Measure It Up Ruler

My kids are older, ages 11, 18 & 19, but when we moved here 7 years ago we started keeping track of their height on a pole in the basement ( my desk used to be right beside it so it made sense at the time) Now that we are thinking about moving I had to figure out a way to transfer those heights to a new house.

Did you know I LOVE Pinterest. Did a quick search for Ruler growth Charts and wow they are everywhere!  And so I conferred with the husband and he was kind enough to procure a board for me AND he even stained it a light golden brown! WOW!

All I had to do was pull out my normal size ruler and make the marks. I made it easy and only marked inches, and doesn't it look awesome?

Quilting Inspiration

We are in the middle of trying to sell our house and I am in between jobs, and there is only so much packing you can do before you are "done until you actually move" and once most all of your extra stuff is packed away and there really isn't a lot of clutter because all the pretty clutter is packed away, well the cleaning gets really easy after that and takes a lot less time to tidy up now. and I am running out of things to keep myself busy. I have 1 crochet granny stripe blanket I am working on and another cable knit blanket I am working on, but I've gotten to the point in both of those where I think I am getting carpel tunnel from the weight and cant work on them long before my wrists starts to seize up and cry when I drag them out for more than 15 minutes at a time. Wow this is a rambling post isnt it? lol Sad too considering I am not even 40 yet and already have knitting and crochet woes.

So anyway I started a hex quilt a while back, I've got my little travel box of material, and work on it a little at a time ( See below for pics ) . So I spend a lot of time on pinterest and flickr groups looking for inspiration and I found a blog tutorial on how to make really easy hexs that are quilt as you go and join and done..... SO now that I found this sure easy way to do it, I've now told the hubby that he gets to drag out my sewing stuff from the storage room cause I want to start on one ASAP. I even plan on going to wally world and hoping that they have a hex ruler for me to use as a template. I will post pics as I get this done. but until then I wanted to post a link to the tutorial and to a few other sites that are awesome for quilts =)

Sew and Flip hex's at Jaybird Quilts Blog

mrspeeksfarmhouse.blogspot.com for pretty flower quilt above

My travel box =)

I made this little quilted style wrist pin cushion for traveling, makes it so much easier to not lose needles while cutting threads and switching between hexs!

So far this is all I have, I think I am going to make a pillow out of them since I found an easier way to make a quilt =) PS a lot of my fabric is recycled. If I go to the thrift store and they have a special going on I will look at womens dresses and mens dress shirts, lots of fabric for little money =)

These are the card stock paper pieces I use, I think I bought them on ebay. but they are affordable and she shipped them super fast so I highly recomend her if you can find her online =)

My stack of WIP =) 

Making Butter

K so I saw this thing pinned on Pinterest, making butter in a mason jar. Super easy and if you have a bunch of people around it makes it even faster.  I bought the heavy cream the other day with plans to do this myself. The hubby suggested I use child labor and get it done today. So we did. 3 kids in the house a few mason jars, a pint of heavy cream, and a little bit of shake shake shake and butter was made =)

So we have pint mason jars, this makes it easy to store cause you dont need to transfer from one jar to anything else. fill the jar about half way with cream. and start shaking, when you get tired pass it to the next person. it really does take right at 20 minutes and you dont have to work hard at it. when the butter starts really seperating and there is obviously liquid  and butter in the jar, stop shaking and use another jar or the carton the cream came out of and pour the liquid out ( save that its buttermilk, use it in other recipies like pancakes )  use a fork to stir up the butter and pour a little cold water on there and shake a little more, keep doing this cold water mix and shake and pour till the water is clear. then add a little salt stir , shake and refridgerate you are done ( OH and taste it) awesome right?

We made 2 kinds, plain salted butter, and dill salted butter. So yummy! Not really that cost effective but not bad, we figure its about 2 sticks of butter per pint. But yummy and the kids thought it was cool =)

Flip Flops

Okay so who out there LOVES Pinterest? Yeah me too, I've got a bunch of boards and even got the hubby started on it. he's got his own which seem to revolve around home improvement and cooking. While mine revolve around decorating and crafts =) Good thing he is the cook of the house, we'd all die of food poisoning or obesity from tater tots and chicken nuggets if the cooking were left up to me =) ( read sarcasm and yeah I hate cooking in that last statement)lol

So ANYWAY.... I am subscribed to a bunch of stores email lists and JC Penny sent me one that I actually looked at for a change, they had their flip flops on sale $1 a pair until they run out. so seriously they might still have some go look. And I went and bought like 6 pairs. Yes I did. then I came home and got so super excited because I just knew pinterest would have all kinds of exciting things to do to decorate them..... yeah not so much. So I went my own route....

