Hey-o!  I'm the other sister of the devoted-sister duo :D   Finally, after just a few years, I'm managing to add something to the blog.  These are some of the things I have been working on, and hopefully there will be more :)  Sooooooo.....enjoy.

Love these little flowers! They are so vintage-y, if thats a word.  If not, it is now. 

Just a few random pieces put together.  The lil skull is so cute! It's saying "arrrrrrgh.  I'm awesome."

Mmm...turquoise seed beeds....

Whats great about these is they will go with so many different ensembles.

For some reason I always sing "Just around the river bend..." whenever I wear this. 

One of my mother's pearls plus a silver charm makes up one of my favorite necklaces.

Primary colors. Love it. 

Simple.

I Did It!!

 I did it!  I went to Savers!  I spent $25 and got five things- three sweaters, a plaid button-down and a plain cotton long-sleeved Tshirt.  (side note:  Holiday traffic already!  The streets and stores were super crowded!  Horrible!! I hate, hate, hate going out to run errands around Christmas shopping time.)

This is what I got...

This is what I made...

It's from my "Things for TWNSDS" pinterest board!  Here's the website with the tutorial.  It didn't take me very long.  I used another dress of M's as a template, cut it out and sewed it together.  I made the pocket from scraps of another sweater I cut up.  Having a serger definitely cut down on project time, and made my seams nice and stretchy and clean without too much headache.  I did all the seams right the first time, too, and that definitely cut down on project time!

Bonus pics!  I haven't downloaded pictures off of my phone in a while, so I haven't gotten to share these crafty things...

The kids went as Darth Maul and an ewok for Halloween.  I made Darth's mask- including horns!  I made his cloak, too, but we ordered the lightsaber. I used an old lion costume for most of the ewok, and made the hood out of felt and the pouch from an old shirt.  She put her candy in the pouch- it was adorable.

I also re-arranged my bedroom and stenciled the wall...

Planning Pinterest Projects

I'm planning a trip to Savers! To do some of the projects I've seen on Pinterest! This is what I'm looking for...


A sweater for a dress for Mara inspired by this project.
A sweater to make some boot socks.
Taking in a plaid shirt. Ones in the store never fit me right.  They're always too tight across my boobs, or too loose everywhere else. Or ugly.
Sweater bag!
Maybe some up-cycled sweater boots? If I can find a thick sweater.  I've got some old shoes I could re-purpose.

So it you're looking for sweaters at Savers, better get there before me!!

Yarn Bombing

Have you heard of this, or seen any of it done?  It's like graffiti in yarn form!  It also reminds me of Christo and Jeanne-Claude... two of my favorite artists!

Here's a Flickr group with tons of pics.
There's a website, too.

It kind of makes me want to wrap a tree.

I did it!

Before... sad and ugly.


















Also before... I forgot that I painted the star on the back of the original tile.  This is the ugly that was on the front.

After!  I painted the holder thingy, and painted over that weird decoration on the front of the mailbox.  The tile thingys got a few coats of white spray paint and then acrylic for the numbers and our name. RJ reminded me that he has black spray paint, so I think the mailbox will be getting a fresh coat soon.











Since this is my our crafty blog, I'm gonna share the tattoo love!  I got this the other night, as a birthday present.  It's a vintage embroidery design.  The needle was added by my tattoo artist.  (Tattooist?  Tattooer?  Inker?  Inkist?)  I love, love, love it! 














 

Fall Discontent

It's that time of year... I'm itching to do some crafts.  I'm feeling a good fall cleaning comming on.  I'm ready to purge my household.

I started re-organizing and purging our horrendous back room last week.  I should have taken pictures!  I'll get some soon.  I've already started organizing my craft supplies.  I even labeled things!!  It feels so good already!

Today's craft, re-painting our house numbers.  They've been the same ever since we moved in.  They're weird 80's country things.  When we bought the house, I slid out the tile with the house on it, and painted a star, but it's time for the whole thing to be changed!  Pics to come.

links

A few things I've seen around lately...

Toca Boca apps! I got several of these for the kids. They are PERFECT for baby M! I love the way they look, and they're really fun for the kids, too. I even spent lots of time doing the haircutting one, and doing all of the doctor levels.

Saw this today via swissmiss... The Art of Clean Up: Sorting and Stacking Everyday Objects.
I love, love, love this. I can't say exactly why, but it's very appealing to me.

