I Toiled you so!

Made this cute purse for a friend. She is in charge of the teacher appreciation gifts at her son's school and asked me to donate. I love it, I wanted to keep it, she had to rip it from my hands! Just kiddin'.

All HALE!

Last night was GREAT!

We had a blast at the Shannon Hale book signing. It was so great to meet the person who writes the books I love. She was a very accessible person, sweet, friendly, funny. There was about 60ish people there, so it was a small group and we were able to talk with her and ask questions. Not me of course because I was so nervous I didn't have anything to say, but my friends had plenty to say. I brought Book of a Thousand Days for her to sign, my favorite title of hers. It's a wonderful book with a sweet and innocent main character that I just fell in love with.

Now my dilemma, do I read the signed book or invest in a different copy???

Mother's Day is taken care of!

I've posted before how I love to get kitchen gadgets and appliances, and other crazy "housewife" stuff for gifts, I do however like the stuff just for me too! I know it's a little early for Mother's Day, but my hubby has given me my gift early. I'm headed up to the Chicago area tonight to attend a book signing for Shannon Hale. If you haven't read her books you should they are wonderful. She writes Young Adult Fiction and Adult Fiction. I've only read her YA stuff and they are the kind of books I would read over and over again.

So tonight my friends and I are headed on a bit of a road trip. There's going to be good conversation, good books, and possibly good food (oh and NO kids!!!) what more can a Mom ask for?

I'll post tomorrow on how it went, I'm a book signing virgin!

On the agenda

Last week was spent finishing up projects for my daughter's birthday. Let's just say it was not a good sewing week for me. I waited until the last minute to even start one of the projects and after sewing it wrong 3 different times, and then having it be too small in the end I gave up and told her that one of her gifts was an IOU!

So...on the agenda this week is the IOU gift, it's going to be a strap for her new digital camera. Hopefully I can cut it the right length, get the interfacing to fuse correctly, and don't run out of the right color thread (told you it was a bad week last week!). Sometimes I wonder how long I've been sewing, has it been 26 years or 26 minutes? I guess it really keeps things real for me and let's me sympathize with my sewing students when they mess up on their projects.

Also on the agenda is a tote bag for a giveaway at a friend's school. She contacted me to see if I would donate to her cause. My dilemma was what colors to make it. I don't know who it will be going to so I decided on a neutral black and white palate with a punch of red for color. I got a remnant of fabric from my store yesterday for $1.07, and some ribbon with my 40% off coupon and I'm ready to work tomorrow.

On the agenda will also be making myself a wet bag for my cloth diapers. I found a great tutorial online and if it works as well as it says I'll share when I'm done.

So those are a few projects that I'm working on this week...what are you're plans for the week?

Going Green...Literally

I have to admit that I don't typically think too much about our environment. I'm not a recycler, I don't compost, I don't ride my bike to the grocery store. However being thrifty most of the time, by nature makes you environmentally friendly. I do cook a lot from scratch (not a lot of packages in my trash), I do buy at thrift stores and garage sales, I do hand down clothes to my friends (and vise versa), I do cloth diaper, and I do make my own baby food. So it's not like I'm an "earth hater" or anything I just can't keep my brain focused long enough to separate my garbage. My adult ADD is for another post all together!!

I did however manage to make a cute earth friendly craft this week. I love those toys that have the crinkly stuff inside that babies love. I've often wondered what they made them out of. I'm sure there's cellophane or some other great material in the middle of them, but I improvised. Inside my crinkly tab blanket is an empty baby wipe container.

First I cut the wipe container at the seams and squared it up. It ended up being about 9"x10".

Then I pinned the ribbon to the Minky

Then I sandwiched a piece of flannel between the Minky and the wipe bag

and sewed the whole thing together. My 7 mo old really likes it, and I have to say it's oobercute.

Not a bad project and ZeRo dollars!

linkin' to

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Earring Holder

I saw this cute earring holder on A Girl and a Glue Gun and loved it. My daughter is starting to care about wearing jewelery and has gotten a bunch of earrings for her birthday this week. So I dug through my stash, found a frame, some leftover paint, plastic mesh (free from a friend), some ribbon, and as A Girl and a Glue Gun would do plugged in my own glue gun and went to town.

This holder matches her room and she is gonna SQUEAL!

Thanks so much for the fab idea!

Let Sleeping Babies LYE!

Seems like these days my crafts have been more functional than fun, but I do have a fun time making them so I guess they are FUNctional...I know corny. Anyhoo, at my house it's inevitable that when the baby is sleeping someone rings the door bell. It's almost always the same culprit too...the neighbor kids. So I made a cute sign to hang on my door and we'll see if they actually read it.

Found a 6x8 canvas at a garage sale this morning, and painted it brown, then added orange accents to match my paper. Modpodged paper and letters on... it wasn't rocket science.

Total cost for this project 30 cents! I got the canvas that I used at a garage sale today for 30 cents and the rest of the stuff was from my stash!

linked to: Tatertots and Jello

I LoVe Kitchen Gadgets

I know I'm a freak of nature. I'm the woman who LOVES getting kitchen gadgets for gifts, Mother's Day, Christmas, my birthday, you name it. I like to think that my hubby is the luckiest guy on earth because I'm so easy to buy for. Last year for Mother's Day he got me a set of bamboo spoons that are dishwasher safe, I smile every time I use them. So I decided my gadgets needed a cute place to live. I used to have an adorable pitcher that I used for a utensil holder for a long time but eventually it broke. I've tried other holders but they are always too small, too big, or are made of glass and I'm really rough on them. My solution was to use something that I had an abundance of...#10 cans. Every time I grind wheat I have an empty #10 can (yes I grind my own wheat, I told you FREAK OF NATURE!) and they are the perfect utensil holder size! Of course I can't just use an ugly ol' can, can I?

NOPE!!!

This is much better. Just hot glued some burlap and ribbon on, and stenciled utensils on the side. Now that is what I call a CA-UTE utensil holder.

Total cost: $0 (it all came from my stash!)

linked to The Girl Creative

I think I'm addicted to Toile

I don't know about you but to me Toile makes me smile. It's one of those timeless patterns that you can use with almost anything. I love that it comes in many colors now and you can find it to accent any room in your house.

I know my last Creative Juices Challenge was also a "Toile" project, but this weeks is too. Found this cute star at Hob Lob. The places where I put the toile paper were just plain white. I distressed the paint and gave it a good coat of gloss Mod Podge. Now it hangs on my door, but I think it's a little too big and really does not compliment the 1994 hunter green. In my perfect world my door and my shutters would be black and the word 'WELCOME' be lovingly displayed in vinyl on my front door. Now back to reality where my house screams 1990's and my priorities are wiping bums, and keeping up with baby and his spit up puddles!

RECAP: Paid $3 for star on clearance at Hob Lob, had the paper and Mod Podge at home. TA-DA only 3 bucks for this cute find.

Playing with myself

Well I'm challenging myself to another Creative Juices Challenge. Last time no one linked up even though I went through all the trouble of figuring out the MckLinky (seriously it's not THAT hard but for me to do something techie at all is a MIRACLE!), but my project turned out WAY cute and my BFF benefited from it so I'm doin' it again. Tomorrow is the day and I have my craft all finished and ready to be debuted. It's a bit bigger than the last one. SOOOO here's the rule:

Craft must cost no more than $3, this does not include tax

All 'stash' stuff does not count towards your total

Lets see what great things we (I) can come up with!!!