A homemade Christmas - the results

I got tons of compliments and good feedback on all that I had made for Christmas. :)

My sil even asked me how much I would charge for the crayon roll that I made for her DD! So, I guess she must have really liked it. It was actually the first one I made and was super easy - too bad that I forgot (duh!) to take pictures of the last few things that I made before wrapping them up.

If I ask my other sil, I'm sure she'd take a picture of the reversible placemats that I made for her - they reverse from snowmen to fall leaves.

I can't wait to make up a few more placemats for my house. Also on my list is a nice apron for me, one for my sister. And of course, a crayon roll for DD. Oh, and a poncho for her so that she can wear it while in her car seat, unlike a coat. :)

Horrible customer service - don't buy from Sears

My sister and I went in on a joint gift for my mom - a sewing machine! We debated purchasing it at various locations, but ultimately, decided to purchase from Sears because they carried the Kenmore brand. I have a great Kenmore sewing machine, so I know they're nice and reliable. Alternatively, we could have easily purchased a Brother machine from Amazon.com. About the same price, still free shipping and pretty much the same features as the Kenmore machine.

So, I called my mom today to see if she got her gift yesterday. She hadn't. Confused, I went back to my email to see if I was not right in thinking they had told me the delivery date was to be 12/20. I was right. Hmmm, hoping things hadn't fallen through the cracks, I went online to see what I could find on the website.

This was the first thing that caused me grief today - logging into the Sears system, I couldn't remember my password. No matter, I'd hit the lost password button to try and get it. So, I do that. Nothing appears, so a few minutes later I rehit that button. Finally something arrives in my email. I put in my email address and then the temporary password. It prompts me to change my password. Only, apparently, I don't pick a good enough password, so it does not accept it, instead, it tells me that I should read the password policy. Only, I'm locked into that screen and can go no where else on your site. I finally had to clear all my cookies (that was fun, retyping all my passwords for every website I visit) in order to go through the whole process again. I finally picked a good enough password.

Now, where my true frustration has come from. I look at the tracking information for the order that I placed on Saturday. It tells me it's in transit. So, I call the 800 number provided for Sears.com. I speak with an associate (I didn't catch her name). She was perfectly nice and all, but she couldn't answer my question as to why I was told it would be arriving in Belgrade MT on 12/20, but why she just told me that it was shipped on 12/20 so I asked to speak with a supervisor.

The supervisor that finally came on the line was a Christina (operator 64803). I can not believe that someone so rude could work in customer service, let alone be a supervisor. All she could do was talk over me and continually tell me that my item should arrive by 12/24. I started to explain that I wanted to know WHY this had happened (12/20 arrival vs shipping it on 12/20) and she proclaimed that I was not listening to her. Um, hello - you're supposed to be listening to me! I finally asked her to speak with her supervisor. She told me that she didn't have a supervisor.

When I questioned the fact that she had no supervisor, she finally admitted that she did have someone above her but that none of those people were there at the moment. So, I asked how I could talk to someone above her to complain about her rudeness. She said I'd have to talk to corporate. I asked for a phone number. She told me that they didn't have a phone number, only an address. I questioned how a corporate office could not have a phone number. She back pedaled and said they did have a number, but that they never answer their phone. I asked for the number and was finally given it. First call = 19 minutes, 41 seconds.

I called the corporate number given (1-847-286-2500). Surprisingly (since I was told they don't answer) the phone was picked up on the first ring. I was transfered to a Sandra. Upon explaining the situation to Sandra, I was told that she was going to transfer me to someone who could help me. Great, I thought. She transfered me to an Amber. Although Amber was nice, she was very soft spoken and generally hard to hear despite having my phone cranked all the way up. So, I explain my situation to Amber. She then tells me that my package shipped on 12/18, not 12/20. She also tells me that the email that says it will be there in five days is wrong, they know it's wrong and have asked for it to be changed. Finally, after running around and around, I realize that Amber is probably not the person I need to speak with (not that she wasn't nice, just wasn't able to help me, much like the first woman that I talked with). I asked Amber if she was at the corporate office or if I was transfered back to the general call center at Sears.com. I was. I told her that I needed to speak to whoever was Christina's supervisor. She explained that she wasn't able to escalate that, but she could get her supervisor, who could get his supervisor. I said fine, please do that. I finally get Neil on the phone and he wants to help, only at this point, I want to speak with someone above Christina - someone needs to realize how rude this woman is. He tells me that it would be at least 20 minutes on hold. I tell him that this is my second call and I'm already at 30 minutes, I might as well wait another 20. I wait around some more, start this letter and am shoved into a voice mail box.

