Thriftin’ on Thursday!

Ok, so I didn’t actually go thriftin’ today, but I thought I’d tell you about our adventures! Last weekend we were supposed to have our family pictures taken in Tacoma. So we headed out and then found out, on the way there (it’s about 45 minutes or so from here), that our photographer didn’t actually put us in his calendar. Even though he gave the date, etc… Anyway…. We ended up having a great time together after all!

As we were turning around we decided to check out the Antique Row in downtown Tacoma. Our first little find was the Graffiti Garage. We love some graffiti… I’ll admit it, we do like it! It’s probably not the best thing to teach our child, but hey! I love the colors with the pink and yellow one above. Unknown Artist…  It was pretty inspiring to me. My husband and I hatched a plan of me making a quilt and then he adds a stencil to it!

And the guys posing in front of more….

Then we headed to some shops! My son kept getting the good deals. Free bracelets (those that he’s holding in the picture above), discounted butterflies, a free stained glass picture…. He’s cute! What can I say?

This one store had all these fairy tale figures from an old playground at one of Tacoma’s parks. They were sooooo cool! But so out of our price range. oh, well…. They were even inspiring and my husband and I were thinking of ways to make our own! MAybe a tutorial one day?? Who knows! (don’t hold your breath though!)

And here’s all of our loot! The stained glass piece is kinda cool. Especially for free. It does have a little broken part. but maybe we can fix it. Or it just becomes backyard art and we’re fine with the flaw.

The print of the nativity is pretty cool. The lady said it was from the early 1900′s. Who knows. I just liked it! If you know anything about it, please let me know.

Some cool books that I can ‘t wait to read. The kid doesn’t seem so interested!

But the superhero’s on the other hand. They are a hit.

And check out Invisible Girl! Can you see her? Isn’t she cool!

Then my son found these butterflies and HAD TO HAVE THEM. He wants to make a butterfly quilt. hmmm… A small one he said. So these are the ones he picked out.

Then the next shop we went into had this beautiful butterfly quilt! I figured, hey, let’s just buy a butterfly quilt… But alas, it needed a LOT of work and was out of my price range, so I left it there and came home with my son’s butterflies instead! But how funny.  Right after the kiddo comes up with the butterfly quilt idea, we find one!

We had a good day and found some fun stuff. We’re going back in June to actually have our pictures taken! I’ll keep posted on that.. ha!

Did you get out and about and do anything fun this past weekend? Or are you doing anything this weekend? It’s supposed to be beautiful here in Seattle! 80 degrees! YEA! For 2 days! YEA!

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter with family and friends! I know we did!

I had planned a bunch of crafty Easter posts, but that didn’t happen. At all. My poor crafty kid missed out on Easter crafts this year. Recovering from this surgery has taken much longer than I was expecting. I’m doing well and moving around, but my moving around is pretty slow going.

One of the Easter crafts I had planned was decorating super hero Easter eggs. But the planning fizzled and we ended up with the regular ‘ole dying technique. Then one day I came home and looky who I found in the Easter basket! Spider Man!

A couple of funnies from our day…

I don’t know what possessed me to buy Peeps this year. I don’t know if I ever have, actually. I think I was curious to see if my son would like them. He found them in his Easter basket and his first response was, ‘Hey! We can make a garland out of these!’ I love the craftiness in this kid!

The sun has been shining in Seattle. When the sun starts to shine and temps rise, the city breaks out into thinking it’s summer. Most of us forget that it won’t last for long and the rain will be back, but we enjoy it just the same. So needless to say that since we don’t see it so much, we forget what it does. As in keeping things warm. The chocolate bunny got put away ’til later… in the sun…. Oops!

OK, obviously you know that super hero’s are a big thing at our house… Well, Look what the Easter bunny brought to Momma! We needed a little girl super power going on here and especially one that has her own invisible jet! I’ve ALWAYS wants an invisible jet. And now I have one! YES!!!! And so what if the box says it’s only for 1 to 4 year olds. hmph!

