Pinterest Inspired Week #3

Emma, Jakob, Justin, and Tyler Winter 08, getting back at me for the pictures.

I am sorry for another delay. The last couple weeks have been kind of crazy around here. 

Thank you for all the prayers and well wishes for Tyler.I know they mean a lot to his family and friends. Unfortunately he did not make it. Tyler passed away on the 19th. You can read Tyler's obituary here. If you want to help the family with expenses you can do that here until November 5.

We had conferences last week which included early release for 3 of my 4 kids. They are all doing very well so I am please with that. Also, my Tyler finished up his football season. He did awesome with that. I am very proud of him, being able to keep up with all his school work and still be very active in sports.

My little nephew Milo had to spend a night at the children's hospital Sunday. He has had some breathing problems off and on and was wheezing badly. My sister took him to Urgent Care and they immediately took him by ambulance to the hospital. He is doing better now. He has inhalers and a nebulizer(sp)  for at home. 

Halloween was not very planned out here. Justin, my oldest, was Indian Jones with a skateboard. Tyler was Mr T. Emma, a high school graduate, not to be mistaken for one from High School Musical. Jakob was Darth Vader. Not very creative, but the kids were happy. 

Tyler needed a mask. I found my inspiration here. How cute is that?

I ended up using some of the knit fabric I bought for pajamas and I went to my fave store Joanns and bought some fur. I sewed on a mohawk and hot glued some facial hair. I don't think it turned out as well as this one, but considering it was spontaneous I am happy. 

Here is Tyler in all his glory.

Ok, maybe it is just scary. I did not get any pictures on Halloween cause I was in such a rush. This picture was taken this morning before he caught the bus and he was annoyed because his hair would be messed up.

I tried at least. Maybe next year I will do better. 

I bought a serger last week! I am super excited about it.

I have not tried it out yet. I am always nervous to use something new. It will be handy though.

I am still making up our menu every week. I am loving it because we are trying so many new things. I am making clam chowder this week with fresh clams. Yum. We are also having Pumpkin chicken chili that I found via Pinterest of course. Actually, all but one of my recipes are from Pinterest this week. If you are interested in seeing our menu just let me know and I will post it.

I am looking forward to sewing this week. I have lots of Christmas gifts to make. And my sister-in-law (Well, technically I don't have a ring so she is just kind of my sister-in-law:) just bought a new house and will be moving in this week. I am hoping to make here some things for her kitchen.

Have a great week!

You can usually find me at the parties on my sidebar and any listed below.

Homework
House of Hepworths
Not Just a Housewife
 Delightful Order
Lemon Tree Creations
Tatertots and Jello 

Pinterest Inspiration

Sorry guys. Gonna do this a little different this week. I did not get anything made this week (besides my menu and that is boring).

A little boy who is very close to one of my dear friends had a terrible accident and has been laying unresponsive in the hospital since Sunday. Consequently, that is all I have been thinking about since I heard. I do not know this little boy. Only that he is 9 years old, he has a brother and a sister and a mom that are very shaken up by this. It does not look good for this little boy. So, if you are the praying type please send some his way. If you don't pray that is fine, please send some positive thoughts instead. Also, hug your little ones tight tonight and every day. Life is so fragile. Anything can happen. Tell your loved ones how much you love them and don't hold anger in your heart.

Ok, enough of that. I am going to share some of what has been inspiring me on Pinterest this week.

I have to find a couple cool cakes for upcoming birthdays and I thought this one might be good:

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How cool would it be to make these plates as Christmas gifts? Or even one for yourself..or me..

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I LOVE this lamp from Not Just a Housewife.

She is seriously talented! I have had this on my list of things to do for months. I am a bit intimidated though..

Chandeliers are hot right now and this one is no exception.

source

It just so happens that I picked up a ton of these shells at a yard sale this summer and they are just waiting for me to make this. But if you don't have shells you can fake it with wax paper.

How much would the hostess love you if you showed up for your Thanksgiving dinner with this as a gift?

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And because one of my favorite pastimes involves food here is where I will leave off. Seriously!! Chocolate, caramel, and bacon? This looks too yummy.

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 Now I am off to spend some quality time watching the fam play video games:)

You can usually find me at the parties on my sidebar or 

 Not Just a Housewife
Homework 
The Little Birdie 
Vintage Wanna Bee 
House of Hepworths 
Delightful Order 
Tatertots and Jello 

Pinterest Inspired Week #2

I can pat myself on the back now for good follow-through. Here it is, week 2, and I did what I set out to do. I made something that was Pinterest inspired. 

