I'm in the spotlight!

On Jessica's blog, Happy Together! Remember the bracelets I made using her hoop earrings tutorial?



She featured them along with several other projects readers have made using her tutorials. Go check out her blog!

ugly...

Have you ever been to Lil Blue Boo blog? She is all about upcycling (reusing/recycling clothing) and creates the CUTEST clothing for little girls, combining old and new knits. She issued a challenge to use ugly knits to create something, anything (doesn't have to be clothing, or even sewn for that matter) cute. Check out the button below for contest rules and PRIZES! I hope to enter this one.

awkward posing

Ugh, I really hate posing for pictures but it was about time I had a picture of one of my nursing capes on a real person. I made this nursing cape for for a mama expecting a baby boy soon. I just love this fabric.


Holding my imaginary baby

Not sure why I am grabbing my thigh here...


I'm considering finally starting up an etsy site. What do you think?

Fabric Wrapped Bracelets and a mini tute

Here I go again in my quest to accessorize and vamp up my wardrobe. I saw this tutorial for hoop earrings at Happy Together. They are SO cute! Unfortunately, I cannot wear "fake" earrings. Boo. HOWEVER, I figured I'd try the idea with bracelets. I had a few dollars left on an A.C. Moore gift card so I picked up this pack of thin bangles for $2 (cheaper if you have one of their coupons), I think there were 7 in the pack.



Once of these days I'll hit up the Dollar Tree and see if they have some wide bangles to try this with. I dug through my bag of scraps and decided to do several in neutral tones, I included one that had a pale blue/gray in the pattern. All colors often found in my wardrobe. I LOVE how they came out!!!


With this set, I simply wrapped the blue/brown fabric, and with the solid fabric I first wrapped, and then used her knotting technique. I think this one may be my favorite!



With this set I wrapped using a strip of the the print fabric, and the other I used the "ragged" selvage edge the solid color fabric. I love the different textures!



I used the same size bangle for this bracelet. Want to know how I changed the width of this one and created the pleats?



Here is a mini tute for you. I hope these pictures don't make your eyes bleed. I thought of taking pictures while I was in the middle of this project, which I did during the finale of LOST. I couldn't tell if they were coming out or not and I was a little preoccupied. lol

First I cut several long strips of canvas type fabric (anything on the heavier side should do) that were 1/2 inch wide. Using hot glue, I covered the INSIDE of the bracelet with my fabric strip. Then I took another strip to create the pleats on the outside of the bracelet. Pinch your fabric and fold it up over the strip that is already glued down. When you have it were you want it, put a small dab of hot glue under that fold so that it stays put and then continue all the way around until your reached the spot you started. I varied the size of my pleats and let a few tilt to one side or the other so it didn't look too uniform.




Let me know if you have questions. Now wear your one of a kind bracelets with pride!



Linking up here

free

I've scored a couple of free items at Target recently. Did you know that the Target website has printable coupons? Head down to the bottom, and under "Stores" click on "coupons". Lately they've had a bunch of Merona coupons.

They actually paid me to take these off their hands, lol. I had a $5 off purse coupon, and found this $5 purse. Then I had a $3 off sandals coupon, and these sandals were $2.48. They still credited me the full $3, so they paid me! Love it!


For those who use coupons, I joined two groups on facebook that alert me when there are new printable coupons and when to match them with sales. They are The Krazy Coupon Lady and The Frugal Girls. I find it saves me a lot of time, I don't have to constantly be checking for new coupons myself, I just wait for them to tell me.

Have you seen any of Target's Liberty of London line? I think some of it is really cute. The clothes seem to be marked down 75%, yes I managed to restrain myself until then. I got these two halter dresses, LOVE the print on them, that several sizes too big but that just means more to work with! The striped skirt I got at old Navy for $2.

have you given up on me yet?

Well, my new (month old) netbook has a virus and we've had cool, rainy weather for the last week. The combination of those two things has made it hard to get any good pictures or get them uploaded. I actually have two tutorials to post, but I haven't been able to take and upload pictures of the final product. Grr.

Finally, today we had some gorgeous weather, so I took my daughter to the park and got a few pictures of my latest refashion. My netbook is still "sick", so I'm using my old laptop that is on its last leg.