We had a lot of good times this weekend. And it ended with an another Easter egg hunt with our good friends (and their crafty mom.. check out the bunny bags she had them make), good food, sun and just enjoying our families! Hope you had the same kind of weekend!

Beaded Bookmarks!

We seem to be having a hard time keeping up with bookmarks. And we seem to be reading at least one chapter book at a time. Which means, I’m constantly trying to remember where we left off….

So when I saw these adorable bunny bookmarks by Small for Big, I was so excited to make them! Have you seen this? The project has been featured all over the blog world! It’s just so adorable!

I wanted to try making them out of pom poms, since I knew for sure we had different sized pom poms around this house somewhere… The key word in that sentence is somewhere… I couldn’t find them anywhere… So we used the beads that we have at the house. I loved the wood colored originals, but we had colored beads and I think they turned out nicely.

I showed my son the picture of what we were making and proceeded to pick every shape we had, except the circles, for the bunnies! Then he decided that, no, no bunny for him. He was making a little square-headed kid! OK! Well, I stuck to the directions and made a bunny!

I had grand expectations of this project. We were going to make a BUNCH of these for Easter gifts. Then the kiddo left me. Alone. Beading my bookmark. I didn’t have the needle the directions described and our yarn kept separating, so I had to keep adding tape to the end of the yarn in order to bead the beads. So, it was a little slow going and the kiddo lost interest.

He’s so excited to have his bookmark in our book tonight!

Now I have to find something to read to use mine in!

Shared with these Link Parties!

A Quilted Bulletin Board for Christmas

Yep, another Christmas present! These are going to be going on for a while, so stick with me! And yes, this is another one I made for my husband! AND…. It’s another project to mark off the To-Do List!

You’re probably thinking, this isn’t very manly and it kinda looks like it’s in a kids room, so why is it for her husband???

OK, so why would you think it’s in a kids room? Does the growth chart on the wall give it away???

If that’s what you were thinking, you’re right! It is for my son’s room. And please excuse the pictures. The lighting in our downstairs doesn’t lend itself to great photography. (at least not easily! anyway….) When we re-did our basement for more living space, the electric panel was in our son’s room and we decided to leave it there. In hindsight, I’m not sure why, but we did! And to cover it, because who wants a big ugly electrical fuse box in their room, we made this wooden frame with a cork bulletin board to cover it. I don’t have a before picture…

Probably about 6 months to a year after installing it, the cork fell off and it’s been this eyesore in the room. And my husband has been asking and asking for me to sew something to cover the cork and reinstall it. So that was about 3.5 to 4 years ago…. You’d think I’d be better at getting things done for our house, huh!

I’ve been thinking about it all these years. I promise! How to install it… What is the design going to be…. Then I became obsessed with these wonky stars. That’s when I knew the design for the bulletin board!

So my husband got the pieced fabric wrapped up under the tree! And then after Christmas, I glued cork to a piece of foam core and then wrapped the quilted piece to the foam core/cork and inserted in the panel frame!

Most of the fabrics I used were scraps left over from his bedding nad curtains with some new coordinating pieces added in. And if I don’t say so myself, it looks great with the ribbons, favorite pictures and art projects added in!

Shared with these Link Parties!

Etsy and Instagram and Facebook, Oh, my!

Are you flashing back to The Wizard of Oz??? I am… Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh, my! Ok, maybe it’s just me…

So many updates today!

First, Etsy…

Do these cards look familiar to anyone? I designed them all last year for a free printable. Well, this year, I’ve updated them all and they are available in my Etsy shop! You don’t have to hassle around with the files. I’ll do it for you! You purchase and send me your pictures. I’ll set the whole thing up for you and send it back to ya! Easy!!!! So if you haven’t already ordered your Holiday cards, check out mine! Each card come with a PDF of corresponding address labels and envelope liner paper! What do you think??

Next, Instagram….