So, now I've left a voice mail and never expect to hear back on that, since it seems like all that happens at Sears.com is to be shoved from one person to the next that just wants to create excuses for the other person and to never escalate things beyond the initial supervisor. I've also sent an email to the customer service email address on the Sears website.

So, a huge vent and a huge PSA - don't do business with Sears.com!

Another bag!

This one is the one I've dubbed "meet the seam ripper". I don't know why so many things went wrong, but they did.

The flap is a new idea. There will be a button (you might notice the hole already that does look fine IRL) that is pink.

Another bag/purse

I'm loving this one. In fact, I think I might just keep it for myself. :)

I've been busy! I finished sils diaper bag, but decided that it needs to be seam ripped open and I need to add some interfacing to the lining to give it some more stiffness. That shouldn't take too long - I hope! I also need to run back and buy some more of the lining fabric so that I can make a changing pad to go with it.

I'm definitely seeing the end in sight though! I have just a few more gifts that I need to make. And good thing, too, since Christmas Eve (when we swap with DHs family) is a week away!

The reversible Apron

This is for my mom for Christmas. It was more challenging than I thought it was going to be - getting the corners turned (especially on the straps) proved very challenging for me today.

I really think it would have gone quicker if I had a nice sized table set up just for cutting, but since I don't, I make due with a small desk. My husband has promised to build me a table, but for now, I haven't seen it!

Mom's kitchen is done in blues and greens - I hope she likes it. :) It's important to note that my mom is just a hair shy of six feet tall, while I'm five inches shorter than that - so if it looks a bit wonky that's why.

Without further ado, here is the reversible apron.

A new bag

I don't know why, but I've been afraid to make a bag. I tried once and it didn't go too well. This time, I thought it out. Then, I started cutting fabric. In a little under two hours, I cut, pondered (is this really going to work the way that I think it will) and sewed this little number:

picture coasters

I'm making sets of these for each set of Grandparents (three - since I have step parents). They're a very, very simple craft to make and are super cheap to make as well.

The coasters can be purchased at Home Depot, Lowe's or your favorite home improvement store. They're actually white tiles and are about 16 cents each. Luckily, I had an entire box of them just sitting in the garage. After buying some mod podge, I went in search of some pictures! I already had developed a number of pictures from our cruise, so these will make great gifts for mil/fil. So, I found a paint brush (we have these in abundance around our house) and a few paper bags (I have no idea why I had these, but I was thankful to find them when I was looking for paint brushes. I'm fortunate to have a paper cutter, so it was really easy to cut a straight line, but if you don't have one don't worry, scissors will work just fine. :)

So, I set myself some room on the dining room table and set to work. You can see my set up here:



Each coat takes about 15 minutes to dry, so I did them one at a time. I'd cut a picture and then glue it on the tile. Then, I'd cut another picture and glue it. After a few of these, I was ready to start my first coat. So, I just cycled through like this. All told, I spent less than an hour on 11 of them (I ran out of room on my paper bags!). After they finish drying, I'll glue some felt to the bottom so that they don't scratch the surface of anything that they set on. You can buy felt at any fabric store for fairly cheap, but I recommend looking in the remnant bins at JoAnn's as anything less than a yard is half price (at least at my local store). Because I won't be using a ton, this is a good solution.

Don't think I thought this up myself, I found this on a message board - (www.sewingmommas.com ). A woman there had made them - she didn't give a ton of details, but the mod podge, felt and small tiles was enough information for me. :)

Christmas - Sewing projects

I've been itching to make something new - and to sew - for a few weeks now. I've set up a decent little (but very cold) area in the basement for all my sewing. So, tonight, I went to JoAnn Fabric and bought some cool fabric and some bias tape to make some pot holders.

I started out okay, but when it was time to attach the plain reddish bias tape, I realized that I didn't buy the bigger bias tape, which I really needed. Sucky. So, I decided I'd just make my own out of the fabric that I was using anyways. This would have worked out okay, except for the fact that I couldn't find my iron. So, alas, it looks a bit wonky. I love, love, love the fabrics though. And, I've got plenty more of each fabric to make more. I'll likely give someone a set for Christmas and keep the rest for me. :) And, I'll keep the wonky one, despite my hubby urging me to give that one away. ;)

Christmas projects - crochet!

