My Glasses...

have met their demise. Awhile ago X broke one side off, I was upset at the time but thought with luck they would be happily repaired. This however is not the case. The style is discontinued, there are no parts for repair, and I started crying right there in the optical shop. You see, it took me a few months to find this pair of glasses about 6 years ago and for me it was instant love. My "perfect" pair. I am extremely picky when it comes to my glasses (sunglasses are a different story), but I have found what may be a close second or as close as I could possibly get to the originals, but they aren't as thick on the sides, not solid black, and not quite square enough... I am still pondering the change because for me these broken glasses were the one's that just felt right. 

*I am still wearing them at night while I am reading and as a side note the fabric is some linen that I picked up at Jo-ann's (red tag no less) and am turning it into a skirt for me and if there is enough some shorts for x...  

Tuesdays in the Garden: Garden Inspiration

Since I am still in the planning phase of this year's garden and it is overcast out, I thought it would be a great time to find some inspiration for my garden!

{Source: Martha}

{Source: Martha}

{Source: Martha}

{Source: Easy Children's Vegetable Garden from Better Homes & Gardens}

This would be fun do try and attempt with X!

{Source: Better Homes & Garden}

{Source: Better Homes & Garden}

It's raining and it's a Monday and I'm loving it...

contrary to The Carpenters, but Rainy Days and Mondays is one of my favorite songs by them. I hope everyone had a fun Valentine's Day, it was really low key around here- just some balloons for x and I spent the day reorganizing my room. I am glad that I got that off my to-do list. Today is going to be filled with cleaning, purging, and organizing the studio. It is quite the disaster up there. 

 *buttons to sort

*a pile of fabric to and other goodies to sort and find a place to store them

*piles & piles & piles of papers, patterns, drafts, and random stuff to sort

Plus, a closet to clean out, books to organize, and a long list of sewing projects to complete. I have so many things that I want to work on, but am holding off until I get the studio cleaned out. I have drank my coffee, grabbed a pile of garbage bags, stacked up a pile of empty boxes, and so it begins...

What are you working on?

Today was filled with this...

and of course this...

my little valentine!

Sorting & Purging

A misplaced paper (that I haven't found as of yet) led to a lot of sorting & purging around here. When I moved back a home, I piled boxes from the move into the garage and haven't really touched them a whole lot since. I spent a large amount of time going through each box sorting, deciding what to keep, repacking some stuff and getting some stuff in to yard sale boxes, needless to say it was time consuming and emotional draining to go through things from the last 8 years. Yesterday, I finally tackled the last boxes and I feel so much better (although my room is going to need to be organized now). I still need to accomplish a little clean out here and there, but I am making progress.

Sewing has been on the back burner lately, but I am hoping to figure out how to fit it back into my day. I have a list of projects to start/finish up and I am really hoping next week to get some time to work on them. 

On today's agenda:

~sort some more stuff

~finish x's valentine's so I can get them mailed out this week

~bake a red velvet cake

~do some scheduling in my calendar for the garden 

*all while watching a lifetime movie marathon 

What's on your agenda?

New Beginnings with a Hearty Helping of Cinnamon Rolls

waiting to be baked...

my life has taken some unexpected twists and turns (basically a 180 from what I thought would be my life) over the course of the last few months and I finally feel that I am getting a grip on things and moving forward. I guess when one door closes another opens, so in trying to be positive, I am going to be taking it a day at a time and not worry about what the future holds. This also means that the blog will be getting back to being more personal and not all projects with total randomness thrown in for good measure because I am finally feeling like myself again.

my new favorite outfit and my little man hanging out in the studio

Alright, here's to moving onward!

