5 Year Christmas Tree Skirt

I am the self-proclaimed "Procrastinator" for a reason...It has taken my 5 years to make a new Tree Skirt. How do I know it has been 5 years? The proof is on the receipt that is still attached to the material...


I remember purchasing this at Walmart when my husband was buying a duck stamp!

If my memory serves me correctly in November 2004 I was 4 months pregnant...did not have a sewing machine and had a month to make a skirt. What in the world was I thinking? There is no way it was going to get done then.

Then last year I decided I was finally going to make a skirt...and I did get started...I made the pattern using a little 9th grade geometry...but I never finished it, and put it back in the attic.

FINALLY, early October 2009 I pulled out the skirt and MADE myself FINISH!! Because I don't want to make another tree skirt until I make my daughter one...I decided to put some extra love into this skirt to make it extra special and one that I won't want to replace.

I hand stitched gold thread around flowers


Added some red roping...


TA-DA it is FINISHED!!

After 5 years it is done!!

Now we are ready for the Christmas Tree!!!

Thanksgiving Decor Brings up Fond Memories

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was wonderful. To be with my family, in my home is so unbelievably special to me!!

As for most women I LOVE having the opportunity to pull out the nice china, silver and crystal. Not only is it all beautiful, it brings back so many memories!! Ones that I love to reminisce about...

My china was started by my husband's Grandmother, Fitts, while we were dating. She had the foresight to start me on my pattern because she knew we would be married one day and she would most likely not be there. That was approximately 4 years before we finally got married (she was a wise woman.) Then many many people have contributed to our pattern for wedding gifts and/or Christmas gifts!

My silver was an anniversary gift from my Grandmommy. What a treasured, timeless gift! I am so lucky to have a full set of silver!! I love eating off it. As they say "Food always tastes better off of silver." I have to agree!

Lots of my accessories to the Lennox Holiday pattern my mom and dad have purchased for me over the years. These pieces are really the accent touches that pull it all together, some examples are the chargers and the napkin ring. There is LOTS more but I pull that out at Christmas.

I realized while eating dinner that I have lived in this house for almost 4 years, been married 8 years and it was the first time my parents had eaten with my fine china, my silver, and in my dining room. I am not sure why it took so long! I guess it has never worked out for them to be at my house for a holiday!!

My centerpiece was my fall centerpiece but I just added some Holly leaves and berries from the bushes outside.


Then my daughter had her hand (literally) in decorating our home. She made 20+ hand turkeys and stuck them all around the house.


More examples...

I am so thankful for my memories from the past & being able to create new ones!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Preparing for Baby- Door Hanger

It is no secret, my sister is having a baby and I am excited!! Every time I turn around I see something else I would love to make her!! I got the idea one night to make her a Door Hanger with her bedding fabric. To make it EXTRA special I wanted to monogram it. Well, Auntie Maridith doesn't have Embroidery Machine so I had to come up with another alternative.

Trust me if you LOVE monograms....you will want to read on....

I read how to do this originally on Neither Hip Nor Funky.

You use Plain old Freezer Paper that you buy at the grocery store. I printed the letter I wanted, cut it out, traced it on the dull side of the freezer paper and cut out the inside. Lots of cutting, but worth it.


I positioned it on the fabric, and pressed onto fabric. TIP #1 : Be sure your iron DOES NOT have water in it! TIP #2: If you do not like the placement after it is pressed you CAN remove the pattern and press again. You can do this up to 4 times!

Use regular acrylic paint mixed with Textile Medium and Paint! Do not use brush strokes...dab going up and down if you use brush strokes it can get under the paper! I waited until the paint was slightly dry to pull off. Here is the results. Perfect crisp lines!

I added trim and ribbon and it is FINISHED!!

Now let's hope when my sister and her husband meet their new baby her name will start with an "M" or they are out a really cool door hanger!!

Twice Remembered- Baby Blanket

Do you have an old lovie (blanket) from your childhood or your children's childhood that is now sitting in storage? My sister did and now her lovie is a teddy bear for her baby girl!

What better way to make a Mother-to-be cry!! I think she likes it!

Lauren even had to smell it to see if the "smell" was still there.
Twice Remembered Baby Blanket from one generation to the next!

I didn't just make one...I have made two!! Lawson saw me making this for the new baby and said "you have never made me a bear" (guilty as charged) Now Lawson has a matching bear!!

Give Thanks- Fake Pumpkin

I have not been posting much because I have been working have been TOP SECRET. They have been presents to my #1 reader, my sister! She knows most of what I am making for her but I don't want her to see them until her Baby Shower this weekend! After the baby shower I will show you all the baby things I made her and peanut!
However, because I am slightly A.D.D, and get bored abnormally QUICKLY especially when cutting out and sewing 16 tiebacks for the crib bumper. I decided to make something for myself. I am selfish like that.