I know that I need to update and post pictures of the finished tile, and I have every intention of doing so.

Right now, though, I've been working on Christmas gifts. I've recently crocheted three scarves. One was for me, just to get back into it. It's not yummy yarn, just the cheap stuff. Still, it's very warm and serves it's purpose.





After that, I got to work on two scarves for my sister. Both very yummy, fluffy soft yarns:

You can see how thick they are in this photo:

It's been awhile....

We're working on tiling the kitchen right now.

Here it is ungrouted and edges not done:
You can probably notice the tile differences? Yeah, well, we originally bought the tile like five years ago, tiled half the kitchen and never got back to it. So, we broke it out last night and were shocked that we only had 60 pieces left. We needed 82 more just for solid pieces. So, we picked the one that matched the best. Eh well, it'll be a rental eventually. The important part is that five and a half years later my floor completely matches again, yay!

As an aside, it's amazing how large my kitchen looks without any appliances. :p

Chatty Cathy today

I'm chatty today. I've had nothing to say recently, and all of a sudden, I've tons to talk about.

This post isn't about chatting though - I just want to post pictures of Nora. She has discovered the sprinkler and loves it.

Things are growing!

We are reaping the rewards of our garden finally! I'm picking a few tomatoes each week, and I'm thinking that with the number that are starting to turn red, I'm going to be picking a ton soon.

The rabbits have had a field day with the leaves on the carrots, though picking one of the carrots, it seems that they are still doing okay? The onions are about done, so we'll be picking those when we have the opportunity.

All of my viney plants still have no fruit on them. Though, they have tons of flowers on them, we're hoping to see something soon - canteloupe, squash, pumpkin, watermelon - something! I'm thinking the only possible one left is going to be the pumpkins, since they have a long growing season. I just wish we were going to have some squash, I've been looking forward to it all summer long.

We have yellow peppers aplenty - though we have no clue what to do with them! Any suggestions? Our green peppers are also doing nicely. :)

A new hobby

I've been wanting to take one of the Wilton Cake Decorating classes for some time now. Finally, as a birthday present from my husband, he bought me the class and supplies. Little did he know, those supplies were not nearly everything that I needed. I've now bought pans, parchment papers, cookie cuters for cute shapes, dyes, flavorings, powdered sugar galore, a huge tub of crisco, a larger spatula - well, you get the idea. Thank goodness I already have the Kitchenaid Professional Mixer or this would have been an even more expensive habit!

Over the month of July, I completed the Wilton Course I. It was so much fun, and I'm anxiously awaiting Course II. However, due to my husband's bowling schedule on Monday nights (that will be starting soon), I may have to put Course II off until September. That's okay, I suppose, I still have plenty that I can practice on my own.

The first week, we just learned some basics. The second week, we had to bring in an iced cake and a cookie cutter. The cookie cutter was to transfer an image to the cake, then we star tipped the inside of the cookie cutter image. My cake looked much better before it nearly slid off the plate as I pulled into our driveway.

The next week our cake was cute little clowns. Although, mine aren't so cute. You see, after practicing with your icing for an hour or so on a practice board, you're then expected to use the same icing in order to decorate your cake. The result for me was what I refer to as melty clowns. Still, the basic concept is easy and cute. Sadly, you can see from my photo that mine are not so cute. I tweaked my icing a bit the second week so that it wasn't so sweet and a bit more edible.

The last class ended with the ever evil rose. If you've never had the pleasure of making a rose out of frosting, let me tell you - it's definitely a learned art. I think that I finally got the hang out of it - at least enough that they weren't quite so hideous. You should have seen some of the ones that I started out making! Awful, awful, awful! There's a definite learning curve and I'm told that they are much easier to make in say, I dunno ..... January? Yeah, trying to make them in the heat and humidity of July in a non air conditioned house? Not so easy. After I finally mastered the rose we had to learn a new technique - a bow. And I thought roses were tricky! As you can see, I didn't get as much chance to practice the bow before it was time to throw one on the cake. Since the bow looked so crappy, I then tried to cover it up with the flowers. Yeah, I know, didn't work so well, did it?

