Braided Rugs

Good morning!

We have a lovely sunny morning here and since my thumb and middle finger are numb from sewing, I thought I would take a break from crazy crafting and make a post.  :)

I also have a peek at what I have been working on for my upcoming craft show that I am participating in, in October.

In trying to figure out what to make for this show, I decided to tackle cleaning out my fabric closet.  Let me tell you that was a process!  Our house has looked like a fabric bomb went off in it for several weeks.  What a job that was.  I literally have one full closet full of fabric.  All of it had been shoved in to boxes and shoved in to the closet and none of it was organized.  UGGG

 Now though every type of fabric has its own box (or boxes in some cases lol) so 

when I open the closet I no longer scream and close the door quickly.  :)

While cleaning out the closet, I found that I have enough polyester to clothe my Mom's retirement community. Hmm what to do with it all?  Braided rugs... that's what!

I made one of these years ago for myself and I love it.  They are durable and feel good on your tootsies when you walk on them.  Its a lot of work and my fingers are in pain but I get more excited the further I get and just had to show it off a little.  I will post a pic when done.  The outside edge will be the dark purple and it should measure out to about 3x3...I think.  

I hope that where ever you are in the world that your day is a good one, filled with Love, Laughter and Friends/Family and Good Health!

I will post again when the rug is done (hopefully in the next day or so.)

<3 to all!

Monogram letters...mostly :)

Greetings to all!

We have an overcast day here, but thankfully have had just a tad of rain the last couple days.  At least enough to green up some of the grass.  So sad to look around and everything looks yellow and the poor farmers!  How they must be worrying.  Hopefully this is just one of those hot summers and next year things will be a bit more normal.

Before I get to the Monogram letter(s), I wanted to give a quick update.  

I have decided to do a craft show coming up in October.  I am so excited!  I haven't done a craft show in years...at least 16 years.  So needless to say life here in our house is a on overdrive.  Just wanted to let everyone know why I will be even more sporadic in my postings than so far.  I will try to pop in here and there to let you know what I am working on, but much of what I am doing I have already covered in earlier postings. 

That brings me to today's post!

All over Pinterst there are pins for Monogram Letters.  Oh my goodness there are TONS of them.  I will post a couple links but if you want more type in "monogram letters" to the search engine in Pinterest and you will be amazed.  There are so many varieties, its absolutely inspiring.  I wanted to give a try to one with my own touches.  :)

Here is the result:

I love Love LOVE the way it turned out!  I am a fan of blue jean and try to work it into most things I make.

I used a bit of ribbon woven in  (some easter ribbon that I had) to add some color here and there.  I can hardly wait to get it up on the wall!  It is going on a bright yellow wall so that blue jean will really pop!  I will add another picture later, but was too excited to wait.

Have you done any Letters?  If so how did you do yours?

I hope that you enjoyed seeing my creativity for today and I will be back as time and new things permit.

Here is a link for Pinterest:

http://pinterest.com/search/?q=monogram+letters

Thanks for stopping by today!

From Keyboard boxes to...

Happy Sunday to all!  

Today we have a blissful summer day.  I am sitting in the warm breeze with low humidity and its absolutely wonderful.  Finally a break from the 100+ degree days we have been having and I am going to take full advantage of it!

But while I was stuck in the air conditioning the last few days I did do a fun project!  Here is the pin for my inspiration:  http://pinterest.com/pin/256775616224450475/   When I pinned this I was so excited to do it!  I obtained some clean pizza boxes from our favorite pizza place and then was stumped as to what to do next.  LOL  The boxes used in the pin were different from the ones I had and so honestly I just shoved the boxes and the project to the back of my head.  In the mean time, a fellow freecycler gave me some computer keyboards for another project that I have in mind.  The keyboards actually all came in boxes!  Again the pin came back to me as I looked at these boxes for the last several weeks.

Enough babble :o)  

Here is what I started with:

Six lovely keyboard boxes...

and here is what I made them into!

I am pretty tickled with the way this turned out!

It will fit on my shelf and will be sturdy enough to hold cardstock and papers.