My Instagram account has been private for the last couple of years that I’ve been using it. Until today… I’ve opened it up to be public. I’m a little hesitant… But I want to get to know you. I’ve been writing to you for the last couple of years, but I feel like I haven’t gotten to know too many of the people who read my blog… And I’m coming to a blogging place that feels very alone. I didn’t start this blog to be alone! I started it to make friends out there that I would otherwise not know. So I thought I’d try this out and see. You can now follow me on instagram! I’ve started taking pictures of my crafty projects and fun things I see out there. Not just my son… There will still be pictures of him, just a warning! He’s cute though, right?!

You can click here, the image above or the same image on the right hand side over there!

(I’m kinda excited about my little instagram image I just made!)

And Lastly, Facebook…

If you follow any other blogs, you’ve probably already seen this…. But Facebook has made some changes and you don’t actually get updates for every page that you like… So, if you can do me a favor, I’ll let you know how to be sure to not miss a FB update!

Go to my FB page by clicking here. Then mouse over the blue LIKED button and you see the drop down menu in the image above. Make sure that you have checked ‘Show in News Feed’. This was you’ll never miss a post and if you comment, or like or anything else, probably, other friends will see it and so on and so on!

Big sigh….

That was a lot of information!

I’m so glad to have you and look forward to getting to know you even better with these little changes I’ve made and hope too see more of you on FB and Instagram!

Halloween Scrapbook

While Halloween is still fresh on your mind… Instead of eating all of your kids candy, why not make a Halloween Scrapbook?

I do this with all my Christmas cards, too. I love getting it out each year and comparing the old photo cards to the new photocards! So this year I thought, why not do this for Halloween too???

For this project, I printed out the color cover from a paper cut I made into a printable and put it on the cover. I used our ‘Family Portraits’ from Ooh Moon, again, for the front page. Then printed pictures from each year, secured them in and…. Wahla!

Max from Where the Wild Things Are

I’m old school when it comes to scrapbooking. (and behind, but that’s another story!) Mine are so old fashioned. Just black paper, black corners and white or silver pens. I’m amazed at so many people’s elaborate scarpbooks! They are beuatiful! But mine are simple.

Fireman Costume

The fun thing about this is that you don’t have to sort through all your pictures, or all your scrapbooks to find Halloween for each year. Just pack this away with your decorations and pull it our each year. All your Halloween memories in one place!

Curious George Dressed Up Like a Monster

My son already loves looking through and saying, ‘That’s me, and that’s me and that’s me…..’ The beauty of an only child! Ha!

Ahhhh!!!

I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything new to post… I do have some things, but I haven’t edited the pictures or written the tutorials yet…

I rarely talk about my ‘life’ outside of crafting on this blog, but thought today I would. Hope you don’t mind, but this week has been crazy!! I’ve been happily unemployed for a while now. Loving every minute of it, actually. But I had in my mind that I was going to make a real effort to go back to work this fall.. Fall, to me means September, not August…

All of a sudden, I had a job interview last week, which meant I kinda had to drop everything and get my portfolio together. Yes, I’ve been putting that off since the day I got laid off too… Then a friend asked me to do a design for a MIL garage apartment, so I’ve been coordinating a meeting on that and thinking about it. Then another friend recommended me to his firm for some upcoming positions, so I had another interview this week. And… My husband’s work needed me to come in and work for them! They didn’t have much for my husband to do, so they told him to stay home and take care of our son. Funny, huh!?!

So this week, totally unexpected, with no time to mentally prepare, I’ve gone from unemployed, stay at home, crafting, blogging mom to working 40 hours a week!!! And mind you, it’s still August. Not September!! It’s been really good for me, but not what I was expecting when I was expecting it.

Meanwhile, my house is a mess and projects are piling up!!!

The 4 projects that have to get done ASAP are a doll, graduation gift bags that I haven’t sent yet, some curtains, and my submission to the Quilt Con Block project!!!

How did I used to do all these things and work too? I can’t remember!! But I’ve got to get used to it real fast! Well, that is if either of these interviews pan out to anything… I liked both places, so I’m excited to hear back.