Ok so I had a pair of really cute blinged out dressy type flip flops that were so flat had NO support and really just hurt to walk in them, so I cut the jewels off them and put them on the red pair of flip flops below. I think next year I might get a black pair for these jewels. I just used craft glue and fishing line and tied them on.

For the pink pair I took some more craft glue and glitter and they turned out pretty but I should have used modge podge cause glitter goes EVERYWHERE when I wear them. live & learn right?

Close Up

Close up- glitter is hard to photograph am I right?

Then these cuties I knew I wanted ribbon and I wanted bright, so I thought this might match a few things I have. I took the ribbon and sewed the little ripples in it and then hot glued it to the flip flops. not sure if I like the middle bow but the rest looks good to me. I suggest you go to wherever you buy your ribbon and I swear inspiration will strike you just like it did me =)

Update: hot glue did NOT work, I wore these out of the house and before we even got where we were going the ribbon started flopping off, it did unstick very quickly from the flip flops where they were glued down, but I will have to re glue will try plain craft glue and see if that holds up:) 

Baseball Bracelet

I know there is a link somewhere for this on my Pinterest page, and if I can get time I will find it and put it on here, but for now, for the sake of getting this done....

Edit: The Original I have pinned

I saw this on Pinterest and thought that with baseball season coming up this would be a super cute project,  and it totally is!

All I did was take an old beat up baseball, and cut around the stitching with an exacto knife.

then I peeled that piece off and found where the stitches started, I folded it in half and cut it into 2 pieces.

then I cut and unraveled the string from the leather, I recommend you do this like 5 stitches at a time until the strings are long enough to tie. I then did a really basic square knot on one side so that the strings will slide and then glued a piece of felt to the back to "finish" it off.

Only took an hour, it was easy and look me and Wes have matching baseball bracelets =)

My First & Second Dress Recycle!

I'm so excited, but I have to back story a little. I posted before about my daily dress inspiration from Marisa over at New Dress a Day. Please go check her out, you will learn so much!

Anyway. So I am getting older and wider yes I said wider lols, and have a shit ton of tank tops ( yes I cuss occasionally I'm not going to edit myself for blog land, get used to it, how I talk is how I type.) So anyway Websters dictionary would describe my tank top collection of well over 20 different colors a shit ton. Yep its more than that but I'm not gonna go count them now soooo.... anyway I'm getting wider and I no longer appreciate how I look in them around my middle =)

So I thought what can I do. Then I started noticing the new trend in stores is skirts attached to tanks which if strategically placed will cover the erhmmm excess in the middle lols.  JOY AND YAY!  So I went to goodwill and found a few dresses I liked for the fabric, and after being an avid reader of Marisa, and after doing a little more homework on Pinterest I got serious and finally made a dress actually I've made 2 this week, so I will just post them both here =) the 3rd is giving me pains but hopefully will turn out beautiful in the end!

before: perfectly OK, but nothing I would even consider wearing on a daily casual basis, which is how I like my dresses. If I can find a tutorial on how to make peplum shirts I will have to turn the top part of this dress into a peplum shirt.... might be worth it.

after shortened it up a bit too =)

The before on this dress was indecent around the boobage area, so this is the after. I think they both look better in person, but yeah they are kinda like sacks and skim my body instead of hugging the curves. =) Oh and they are very comfy and totally casual for wearing around the house and even to Walmart lols =)

My Nails

Sometimes I get inspired to do my nails, usually this happens when
a) I get bored
b) I am too cheap to go get them filled
c) I think I can wait just 1 more week then go get them filled
d) I'm too busy to go during the day but feel my nails need painted at 7 pm thereby requiring me to spend the next 5 hours messing with my nails and ignoring the rest of the household (I get that way so sue me)
e) all of the above =)

So instead of a post each time I do my nails I will just post all the pics at once. like this week I went and got a new set of nails put on so it'll be a while ( 2 weeks tops) before I feel like messing with them again lol.

