Crafty Door Hanger

FINALLY! Here is a picture of Camille's finished door hanger. Sorry that the light is wonky and the colors ar not completely accurate, but you get the idea. I chose blue to go with the gold that is her favorite color. She found this little birdie at Michaels and I made the flowers. This is a recylced idea that I found on Pinterest. I got the frame at Goodwill, all the decor were items I recycled form other projects or leftovers or made myself. The buttons I've had for probably 15 years so I was glad to find a home for them. The strings on the bottom are made from strips of t-shirt. The wraps on the sides are made from leftover fabric. This project cost me approximately $4 and my kiddo is happy to have her initial to hang on her door.

Buying a house!

If everything goes to plan (God willing), we will be closing on our new house May 1st. We are so excited to be blessed with this house, it is very nicely appointed. Here are some pics to enjoy.

Front of House:
















Family Room (right of front door)


















Living room is plain and boring. :) No picture. This is the Dining room to see the wall-paper.







Fancy bedrooms upstairs:

See the entrance into the bath to the left? This is not the master, but it has a door into the hall bath. Unusual set-up but it works.











So, this is the new house. We are looking forward to having fun in the pool all summer long. Bring your suits! (and towels!)

Goodwill, remnants, and one new letter

I am so excited to share something with you because I started a project and actually finished it all in one night. Not that I won't tweak it or add anything to it, but it is done enough to share.

I found this adorable project on Pinterest and I thought "I can make that!" It was from a blog called "PaperWings" by the author, Tracey Crosby. Click the blog name to see my inspiration!



So I set out to gather up all the stuff I needed. Upcycle some picture frames from Goodwill, snag some AWESOME remnants at Hancock fabrics, but the letter was stumping me. I just went ahead and bought it at Hobby Lobby. However, while I was checking out, the very sweet cashier told me I could pull up the weekly coupon on my phone and redeem it there! Who knew? What an awesome shopping trip is that?!?

Home I go, with my awesome objects ready to be turned into something spectacular. I poked and I painted and I prodded and I realized that I did not know how to make felt flowers or any flowers (other than paper ones) and that I did not have matching felt anyways. :( Now I was stuck. So, I watched Youtube videos for 2 hours and eventually taught myself how to do these ADORABLE fabric rosettes.

They turned out awesome, only required a little bit of my remnant fabric, and some hot glue. No sewing so they went much faster than if I tried to sew. }:} I also liked the exposed gold corners of the gold frame showing.


My project turned out even better than I hoped so that is pretty good. :) Enjoy, and let me know what you think from inspiration to completion!


I finished one of these for one daughter but the second daughter will just have to be understanding and wait until I have time later (next week) to finish hers.

New summer skirt idea.

I found this idea on a blog from a link on a blog from a link on Pinterest. I know, shame on me. I am looking for the post right now so I can give credit, hang on a minute.

Okay, I give up. I have looked and looked. If ANYONE can find the original blog/post, PLEASE let me know and I will update this post.

So, here goes. I found this idea on another blog, which I can not find now. I thought it seemed fun so I got started. I have 2 girls to sew for and I can not make something for one without making something for the other so I needed 2 polo shirts. For my 10 YO, I used an XL men's shirt (a large would do fine). For the 5 YO, I used a Medium boys shirt and could have used the length of the large boys.

So, I simply laid the shirt flat and cut it off, just below the arm pits. I cut through both layers.


Now I have a tube of fabric that is already hemmed. Using the hem for the bottom of the skirt, you just need to fold over the top of the skirt to make a casing for your elastic. Sew it all the way around except for a small section left open to insert elastic. Then thread through your elastic (no-roll 1" wide) using a large safety pin on the end. Pin your elastic ends and sew together. Make SURE your elastic is not twisted before you sew. Then tuck in the elastic and sew closed the little section you left open.


You are finished! How easy is that, right? It truly is a 30 minute project if you have a polo shirt and a piece of elastic.

Food I found on Pinterest

We made something so scrumptious today that it is my new favorite. I think Shannon would even agree. :) If you LOVE bread or cheese, read on.

I am a messer, which does not mean that I am messy, it just means that I mess with stuff. I can never just DO WHAT THE RECIPE SAYS! I have to find my own way. Here is a link to the ORIGINAL RECIPE. Check it out before you read on.

My version is much simpler and may make you more willing to try it, but the original is still sinfully AWESOME and should be attempted at least once. I will do the original recipe some day. Part of my problem is that I am impatient. I can not wait until everything is perfect before I do something so I just DO IT. Sometimes this means I blunder along and get stuff wrong or the thing turns out like I did not intend. Sometimes it works out okay and this time it did. :)

So, What I did was first, use a muti-grain bread loaf. Try to help the healthy level there. I inserted the provolone but I folded it in half and stuck the whole slice in there, not just half. I sauteed some mushrooms and filled the bread with them, pressing them down into the crevices. Then I sprinkled the green onions on top of the mushrooms.