Ok, that’s enough ranting from me for one day! Are there other mom’s out there that work and are obsessive about their crafting? How do you get it all done??? Remind me please… Oh, and I’m trying not to stay up to 2AM every day, too! With that said, it’s 10.40PM and I’m off to sew for a few minutes!

Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig

The last three weeks have been action packed and filled with awesome family adventures! We had a great time vacationing with friends and family back home in Alabama. So, my apologies for being absent last week. I got two weeks of posts scheduled before I left and was going to blog about our adventures last week, but decided… Hey, I’m on vacation and took a vacation!

So next week, I’ll be back with tons of fun showing you what great finds we discovered and some things I made on the front porch of the beach house listening to the waves crash! ahhhh… I miss it already!

New Year, New Project

Man, I’m not sure exactly where this week went… Somehow I totally missed posting this week. Not a great way to kick off the new year! Maybe it was the sick kiddo. Maybe the holiday on Monday. Maybe it was getting down the Christmas decorations. Or maybe it was because I didn’t eat my black-eyed peas on New Year’s day… Whatever it was, the week got away from me! I’ll try to do better the rest of the year! Ha, is that my New Year’s resolution????

This year, I’m going to try to do the 365 project… A photo a day! I’ve tried it before, never at the beginning of the year, and haven’t gotten very far. But this year I started on the second (yep, decided a day late) and I picked a subject… It’s not a crafty thing, it’s my son. So I won’t be posting them every week, but I did want to share with ya, one thing I’ve been up to this week.

I made this Photoshop template to keep the pictures organized!

Have you heard of The CoffeeShop Blog? I started with a basic storyboard from her blog and made it my own specifically for this project and used her digital sticky tape.

Why mention The CoffeeShop Blog? because with my 365 project, I don’t want to spend hours and hours editing pictures! And she has TONS of free actions for editing pictures! You should really check out her blog, it’s fantastic! And she has some really great storyboards, perfect for blogging!

Another project for this year…. Catching up on my scrapbooking! I’m only about 6 or so years behind! I do it very simply, black paper, black photo corners and a white pen. So there probably won’t be too many posts about my sorting through piles of pictures. But it is one thing I’ll be up to!

More to come!

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

I’m probably one of the last crafty bloggers to get with the whole holiday decorating thing! Running a bit behind schedule! And I’m not exactly sure how that happened with my new employment status… Hmmm…. Oh, well, it doesn’t matter, we’ve been having a blast seeing the lights come up  and the decorations all around!

I debated on the name of this post for a while… It was between what I went with and ‘Salt Dough, Finger Nail Polish and Glitter’. Yes, I fell for it… The salt dough ornaments that are all over the internet these days…

I have a plan for my little stars… More about that later. I hated the larger glitter, but once I switched to the glitter ‘dust’ I love love my little stars!

I used this recipe and baked them at 250 for about 3 or 4 hours.

The  salt dough was fun for the kiddo. He helped mix it, and stamp it. We were having a little playdate and I wanted to have some of the ornaments baked for them to paint… I didn’t realize they were supposed to cook for like 4 hours! And I also didn’t realize that all my Christmas stamps are still in boxes. But they had fun stamping and balling up the dough into different shapes…

It was also fun glittering and decorating them, the whole family, later in the night!

My intention is to paint and/or glitter all the ornaments and tags, but a few are going au natural as gift tags!

The finger nail polish! Have you seen these fingernail polish ornaments from The Cheese Thief? It’s pretty cool! There are a couple of drawbacks to this activity… Finger nail polish is much more expensive than I remember it being and the toxic smell! But it’s fun, cool results and if you mess it up, you can wash it off and start over!

Mine don’t look quite as good as ones shown on The Cheese Thief . But I worked on it for about an hour and I have a feeling  she worked on it for quite a bit longer to really master the technique!

And then I dropped them… My son was devastated! He totally got on my case about making a mess and breaking our project. He even ran downstairs and told on me to Daddy. Needless to say, it was totally an accident. And of course I broke my favorites…

and a little teaser… Glitter balls… What do you think those are going to be????