I found this shirt on clearance at Target ($2.50 if I remember correctly) and then used the remnant of one of my hubby's old t-shirts that I'd already cut up for another project. Here was the before


I used the gray t-shirt to ruffle a bunch of 1 1/2" wide strips. I sewed one row of ruffles all the way around the shirt where I wanted my neckline to be, then I added another row on the front, under the first row. It wasn't quite what I had pictured, so I added another smaller ruffle in the middle above my ruffles, and then added one more up the one side of my neckline (the opposite side of the print on the bottom to create a little balance). Once I was done I trimmed the shirt away from above the ruffles.

I'm really happy with how it turned out! The other thing I would have changed would be to make the neckline a little less wide. The ruffles are kind of heavy and can pull the shirt a bit. What do you think?





I love it! I don't think my daughter appreciates my fashion sense though. I told her it was time to go to the park this morning, and instead of running to the door like she usually does, she ran to my closet. She pointed and said, "please", and then tried to pull one of my shirts off the hanger. Hmm, thanks kid.

Linked up on

my kitchen

We have owned our home for a year now. We bought a major fixer-upper. Something we have learned through this process is that when you are a homeowner, you are never "done". lol We still have a lot of little (and big) projects to do, but it has been a lot of fun and it is awesome to be able to make it our own.

This was our kitchen before, the previous owners had a thing for olive green and stenciling.




It was stripped down to basically the studs, lay out changed, and all new cabinets and appliances installed. (these pics were taken as we were moving in)




We hadn't done too much else to the kitchen, choosing instead to focus on several other rooms as well as the exterior of the home. This was in part because we agonized over paint colors. I had originally picked one out...then decided it was too close to a peach, I really wanted to go with something in the orange family, without being too bright or obnoxious. We chose another color, my hubby even brought home a quart of it and put some on the wall to see if we liked it. It looked like neon orange sherbet. Ugh. It was seriously blinding. At that point my hubby decided he did not want any shade of orange...back to the paint chart again. I really didn't want something too light, or too brown, but we were kind of stuck.

I had some fabric that I'd gotten really attached to and wanted to recover some roller shades for the kitchen. I loved how bright and cheery it was and liked the colors, but it still didn't seem to help us pick out a paint color.


We had given ourselves a deadline and finally just picked a color, I liked it, but I wasn't in love with it. But hey, it was a decision. The color was Sherwin Williams Eastlake Gold.


We finally got around to painting (we are not done, just finished one section), and you know what? I LOVE it! Wahoo! And do you know what is even funnier? Do you see that great big flower near the center on the bottom?

I had tried to talk my hubby into trying to match the outside color on the flower for paint, but we didn't wind up doing that. I brought the fabric up after we painted and my jaw dropped. It was almost the exact same shade!!! I really do love it. We have a lot more to do, but I thought I'd share the update.

Happy Birthday to me

I got a couple of Joann's giftcards for my birthday and got the chance to spend some of them last week. I get a little carried away with their clearance fabric, and wouldn't you know that it was an extra 50% off that week!

I'm always on the lookout for things with turtles on them for my daughter. It was one of the first animals that she identified by name (rather than sound) and she's been a little obsessed with them. I thought this fabric was SUPER cute and would look great with this pink polka dot I already had. Maybe I'll finally get around to trying this bubble dress tutorial.


I also found some dark denim for $2 per yard, and it was SUPER wide which is awesome! I'd love to make my daughter some cute little shorts for summer. I would love to find a tutorial for some flat front shorts, hmm.


I can rarely pass up a good knit, they may make me a little crazy trying to sew with them, but I LOVE that it doesn't fray and is a little more forgiving than some other fabrics. I found these two thick ribbed knits in a beautiful teal and bright pinky-purple (bummer, the color did not come through at all in the pic).


And this is technically the reason I went to Joann's in the first place. I wanted to restock this fabric in my shop and a friend who bought the last cape I made in this fabric had asked if I could custom make her a ring sling to match. After checking another store and not finding it online, I finally tracked it down!

A couple of friends turned me on to a great website for purchasing the rings and sling making information, if you are interested it is here.