min-myinnersoul

As I have been looking back at everything I have crafted in 2012, it's amazing how one can forget how much can happen in a span of just 365 days. I am amazed by how much the kids have changed in just a year's time.  I have been blessed beyond measure this year.  I want to thank you all for following along on my little journey. I appreciate all the kind words and encouragement you give me. It's nice to know that people like what I do:o) So I thought I would share my 12 favorite crafts from this year.  It was hard to choose, but I was able to narrow them down:o) My first pick would be the dresser re-vamp I did for E. I was quite proud of this because it was the first piece of big furniture that I had worked on completely by myself.  The hubs was quite impressed:o) I loved our family movie nights that we had this year. They started to spread out when school started, but the kids seemed to have so much fun with them:o)  They really had a ball with the  Drive-I...

What does Ramamritham have against coffee ? I would have thought the caricature of Ramaritham included a cup of coffee and The Hindu. Yet here's this venerable gentleman having an angst against coffee . Why ? I am referring to IKEA's application to open retail stores across India. You may recall that the move to allow foreign owned retailers to set up shop in India is a recent one (Didi notwithstanding).  IKEA has been one of the first to submit their proposal, willing to bring it no less than Rs 10,000 crores of investment. You would have thought that they would be welcomed with open arms  - it is difficult to see boxed furniture being a threat to national sovereignty. But what they got was not a red carpet - instead they were treated with the full attention of Ramamritham. (in the guise of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board - FIPB) I am no fan of IKEA stores. If you've been to one, they are all predictably the same format. You are forced to walk along one km of windin...

Are you guys ready for Christmas yet? Do you have all of your gifts bought, wrapped and tucked neatly under the tree? We are done for the most part. I think I am going to make one more thing for E and then we will be done.  Today's post is about what we(the hubs and I) made for S.R. She has asked for an American Girl Doll for Christmas this year. She is 4 years old...she ain't gettin' an American Girl Doll. However, she is getting a "Famerican" Girl Doll...(Faux-American). Ole Santy Claus is bringing her the doll from Target that looks just like the real deal, and it's 1/3 the cost. So, I came across a really cool building plan for a doll bed on  Ana White's Blog . It is perfect! I knew the hubs could make it, and so he did:o)  I decided that I needed to make some really cute bedding to go along with it.  This Famerican Girl will be resting in style:o) (I got a little impatient, and decided to take pictures before the hubs could get it stained..pics of the...

OK - the title is pure hyperbole. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is going nowhere. But the company that owns NYSE is just being bought over. The curious part of the story is that the acquirer does not really want the NYSE, but it comes as part of the package- so he has to take it ! Here's the deal. NYSE is part of a conglomerate called NYSE Euronext. The conglomerate consists of NYSE itself, Euronext, which is a combination of three European stock exchanges and Liffe which is a London based derivatives exchange. NYSE and Euronext are ugly spinsters nobody wants. The beauty amongst the beasts is Liffe. For it is the sexy new hottie - a derivatives exchange. And therein lies the story. In the modern day casino , that is finance , equity exchanges like NYSE are worthless as businesses. Margins are supposedly low. Stock exchanges are the places where almost all companies that require capital list and that's where investors channel their savings into productive investment. One w...

I am at the end of our Christmas list. (Hooray!!) I still have one or two more things I have to make, but then I will be done.  Today I worked on some fabric coasters for the kids' teachers. Simple, easy and very little time to make. You can find the tutorial  HERE . In about an hour, I had 3 sets of coasters made. Today was also Polar Express day for E. He got to wear his jammies to school and he got to take a coffee mug full of goodies for a gift exchange.  Can I just say that I love this time of year, and all of the fun things that there are to do?!? The hubs and I have both been busy little elves. He made S.R. a doll bed the other day, and I made a quilt and pillow. Pics tomorrow if I get around to it;o)

