Ruffled Table Runner

So I saw this picture & idea via pinterest. And it was *LOVE*. Only, the burlap warnings of never get this wet or it will stink scared me off. Then I saw some yummy linen like colored fabric at Jo-Ann's and I was able to get this table runner out of it (and also used the remaining fabric for some of my pillow forms)! For $9.47 I was able to get three projects out of the fabric, and I have to say I LOVE the look this adds to the room. Of course having to place & clean the table three times a day can be annoying (so the kids who *always* spill something each meal don't ruin it). But so far, it's a GREAT addition to the room! :)

Black Ruffle Pillows & a Giveaway!

I saw a similar set of pillows on Dear Lillie and absolutely loved them! I actually used a red pillowcase (picked up a set of sheets -queen- on cleanance for only a few bucks last year for the trim, and the fabric was on sale last weekend for $1.99 a yard at Jo-Ann's. They are going to go on some white chairs I picked up for $2.50 (for the set!). I'm planning on re-covering them as soon as I find some cheap upholstery fabric, but they are a nice anchor for the entertainment center. But for now they seem like a nice splash of christmas-y color ... Pillows #5 & #6 done and now I have absolutely no idea what I want to do for the rest ... ALSO ... remember those little flowers? Well, I have the facebook page up & running and since I had my first big sale this week, I thought I would celebrate with another giveaway this weekend! Go here to check it out if you'd like to win some flowers! :)

I'm linking up to these parties: Freckled Laundry

Our new sitting area

So right after Lizzie was born, a double seater bench came up for bid at the local auction, and Ryan was sweet enough to go get it for me. $40 was a pretty high price for something at this auction (especially if you had seen it before we painted it!), but he knew how much I wanted it and was sweet enough to get it for me. :) I finally got around to painting it, and now I just have a few spots to touch up ... but I love it! I made a slip covered pillow cover with some yummy fabric my friend gave and I think it looks fantastic right at the top of the stairs ... a lot less cluttered then it was before! :) And just wait until you see the new curtains I made out of the same checkered fabric ... that is ... if ny husband ever is home long enough to hang them up for me, lol.

Paper or Plastic??? (Project #11 & #12 of 45)

Seriously??? PLASTIC PLEASE! I know some people use fabric grocery bags ... which is awesome ... but I change LOTS of poopy diapers, and my car is always messy/needing to be cleaned up and I never have enough of those grocery store bags. And the current system is just NOT working for me ... thrown under the kitchen sink & always finding their way ALL around the house. So .... I pulled out some fabric & ribbon & elastic I already had and made this ...

I used this tutorial to make a grocery bag dispenser. :) Total cost = nothing! But, it has made me smile anytime I walk by or use it and it eliminated the constant overflowing mess of grocery bags from underneath my kitchen sink. :) I love it! :)

And then I used the left over strip to make my friend a matching one ... another project done! :)

And now if you'll excuse me ... I caught a NASTY stomach bug on Saturday (knocked me out flat) and am still pretty shaky ... so I'm going to rest more today, enjoy some tv time with the kids ... and maybe cut out a few felt flowers for the new baby. :)

Bedroom Curtains (Project #10 of 45)

So I have had this fabric since our trip to Vegas last January ... Home Fabrics is an AWESOME fabric store & I NEVER buy fabric that's more than $3 a yard there ... it's fabulous!

I really love the HUGE, chunky design on the cream/brown section, but I didn't get enough to make curtains & of course when I got back to Vegas in JULY it was ALL gone ... so I added some of the pretty blue to the bottom & voila!!! Finished curtains for my bedroom! I have a sheet I could cut up & use as a lining for the back (I'm still debating & may do it), but for now I really like that I have curtains but they let some light in. Cheyenne winters are long and very dark & dreary ... so I didn't want to make my bedroom COMPLETELY dark.

Nothing in my room goes with them ... yet. But no one EVER sees my bedroom, and I don't care how long it takes me to slowly accumulate a few things to pull the room together more, I haven't had curtains in my bedroom for almost 5 years and it feels good to spend a little bit of time to create a bedroom oasis ... or at least to start thinking about creating a bedroom oasis ... :)

ABC Felt Pillow (Project #8 & #9 of 45)

So I saw these amazing felt pillows on etsy, but the price tag nearly killed me. Seriously. And while I understand the value of homemade and the hard work she must really put into each one (it took me almost 2 hours on each pillow to stitch all around the letters, and I have no idea how long it took to trace & cut the letters ... but I'm guessing I'm in each one at least 3.5 - 4 hours), I already had the felt on hand, and some random pillow forms (it looks black because of the overcast skies on the D & O ... but they are really a dark hunter green), so I made one for the boys room (originally it was going to go on Jax's toddler bed, but Colton has confiscated it) and then I also decided to use up as much felt as possible (and another pillow form) and finish another one for a friend in Vegas ...

