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Showing posts from August, 2010

Phase One of Dining Room Makeover

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I have had a vision for the dining room for quite some time, but never had the courage to just do it until a few weeks ago. The hubs had another business trip, so I thought it would be the perfect time to do a little board and batten:o) I had never done wood working to this scale, but thought How Hard Can This Be?.....all by myself. Remember last time the hubs went out of town? I surprised him with an  office makeover . He may start taking my debit card away when he leaves for business trips from now on:o) I don't have a good Before picture...just the one from S.R.'s birthday party. Very bland walls....and no, this isn't my dining room table;o) Here is the After Much better:o) Here's the process that we  I went thru to get to this stage. I painted about half way down the wall. I used Olympic paint b/c I was trying to save a little money....don't waste your time. Go ahead and spend the money on GOOD paint. It is almost like painting with water. That was mistake numbe

Menu Board Tutorial

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For Updated Info on this Post,  Click  HERE . I know that I normally save my tutorials for Tuesdays, but I finally got this thing hung and wanted to share it with you now:o) I just couldn't wait. This is my menu board: This piece of wood has been sitting in our garage for quite some time now. It was a scrap piece of wood left over from S.R.'s  Dollhouse Bookshelf . I thought I was going to make it into one of those antique looking clock faces that Pottery Barn had on the front of their catalog for ages. So I painted it. The board was so thin, that after being painted it started to draw up on itself. The hubs decided to make a frame for it on the backside to make it more sturdy. He did an excellent job. I tried my hardest to get a good even circle, but that was a waste of time and energy. So I had to totally scratch the idea of an antique clock face.  One day while staring at this blank board, I finally got the idea to turn it into a menu board. Not sure where the idea came from

Zen Buddhism and the art of patience

You may have heard of the 100 km traffic jam in Beijing where traffic moved at 1 km a day - that's right a day; not an hour. This post is a learned treatise on handling exactly such a situation. There's no point cursing or wailing. It won't get you any further than 1 km a day. No point abandoning your automobile to come and get it another time - whenever you get it you still can only do 1km a day. You have to turn to India for advice; for Indians love to spend half their waking lives absolutely stationary on the road. The first thing you need to do is to climb your car over the divider (yes, that's possible) and drive at 100 kmph on the opposite side of the road. Since you can absolutely rely on 5000 other people doing the same, you will progress 1 km and then come to a screeching halt. You can also  confidently rely on the fact that people stuck in the opposite direction would have also done the same and therefore the street now has the proper order of two armies faci

Day 5- A Winner And Patience

Thank you to all of you who took the time to leave a comment on the Minnie Mouse post. All of your comments were so sweet and I really appreciate them. So, our winner is.... #11- Cassandra! Her comment was: I just saw your blog via one pretty thing. I love the outfit! We're taking my daughter to disneyland for her first bday next week. She already has a minnie outfit but definitly needs the clippies. Thanks for the tutorial! Cassandra, shoot me an email so I can get you your mouse ears a.s.a.p.:o) I know I said that I would have E's Mickey shorts ready for this morning, but a fall wreath got in the way(more on that next week), and traffic school(don't ask). I am in a rush this morning trying to get out the door, so I hope to have the shorts completed by the end of naptime today, and I will post them later this afternoon. Have a great Friday!!!!

Day 4-Cinderella Shirt

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I know that yesterday I said that I would post Mickey Mouse shorts today, but I got a little side tracked and didn't do them. They are on the agenda for today though:o) However, I did get this one done on Tuesday night. I am kind of under-impressed by this shirt:o) I had a great vision and when this vision came to be, I was just like, 'oh, okay.' Anyway, you can tell that it's supposed to be a Cinderella shirt. This was the first time that I had worked with satin....very slippery and kinda stretchy at times.  I really like the "bubble skirt" on the bottom of the shirt.  Here are some views of the under side to show you how everything was sewn together. The lining is actually shorter than the actual bottom of the shirt, so when sewn together, it creates this bubbles effect. You can do this on any pattern you choose.  I had to make sure that I got those white things on the side...not really sure what they are called:o) I am happy with how it turned out though...

Day 3- Princess Shirt and Capris

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I have seen a lot of these sweet little outfits all over the place.  You know, the shirts that have the knots thru the button holes. The boutique shops are packed with them. While in Walmart getting all of my fabric cut by a sweet little old lady, I was racking my brain trying to figure out what I was going to do with this really pretty princess fabric. Then I remembered all of these outfits I had been seeing. Now most of these outfits come with the enormous pants with ruffles. I think they are absolutely adorable, but I'm not sure how S.R., who is 2, would handle those type of pants in the Orlando heat, so I stuck with capris. This is a very simple outfit, and it took no time at all to sew it.  It cost around $8 to make the entire outfit. This was the most expensive to make thus far. The Princess fabric cost $4.94 a yd. at Walmart. S.R. was very excited to try it on the other night. I plan on having the phrase "Princess In Training" monogrammed across the chest:o) ******

Day 2-Minnie Mouse Skirt & Ears Tutorial

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I hope that you all had a great Monday. Yesterday was E's first day of preschool. He did great. I did great until I had to leave him. S.R. and I both cried when we got in the vehicle:( She cried b/c she wanted to stay at "pwe-skoo." I cried for the obvious reasons. He was unsure about being there, but when I came to pick him up he was all smiles. So anyway, on to day 2 of Disney Week. Today I have the bottom half of a Minnie Mouse outfit. I have a white t-shirt to go with the skirt. I am going to have it monogrammed soon. I am sharing 2 tutorials today. For the skirt and the ears hair bows. The bloomers are a pair of shorts just like the Snow White shorts, but I ran elastic thru the cuffs of the legs and added the eyelet trim. L-O-V-E It! Here's what you need: Skirt: -2 Coordinating Fabrics -Elastic -Thread Hair Bows: -Black Felt -1" Grosgrain Ribbon -Extra Thin Ribbon(not sure the measurements on the small ribbon) -Thread and Needle -Stick Pin -Hot Glue Gun and

Snow White Outfit

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We are going to Disney World soon, and I can't wait!!!  We took the kids last year on sort of a whim, and I was not prepared for what was about to take place(I had never been before). It was MAGIC. The absolute best vacation as a family....EVER! We decided that we wanted to relive the experience.  We have actually been planning this years trip to Disney, and I started to see all the cute little outfits people are dressing their sweet ones in to visit this special place. I have been checking out Etsy, and there are a lot of great things on there. It's almost overwhelming because there is so much stuff. So I wanted to spend this week showing you some of the outfits that my children will be sporting while we are vacationing....maybe give you a few ideas on what to dress your little ones in next time you are at Disney;o) Being the thrifty one, I decided that I would make ALL of S.R.'s outfits.  This Snow White outfit cost me 75 cents...only because I ran out of red fabric, and