BTW- those temporary tattoos I linked to a while back- RJ surprised me with a pack of them! I wore the color wheel one to our annual VW weekend, and got lots of compliments!

Liquid Sidewalk Chalk

Yesterday, while browsing Pinterest, I came across several posts for liquid sidewalk chalk. It's equal parts water and cornstarch, with a little food coloring thrown in. I made mine too thin, but it worked anyways.

In progress...


The aftermath...

The whole porch was covered. They painted the columns, the chairs, the swing. We even tried painting the trees.

Covered head to toe...

Links!

I'm almost done with my very geeky cross stitch! However, I've been distracted lately by the Lego Star Wars III video game lately.

In other news... I've added a few new links to our sidebar...

Not Martha- has some fun tutorials, but I love her links posts the best. I always find something interesting through her!

Chez Larsson- Swedish blogger, loves white. I love seeing what she's doing with her spaces.

Enjoy new links!!

Like I said a few days ago, I've been inspired by some things I've found on Pinterest! Yesterday, I got started on a sampler inspired by this embroidery piece by GeekySweetheart. Hilarious, no?! She has the pattern available on her website.

I'm not so confident in my embroidery skillz, though, so I decided to go the cross-stitch route.
I think I need smaller graph paper...

Shorts Update

After a disastrous first pair, I bought a pattern. The last three turned out great! He loves his orange pair!


The red racing stripes turned out especially well!


Of course, wiggly Baby needed to get in on the photo action.

Pinned

I finally joined Pinterest, and I'm a little bit obsessed. I'm getting lots of crafty ideas, and I don't know where to start!!

There's an awesome scarf, a very funny embroidery piece, jewelry display and some button hairpins that are at the top of my list.

Also, I've been seeing some very, very beautiful tattoos!

I've been in a small crafting hiatus because of very busy life things, but I'm excited to have some new ideas!

The universe is trying to tell me something

Again today with the decorative wall in the bedroom!

How gorgeous is that?!

ETA: Sorry about the link. Fixed. I was too excited to pay attention to what I was doing!

Projects

Today, my goal is to finish a pair of shorts for Xander. They're going to be orange with red racing stripes.

Yesterday, I made a bag. It turned out great, and I love it!
My sewing leaves much to be desired, but overall, it's fine. I made up the pattern as I went along. The fabric is from the remnant bin at Hobby Lobby, and the twill tape was wrapped around a blanket I bought at Target last year.

I also (last week) fixed a T shirt that I got at Old Navy earlier this summer. It's a super loose knit top, that is comfy and a good length on me, but the top part was too loosy goosy for my taste- maybe I bought it a size too big. But I washed it, hoping it would shrink a bit, so I couldn't return it. Instead I did this to the sleeves...

Love it! Super easy fix. It shortened the sleeves and gives the neck more of a boat-neck look, which is more flattering than the loose crew neck.

I leave you with this... there should be more anthropomorphic things in this world.

Getting Inspired

HGTV's Design Star is back on, and I watched the two episodes last night. I loved this paint.

Then this morning, best of decorative paint was on Design*Sponge.

Now I'm thinking that I'll paint a wall in our bedroom! It's needed to be painted, we've just never gotten around to it. We've got brown and turquoise/aqua/unpainted furniture in there now, and I think I want to work around those colors.

I'll take some before pics!!

Tattoos

Last weekend, we made the trek up to Fayetteville to see friends. Super short trip, but so fun! I love, love, love these friends- they're the kind that we don't see very often, but when we do, it feels like it was just last week.

Friday night after all the children were asleep, we ended up looking at cat videos and tattoos with Aaron and Kari Beth. The temporary tattoos from Tattly have been all over the internets lately. I love them!

I love my tattoos, and I've been thinking about my next one. Love these...

Shoulder tree
Shooting Stars
Color Wheel
And how gorgeous would any of these be as tattoos?

The only problem... time and money. *sigh*

Warm Fuzzies

I finally finished my gift for my sweet nephew, Judah!

A crocheted brontosaurus. I love his stubby little legs!


A knit blanket.


Together...


I got the brontosaurus pattern from Ravelry, and the blanket started out as a pattern from Stitch 'n Bitch... I made a few changes to it, though.

New Links!

I've added some links to "People and Places We Love" there on the right. (full disclosure: I totally just did the "L" thing with my fingers!)

