of books from 2011 on my sidebar....what a loser I am sometimes. I always have great intentions, but then life happens and the kids eat cat poop, or break my glasses in half, or dump nutella all over my floor, or unroll a roll of toilet paper and then try to flush it down the toilet. AND THEN I forget all about my little blog and keeping it up to date. SOOO although it is OVER a month behind schedule (and mostly just for me), here is the list of books I read in 2011. I must start out by saying that last year I read 39 books and this year only 25....BUMMER!!! I guess having kid # 2 took up a little bit of my spare time:)
* = my favorites!!

1. The Amish Midwife--Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould
2. The Wildflower Bride--Mary Connealy
*3. Heartless--Anne Elisabeth Stengl
4. Slay It With Flowers---Kate Collins
5. The Linen Queen--Patricia Falvey
6. Journey To Riverbend---Henry McLaughlin
*7. Wench---Dolen Perkins-Valdez
8. Real Simple Solutions---Real Simple Magazine
9. 365 Activities You And Your Toddler Will Love--Nancy Wilson Hall
10. Baby Love--Norah O'Donnell
11. The One Minute Cleaner--Donna Smallin
**12. A Distant Melody---Sarah Sundin
**13. A Memory Between Us---Sarah Sundin
14. Something Borrowed--Emily Giffin
*15. Nowhere Carolina--Tamara Leigh
16. The Girl In The Gatehouse--Julia Klassen
**17. The Forgotten Garden---Kate Morton
18. Rachel's Secret---BJ Hoff
19. Where Grace Abides---BJ Hoff
20. Beside Still Waters---Tricial Goyer
21. Love Finds You in Pedleton Oregon---Melody Carlson
*22. The Shape of Mercy--Susan Meissner
**23. The Tea Rose--Jennifer Donnelly
**24. The Winter Rose--Jennifer Donnelly
**25. The Winter Sea---Susan Kearsley

A book every 2 weeks isn't bad, but to keep myself sane, I am going to aim for 40 in 2012:)

A little of this and a little of THAT!!!

2012-02-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

SOOO first things first....I took the week off from weighing in. I had a CRAFTING RETREAT this weekend and so I decided to enjoy myself rather than counting calories. I will weigh in again next week and see what harm I did my eating catered food and LOTS of candy:) Who knows...maybe the dozen chocolate chip cookies I ate last night will ACTUALLY eat the fat cells...I am not a scientist, but it could happen!!!

Speaking of my retreat...I am already looking forward to next year. I had a BLAST!!! I was hoping to get a quilt top done, but only finished 2/3 or the blocks. I did get a sideache from laughing and a headache from staying up until 2 in the morning. So I guess I was a little productive:) I also used my sewing machine...which was a big step since I have been a NON sewer for WAY too long. I cannot remember the last quilt I worked on (sad I know), but I DO know that I got the fire started again and I will NOT be taking a long break again for a WHILE!!!
ANDDDD last but not least...the first completed book of the year!!!

The Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly. This is the 3rd book in her ROSE series. I FLEW throught the first 2, but this one took me MUCH longer to get in to. Her writing was as good, but I was not LOVING the characters. They ALL had a bad side, so I had a hard time choosing who I would root for. I didn't even know WHO I wanted to end up staying together in the end...I actually hoped for a few of them to die so that I would not have to hear about all of their troubles any more. BUT all in all despite my disgust with the character's choices, I would give a thumbs up.
This book was about Seamie...the last brother in the Finnegan family. He made an appearance in book 2 where he climbs Kilimanjaro with the girl he loves(Willa) and then she falls and destroys her leg, which later has to be amputated. She blames him for losing her leg and leaves him in Africa. THIS book picks up when he returns to London and SHE is at Mt. Everest. He is moving on with his life (and his pregnant wife) when Willa returns to London for her father's funeral. Everything goes down hill at that point for EVERYONE. Everyone is telling lies. Everyone is sneaking around. EVERYONE drove me nuts!!! PLUS WWI is about to break out and there are spies and mobsters running around making trouble. If you have read the Tea Rose and The Winter Rose, you should for sure pick up where you left off and read the conclusion of the story. It is nice to know what has happened to ALL of the other characters that we have gotten to know in the other books. Now it is time to MOVE ON and find a new book to leave on my nighstand for 2 months:)

Weigh in Wednesday

2012-02-01T21:38:00.000-08:00

SOOOO I had a bit of a FAIL week this week. Somwhere along the way I ate at McDonalds, ice-cream was involved in one of my days, a high school basketball game with candy and popcorn made an appearance...oh wait that was all SATURDAY!!! UGHHH. Then like always I felt like I had already screwed up so I might as well give up for the week. I KNOW I KNOW!!! STUPID!!! BUT all in all it turned out ok. I LOST 1 pound. WOHOO!!! Not as great as last week, but better than gaining TWO right??? I LOVED the comments, emails, messages, and phone calls I got this week. TONS of support THANKS!! I also loved hearing everyone's advice and feedback, so KEEP IT COMING. It really does help to know that I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE. Which is why I took the advice of TWO OF YOU LOVELY GALS and started using MYFITNESSPAL again.

I have used it on and off before, but never with friends. SOOO right now I only have one friend. If you wanna be my weight loss buddy (hahaha) just shoot me an email!!! I also agreed somewhere in my crazed ice-cream eating madness to do a 5K (note I said do and not run---no guarantees!!!).

I had a few new snack finds this week. MY FAVORITE...

Sweet Chili Quakes mini rice cakes. OH MY GOODNESS. They are like really good healthy(er) Doritos. I am in love with these right now. LOVE!!

Not quite as much love, but still a pretty good crush going on the white cheddar rice cakes. They are fine plain, but REALLY good with avacado smushed on them...YUM!! I mean what isn't good with some smushed avacado????

I am also loving SWISS MISS DIET cocoa. I mean 25 calories....how can you not love that??? It works great when I am down to the end of my calories, but do not want to go to bed yet....LATE NIGHT CHOCOLATE. Just do not drink the regular stuff EVER AGAIN and you will not remember what you are missing :)

And I tried a new workout---since I had done Jillian's all of ONE darn time (I suck), I decided to try Bob. The Biggest Loser Power Walk video. I REALLY like working out with the chubby Biggest Loser people more than the SKINNY TONED gals in the regular videos. I feel like I am the top of the class..haha!!! Plus it is walking, but with some KICK. I like that you walk a mile, get sweaty, and can carry around a toddler while you do it. That is kind of the barometer at my house right now...can my howler monkey child cling to my neck while I do it???? SUCCESS!!

How did you all do??? This weeks goal....stop eating so MUCH of all my healthy snacks...Because a bag of rice cakes a day is probably NOT a good weight loss tool!!!

Itty Bitty Bag (sleeping bag tutorial)

2012-01-29T22:09:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas (when I still had contact with my sewing machine), I made a little Itty Bitty sleeping bag for Emersyn's BFF (and her Bitty Baby). Em has been bugging me to make one for her dollies, so I thought I better go back to my pictures and write down what I did so that I do not have to re-invent the wheel when I decide to be a good mommy and make her one.

SOOO here is a SUPER quick rundown of what I did. BTW...this would be GREAT for a kid's sleeping bag too, you would just need to increase the length of the fabric to fit your kiddo!!

I started with 3/4 yards of two coordinating fabrics. I could have made this smaller, but 3/4 is the cuts that I had, so I just went simple and left it. I also used selvage to selvage and didn't cut, but you could make it much smaller if you wanted to use less fabric. Next I used spray adhasive to make a quilt sandwich. SOOO fabric--batting---fabric. There are lots of online tutorials for that if you are not a quilter.

Next, I quilted straight lines about every 8 inches. I used the lines between the flowers and just eye balled it. SOO do not look closely because it is SUPER crooked. If you wanted to skip the quilting step, you could buy pre-quilted fabric OR use fleece. If using fleece you would only need ONE piece because you would not need to use batting and lining. Honestly, that might be the way to go:)

After quilting I cut the edges even and serged around all four sides. Serging is optional, it just keeps the edges looking clean.

Next, I took one SHORT end and folded it down and ironed it.

THEN I folded it over again to make a cute border at the top of the bag.

I top stitched along the inner edge.

AND then again along the outer edge.

THEN, I folded in one of the LONG edges and top stitched along the inner edge.

Last, I sewed the velcro along the entire LONG edge that you just sewed down. DISCLAIMER....I have yet to find a way to sew velcro on and have it look clean and pretty and straight. SOOO go with it and get it on there. Remember this is for a doll:) Repeat along the other side with the other side of the velcro. After you have both velcro pieces on, close your bag with right sides together and sew the bottom closed. SOOO you are putting right sides together and sewing along the last SHORT edge of the sleeping bag. THEN just flip it right side out. and your bag is DONE.

I used two pieces of bias tape (ribbon would work better) to make straps. I just sewed BOTH pieces to ONE of the top edges of the bag about 1/4 of the way in from the edge.

ALLL ready for a slumber party!!!

Then you can just fold it up and take it along....just like a BIG GIRL sleeping bag.

Trust me...Your baby doll with be SUPER happy to have her own little sleeping bag. AND YOUR little DOLL will LOVE you for making something cute for her dolly:)

Weigh in Wednesday....except a little late on THURSDAY!!

2012-01-26T10:59:00.000-08:00

OKKK. So I was SUPER busy yesterday and didn't have time to check in. I DID have time to weigh in though and the results were good. I lost 2.5 pounds and couldn't be happier. This coming up week is busy too, so I am going to stick to the same game plan. I was only able to work out once...although I don't know if 20 minutes interruped 3 times by crying baby counts as much of a work out. I DID eat much healthier and I think that is the key for me.
A few things I tried that I liked:
Chocolate Cruch Rice Cakes!!! I ALWAYS want some chocolate after the stress of putting my kids to sleep, and these are perfect for me. A little chocolate, but no guilt:) They are also FAB with a little peanutbutter smeared on. YUM!!!

Lemon and Lime water!! I have a hard time making myself drink enough during the day. SOOO I added a little lemon or lime to my water and I LOVED it!!! PLUS it kept my kids from drinking my water all day...SCORE!!

Jillian Micheals 30 Day Shred. I only did it one day, so I guess that is probably why I liked it:) But it was quick and the kids could do it along with me. PLUS I was sore the next day (3 days), so that means it worked (or would if I had done it more times).

So week one was a success. Now I just need about 5 more weeks of THE SAME THING!!! Does anyone else have a success story or tips to share???? Here's to another healthy week....

What I want--Weekend Report

2012-01-21T09:07:00.000-08:00

Once again it is the weekend. AND once again my kid has failed to sleep. He DID successfully cry for about 2 hours last night around 2 though, so I got some blurry eyed internet shopping time in. Here are a few of my favorites this week.

This argyle quilt pattern from etsy. It looks fun and easy and PERFECT for a boy. It is so hard to find cute boy patterns. Plus I love the fabric choices on the one in the picture....so cute. I guess before I start buying quilt patterns again I will actually have to START sewing again. BLAHHH...I am sick of sleepless nights of babies...(ok complaints over).

Next was another BOY pattern. I think this Boy's cardigan sweater pattern is so super cute. I can imagine this in grey or brown for church...LOVE IT!!! I also love this SHOP on etsy. I have made a few of the Dear My Kids patterns and they always turn out super cute.

A took a quick stroll through The Fat Quarter Shop and found this cute fabric line, A Walk In The Woods. I love the VINTAGE feel of this sweet little fabric. **sidenote** I was reading Little Red Riding Hood to Emersyn the other day from a book we got at the library. When it got to the part where the wolf goes to the Grandma's house, he ate her. The picture showed the wolf with Granny's legs sticking out. Emersyn's eyes got ENORMOUS and she looked at me like WHAT??? I just kept reading and then Little Red Riding did the whole...Big eyes...Big nose thing and then the wolf ATE HER TOO!!! What?? I was like...this is NOT the same story my mommy told me. Poor Emersyn by then was gettting a little fidgety (understandable). Then the wood cutter came and KILLED THE WOLF and cut him open with his axe...Seriously people this was a kid's book. THEN the Granny and Little Red jump out of his tummy and live happily ever after. Emersyn just looked up at me and said "I don't want to read that book anymore." YEAH I guess!!! I doubt she is going to be hopping off the Grandma's anytime soon either....poor girl!! Ok...sidenote over:)

Last on my list, a group of Pyrex bowls from Etsy. I have orange and red in my house and REALLY want to add more color to my kitchen. I will be keeping my eyes open when I got thrifting though because if I spent 90 bucks on bowls my husband would wonder about my sanity.

Well there you have it. What do you have YOUR eye on these days??? Does it include CHOCOLATE because I am REALLY having some cravings!!!;)

A few healthy printable coupons!!!

2012-01-19T08:43:00.000-08:00

To help on my QUEST for a healthier new year, I am always searching for YUMMY products that are also HEALTHY!!! Blogspark has provided me with 2 coupon links to share with my readers, so YOU can also start the year off healthy. First off Whole Grains. We all know we need them, but where do we find them??? Well I recently learned that you should look for cereals that list WHOLE GRAINS as the first ingredient (not sugar--bummer). Helpful Hint---look for the white check mark. Cereals with the white check have whole grains as the first ingredient...how handy!!!

Blogspark has provided THIS link for a coupon. $1.75 off of TWO boxes with the white check. SOO click the link below and start saving!!!
http://www.myblogspark.com/uc/main/d537/

Next up, SMOOTHIES. I mentioned earlier that I am going to start drinking green smoothies in order to stay healthy and lose weight. My kids see me drinking smoothies and of course want some too. They tolerate my SPINACH ones once in a while, but they really love the GOOD KIND, like the YOPLAIT yummy delicious ones. Blogspark has also provided a link for $1.00 off of Yoplait frozen smoothies. WE ARE BIG FANS OF THESE. Just pop it in the blender and YUM!!!! AND now they have a chocolate banana flavored one. CANNOT WAIT!!! SO click below for $1.00 off. I am going to keep mine for DOUBLERS at Albertsons and hopefully score some super cheap CHOCOLATE flavored ones!!!
http://www.myblogspark.com/uc/main/707b/

SOOO join me and print off some healthy coupons for GOOD healthy snacks!!!!

These coupons have both been provided by BLOGSPARK.

Weight Loss Wednesday!!

2012-01-18T22:14:00.000-08:00

SOOOO today was THE day. The day that I woke up...looked in the mirror....and decided ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH!!!! I am tired of BEING tired of needing to lose weight. So today I am going to START OVER!!! A year ago (minus one month) I looked like this....

WOW!!! I know!!! I am that person who gains 75 pounds when they are pregnant. THE PROBLEM...my babies only weigh 9 pounds (Not 73). That leaves me a little bit of work. I have done MOST of the work, but there are 10 darn pounds that just WILL NOT LEAVE and unfortunately there is not another 9 pounder hanging out it there!!

SOOO I have decided to take it public. NOTHING has kept me motivated thus far. It is almost February and I am still eating like it is Christmas Eve. SOOO I thought....WHAT IF I POST IT FOR ALL TO SEE??? I figure I cannot lie about it if EVERYBODY KNOWS. SOOO here is the post. I am going to weigh in EVERY Wednesday (regardless of how my week went) and post my result on THIS blog. Let me clarify... I will post what I lost or gained...not the actual weight. I DO have SOME pride left!!!

Here is my plan:

*EAT LESS!!! I know...mind boggling.

*limit my intake of sugar and bread (I would give it up, but that ALWAYS leads to a HUGE relapse).

*NO food after dinner. I am a late night person....and with those midnight activities I OFTEN enjoy a little snack. NO MORE!!!

*Drink more water!!!

*NO FAST FOOD...even if my kids are eating there.

*Make good choices. FOR EXAMPLE...when I go to restaurants I like to eat like there is no tomorrow and eat the WORST (best) things on the menu. I am going to try to make good choices EVEN when I am not at home.

*I am not going to promise to exercise....I would, but MY KID DOES NOT SLEEP (period). I am not sure why, but I have insomniac children. Often after putting little E to sleep, I have to GO BACK and put him to sleep every 30-45 minutes until I go to bed. Then he wakes up and I give up and bring him to my bed (where we BOTH don't sleep). It is NO BUENO!!! That is an excuse I know, but when Baby doesn't sleep, it makes it hard to go out to the garage to the treadmill...because then he wakes and I lose momentum and get angry and NEVER DO IT AGAIN!!! So I WILL TRY TO WORK OUT (fingers crossed).

*Last but not least....SMOOTHIES. Before Christmas I was doing well and eating healthy and EVERY morning I was drinking a GREEN SMOOTHIE. Yucky sounding, but TASTY!!! Of course I found the recipe on PINTEREST, but I pretty much just add what I want. It REALLY did make me feel better and help me lose weight...that is BEFORE the Christmas COOKIES arrived:) SO I am gonna try that again!!!

