Hallway makeover

It's been a while since I've been on my blog, and there's a good reason! My handsome husband and I were both on vacation from work, so we got to spend lots of quality time together over the past couple weeks! It is so fun to be home with Cooper, and watch all of the new things he is learning every day! 

I've been working on a few projects around the house, and one that I've had on my list for a while is to paint the hallway going to Coopers nursery and my craft room. I used a color that I've used throughout my living room, Burnt Tile, and I added Websters chalk paint powder to the mix. The powder not only extends the paint, but in the future if I want, I can make the whole wall in to a chalkboard. I'm thinking lots of fun for Coop and I! I used just under a quart of Valspar Signature paint to do this project. 

Here is a before and after picture of the wall! 

We are in love with how it looks!! 

Until next time, happy crafting!! 

Overtime Cancelled

Well, I slept all day, got up and ready for work, drank a whole lotta Dr Pepper, drove all the way to work, parked in my parking spot.  And right on queue, my supervisor called to tell me that since I was the over time person tonight, they didn't need me and I was cancelled.


Man, oh man.  Great timing.  That moment when you REALLY need that extra income!!!

Oh well.

I went on home, picked up handsome husband and cute baby, and we went and had dinner at our favorite restaurant.  Then we watched Big Brother, gave cute baby a bath, clipped some doggy fingernails, and I tucked everyone in to bed!

Now I'm in the craft room!!

Messy Room!!

I've got a couple things to finish up for a swap I'm doing right now.


And then I'm going to start on some new curtains for the bedroom!!


I've had the fabric for quite a while, but I've just been too busy!!


Hope everyone has a great night!


Suzanne.

Beach Swap!

The Going to the Beach Swap on Craftster is just finishing up!  I had a fantastic partner!  After reading what she wanted, and looking at her pinterest, I decided to go with a couple crocheted pieces.  I made her a bikini top (following Sara's Pattern, except not making the bottoms), and I made her some sandals using Julie's Pattern.  Check out the pictures!

In return, my partner sent me an awesome package!!  She made me a kindle cover, a matching tote bag, a cute zipper bag that she embroidered by hand (love!! can't wait to put my sunglasses and other essentials in!), and she made an amazing necklace!!!  I am headed to the beach next week, and all of these items will be coming with me!!!

Another successful craftster swap for the books!

Happy crafting, y'all!!

Tags!!

They're here! They're here!

My tags are here!!

Check out Jennifer's Jewels on Etsy to get your very own!

WIP Wednesday!

Alright, y'all.  Its the middle of [most people's] the week! I'm currently in the middle of my weekend, but hey, if you aren't cool enough to only work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday like me, then you can just envy my 5 AM Wednesday craft morning.

When I woke up this morning at four am (starting to see a pattern emerging on my days off...) I started thinking about knitting.  Know why? Because I checked the temperature outside and here in lovely Central Arkansas it is a balmy 68 degrees at this time of morning.  LOVE IT.  No, seriously, I do.  But for some reason the warmth made me think about all of my fancy-shmancy knitting projects that are halfway (or not quite even) done just sitting in my craft room taking up space.

So, for this WIP (work in progress) Wednesday, I decided to photograph all of the projects that were out in the open and share with you!  I say that because I have no doubt that I'm hiding some more.  Actually, I just looked down and saw another basket with a blanket in it that didn't get it's picture taken this morning.

So, without further ado, lets get this show on the road!

I bought this wonderful Jewel Hand Dyed yarn at the Cascade Trunk Show at The Yarn Mart during the fall.  The pattern is a free download from the Cascade website.

Last summer, at The Yarn Mart, I took a sock knitting class!  I have always wanted to learn how to make socks.  We used the book Toe-Up 2 At A Time book.  I had so much fun learning how to make them!  I am using Shibui sock yarn.  I actually would pay to take the class again because I'm pretty sure I've forgotten how to do it...and I want to finish these socks off!

This is a random, not baby-friendly-at-all baby blanket that I started when I found out I was pregnant. I'm using Bamboucle (which is actually 45% cotton, 30% bamboo, 17% linen, and 8% nylon, so it actually is fairly baby friendly).  I didn't have a pattern, I just started winging it.  It was all B1G1 free in the adoption center at The Yarn Mart, so without having a plan...I bought it ALL!

This is actually is a baby blanket pattern that I've used for baby shower gifts in the past.  This particular blanket is adult-sized that I made for one of my very best friends, Sara, when she suffered from two strokes last January.  She is fully recovered a year and a half later, and I still am hoarding her blanket!  Only thing left to do on this one is to sew the fabric on one side. 

