New (To Me) Tuesday

A beautiful blog: Oh, the Lovely Things.
Beautiful photography, beautiful art, beautiful simplicity, beautiful projects....

Like this one:

DIY Iron-On Tote Bag (with FREE Printables!)

Lots of great ideas, links, DIY's, and more.....enjoy!

New (To Me) Tuesday: May Arts

I would like to start sharing some great blogs I've found while I'm putzing about the internet. Here's one that has some lovely projects and tutorials!
It's the May Arts Blog.

May Arts is a wholesaler of absolutely lovely ribbons--but don't worry, they do list retailers that carry their products!
Here are a couple of their tutorials:

SILK RIBBON ROSES

Aren't these just lovely?
So many thiings you could do with these beauties: add to a dress or sweater, make a necklace or headband, top a frame or a box.....

Or, have you ever wanted to make "Korker" bows? Here's how! These are so fun!

KORKER BOWS

May Arts Blog has just oodles and oodles of projects that you can make with ribbons--fashion accessories, decor, seasonal and gift ideas, crafts, and more.  Have fun!

Hello Again

Hello all!
I know, I know.....
it's been a long, long time!!!!

Source

I've missed you!

Apologies to all:
I've neglected this blog terribly.

In case you are wondering, I spent last summer in India. A wonderful time! Would you like to see some pictures?

Then, I WAAAYYYY overcommitted last semester. I took three classes--nine hours--plus had oodles of intership stuff to do, really HOURS and HOURS of intership paperwork, interviews, etc., etc.

It was all I could do to get through the semester AND take care of my family AND actually do a little laundry and wash an occaisonal dish.

But after much prayer and thought, I'm back!  Let's get going!

Ha! I'm done!

With the semester!
All I have left for this semester is two finals.

Source: Dover

But I finished my online course today! Got all those little last assignments done!

Don't get my wrong--I love my classes, my profs are great, and classmates are super. It's just time to finish up and get on with the next adventure!

A Wreath for Easter

A little late, I know!

I wanted an Easter wreath, but didn't want to spend any money....so here's what I came up with!

Anyhow, first rustle up your trusty helper cat....

And then get your materials:

• For this el-cheapo wreath, I used the brown packing paper that came out of a box = Free!
• A wreath from the dollar store = $1.00
• Some old plastic Easter eggs from the depths of the closet = free
• Three pieces of sheet music = a few cents worth                                                 

(I had a whole bunch that I'd purchased from Knick of Time: a lovely Etsy shop and a lovely blog too!)

• ModPodge
• Glue gun
• Stapler

First, I stapled some of the brown paper around the  wreath as a base for the rest of the decorations:

                                                                           Like so--

                      Then I took another long piece of brown paper and scrunched it up, sorta like this:

                     Fastening down all the scrunched up bits with the stapler and the hot glue gun:

Straightening and fluffing as I went along:

To make the wreath!

Tearing up the sheet music into small strips and using some ModPodge, I covered

ye olde plastic Easter eggs:

And added the "musical" eggs, twine and a burlap bow to make

a rustic wreath:

Ugghh...

I'm sick...

One cat is sick...

It's sorta miserable around here!

Still Plugging Along on SWAP 2012: An Easter Dress

Believe it or not!

I'm still sewing--although plans have changed a bit!

I've just had such a run of Mega Sewing Difficulties: zippers that won't sew in properly, darts that went in all wonky, instructions that don't make sense......

Plus Texas just really didn't have a winter this year! So I've changed my mind about a couple of items that were in the initial plans.

This Butterick dress will just have to wait to next fall. It's just too warm to be thinking about long sleeves right now :)

Instead, I opted for this pattern:

I had several yards of a bright and cheery butterfly print in the ol' stash, actually more than I needed. The fabric is a pretty cotton lawn or something similar (I've had it for a while).

Havine more than I needed turned out to be a GOOD thing.

When I layed the fabric out, I realized there were fade marks along the folds. Fortunately, I managed to work around these by making a seam in the center back.

Whereupon the zipper moved to the back.

This dress fit perfectly and was easy to sew, just as promised on the pattern.  I sat down and sewed Friday and Saturday, and had a new Easter dress by Sunday church!

The zip even behaved and went in beautifully!

I also underlined both the bodice and the skirt, since the print fabric was slightly sheer and also ravelled terribly!  And I didn't make a belt.
Thanks for visiting!