Ok...that is it...THE PLAN!!! If you wanna join me feel free to comment on your success. I would LOVE to hear of somebody suffering along with me:) Wish me luck. GOODBYE 10 POUNDS of YUCK....I WILL NOT MISS YOU!!!

What I WANT....Weekend Report

2012-01-14T22:58:00.000-08:00

Ok... So I have a sick kid. Which means I have been spending WAY too much time sitting in my rocking chair with cranky pants with nothing to occupy my time by the iPad. It also means I have been eating chocolate chips straight from the bag and watching WAY TO MANY cartoons. But I digress...I have found a few items that I have kinda fallen in love with. OR at least a small crush, so I thought I would share. FIRST off....

This is an etsy find. A seriously cute diaper bag that doesn't ACTUALLY look like a diaper bag. I am loving the chevron fabric, the yellow, the big button AND the fact that it is handmade. So lovely.

NEXT...is a killer pair of Spring shoes. I realize it is still the middle of Winter, but since there is no snow maybe I can pull off wedges. What do ya think???

What if they were these super cute wedges from MAURICES???? Again with the yellow. YUM!!!

I am also a little SWOONY for this Desert Rose bracelet from Shabby Apple. I love the coral color SO MUCH!!! PLUS it is so big and unique....vintage-ey!!! PLUS I noticed that Shabby Apple has a coupon code on their site for 20 percent off EVERYTHING. I LOVE a discount!!!

Last I found another ETSY love. These You Are My Sunshine prints. This is my favorite song for 2 reasons. 1. This is an adopted family song. A favorite of my grandparents, cousins, aunts, EVERYONE. It has even been sung at multiple family funerals. It makes me think of my sweet Grandma Louise, which INSTANTLY makes me happy. AND 2. I sing this song to my kids DAILY. It puts them to sleep. It makes me happy. WIN WIN!!! Anyway...it is a personal favorite and I ADORE the way they divided the lyrics up into mulitple prints. I REALLY want to get myself motivated to make my own printable in boy colors and themes for Ethan's room. HMMMMM?????

And in my sleep deprived, stir crazy, snot cleaning existence, THAT IS WHAT I WANT THIS WEEKEND!!!

The most important things...games and food:)

2012-01-14T21:48:00.000-08:00

Here is another Paparazzi Party post, so feel free to skip now:) I just wanted to share all of the SUPER FUN we had!!! First off THE GAME. I usually dislike party games because they are awkward and I NEVER win. SOOO I only wanted to have a game if I thought it was fun, easy to understand, and WIN-able. Here is what I came up with.

It is KINDA like a Christmas Gift Exchange type thing.

FIRST, I took a brown bag for each person expected at the party. I added 1 piece of jewelry (the prizes) to 3 of the bags. Then I added other random items to the rest of the bag. Q-tips, candies, plastic spoons, sprinkles, pencils, paper clips, you get the idea. Emersyn even added my extra van keys to one bag...so whatever works!!

THEN each person gets a bag. They are not allowed to look in the bag, but they can shake it. Then when everyone has a bag, they get the chance to switch. SOOOO if they do not think they have a prize, they can trade with someone else. If they DO think they have a prize, they can keep it. BUT someone will probably steal it anyway. I did it so that everybody switches however many times and all at once. Just a big fruit basket of trading. Clearly you could get more particular with rules. LIKE go in a circle and trade, etc. I DID say that if someone wants to trade you MUST give up your bag. But then you can always trade back later. ANYWAY..this went on for a few minutes. Then I did a countdown (with mass last minute trading) and then stopped the switching.

One thing I will do now is ask for those who think they ended up with a prize---then have them look and see what they got. THEN have everyone else check. I am sure there would be some surprises.

This was fun, quick, and even my 3 year old understood. ALTHOUGH she was THRILLED when she had purple and blue plastic spoons in her bag...so maybe she didn't REALLY understand.

Moving on to food. I honestly think that food is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of a party. BUT it seemed that most people just wanted water and jewelry...who can blame them????

I am so glad I decided to bling up the water. Super easy 10 minute fix-up, super cute payoff. I LOVED THEM!!!!

My NEW favorite party food...chocolate popcorn balls. SERIOUSLY...these should be called ADULT popcorn balls or something. They are like balls of crack!!! I got the recipe from PINTEREST of course. It is a PAULA DEAN original and BOMB DIGGITY!!! I called my friend for help, so tecnically SHE made them, but she said it was simple. I DID eat most of them and I totally recommend. IN FACT, I am pretty sure I now have scurvy from maintaining a diet of JUST chocolate popcorn balls for over 24 hours. But YOU'RE RIGHT..that is a personal problem. OH YEAH....I added pink M&M's and they are really the secret ingredient. They stayed KINDA melty for a while and it REALLY added the perfect gooey chocolatey touch....YUM!!!

NEXT, chocolate fruit dip. Clearly I have a problem ladies...but chocolate is just soooo good!!! This is the EASIEST dip ever. Just 1 cup of GREEK YOGURT and 1/2 cup of NUTELLA. SOOO GOOD!!! AND it lasts in the fridge. SOOO if you come down with a case of scurvy and need to eat some fruit...your chocolate dip will be right there for your healthy eating needs:)

Have a great weekend YA'll and SERIOUSLY go and make the popcorn balls. Your fat jeans in the back of the closet will thank you....

My New Venture

2012-01-13T22:33:00.000-08:00

I recently decided to start a new chapter in my life. BECAUSE it just wasn't hectic enough...haha!!! I was in search of a NIGHT OUT idea and some how stumbled upon Paparazzi Accessories. One thing led to another and within about a day I had decided to become a consultant. It has been a fun little journey so far. I have built displays, planned a party, fallen in love with jewelry even more than I was before, AND made multiple solo trips to Home Depot (pretty impressive I know). AND I have been having a blast. SOOOO this post is just a little bit about what I have been up to lately....

My first stop on this adventure was at Value Village. I LOVE THAT PLACE. I found tons of cute stuff to use for my displays. Only half of it has ACTUALLY gotten put to use yet, but when my spray painting finger stops being numb....watch out!!! OK. My Displays. I got the idea from HERE and they worked great!!! I decided to paint two black and one silver....the black jewelry didn't REALLY show up as good on the black board.

Meet LOLA. I found her at TJ MAXX and knew that I could not leave her behind. She is purely decorative...by that is ok for a REAL lady:)

When the nice people at Lowe's were done cutting my pegboard for me there was a LITTLE bit left over. I decided to make a mini display and it worked fantastic for my Little Girl hair accessories.

I found THIS ugly mirror at Value village and sprayed it with METALLIC spray paint. That stuff rocks.

This isn't a great picture. The frame now is really bright and sparkly...you know metallic:)

For the headbands, I used 2 pedestals that I had previously found at VV and then used 2 different tops. ONE is a wine holder that I found also at VV. What were the odds that they would have a zebra print wine holder....but it worked out. I just tipped it upside down and voila. The 2nd is an old oatmeal container. I sprayed it with spray adhesive and then wrapped it in zebra wrapping paper (also from TJ MAXX). When I was taking this picture I noticed that I forgot to cover the top, but I took care of that RIGHT before the guests arrived!!! I saw a few of those wine holders at the dollar store also, if you are in the market. This would work great in a little girls room to hold all those darn hair things. You could also hold brushes and stuff inside...

I found this super cute display box at TJ MAXX too. It fit my Starlet Shimmer earrings so cute. I love those things. I wish I let Emersyn wear real earrings because I LOVE the butterflies:)

I do not have a HUGE living room, so I decided to go with a L shape. It worked good since people could be on both sides of the table, PLUS walk around and talk to each other OVER and AROUND the displays. Check out Emerysn's hand...it is pretty much in every picture. She just cannot stop touching the jewelry. She cannot believe that we have SOOO much and thinks it is our personal stash:)

Shopping baskets from THE DOLLAR STORE. These helped A LOT. My sister had her's full the day before the party:)

I could not help myself and I even Paparazzified the water. Once you start.....

Here is the check out station...aka my kitchen counter:) I got an old cork board at VV and covered it with...yep you guessed it...zebra wrapping paper. I spray painted the frame pink (clearly I did that first) and then used a little picture stand I got at the dollar store. I love it. I know I say that A LOT...but I really do LOVE IT!!! LOVE!!! Anyway...I suck and didn't even get my messages put on it. It was going to have nice little info about hosting and stuff...maybe next time:) I also got a small and large accordion file at VV. They were both brand new and BOTH PINK. Again...what are the odds. I used the large one for paperwork, receipts, etc. I used the small one as my cash box. For now it worked out.

And what MAY be my favorite part. My pens. I found these pink flowers at VV and could NOT leave them behind. SOOO I cut them off and hot glued them to the tops of a couple pens (strangely harder than it sounds by the way). I had a BUNCH of pens in there, but with the 3 pretty ones, you don't even notice the ugly ones:)

The box was from Tuesday Mornings. They had ALL sorts of sizes and shapes, and it took WAY too long for me to decide on this one, but now it is my fave. Just looking at its cuteness makes me happy. PLUS it has a handle so it is easy to transport.

It held my bags and tissue paper and such, but works great for transporting ALL of my checkout stuff. And since it has a handle....Yep....I LOVE IT!!!

ANDDDD last but not least. Another Thrifty find. I bought this large plastic tote for like 30 cents. It was missing ONE handle, so I popped off the OTHER handle and tied on some ribbon. Bing Bang Boom it carries my supplies.

I still have 4 or 5 more VV finds that need some sprucing, but as you can see I was a little busy. Last night was party number one and it was SOOO FUN!!! I cannot wait to do it again. Anyone wanna come over so I can have a party and show you my (and Emersyn's) stash!!!!

Baby its cold outside...

2012-01-08T22:33:00.000-08:00

Well I finally have all remnants of Christmas decorations purged from my house (I think), and I am having troubles figuring out what to decorate for next. The stores are all full of Valentines Day stuff, but I am not feeling VALENTINE-EY yet. I had a naked mantle for a few days, but it really started to bother me after a while. SOOOO I decided I NEEDED to figure out something WINTER-ey, but without the Christmas stuff mixed in. SOOOO I went back to the basics....pre-school style.

I found THIS site that had templates for snowflakes and it worked like a champ. Perfect snowflakes and SUPER easy. I added a few snowflakes onto a long piece of embroidery thread and VOILA...a WINTER banner.

I also found YET another way to FREE-ly use a free printable from PINTEREST. There are so darn many on there, I just cannot resist them. I decided on THIS one...since most of my extra winter decor ended up being snowmen. I printed it out. grabbed some scrapbooking paper. And THEN I taped the scrapbooking paper to the cover of a book. I used a childrens' book because I like the short stocky shape. It works great because it stands up on its own and is nice and hard and sturdy.

I also cut a thin strip and taped it to the spine to cover up the writing. I think THIS is my favorite method so far. Free, easy, and EVERYTHING I need is right in my house. PERFECT!!!

SOOO I have successfully made it look like winter INSIDE my house, but the OUTSIDE is not quite as easy to convice:)

And the winner is....

2012-01-06T00:29:00.000-08:00

<p><br /> The numbers generated by this widget come from RANDOM.ORG's true random number generator.<br /> </p>

I add this cute little guy to my blog tonight. I am not gonna lie...I think he is adorable, fun, and I wish I had MORE random numbers to generate. If it wasn't so late....I would find something else to generate randomness for...

ANYWAY....I had a total of 48 comments and the winning number was number 45. AND it was a last minute entry who won. I guess waiting until 11:30 was a good strategy, because our last and final entry....number 45....MS. Marcie Koch is the winner of the SHABBY APPLE awesome KEY TO WONDERLAND necklace.

Good Reads!!!

2012-01-06T00:18:00.000-08:00

You know how they say that you cannot judge a book by its cover. WELLL sometimes I think that is crap. I ALMOST always judge a book by its cover. If I hate the cover...I leave it at the library. This time my TIME HONORED test of picking books by their cover SERIOUSLY paid off. I found a WHOLE series of books that I like.

First off, THE TEA ROSE by Jennifer Donnelly.

There is no REAL way to summarize this book because it has SOOO much going on in it, but here is a wee bit about it. It is about Fiona, who is POOR and lives in Whitechapel, England (during the time of Jack the Ripper), in the early 1900's. She works at a tea factory, but saves some of her earnings to SOMEDAY own a tea shop with her boyfriend Joe. Sadly, things start to go badly and Fiona loses just about everything and everyone who is important to her. She is forced to flee to America with her little brother and begin a new life. Things start to look up in America, but I don't want to ruin it for your:)
Keeping with my new RATING system from last year...this would not be a G-rated book. I am thinking it would be pushing the PG-13. There are a couple of reasons....1. These people are poor, working class, Irish and English folks. They use the typical OLD SCHOOL working class, PUB typle language. Got me??? There are also a few parts where you might need to cover your eyes...AKA skip a few paragraphs. ORRR not...UP TO YOU:) I knew that going into this book, so I was not surprised or turned off by the writing, but YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

I guess I forgot to mention that I LoVeD the TEA ROSE. LOVED!!! There were parts where I was LIKE...Nuh UH, they did not just kill him off!!!...BUT all in all I loved the story and the suspense. SOOOO I read the second book in the series...THE WINTER ROSE. I also loved it and could not put it down...although I must asmit that the cover didn't do as much for me:) This book focus MORE on Fiona's brother and Doctor Indiana Selwyn Jones. India is a lady doctor (one of the first...when things like that were JUST NOT DONE). She leaves her RICH parents, goes to medical school, and decides to work in Whitechapel helping the poor. She meets Sid Malone, a notorious criminal and instead of hating his guts she....kinda likes him. He is sort of a Robin Hood...stealing from the rich and helping the poor. Some of my favorite parts of this book...their travels through Africa, mountain climbing on Kilimanjaro, and of course the suspense. AGAIN....Not a G-rating...just sayin.
If you are a Historical Fiction fan and if you like a little romance mixed into your History...AND you don't mind a little RISK-AY in your reading then I recommend this (even though I swore off RISK-AY in 2011...shhh!!).

My last read of 2011 was THE WINTER SEA by Susanna Kearsley. I REALLY liked this book too. AND it was PG, so I guess I redeemed myself. This book is HARD to explain, so here goes. There are TWO different stories told. Story One is told by Carrie in modern day. She is an author who is drawn to a Scottish castle as the setting of her next book. She begins to feel VERY connected to the story, almost like the caracters are TELLING her what to write. Story TWO is about Sofia (the main character in Carrie's book). She is living in 1706, IN the Scottish castle. Get it???? The stories are very intertwined and JUST when you get drawn into one character's story....you get switched back to the OTHER. This was a GREAT book....I LOVED the history, the romance, AND the Scottish accents:)

I am toooooo tired to sludge through last years book and whip up my LIST of 2011 completed books, so that will be a post for another day...Hopefully tomorrow!!!

The Best of 2011

2011-12-31T14:22:00.000-08:00

****Don't forget to enter the Shabby Apple Giveaway HERE!!!****

I often find myself thinking. WHAT THE HECK DID I ACCOMPLISH TODAY??? Usually the list is LESS than impressive.

My kids are fed and (moderately) happy.
My house is still standing, although tentatively.
I am not wearing sweats.

Yep. That is pretty much the list.

SOOOO I have decided to make a list of the top 11 posts and projects of this year. Now I know my posts are all quivering with excitement wondering which ones will make the list….this is how I decided. 1. Top viewed links. 2. Top commented on links. 3. MY favorites :) Because my opinion matters ON THIS BLOG!! So here is the BEST of HANDYPANTS for 2011.

1. From Onesie to Diaper Cover—For the 2nd year in a row, this is the number one viewed link on my blog. I guess re-purposing old onesies into NEW dresses with matching ruffle butt diaper covers is popular these days!!!

2. Dora Backpack—Another re-purpose. Using an old sweatshirt to make a new FABULOUS Backpack. Perfect for all of those EXPLORERS out there!!

3. Scarlett O’Hara skirts—Just like Scarlett, I re-purposed curtains to make some cute little girl skirts. No hemming!!! So simple!!!

4. Shortie Skirt and bandana shorts---Just like last year I could not stop sewing with bandanas. I am glad I looked back to remember this one because soon it will be skirt weather again and I will need to make A BUNCH of these skirts with built in shorts---perfect summer attire for a 3 year old. (Although THIS summer she will be FOUR…sniff sniff!!!)

5. Peppermint Sugar Scrub (with Printable Tags)

6. Re-purposed Winter Attire—This post was 3 re-fashions in one. How to make a cowl scarf from a thrifted sweater. How to make faux leg-warmers from sweater sleeves. AND how to re-fashion a winter hat. BTW…I am still LOVING my leg warmers…best re-fashion for mommy YET!!!