I am SO bound and determined to pick this bag back up.  It is from Sara over at Sans Limites Crochet and it is something called "Tapestry crochet" where you work the yarn just a little bit differently to create some awesome patterns.  She has lots of different ideas and tips over on her blog on how to accomplish.  I bought this pattern at her Ravelry store.

Here is another unfriendly-baby baby blanket.  I got the yarn (Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool) from the adoption center at The Yarn Mart.  It is beautiful yarn, but is 45% wool, 35% silk, and 20% nylon.  Not the most comfy cozy, or spitup-proof yarn out there, that is for sure.  I have no clue what the pattern is called...I actually have a random orange sticky note in the bag with the yarn that has the basic premise to the blanket scribbled on it.  I started it when I first got pregnant, and it hasn't gotten very far!!

This yummy cowl has been in the works for two years.  I got it to make something nice and warm to make on those cold football talegate mornings (Go Hogs!).  I got the yarn from The Yarn Mart, and it is Berrocco Vintage Chunky, and Shibui Staccato.  The pattern is free from the Shibui Knits website, and is called Array

Here is a random little football-themed hat for the little bug-a-boo.  Only thing left to do on this one is weave in the ends (I HATE doing that! So many hates just hanging around with loose ends) and sew on the "laces." Didn't follow a pattern on this one, just did a basic crochet hat with some color changes to mimic a football! The yarn is Caron Simply Soft.

Another hat from Sara over at Sans Limites Crochet.  I bought the Encore yarn at The Yarn Mart and the pattern can be found on her Ravelry page.  

Wow....this blanket has been in the works since....must I say it.....December of 2006!!!  Holy cow.  I don't think I'll ever finish is. I'm using Caron Simply Soft and the pattern is called the Alexi Throw.  The problem with this is the cabling takes forever!  It takes me about 30 minutes to do one row.  I get bored, it gets put back in it's basket.  

Here is another beauty from Sara over at Sans Limites Crochet.  I have made this checkerboard beanie more times than I can count.  Definitely one of my favorite hat patterns.  Yarn is Caron Simply Soft.  

This beautiful shawlette is named Trillian.  It is named after a character in Douglass Adams' wonderful book The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy which happens to be one of my favorite books.  I am making it with some type of sock yarn...not quite sure what. I know that I got in on sale in the adoption center at The Yarn Mart.  I have been wanting to learn how to do continental knitting, and this is my first attempt.  However, I didn't decide to learn until about halfway through what you see pictured, so the tension in the yarn is WAY off.  

This is a pattern by Anna and Heidi Pickles and is called the baggy-weave sweater.  I got the yarn at The Yarn Mart and it is one of my favorites, Vintage Chunky by Berrocco.  Such soft, yummy yarn!  I think the problem with this is I have no clue where I left off, and don't know where in the pattern to pick back up!

Well, that is about it. I never did go back and photograph the other blanket that is in progress (it is a peach and brown checkerboard blanket that I am crocheting).  I figured it would be pretty pathetic to have FOURTEEN works in progress.  Like 13 isn't embarrassing....but I'm going with it.

I hope that you do not have as many WIP as I do!

I think my problem is that I get SOO excited about new yarn, and new patterns, that I just jump right in without thinking.  I get board, find a new pattern, and the cycle starts over.

I suppose I should use this energy to go pick something up and start knitting!!!  Although, it is now time to get the baby up and feed him!

Happy Wednesday, y'all!

-Suzanne

Time for Laundry!

Anyone remember this post last summer?  I was finally starting to feel better and decided to MAKE my own laundry detergent! Well, it has proved to be a really great choice for our family.  I am so glad that I decided to do it.  That $31.68 has lasted us 10 months of laundry!  How wonderful, especially since we added to our family and laundry loads, and its even more important to pinch those pennies!

I have a front loading HE washer, and this detergent worked splendidly.  I never had any issues with spotting or the soap not dissolving (and I use cold water).

Lets look again at what most powdered laundry detergents have in their ingredient list:
1.  Borax
2.  Baking Soda
3.  Washing Soda
4.  Fels Naptha soap

Also, you can check out the original recipe that I created this with here.

The first year of doing this I really felt was trial and error, and I feel like I have the recipe down now!  I am very excited to share with you the differences in this batch!  One of the main problems I had last year was grating my soap.  What a pain in my you-know-what.  I was bound and determined to find a better solution this year.  And I did!  Let me introduce to you: Zote Laundry Soap Flakes!

