The Second Annual $5 Challenge

I didn't participate last year in Living with Lindsay's $5 Challenge but it sounded like fun so I decided to give it a shot. Here is what I came up with:

A magnetic photo holder and a hair bow holder. Now that Augie has enough hair her collection of hair clips has grown and we needed a place to store them. I made both of the these for $3 plus whatever the tax was. Each tray was a buck and a package of 8 magnets was a buck.

The How To

(I apologize for how lame this is. Clearly I need to work on my tutorial writing skills)

You can see how lovely and shiny the trays are and that I bought 3 but only got around to making 2. Give them a couple coats of spray paint. I used Rust-oleum American Accents in Heirloom White.

Make a paper pattern for the center of your tray to use when you cut out the fabric or scrapbook paper. For the oval tray I just used a scrap piece of paper and pushed it down into the recess and then traced it with a pencil. Not an exact science. For the circular tray I found a plate that fit inside of the tray and traced that.

Cut out your fabric or paper. For the paper I used my scallop scissors. Check the fit inside of the tray before you glue it in.

Mod Podge those bad boys on. I put a generous amount of the Mod Podge on the tray and then put the fabric and paper on top and added more Mod Podge. Then when the coat dried, I Mod Podged some more. I wouldn't do it all sloppy like I did because it was a pain cleaning up the edges later.

And speaking of edges....Look how messy and frayed the edges of the fabric circle turned out. UGLY.

I glue gunned some vintage trim that I got from Freecycle around the edge and then used some of the ribbon and a button to cover the cut edges of the trim.

On the magnet for the picture holder I added a little dimensional scrapbook sticker that I had.

For the hairbows the metal of the clips just sticks right to the magnets.

This about sums up my days

If You Give a Mom a Muffin

If you give a mom a muffin,

She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.

She'll pour herself some.

Her three-year-old will spill the coffee.

She'll wipe it up.

Wiping the floor, she'll find dirty socks.

She'll remember she has to do laundry.

When she puts the laundry in the washer,

She'll trip over boots and bump into the freezer.

Bumping into the freezer will remind her

she has to plan for supper.

She will get out a pound of hamburger.

She'll look for her cookbook

("101 Things To Do With a Pound of Hamburger").

The cookbook is setting under a pile of mail.

She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow.

She will look for her checkbook.

The check book is in her purse

that is being dumped out by her two-year-old.

She'll smell something funny.

She'll change the two-year-old's diaper.

While she is changing the diaper, the phone will ring.

Her five-year-old will answer and hang up.

She'll remember she wants to phone a friend for coffee.

Thinking of coffee will remind her

that she was going to have a cup.

And chances are... If she has a cup of coffee,

Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.



~author unknown

Do you read the book before seeing the movie?

Luke and I finally finished reading The Lightning Thief tonight. Luke has really been into Greek mythology since last year so last summer the girl in the bookstore was telling us about this series so we picked it up. No it didn't take us 9 months to read it. We started it then we moved and got all discombobulated and didn't pick the book back up until last month. We had to start over at the beginning since it had been so long since we started reading it. It is well worth it. We read a chapter or two every night and it was really hard to put it down.

We didn't know that they were releasing this as a movie when we bought the book. I am a firm believer in always reading the book before watching the movie. Is anybody else like that? Now we both want to see the movie, I'll have to line up a babysitter. Oh, and I am gonna have to go buy book 2 tomorrow. We are both dying to know what happens next!

Freecycle Friday

I love wooden high chairs but who knew they were so freaking expensive!? With Luke we had your standard plastic high chair and it worked fine but I just didn't love it. It was big and bulky and PLASTIC :( So with August I was on a mission to find a wooden high chair. A few things about wood high chairs:

• They are very hard to find. Babies R Us had one in the store and it wasn't the style or color I was hoping for.
• The ones that I liked were incredibly expensive. Who pays $300-$1000 dollars for a high chair?

So what's a mother to do? Well while I was on the quest to find a high chair one was listed on my Freecycle group!! I quickly e-mailed the person and was lucky enough to get it.

Here it is in all it's glory. It needs a little work and now that the weather is nice I think I will finally be able to get outside and sand it and paint it.

Freecycle Friday

Does anyone else love Freecyce as much as I do? Recently I got bags and bags of vintage ribbon and lace from this very sweet older lady who said these were in her mother in laws collection. I only took a picture of a little bit of it. Stay tuned for what I make out of this

Blocks 3 and 4

August has this little teapot toy that she got for Christmas and she loves it. She loves the songs that it plays and "dances" to it. So I had to incorporate it into my sampler. I may go back and put faces on the cup and teapot just like the toy has. I'm not sure yet.

The songs are really catchy and I find myself singing them all the time in a british accent of course! But what's even funnier is hearing big bad biker daddy singing them!

Block 2....I'm not in love

One of August's many nicknames is Littles. She is Littles and Luke is Bigs. I think it's so cute so I wanted to add it in one of my squares but to tell you the truth I am not really loving this square. I kind of want to rip it out and try again but I am afraid of what that would do to the fabric. Any thoughts?

Crisis averted

Phew! It dried and all of the purple splotches did eventually disappear. Thank goodness! Since tis is a stitch sampler I am going to try to learn some different stitches. On the top and right side I tried the stitch called Palestrina stitch and I learned how to do it here. Not too shabby for my first try if I do say so myself.

Disappearing Ink???

Last night during Project Runway I finally got going on my piece for the Stitchalong. I decided to do 25 blocks since August was born on the 25th. It's the only number I could come up with that had some kind of meaning and made sense aesthetically. And yes, I wrote a list of different things I want to embroider in the boxes. I used a disappearing ink pen to draw out my grid and also to draw my first motif, a little bluebird.

I waited until this morning to take a picture so that I would have some sunlight. I decided to use a Q-tip and little water to get the "disappearing" ink off. And as soon as I touched the water to it the ink spread. Uh oh...

I added more water and it spread more and looked even worse...

In a total panic I took it to the sink and wet it down. It seems to be going away now but my grid is disappearing too :( I will try to take a picture of it later once it's all dry.

I want to Stitchalong

So I was checking out one of my favorite blogs, MaryJanes and Galoshes, and I saw that she is participating in Inspire Co.'s Stitchalong. I have been wanting to do some kind of stitched wall hanging for August to celebrate her birth and I think this is such a great way to do it. You stitch one 1 inch block every day. I think I will do 52 blocks, one for each week of Augie's first year. I have to play catch up today because I am a couple days behind. I am off to gather up some materials so I can get started!

The first of (hopefully) many

I have been thinking about doing this for a while, so here I go.

I have always loved to make things and try out new ideas but it kind of got pushed to the back burner as I got older and had more responsibilities like work and my crazy, wonderful son. But last year brought our new addition, my sweet baby girl, and I have been lucky enough to stay home with the kids since June. I have had a little time on my hands and my sister-in-law has really sparked my creativity. I hope this blog will keep the fire lit and push me to keep making things I love. And maybe just maybe someone else might get inspired.