 I made a menu board picture thingy.

Here is my inspiration:

You can find it here.

I was so excited to find this. I actually had this picture frame! I found it at a thrift store a while back.

For the last 2 weeks (a long time huh?), I have been using this menu from Thirty Handmade Days.

If you have never checked out that blog you should. It rocks.

I have been using a grocery list you can find here. 

I was super excited to get even more organized so I got to work. 

I dug the picture frame out from under my bed and grabbed my excessively large bag of paper. I found some paper that was pre-cut (from my Creative Memories days) that matched the curtains in my kitchen and my 'EAT' sign.

 I used a mix of patterned and plain paper. I laid the paper out so the colors alternated.

Then I opened up a Word document and started playing with fonts until I found what I liked. I printed them out on plain paper.

 I took my pretty paper to the window and traced out my words from what I printed.

Of course, there are many of you who are way cooler then me and have a Silhouette. Yes, I am jealous. Yes, I want one. But alas, I have to settle for tracing cool fonts on my window.

This is before filling in the letters

Once I colored in all the letters I trimmed the paper and fit them into the frames. 


The hardest part of this whole thing was hanging it on the wall. But I had the perfect place.

Sorry for lame picture. There is NO natural light in my house. At all.

I am pretty excited about it.

 You can usually find me linked up at the parties on my sidebar and 
Homework
Vintage Wanna Bee
House of Hepworths
Delightful Order
Tidy Mom
Tatertots and Jello 
Thirty Handmade Days
Homemaker in Heels

Pinterest Inspired Week #1

So, I have been wasting a lot of time researching things on Pinterest. There are so many fabulous ideas on there! 

I decided to make one thing every week (maybe I can even be consistent and be every Wednesday) that has been inspired by Pinterest and do a post about it.

I know this is not generally a food blog but bare with me, I like food and I like to make it. A couple weeks ago was my #2 sons' 13th birthday. I knew I wanted to make him a cool cake and when I found this awesome cat litter cake at Mo Momma I knew that was it.

I pretty much followed her tutorial, which is a good one. I could not find blue Nerds anywhere. Only purple and pink. But I think it looks authentic anyway.

 We have five cats so that made for some fun and interesting photos!

My daughter and her best friend helped with the cake. The turds they created were far more realistic then mine. And of course they wanted in some of the pictures.

My daughter Emma on the right, her bestie Eden on the left

This was not all fun and games of course. Litter boxes have smell and the poor girls suffered and even ate some turds.

Tyler was not too sure what to think when we brought it out and sang 'Happy Birthday'. Almost like he thought it was real or something.

But in the end he loved the cake. Even if it looked really gross. 

Of course now I have set a pretty high standard for myself. Two of the kids have birthdays in December and one in January. And they all want something as cool as this.

So, I guess I will have to search on Pinterest some more to find another epic birthday cake.

You can usually find me at any of the parties on my sidebar
and here:
House of Hepworths 
Homework
Lemon Tree Creations 
Delightful Order 
Thirty Handmade Days 
Tatertots and Jello 

Fall is welcome here!

A few weeks ago summer came here in Washington. It did not last very long. Fall is here now. It has been raining and the temperature has dropped. 

I was looking forward to this season, I think summer was long enough. 

I wanted to make a wreath to hang by the door (I can't hang it on the door) that felt like fall.

I am loving all the yarn wreaths I have been seeing so that is what I made. 

Supplies:

Wreath form

Yarn

Felt

Super easy to make. All you do is wrap the yarn around the wreath. I did it very smooth and even but you can do it any way. I think messy looks good too. Wrapping this wreath took me a LONG time. I used hot glue to hold the start and the finish. 

Once it was wrapped I cut out a bunch of squares of felt. Diamonds would have been better but I was not about to measure anything. (This wreath has been in progress for two plus weeks, just needed it done) I alternated the colors and used a dot of glue to hold them in place until I wrapped it.

I wrapped the yarn in both directions, that is what gives the argyle look.

I like the way it turned out. If it was a bigger wreath form I would add something to it like this owl wreath. I am super glad I pinned it when I did because it is not there anymore:(

There are so many awesome wreaths out there. Be sure and check out my wreath board.