Gone are the days of trying to grate 6 bars of soap!  Or if you were like me....trying to throw it all in the food processor!  That would have been fine, but I figured for easy clean up, why not throw the food processor parts in the dishwasher!!  Umm.....do you know what happens when you put regular [not dishwasher specific] soap in to the dishwasher?!  Because now I do....and though my kitchen tiles probably needed scrubbing anyway, the massive amounts of foam pouring from my dishwasher was less than ideal.  SO, long story short, I was very happy to find these at my local Walmart!

And, this year I didn't even need to purchase the 5 gallon bucket since I already had it!  Check out my grocery list for this batch:

1.  Two boxes of 2lb Baking Soda (or you can buy a 4lb box, which my store didn't have today)  $1.24 each
2.  One box of 4lb Borax $3.38
3.  One box of 3lb Super Washing Soda $3.24
4.  Two boxes of Zote Laundry Soap Flakes $2.64 each
5.  One box of 3lb Oxy-clean powder $7.52
6.  One jug of 55oz Purex Laundry Crystals $8.96

Total cost: $30.86


So, like last year, this number is pre-tax, and where you buy may be different than my local store.  But I'm pretty sure for ten months of laundry, $30.86 rocks!!!

Also, the most expensive thing is those dang Purex Laundry Crystals.  Come to find out, they aren't even fabric softener.  They are just smell good-yumminess to add to your laundry pleasure.  So, if I wasn't so in to smelly things, I would totally leave that out.  But I'm a sucker for Lavender, and definitely think it makes the laundry experience better.  So I will suck it up and spend the nine dollars!!  If you have allergies in your household, you can absolutely leave them out.  The Zote laundry flakes have a pretty pleasant smell themselves.


{The number seems very close to last years, and without the bucket, but obviously the economy changes and prices of items are always seeming to go up. So, I think this is pretty reasonable!}


Please, PLEASE go do this!  It is the easiest thing in the world and will save you so much!  Not to mention, you will save a little bit of the world by not having the waste of the big plastic detergent bottles!


The other tip I was going to mention was how I mixed it all together.  Don't try to throw all the ingredients in all at the same time.  You want to do it in layers.  I did about five all together that included all of the ingredients, properly stirred up before adding to the next layer.  This will ensure that your detergent is mixed up thoroughly and you aren't missing any ingredients when you scoop a tablespoon or two out!  Also, your spaghetti scoop kitchen spoon works VERY well for this task!!

Cheers to another 10 months of laundry soap!!

-Suzanne

Time Flies!

Well, Looks like its been about 5 months since I have been to the blogger world!  Why the long wait?  Well, this precious bundle of joy takes every second of my free time! And I love him for it!!

Cooper, 5 months old

My life has changed so much for the better!  It was worth every miserable second and every time of vomiting over the nine months to produce this wonderful human being!  It is so wonderful to watch him change and grow every day!

I'm also on here tonight because I'm going on my third night of no sleep.....I have a wonderful raging ear infection that is driving me batty!  My ear feels like it is about to explode and the ringing is unbearable!

I'm also coughing, and I'm trying not to keep my husband up for a third night in a row!  Poor guy has to work in the morning and I've been driving him nuts I'm sure.

Hope to get back to posting more. Haven't really been crafting much, as I've been spending all of my time with Cooper and at work.  But I have this AWESOME craft room and need to utilize it!!

Hope everyone out in the blog-o-sphere is doing well!!

-Suzanne

Bon Appetit!!

I finally have finished up a project in my 'dining room' that I started so long ago!  I was browsing on pinterest and found this wonderful tutorial on how to make letters using nails and embroidery floss (check it out! jk jk).  I absolutely love the way that mine turned out, and have had many compliments from friends who have come over for dinner.

I used my cricut to cut out letters in a font that I liked and then taped them to the wall.  After that I nailed around the letters, and then wrapped about 6 times in the embroidery thread!  Super great project and it really turns out nice!

DIY Roman Shades

Ok.  Crafting with a newborn is sort of a bitter sweet experience.  It is really sweet because, as you know if you have had a newborn, they sleep ALL the time.  Apparently they sleep for about 20 hours out of the 24 hour period.  That is potentially a lot of time to get things done (though they don't tell you how tired you are going to be all the time, especially if you are breastfeeding and your body is in overdrive to be a milk machine).  The bitter part isn't really bitter, but the problem is if you get started on a big crafting project while baby is sleeping, baby will eventually wake up and you have to stop said project and go get elbow deep in dirty diapers and then feed them again!!