7. Easy re-fashioned skirt

8. Maternity Sweat Pants---because sometimes even SWEATS just are not comfortable enough:)

9. How to clean a flat top stove---There must be a LOT of messy cooks out there JUST LIKE ME..haha!!

10. Toddler Sheet FIX. How to add elastic to a toddler sheet so that it WILL STAY PUT!!! Can I just rant here for a second…oh right…it is MY blog. I had to change the name of this post AND edit out a few words because I was noticing that Dirty Pervs were finding this post by typing inappropriate searches into google. Totally makes me both ANGRY and SICK. I mean seriously… (rant over)!!

11. AND finally….The Vested Onesie. This was not my original idea, but it is by far my FAVORITE creation of the year (besides the cute little guy wearing it…that was a pretty good one too!!)

AND because we cannot craft ALL THE TIME…here is the MOST VIEWED NON-CRAFTING post. LIFE IN THE MOTHERHOOD, my ~~rant~~ opinions on MOTHERHOOD. Just in case you need a good New Years LAUGH:)

GOODBYE 2011…Its been fun!!!

In case you missed out on last years fun…here is the top 10 of 2010!!!

Shabby Apple Giveaway!!!

2011-12-29T16:45:00.000-08:00

You know as you start to grow up...get older...have kids...and just CHANGE???? You want to stop dressing like a teenager or a college kid and express your own style. Less going with the flow and MORE desire to be your OWN person. The person that you ALWAYS wanted to be but just hadn't let out yet. Well that is where I am right now. I am ready to be ME. A little quirky, mixed with some vintage flair, and a HUGE dash of awesome:) At least that is the goal. Clearly I might be rambling right now....

(Fitzgerald dress by Shabby Apple)

On to more important things. Have you ever heard of Shabby Apple??? Well they recently contacted me about having a giveaway on this blog, and after taking a look (which may or may not have lasted for 3 hours) at their site, I was like....YES PLEASE!!! Shabby Apple offers vintage inspired dresses, beautiful little girl dresses, amazing jewelry and accessories, and much more (even swimwear). And the best part....their clothing is beautiful, feminine, AND modest. LOVE THAT!!!!
Here are a few of my ABSOLUTE favorites...I am thinking maybe some of my Christmas money may have just found a new home!!!

Like this black SALERNO bathing suit.

Seriously...A non fitted bathing suit....why have I not heard of this before???? LOVE IT!!! Maybe I need to buy one and head off to Rome....just sayin!!!

The MIRAGE bracelet

There are so many lovely vintage inspired pieces at Shabby Apple, but this one I KNOW I could REALLY get some use out of. Dress it up. Dress it down. Wear it naked for all I care, JUST WEAR IT!!!

AND finally...

The ATLANTIC FOG dress.

Cute huh???? Ok....I lied. One more. Because they also have super cute boutique style toddler dresses

Like this AVIARY dress. The little girl dresses are so sweet. They are the dresses that we ALL want to make for our little girls but just don't have the time or skill:)

Ok.Ok...enough about me. Now it is time for a little bit about YOU!!!

First off, if you do not wanna wait for a giveaway, or saw something you liked too much to ignore....Shabby Apple has generously given a 10% off coupon code to HandyPants readers. Just enter "handypants10off" when purchasing and SAVE AWAY!!! This code will expire on JANUARY 30TH, so SHOP TODAY!!!

AND FINALLY....Shabby Apple has agreed to give away THIS beautiful KEY TO WONDERLAND necklace to one HANDYPANTS reader.

HOW TO ENTER:

1st entry:

Head over to www .shabbyapple.com and look around for a while. Pick your favorite item and then come back here and leave me a comment.

Giveaway closes Thursday January 5th at 11:59 pm (PST).

For MORE additional entries you can do ONE or ALL of the following:

1. Like Shabby Apple on Facebook (lots of promotions and discounts over there) and then leave me a comment.

2. Become a follower of HandyPants or let me know that you already are.

3. Blog about this giveaway and then leave me a comment (please include the link).

4. Mention this giveaway on Facebook and leave me a comment.

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IN YOUR COMMENTS SO THAT I CAN E-MAIL THE WINNER!!!!

RULES:

Giveaway closes on Thursday January 5th at 11:59 pm (PST), so enter NOW!! Winner will be announced Friday January 6th.

You must have a U.S. shipping address to be eligible to win.

There will be NO exchanges on the prize.

Ok....so HEAD ON OVER and take a look (the lovely photos are part of the fun).

Merry Christmas!!!

2011-12-24T23:20:00.001-08:00

Life in the MotherHood!!

2011-12-22T00:31:00.000-08:00

I often times find myself thinking back. Back to when things FIRST got started. You know...when the wedding bells stopped ringing and I spent an hour picking bobby pins out of my hair. I remember those days. How I thought that marriage was filled with laughing, happy days and nights. Spending unlimited hours together talking and going on fun trips. And then the babies. I pretty much thought having kids went something like this...

You got a cute baby basketball bump that looked super sweet as long as you wore leggings and a smile. Then you had the baby and came home wearing your old jeans. Once the baby was home there were a few months of waking up at night, but then the baby would start sleeping well. Once that happened the sweet little babe, (who always smells like baby powder) would wake you up each morning with sweet baby babbling while she played with dollys in her crib. Then you would get the kids up (I wanted 6 of course) and dress them in the cutest matching outfits and head out for a day of shopping. You would buy AMAZING decor for your AMAZINGLY well decorated AMAZING home in a sweet neighborhood where your neighbors stopped by to chat and borrow eggs. Then you would come home, let the kids nap (they put themselves down of course) and then you would watch Grey's Anatomy in your perfectly sparkling living room. Of course you would have to then make a wonderful healthy dinner and eat as a family...at the table...and have a nice conversation. Followed by Family Game night (oh how fun). Then after a long day, you would tuck those beautifully clean babies (all in the cutest handmade matching pajamas) back into there beds, where they would stay until morning. When they would wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread and bacon cooking....WELL you get the idea.

I was TERRIBLY un-informed:)

Nobody told me that pregnant REALLY looked like THIS...

NOT this....

I can honestly say that I had NO idea what it would REALLY be like to try to get a kid to sleep in their own bed. OR that the job would continue WELL past the first few months and then YEARS of their lives.

And babies are sooo demanding. THEY want to take everything from you. Your sleep, your pride, your waistline....and THEN they still wanna eat your yogurt. They are like little mini thieves. They follow you everywhere you go and then want EVERYTHING you have. Even if you feed them....Even if you feed them A LOT!!! They will still steal every crust of bread RIGHT out of your mouth.

They call it borrowing. Yeah right. We know how they borrow. The last thing they borrowed was my body for 9 months....AND WE KNOW THEY DID NOT RETURN THAT IN THE SAME CONDITION THEY "borrowed" IT IN.

And did ANYONE else picture their kids ALWAYS looking like this (even if your husband is white)?????

And then you had kids and realized that they REALLY like to stay in their pajamas all day and spend much of their day looking something like this....

Which is one of life's great ironies....they wanna stay in their pajamas ALL THE TIME...and yet they NEVER want to sleep....Oh the lack of sleep. That is pretty much the clincher. The mind boggling, bone crushing, turn your brain to mush lack of sleep.

How is it that you and your baby are up TOGETHER all night. And yet in the morning when YOU feel like you downed a round of tequila shots and then got hit by a bus....

They seem fine????? Like maybe lack of sleep is THEIR super drug and YOUR kryptonite????

Somehow they have MORE energy. Like maybe while YOU were half asleep rocking endlessly in the rocking chair watching Season 2 of Gilmore Girls and wondering WHY Luke and Lorelai cannot just get together already....They were sneaking into the pantry for a little snack....????

I mean you really start to wonder if your kids secretly HATE you.

Like maybe it is all just an evil plot by the babies of the world to cause their mommys to have a mental breakdown and turn control over the planet to the kids.

It is a perfect plan. They rip out all of your hair, get you in a pair of spanks, and turn you into a mental case. They WIN!!! And REALLY...they could rule so efficiently....BECAUSE THEY NEVER SLEEP!!! How Clever!!!!

BUT Just when you think you will NEVER sleep again....

and like you should NEVER eat again...

and like you just might crawl under the bed and hide from your kids with the cat....

Something happens.

Something magical!!! Something that takes all of the craziness and makes it sound....WELL CRAZY.

Something happens that reminds you what it means to be A MOTHER.

Sometimes it just a big gummy smile. Or sometimes it is watching your babies first steps; with his arms held up in the air and his stiff little legs moving at MORPH speed. And sometimes....just sometimes it is a quiet moment.

A moment when sleep finally comes and your baby holds on to you for dear life. When they find that spot where they fit JUST right. Legs wrapped right around your waist. Arms tight around your neck. Fingers twisted up in your hair. And their soft little head right in that spot. You know...THE SPOT right between your shoulder and your chin. The Spot where they can nuzzle in and you can smell their sweet baby smell and hear their sweet baby noises. Nobody else gets that moment. That moment is pretty much ON RESERVE just for mommies. That moment is what makes the rest disappear.

And you can stop looking back to your happy, wedding, skinny, smiling, pretty hair pictures with envy and start remembering when your life REALLY began. When you stopped being a person and became A MOTHER.

When it STOPPED being about you. When THEY became the center of your universe and YOU became theirs. Of course they want to see you in the middle of the night. Hello---you are their universe!!!

SOOO nobody told me about the stretch marks and the contractions, but they also forgot to mention that you literally give away a piece of your heart the moment you hold that squishy little bundle.

You become a part of something BIGGER than you. Weird that something so small can do that.

So even though I still think that in my next life I would like to be a FATHER (mostly the same amount of good stuff, but with more sleep), I am SOOOO glad I get to hang out with my two MINIS. Because life was pretty fun when I was a size zero and could stay up all night doing Who Knows What with Who Knows Who and eat WHATEVER I WANTED!!! BUT somehow it just does not compare to watching my 3 year old sing JINGLE BELLS while ACTUALLY jingling bells with her pre-school class.

OR watching Thing One and Thing Two become friends.

I guess this is what growing up feels like!!!

I guess I should start being MORE thankful for the things that really matter and complain less about the stuff that doesn't.

I guess I need to remember that life has been pretty good to me and that there are much worse things in this world than NOT SLEEPING.

I guess I should get off this darn computer and get to bed. Because Soon....VERY SOON.... I will get the call. The little voice over the monitor asking for HIS UNIVERSE to come and get him and bring him into HER bed to snuggle. And perhaps I will get the OTHER call. The call from the side of the bed that wakes me from a dead sleep. The one from HER. The one where she wants to be part of the party too.

I guess what those people....you know the ones with all of the marital advice...should have told me on that day with the flowers and the cake. They should have given me the advice of all advice. The piece of advice that would SAVE marriage. The advice to save the world from being taken over by the little people. Here it is. Are you ready???? BUY A KING SIZE BED. Buy a KING sized bed and LET THEM COME!!!!

M is for MONOGRAM!!!

2011-12-18T23:04:00.000-08:00

You know when you see something and think...I CAN MAKE THAT!!! NO PROBLEM!!! And then you buy all of the supplies and get started and think....WHY DID I THINK I COULD DO THIS???? This was one of THOSE projects. Well on the Christmas List of a certain favorite person of mine, who may or may not have a name starting with M, was a simple little monogram pillow. Now I KNEW that Lady M had had her eye on these monograms for a while because she had blogged about it, pinned it, and then of course it showed up on THE LIST. SOOOOO I looked on PINTEREST and found sooo many cute ones. THEN I looked on ETSY and saw SOOO many cute ones. BUT they were all neutral colors and they were a little spendy. NOW I KNOW WHY!!!! HELLO you have to sew on all of those *#@& buttons.

Anyway...I have very little advice for you if you would like to make one of your own (run, run like the wind!!!!). EXCEPT I would say this...do not make the pillow first. WHY???? because then you have to put your hand in the flap the whole time to sew on EVERY....SINGLE...BUTTON. No Bueno!!!
Here is a quick rundown of what I did..,..just in case you still are crazy enough to make your own...
1. Find a font you like in word and print out the letter in the size you want. Cut it out.
2. Place the letter where you want it on the fabric. I had already made my pillow, so I put it right in the middle. If you are going to make the pillow after (might be easier to sew on buttons) then you will have to measure and mark where the middle will be.
3. Trace the letter with a disappearing pen. BE SMARTER THAN ME AND REALIZE THAT DARK FABRIC=IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE!!! I used a combination of disappearing ink and chalk pencil.
4. Start on one corner and sew on your first button. Work your way around the edge. If you try to fill it in while you go it makes it hard to form a good outside border later. I found it worked best to go along an outside edge and THEN fill in the middle. I DID place a few of the BIG buttons throughout at the beginning and then worked around them.
5. Sew your buttons continuously. Meaning...don't cut your thread after each one. Sew on one, knot it off, and then move onto the next one. This saves SOOO much time.
6. Take a break so that your poor dead finger will not FALL OFF!!! Get some hot chocolate....read a magazine...anything to get your mind off of those buttons!!!!
7. Continue sewing on buttons until you wanna die. AND then you should be about done!!! YAY!!!

I would also say this....make a wall hanging instead and just GLUE the darned buttons on. TRUST ME!!!

OK.. on a serious note though. I bought the fabric HERE on Etsy. It is Michael Miller and I DO LOVE THIS PART!!!

I also bought some of the buttons on Etsy, but most of them didn't make it here on time, so I just went to JOANN and picked out some that I liked.

I used THIS great tutorial for making the envelope pillows. This was my VERY first envelope pillow, and now I want to make a HUNDRED for my couch. It seriously took about 10 minutes!!! LOVE how easy it was. The tutorial even gives directions for how to figure out how much fabric to cut to make OTHER sizes. I looked around and THIS was the best TUTE....Trust me!!!

So if there is someone in your life who you LOVE more than your fingertips OR if you just love yourself A LOT and only kinda like your fingertips, then go ahead and whip one of these up today. ORRR if you don't love anybody that much....maybe just a nice plain pillow would suffice....

GOOD THING I LOVE MY MARCIE!!!!

Walking in a Winter WONDERLAND!!!

2011-12-17T20:52:00.000-08:00

Todd and I needed a PRE-HEADED TO CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOR A WEEK break. So we decided that for OUR Christmas present to each other we would take a little trip. I chose Leavenworth, and since I always get my way.....

I have always heard that the Christmas lights were amazing and THEY DID NOT DISAPPOINT!!! Besides the fact that there was very little snow this year, Leavenworth is REALLY a winter wonderland!!! We got to shop, eat, walk, snack, and pretty much enjoy the sites. It didn't really matter WHAT we did because we did not have to push a stroller, stop for nap time, or eat at McDonalds. We were able to sleep in and I was also able to sleep through the night for the first time in....YEARS!!! That in itself was worth it!!!

ANYWAY...Since I knew I was headed into the cold and winter weather, I wanted some new WINTER gear. You know when you are headed to Vegas and you have to get a Little Black Dress....or when you head to Hawaii you have to get a new bathing suit???? YOU KNOW!!! Right??? I hope that is not just me;) Anyway...I wanted something new, but I really wasn't in a shopping mindset, especially with Christmas on the way. So I came up with a few cheap easy WINTER fixes that reved up my Winter Accessories and made me SUPER happy!!!

First off, I made some FAUX Leg Warmers. These LOOK like leg warmers, or boot socks, but they are not REAL. All I did was this (shhhh don't tell anyone how easy it was)....I cut the arms off of a thrifted sweater. THAT IS IT. Then I just slipped them over my legs to stretch them out a bit, and VOILA. Boot socks.

I wanted a cute button on the top (because the ones on pinterest had them), so I grabbed a cute button and sewed it where I wanted it. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. I think they really did keep my legs warmer, plus they added a little SOMETHING to my 9 dollar Value Village boots.

NEXT, onto the neckwear. I pretty much wear scarves EVERY day right now because they are warm and add a little cuteness to a boring outfit. On PINTEREST there are so many cute ones, but I have recently been eyeing all of the cute crocheted Cowl Scarves. TOOO BAD I DO NOT CROCHET. So I did the next best thing.

I grabbed a knitted scarf from Goodwill. Took all of the fringed ties off of the end. Cut it the length I wanted. Folded the end under and hemmed it. Then folded it around my neck and sewed on some super cute vintage buttons (stolen from Gramma June's Stash). I didn't waste time making button holes, so the buttons are just for looks. I just slip it up and over my head. Not as HANDY as a REAL Cowl scarf made by hand by someone with some talent, but it only cost a dollar and I LOVED IT!!! SCORE:)

I loved it soo much in fact that I made another one fromt the leftover sweater (the one I made the legwarmers with). I had to do things a little differently though.

I cut a large rectangle out of the back of the sweater (my front had a zipper, or that would have worked too). I pretty much used the whole back of my sweater, but it was a size small. I bigger sweater would have given me more options. Most importantly is that you keep the bottom edge of the sweater because it is the cutests part.

Then I folded it right sides together and sewed 3 sides (leaving the cute ends un-sewn). THEN flip it right sides out, wrap it around your neck, and sew on some buttons.

Looking back at the pics, I decided that my buttons were not placed the way I wanted them. I guess that is what happens when you craft at 2 in the morning the night before leaving on a trip:) Easy fix though!!!!

