A tiny glimpse...

Concrete leaves

My mother-in-law came across this article in one of her magazines to make concrete leaves for the garden.  The one pictured above is a lotus leaf and can be used like a bird bath.  Well, I have been wanting to learn how to do it since.  I think it is a really cool idea and well who knows what new things that knowledge could inspire!!  She called on Saturday to tell me she had gotten some rhubarb leaves from a local lady and would be making some if I wanted to learn.  Ummmm yes!!!  It is not a very complicated process, but it does take patience.  You have to have patience to grow the plants to provide the leaves (or make some very "green thumb" friends), patience to mold the leaf and then form the concrete and patience to wait for the concrete to harden.  The hardening part is by far the most trying - it is so tempting to touch them while they are drying and to check on them and to pick them up!! Thank goodness they are at her house so I am not tempted.  I can't wait to see the ones I made and with the left-over concrete C made a stepping stone for Daddy!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's day to all of you who are a mother to something be it a child, a pet, a younger sibling or a life partner of any kind!  I have to say there are days when i long to have a place to hide all by myself, but ultimately I really love to be needed and am a total pleaser so I wouldn't be able to stay by myself for very long.  We spent Saturday making terrariums for the Grandma's since I saw the idea here on angry chicken.  I love the idea and thought this is perfect!!  Both of our mom's love gardening and plants and having something made by there grandson would be even better.  Well I had to make one for me to, but I do say they didn't turn out quite like the picture in my head, but I think they will be loved no matter what.  Hope you had a great day doing whatever your heart's desire!

Fun Apron Swap!!

So over at "A Feathered Nest" there is a sign up for an apron swap!  I am totally excited about it.  Sign up is now through May 5th and the apron needs to be mailed by June 9th.  Click the picture above or in the sidebar for more information or to join up yourself!

Craigs List is the Awesomest!!

I love Craigs List - love love love it!  We have purchased and sold things and always had really good luck and today I was just looking around and found a post of a sewing table for $20.00.  I contacted the seller thinking it would be gone and it totally wasn't!!  So tonight I went armed with my $20.00 and came home with this -

My machine is not a Singer and it is a Singer table so I will have to find some different bolts to bolt it on so that I can swing it underneath when not is use, but I am very pleased and can't wait to try it out.  One more plus review for Craigs List!

Bag sewing!

I have made two more bags!  One is for my mother in law (above) and is the same pattern as the boat one shown here.

The other is based on a pattern I purchased from Etsy called the Mischeivious Gnome Messenger Bag from Sew Liberated (previously Montessori by Hand).  I also have her Emmeline apron pattern, but have not tried it yet.  It is so exciting to make things again.  I made the strap a longer so it could be used across the body.  I love it!  I am also understanding so much more so that I can make the bag I have been looking for and cannot find!  The perfect bag to carry my laptop and my stuff with lots of pockets.  Oh the things I could do if I didn't have any responsibilities and a bottomless bank account!!  Well, I guess I should get back to reality it is almost bath time.

It's called being thrifty - right?

    I like to think of this as being thrifty, but some (hubby A) refer to it as being ghetto!!  As my son and I were driving home yesterday we went by a house in the neighborhood that has been for sale for a while.  Lo and behold there was a bunch of stuff sitting at the end of the driveway - just waiting for a good home!! I stopped go tout a talked to the lady who owns the house and she confirmed it was all mine if I wanted it - Yea!  I promptly moved the boys booster seat over and began to see how much I could fit into the RAV-4.   We drove pretty slow and didn't have very far to go, but got a few really strange looks as we went by. 
    Well, A thinks it is pretty dingy, but I think with a wiping off, new coat of pale blue or green paint and some striped home made cushions I think it will be perfect on the front porch!! 

Making pants

Ok so today is April 12th, but would you believe that this morning there was snow in the air.  I know that we are in danger of freeze advisories until the end of April. but the weather just keeps going back and forth I am itching for spring real bad.  Well since today I could not get the family outdoors we (I) decided some projects should be done.  So what better than to practice making pants by trying to make the smallest pair first.  I went to the fabric store the other day and was once again disapointed by the lack of things for boys.  I guess that clothing manufacturers feel there is no point in making lots of things for boys since there is not as much revenue produced from it.  I feel that I would spend a lot of money on clothes for my boy if I had more things to choose from.  Anyway, I digress I  was saying I was disapointed because there was about 5 patterns for little boy clothes and they were all pretty much the same style.

    So I decided I could probably find something on the internet and I did!   This site has a really great tutorial on how to make kids pants.  I think I could have figured it out on my own, but it was more of a confidence thing that validated what I was thinking and so I made a pattern out of the Sunday newspaper and within an hour had the pants pictured above.  We even tested out some of our patented "fancy moves" and they work great!  I have also been told that we can run faster since the pants have Lightning McQueen on them and he is super fast.  So on to the next project - Yippee!

A sewing we will go!

I have a sewing/craft area set up FINALLY.  It has been about 12 years since I have had an area available to set up my sewing machine and other crafty things.  Therefore I have not done a ton of crafty things in that time frame because I truly loathe having to get something out and ready to work on just to have to put away again after 30 minutes. 

I am so excited and the first thing I made was this cute little nautical bag out of some vintage material of my mother's.  It is a McCalls Sew Easy patern from Wal-Mart for $2.44 and I love it.  I am just itching to sew sew sew, so much more!  Yeah me!

The end of project week(s) - finally

Ok, so "project week" has officially ended.  We had a few projects that we worked on over spring break while the boy was spending quality time with his Grandma's (due in part to the husband's ailment of ants in the pants) and now we have completed most of them.  I can't even begin to tell you how excited the hubby gets when he can cross something off a list.  Well, one of the projects was the hutch I painted black and another was the bulletin board and dresser for the boy's room.  Two other projects were a cornice that my inlaws made for us (I picked the material does that count as a project for me) and hubby built some shelves for the bar he is building in the basement.  Both turned out really well and now it is time to make a new list so we can mark stuff off.  Can I mark stuff off of a list I make of things I have already done?  So here is a before-

and then here is the after-

My hubby found a similar design on the internet where it is a three section shelving unit and due to our space and the fact that we are a little off we decided to make it assymetrical so the side with two shelves is just sort of hanging out there in space.  He used rebar to make the uprights and so now there are many other projects that may include rebar to be thought of - the list has been started already so I guess we will be crossing things off pretty soon!!

A show and tell board!

So I have a blog that I really like called freshvintage and she had this great entry in January on covering a corkboard.  Well, over the holidays we painted our son's room and I have been wanting to add a corkboard so that we don't have to put a bunch of push pins in the wall, because of course at the age of four you have to hang everything up for at least a week.  So the other weekend I went thrifting in Grandma's majic basement (mentioned the other day) and found this awesome really huge corkboard that she wasn't using and bought some material to put over it.  It isn't totally finished I still need to put something around the edges to "finish" it, but have to figure out the best way to make it stick.  Perhaps a job for the glue gun.  I also attached the fabric with spray glue so it would be fairly easy to pull off and change or even put on another layer as he gets older.  It's really a great idea and allows you to add some of yourself and some art to a room without a lot of money.

I am also testing out if I can insert links so far I think so good, let me know if they don't work.