I took the class with the idea that I would make my daughter's first birthday cake, and I'm so happy that I'll be able to make a great cake for her. Her birthday party is next weekend, but right now, I'm less concerned with her cake then I am for a cousins bridal shower cake that is TOMORROW! I'm still going back and forth on a lot of issues - fillings, number of tiers, decorations. I have the two bottom tiers done, a double layer 10 inch and a double layer 8 inch. The shower will have approximately 50 people attending. While I know that technically, this is plenty of cake to feed said 50 people, I know the people attending and they will scoff at such little pieces. So, do I do the 6 inch tier? I'm thinking that it probably wouldn't add that much cake to the mix. My original plan, after talking with some family members (and them telling me that those two tiers would not be enough cake) I decided to make some cupcakes as well. But, now I'm all sorts of indecisive and found a fabulous sheet cake online. Would it be horrible to want to make a sheet cake now? Ack - I told you - indecisive! The other cakes wouldn't go to waste - the one that I filled and stacked already could be frosted and taken to a party for tonight. The other could be wrapped and frozen for DDs party next week (where I'm very decisive on how her cake will look!).

I'm never this undecisive when it comes to sewing projects, so I don't know what's come over me. All I know is I'm loving this new hobby. My hips, however, are not.

House stuff

My daughter is being baptized next Sunday, so I've had to put all my sewing stuff away. I hate that. Eventually, once the playroom is built in the basement (just one wall needed to block off the furnace, hot water heater, washer, dryer and sump pump) with a door to access those things, I will move into the room next to where the playroom will be. I'd put them in reverse order, but this way the playroom will be directly when you walk down the stairs. Otherwise, we'd have to walk through my sewing room. The whole point of a room is so that I don't have to clean up when I'm done.

Anyways, I finally talked my husband into swapping the living room and dining rooms. The way the current dining room is set up is awkward. Two folding doors into the Florida room line one wall. A door from the kitchen breaks up another wall. The third wall has a fireplace on it. And there isn't a forth wall, as it sort of L's into the living room (though, it's not a true L as the wall actually curves). So, it will be challenging to fit the furniture, but frankly, I think it will work better as a living room than as a dining room. Best of all, the dining room table won't be a catch all location!

So, that's what I'm working on right now. I hope to get back to sewing next week sometime.

knit waistband skirt

While playing in my fabric stash, I also made another skirt. I've been trying to find the perfect skirt - for both me and my sister - so I just keep trying to change up the waistband.

Here's what I made this time. I have to say that it feels great on - just like wearing a pair of gauchos. And, oh boy, do I love my gauchos.

Once again, excuse the wrinkles. Once I get my new sewing room set up down stairs, I'll be better about pressing my items. Right now, I'm stealing space from the dining room and there's just no room to set up the ironing board.

Reconditioned pants and shirt

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I bought these jeans on the clearance rack at Target. I took the time to take out the waistband, bought material to convert them into maternity jeans. And then, my sewing machine acted up, I got distracted and low and behold, my daughter is now ten months old and I'm getting back into my sewing pile.

I figured I might as well do something with them, as I'm sick of coming across them in my tub of material. Only, long ago I used the knit fabric intended for the waistband. So, what else could I use? And, then, it hit me. How about an old t-shirt? Well, not a t-shirt, but rather a fitted shirt of t-shirt material. So, I went ahead and took that shirt and cut away.

Then, I sewed up the fly where the zipper used to be. Once I was done with that, I lined up the right amount of t-shirt fabric that will hopefully cover a pregnant belly in the future.

And, there's certainly plenty of room for a growing belly to stretch out the t-shirt fabric. I'll have to pick up more clearanced out jeans before my next pregnancy. Then, I'll pair it with super cute old shirts to end up with a one of a kind pair of maternity jeans.

Grocery Shopping on a budget

Since I no longer work full time and stay home with our daughter, we certainly don't have as much disposable income. That translates into - I have a budget and I have to live within said budget. At first, it was very hard. I was used to grocery shopping with no thought given to how much I spent in a week. After awhile, it became much easier. But, right after Christmas 2006, I changed my eating habits. I was determined to shed some of the weight that had piled on. And, I have shed some of it and have managed to find a new way to grocery shop on a budget AND still eat healthy.

I'd say my average grocery bill is $60 a week for our family of three. Sometimes, I can get buy with just $20 (eggs, bread, milk, lunch meat - filler products if you will). Other times, I might take what I didn't spend the week before and apply it towards my grocery trip for the week - particularly if there's a great price on meat. Since we have an extra freezer, I make use of it by stocking up on meat when it's on sale, and I still have some extra money in my grocery budget for the month. Recently (well, if you count early April as recent), chicken breasts were buy one, get one free. I bought family sized packs - four in all and spent $20 on it. Then, I split the breasts into smaller freezer baggies. We still have some of that chicken left in our freezer.