The last item on my list was a cute hat. I didn't want to spend much (because I had secret dreams of buying a new CUTER one once I got there). SOOO I headed to Target where they had all of their hats on clearance. I got a plain hat with matching gloves for a buck fifty. CANNOT beat that. I grabbed a strip of black jersey (I just cut off the bottom of an old t-shirt) and then wadded it up (like took it and made it into a big messy wad of fabric). Then I put the wad under my sewing machine needle and sewed back and forth until my wad stayed....WELL, wadded:)

Then I hot-glued a pretty little flower into the center. I got the flower at Micheals a while back for something that NEVER got made....pretty glad it didn't too because the flower was perfect:)

So for about 5 bucks (a quarter of what it cost to ride in that carriage), I was able to re-vamp my winter clothes and fit right into to Boot-Land (aka-Leavenworth, but EVERYONE there had cute boots). Happy Holidays Ya'll. I hope you are enjoying these happy pre-Christmas days and having a little pre-holiday fun. CHEERS to sleeping through the night:)

Thrifty Pants

2011-12-08T01:24:00.000-08:00

The question I get the ABSOLUTE most from people when they find out I shop Thrift Stores is.....HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN YOU GO???

Seriously...what do I NOT look for:) Since Emersyn likes to organize my purchases and I like to share my finds, here is a little trip down thrift store lane. BTW...I hit 3 stores in 2 days for all of these purchases (2 Goodwills and a Value Village).

I went in looking for ugly Christmas sweaters, and hit the Christmas jackpot. I had no clue what I was going to do with any of these treasures, but knew they needed to come home with me. SOOOO I guess my bit of thrifting advice would be this...if you cannot stand to leave it behind....TAKE IT!!! On the other hand, I didn't go blindly into the store with no ideas. I have been looking a lot on Pinterest and I knew that I was interested in some glass jars or vases. THIS is one of the Pinterest finds that I had in the back of my mind.

That being said....what did I get???? I got a mini tree for Emersyn so that she would stop un-decorating the Christmas tree. NOPE it didn't work, but she DOES love to decorate her very own tree too. I also got 2 large bags of cinnamon pine cones, 2 old school tins, 2 coral colored poinsettia circles, an amazing vintage box that I am madly in love with, a small piece of greenery, a super cute yellow vintage glass jar, and a hideous wooden tray.

Also, a pair of Santa suspenders, a vase, 2 boxes of glass ornaments, a black wooden pedestal, a hurricane vase, and a glass pedestal.

As I got home and started to pull out everything, I got lucky. My vases and my pedestals matched up perfectly and some of my finds meshed well together. I decided to decorate my Kitchen Island (since I normally just dump mail and odds and ends on it).

The finished project was not what I had in mind when I started, but it ended up looking so ME!!! Actually it was WAY MORE ME than what I had in mind. I love when my house looks ME....don't you:)

Seriously...is this vintage box not all you can think about now??? It cost me 3 bucks (kinda spendy compared to my normally thrifty buys), but I could not leave it there amongst the broken toys and dirty socks. I cannot wait to find ways to use it for EVERY season!!!

All of the other items were between 50 cents and 2.00, so all in all I ended up staying pretty thrifty. Except the glass pedestal which was 6 bucks. I almost didn't take it, but I am sooooo glad I did because it matched the vase PERFECTLY and was JUST what I was looking for. YAY!!!

OK. So what about the stuff I didn't use???? The poor sad tray will be painted and re-finished some day. The AMAZING yellow jar sadly got dropped on my garage floor (by me) and didn't make it. I actually cried tears---I REALLY liked it!!! The greenery---not sure where that is??? And the poinsettias are wrapped around some sconces in my living room. Waste not, WANT not!!!

Besides hitting the Christmas aisles though, I did manage to make a few fun finds...

Clearly the shoe department got hit. I found me a pair of boots for only 9 dollars....couldn't leave them behind. Plus...I ACTUALLY have a craft involving these boots coming up. TRUST ME---CUTE!!! The little boots for Em make me happy just looking at them. Who doesn't need jingle balls on their shoes???? Mini water boots for my miniture farmer friend BODE. Now he can match his DADA while they work in the fields. AND a pair of Robeez for my boy. Also an Eastern Hoodie for Ethan... since both of his parents went their and have sweatshirts (too cute for words right??). Plus, a sparkly black sweater for Christmas,

a long teal cardi (just love saying that), some brand new Carters footie jammies, a scarf (with the TARGET tags still on, and a cute bright piece of fabric (no real purpose in mind).

AND just because...Emersyn got this black velvet coat with animal print lining and a fur collar. SHE loves it. I LOVE IT!!! WIN WIN BABY!!!

AND little man got this brown Gymboree Puffer jacket and an Old Navy Hat (tags still on).

OHHHH and I almost forgot the suspenders. They worked double duty. They added to my husbands ugly Christmas ensemble....AND Emersyn used them to tie up her brother. Totally worth 50 cents right:)

SOOO there you have it. That is where my money went...cute clothes and shoes that I am SUPER excited about. AND some new holiday decor. TOTALLY successful thrifting for me. I got to get my shopping fix AND still have money for Christmas presents:) OHHHHHHH and I found the BEST Christmas sweater!!!

We didn't even win...who is uglier than us???? REALLY!!!! :)

AND the best part of the whole thrify day....getting to be a twin to such a cute girl. Now she wants to be my twin every day.....and also wants to wear a side pony!!!

Happy Holidays and Happy Thrifting!!!!

Candy Cane Sugar Scrub

2011-12-03T21:32:00.000-08:00

Clearly I have a problem....I cannot stop making sugar scrubs. I LOVED the pumpkin scrub, I cannot wait to try the Vanilla Brown Sugar Scrub, and I just could not stop until I had figured out how to make PEPPERMINT. I looked around and found one recipe with crushed up candy canes (which sounded strange to me) and one that had too many expensive ingredients (although I bet it was bomb-diggity). I decided to try some peppermint extract and see what happened.

Ingredients:
2.5 cups white sugar
1 cup oil (I used safflower)
4 Tbsp or less of Peppermint Extract
red food coloring (if you want the stripes)

Here is what I did:
Mix the sugar, Oil, and extract in a bowl. 4 Tbsp was pretty much a WHOLE small bottle of extract. I am not sure this much was necessary, but since I cannot smell (allergies), I added a lot to be sure. I used my 3 year old as the tester...when she said it stunk, I stopped adding. BUT a week later after getting treated for my allergies, and now smelling, I think it smells great. SOOO add what you want and stop when it smells good to you....DEAL???

Mix it up until all of the oil is blended in. Then divide into two equal parts. Try to be pretty equal so that you have equal red to white ratio (yep I took Statistics in college). Then add a few drops of food coloring. It did not take much. I tried to use the least amount possible and still get the color I wanted because I didn't want any red hand staining. I AM happy to report that I have used this pretty steady for a week and have NOT had any red hands....pretty impressive right?? :)

Next, for the stripes. I added one layer and packed it with a beater. Then I used a scraper to pat down around the edges. Then of course just keep on layering and packing.

I was pretty happy with my stripes, but I could have done a little neater job I think. Maybe not. I used the smaller sized mason jar and got ONE jar and ONE small jelly jar left over. It takes a LOT more scrub to fill this way because you are packing it in. If you didn't do stripes and didn't pack it, you could make the scrub go a lot further.

Once again, the lids and candy cane ribbon were from WALMART.

P.S....After a week of sitting on my counter, the stripes DID begin to run together. SOOOO if you want pretty nice looking stripes, I would not make this too far in advance. The stripes were a test run....I guess the jury is still out on them:)

I made some tags for this too. I got kind of carried away and couldn't decide what I wanted exactly so I have OPTIONS:)
To use the printable tags, just click on the picture and save it. Then import it into a word document and copy and paste it 6 times. Then add 2 columns and you should be able to print 6 to a page. I attached them with large flat glue dots. I just put them every so often around the edge and stuck it right on...worked like a charm.

One of my BFF's (you know who you are lady) is making some Vanilla Brown Sugar Scrubs, so I decided to whip us some tags for her (just in case---no pressure!!!). Here they are if anyone wants to borrow them.

I guess I like to keep my options open:) Happy Holidays and Cheers to clean, soft, minty fresh hands!!!

Holiday Potpourri--plus printable tags

2011-12-03T12:09:00.000-08:00

SOOOOOO I have gone down the slippery slope to PINTEREST obsession I think. ONCE again I couldn't get an idea out of my head and would not rest until I had made some Stove Top Simmering Holiday Potpourri. I mean WHO DOESN'T trade sleep for crafts?????? Anyway....this is my new favorite thing. I have it cooking on my stove as I type and it is making me happy to have the holly jolly scents of the season wafting through my house. LOVE IT!!!!

I used a combination of LOTS of potpourri reasearch, but mostly used THIS post for the recipe, and about a million others for how to put it into a jar. GO check out THIS one to see how pretty it looks cooking on your stove...delicious. PLUS I think it looks so yum in the jar. I used large jars and small jars. The small ones needed some coaxing to get it all in and couldn't hold all the water. The large ones had EXTRA room. So I guess the choice is yours.

BTW...those who know me may wonder why I care that it smells....being that my allergies made me an UN-smeller for years. Well luck may have it that on Wednesday I went to my ENT doctor and got some new meds. RIGHT IN TIME TOO because as of yesterday I am back amongst the world of SMELLERS!!! YAY!!!!

Ok...side note over.

I found the little red lids at WALMART in the canning aisle. I pretty much HAD TO HAVE THEM. I mean red and white check...SERIOUSLY!!! They were cheap too...less than 2 bucks for a whole stack.

Ok...so since I changed up the tutorial a bit...here is how I made mine.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup of fresh cranberries

1 orange

1 Tbsp whole cloves

3 cinnamon sticks

1 tsp. ground nutmeg (I never found any other kind)

***sidenote again***I bought cinnamon sticks at WALMART in the regular McCormick spice bottles. There were only about 9 in a jar and cost around 5 dollars. Kinda spendy. I read online that you can get them at natural food stores or specialty food shops...I didn't try. I did find some on Amazon though that may have been cheaper, but then you have shipping. I never found cinnamon stick pieces in the stores (but I didn't search too hard). I just paid the 10 dollars and moved on. Just a thought!!

OK...Now the process...

I cut my oranges into eighths and threw half of them into the bottom of the jar. Then I added half of the cranberries. Next, I dumped in the cloves and nutmeg. Then I added some water (I added half the water to get stuff floating). Next, I put the cinnamon sticks around the outside of the jar. I thought they were the cutest part, so I wanted them seen:) Then I added the rest of the oranges and the rest of the cranberries on top. Finally I added more water until it was about 3/4 full. With the smaller jar...it was more tricky and more trial and error. PLUS the recipient will have to add water for themselves when they cook it.

OK...so the instructions for cooking are as follows:

Dump the contents of the jar into a small saucepan. Always add enough water to cover the bottom of your pan. Simmer on low heat to release the lovely holiday scent. Remove from heat and refrigerate at night. Continue adding water and enjoy through the holiday season. Happy holidays!!!

I would probably print up the instructions and maybe add them to the back of the jar. I didn't do that with this batch because they were for my friends. BUT for my neighbors, I might wanna add the rules...that way I don't have to stand on the porch for 5 minutes explaining!!! Just a thought:)

Moving right along....I printed the tags up on card stock and hooked them to the jars with large flat glue dots....worked great.

Here is the printable tag. If you would like to use it click the picture...insert into a word document...and print. I cut and pasted it 6 times onto the page, made 2 columns, and printed 6 to a page. Worked out great.

Now follow my lead and make one for all your friends, neighbors, visiting teacher ladies, co-workers.....BUT FIRST make some for yourself!!!! Happy Holiday!!!!

Deck the Halls....DIY lighted topiary Christmas Tree

2011-11-28T22:28:00.000-08:00

I TOTALLY Fa La La LA LOVE Christmas. I love the decorations...the family togetherness....the songs....ALL OF IT. On Friday I was SOOOOO super excited to have Thanksgiving over so that I could start decorating for Christmas. Tree up....CHECK. Look on Pinterest for new decorating ideas....CHECK. I found a few inspirations HERE, HERE,HERE and HERE.

Sadly I did not have a set of old school ice-skates hanging out in my garage. BUT I did have this cute little sled chillin out there. My dad picked it up for us last year at a yard sale. YAY DADDY!!! When I saw the pictures on Pinterest I almost killed myself digging through the crap pile in the corner of my garage.....WELL worth it for sure. I have never decorated my porch (until this year) and I am loving changing it out for the different holidays...SO MUCH FUN!!!
Anyway...I had the sled. I wrapped up some cardboard boxes filled with cinderblocks for the gifts. I left out my Halloween straw bales for something to lean on. AND I JUST NEEDED A LITTLE TREE. I had two choices....go out into the BLACK FRIDAY insanity and try to find a mini tree for my milk can...OR head out to the crap pile for something to build one out of. TO THE CRAP PILE!!!!

I grabbed some chicken wire(also in the scary corner of my garage) and formed it into a tree shape. I pretty much just rolled it, flipped a few of the cut edges under the other ends and folded the wires over (to keep the ends together), and then pressed the top together until it made a tree shap instead of a tube. It doesn't have to be perfect because the greenery will cover any small UGLYS:) My model here helping me smush the top. Christmas crafting is always WAY more fun with a happy helper elf...

I just made my tube a little bit bigger than my milk can opening. Then I shoved the wire down in as far as it would go. I put it down until the bottle started widening out. It was super sturdy and I TRIED to pull it out or knock it over and it would not budge....LUCKY!!!

NEXT, I took my lighted greenery. MINE was just a long strand of lighted garland. Not the nice kind that looks real, but the cheap 5 dollar Walmart kind that is just one strand with no branches. The branches kind would probably work well, but I already had the cheap stuff from another long lost christmas project that didn't happen. I poked it up through the wire at the top of the tree and left the strand sticking up to make the point. Then I wound the garland around the wire. I overlapped here and there and tried to go under and around a few times to keep the garland from slipping down. It stayed on pretty tightly.
When I started I had NO idea if this would work. But when I got this far I was almost dancing. BUT then I decided that it was a little naked.

So I grabbed some pre-made bows that I had (also from Walmart, also from years ago). They had long ties on the back, so I strung them around the strands of greenery, through the wire and back out. Then twisted them. I thought that would help keep the greenery from slipping around.

AND DONE....Mini Tree Topiary Goodness:)

SOOOO the "decorate with what you have" saga continues at our house. I am not gonna lie....I cannot wait to see what I find in the Crap Pile next:)

A few Thanksgiving memories...

2011-11-25T22:55:00.000-08:00

I had a few successes (is that a word??) this Thanksgiving, so I want to put the links here on my blog so that I can find them again next year. I hate when I have to search and search for the links that I have used in the past---darn that internet is a big place:)

FIRST OFF...I have to admit something a little embarrassing. I MADE HOMEMADE ROLLS by myself for the first time EVER!!! I know...hard to believe for a 30 year old housewife. BUT I have always let others do it, or been happy with the lovely rolls from the store. BUT I saw this recipe (on PINTEREST of course) and got it into my head that I wanted to bake. SO I DID. It was so easy and actually kinda fun. NOW if only bread didn't make me gain weight just by having it in the house...

Just a warning...these have butter in the mix, then have butter spread onto the rolled out dough, and finally melted butter smeared on top. YUM!!!
Now I realize I am the youngest child in my family and that by law my family cannot put me down. AND I know that my family would praise me for bringing canned olives to dinner. BUT despite that, they did ALL tell me how good these were. SOOO I am pretty sure they meant it:)
These were seriously easy enough that my happy helper got to roll a few up. AND she got to eat the first one (and she liked it)!!!

OK...enough about the rolls. Another link I want to hang onto is for some Thanksgiving printable placemats. I printed these up, cut them out, and glued them onto cardstock. There were lots of different free printable mats, but these were the only ones I found that printed on regular 8.8x11 papaer. Cannot beat that!!! I took them for the kids table and they super enjoyed coloring away....worked like a charm!!! BUT there were tons more free printable on the site...napking rings, centerpiece, banner, tons of stuff. Next year I think I need to go all out. Since I don't EVER have to cook the turkey, I should be in charge of something (besides canned olives).

SOOO Thanksgiving is over....is it really time to take down the cute Fall decorations I just finished getting up???? Good thing decorating for Christmas is SOO much fun:)

Pumpkin Spice Sugar Scrub---good enough to eat:)

2011-11-18T20:55:00.000-08:00

I just found my new favorite gift to give. NOT KIDDING. I pinned THIS a while back, and FINALLY decided to follow through. I made Pumpkin Spice Sugar Scrub for the ladies I go visiting teaching too AND for Ms. Tonya the pre-school teacher extraordinaire. This was SERIOUSLY simple. Just mixing up oil and sugar and spice. I used Sunflower Oil by the way. The tutorial mentioned using vegetable oil, olive oil (kinda stinky), or many other kinds of oils. I found a huge bottle of Sunflower in the OIL aisle at Walmart for 3 bucks. That made it the winner for me!!!