How would you like to chuck it all and travel around the world ? Tempting isn't it ?? Well that's exactly what two wonderful persons I know are doing right now. They blog about it here - follow it if you are interested in traveling ; its a gripping account of far away lands. If you fancy yourself on the road from Rangoon to Mandalay or on the Silk Road between Bukhara and Samarkand, then this is the travelogue for you. I happened to be in Spain and voila, discovered that they were in Spain too  - Ah the wonders of the internet. I was in Madrid and they were in Granada, so emailed them to meet at Seville which is where I spent a magical day today with them. No doubt they'll get to updating their blog on this day in Seville. Their blog is still in Turkey, whilst they have physically moved on to Greece and onwards to Spain. They'll write about the Catedral de Santa María de la Sede (Seville Cathedral), an imposing and awesome structure where we stood reverentially in fron...

Happy Monday to you all! I know it's been a while since I posted on furniture re-dos. I have been so wrapped up in sewing projects over the last little bit, that I kind of forgot how fun it is to transform an old piece of furniture:o) Today I want to show you how I gave a table a new look....a REALLY new look! When we built our house, we had all of the bathroom sinks raised. That poses a problem when you have little munchkins running around the house. They have a hard time getting to the sink to wash their little hands or brush their teeth.  My children literally have monkey toes. They climb those cabinets like nobody's business to get to that faucet. I knew something needed to be done before our cabinet doors started falling off of the hinges.  I have always wanted to get the kids step stools, but I'm cheap, so I never bought any.  So what do you do when you need something, but don't want to pay for it? You use what you have, and make it work. I bought this table for $...

Do you use McAfee anti virus software ? Chances are you probably do. If so, or even if not, you may be interested in the strange story of John McAfee. I'm not sure if its comic or tragic - decide for yourself. In any case its a prime candidate for the script of Gils' soon to be shot Blockbuster from Chollywood  ! (If you want to know what Chollywood is, it is a pun on that stunning  "centre of the world"  where the said blogger now lives and has become completely enamored of ) John McAfee is not your  typical geek. Firstly he was born in 1946 (now which geek can claim that !). While he was working in Lockheed , his computer got infected with one of the first viruses that ever came to prominence - Brain. Readers of my vintage might remember that this originated from Pakistan. which prompted lots of hand wringing in India about loss of software primacy !  McAfee got so pissed that he started writing software to combat viruses. In due course he founded McAfee Asso...

Last week I ran across a really cute Dollar Store craft over at  the CSI project . They were waterless snow globes. This particular craft is what got the wheels turning for this week's projects.  Our snow globes look slightly different than the ones from CSI. So far, these are the kids' favorite Christmas craft:o) The base for their snow globes are the same from the  Snowman Ornament . They are found at the Hob. I let them paint their bases any color they chose...I was definitely surprised by S.R.'s choice, but I think it's because she knows it's mommy's favorite color:o) They both got to pour the sugar into the bowls. I used 1/4 c of sugar in each. I handled the hot gluing. As you can see there was a tad bit of over kill on the hot glue:o) So I added the ribbon around the the gunky glue area to clean it up. Super cute, super cheap, and super fun!! In case you missed it, and would like to see what else we have been up to this week, click on the links below!! Sno...

I'm so sorry I missed yesterday's post! I was down for the count. I had a pretty nasty 24-hour bug...but I'm doing much better today. I'm not ready to go for a run or anything, but I am alive, and that's saying a lot:o) So..Angel Tree Toppers are on the agenda for today. These were a little more involved than the Snowman Ornaments . You will have to do a little prep work if you have little munchkins like me.   The picture below is what I started with...as the process went along, I had to change some of my supplies because a few didn't work out like I thought they would.  So here's what you need: DT=Dollar Tree Puchase -Cemetery Vases..creepy, but it's what you need:o)(DT) -Styro Foam Balls(DT) -Coffee Filters(DT) -Craft Paints(Flesh Color, Pink, Black) -Paint Brush Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks Scissors Gold Pipe Cleaners(DT) Yarn for hair Eyelet lace...I had 3" wide, and 1" wide already on hand Pinking Shears Start off by painting the foam ball...