Sweet Sixteen!

Well, I now have 16 followers. 2 more lovelies just snuck up on me. One of them is my lovely sister (she's the little girl in the funky glasses) so she's been sneaking up on me my whole life.. right? I think it's been the other way around, me following her around my whole life. I blame her though, she was just cooler than I was :)
I was going to blog about my Esty buy, which is the first time I've ever ordered anything off of Etsy, but since she has decided to read my blog again I can't because it will ruin Christmas! So poo on that, I'll show you all after Christmas :) Really that's all I have for now, I have to work tomorrow night and then I'm off till Tuesday so I'm hoping to get some crafting done. I really feel like a post is naked with out a picture so I'm going to find one..maybe...Guess not, sorry!

Giveaway Day craziness!

Are you guys in on the action over at Sew Mama Sew? Holy cow! This is only the second time I've tried my hand at winning something.. This spring was a no -go. Let me just say that this time around the set up is much better, more like a linky party. You can even see little thumbnails of what is being given away! Sweet, right? I'm not sure how many I've entered.. I'm trying to only enter ones that I really would like to win and not just doing them all.. I can't handle them all!!
I have made a few things but they were gifts that I didn't take pictures of .. The first one was a pillowcase. I made it burrito style. Do you guys know about this method? You basically sew the body (main) fabric of the pillow case up inside the cuff (contrasting) fabric and then when you pull it out the cuff is totally finished on both sides. I thought it was the neatest thing. I don't have a pic of the case but these are the fabrics I used.

 

Yep, another after dark in the dining room pic.. These are the fabrics I scored on the cheap at Joann's :)

The other project I worked on was another ornament (yes, I'm obsessed) this time it's a tree made with glittery felt. I didn't even know they made felt with glitter in it! This is the practice one I made. I made another one and gave it to my sister. I "decorated" hers with french knots and the ribbon sticks out the bottom with a bead on it.

I made it using this tutorial. It is one I put in my last post. I think I need to be done making ornaments. I need to get to making the gifts. I am going to make a camera case for my nephew so I'd like to start that. I think I mentioned that I won a $25 credit to As Hue Wish on Etsy..  I ordered up my stuff on Sunday and Pamela shipped them out right away on Monday, so USPS says my package should be here tomorrow so I'll blog about that when I get it :) That's all for now! Happy hump day tomorrow!

Fun Christmas Ornaments and other stuff!

I kind of like Christmas. The snow, the getting together, the tree, the pretty wrapped presents.. Not so much the actual presents I mean the ones that are wrapped up all pretty.. Did you guys realize that Christmas is only 18 days away? Crap, how did that happen? I like to say 3 weeks, that way I am able to trick myself into thinking it's longer (anyone else do that). I decided this year that I wanted to make some ornaments. This was mostly because I kept seeing such awesome ones around in blog land (and started with the Sculpey birds)!  So here they are. First up, this cool.. ahh. ball? I made it using this tutorial from Zakka Life.

 

Kinda cool right? I wouldn't normally pick yellow but I had 2 pieces of felt so I used them up. I think it looks pretty cool from the top. If I have time I might make a smaller one, I was lazy and just used the circle pattern from the ear bud pouch!

The next one I made is from A Spoonful of Sugar. You can find the tutorial here. That's a link to the tutorial page. There is some other cute stuff there!

Here are the other ones I want to make:
Cool 3D felt trees
These Quilt as you go patchwork trees
One of these cool trees

But I have a few other things that I want to make for gifts so I'm going to have to balance that out...somehow.. The constant battle between the "want" to make list and the "need" to make list.. I added to that list today by going to Joann's. I went to look for one thing, which I actually completely forgot about until after I left! And then decided I needed some Christmas fabric to make an early Christmas present. But I got a good deal. Did you guys know that you can buy the remnant amounts for 50% off the price, even if it's on sale? So if you see some cute fabric that you want and there is like a yard left on the bolt, ask for 1/2 yard and then what is left will be 1/2 the price. So if it's $2/yard you'd spend $1 for the 1/2 yard and then 50 cents for the other 1/2 yard, getting it all for $1.50. Just something to think about, it isn't very often though that you find the bolts with less than a yard on them.