If you have never used Sugar Scrub...you may not think this is such a great idea. BUT IT IS. I use this stuff on my dry scaly winter YUCKO hands and it works like a champ. You can also use it on your elbows and knees if they get yucky. I tend to crawl on the floor a lot with my kids or making crafts, so my knee caps are brown and dry. This stuff sluffs it right off. LOVE IT!!! SOOO if you are looking for a gift for a co-worker, friend, neighbor, or just someone with dry skin....THIS IS IT. BTW...I made one batch and filled one small, 2 medium, and 1 largish jars.

The original blogger also has printable tags. I printed them onto sticker paper and put the stickers right onto the jars and onto the lids. I LOVED THE STICKERS. It was much easier than using paper and adhesive and trying to attach them. Stickers worked like a charm!!!

I also found the scoops at Walmart. They came in a 3 pack (1small, 1medium, and 1 large) for about 3 bucks. I am not gonna lie. I pretty much think the scoops were the cutest part. Is that lame???? Maybe so, but I am a little lame I guess;) Do you know how lame I am???? Well lets just say that every time I look at this stuff or think about it I get a big smile. Sugar Scrub+Jessica=BFFs!!!

A little more Fall (and how to antique white paper)

2011-11-17T23:25:00.000-08:00

I realize that Thanksgiving is just around the corner, but we are still working on some last minute Fall Decor over at our house. I have so many things pinned that I really wanted to make for Fall....I should be moving onto Christmas, but the procrastinator in me just wont let me!!! I made THIS garland that I found on PINTEREST. There are TONS of Free Printable garlands out there, so it was a hard choice for me!!!

I DID have to go all MacGyver on this project to get it to turn out how I wanted, but the end result was JUST how I wanted it to look. In case you are cheap like me, here is what I did (and why). I ONLY have white plain printer paper. No pretty cardstock or colors...just thin white yuckiness. BUT I wanted this to last AND I wanted it antiquey looking....so I jimmy-rigged it.
FIRST...I printed on the plain white paper.
Next, I glued the white paper to black cardstock so that it would be more sturdy.
Third (and here is where it might get weird for you) I rubbed a wet tea bag onto the paper to make it brown. As you can tell I REALLY wanted brown paper. It worked great by the way. The trick was to not get the bag tooooo wet, but not let it dry out. If it was tooooo wet, it soaked the paper and the color didn't stick well. If it was too dry, the bag ripped spilling yucky tea all over.
Finally I cut out the letter (leaving a bit of a white border) and then set them under a heavy book to dry. THEN I strung them up with twine. BTW... I cut slits for my rope with an exacto knife. IF you do that...make sure you knife is SUPER sharp. If it is sharp, it cuts a pretty slit through paper and cardstock. If it is NOT sharp....it cuts an ugly hole and pulls the white paper in a jagged ugly mess. FYI:)

And if you are lazy like me, you will hang your garland up by placing ONE end of the string under a stack of books and the other under a vase. AND THEN leave the long end of twine hanging down tackily to the side. NOTE TO SELF...that stupid twine still has not been cut. GRRRR for forgetting to do that before I took pictures:)

ON a seperate note, I found YET another FREE way to hang a FREE PRINTABLE. I have this quote hanging in my kitchen (thanks Amy). I decided it had just the right colors for a FREE PRINTABLE that I liked, SO I used some handy dandy tape and hooked it right to the board.

SERIOUSLY...you cannot get much FREE-ER than TOTALLY free right???

I have had sooo much fun on my THRIFTY PANTS Fall decorations, I may just try to keep the thrify ball rolling for Christmas.

PLUS I need to give a big THANKS to Pinterest...how did I ever get any ideas before????

A is for APPLE (sauce)

2011-11-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

SOOOO for the last week I have pretty much been eating NOTHING by applesauce. OK....that is a lie. I have been eating birthday brownies, lemon bars (a birthday gift), and more double chocolate birthday brownies. AND APPLESAUCE. I FINALLY decided to try making my own applesauce and it was a SUCCESS!!! Easy...check. Cheap....check. YUMMY...double check!!!!

BTW...this was not healthy non-sugared applesauce. As you can tell by the brownish color, this was brown sugary, delicious, almost like apple-pie filling applesauce.

I started with THIS recipe that I found...of course on Pinterest. Here is what I did.

First I took all of my apples. I had lots of different kinds. I just dumped them all together. I peeled and cored them by hand because I was not doing too many. It took about 20 minutes for this large bowl. I only cut them into 4ths...you just have to cook a little longer.

I had around 15-20 small/medium apples. I dumped them into a huge pot and added the following ingredients:

1.5 cups of of water

1.5 tsp of cinnamon

1 cup packed brown sugar (this is an estimate...kinda up to you how sweet you want it)

1 tsp salt

a squirt of lemon or lime juice (optional)

Then bring to a boil.

Cover and reduce heat.

Check out all of the brown sugar!!!

Then....cook cook cook. VOILA!!!! Applesauce. And the added bonus is that it tastes like apple pie and WHO doesn't like apple pie.

I cooked for about 1 hour. Every 15 minutes I stirred and mashed up the apples a bit. You will know when the apples are DONE! Mash everything up and enjoy the lovely appley smell in your house.

Then sit down on your couch and enjoy a big bowl of appley sugary goodness and watch a bit of Grey's Anatomy. Seriously...nothing gets better than all that!!!

My most recent reads...

2011-11-11T23:37:00.000-08:00

Although I have not been POSTING about reading....I have actually finished a few books in the last few months. Some good, some not so good and some GREAT!!!! Here is what I have had on my night stand..

THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton. This book was FANTASTIC. I can honestly say (and remember I am an English teacher) that this is the most well written book I have read in a long time. I LOVED IT. It took me forever to read because it is big and thick and full of twists and turns, but WELL WORTH IT. I cannot even begin to explain the main gist of this book...to much going on. It switches back and forth between the past, the present, and the WAY past. It jumps through generations in order to answer all of the questions. The main question being...who is Nell and where did she come from...and why??? As a toddler Nell was found on the docks in Australia and adopted by a local family. She does not know where she came from or why she is alone. This book travels through time to find out WHO SHE IS. Many times you think you know...and then WHAT??? You have no idea. I loved the mystery of it. And seriously you cannot figure out the answers unless you read the whole thing. LOVE THAT!!! I have also read The House at Riverton by Kate Morton and loved it also.

Next I read Rachel's Secret by BJ Hoff. I am not sure why I end up picking so many Amish books, but I just find their culture just so darn interesting. In this one, Rachel is an Amish widow. One night she gets a knock on the door and it is a white man with a gunshot wound and a black man. They end up being conductors for the Underground Railroad and the whole thing causes problems in the quiet Amish community. Rachel ends up having feelings for the man (which is a big no no!!) and outsiders begin causing problems for the Amish; barn burnings, verbal abuse, and finally kidnapping. This was an OK book. I am always interested in the Underground Railroad, but there was not enough about it in the book for me.

Of course that did not stop me from reading BOOK 2, Where Grace Abides. Jeremiah stays in the community but cannot socialize with Rachel because he is not Amish. More problems arise and MORE love problems. Again...ok but not a great book. I have not read the 3rd installment and am not too sad about it.

I realize I may have a problem, but when I see an Amish girl on the front of a book I just have to check it out. BESIDE STILL WATERS by Tricial Goyer was my next read. This was another OK, but not great book. This book starts when an Amish family traveling home gets into a horrible accident. Their buggy is hit by a Semi Truck and their 2 daughters are killed. The mom, who is pregnant goes into labor and delivers a little baby girl. Born on the day of her sisters' deaths, Marianna always feels like she has to fill up the void left by them. She tries to be perfect. When she reaches marrying age, her parents decide it is time to move out of the community and go to Montana. Although she love a local Amish boy she goes with her family. They have to learn to live in the Amish community in Montana, which is NOT as strict in their beliefs and rules as their old community. Marianna socializes with BEN, a local by and starts to fall for him. She then has to decide whether to go back to her home and her Amish boy, or stay in Montana and deal with her feelings for Ben. THEN right at the end you find out their is a book ....bummer. I might have to go find it and see how it all turns out:)

This next book jumped off the shelf at me because of the title; LOVE FINDS YOU IN PENDLETON OREGON. As soon as I saw Pendleton, I had to read it. Sunny is the main character. She is an out of work professor, Native American, and model. She heads to Pendleton for a modeling shoot during the ROUNDUP and decides to look up her ancestors while she is there. I loved reading about the Roundup, I liked the stuff about Native Americans, but the love interest in this book was WAY OUT THERE. It was one of those things where when it ends you are like...WHATEVER. I am all about happy endings and chic lit, but I don't think anyone finds their true love and is ready for marriage in one week. SOOO on that note, this book didn't do it for me.

I really enjoyed this last one. THE SHAPE OF MERCY by Susan Meissner. Lauren is a super wealthy college student who tries to act NOT SUPER WEALTHY. She lives in the dorm, goes to a state school, and wants to get a job. She decides to take a job transcribing an old journal for Abigail, an older (also wealthy) lady. The journal is from a young lady (Mercy) who lived during the Salem Witch trials and gets accusted of being a witch. I liked learning about the witch trials and thought this book was pretty entertaining. A good mix of past and present. Speaking of present....my son has stopped sleeping AT ALL, so I may have a few (hundred) books to add to my list soon. BLAHHH!!!

Fall is in the air~

2011-11-09T08:41:00.000-08:00

I am still lovin' Fall over here. We have been taking walks through our neighborhood, and the trees are AMAZING!!! I super LOVE Christmas, but I would not be sad if it stayed Fall forever. I love the weather, the food, and beautiful scenery. I guess I also love the fun crafts too...although that is pretty much every season.
I am still on my mission to decorate my house without spending a whole lot. AND I am still in love with PINTEREST!!! So I am trying to ACTUALLY accomplish some of the things that I pin. I crossed 3 pins off my list this week....
First...I updated my candy jars from Halloween to Fall. (AND I finally got all of the pirate decorations out of my house!!!)

I found these printable tags on Pinterest and wanted to use them for EVERYTHING. It worked out great because there are 6 that print on a page and I only used 2. SO that leaves some to use for fun fall gift tags!!!

I also wanted to have a piece of Fall subway art, but saw THIS one and fell in love. It was a free printable...gotta love that.

I cut a piece of cardboard out of a diaper box with an exacto knife and then mod-podged the paper on. Then I sanded the edges with sand paper and used some brown stain to distress the edges. I wanted it to stand on its own, so I jimmy-rigged a stand out of more cardboard.

So this was a free project!!! It looks silly from the back, but if you are looking that close, you are not welcome in my house:)

Project number 3 was another free printable for my Mia Maid classs. This year the Mutual theme is the 13th article of Faith, so I fell in love when I saw these candy bar wrappers. They are meant to go on a Hershey Bar, but I found Kit Kats on sale after Halloween and was TOO cheap to pass it up. SOOO I made do. They worked fine, but the wrappers didn't go all the way around the back of the bar. NO BIGGIE!!

Nothing like a bowl of cute chocolate to make a GOOD DAY:)

Chocolate and Fall Leaves....LOVE IT!!!

NOW Fall is here!!

2011-11-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

I made the first pumpkin cake of the year last night....SOOOO that mean Fall is officially here. I know I share this recipe every year, but it is so simple and yummy. 2 ingredients and topped with whipped cream. PLUS it makes your house smell like a dream. And since it is made with pumpkin (a vegetable??), it must be super healty too:)

A few moments of craftiness

2011-11-02T17:39:00.001-07:00

Amongst the crazy candy-ness of Halloween, I did have a few (precious) moments to myself. Usually after midnight and in the dark, but still happy

Some of my free time is spent on Pinterest, which I love. The only problem…I see what other people are doing and then I WANT TO DO IT. I start to feel that my friends, teachers, kids, and Mia Maids must be suffering compared to others in other places. Like all of those amazing places on the internet..haha!!! So then I feel that I have deprived others of cuteness and start feeding my own inadequacies.

WELL thank goodness I had a pirate party at my house this week because my church girls FINALLY got some of that Pinterest cuteness for themselves. Our lesson was on virtue. I found the quote first and then decided upon where to put it. AND I was lucky enough to have chocolate gold at my house…pretty handy. SOOOO I threw some gold in the bag, cut rectangles of scrapbook paper, folded them over the top of Ziploc snack bags, stapled the sides, and glued on the quote (which I had just typed up and printed on my computer). I am not a scrap booker, so I just used scissors, Elmer's glue, and a stapler. Nothing fancy here (actually most of it was a bit crooked and wrinkly). BUT at least I felt like I accomplished something…like those amazing Pinterest folks always do

I had the same idea for the ladies I go visiting teaching to. The idea was from PINTEREST. I couldn't find black kisses, so I settled for purple, but I figured the witches I stole the hats from were just more stylish than those silly black Pinterest witches. I also do not have a circle punch…nor do I know what one is, so I cut the old fashioned way and glued the circles to some card stock. I am not gonna lie…I pretty much love the whole candy bag thing right now!!!

And another small victory at our house…the soap dispenser. I have also seen lots of monogramed and decorated soap dispensers on—you know where. I don’t need my name on my soap, but I DOOOO need something cuter than a dawn bottle on my counter. I am CONSTANTLY cleaning bottles and HATE getting under the sink for the dish soap. Sounds dumb, but with child proof cupboards, it causes me great anger. SOOO I spray painted my dishsoap. SERIOUSLY. I just took it into the garage and spray painted it. I didn’t do anything else they said…no primer, no taking off the stickers, nothing. Just painted it. It still isn’t pretty, but now it kinda just blends in.

And another success. The drying mat. I was sick of either my counter being wet, or using all of the paper towels, so I made a drying mat. I just sewed together some fabric and then sewed it to a super absorbent drying towel. I got mine at WALGREENS for a dollar. Perfect for all those darn bottle parts.

SPEAKING of the bottle parts, I finally figured out a way to clean out DR. BROWN bottles. We lost the little brush that came with them, and it was traumatic (for me). I used my somewhat unused brain and decided on PIPE CLEANERS. SOO if you are like me and need to clean the gunk out for your DR. BROWNS. GO buy some crafting pipe cleaners (mine are sparkly halloween colors) and they work perfect. TRUST ME. I googled it and couldn’t find an answer….THIS IS THE ANSWER!!!

SOOO that is all the boringness that is our crafting life over here. I am super glad to be moving PAST halloween though…now on to tackling some Thanksgiving crafts on my to-so list!!!

Pirate Party EXTRAVAGANZA!!!

2011-11-01T23:37:00.001-07:00

SoOOO Halloween has come and gone, but the mess of my house STILL remains. We had our 2nd annual HALLOWEEN party at our house. A dozen little kiddos running around eating candy and playing with swords. Did I mention it was a pirate party??? THUS the swords. BUT still….crazy!!! I really wish there was a holiday where CANDY was not involved. I bought NON chocolate this year so that I would not eat all of the candy, but it backfired. NOW I just realize that I also love Banana Laffy Taffy and Twizzlers.

The Pirate Perkins plus one beautiful Rapunzel.

Rapunzel had the BEST DAY EVER!!!! We have pretty much been watching this movie EVERY day at least once (sometimes 4 times) a day for a few months, so for her to be Rapunzel was PERFECT!!! She was happy…I was happy. That is UNTIL she wanted mommy to make her costume. I learned A LOT because 90% of the instructions for this costume were things I had NEVER done or even heard of. I also learned that next year we are going to the Costume store FIRST and then if we cannot find the costume we want, we MIGHT head to the fabric store. LESSON LEARNED!!!

Although I planned to make Ethan’s costume using THIS tutorial, I caved. After all of the time and money spent on the PRINCESS dress, I headed out to buy Pirate Parrot Boy!!! My sanity is WORTH 15 bucks

NO party is complete without decorations and activities. Here are a few of our Piratey Fun Times!!!

Indoor Bounce House---best kid pleaser EVER!!! And the Jessica Pleaser…A little Johnny…

We had a couple of crafts from Oriental Trading (they rock). Check out the duel Rapunzels…Little girls love their crafts. I am pretty sure the boys were all out gouging each other with swords and sticks and such.

The best part of the party (based on the amount of squealing and laughing) was the TREASURE HUNT.

I drew up a map of the house on some burlap, burnt the edges on a few fun clues, and filled an old treasure chest with…well treasure!!!

I spotted this great trunk in my grandma’s shed and asked VERY NICELY if we could borrow it. Then I filled it with all sorts of fun stuff. This picture is AFTER the kiddos plundered all of their treasures. They got loot bags filled with a compass, gold coin candy, a pirate sucker, some pencils, a couple tattoos, ring pops, and a blow out party favor. They also got a Capri Sun and a Pirate dress up kit (courtesy of the Dollar Store).