Now, melted butter would be SOO yummy and make this gooier than EVER, but it is not healthy for you in large quantities. Since I forgot this part of the recipe and did not add it, this makes my recipe even healthier. :) I just wrapped it in foil, put in the oven and heated to melt the cheese. When it came out it was AWESOME (in case you forgot from earlier). However, I though to myself, hmm, could it be any more awesome? The answer was yes; it needed some kind of seasoning so I added a couple of seaoning mixes from the cabinet (on different parts) to try them out. You should definitely at least use a little seasoned salt but try Tony Chacere's if you like cajun spice or an italian spice mix if you want to go that direction. Even just a little garlic salt would be great.

The best thing about this recipe is that you can use the basic idea and go crazy with alternative fillings!!! I never thought about just filling the loaf with food and letting people take it apart themselves!! What a lazy way to serve sandwiches!!! You could do ham and swiss. You could do pepperoni and mozz. You could do corned beef and cabbage with some kind of cheese. You could even do basic ground beef (or turkey) and sharp chedder. I mean, the possibilities are endless!

I wish you all well, hope you enjoy your cheesy pull apart bread and I suggest you arm ourself with a blunt weapon in case people start coming out of the woodwork trying to get your bread. They will. }:}

Do you have any good filling ideas? Let me know what your ideas are and if you try this. I want to know how good it is!!!

A new Skirt Make-over

You can find the tutorial for the ruffled skirt portion here. Click Here

I made a pair of shorts into a ruffled skirt. How fun for the girls. Little Sister LOVES it. It is still big for her and she has to wear a belt but that is not stopping her. I used a pair of jean shorts from a company called Rubee Jeans. I've never heard of them before but these shorts were SOO cute. They had distressed patches and paint splotches and I just HAD to buy them (on clearance, of course, because I never pay full price for ANYTHING).

Here is a picture of them, I forgot to take the before picture so you will have to imagine them without the ruffles. I also cut out the seams that made them into shorts because my girls do not need the shorts under the skirt but if your girls are very active and need extra coverage, you can keep them intact as shorts.





So, now you are imagining how CUTE these shorts were before and wondering why not leave a good thing alone. Well, the decor was cute but the style was not. We don't wear skinny jeans or fitted shorts so these had to be altered. WEEE! I have not done any ruffles since I was in Home Ec in Highschool because it was a LOT of work. I have been wanting to make ruffled something for my girls but I was seriously not sure that I wanted to work so hard. After this alteration, I remember why I was leary of ruffles and I realize that making them look nice is harder than just making the ruffle.

Always default to MORE fabric for your ruffles rather than less. I had a specific width of fabric to work with and that is what I used but now that I am finished, I would double the fabric if I did it again. It is too flat and needs more POOF!

Here are the working process pictures. The link to the tutorial is at the beginningof this post. I did not follow her plans exactly because I was not re-purposing a T-shirt but I follwed her basic directions for making ruffles. I like her t-shirt dress MUCH better. :} I will have to follow her diretions exactly and make another, better project. Here in GA we do not need long-sleeve t-shirts for much of the year so I will likely just use a short sleeve t-shirt.








Here is the finished product. As you can see, the ruffles are not ruffly enough. Also, they are not straight at all because I did not measure. The simplest way to keep the ruffles straight is to measure and pin. I hate pinning but I also know better.

Enjoy!

Christmas Decor

Starting NOW!



This idea is designed for Christmas but could easily be for any themed holiday. I had this project all ready to go because of a class I taught so I wanted to share while you had time to plan ahead.:) I just got out all my leftover Christmas goodies from years ago and repurposed them into a new Christmas Decor item.



Christmas Centerpiece Tutorial

You will need:

A book from Goodwill or your granny's bookcase
(I used Reader's Digest Condensed books because they are pretty, they are free at my Salvation Army Store, and I've read all the ones I have)

Hot Glue Gun and Hot Glue Sticks

6' of Ribbon (a little more if you want to make a bigger bow but 6' is enough)

Christmas pretties (non-breakable ornaments make a GREAT addition and you can get them from Christmas Tree Shops CHEAP)

Holly or evergreen from the bushes outside (or pieces of greenery garland)



You can add ANYTHING you can find that is cheap or free and when you are done it still looks awesome. I am going to do some plain nature ones next. :)

1. Wrap Ribbon around your book to measure and cut the rest off for your bow.
2. Re-wrap ribbon and hot glue ends to each other, keeping glue off book.
3. Wrap wire stem of large poinsettia or Christmas present cluster around the crossed center.
4. Make a Bow from other piece of ribbon, attach to center decor on one side.
5. Insert "Snow" (fiber fill) under other side of center decor.
6. Make an indention in the fiberfill to make a nest for ornament.
7. Glue fiberfill down and glue ornament in the nest.
8. Add finishing touches, like garland, tinsel, glitter spray, holly branches or evergreen sprigs, etc.
9. Carefully turn project side to side and upside down to see what needs more hot glue and add. Make sure everything is attached to everything where you can not see it.
10. Fluff up ribbon Bow and give away or place on table!

This was a fun project and with the exception of the hot glue you can do this with any age. The kids come up with some awesome creations. :)