Pinterest Project #2

This one is a big one. It's a Christmas gift for my new niece, Melody. I made her a little quilt block I had pinned, Just following the pattern...I call it a "cuddle quilt" size. no batting, Just the quilt top with a minky back, kinda cute if I do say so myself.

I also made her a little bear out of coordinating fabrics. These were at hobby lobby in a mini "jelly roll" and "fat quarter" package. I hope she'll become attached to them as she grows up... For curiostity's sake: what were you "attached" to growing up? and are you still, if not when did you give it up. I was attached to my "blankey" I kind of weaned myself off of it when I was 12, but if I went through a break up or rough time I would bring it out of my closet and cuddle it. I still have it, in our bedroom... I just can't get rid of it!!!

I also did minimal Christmas decorating since we are going out of state this year.Which I can't find the pin so here's a picture.

Pinterest Project

So to make things more interesting for Jason here at home I made him some play dough. Yup, using this recipe. I'll let you be the judge:

"cooking" the playdough

letting it cool

and then having some fun!

Jason's first birthday: Bow ties!

My baby isn't a baby any more. He's one year old, and I didn't want to have too big of a party, but I wanted it to be memorable. Here's some pics:

made this bunting myself, going to hang it in his room later

A silly auntie holding a baby friend of Jason's

Cupcakes!!

Daddy and Jason in their bow ties... Jase wanted down lol

Daddy helping open gifts

Our pastor decided to come :) Jason loves our pastor!

Jason being a big boy!

Jason's Cousin

Another silly auntie wearing a bow tie!

Daddy in his bow tie, being a goof ball :)

Jason's smash cake... the frosting melted, it was so hot... 

It was a fun little party, and there were more pictures, but they are on my mom's phone. Funny story about the cake. Jason wouldn't touch it.. unless it was with a fork.. he wouldn't eat it either... he ate a little, but that was it. And to address the "pink" frosting, it was supposed to be red, but it wouldn't go any darker. I made the bow ties myself by the way, got the idea off of pinterest here. They weren't too hard to make.

Anyway, my boy is walking some on his own now, and it's kinda bittersweet, this has been the fastest year of my entire life. And If you could keep my little family in your prayers, we are trying to make some changes, but we don't know when/if they'll happen. Thank you and God Bless!

Confidence, Is a Woman's Necessity

This post may or may not be for you, if you don't agree with something, please let me know what you think:

"I'm SOOO fat, I need to lose weight/stop eating!" or "I'm so ugly/pale, I need tanning lotion/bronzer to look pretty" This is the constant phrase I hear from a couple of my sister-in-laws. Every single time I hear it, I really want to set them down on a hard chair and give them a lecture on how that will not work! Especially since they are as skinny as their bone structure will allow and as dark as their pale skin will allow them to go.

Doing these things, or other things will not change your view about yourself. Confidence. That is what you need. Confidence in the fact that God made you the way you are. Confidence in your own looks, because your parents/husband or whoever loves you, loves you just the way you are. If not, there's something wrong with them, if they don't love you the way you are.

You need to have confidence. If you don't you'll never be happy, with yourself with all that junk on your body, reality check, that stuff makes your skin splotchy afterwards. Starving yourself?  Your body cells hold onto more fat when you starve yourself, because they don't know when their next nourishment is coming from. So doing those things don't help. Dressing "sexy" to make yourself "feel good"? You may have just caused some poor man to lust after you, that means he's committed adultery, and his Soul is now in deep trouble....

Just dress for your body shape, not the body you want. When I was pregnant, then nursing a baby, I had to adjust some of my outfits (aka throw 'em out) because they didn't fit right, or they, um, didn't look right... Need help? Look on the internet, or better yet, ask your mother/sister/friend how they think something would look on you....

No matter what you do to yourself on the outside doesn't help what's on the inside. Pray for acceptance of your own appearance. Eat right, drink ice water (your body has to work harder to warm it up, then digest it), Exfoliate your skin ( i know how good it makes me feel, it'll probably help you too!) It's not too hard to love your body the way it is, it just takes a brain adjustment. pray for help to accept yourself the way you are.

Skirts and Jason

My son will be one this Saturday!!! I'm so excited, but I can't say exactly what I'm doing yet, and I'm slowly buying what I need, here's a little teaser: red and vintage blue. I'll take pictures when it all comes together!

On the otherhand, for those of you who don't know, there's a BIG summer camp that some kids in my church are going to. One of them is my sister-in-law. I made her and a friend of hers a skirt:

She wanted her pockets in a different fabric

This is just a close up of the pocket, I couldn't rotate it, sorry!