Well, that is what happened when I decided to make some roman shades for my kitchen window.  For almost a year now, my husband has complained bugged pestered (oh heck there isn't a nice word) me about my decorative curtains.  They are two panels that I got from Ikea, but I put them on 2 foot curtain rods so they would just frame the window.  Well, I haven't really noticed as much, but my darling husband doesn't like that the TV in the living room has a horrible glare from the window in the kitchen, and he can't fix it because of my *stupid* decorative curtains!  I wasn't going to get rid of my curtains because I love the way they look, so I started looking for a different way to fix the problem.

I started searching for some roman shades because that seemed like the most logical choice.  Do you know how expensive custom roman shades are?  I don't even want to talk about it.  Luckily we live in the land of technology so I went out in to the blog world to see if it was even possible to make it a DIY project.  Here are a few of the tutorials that I read through.  I didn't follow any one completely, but I learned a lot from reading different blogs and finding out which steps were going to work for my project.  Check out these blogs to see what the other ladies did, all of the projects turned out great!!

Beneath My Heart
Brown Paper Packages
Park House Love

A couple months back my mom and I were at target and I found some absolutely adorable place mats that I purchased to go on the kitchen table.  When I went to target to pick up my mini blinds for the project, I happened to walk past the clearance section and guess what I found?!  There were giant table cloths of the same fabric as my place mats on clearance for $8 each.  Okay, you can't find that much fabric in the fabric store for that price!!  I snatched up two of them and headed on home!!

The first roman shade took quite a while because I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing, and I had to allow for glue drying time and poopy diaper changing time.  However, it turned out awesome! I absolutely loved it.  But life happened and it was a couple of days (okay maybe more like a week) before I started on the second shade.  I measured and cut and got everything finished.  And then I hung my second shade up next to the first one.  Well.  You know that saying, "measure twice, cut once?"  That definitely applies to gluing mini blinds on fabric too.  Unfortunately the slats are about 1 inch off of each other.  That hardly matters when I have the blinds down.  Only a crafty person who is looking for it would notice.

 But when you pull the shades up.........

The shades on the right of the picture are the shades I finished first, and the ones on the left I finished last night.  I was very sad when I pulled them up and they have that cute little mess up.....see it?  Pretty awful, huh?  That is because of the inch difference in where I placed the mini blinds.  My sweet husband says they look fine, but I have a feeling I am going to be figuring out how to un-glue the blinds from my fabric and trying again.  I am seriously hoping that it doesn't ruin the fabric, because I can't get anymore!

Ever had a project turn out like this?


Frustrating!!!! Wish me luck!

Baby Shower

My amazing girlfriends Erin, Danita and Brandy hosted a WONDERFUL baby shower for Cooper and I at my house.  It was so wonderful having all of my friends over to my house for the first time, and they did such a great job with all of the decorations!  My favorite part was a "wishing tree" where guests wrote their wish for baby Cooper on a slip of paper and placed them on a gorgeous silver tree (that I got to keep!!).  They also put their thumbprints on a picture of a tree as a sort of guestbook, which is now hanging in the nursery.  And let me tell you, those adorable little elephant sugar cookies were absolutely fantastic, and were completely made from scratch (royal icing and everything!) by Danita!  

I feel so blessed to have such great friends that care about me so much!  Enjoy the pictures!

Blessed

It is pretty incredible how much my heart and soul loves this tiny little human being that I miraculously brought in to this world. After being so, so sick from beginning to end of my pregnancy, I never imagined I could be so happy.

I was also blessed to have the easiest labor I could have imagined. This was also a shock, as I assumed it would be horrible. After pregnancy being so hard, labor seemed a breeze and even though this was my first delivery, it went very quickly. My progression was slow at first, only dilating from 1-3 cm over about 6 hours. But then I jumped from 3cm to 8 cm to pushing in about an hour and a half! I had absolutely no pain, thanks to a wonderful epidural, and in four contractions my amazing little boy was laying there on my chest!! I have also had virtually no pain post delivery so my recovery has been very quick.

My husband and I have chosen to not share photos of our boy on the Internet (Facebook, blog, etc). There are just too many pictures of young children out there that end up being scrutinized or words being added to them with vulgar phrases. I don't want my child growing up infamous for that newborn picture of him peeing across the room (which actually happened tonight after bath time...). However, I will share a picture of the birth announcement that we are sending out.

Can't wait to get back to blogging now that I am feeling so much better. I hope you welcome me back, blog world!!