And now, just for fun...

Love having chickens!

You can usually find me linked up to some or all of the parties on my side bar and here

In case you don't know what to do at the table

I finally finished my signage for the kitchen! It has been a work in progress for a while. I have seen other bloggers tell people what they need to do at the table and now I did it too.

I bought cardboard letters at JoAnns and found some nifty scrap book paper that matches the curtains I made (perhaps will show them in another post).

I don't think directions are needed but just in case, I painted the outer part of letters black and traced the letters on paper.

I modpodged the paper to the letters and after letting them dry for about 2 weeks.

I used an exacto knife to clean up the edges and sanded them.

 They are not perfect. I tore some of the paper on the 'A'. But I like how rustic they turned out.

I found the utensils on Craigslist more then a month ago and had plans to paint and distress them a bit. After sitting in my bedroom for too long one of them broke. I opted to glue them and leave as is just so I could finish it. They are kind of distressed already anyway.

I am glad to have this finished. There are so many other things I want to make and now I can move on to them.

Here is the finished product:

 I need to find something to put in the little area below the letters. 

What do you think?

You can usually find me linked up at the parties on my sidebar.

A belated birthday

So, last month was my bestie's birthday. Being the slacker that I am she did not get a gift from me on said birthday. Not for my lack of wanting though, I wanted to make her something and it needed to be something that she NEEDED and would use. Alas, I was stumped.

This is us on Mother's day

 Sure, I have made her things. When I was making all those coin purses she got one. I made her a purse for Mother's day. She does not use said purse. Just sayin. I really wanted this gift to be meaningful. I bought fabric that she was eyeballing with the intent to make her another purse. But then I thought about the first one and did not want to make her something she would not use.

She has been interested in my sewing projects and wanted to try but she was afraid she would be no good. Last week she found a machine she really liked on Craigslist. She talked to the owner and he traded her straight across for an old dressmaker she had. So..she started to sew. She went straight to the patterns and made her son a pair of boxers and a pencil pouch. The pouch was without a pattern. The other day when we were at our other house Joann's she found a pajama pattern and some material to make for her daughter. 

I know, it seems as though I have no point but I do. I had been listening to her tell me about her notions and how she is cutting her patterns and everything else while still trying to come up with a gift idea. 

Well, today was the day. I was checking my email this morning and popped in my blog reader. The Little birdie baby blog had a cool post about making a pin cushion. That was it! My bff did not own a pin cushion! So, I printed off the pattern and got to work. This is what I ended up with:

I don't think it is as pretty as Rachael's but it will work. It did not take me long to sew and now I have a pattern that I like for a pin cushion.

Thank you Rachael, for a great tutorial and the inspiration to finally finish my bestie's birthday gift. I am sure she thanks you too.

Linking to some or all of the parties on my sidebar.

Clay flower cobochons: A tutorial

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I know what you are thinking. This is gonna be good. A tutorial. From me. And this will not disappoint.

We have all seen these cute little flower 'cabochons' all over blogland. I really wanted some. But I did not want to buy them ready made. No, that would have been too easy. And then I would have felt like what I was making with them was not really handmade. No offense to those of you who buy these type of supplies. I am strange in that way.  

After some looking around I found out that there are molds to make these things. Etsy has tons of shops that sell these. This is the shop that I used. They had a pretty good selection and it is a husband/wife team that hand-make the molds. I think that is really cool. The mold I bought was $6.50 which I think is pretty good. And it came really fast.

I really wanted to make earrings, rings, and hairpins for my Etsy shop. I found some hair pin blanks on Ebay. I am blessed to have a mother-in-law who used to own a bead shop so that is where I got my earring posts. I have yet to buy any ring blanks:( Baby steps.

So, enough background and on with the tutorial. Here is what you need:

• Earring, ring, or hairpin blanks
• Sculpey or Fimo oven bake clay
• Flower mold
• E6000 or similar glue
• Cookie sheet to bake on
• Oven

The end result is so super pretty. I love how they look.

Here are the earrings.

The hair pins are just as pretty

This was such an easy craft to do and the results were great. I did let the glue dry all day before I touched them too much.

One little pointer though, make sure that you flatten out the bottom before you pop it out of the mold or you will end up with this:

 Not a very good earring. I will be wearing this one. I would not want to sell something that was not closer to perfect.