Because the Treasure didn’t contain ENOUGH candy, we also had a treasure chest pinata (Oriental Trading).

Decorating was my favorite part. I will spare you the details, but everything was from Oriental Trading and the Dollar Store. No need to spend too much. There were a FEW things that I really wanted. One was a plank. I settled for a 2 by 4 on the floor.

I also wanted a SHIP centerpiece. I somehow only got a picture after the kids had cleared and the mess remained, but at least it was still standing. I tried to find some sort of ship building demo online, but nothing fit what I wanted. I didn’t want to build an ACTUAL ship. So I made it up as I went. I placed a cardboard box upside down on the counter with the flaps all flipped out and laying on the counter. Then I cut a small hole in the tape on the bottom of the box and shoved my broom through. For some reason the bristle part of the broom kept the pole from tipping over…it balanced right on the counter. NOT SURE WHY. My broom had a small hole in the tip, so I put a wood dowel through the hole and hot glued it in place. Then I used twine to tie some black plastic for the sail. Then I covered the box by cutting a plastic tablecloth halfway up the middle and wrapping it around the pole. Then I used a straw and two pieces of paper to make a flag. Low budget, not TOO pretty, but PERFECT!!! AND much better looking without all of the crap piled around it…oops!!!

I thought the bats were lonely, so I gave them some rat friends to play with. Rats courtesy of MarthaStewart.com.

I found these plastic apples on…wait for it…Oriental Trading, and KNEW I wanted them. They come pre-filled with a treat, but I loaded them up with Rolos…cause I couldn’t find any more gold coin candies My little helper REALLY likes these. The day after the party I filled the bowl back up and threw the apples back in and kept him busy for a good hour.

That smile is WELL WORTH the money!!!!

Emersyn is planning next years party already and all of the kids left with a smile, so I guess we will plan to have a 3rd annual party next year. Maybe my floors will be cleaned by then…haha!!!

Well Me and Mr. Bones are POOPED!!!! We need a holiday from our HOLIDAY!!!!

Is October over already????

2011-10-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

Did anyone else completely miss October??? I feel like it was just the beginning of pre-school and THEN......today it is almost November. Weird. I think 2 thinkgs contributed to my lost month. ONE....sick kids. Nothing ruins a month like puke and mucus!!! And number TWO...THIS....

I have been creating Emersyn's Halloween costume. I finanally finished...well almost. I still need to make her hair. SERIOUSLY!!!! I would post about her cotume today, but I am still in shock that it is done. MAYBE a post for another day.
Amongst the chaos I was able to finish up a few more projects. Nothing Earth shattering, but some fun quick and easy crafts. You know...the kind that make you WANNA be crafty again. First off was a baby gift for my neighbor. Julie is cute and crafty and nice (and brings great dinners after I have babies), so I wanted to make something....WELL cute and crafty and nice.

I used 2 different tutorials to help. FIRST, I borrowed the numbers from THIS BLOG (btw..she has the numbers available in girl colors too). THEN, I borrowed the cute note from THIS BLOG. I just opened it in paint, erased her words, and typed my own message. AND....I even managed to get it delivered to her before her kid was a month old....score!!!

NEXT, I have been trying to add some cheap a and easy Fall decorations to our house. I love decorating, but hate how much I spend if I head out to the craft stores and look for Holiday decorations. So I headed to Pinterest and grabbed my favorite ideas and got started. I found this subway art on Pinterest and printed it right up on my printer. I am not a wood cutting kinda gal, but wanted to make this RIGHT NOW. So I grabbed the first square (actually my pre-schooler would actually tell me it was a rectangle) thing I could grab and got mod-podging. I used a shoe box lid as my base. I had to dig it out of my garbage can to save it for this proect. I wasn't sure, but it worked great. I spray painted it quickly so that it would be a brownish color, then mod-podged on some scrapbooking paper I had around. Then I sanded the edges and put some wood stain on with a paper towel and my finger. Since it was tecnically free, I kinda love it. How can you not love something made out of garbage????

I found these cute jars at GOODWILL. I knew right away what I wanted to put in them. AGAIN....Pinterest!!! I had the black ribbon around. I actually just taped it around the jars (since I want to change them soon for Thanksgiving and then use the jars year round). The tags I printed from HERE and I just taped them onto the jars too.

I made a leaf garland out of dollar store leaves. I bought two packs of 50 leaves and then just sewed them together on the sewing machine in a long line. Worked like a charm.

I wanted to make this wreath THE MOMENT I saw it... you guessed it...on Pinterest. I didn't make mine interchangeable, I just glued the flowers right on the wreath.

I also just used regular buttons for the flower middles. I just glued some fabric around them.

Emersyn thought she needed to pose with HER wreath:) Then of course she didn't wanna smile!!!

I am super dooper in love with my milk jug. I found it in my Gramma's shed and she said I could take it. I wanted to paint it and pretty it up, but then I hosed it off and loved the antigue-y look of it. SOO I might have to head back to Gramma's and grab another one to paint (she has like 5 stashed away in there).
Last but not least is our infestation of bats. I saw THIS over on MADE last year and liked it. Then she did it again this year and I decided it was time to get it done.

Our rodent friends are sneaking out of the pantry and flying to freedom in the living room. Kinda fun and FREE:) All you need is some black paper and a few minutes and you can have creepy flying friends in your house too. We are having a Halloween party at our house Friday....A PIRATE PARTY....and so there will be more creepiness coming up soon. Since I have had sick kids for 2 weeks, first kid 1 and then kid 2, I REALLY need to get cracking on the whole GET THE HOUSE READY FOR A PARTY thing:)

Other than that....we have pretty much just been hanging around.....HAHA!!! She REALLY thought she was SOO high off the ground. I had to come and save her!!1

Happy Autumn Everyone!!!

A little crush on my happy chairs....

2011-09-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

To further along my Home Makeover I headed from Princess Room to Dining Room. I have a cheap dining room table. I will admit it. I also have NO desire to upgrade to a better one. Every day something disgusting, hazerdous, or just plain disasterous happens to that table. It has been Sharpied, gouged with a fork repeatedly, finger painted, and had construction paper glued all over it. AND that was all in the past two weeks. No sir....no new table for me until my kiddos are all past the RUINING phase.

SOOO I decided to upholster them. They were just plain wood before. Now they are plain wood with a little KICK:) Can you tell which one Em helped with????

She REALLY wanted to show off her creation--she cracks me up!!!!

I used THIS site to help with the actual upholstery. BUT I did a few things differently. I used oilcloth for starters. I KNEW that there was NO point in covering my chairs with fabric. That would have lasted about....2 minutes before they were totally ruined. So OILCLOTH it was. I ordered it from ETSY. I used THE OILCLOTH ADDICT. I would TOTALLY order from her again. She was nice, quick, helpful AND the price was right.
Another difference....It only took me about 1.5 yards of the 3 yards I ordered. She used 6 yards of fabric for 6 chairs. I only needed 1.5 for 3 chairs. Not sure what the difference was. I could do two across the width of the fabric. SOOO now I have a giant leftover piece of oilcloth---now I need another project.
ONE more difference, I used 2 inch foam instead of 1 inch foam. SOOO I folded my corners like a present instead of with pleats. I liked the way it looked....crisp and clean and square.

Although this took some time, it was pretty easy and I felt it had big pay off. I LOVE THEM!!! They make me happy. Happy in the kitchen does not happen too often.....So I am going to savor it while it lasts. And REALLY doesn't the cute little chair look pretty happy too?? :)

Monday Makeover--Princess bed and a few odds and ends

2011-09-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

OK...so I have not been slacking on the whole 52 weeks of MAKE OVER thing...but I am a bit slacking on the whole....BLOGGING thing:) Recently Emersyn started Pre-school, which means that Ethan and I have 2 1/2 hours to kill without our happy helper. We have spent quite a bit of that time at thrift stores. My first find....

A Princess Bed Tent for Emersyn's room. I didn't plan on changing Em's room at the moment, but could not resist this beauty for just 8 bucks. It has cute little butterflies on it (which just happened to be the EXACT color of her bedroom). SHE LOVES IT!!!!!!!

I find her in there playing with her babies or stuffed animals. She uses it as a fort. When she takes a nap, it is RAPUNZEL's tower...and I of course am Flynn Ryder.

In the beginning she would play herself to sleep and I would have to come SAVE her in the middle of the night because she would be all tangled up. BUT now I guess she has figured out how to un-tangle herself...THANK GOODNESS!!! Ok....moving on to Cool Find Number 2....

This was another Goodwill find. For 10 bucks I am SUPER excited to have some storage in her room. Clearly I have not figured out WHAT to store yet, but I am working on that. AGAIN....what are the odds that the tubs would EXACTLY match her bedroom???? I found the tent and the shelf in the same day...and I am not gonna lie I was PRETTY PROUD OF MYSELF!!!
The next to additions to her room have been on my TO-DO list for about...A YEAR!!! I even had the stuff to make-over, just not the time, energy, or motivation. BUT once one thing gets up-graded, it is best to keep the ball rolling. SO I took this little shelf I found at Value Village for 5 dollars and gave it a face lift.

I thought it had potential...although the bright drawers....not a fan. SOO I sanded it and spray painted it all white. Then I used some of the leftover paint from her walls to paint the knobs. AND VOILA....a cute little shelf for all of her hair stuff. It is perfect for holding clips and rubberbands. And I can imagine that SOME DAY she can put her little jewelry stuff or something in it. Kinda Fun!!

THEN....I took this frame from Value Village (2 bucks) and took out the glass and lovely mountain scene.

I spray painted the frame, stapled chicken wire to the back of the frame (there are tutorials ALL over the web for the how too), and added the bows ( I probably needed a bigger frame--haha!!). I just wanna add that I used my BRAND NEW staple gun, which is MY FIRST OFFICIAL TOOL. I have never had a tool of my own, so this is not borrowed from the MAN OF THE HOUSE....IT IS MINE!!! I love that. And another side-note...I used the power sander ALL BY MYSELF to sand the shelves. YEP....pretty proud of myself!!! I know SOME women are all independent and use power tools and stuff...Not Me. But I am getting there...one NON-hand removing tool at a time:)

Here is the new HAIR STATION....Much better than the huge pile of junk that used to reside on the top of her dresser!!

And since the REAL reason for my blog is to remember this time of my life and the lives of my kiddos, I am gonna take a quick tour of Emersyn's room as it is right now. Go ahead and blog hop somewhere else if you like.
Her dresser area is in one corner. We found the dresser on Craigslist and Todd did some touch up painting to it. I love that it is kinda throw back vintage looking---although it is actually from Target (shhhh).
The shelves I got from Grandma June before Emersyn was born. She thought I might find a use for them....yes please. I painted them and think they are kinda cute and girlie. The 2 vintage signs and the cute soap box were a gift for Baby Girl when she was born (Thanks Paula). The hanging signs were made by my Bobbie and have cute little vinyl words on them. The tiny ceramic piggies were found by Russ and given to us (since anyone who knows me AT ALL knows I have a thing for piggies). Next are Em's first little baby shoes--I cannot make myself pack them up. AND LAST are her cute little Birthday Girls. One for each of her 3 birthdays and given to her by Grandma Marilee.

Next to her bed is her night stand. I painted this when I was pregnant with her. This night stand was next to my bed MY WHOLE LIFE. I stacked my books under it and stashed my treasures (and journal) in the little drawer. I KNEW she needed it too. So I sanded off the ugly dark brown paint and replaced the old school gold knob with a pretty flower.

Ballerina Piggy bank came from Marcie and has already been emptied once into a savings account---woop woop!!!!! The little girl lamp was given to us by my Aunt Brenda. It belonged to my cousin Jamie and was given to her by my Grandma Louise. My Grandma painted it for her and she had had it in HER room for her whole life. She kept it to pass to her daughter, but since she doesn't have any children, she wanted Emersyn to have it. I actually have the SAME lamp, but painted in different colors. Mine was given to me by MY Grandma June and it resides up stairs in my craft room. They both mean more to me than I can express and I LOVE that Emersyn gets to grow up with a piece of her Great Grandmas.
MOVING ON. The ugly star is Emersyn's music box. As a baby she was the worst sleeper EVER. This music plays for EVERY nap, EVERY bed time, AND EVERY nightmare---night waking---quiet time. I am sure she can now go to sleep without it, but I don't wanna find out.

Phewww....that about sums it up. There are a few more changes I would like to add to Emersyn's room to make it a little more BIG GIRL. But for now we are pretty happy with the results:)

Fun Quote Friday!!!

2011-09-16T22:01:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me best know that I do not often HOLD BACK my true opinions. BUT I kinda do when it really matters. SO I have recently decided to be MORE me. I saw this quote and LOVED it. Why WOULDN'T I wanna be me???? I think trying to be more NOT me sucks and takes too much energy. SOOOO Cheers to ME-ness! More Me-ness (I guess You-ness for you) for everyone!!!

ABC Baby you and me now....

2011-09-11T21:27:00.000-07:00

I found these ABC exercise cards and thought they looked PERFECT for us. 1. Emersyn LOVES to exercize right now. 2. She is also learning her letters. WIN WIN!! I didn't cute them up like THEY did because I figured the fun would wear off quick or Ethan would eat them anyway. I just printed them and cut them out. And guess what......

We are getting big old muscles. YES WE ARE:) This was a hit. First we identified the letter and then we did the activity listed.

This is not gonna get you abs of steel, but it does get your heart beating. We did the whole alphabet AND Emersyn usually makes us do it ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE HOUSE. For example if the card says walk in place.....we walk in place through the whole house.

I got a good sweat going (it was a 90 degree day though). It was better than sitting around on the couch and typing on the computer:) So if you have a busy little one and need an excuse to get off your bum...print these. OR if you need to make dinner and want your busy one to scram....print these.

Have fun getting your KARATE KICK on!!

Bookmobile!

2011-09-10T06:54:00.000-07:00

Did you guys have the bookmobile growing up??? I used to love to climb on that big old bus and find new books (or the same old ones again). We have the bookmobile in our neighborhood, but I am not sure of the schedule....so we just go to the boring old library. BUT someday I want Emersyn to walk up on the Mobile Bus filled with goodness and be amazed. Anyway...I love the library (although it is not as adventursome as the Bookmobile) and have found a few good reads lately.

First off, SOMETHING BORROWED by Emily Giffin.

I will just preface this by saying this one was probably pushing the PG13 radar. If you don't mind some adult language mixed with a lot of adult content....than no worries. IF you do mind...than not for you. Anyway....this one was hard for me to read. I am sure you are familiar with the premiss because it is now a very popular movie. There are 2 best friends (like the kind who have been best friends for their whole life). One is the hot popular friend who is REALLY NOT THAT NICE. The other is the nice cute sweet friend who gets trampled on by the mean girl. Anyway....long story short...nice girl starts having an affair with mean girls FIANCE. I know that is so NOT COOL!!! My problem with this book is that I have a moral issue with cheating, so I didn't know who to root for. I was also not sure if the fiance was using the nice girl or if they REALLY loved each other. It was all just a little creepy to me. Sneaking, lies, cheating...not my thing. I thought it was well written and the author is funny. AND I for sure understood the good friend/bad friend relationship, but I had a hard time getting past the whole CHEATING with an almost married man thing. Yep....that is that.

Next, NOWHERE CAROLINA by Tamara Leigh. I recently found out this is a number 2 in a group of books, the first one being LEAVING CAROLINA. I did not read the first (but I am now) and it doesn't seem to matter what order they go in. Just some of the same characters. Anyway...this one cracked me up...BIG TIME!!!! If I wrote a book (which is right up there on my bucket list), I would write like Tamara Leigh. FUNNY LADY!!!! This book was about Maggie, who used to be the cool girl, head cheerleader, not nice, high school dream girl. NOW she is a much changed and grown up mother of a 12 year old. The problem....she is not sure which of 3 men is DADDY to her daughter. She had a rough couple days I guess you could say. She is now living a good Christian life and has changed her ways, but her daughter is getting teased for the fact that her mom doesn't know who....well you know. SOOO she goes on a quest to find out which of the 3 is the winner. To add flames to the fire, one of the daddy contenders moves back to town. He is the one she hopes is the winner and who she actually had feelings for (and still does), but she begins to lie and sneak around and freak everyone out. GREAT FUNNY BOOK!!! My favorite 2 parts of the book...1. Maggie has a word of the day calendar and tries to fit the word of the day into her DAILY conversations....pretty funny for the English teacher still hiding inside me. AND 2. They way Maggie prays. Sometimes she mutters a prayer like..."oh crap God please don't let my daughter find out I was a big fat floozy." Cracked me up....although I am sure it is very improper:)

Finally, THE GIRL IN THE GATEHOUSE by Julie Klassen.

