Paper Photo Wallet

TGIF, I am thinking this in more ways then one. I am so ready for the weekend, I need it. This is my last day watching my niece and nephew. I am so excited, they wear me out, but I am sad too. I will miss seeing their smiling faces everyday. However, I am very excited to start my new job on Tuesday. Going to work for the hubs. I think it will be great for our marriage, his business, and our family. Allie will be coming to work with us everyday, so it will be a family affair. Please pray for us.

Yesterday, my Aunt Debbie came over to craft with me. It was my turn to come up with something so we made a Paper Photo Wallet that I saw on Katie's Nesting Spot here http://www.katiesnestingspot.com/2011/02/photo-wallet.html

I just got the paper from Close To My Heart. It is one of their new lines of paper. Sorry i don't know the name. I love it. I just have to add my six photos, and I have a beautiful new wallet for my purse. This was super easy to make, and I think I will be making some for presents soon.

Just for fun here is an adorable picture of the kiddos.

From left to right-Leah, Natalie, Lincoln, Allie, and Colton

Well have a happy Friday.

Shelly

Slacker

Yes, the above describes my blogging attitude lately. I have actually been so busy, and have not had the time to really craft or blog. I am in my last few days of watching my niece and nephew, getting my new office ready, and dealing with the blahs of winter. I love winter, but towards the end it really affects me. We just got another 14" over the weekend, so I am really blah right now.
Anywho, I am hoping that from this day onward that I will be less blah. I have a couple of hours to myself tonight, and I hope to get a project done. I am really needing the time alone. I never knew that I liked time to myself until I had a child. I love her so much, but there are times that I need to be absolutely alone. Like no one else but me. My hubby and her have AWANA tonight so I will get that alone time tonight.

Talk to you all soon.
Shelly

Up-cycled Sweater Dress

Happy Friday! I am so glad it is here. Tonight is crafting night at my church. I am so excited to get together with other ladies, and craft away. My daughter is going to come for a little bit with me tonight, so that will be fun. We are going to work on her Valentines. I will have pictures tomorrow.

Well I did my first up-cycled clothing item for my daughter. Saturday night, her daddy and her are going to a daddy date night dance. She needed a special dress. I knew I could come up with something adorable for her. My aunt recently sent my sisters and I some of her old clothes. She has great stuff. The items that none of us could use I kept. She had this great sweater that fit none of us, but was so pretty.

I was going to do a full tutorial on this, but I am really new to sewing. Also since this was my first article of clothing, I decided against it. Someday, I will try. Basically after trying it on my daughter, measuring, cutting, and resewing, I came up with this.

 I added some rosettes and ribbon flowers. The tie around the middle can go in front or back.

                                                                 she was being so silly.

                  The scrunchy, ankle covers were the parts of the sleeves I cut off. I just added elastic to keep them up and some pretty stuff to match the tie.

 The hat I got at Dollar Tree. I want to learn how to make them. I just added some rosettes to it. She loves it.

She will be the belle of the ball. I love her eyes.

Anyway, thank you for looking at this. I am so excited about this, and about the special night ahead. They should have so much fun. I will be back tomorrow with craft night pictures. 

linking this up at

 


 
love ya,
Shelly

Ribbon Galore

What a great Thursday so far. I have a pretty new upcycled item to show you tomorrow that I have been working on for my daughter. It is my first clothing item I have ever made for her other then a costume. I love it. It is freezing here. The temp was 20 below without windchill this morning. However, by Sunday it is going to be 40. That is a crazy high temp for February. I would say only in Wisconsin, but this whole country has had some weird weather lately.
Anywho, I did my dreaded grocery shopping yesterday at Walmart. I always walk through the clearance aisle to see if there is anything good. Usually not, but I scored the best deal yesterday. They went through all of their ribbon and clearanced it out. I got almost every spool for a buck. Yeah.

I was so stinking excited. Ribbon is one of my addictions. I use it in all of my crafting projects, so it is worth the money. When I find a deal like this, well I cannot pass it up. I used two of them on the project that I will show you tomorrow. I also got these great wood pieces for $2.50 a bag. I don't know what I will do with them yet, but they will be used.

Well that is all for today. I have to finish up housework, and get ready to head over to my parents for the evening. Have a super great day.

Shelly :)

Paper Ring Wreath and Sugar Scrub

Happy Hump Day. I love the middle of the week. The beginning of the week is behind us, and the end is in sight. I usually am more motivated for whatever reason on these days. It is really cold here right now, so I am glad that I can be inside where it is nice and warm. I love looking out at the cold, beautiful snow.
Anyway, I have another project to share with you today. I started making this wreath before Christmas. It was going to be a Christmas present for my mother-in-law, however, it is very time comsuming so it became a birthday present to her.

I saw this idea on Whipperberry for their 12 days of Christmas event, and knew I had to make one. Here is the tutorial on it http://www.whipperberry.com/2010/12/12-days-of-christmasday-one-event.html. I absolutely love how it turned out. I want to make one for me, but that will be some time because it took a lot of time.
I also made her some lavender sugar scrub. I used the recipe from Homemade Mamas. The link is here http://www.homemademamas.net/2011/01/pomegranate-sugar-scrub_06.html. It smells so good.

 I used a canning jar, modge podged some tissue paper to the sides, spray painted the lid, and put some scrapbook paper on the lid. I then wrapped a piece of ribbon around the middle and made a white felt rossette for the center. Love how it turned out. My mother-in-law really seemed to like it as well.