Anyhoo, these are just a few of the crafty blogs and design sites that I visit on a regular basis.

Flower Pins, etc...

Made these following this tutorial. I just realized that I made these pointy and the ones in the tutorial are rounded. i don't know if I'll change it, though. I'm going to try these in fabric, too, and I've got a GIANT purple button that I want to use on one. I did these with a pin on the back, rather than a hair clip. I think i could still use them in my hair if I have it up, though. For now, these are being pinned on my bag.

ALSO, RJ shared these Pantone wallpapers with me. Love them! My desktop is now turquoise and my phone is pink and orange.

ALSO, ALSO, remember my post about my friend, Kate, and her fabulous prints? I just saw that she was featured on Design*Sponge! That's so exciting!

Shorts Blah

I've been trying to make X some shorts, following this pattern. The first pair didn't come out so well. I need to tweak the pattern. They're super easy to sew, but the fit isn't quite right yet.

Dear Photograph

This site... Dear Photograph... is amazing! It makes me want to dig through our old pics.

Dress!

I made this dress using this tutorial by Dana at Made. Love, love her tutorials! They are perfect and step-by-step for me, and use the serger and sewing machine. This one included making a pattern, which was fun, and I'm hoping I can use it for different projects.

I also love this particular dress, because it's a bit of upcycling- it's made out of an old men's dress shirt. This shirt didn't belong to my husband, but I'm thinking of raiding his closet for some old shirts.

More pics, just for funsies...


p.s.-Mara saw these pictures and said, "My jelly shoes!" Girl loves her shoes.
p.p.s.-Pic at the top of the page by my sister, Bri. She's amazing!

Etsy Shopping

I've found a few really cute shops lately...

A friend from college is selling prints- gorgeous prints! I bought this one, and hung it in my kitchen...

I think Kate would approve of my yellow walls!

Today, I bought some jewelry from this shop, Lisa's Lovelies. I bought a nose ring (an actual ring- a first for me, I hope I like it!) and some turquoise earings. I love all her jewelry- makes me think of art nouveau and craftsman style.

Lastly, RJ wants these rings. I already tried to claim the "I know" one, but he's not going for that.

New Toy!

My friends, I bought a serger. It is amazing. I've already made my daughter two dresses and a skirt. Pillow covers for her bed, and this...

before... heavy, dark, filthy...


after... light, airy, pretty...


ugh. bad pictures. I'm also not done tacking up the new ones. However, if you could compare the light in my back room with the new curtains up, you would be amazed.

And, thanks to the serger, my seams are lovely and neat!

Ahhh!

So Excited!... Update

These cross stitch patterns from welittlestitches have been all over the geek blogs lately. I just ordered the patterns for Shaun of the Dead and Firefly. I am so stinkin' excited!

I think I'd like to get all of them and make them and hang them in our bathroom. I think they're adorable.

Update: I've already gotten my patterns! Making my Hobby Lobby list now!

Purple Pixie

Right after I posted last time, I tried to take pictures. And then we all had a melt-down. M freaked out, X stretched out one of her hats, I found some knitting that X had accidentally taken off the needle.

This is the best I got...





The purple pixie hat!

Craftsy

I have been super, super craftsy lately! For Christmas, RJ got me a giftcard to the Container Store. (which he bought shortly before quiting his job there! Yay!) I bought craft organizing stuff, which has probably spurred my crafting streak.

Here's a list of what I've been working on...

- Two crochet hats for Mara. Super cute. One lavender pixie hat, one white pixie hat with cherries.
- One knit (in the round! First time I've used DPNs!) baby hat.
- A purple crochet hat for me!
- A felted knit, with crochet innards, organizer for all my knitting needles and crochet hooks. They are currently residing in a box, and everytime I need one, I've got to dump them all out and sort for the one I want. I'm not done with this one.
- Fixing two antique marble-top tables. Not so craftsy, but still. They both needed to be cleaned and have bits glued back together.
- A doily made out of rainbow thread. I wanted to do something more intricate. I have no idea what I'll do with it.
- A pinewood derby car! The cub scouts usually provide a saw for the dads to cut out the car, but they didn't this year. So I spent an hour or two this morning with my Dremel, carving out the car shape. It turned out pretty well!

Pics to come soon, but I wanted to get my list out there and start blogging on this blog again!

p.s.- I joined Ravelry. Anyone else on it?

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