This book reminded me of a classic British novel...like Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice. It was set back in the day and ALL about proper and improper. Mariah (the main character) had been sent to live in her aunt's gatehouse because of an indiscretion that has caused her to be shunned by society ( you have to read it to find out what naughty thing she did). Her aunt dies and she is forced to try to earn some money to pay her rent, so she decides to sell some of her novels (did I mention she was an author???). Since novel writing was about as bad as prostitution back in the day, she tries to keep it all a secret and writes under a pseudonym. Of course the new tenant in the main house is a hunky man...thus the necessary love interest...but he is trying to show his OLD love that he has moved up in society and is in fact equal to her family so they can be married. It is an interesting story about right and wrong and lost and found reputations. Nice sweet simple old fashioned book.

AND just for fun....a children's book to add to the mix. We read A LOT of kid's books over here and LET'S BE HONEST....SOME suck. BUT when you find a good one....it is REALLY GOOD and should be shared. I loved this one. BIG WORDS FOR LITTLE PEOPLE by Jamie Lee Curtis (yep the Activia lady).

I love making little kids smarter....because then they will be smart BIG kids. This book uses big words and makes them cute and fun. Now Emersyn likes to add those words in to her life sometimes...not always correctly, but at least we try. Who doesn't wanna hear their 3 year old say INTELLIGENCE in a sentence??? LOVE IT!!!!

HAPPY READING:)

Fun Quote Friday!!!

2011-09-09T10:19:00.000-07:00

I guess if I can "create" something cool like......an Emersyn....than I can pretty much make anything:)

Pre-Schooler IN THE HOUSE!!!!

2011-09-08T22:09:00.000-07:00

Pre-school is in full swing around here and we (aka Emersyn) could NOT be more excited about life. She also could NOT be any cuter!!!! I mean really???? It is just not fair to the other kids--haha!!! Anyway.... I had a crazy idea that I wanted to get Emersyn a cute LITTLE backpack. You know like the perfect size for a little tiny person???

Then I got the crazy idea to make her one. STUPID MISTAKE. I ended up spending a lot more than I should have and wasted a LOT of time. BUT I guess it was a good life lesson. I learned to READ the pattern before buying fabric (the first bunch I bought was not the right type). I learned to check around first before buying online (I got screwed when the owner of the etsy shop I bought from WENT ON VACATION and forgot to send me my fabric). I learned that JOANN never lets me down (I found about 15 cute types of canvas right in the store after searching online for weeks and only finding 2 or 3 that I liked). I learned that once you tell your kid you are making them a backpack you better MAKE them a backpack. I also learned to NEVER GO TO A FABRIC STORE ON A HOLIDAY (1 hour in the cutting line, 20 minutes in the check out line, another 20 minutes in line at another store to get the 99cent item you forgot at the first store GRRRR!!!). I also learned that kids are never COMPLETELY potty trained and that you can make a backpack in about 3 hours (the night before the first day of school) if you have no choice. Wanna See It????

I used THIS pattern from Made By Rae. It was pretty easy and well explained. I will probably never use piping...EVER!! But it was a good learning experience. The rest of the bag was a cinch, but the piping pretty much kicked my butt.
A few things I would do differently....I would use 2 different fabrics. I would maybe add a side pocket. I would MAYBE make a larger size. This is perfect for her, but it does not hold a folder. Her cute little papers come home folded in half. BUTTTT it is the same size as the other backpacks I see roll up at the pre-school, so for now it is perfect.

Speaking of ROLLING UP TO PRE-SCHOOL....it is like ANOTHER world over there. I am BARELY into my 30's and I feel like the frumpy old lady mom. The other mommas roll up in their pimped out Escalades and park next to my mom van. Hmmm??? Am I a loser??? The first thing I thought on day one was....."Oh shoot, all of my wife beaters and shorty shorts were in the wash this morning...I had to drop my kid off in my capris and sensible shoes. DARN IT!!!" What the crap....who are these moms????? They have fake tans, fake nails, and fake....well a lot of fake things. Anyway...I guess I will not be showing up in my sweats and a hat as I fully expected to do after week one....BUMMER for getting showered and dressed twice a week:)

Anyway...moving on. Em's 2nd day of school dress was a re-purpose. I started with a polo dress hand-me-down that had a bit of staining on the front. I cut it off and added this cute birdie fabric. The bottom fabric is my new favorite knit fabric. It is from Joanns and I have bought it twice and will probably be back for more. I made the ruffle on the bottom out of a two inch strip. Instead of sewing down the middle of the ruffle I sewed two lines of stitching about 1/4 inch off the middle. That made it look a bit like pleats instead of ruffles, I kinda love it. I am not sure why it looks like I sewed the ruffle on crooked in the picture, but I am pretty sure it is straight....or at least straighter than that:)

I can just imagine what the Barbie moms would think if they found out my kid was wearing a handmade backpack and a re-purposed dress--haha!!! I love it. Em LOVES it too. She cannot wait to get out the door in the morning!!! I guess the kids must be nicer than the moms :)

Success!!

2011-09-05T23:25:00.000-07:00

I just have to start off by saying.....I DISTRESSED SOMETHING!!! I have been wanting to mess up some good stuff for A LONG TIME. But it really isn't the style of my house. I decided WHAT THE HECK....and did it anyway. AND (drumroll) I LOVE how it looks in my house. Even a modern clean look works with my NEW VINTAGE TRAY.

I found this KITTY tray at Value Village. AND as much as I DOOOO love kitties....I did not love the whole kitty cat, country blue, hearted up vibe. Cool if that is your thing I guess...

I painted and distressed and fell in love. Like when I first saw it I almost asked it to marry me...BUT then I decided Todd would not wanna be a Sister Tray....or whatever that would make him, so I decided to just hug it and give it a little space. FOR NOW:)

And for now it is sitting on my happy (and cleaned off for once) counter with my happy pink flowers, RIGHT above my happy little organized JUNK DRAWERS. AND that makes me

VERY HAPPY!!!

Makeover Monday-- 1 down, 51 to go

2011-09-05T00:07:00.000-07:00

I have about A MILLION half done projects going on in my house right now. SERIOUSLY. I am that person who is UN-linear. Most people would attack their house one room or project at a time. NOT ME!!! I jumped in and attacked EVERTHING in my house. Now I have a FEW organized areas amongst A LOT of chaos. My completions so far are pretty boring and have not made ANY impact on the overall look of my house, but they have made me FEEL better, so that is what counts I guess.

To start off, I have been reading multiple books on cleaning and organization strategies...

and then I found a 21 days to getting organized challenge....

and sooooo a lot of what I did this weekend was CLEANING and ORGANIZING. Not fun for me...not really too fun for you either. BUT here it is.

PER the 21 day challenge I started with JUNK DRAWER. Only problem....I have about 5 junk drawers in my house. I tackled 3.
PER Unstuff Your Life, EVERTHING NEEDS A HOME AND LIKE THINGS SHOULD BE WITH LIKE THINGS. I have always believed this, but needed it to hit me over the head. SOOO I am also trying to find PERMANENT places for all of my STUFF.
PER...something else I read somewhere....take before and after pictures so that you can look at them and be embarressed and NEVER wanna go back to that ugliness. I am going one step further and showing YOU ALL the ugliness so that I will be even more MORTIFIED and never let my drawers get so *&%! out of control.
HERE GOES....

Junk Drawer #1 BEFORE

After: I stole some trays from my bathroom drawers (which are coming up soon on the list) and divided up the nonsense.

BEFORE:

After: Mostly I had to put the 1 thousand things that didn't belong in there in THEIR homes and then the drawer was a snap to clean up. I am still thinking about dividers, but good for now.

Before:

After: 90% of the crap went in the trash. Now I have phone numbers and addresses. I should really get more friends so I have enough numbers to fill the drawer back up:)

I also tackled THIS ugly mail holder and got it all cleaned out and pretty again, but have not figured out my NEW HOME for the mail yet....working on that one still:)

Pretty boring. I hear ya. I WOULD totally recommend these 2 books if you are looking to de-clutter. They are not start to finish reads, but skim and skip through books. I LOVE people giving me ideas for keeping the crap chaos under control. ANYWAY....

I hope to have some of the fun stuff finished up SOON. On the half done list....3 spray painting projects, 1 Ana White wood project, and creating a new office area in my bedroom. BUT until I get off my bum and off PINTEREST.....

Fun Quote Friday!!!

2011-09-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

I recently joined PINTEREST and I CANNOT stop pinning!! I am findind SOOO many good ideas for my HOME MAKEOVER. I cannot wait to get cracking. Pinning is one thing, but CRAFTING that is the fun part.

I am also finding some fun quotes that MAKE ME SMILE!!! I thought I would share the love because who doesn't need a FREE smile on FRIDAY???

ENJOY!!

The 365 Day dress

2011-09-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

Guess who starts Pre-School next week????

Emersyn keeps asking IS TODAY PRE-SCHOOL DAY???? IS TODAY PRE-SCHOOL DAY???? She is SOOOO ready to go!!! I on the other hand CANNOT believe that she is so grown up (SIGH).

On ANOTHER note...I am slowly working through my WIP basket. This little dress has been in there for A WHILE. Just to give you a hint...the shirt for this dress is size 24 months and the cute little girl wearing it is THREE!!! YEP...been working on that one for a while. SADLY....the only thing I had left to do was to sew on the ribbon. EMBARRASSING!!! The tutorial I used was from FROM AN IGLOO and is CORRECTLY named the Twirly T-shirt dress. THAT is exactly what it is:) Although it would have been a little longer A YEAR AGO when I made it, it works great and she LOVES the twirl. I will for sure have to use this tutorial again and make something a little more IN OUR SIZE!!

Is it pre-school day yet?????

Operation 52

2011-08-31T23:05:00.000-07:00

I am stuck in a rut. A BIG HUGE disorganized BLAH rut. Every day I wake up and my house is....still there. Which is good I guess. It would sure suck if it were gone. BUT sometimes I feel like I am living in a rental house. Like my house is a temporary place of residence that I have just borrowed for a while. I HATE THAT!! I have lived in my house for 5 years. IT SHOULD FEEL LIKE ME.....right??? Well it doen't. Not REALLY. A lot has changed around here in 5 years. I have become a TOTALLY different person. BUT my house is still a busy teacher with deadlines and papers to correct and junk piled in the closet from when she moved in. SOOOO I decided I am ready for a makeover....

My house is fine. It is a nice little "mousy brown haired mommy lady." But it WANTS to be a "pretty red-head with nice white teeth and a splash of red lipstick." I am sure on the inside this lady(who I graciously borrowed from google images) WAS a red head. She just needed to get in touch with that part of her personality. I want MY house to get more in touch with MY personality. SOOO I decided to put it in writing. No more.....when I get a chance....OR....someday I would love to.....TODAY I am starting to change things around here.

I am giving myself ONE year....52 weeks to make my house into the home I want it to be. If I can create a human being in 40 weeks, I should darn well be able to re-vamp 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and.....well an entire house.

Since I have officially OUTED myself, I will actually follow through. That is the madness behind my....madness. 52 projects....52 changes...some big....some small....but all of them to make my house JUST THE WAY I WANT IT. Cleaner. Greener. and MORE JESSICA!!!

Next September you will walk into my house (preferably only those who actually know me please) and say...."wow that REALLY looks like you (me)!!!" I will be updating my progress here for all to see. The GOOD. The BAD. And the Worse than bad. I am not going for a remodel or overhaul, just AHHHHHHH!!! (the sound you make when you get into a nice warm shower at the end of the day....not the sound you make when you drop the milk jug on the floor without the lid on it).

Operation 52 is in full swing starting tomorrow.

A new month....A new start......and a new LOVE (fingers crossed)!!!

Baby Board Shorts

2011-08-29T23:15:00.000-07:00

You know when you have waited until the very last minute for something and then you FINALLY get it finished??? That feeling of relief and accomplishment??? I ALMOST have that right now. If only summer was not almost over and my baby board shorts were not a LITTLE bit too late. BUMMER-IFIC!!!! Oh well. For one more sunny day Baby Boy can look cute:) Anyway. I am still trying to empty out my WIP basket. I AM NOT GIVING UP!!!!

Not a great picture of Ethan, but the only view of his shorts that half way turned out. I cannot believe how hard it is to take a picture of a kid who ONLY wants to learn to crawl. Wiggle Wiggle WIGGLE!!!! ANYWAY...When I was in bandana short making mode at the beginning of the summer, I whipped up these little baby board shorts. I saw this bandana and thought...BOARD SHORTS!!! I hve more of these bandanas and had hoped to make Em a matching bandana skirt, but NOT GONNA HAPPEN THIS SUMMER. Besides that....BABY boy never got to enjoy his shorts because they sat in the bottom of THE BASKET waiting for the shirt to go with it.

I used the 90 minute shirt tutorial from MADE and it only took my 90 DAYS!!!! Oh well. I completed it..that is what counts right??? I liked the pattern and hope to make many more of those some day. NOT TODAY THOUGH!!!

Scarlett O'Hara Skirts

2011-08-28T23:50:00.000-07:00

While at Target the other day I found 2 cute curtain panels on clearance for around 3 bucks. I wanted them, but was not sure what the finished product would be. BUT how can you pass up 90 percent savings??? I at least thought I should carry them around in my cart for a while just in case.
Then I thought Oh Fiddle-dee-dee I wonder if I could make skirts out of them. OK OK I didn't think that....but I COULD have!!! Anyway....I made the purchase and thought I would try it. The first one started as a window valance....

I cut off all the cute little tabs, sewed the two ends together, made and elastic casing....

And ended up with a happy little ALMOST pre-schooler. She likes to make up her own poses when I try to take pictures of her. I am not sure where she learns this stuff....I have never seen Dora do a photo session, but whatever....she is so darn cute I just go with it.

Curtain number 2 was an even easier fix. It was an ACTUAL curtain. The green strip was a casing for a curtain rod, so I decided to use that for my elastic.

I just measured how much room I needed for elastic and sewed a SEMI straight line down the green strip. Then strung my elastic through and sewed up the side seam--elastic and all.

I am spoiled now and may never want to ACTUALLY hem anything ever again. It was so nice to whip up a skirt in about ten minutes and never have to think about top-stitching or hemming or measuring. It was just instant gratification....I needed a few NON-complicated projects to get my sewing mojo back I think.

Skirt number 3 I made from some thrifted vintage napkins I had laying around. I initially bought them for my etsy shop, but then I noticed that a few in the set had some slight staining issues....so waste not want not right???? I was not sure Emersyn would be ok with the VINTAGE look, but she LOVED it. She called it her cowgirl skirt and refused to take it off....cannot beat a reaction like that. It is just perfect for lounging around the plantation:)

She cracks me up because when I get done sewing something for her and have her try it on she instantly runs outside and yells....TAKE A PICTURE OF ME NOW. SO I do.

Some of her poses are better than others....

These were by far the easiest re-fashions EVER. I know I say that every time, but SERIOUSLY this time. 30 minutes for all three skirts. For a little princess who likes to twirl and dance around....PERFECT!!!! I am actually loving this whole...BACK TO SCHOOL thing. I realize it is just pre-scool 2 days a week, but the kid needs a new wardrobe RIGHT??? ;) I am however OUT of curtains to sew up.....but AFTER ALL....TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY:)

6 months (and a week)

2011-08-25T22:46:00.000-07:00

A little over 6 months ago I started a quilt. A simple little quilt for my SOON to come baby boy. ONLY one problem. I didn't QUITE get it done before he arrived. Life happened and I got the top done, but didn't get it quilted. I had REALLY good intentions of getting it done within weeks of his birth, but somehow FAILED. Then I planned on getting it finished before he had surgery....FAIL. SOO a little over a week ago I decided I would get it done by the time he turned 6 months. Now (only a week late) I got it finished. PHEW!!!!

It sure would have been easier to get a picture of a newborn. This guy does NOT hold still for 1 second. He spends his days trying to perfect the whole CRAWLING thing. YIKES!!!

The pattern is Little Man from Camille's book SIMPLIFY. The fabric is (pretty sure) a little Authentic by Sweetwater, a little Michael Miller, and a few.....something or others. I just grabbed what I liked.

I think my boy kinda likes it too:) NOW that is a happy little boy.....LOVE IT!!!

The backing is my favorite. I love the gray and the dots. LOVE. THE. DOTS!!!! I do not love the crooked quilting line down the green strip, but.....it is what it is RIGHT???

Man a lot can happen in six months......

And there he goes....

Reality Check Aisle 5

2011-08-24T23:44:00.000-07:00

I went to a Bret Michaels concert tonight. I know...I know....totally doesn't seem like me right??? I was being a supportive wife. AGAIN....I know...totally doesn't sound like me either. I guess today was a day of miracles. It was ok. I swayed, I clapped, I sang along in appropriate places. I enjoyed it as much as a NON rocker can. ANYWAY...
I had a bit of a MOMENT today. I was getting ready to go to the fair and I wondered....HMMM?? I wonder what I should wear. Pretty typical, except I actually had a moment of remembering. THE FAIR!!!