Linking this up to the following parties:
http://www.inlinkz.com/displayurl.php?id=615755




http://www.houseofhepworths.com/     






Have a great day.
Shelly

Bakugan Birthday Gifts

Happy Tuesday. I get to relax from my busy weekend. Kind of silly to think that taking care or my twin, potty training niece and nephew as relaxing from the weekend. We had a busy one. Friday, I went to a card making party. Saturday, I finished birthday presents. Sunday, we had the birthday party and a Super Bowl Party. I live in Wisconsin so yeah Packers. Yesterday, I had a friend stop over and we went to supper at another friends house. Good but exhausting weekend.
My nephew, Simon, turned six last week. His parents had his birthday on Super Bowl Sunday. He is into lots of typical little boy things. He loves Bakugan. I have made a pledge to give handmade presents for everything this year. I have a lot of little boys in my life, so I am a bit nervous about this. So far, I am off to a good start.

               I bought a plain shirt and set of sweatpants from Walmart, and personalized them.

  I found the picture on-line, and downloaded it into my Silhouette program. I printed and cut it out on heat transfer for dark clothing.This was my first heat transfer project. I know supposed to be easy, but I did not have a good time with it.

  I was always told to mirror your image unto the heat transfer. Well I did not realize that you were not supposed to do that on this heat transfer stuff. I printed everything backward, and had to redo some letters. I only had three sheets of the stuff, so I had to be careful. This is why the letters to not all match, but I like the way it turned out. My nephew loved it.

He also has tons of Bakugans, but no way to carry it. When I saw the carrying case that you could buy, I realized it was just a glorified crafting embroidering floss case.

This is the one that you can buy in the stores.

I thought, I could make something like that. So I bought a case that can carry up to 15 Bakugans, and sewed a case with another heat transferred symbol on it.

 I was pleased with the way it turned out, and Simon was excited for a place to put his toys. I also was happy because I got my sewing machine to work again for this project. It has been sitting idle for over a year because I thought it was broken. Not anymore, yeah.

We went to supper last night at the Hillemeyer's. These are Allie's true friends. She talks about Anna Leigh and Caleb all of the time. Caleb and Allie are only 5 weeks apart so that is fun. Here is a picture of them right before bed.

I have another birthday present to show you tomorrow. I love it, and it took me forever.

Shelly

New Blog Look

Hello,
I know, I have only been blogging for a month why change things. Well I did like the cute pastels and bird, but it is really not me. I am more retro and simple. I want to find something that reflects that. So my blog may look different over the next few days as I tweak it. That said, hope it does not wreck things too much. Hope you will like it when it is done. I have learned so much that I wanted to make it a little more my own. I also have gotten some great tips on my blog, and have fixed them. Thank you ladies for the pointers.
On another note, I have two birthdays this week that I have presents for. You will see the results soon. I really like both of them. Have a great day.

Shelly

The Bold and the Beautiful-your blog reviewed.

Hello again. I am still quite new to blogging, and everyday I learn something new. I already want to make some changes to my blog, but would like to know others opinions. I am entering a blog hop the specifically will critique my blog. Here is the site this is taking place on:http://beautyintheattempt.blogspot.com/2011/01/bold-beautiful-your-blog-reviewed.html


I am so excited to take part in this, and I am really looking for constructive comments, praise, and criticism. Please leave me your input. If you would like to partake in this blog hop. Hop on over to http://myrepurposedlife.blogspot.com/

Have a super great day.

Bedroom Organization

Hello All. I am so sorry that I have not posted in a bit. I don't really have too many excuses, but I have been busy. Blogging takes time. I have many projects that I have been working on, and not too many finished. The main one is reorganizing and moving around three rooms in our house. I think I said a few days ago how we moved into this house at the end of last May. It was a paneling, nightmare from hell, and needed lots of help. I got it set up for the now, but now I know more how I want it to be. We are making the playroom into a craft/model train room. Yeah! Now the rest of our rooms can get some order.
My least favorite room in our whole house is our bedroom. It had awful brown paneling, which I painted. That has made it better, but I had to paint it colors that goes with puke green, shag carpet. That is hard. We are not redoing the carpet since we are building a whole new house in a few years, so I had to deal with it. I chose a yellow and orange. I like both of these colors but not for a whole room. Anyway, the room also became my craft and laundry dumping ground. Not a relaxing room, and definitely not romantic. Here are some before pictures.

               Why make the bed, when the rest of the room is a disaster:)

                           The only window in our room, wish we had another one.

               Crafting and stamp collection chaos. It really was an organized disaster lined next to our bed.

                         Our overly stuffed closet. It goes way back so we can hide things there.

    This is next to the closet. I hate dressers for clothes, and the shelf was not working. I like everything being out and open, and neatly folded. Things had to be done. We have one of those lovely slanted ceiling rooms, so a little hard to work with. After rearranging furniture, taking several items down to the new craft room in progress, getting rid of some things, and building a new shelving unit it is so much better.

  The TV and dresser are now where the bed used to be. We can actually sit up in bed now. The TV is actually going out to my new office next month, we never watch TV in our room anyway. The dresser now only holds sheets and blankets.

   This is the wall that the dress and TV used to be on. I finally have a great place for family pictures. I am going to cut out a vinyl saying to go above the pictures on my Silhouette SD soon. You will see that when it is done.

     The bed is now positioned where the old crafting disaster was. So much better, and we don't constantly bump our heads all of the time now. I want to do something different with bedding, and make a headboard. That will come with time.

       This is the new shelving to replace the overstuffed book shelf of clothes.So much better.

             This beautiful barrister book case was in the back of our cramped closet. I removed the glass doors for now, and it holds our comfy clothes.

Anyway, that is my bedroom. I still have things I want to do, like get some hooks, replace curtains, and add some romance. For now the decluttering will help on the romance aspect. Hope you enjoyed the tour. Hopefully I will talk to you tomorrow.