Colton's Christmas Quilt (#7 of 45)

I would just like to point out one thing ... everything has been pretty much free ... and completing projects is COMPLETELY addicting ... but I'm having a hard time not "adding" to the list ... that being said ... here it is in all it's awesome-ness ...

Colton had COMPLETE meltdowns any time I touched it. At all. Or looked like I might come near it. LOL. Once the quilting was done, he did NOT want to give it up. So I had to sit there for the 45 minutes it took to sew the binding on & have him crying & pulling on it the whole time. I would have waited until he went to sleep, but the kids kept picking at the excess batting & I was really worried they would pull it out of somewhere before I got a chance to finish. I am so excited to have this one done.

I used the red scroll fabric from the Star of Wonder line (I have enough to be the binding for at least one more quilt too ... yeah!) and now there's nothing left to do but stick it on his bed & let him enjoy it for a while. I know I should pack it away for next year ... but WHY??? I worked hard, long hours & really hurt myself a couple of times pinning and quilting this sucker (I'm eight months pregnant, pinning a quilt is NOT a good idea anymore) ... so until he tells me he wants to put it away (or throws up on it, so I have to wash it and think about it again ... whichever comes first), it's on his bed to stay. :)

Blogged about here, here and here.

Savannah's new skirt (#6 of 45)

Today's finished project was originally a skirt I picked up in a size 10 for less than $3 last winter. I got it intentionally to make something for Savannah. Using this tutorial I just whipped it up pretty easily and it's a nice, long length for her (she likes to kick up her legs a lot, so LONG is a necessity to hide her bum) and it was so awesome to see her enjoy it!

And while trying to photograph her in this dress, I realized I do NOT have a very willing model. She's trying to dance all around, jump up and down, swinging her hair to the music (that she was singing) ... twenty photos later, this was the only semi-decent photo ... which also shows off the mess of my front room ... sweet. LOL.

Baby Burp Rags (Project #5 of 45)

Early, early, early Sunday morning Jaxson woke up screaming. Couldn't calm him down for ANYTHING. Finally after twenty minutes of walking around, I gave him some Tylenol (he kept grabbing his head, so I figured it must be a headache or he slammed his head or something?) and we snuggled on the couch & watched Elmo until he finally calmed down & fell asleep (two hours later). At this point it was 3 am, and I was so tired the room would spin whenever I tried to lift my head up ... so I sat there & waited to fall asleep ... and at six a.m. I finally did.

My awesome, mc-awesome hubby let me sleep until 9 am (our church time is 11 this year, sweet!), and did dishes & made breakfast too. He's too good to me. :)

Anyways, while sitting there ... wondering WHY I was still up ... it occurred to me that I had some ultra soft fabric left over from the Christmas stockings I made. So, I used it all up & now have six ultra soft baby burp rags made ...

They ended up measuring 13.5" x 12" ... a little short, but they are definitely wider than the ones I picked up at the store for Jax, and did I mention how soft they are??? I used primarily some fabric that was left over from Savannah's blanket, I love how bright, happy & fun it is! Another free project, using up what I have & so glad to have it done project completed! :)

More Baby Headbands (#3 of 45)

So I was looking thru etsy for some hair bow inspiration and saw that a lot of gals were using the foldable elastic for hairbands ... sweet! I had some gray, pink & black already in my stash and made another set of 6 (3 in newborn size, 3 in 6-12 month size) ... another free project/de-stashing/quick & easy/so glad to have more options & my third project done! :)

And since these projects have been so, so easy I've been able to put more time into a much more time consuming project that I hope to have done sometime today! :)

Baby Headbands (#2 of 45)

So I know this is a super simple project, and not that exciting ... but to keep track of my goal, I've gotta add it! :) I do have a LOT of these little projects laying around! And these I was able to finish up last night while dinner was cooking, perfect! :) **Which TOTALLY explains the bad lighting BTW.**
I picked up the tights for $3.50 for 3 pairs and was able to make 6 headbands (3 newborn, 3 for 6-12 months) from the box, using each leg as a headband. I've had these laying around for the last few weeks in the front room, so it's nice to have them done & up on my girl's (love the plural!!!) headband frame.
I used this tutorial by the way. :)