Have you ladies heard of Mollie Makes Magazine? The first I ever saw or heard about it was on Jenna's Blog. I decided that I "needed' to have it. I looked for it at Joann's (because you can use a coupon on magazines there) but they didn't have it. I found the last copy at Barnes and Noble. It isn't cheap either, cost me $12. But I got a little kit to make covered buttons, don't know what the heck I'm going to do with those, but apparently I needed to have them. I also don't know if the 3 buttons made it worth the $12....
I'm starting up my "other" job again tomorrow. That's going to cut into the crafting time but I'll manage. It's 2 hours a day 2 days a week, so it isn't that bad. I don't know if I've mentioned before what I'll be doing but I'll be tutoring 3rd and 4th grade kids in reading. I did it in the spring and it was 7 hours on Saturday, so 2 hours after school will be like a cake walk. I do have some prep time and phone time but I get paid for all of that too. So, I hope you all have a great rest of the week and do some damage to your "lists"!

Soapy Goodness!

I meant to do this yesterday but I ended up not being home in the afternoon to take pictures, so I did it today. I read about Spotted Owl Soap on another blog, and big surprise I'm not sure which. I'm sure I could look it up but I don't feel like it. There was a time when my Mom made soap, I remember it being a somewhat putzy process, but I was young then so I don't really remember. That soap was made with lye, I have no clue how this soap is made, just that it has oils and such in it. I did get a few books from the library about it though because I'm always on a quest to expand my crafting knowledge. I also have to put out there that this is just my experience/ thoughts about this soap, I have no affiliation with the soap maker.
But enough with the talk and on to the pictures!

 

We ordered a gift package (it was cheaper) and so this was the box that all the soap came in (not the shipping box). It was also tied up with a chunkier type of twine/rope.. not sure what to call it. 

We ordered 5 bars but got 6, how cool is that. Plus it was one that was on my "try" list. Yay! 

First up, we have 2 bars of Cherry Amaretto. The green one is Green Tea and Mint.

 

 The next three are (from left to right) Fresh Citrus, Fresh Fallen Snow, and Bergamot and Chamomile.

 These bars a little smaller than the other 3.

So far my Mom has tried the Fresh Fallen Snow, it smells good but it has glitter in it, which she said was scratchy, so that is kind of a bummer. I haven't tried any of them yet but they all smell great. The shipping was a flat $7, which isn't bad. It came quickly, we ordered it over the weekend (I think) and it came on Wednesday. It was in a nice sturdy and well taped box, the presentation was nice, could have just gifted it with no extra prepping. We got the free bar and a little pumpkin shaped soap. The soap was $14.99, shipping was $7, total cost $21.99, that works out to $3.67/ bar. More expensive than going to a big box store and buying some soap, but I can pronounce and identify every ingredient in this soap so I'm cool with that :) They also have lotion, body butter and lip balm. They have gift sets that range from $4.99-$24.99. Go check them out if you want! I hope everyone has a great weekend! It was supposed to start snowing here at around noon, it hasn't started yet so I'm a little skeptical that we are going to get much, either that or we will get dumped on overnight..

Thursday finish!

Hey everyone! How's it going? Are you all having a great week? Can you believe that Thanksgiving was a whole week ago? Seems like it was just the other day.. I'm happy to report that the sketchbook cover is done!
I'm sorry that the pictures are so terrible but when it gets dark at 4pm it's hard for me to get pics. I'm going to try and take some more tomorrow, but these will have to do for now..

Front with elastic strap.

 

 Pocket in the back.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Do you guys ever have a project where you are just kind of winging it and you aren't sure if it will work out or if it does work out if it will turn out? This was one of those projects.. I'm not always so great at making things where you have to measure and be totally spot on so it will fit (that's why I make bags/pouches) plus, I don't always have confidence in myself. I found a few great tutorials out there, I used this one the most. I liked the fact that it wasn't two full layers just one piece to cover up the wrong side of the outside fabric, plus it was pretty slick. I finished it all up and put it on there and was like "holy crap, it actually fits and it looks cool". 

Stats:  

sketchbook measures 6.25 x 8.5 inches. 

Fabrics: Dark grey is Kona Charcoal, light grey is Kona Medium Grey, Skull fabric is from Hancock that I got for 80% off before Halloween (ended up being like less than $2/yd), and the blue is also from Hancock but I don't know what it is.

I did have to glue a piece of cardboard to the front because it was just heavy paper on the front and I didn't think that would be rigid enough. If anyone has a burning desire to make one and you want any other details just leave me a comment and I will get you any information you want :)

Tomorrow I'm going to show you all some beautiful handmade soap that we ordered up! That way I can take some better pictures when it isn't dark out. I'm pretty excited to share it with you guys :)