Sewing for me

So I showed this in progress a little while ago and finally have it finished. Although I haven't posted about much about them almost all of my sewing projects go to other people. Gifts for family, hemming pants for my mom and my daughters or fixing ripped pockets or pants for the husband. I truely enjoy being able to do all these things and only wish that I had known how to sew much earlier - to think of all the clothes we threw away because they were torn! I've sewn a few purses for myself (and a few diaper bags) but this is the first non-needed totally just for fun project that I have whipped up just for me! One of the best things is that all the pieces are scraps left over from other projects so everytime I look at it I remember the chairs I recovered for my sisters wedding present, the insulated wine carrier I made for another sister, a toy dog for my daughter, it's like a trip down memory lane. That makes me happy.

Snow Day!

We live in Michigan and we usually get a ton of snow, getting 18" overnight wouldn't be all that unusual. This year however the ground has mostly been bare. We didn't even have snow for christmas - which was a total bummer. Keeping all this in mind when I picked my oldest up from kindergarten ( which we WALKED to in forty degree weather) and heard everyone talking about how we were supposed to get all kinds of snow and school would be cancelled it seemed kind of unbelievable. However that is exactly what happened and my husband finally got to make good on his promise to make a snowman*, I love the baseball bat arms and that is a shovel being used for a hat - rock what you got!

*Although it snowed pretty much all day it was still unseasonably warm and the snowman fell over just a few hours after they made it.

More paintings

My Girls

So I thought that I would show you some more of the stylized portraits that I did at Christmas time. This was what my husband got for his present( because he just returns anything else.) They are 16x20 in size and done in blacks and grays. I love them but can't for the life of me figure out where to put them. We have paintings hung just about everywhere so I probably just have to take something down, or move, that would work too.

Pinterest, also known as the giant time suck.

I like to put hand soap at every sink in the house, with three pets and two children I wash my hands alot. The soap holder by my kitchen sink was just a generic one from the grocery store and was kind of ugly and gave me a low level hum of dissatisfaction every time I used it, which was alot, did I mention three pets and two kids!

while spending  hours time on Pinterest I came across these cute Mason jars soap holders and thought I have Mason jars! The ones they showed were usually zinc and had a lovely patina to them, mine didn't so I just spray painted it a color I like and used the pump from my ugly one. Since I had everything on hand the whole project cost me nothing and makes me Happy every time I go to the sink. Win/win!

Finally being a hoarder pays off!

I've been working on a project for me, It is something that I've wanted to do for the longest time but it took seeing one on Pinterest to give me the kick in the pants that I needed.

Now I just need to finish it!

Happy Valentines Day

 So this is what I made for my daughters teacher and helpers for valentines day. The portraits of the girls are what I made for my husband, who is notoriously difficult to shop for. I took shrinky dink plastic (not the printable kind which I would highly recommend since they took FOREVER to dry) and ran them through my printer. Then I went to the dollar store and picked up these bottles of hand sanitizers with clips.

 I shrunk the hearts and attached them to the bottles, they say

"May your day be filled with cuties, not cooties"

I can imagine this is a product teachers go through by the gallon, and these can hook onto a purse to be easily accessible.

For my husband I just hooked them onto a key chain, I think he will probably hang this somewhere in his car rather than actually using it as a key chain but that's OK, I don't know how sturdy they would end up being.