Growing up, the fair was IT!!! It was the last big excitement of the summer before school started. It was hot, and long, and AWESOME!!! IT was also the first time we got to try out some of our NEW school clothes. NOT all of them of course...because then there would be no mysteries on the first day of school OH MY!!! But just enough to think that we were looking pretty hot. Which MATTERED of course because we had not seen the boys all summer and wanted to REMIND them how cute we were I guess. Even more important than what to wear AT the fair was what to wear AT NIGHT at the fair. There were rodeos and concerts and wandering aimlessly through the carnival....you know all the stuff you have to pull out the big guns for!!!! WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO MY FIRST POINT.....

There I was standing in front of my mirror thinking....What does a 30 something mother of 2 wear to a rock concert?????? And it hit me.....WHATEVER YOU WANT because nobody cares. It was kind of like a slap in the face reality check. I could have worn my pajamas and nobody would notice because it is not about ME anymore. HMMMM??? What does this little realization mean for me???? Well it means I need to watch myself because that is why mommas start wearing MOM jeans and white high top sneakers. OR strapless sun dresses WITH 90 percent of their bra showing (that would be the old lady in front of me at the concert by the way).

SOOO needless to say....Bret and me didn't hook up. I jammed out in my capris and sensible shoes, and all was well in my 31 year old mother of 2 life.

The Easiest Re-fashion EVER!!!

2011-08-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

You know when you have one of those weeks??? The ones where the kids each wake you up about 100 times a night, there are no clean clothes, and the only thing you feel like making for dinner is pizza. The ones where you wake up in the morning with no covers on three square inches of your bed and look over too see your kids all piled up between you and your husband. The ones where you contemplate running away, but it just seems like it would take more energy than you have. Yeah....well multiply that by 10 and that about sums up the way I have felt this week.

THEN by some miracle sent from above, the stars aligned and the kids took a nap AT THE SAME TIME. I should have made a dent in the dirty clothes mountain or cleaned the sticky goo off of my kitchen floor OR taken a nap....but I decided to sew. Crazy I KNOW!!!

I needed something simple and mindless AND with instant payoff. I chose to dig out my re-purpose box and see what popped out at me. I have had THIS

shirt around since I was PREGNANT with Emersyn....so over 3 years. I thought it had potential, but never quite knew what to make of it. I decided to go easy and make a simple skirt. SOOOOO I cut off the bottom below the waist, added an elastic waist and SMILED!!!!

I KNEW Emersyn was going to like it. WHY???? Because it would look great with a pair of cowgirl boots.....and this girl LOVES her cowboy boots!!!

I don't know if it is because they are pink or because they are adorable or if it is because they tap when she walks, but SHE LOVES HER BOOTS!!

So we both got what we wanted. She got a cute comfy cowgirl skirt and I got 1 hour to myself with no crying, pooping, or BUT WHY'S.

And in my opinion a twirly girly skirt is about as good as it gets. Maybe even a little therapeutic :)

Hitting the Books!!

2011-08-18T07:51:00.000-07:00

I finally got back into the reading groove this month after a LONG time away. I have started off strong though with a few good ones. The last two books I read I REALLY REALLY enjoyed. They are right up my alley actually. Love stories that take place during WWII. Just so you know...that SCREAMS Jessica :)

This is a 3 book Christian series called THE WINGS OF GLORY by Sarah Sundin. I have read the first two so far. Book 1, A DISTANT MELODY, is about a very wealthy girl (Allie) who is engaged to her father's business partner(unhappily) when she meets a military pilot (Wally) at her friend's wedding. They hit it off and she "forgets" to mention her boyfriend. They write back and forth from the war and each tells lies to the other and to their friends and family. They both get caught in multiple lies and have to sort through to the truth. I kinda loved it...not gonna lie.

Book 2, A MEMORY BETWEEN US, continues on with Wally's brother (Jack) now being the main character. He is a pilot in the war and gets shot. He meets Ruth, a nurse in the hospital who REFUSES to date. She is an orphan who is working hard to send her money home to her siblings so that they can stay out of the orphanage. She does not want the distraction of dating, plus she has some horrible things from her past that keep her from making friends or having relationships. Although Jack takes it slow to try to win over Ruth, he cannot compete with her terrible memories. He has his own demons to get past, AND is trying to make the decision about whether to become a preacher when he returns home. Drama Drama Drama. I am ready to read book 3 about the 3rd brother. It is called...

BLUE SKIES TOMORROW. I love the mixture of History and Fiction. I cannot get enough of WWII. I know it was a horrible time, but it sure makes for some good reading:)

I am off to the library website to reserve book 3!!!

Burning the scrambled eggs....

2011-08-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else a super messy cook???? NO, just me. Hmmm??!!! Well I cannot deny that EVERY time I finish cooking my stove looks pretty much like this...

I am not sure if it has anything to do with my need for speed and dislike of low cook setting or what. BUT WOWZA what a mess!!! So I was so thrilled when I read about HOW TO CLEAN A FLAT/CERAMIC STOVE in one of the cleaning books I recently read ( not sure which one because they are already back at the library...oops!!). Anyway...normally I use a special stovetop cleaner and a little elbow grease and get my stove pretty clean....when I manage to get the time to clean it at all that is. BUT I found my new found tip so helpful I thought I would share. HERE GOES....The answer is Baking Soda. YEP. Worked WAY better than the stuff I bought in the store. You just sprinkle it on (I use enough to cover the whole yucky mess) and then sprinkle some water over it. Then I used a toothbrush to scrub off the yuck. I took a picture after just a few weak scrubs---comes off super easy.

I also read that if it is REALLY cooked on. Do the same thing but throw a little vinegar on top of the baking soda. It is neat....it gets all fizzy...but I am not sure it worked any better than straight backing soda.

In case you cannot tell...this totally rocked my world!!!! Simple pleasures in the day of a stay at home mom I guess:)

Boy shorts

2011-08-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I told you about this cute vest tutorial at B is for Boy....well I could not let the poor boy wear his cute vest WITHOUT some matching shorts!!! I was a little bummed that the shorts I bought to re-purpose ONLY had enough fabric for the vest (I didn't realize it would be fully lined). SOOOO I had to improvise. I grabbed a brown skirt out of my GOODWILL pile and got to work.

I followed the same steps as from over HERE when I made bandana shorts, except this time I used the pockets from the skirt to make the pockets of the shorts.

It worked great. I just cut the pockets RIGHT off the skirt. I even cut the bottom layer of fabric and kept the button. That means inside his pocket is a button that is only attached to a small circle of fabric, but since he doesn't REALLY use his pockets, I think we are safe:) I just sewed the pockets onto the front side of the shorts BEFORE I attached the 2 sides together. I sewed them on by top-stiching and left the edges raw. I think raw edges scream BOY, but I guess you could turn them under and have finished edges too. ANYWAY....quick easy addition to our CHURCH attire and probably the last pair of shorts of the season.....now on to making coats and pants:)

B is for Boy!!

2011-08-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

Pheww...Summer is kicking my tail. So many things to do before the weather gets cool again. Fairs, parties, birthdays, and this week....pre-school orientation. How do I have a kid old enough for pre-school??? When did that happen??? Anyway...I did manage to get a little ALONE time amongst all of the chaos...and of course I headed to the sewing room. I have REALLY been wanting to make something cute for my little Ethan boy for a while now. It seems like there are TONS of cute girl things to make, but boy patterns are few and far between. THEN I ran into THIS cute vest tutorial from B is for BOY. I INSTANTLY knew that this was the tutorial for me. So I headed to Value Village for some pants to re-purpose.

Actually I found SHORTS to re-purpose, but I SHOULD have looked harder for pants. WHY???? Because then I could have made him a matching pair for pants. As it was, I only had enough fabric for the vest. SOOO I guess I will have to make another one:) HMMM..better head to Value Village Again!!!

This tutorial was great. Easy to follow and well explained with pictures. I LOVE PICTURES!!!! There are only 2 things I would do differently. Both having to do with the top of the vest. It tucks under the onesie flap, which works great. BUT when the neck moves or gets pulled, the raw edges of the top of the unfinished vest show. I did not like that...so I sewed a few stiches on the top flap through the vest...just to keep it all closed up. I should have either made the vest tops narrower or folded them under and finished the tops off. That is my only complaint. I guess that is REALLY only 1 thing I would change...

I think this would be SUCH a fun baby shower gift. Quick and easy. PLUS who doesn't love to dress their baby up:)

So for the sophisticated 6 month old....SUCCESS!!!! Perfect for a morning at church, and comfy enough for an afternoon in the yard. BTW....I LOVE THIS LITTLE BOY!!!!!

Giddy-Up!!

2011-08-13T07:57:00.000-07:00

At least 2 years ago I bought this cute little retro cowgirl outfit at a yard sale. I thought it was kinda throw back Dolly Parton or something. Plus little girls can get away with wearing totally ridiculous things....like fringe and horse head shirts. Now at the time my little girlie was barely ONE and this was a TWO year old outfit, but I figured SOMEDAY my little girl would be a cowgirl...but it just never happened. The fairs here are all during the summer and too hot for long sleeves and no other occassion warrented a fringy horse head. SOOO this cute little number hung in the closet and got smaller and smaller. BUMMER. Well the other day a huge haul of thrifted clothes and a FULL closet required some mid-SUMMER cleaning, so I decided to discard all of the too smalls hanging out in Emersyn's closet. I decided the horsies---no matter how cute---had to go. Then I had AN IDEA....I have pretty much shortened the sleeves on every hoodie and sweater I own....WHY NOT A SHIRT??? What could it hurt??????

SOOOO here you have it....

HOW TO SHORTEN THE SLEEVES ON SHIRT OR DRESS SHIRT!!!

The process was a little bit different, but the idea is the same. First I unpicked the arm from the shirt. I think if you had a regular cuff you could do EXACTLY like a sweatshirt, but I needed to salvage my cute cuff. Once the sleeve was off, I cut the TOP of the sleeve. I just free handed it...but make sure to copy the SHAPE of the top of the sleeve. You need the curve to make the sleeve look right. Make sure you use the cut sleeve as a pattern for cutting the 2nd sleeve so that they are the same length....which is always a good idea:)

Then i just followed the steps from SHORTENING a hoodie sleeve. Which are....
1. turn your shirt inside out.
2. put your sleeve (right side out) inside the arm hole. This should put them RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER)
3. Then line up the seams for the under arm and pin. Make sure that these seams line up...otherwise your arm-pit looks WONKY. You don't want a HOMEMADE looking arm-pit!!!! ALSO line up the middle of the top of the sleeve and then middle of the top of the arm hole and pin.
4. Pin all the way around. Your sleeve may not be the same size as your hole....just evenly disperse the fabric and pin well. I left all of my extra at the top of the sleeve and made little pleats on the shoulder.
5. Sew around the sleeve hole.
6. Flip it right side out and enjoy!!!!

I was so happy that this worked out. The shirt was perfect for a COWGIRL night at the fair!!! That is just how my Cowgirl poses these days...not sure why, but you get a pretty good view of her sleeve..haha!!!

I would really recommend measuring how much to cut off. I was on the safe side and didn't have my Cowgirl handy....I could have for sure gone a bit shorter. But that didn't stop her and her bestie from having a fun old time at the fair!!!

She got in some good practice on her Rodeo Queen wave during her PONY RIDE. Seriously..what could be better than riding a pony IN a pony shirt????? Nothing cuter that is for sure!!!

I think this NEW way of shortening sleeves will be great for me. I have short stubby arms, so long sleeves never fit me quite right. PLUS I like 3/4 better than long sleeves....so I will have to start QUARTERING I guess.

Here is the whole HANDY family. Don't feel bad for BABY BOY not having a COWBOY outfit...He had just already POOPED OUT his overalls. Just so you know we are EQUAL opportunity with our Cowboy/girl attire over here;)

Happy "shortening" Ya'll. Just a warning....it can be exhausting being so cute and cowgirlie...be prepared!!!!

Fact OR Fiction???

2011-08-07T23:20:00.000-07:00

I have never been a big fan of non-fiction. I am more of a historical fiction kinda gal. BUT the whole fiction thing takes a bit of time and a few more brain cells than I have available at the moment. I need something that you can jump in and out of and skip around in. PLUS I kinda like this little thing called LEARNING. So I have started to check out a few non-fiction books from the library.

I started with BABY LOVE by Norah O'Donnell and Chef Geoff Tracy. This book was a good start for me to begin learning about making homemade baby food. It DID have a few good recipes and tips, but it also had stuff that was WAY beyond me. Like Baby Couscous. When my kid is ready to eat couscous, I will probably just feed my kid what I have made us for dinner. PLUS I don't even know what Flaxseed is, probably not going to figure it out just to make some yummy apple pie like baby food. Just my opinion. I am not a chef. I would have rather had more BASIC recipes...just my opinion. Overall good information though...

Next up, THE ONE MINUTE CLEANER by Donna Smallin. It claims to give you 500 tips for cleaning smarter and not harder. I need all the tips I can get. This was a quick read. Just brief little snipits about cleaning. Perfect for reading while feeding the baby or during a 5 minute break from....feeding the baby again;) It had great info about alternative cleaners and different ways to lift stains and odors. It also gave some good tips on getting your house cleaner and more organized so that it is EASIER to clean. Who doesn't want that?? I plan to read her other book...THE ONE MINUTE ORGANIZER....sounds like someone we need to hire at our house.

Next on the agenda, Real simple SOLUTIONS. I love this magazine, so when I spotted the book I grabbed it right off the shelf. I REALLY love the photos. So clean and lovely. This book (and the magazine) has great little tips for organizing and cleaning. Actually solutions for everything...how to clean your hairbrush...the best way to ripen tomatos....easy decorating tips...you name it. I also love that the pictures explain the process....easy and fun to look at. This book really reads like a magazine. I recommend!!

And last, 365 Activities You And Your Toddler Will Love. This was one of those books where you think....I know how to play with my kid...I don't need a book. AND you are right. BUT this book did have some fun little activities that I will try. Like songs with hand motions. Or little craft ideas that I would not have done. It is always nice to have a new fun idea floating around up there. PLUS it is a good reminder to ACTUALLY do things with your little ones besides feed them, bathe them, and watch Dragon Tales with them. I would say this book is geared more towards younger toddlers, 12 months to 2 years, but it did have some good activities and simple science experiments that would work with those crazy 3 year olds too.

Happy Reading (and learning)!!

Dirty Little Secrets...

2011-08-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

Meet my WIP basket. We have not been on speaking terms lately, but I have decided to give him another chance. Poor guy is overflowing with un-finished projects, mending, ironing, partialy sewn pieces of clothing, pants with no buttons...YOU NAME IT. I have officially decided to DE-clutter my life a bit. I got rid of TONS of un-used fabric and notions, I have re-organized my craft room, and I am ready to get the mess under control.

STARTING with THIS darn basket!!!!

First on the list....pillowcases. A few months back my Mia-Maid girls sewed up some pillowcases for ConKerr Cancer. It is a great organization that gives cute handmade pillowcases to children undergoing cancer treatments. ANYWHO...a few of the girls did not finish and a bunch of the donated fabric was cut and ready to sew.....SO I took it upon myself to finish them on up.

It took a night of mid-night sewing, but I FINISHED. The girls had made 4 and I finished up theirs and made 11 more. We had already sent off 6 from our first go around. THAT makes 21 of these little cuties that are going to be out there helping cute little kids to feel better.

It is a WIN WIN. I get to mark something off my TO-DO list AND help. I used THIS pattern from MADE and still love it....so simple and easy.
Now I have to get myself off to the post office before another 4 months has come and gone!!

Anybody else have a BIG fat basket full of dirty little secrets????

HOW TO: cut a watermelon

2011-08-05T22:23:00.000-07:00

Now I know this seems like a silly thing to post about...AND IT IS. BUT it blew my mind and made me WANT to buy a watermelon. Usually I am at the store and WANT to eat watermelon, but DON'T want to deal with the mess. Sticky floor, sticky cutting board, juice EVERYWHERE. NOT WORTH IT!!!

But yesterday my dad brought over a watermelon (how can you resist free produce???) and I did't wanna waste it. SOOO I tried to think of a less messy way to cut it. Go outside....good, but still a mess out there. Cut into slices and eat it out of the rind....not doable for a 3 year old. THEN I had one of those moments. You know the ones like Oprah always talks about??? I was like AH HAH!! I've got it!!! Now you may have had this moment years ago...if so ....good for you. BUT if you, like me, have been avoiding sticky melons for the sake of laziness, this is the AH HAH you have been waiting for.

You simply have to cut the stupid thing on a towel. Then all of the sticky juice drips on the towel and NOT all over your counters and floors.
Did I just blow your mind??? I hope so!!! Totally changed my life. I even drove by a fruit stand today and thought...hey maybe I should stop and pick up a watermelon....and maybe even a Honeydew.....endless fruity possibilities.... :)

Happy Summer Ya'll!!!