Spiderman Shirts (Project #1 of 45)

So this project is another one of those, "got frustrated and quit" kind of projects. Colton is in love with Spiderman and so one of the winter shirts that I got was designated to become the Spiderman shirt. So I found a design on-line, blew it up, traced it on felt (for the white circle) and red flannel for the spider (because it's all I had on-hand). And when I went to iron on the fabric adhesive, it MELTED the flannel!!! So I cut out a new one and got to stitching, and the new red thread kept breaking the needles (two to be exact) and getting bunched up, and breaking and almost 3 hours into a project I thought would take 30 minutes I put it aside to go take care of other things (you know ... the kids/house/life part of everything) ... and NEVER picked it back up.

So, I spent almost an hour stitching them on the other night(one for each of the younger boys) and Colton was so excited to see the shirt that he immediately RIPPED off his other shirt and put it on. :) Here he is modeling his super duper hero shirt (complete with attack stance)... So now the two random shirts and two random spiderman logos that have been floating around the front room/my room and downstairs guest room have a new home. :)

The Fort

So, it's DEFINITELY winter here ... and the snow can last for another 5-6 months (Cheyenne doesn't DO spring we've learned), so the kids are all loving and re-discovering their toys, and inventing things and being artsy and stuff. And they're building forts ... lots of HUGE forts in the front room, which their lovely 19 month old baby brother thinks is fun to immediately knock down.

Not to even mention the mess ... that they never put back away ... from the upstairs front room (since the downstairs is NEVER warm during winter time) ... it was driving us all crazy. So, I took some uber cute fabric that I had picked up to make myself a purse & had just enough to make them a fort ... the dark blue w/ polka dots fits perfectly with their decor, and it was another free & fast/easy project for the boys!

I didn't want it to create a fully darkened/covered fort/cave, but enough that they had a large fort-type area to play in and then we tied it onto the top bunk and there you go! :) Since their room can already get so dark during the winter, the slits of light let in enough light to let them all have fun, without being scared. And I LOVE that all of them can fit inside it now. Project #4 complete ... and didn't cost anything out of pocket again! :)

The kids saw me taking photos, and couldn't wait to get in on the action, it's getting a LOT of play time ... which is what I've noticed is the most ironic thing about toys & kids, the cheap, easy, basic things always get loved the most, I'm so glad they like it. :) **Please excuse the red-eyes ... my computer w/ photoshop will NOT turn on the past few days ... I think it's dead for good this time, ugh.**

BTW - I am in LOVE with the photos I've been able to take the past two days! My parents sent us a camera for Christmas (and told us not to open it until Christmas Eve ... but I couldn't wait any longer!!!) ... oh my goodness, I can't believe the difference between our last camera (which had been slowly dying for the past year or so) and this .... yeah! :)

Matching Bedding

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! :) None of my pictures really turned out, but we did craft paper on the table w/ crayons on each seat for the kids ... it worked so well! And they all STAYED at the dinner table for longer than 5 minutes, that alone was nice. :) Then we made little Mayflower ship nametags for each seat (which I was surprised how much the kids liked that, we'll have to do it again at Christmas!), here's the tutorial I used. The kids just couldn't be bothered with looking at the camera, they were busy sneaking food & coloring, lol. But you get the idea. Then the rest of the weekend was spent finishing more projects! :)
Project #2 for the boys room ended up costing me NOTHING out of pocket. So nice! :) I wanted matching bedding. But ... I have no budget for that ... honestly ... I have no real budget to decorate, lol. So ... how to get matching bedding???
Well, Hunter already had a jean blanket, and we had a full/queen jean blanket that we put on the bottom bunk for Colton. As soon as I can get to a Jo-Ann's (the closest one is 45 minutes away ... ugh), I'm going to buy enough jean material to quickly whip up a little toddler bed one too. Then I was trying to think of matching pillowcases and I remembered the yards of cute, "I am a child of God" flannel that I had bought a couple years ago (planning on using it as a backing for a blanket). And I had just enough random scraps of red flannel to put as the top part of the pillowcase! :) YEAH! :) I read a lot of random craft tutorials and just winged it from there on the pattern I did. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy! :) I know it may sound dorky, but it's fun watching the room come together from nothing ... and for practically free! :)

Happy President's Day!