If anyone is interested in the process it took to make this I will be glad to post some pictures and simple instructions of what I did.

Next I will tackle those pizza boxes!

Maybe you should order a pizza today?  

:o)

Bubbles! YAY!

I have yet to meet a little one that doesn't LOVE to blow bubbles.  I know that Little Missy really gets a charge out it.  I don't mind bubbles in the house or outside but the only issue I have is that every time she bends over to pop a bubble while holding the container, she spills them.  That's Ok outside (except the waste part) but inside it's a bit on the messy side.

So here is how I have solved this issue:

I took a wire coat hanger and used the hook to hold the bubbles bending it a bit to fit, cutting open the body of it to make some hangers for the back.  I covered any sharp edges with electrical tape to protect her little fingers. The nice thing is almost every room has some place that I can hook this and this morning while she was playing in her "Poodle" (Little Missy speak for Pool) we hooked it right on the edge and she was able to blow bubbles while taking a dip in COLD water.

How do you keep the bubble spillage down?  Do you have a nifty tip or trick?  

I would love to hear it if you do.

Recycling Station

As I was taking the picture for the memory notes from Daddy, I noticed our recycling station that we have set up in our kitchen.  I say station, but really its a small area next to our garbage can.  We take recycling pretty seriously here and make sure that we recycle as much as possible.  Here is a picture:

The top bag is for cans.  We always rinse them out and take the tabs off.  A friend of mine has the energy to actually take these to the recycling center to turn them in, and I am happy to save them for her! Can you see the pizza box?  That where our cardboard goes.  We always open the ends and flatten it out.  The bottom brown bag is for all that chunky plastic stuff.  I always try to sort it out for our recycle guy, just feels like I am saving him a step in a job that I really appreciate him doing.  Then of course we have the big bins outside that the stuff goes in to.

How do you recycle?

I am always interested to hear how other people do things, share your ideas with us!

Memories for the kiddos

The first on my itty bitty mind is the Little Missy.  I have mentioned before that we are "older" parents.  Little Missy is 3.  I am 46 and Hubby is 54.  He and  I have had many conversations about how to raise this little mid life gem.  We are sticking with some of our ideals from the older girls but we are very conscious about the fact that this little one may not have the memories that the older girls will have when we are gone.  (KNOCK on wood, thats a ways off!)  One of the things that I came up with is this...

This obviously is our coffee counter...we would not function with out our morning coffee!

Hubby is up at 4ish each morning and we have our timer set for the coffee to be ready when he is up and going.  Since he leaves so early in the mornings Little Missy never gets to see him until the evening when he gets home.  That makes for a long long day even tho she talks to him at lunch time almost every day.  So I set up a Daddy note station by the coffee maker for  Daddy to leave notes to his girl.  He's not much of a "writer" and his hand writing at times can be unreadable...but bless his heart he has really taken to this idea!  I put several sizes of post its in a basket with a pen, so that he needn't search for those items.  The giraffe has a clip on the back (up on his head) that he can clip the notes to.  Now Little Missy heads straight for the giraffe each morning for her "dose of Daddy".  It's very sweet, and those notes follow her thru the day.  Eventually I will gather them all up and make a scrap book page for her with them, but for now they are her treasures.

What do you do to make memories for your kiddos?  I would love to hear!

Happy 4th of July Everyone!

Looks like it will be a HOT 4th here!  Just barely 8am and so muggy and sticky that its hard to breathe! 

Should still be a fun day tho, I picked up some fun activities for the Little Missy.  Her first year with sparklers and pop its, snapits and streamers!  Should be a fun if not NOISY day here.  Throw in some grilled meat and veggies, the pool and sprinkler and we have a lovely relaxing holiday here.   

But for this morning I had several things on my mind and thought that I would share them with you, maybe even spark a bit of conversation here.  :o)  I originally was going to make this one post but decided that several smaller ones would be better.  So watch for that coming up today.  

I hope that you all have a blessed and safe holiday.  Drink LOTS of water and Thank God above and our Soldiers for the many blessings we will all enjoy today.

Peace and love...spread it with a smile today.