This is a dark denim and that heart shape applique on the bottom is covering up a hole that I accidentally made with my serger

 The skirt pattern is so simple! and i had to make very few adjustments to this pattern. It's very modest, floor length and allows for plenty of movement... whenever the skirts show up in pictures on that camp site, I'll post them :)

New Hair, "Doings"

Apparently I've been doing something wrong with my hair  for a very long time... I've been doing some research, and you're not supposed to wash your hair everyday... I have :P I've slowly been changing that habit, but my hair is so short in the front from re growth (will all readers please note I DO NOT cut my hair. Ever. Not even a trim. Period.) as my haird had broken off from lack of taking vitamin's for a time, since i breastfeed, that resulted in a large output of nutrients with not enough intake, thus, my hair broke off... Any way to continue, all those short hairs stick straight up and I didn't want to use hair spray (drying alcohols) and water wouldn't keep those hairs down long... More research ensued. I found out there are non-alcohol hairsprays out there... I went to Walmart and grabbed the first one I saw: L'oreal's Alcohol Free Hairspray.

 I wanted to see how it did: ( based on a 1-5 scale 1 being bad) 5 for hold, I went to silver dollar city went on 6 roller coasters and 2 water rides, and my hairstyle stayed in ( a front side pouf and a back pouf [no teasing]) my hair fell later because of a bobby pin malfunction. I'd also give it a 5 for scent. It doesn't smell gross like some hairsprays, and to me this is important. It has a light sweet/floral scent, but it's not too heavy on either the sweet or floral. A 3 for cost: $5.97 for a bottle that size is not too bad but I think they could have come down a buck... or two. I really don't like that price. A 4.5 for the non-buildup feel in my hair when I wash it... It combs out fairly easy but leaves a greasy feel on second day hair, but that just may be me, because my hair has oily tendencies... for now, (as I said earlier I'm in the process  of re-training my hair)

Anyway, how was everyone's Memorial day weekend? I'm kind of disappointed how my city I live in doesn't do more, only one place I saw had a flag half mast. Every other place had sales, to commercialize. How sick can people get? Commercializing a holiday meant for remembering the soldiers who died for our freedom, that's sick and twisted to me.

I'll stop there because laundry has to be done by someone, and it won't do itself... I'll ask a question before I go though, what is your favorite household chore to do? Mine is vacuuming or washing floors.

A Skirt Inspired

Looking around on Pinterest and the internet there are plenty of cute skirts to be found, but not so cute prices.... I decided to try to do one myself with my own flavor....

 Here it is! I like the way it turned out!

 First seam rip and cut to desired length, and have a fabric chosen for your ruffles.

 Pin and sew your "rear" seam (where my sewing foot is on in the above picture)

 Then pin and sew your back "in between the legs" fabric, Since I'm making a shorter skirt, I had enough of the cut off legs, left over to re-use. Hey, waste not want not right? After that, you'll need to measure the places where you are going to be putting your ruffles, I did three so I took a measurement of where my tape is, and two more place below that at pretty equal spacing... Clear as mud?

 Now we'll make a pattern for our ruffles, I used a quilting ruler, and it has those handy dandy diagonal lines that I used to make the "side" seams... It'll get clearer as we move along. Basically I drew half of a trapezoid, to be placed on the fold of your fabric. The "top" of your trapezoid is going to be attached to your skirt, the bottom is going to be free, the diagonal lines are going to be attached to the sides of your skirt. The tissue paper below is how my pattern looks, I don't know how clear it is to you, but try enlarging the picture, if that doesn't work, let me know and I'll edit this post to show a clearer picture. Also, Be sure to add seam allowances!

 Here's one of the pattern pieces cut out and on the fabric getting ready to be cut:

 I hemmed all the way around the pieces, so they wouldn't unravel. For the top ruffle I seam ripped the bottom of the back pockets out so I could sew right over the ruffle and still be able to use those pockets.

After this point I kinda forgot to take more pictures of the process: To create more of a ruffle effect on your bustle, you'll have to add a few gathers.... That's all I can really say for now, my son woke up.... 

Southern Ma'am

My "dahling" mother in law went to a garage sale and picked up a box of old recipes and newspaper clippings and gave them to me... I immediately thought: I can post these on my blog! So without further ado, the Southern Ma'am.

Pecan Pie

1c white corn syrup

1c dark brown sugar

1/3 c melted butter

1 heaping cup shelled pecans

3 eggs (beaten)

dash of vanilla

pinch of salt

Mix above ingredients well and pour into an unbaked 9 in pastry pie shell. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes in your oven. Let col and top with whipped cream or ice cream... or just serve plain and enjoy!

If you try this, let me know how it turned out for you!!

I'm Back!

First, It's great to be back! Second, I'm typing this with one hand as Jason nurses. Third, have I got a slew of posts coming to (possibly) rock your world! Fourth, I love pinterest, and I have some projects inspired from there to make some posts about with my own little twist of personality... so here it goes.... typing galore! oh, and here's a pic of Jase:

Him this spring at the bookstore!