Did I do anything this week?

I don’t think I did any Pinterest recipes this week. I got a stack of Everyday Food magazines for free, so I ended up raiding those for recipes.  Seriously, did I do anything this week, except try not to lose my mind? A normal day usually consists of breaking up a few twin fights, but throw a 9 year old boy into the mix and things can get interesting. I do enjoy seeing my nephew, but by Friday, the kids were getting a little used of each other so fighting was becoming more and more frequent. Throw my 35 year old somewhat excitable down syndrome sister into the mix, let’s just say I haven’t had a lot of time for extra curricular activities. Thanks goodness for weekends (nephew with his pops), naps/quiet time (twin A is asleep, twin B happily playing in play room), Harry Potter marathons (sis is happily watching) and VH1 top 100 songs of the 90’s (great background music for blogging)!

Here’s my nephew…asleep in a box.

I did clean up my craft room, if you’re lucky enough to have a crafting space all your own, you know how it’s in a constant state of mess. The severity of the mess is what is up for debate. After volunteering at my church garage sale, my craft room became the dumping grounds of any new treasure I found and anything that my husband didn’t know what to do with. It’s clean now and with my sewing machine in the shop for some sort of mysterious sickness (*sniff*), perhaps it will stay decent for a little while. I didn’t start any new projects this week, but I finished a few, which as you know can be a challenge!

I attached hardware on this vintage letterpress tray and hung it up for a new thread holder. I love it, much more room!

I did see this pin I found on Pinterest awhile ago. I was thought it was such a cute dress and then I realized I owned the pattern and had even cut out the dress, just didn’t sew it yet. Do you ever do that? Luckily I finished it this week.

I finally finished this dress for my friend’s daughter. I had cut extra fabric for a second bow for a matching headband. I still have to make the companion doll dress. Give me another year.

This is what my machine is doing. See how the straight stitch is wonky? That’s not going to work for me.

Hopefully they can fix the wonky stitch on the machine. I have a lot of projects coming up and I can’t really shell out the clams for a new machine. One of the projects I want to do is make a new carry on bag for our upcoming trip to California. I have several serviceable bags I could use, but what’s more fun staying up late, sweating, bleeding and swearing over an ambitious sewing project? Nothing, that’s right. I have thought about hitting a discount store and looking for a Pan Am like, weekender retro inspired bag. I love those things, you don’t even know, it’s probably the main reason I watched the show. Here are my two options. Let me know what you guys think! Bag A or Bag B? It will used to haul a bunch of snacks and entertaining items for the twins.

Bag A or Bag B?

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I’m hoping to have a garage sale next weekend with only 4 days to prep for it. Did I mention I’m a little crazy?

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Pinterest Successes (and maybe a fail)

When Pinterest became so huge, it became the bane of husbands and boyfriends everywhere. Finally a time suck for us woman (and some men too!) that could rival video games or World of Warcraft! Insert evil cackle here! With the vortex of time lost, it can be said that Pinterest, though time consuming is ripe with crafty ideas, delicious recipes, witty e-cards and a plethora of other goodies.  Since I’ve been on Pinterest for almost a year, I have  quite a few successes and failures under my belt. This week I limited myself to a couple of Pinterest crafty projects.

The first was a result of my husband volunteering to help with a friends wedding favors and me hijacking graciously volunteering to help. The bride’s approaching nuptials have her busy and stretched, so favors had her stumped and willing to throw in the towel. My husband suggested putting flower seeds in some sort of burlap like fabric and accented with a cute tag. Isn’t he a keeper! I then suggested that we try making DIY seed bombs, a form of guerrilla gardening. Seed bombs look like coca powder covered truffles but really contain clay, soil, flower seeds and water to stick it together. They can be thrown from your car window onto ugly freeway green strips and a little rain and sun later you get flowers! Or you could take your seed bomb and lovingly tend to it in a cute pot and enjoy the flowers on your windowsill, which is what we are going for with these wedding favors. I found the tutorial on how to make your own seed bombs here. I modified the recipe a bit, maybe to it’s determent because I need to make at least 200 of these bad boys. Instead of using straight flower seeds, I opted for a seed mix which contains only 20% seeds and 80% inert matter. So I thought I could reduce the amount of soil I put in and leave the rest as is. It was a messy project and I think it turned out ok, but I won’t really know until we plant a couple and see if they bloom. My first batch turned out a little hard and a few of them have started to mold. Hmmm. I don’t think this qualifies as a success or a failure yet. A little time and tweaking is in order. UPDATE: my wiener dog, Chloe found test plant seed bombs in the backyard and thought they were the best toys. My husband has since chased her down, extracted the bombs and replanted them. Maybe the dog slobber will aid in the germination.

Seed bombs.

Chloe or the seed bomb killer.

The next project was for my nieces’ birthday party. I bought a couple of over priced pillowcase kits (groan, next time I will cut my own!) that came with draconian instructions, confusing and no pictures. Imagine my glee when I found this tutorial by the Twiddletails blog on how to make the easiest pillowcases! She uses a burrito technique with french seams (aka no exposed seams) along with a lot of pictures! My type of tutorial! I made two pillowcases, so the first one was riddled with mistakes and took a long time to make. This is one of the repercussions of midnight crafting, I’m wiped so little mistakes have led me to have an extensive love/hate relationship with my seam ripper. The second pillowcase turned out beautifully and was done in no time. Now I can whip one of those babies out in 20 minutes. Think of the possibilities, Halloween, Christmas, flannel, cotton! So that last line wasn’t actually me, that was my mom. I think she is envisioning a closet full of themed pillowcases. Perhaps not, but at least now I have to tools to do so!

The finished product