I love three day weekends. :) I hate having Hunter gone so much, and it's really nice getting an extra day with Ryan too! :) I'm about to go thrift store shopping (I want to find some chairs to re-cover ... our front room desperately needs more seating!), but I wanted to quickly post pictures of Savannah yesterday at church. I cut out the apron (and keep forgetting to take some pictures of them!) & was actually able to make TWO! And then I had enough left over fabric to make a cute skirt & headband for Savannah too. She was thrilled to have something homemade. I wanted to take a picture outside, but it is windy & way too cold to do that. So indoor/crappy lighting instead! Basic poofy/long skirt, complete with a fun pocket & 2.5" trim on the bottom to give it a better finished look. I used this headband tutorial from Heather Bailey. Totally fun, easy & she LOVED it! :) Pictures of the apron tomorrow, and I also have finished three projects now! YEAH!

Finished!!! (well, almost ...)

First, can I go on a small rant? Did you know that when you make a comment, blogger doesn't add in your e-mail address so I can respond??? It's so frustrating wanting to respond individually to someone and not being able to ... ugh. It almost makes me want to switch to typepad ... but that costs money ... so it's probably a no go. Anyways ...

I have made 14 pairs of pj's for the kids now!!! :) It is so addictive, and the best part was when they were picking out which pair to wear last night ... Hunter chose his golf pants & Savannah chose the blue with flowers (but fell asleep before I could get a pic) ... the only thing left to do is check Colton's length & trim his bottoms ... which will take less than 30 minutes today!!! :) YEAH!!! Hunter got 4 pairs, while Savannah & Colton each got 5. The only thing that REALLY bugs about the patterns I used were for Hunter's. They turned out like boats on him .... but thankfully he doesn't mind. Next time I'll try slimming up the sides to the size 5 or a bit smaller, rather than following the lines for a 6. Blogged about here and here. Now to start on this week's goal ... finishing the cowgirl quilt. :)

Total out of pocket expense for 14 pairs of pj's: About $25

• $20 (for flannel) and $4.72 (for elastic)

Ballerina Purse

So my daughter was begging to be a pretty little ballerina dancer. So we enrolled her in a tap/dance class this summer. She's in absolute heaven. But, we keep losing her shoes. So she had to have a pretty ballerina purse, right? :) And since she's in the class with two of her cutest, best-est, best friends I told her Mom I'd make some for them to. We used a pretty ballerina print for the inside and then I put ric rac on each of the girls purses' so they could tell the difference between them.One hot pink, one green and then I used the leftovers strips for Savannah's purse. There was enough leftover flannel ballerina print that this week's goal is to use up the flannel I have and make some pj's for the kids ...

Last Week's Goal

So last week I had two goals. To make another butterfly artwork for a sweet little girl who was having her princess tea party and the other was to finish the last three throw pillows for our bed ... and here's the pillowcases I made also with this tutorial. I was so excited as I was finishing the final stitches on these pillows. I looked at my husband and told him, "isn't it awesome?!? Now we won't have the plain pillow forms on our floor anymore!" To which he replied, "Yep! Now we'll just have the covered pillows on the floor."He's such a teaser. LOL. But it's true ... at least now I feel more motivated to "think" about making the bed. ;)

Savannah's Blanket

I realized I forgot to post finished pictures of Savannah's blanket! I did the super simple 9 patch with sashing between the squares. I wanted it to be something that would look nice, have all the fun, different prints in the ginger blossom set and still be okay to be used. I know she'll color on it with something permanent at some point, or put her dirty feet on it. And that's okay. It's her blanket, for her to love and destroy.I used the stripe print for the sashing and the backing is just the sheet that came with the sheet set I got for the mattress. My kids never really use the sheets anyways and the coloring looks perfect. When I gave it to her (all finished), she hugged & kissed it and kept telling me, "thank you mommy!" :) (Blogged about: Here, here, here and here.)

Finished Wedding Gift

So I promised myself (and my husband) that I wouldn't buy or start new projects until I finished a few of my WIP's. Something about the summer makes me make that promise each year ...

So last week, the goal was to put the three hours into this blanket. Which literally took me all week long, and was only finished with a few hours left until my self-imposed deadline. It's a gift for a friend that got married a couple weeks ago. The fabulous Miss Mati did a great job quilting in the description I asked her to. And now, it's off my list, and in the mail to the newly married family. I hope they love it as much I do. :)