Saturday Mornings

seem to involve coffee, blogs, blogging, email for me and soy milk, bananas, and spongebob for x. (eventually I turn the tv over to Law & Order reruns when he is done & then check out the Lifetime movies for the day). The last few days have been very busy around here: cleaning out boxes of stuff, sorting, purging, and reorganizing. I did make it to my quilt guild meeting on Thursday night which is always a load of fun. There was a fun speaker about color theory, saw some beautiful quilts, and had a just a fun time learning new stuff. One thing that really caught my attention was this: 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge. I am already am joining in on this project and hope to make quite a few in my spare time. The pillowcases go to people in hospitals or places in need in your community. Check it out!

On today's to-do list is a lot more cleaning and sorting, printing off Xavier's valentine cards, making envelopes for them, and hopefully finishing the new buttons for the tutorials. (I decided to go with a picture of each tutorial on the left so it is easy to see what each project is... I am only half way through them.) If I can stay awake tonight I am going to get my scarf that I am knitting finished up, here's to a busy day!!!

A Simple No-Sew Felt Valentine Wreath

Xavier and I worked on this project together (he was so funny handing me pins and grabbing the felt)

Materials Needed:

1 Foam wreath form (I got mine at the dollar store)

measure around the wreath to get the length of the felt pieces (mine was 5") and add 1/2"; make the width of the pieces 2"and you may need more pieces to make it all the way around depending on the size of your wreath

8 white pieces of felt  (mine were 5 1/2" x 2")

8 light pink pieces of felt (mine were 5 1/2" x 2")
8 red pieces of felt (mine were 5 1/2" x 2")

1 piece of felt 5" x 3/4" for the hanger (I chose red)

1- 15" x 1", 1- 13" x 1", 1- 2 1/2" x 1" of felt for the bow (I chose light pink)

stick pins

scissors

Start wrapping your wreath with your felt strips (I went white, light pink, red, repeat; but change the order to what ever floats your boat.

1.) Start by flipping your wreath over to the back and wrap your first piece around the wreath making sure the seams are on the back of the wreath and pin.

2.) Take your next piece and place on the back covering your first piece about halfway. Wrap all the way around.

3.) Pin using one pin as shown. Repeat until you make it all the way around the wreath with one piece left to fully cover it.

 

4.) Take out the pin from your first piece (in this case the white) and fold back.

5.) Insert last piece, wrap and pin.

 6.) Fold down first piece over your last piece and re-pin.

7.) Decide where the top of your wreath will be and grab the piece of felt for your hanger. Fold as shown and secure with 2-3 pins along the back.

8.) Your wreath will look something like this now. The super fun part begins now: embellishing. I chose to do a simple felt bow but I thought these Felt Roses from The Purl Bee would also look really cute. (I may still add them!)

 9.) Take your longest piece of felt (15" in length), fold in half and dove tail edges and spread out like the last photo.

10.) Secure using 1 pin in desired location.

11.) Take your next longest piece (13" in length) and fold so ends meet in the center. Take your short piece and fold around the center, making sure ends overlap along the back.

12.) Insert a single pin through the front of the bow (under the center piece and through the seams) and pin to the wreath covering your pin from the bow tails.

Hang and enjoy!

Cupcakes & Cookies

 

finished up the holiday baking

the rest of the holiday projects will be up this weekend...

Baking Sugar Cookies

Okay, so one of my goals for my 26th year (I have a list of 26 things I want to accomplish by the time I turn 27, I will tell you whats on the list soon, but trust me there is a lot of sewing, crafting and cooking!) was to learn how to make those really awesome iced sugar cookies like these:

Martha Stewart

the other day I was checking out one of the blogs I like to read: Bakerella and she was making some iced sugars and shared this book:

Amazon

So off I went to Barnes and Noble with a coupon in hand and picked up a copy...

Today I have baked up some sugar cookies and my taste testers say they are yummy... tomorrow I will begin decorating! Here are some peaks into my baking:

*gathered up some ingredients

*the dough has come together

*rolled out and becoming candy canes

*cooling down and ready to decorate

So far so good, let's see how tomorrow rolls!

P.S. I put up a little poll at the top-left love it if you would select a few things in order to help me guide some upcoming projects for the blog!!