One thing that also helps to extend the life of a meat product is to dice it up and put it into the dish, rather than serve the entire breast. You can do this with casseroles, pasta dishes, stir fry, etc.

I also eat a lot of vegetables. Not all fresh, mind you, as that would certainly take my budget through the roof! Rather, I buy tons of frozen vegetables - brocolli, cauliflower, spinach, etc. I can usually find these for $1 per bag or less. The great part is that they won't go bad, so long as you seal up the bag and they're cheap. You can get more out of those bags of vegetables than you can out of a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. I use these frozen veggies in so many different ways - making egg white omelettes stuffed with vegetables for instance. My favorite way, though, is to add vegetables to pasta dishes. While pasta is cheap, (even whole wheat that I buy) the serving sizes are actually quite small. In order to feel full, I throw in a ton of vegetables and make myself a rather large dish instead of a small plate. I don't feel deprived and I'm getting in my vegetables.

I do buy some fresh fruits and vegetables. I wait, though, until they are in season. No, I don't get to eat watermelon in the winter, but I do enjoy them in the summer. I also make use of our farm stands along the sides of the roads. I love that this supports local farmers, but I also love that it means I know that what I'm buying is truly fresh, afterall, it hasn't been trucked across the country. And, it's usually a bit cheaper than buying the same item in the grocery store.

Some people seem surprised that I can keep my grocery bills so low. The trick is, not to buy processed foods. I could buy all Lean Cuisines, baked chips, and sugar free-fat free icecreams, but that adds a serious amount of money to my weekly total. Instead, I buy those items with much moderation. I stay away from Lean Cusines and instead buy the bakep chips and ice cream for my husband. I enjoy them as well, but if they weren't in the house, my husband would simply walk to the convenient store and buy the full fat versions. Still, even buying those items in moderation, I can keep my food budget in check.

One other way that I'm able to cut my budget is to have our own garden. I realize it isn't possible for some people to have a full garden, but if it is, it's a great way to cut down on your grocery bill. If you can't do a full garden, you might consider trying to do some container gardening.

I look in the sales flyers each week to see what's on sale. I check which coupons I have and try to incorporate the two together. I'm not a loyal shopper to any one store. Sure, I have my favorites, but I'd rather get a great price on some meat than shop in a certain store. I plan ahead, planning from those sales flyers what we'll eat for the week. Perhaps in a future post, I'll take your through the planning to the final product. I can highlight what I decide to buy based upon the advertisements and planning my menus, all the way to the final grocery store run, complete with receipt.

Gardening

This is our second year having a garden. The first year, we learned a lot. Like, start your plants early inside, because sometimes you can't get them in until June because of non stop rain. And when you get tomato plants in the ground in June, you don't actually get to enjoy them until the end of summer/beginning of fall.

With that in mind, our entire garden is flourishing this year. DH wanted to use plastic to keep the weeds to a minimum and fertilizer. I let him use the plastic but told him to keep the fertilizer for the flowers. I'm hoping to set up a compost bin soon, so that next year, we'll have that to use in both our garden and our flowers.

Our tomatoes seem to be doing really well. We already have little flower buds on them, so we should start seeing little tomatoes any day now. Our green and red peppers are doing great as well. And the onions? Flourishing!

Our carrots and celery seem to be emerging. They were the only thing that we didn't plant ahead of time. We had good luck with carrots last year in this way. This is the first shot at celery for us.

We decided not to do green beans and lettuce this year since we had a bit of trouble with them last year. Trouble as in - something else ate them.

We also have some squash, watermelon and canteloupe that we just transplanted, hopefully, it will take off soon.

I can't wait until we can start eating from our garden - it'll be nice not to spend so much money at the grocery store on fresh vegetables.

We didn't plant any corn - DH says it takes up way too much space. Instead, we'll hit the farmer's stands when we want some corn.

Dress shot in action

I wanted to post my DD in her dress from my last post.

elastic thread plus free fabric = cute dress for DD

My mother-in-law has the best intentions in regards to sewing (and crafty things in general). Her problem is finding the time. She's a super busy woman and well, doesn't get around to things as often as she'd like. Sometime in January, a local JoAnn Fabric store went out of business and she bought a ton of fabric at a steal of a price. She's been doing some cleaning and purging at her house and knowing I sew and would get around to using the fabric well before she ever would she graciously offered it up to me. Some of it's not really my taste, but now that I have a daughter, cutesy fabrics work well for making her some clothes.