I will be linking up at the parties on my sidebar and Here at I'm Crafty Party

Friendship bracelets

A while back I signed up to do a friendship bracelet swap on The Modern Marigold. This is a cute blog so I suggest checking it out when you have some time. I found out about this swap from one of the many other blogs that I read.

We were each assigned 3 different partners with the hopes that we would get to know each other and get some cool bracelets in the mail.


'S' was the first lady I talked to. She is from England and has one little boy. We have exchanged several emails. She was not picky about color so I picked out yellow and grey in a traditional pattern.

For 'E' I went shopping for new floss. She told me she was a nature lover and would like anything with green. I spent way too much time trying to find the perfect shades of this color to make her bracelet. I ended up using shades of green and brown.

Finally there was 'C'. I found out her favorite colors were green and yellow. While I was shopping for 'E' I also hemmed and hawed over shades of these colors. I ended up making her a chevron bracelet.

I have yet to receive any of my bracelets in the mail:( What a bummer. I did here from 'S' in England and she admitted to being uber busy and had not gotten them done yet but I have not heard from 'C' or 'E'. This was my very first swap and it ended up being a big disappointment. 
It was not all sad though, I found some really great tutorials from Beyond Bracelets on Youtube. She has fantastic instructions. Also, my kids are interested in making bracelets..especially my daughter.
To close I just want to say one thing. Do NOT sign up for a swap if you are not 100% positive you can follow through.
Now, go make some bracelets.

Linking here:

Tatertots and Jello

Homemaker in Heels
Luxe Boulevard
Not Just A Housewife 

Two new messenger bags

I promised my two youngest that I would make them each a bag for school this year. All summer long they asked me when I was going to make their bags. Every day. Finally, the week before school started (the night before for Emma) I got to making their bags.

Jakob was not too picky. He wanted black or blue or some combination of the two. I was able to score some black denim from Joann’s with my half off coupon. After looking online for the perfect bag for him I realized he would need a contrasting fabric for the lining. Lucky for him me I had some cool skull flannel that I was hoarding saving for him.

I used this tutorial for his bag. I really like how it turned out. The zipper opening is super cool. I had to refresh myself on zipper pockets but she posts a link to a great tutorial so that was no problem.

Jakob is totally loving his new bag. The skull fabric really makes the bag. Jakob even brought it to the 'Meet and Greet' at his school because he wanted to tell his teacher that his mom MADE it for him.

I recommend this tutorial, it was easy to follow and had plenty of pictures. It did not make for a very big bag though. A binder barely fits. That is ok for us, Jakob is in 3rd grade and they use folders. I just want to point that out though in case you decide to make one.

The second bag was for Emma. I took her fabric shopping several weeks ago. She is on a plaid kick right now so she went right up to the suiting fabric and picked out a great pink plaid. I like it because it is pretty thick and I think it will be durable.

For the lining Emma picked out a black and white plaid. There was no telling her that would be too busy. This is a girl who knows what she wants. 

I bought a pattern for her bag and we bought some buttons to go on it, based on what the pattern required. Now, if you know me you will also know that I have not yet successfully used a pattern to sew anything. Mind you, I am still a beginner, but I tend to look online for tutorials full of pictures in loo of a tissue pattern.

 

I waited and waited to make this bag. I am not sure what I was thinking. I knew how long it took me to make Jakob's bag so there was no illusions there. But still I waited. Poor Emma.  I kept changing my mind about which bag to make her.Finally, last night, the night before school starts, I found the bag I wanted to make her. You can find it here.

I liked this bag immediately. It is quite a bit larger then the one I made for Jakob. That is good, Emma is in 5th grade and needs room for a binder and all the other stuff she (willingly) carries. 

I added a zipper pocket to the inside (at Emma's request). I also made a pocket in the front and sewed a few rows to hold pencils. I kind of checked the length of the strap on Emma but not good enough. As you can see the bag hangs pretty low on her. Easy fix though, I will get some type of buckle thingy (technical name) and make it adjustable. 

Emma loves her bag. She also said that many of her friends liked it and asked where she got it. I am a lucky enough mom that she still thinks it is cool to say "My mom made it for me"

Linking up at:
House of Hepworths
Thirty Handmade Days 
Delightful Order  
Luxe Boulevard 
Homemaker in Heels 
Tatertots and Jello 
Vintage Wanna Bee 
Homework 
Not Just A Housewife