Yep inspiration only I follow a bunch of nail blogs there are a bunch on tumbler.com just search for nail art =)

That's my umbrella for anyone that wants to think weird thoughts about what i am holding =)
Pink and made my own dotting tool by taking a sewing pin and pushing it into a wine cork. perfect dotting tool and free out of stuff I already had at home =)

Again used my home made dotting tool made 5 little dots then used a pointy end of my nail file and dragged little lines through the dots. I thought this was super cute =)

Hated this it stayed on less than a day. I bought the little hexagons on eBay  I've seen really cute manicures done like this, too bad I wasn't able to do mine cute. blech gross looking!

Stamper aka Konad stamper plates, just messing around, wasn't one of my favorite manicures

Aww Prom Corsage

So the oldest has Senior prom coming up, and he's doing it cheap this year, and by cheap I mean he bought slacks and a pair of black converse tennis shoes and plans on not spending a ridiculous amount.

Why would he decide this you may ask? Because mom (aka me) decided she wasn't spending a few hundred this year like she did last year. I basically told him I would drive him if needed but that's it. He's responsible for the rest. I did volunteer to make the corsage and boutineer,  if he wanted to pay for the materials. He did and these are it. aren't they so pretty! 

(Bonus he needs interview clothes anyway so Boom that's done!)  

And the back is simple just an elastic tie. I figure its probably going to get lost or thrown away anyway. The girl he is taking is "just a friend mom" so ehh there ya go.

My Super Cute Disney Shirt

So on a budget we went to Disney at Christmas, and yes it was horribly packed but I am told it would have been worse during the summer ( I'm kinda doubting that but hey I'm not posting about our trip or my maniacal OCD type planning.... yes I have a touch of OCD don't judge ) Anyway I am going to start posting my crafts. because I now have SO MANY completed ( YAY!!!!) that I feel the need to pass on the crafty goodness to who ever stumbles across this and cares to read it.

So back to the reason lols, we went to Disney and I wanted a t-shirt to wear. So I started looking online and seriously WOW at the prices out there. so being crafty diva that I am I looked for ideas and found a few similar photos and no I didn't save links, all they were is photos and I'm not re posting them so I don't feel the need to credit 20 people for the same idea.... anyway... search Google images for mickey silhouette or mickey applique. you'll see a bunch of ideas. and here are a few of my pics to show off what I made =)

All I did was cut out 3 circles , put the shirt on and pin the circles where I wanted them, and used a zig zag stitch on my machine to attach them to a t shirt i rarely wore =) I also did this to a sweatshirt but no photos of that sorry!

The really fun thing about making your own is that you can choose whatever fabric you want, I recycled a t shirt and some material, so it was free! YAY!

Yes I had to buy ears, its a splurge if you will wear them you should definatly buy some! and the dork acting asleep is my oldest Kenny and we were on a ride at the time lol!

Crafting up a storm

Long story short, I have extra time right now in between looking for a job, trying to sell this house, find a new home closer to hubby's work, MAYBE going back to school, and basically living life. So I am making the absolute best of it, and crafting my heart out.

The bad thing about it is that most of my crafty wonderful stuff is packed up in boxes in the basement out of sight of prospective buyers. Decluttering and all that fun stuff.

I will give super huge credit to Marisa Lynch over at New Dress a Day I subscribed to her and get an email a day as inspiration, and finally tackled a few dresses. I will post those soon.

I can tell you I am probably a horrible blogger, I have a tendacy to do things all at once, like blogging. I might write 5 separate blogs in one day and post them later when I go on my phone to upload the photos. I will take any and all advice anyone wants to offer. After all I'm pretty much stumbling through blog land trying to figure out how best to do this. I read a lot, and I don't post comments much so I am more of a blog stalker I think. So if you read this great, if not.... yeah oh well. =)

k that's all for this one, the rest I hope will be photo intensive and fairly fun, maybe.
=)
Susan

Brand new Blog =)

Not sure how much I will acually blog, I am a researcher more than a writer. I can spend hours looking for the perfect fingernail polish design to try, but the thought of writing about how unhappy the outcome usually is, yeah that doesnt much appeal to me. SOOOooooo I will probably try to find a blogger app to write with but it will probably just be posts about crafts I sometimes do or nail polish designs I get ambitious and try out, lots of photos I am sure. so follow or not no difference to me at this point. maybe I'll post video links too.... hmmm something to think about