So, combine free fabric with the 88 cent elastic thread and you have my day. Of course, I already had the regular thread in my collection, so I didn't even need to run to the store to pick up some more thread. Best of all, I still have some elastic thread left on the spool, so I'll get another project (or two) out of that 88 cents.

I'm not one to entirely follow patterns, rather I pull what seems like will work for me and sort of put it all together and see what I come out with. I mainly, pulled from this site, but ended up changing a crucial part by gathering the elastic into my seams. Sometimes, my mish mash of ideas works out, sometimes they don't. This time, I was not dissapointed.

I had to take the elastic spool and hand wind a bobbin. If I would have thought about it ahead of time, I would have wound a few extra bobbins, since I have extra. I ended up needing almost two full bobbins (she typically wears a size 12 months).

If there's any advice I could give, when someone would start shirring the fabric is to make sure that you always sew on the same side of the fabric. Sure, I knew this intellectually, but I did forget that important fact. Just once, mind you. Once I have to use a seam ripper in a project, I'm more apt to pay closer attention. Shirring the fabric was actually pretty fun.

Once, I shirred both the front and the back sides of the dress, I had to pull the elastic tighter in order to get the desired effect. The website I posted earlier mentioned that you had to pull gently because you could snap the thread, and boy - she was sure right!

My next step was sewing the seams together. I gathered all of the elastic thread into the seams and doubled it up in the shirring portion of the dress. Once the sides were tightly sewn together, I trimmed up all the elastic. Then I zig zagged the edges. Other people use pinking shears, but I was never taught that way - sure seems a bit easier though. Of course, the easiest way of all would probably be a serger, but I lack one of those.

After hemming the dress, I went ahead and added the straps to the dress.

And that was that - an afternoon of sewing with free fabric equalled one cute dress for DD - oh, and cheap too!

I don't have a modelling shot yet, but here is the finished dress on a hanger.

elastic thread

Recently, I found out that there is elastic thread that you can use in your sewing machine to create a shirring effect. The best tutorial I found was here.

I went on the hunt to my local JoAnn Fabrics store but they only had one spool of black. I was told that once the last one was purchased, it would trip the system to order more. And, it could be in sometime within two to three weeks. Whaaaat? So, I went to Walmart (shh, don't tell, I really don't like them) and went to the fabric section. And found some in white - and they were only 88 cents, which was cheaper than JAs, so I bought all five (or was it six).

Today, I had a little bit of a chance to play around on a scrap piece of fabric, and let me tell you, this is going to be so much fun!

Recent Sewing Projects

I learned to sew in high school. I was a Senior and needed very few credits to graduate. But, I was also the Editor in Chief of the newspaper, and needed to be in newspaper class in the afternoon, so I couldn't do the early dismissal option. So, I took a whole lot of fluff, filler classes. I took beginning sewing the first semester (along with Home Cooking, Beginning Foods - are you seeing the home ec theme?) and the next semester I took advanced sewing. I enjoyed myself immensley and bought myself a cheap singer machine to continue with my new found passion. These days, I'm sewing on a bit more of a complex Kenmore machine, that truthfully, baffles me at times with all of the stitch functions available. And, I lust after embroidery machines.

I've been sewing some skirts for my sister recently, here is one skirt and one shirt for her (which I still need to add the straps to).

This one would probably look a whole lot better if I took the time to press it, but since it's going into a box to be shipped across the United States I skipped that step. ;)





So, those are my very recent projects.

Wedding Invites

Today, I'm heading over to DH's cousins house. She is getting married in September (and I'm a bridesmaid!) and she enlisted my help in making her invites. We came up with a simple, pretty invite the other night. Today, we'll be putting them all together - with more enlisted help. :)

I'll post some pictures of the completed project.

Toodles!

Blogging

I've been journaling online for years. My sister recently told me that I should start a public blog, so here it is.


I'm a married woman, to a wonderful (and very handy) husband. We have a beautiful 10 month old daughter (well, in a few days she'll be 10 months old), as well as an angel baby - our son.

I'll likely talk home renovations, crafts, sewing projects, gardening and trying to become a green household.

Going green in our area is challenging. Recycling is something that isn't done by very many people. And cloth diapers! Ha, an even stranger proposition. And now I want a compost bin. My husband thinks I'm nuts, but goes along for the ride.

That's all for now, stay tuned for more! :)