I decided to complete my "Pumpkin Project" that I saw on V-Spot Blog.

Here was my completed "Fake" Pumpkin. It already looks delicious.
I have seen where people have hand written on the pumpkins sweet notes "Be Grateful," "Give Thanks," or "Thankful." If I trusted my hand writing I would of done the same thing, but I don't. So I printed out some phrases and cut them out with fine little scissors. I was planning on doing "Be Grateful" but that was WAY to long and I wanted to continue to be "grateful" so I went with "Give Thanks."

Once cut out, I ended up going over the letters with a black marker just to cover any white that was showing. I used Mod Podge to glue it on the pumpkin.
Then I added a ceramic dish and fake leaves. Here is my finished pumpkin.

I love having this simple display as a reminder of all the things I am so thankful for!!

Christmas Gifts - Hooded Towels

I am totally ahead of the game...on one project at least.

In February I made my daughter this Hooded Towel. It is her favorite towel by far because it covers up all of her when she gets out of the tub. Unfortunately, there is only one so when it is dirty she has to use either a grown up towel or a baby towel. Not cool!

Original Hooded Towel for Lawson...

Then there is my son who is not a baby anymore (sniff, sniff) and has quickly outgrown the baby towels too!!One of my kids presents this year is new Hooded Towels. Custom made by their mommy!! I got the directions from Skip to My Lou.To accommodate my growing children' needs I made them both Hooded Towels for Christmas.

I don't have a model because they are presents but here is the finished 'W' Towel.

My second project doing applique. Tip: Appliqueing on a towel...not exactly easy!
Then I made Lawson a towel with her initial. Hubby is not a fan because he says it looks like a Clemson towel...Our blood run red for NCSU in this household, but Lawson's favorite color is purple and the ribbon was a last minute add.
Then the presentation. It took me forever to figure out how to fold these towels because it is not a perfect square, but with a little trial and error I figure it out.

Here is one all ready to wrap up... (which probably won't be done until Dec 24th)



BTW- did you notice where I got the initial material from???? Hooded Towels with matching PJs!!! How lucky are my kids???

Homemade Laundry Detergent and Jute Mayo Jar

I am cheap...

I am not afraid or embarrassed to admit it either! When my friend, Elizabeth, shared with me that she made her own Laundry Detergent and it cost pennies per load I had to give it a try. She sent me this website. It is all about saving money!

Laundry Detergent

1/2 bar bath soap

1 cup washing soda

y. Here is the source. 1 cup baking soda
1 cup 20 Mule Team Borax


I LOVE IT and it is so easy to make and it is cheap!! I encourage everyone to make a batch! Trust me, just try it!!

Once the detergent was made I needed something clever and cute to put the laundry detergent in because it doesn't not have it's own container like commercial detergent does. Have no fear...I can come up with something!!

Decorative Container
Plastic Mayo Jar (glass in the laundry room could be trouble)
Jute (stolen from my husband's shed)
Hot Glue
Stencil
Permanent Marker

Start at the bottom of the jar and wrap around. I just did the area where the label was. I only glued one side of the jar. Therefore, if it turned out to ugly that by default could be the back! When finished wrapping, put glue on the tip of the jute and press down firmly. Then time to do the lid...blue just won't do. Start in the middle with a glob of glue
Start circling around. When you are done, put glue on the tip of the string and press firmly. The lid was the hardest part.

Then with a permanent marker and stencil I decorated the jute. I also added a wooden sewing bobbin to the top of the lid. Why?...because I had some laying around. I also colored the bobbin with a permanent marker.

Here is my Homemade Jute Jar filled with Homemade Laundry Detergent- Completely reinvented!

Since this project several other jars have become victim to my glue gun and jute...I love this stuff!!

I am participating over at Kimm's Reinvented Tuesday. Go check out the other great projects!

Do Something Nice for Yourself!

I am a mom of 2 wonderful children and I can totally see myself becoming my mother. Now that is a bad thing because my mom is wonderful and my mentor as a mother, but as her daughter I can see (or she has told me) what or how she wished she had done things differently. She was a young mother of 4 kids...all under the age of 5. She was really busy and the one thing has mentioned time and time again is

"ALWAYS DO SOMETHING NICE FOR YOURSELF!"

Her reasoning... kids are not always going to be sweet and nice, sometimes husbands miss the mark, so that really only leaves you doing something for yourself. It is so easy as moms to do nice things for everyone else, but us!! Why is that????

I am a busy mom, working from home, making kids clothes, dog collars, and client accessories that I often forget about little ol' me and my wants!

Last week I remembered my mother's words... I was making a customer pillows and said to myself "I want some new pillows in my den", I looked through my box of material and sure enough I had all of the supplies ... (I am a pack-rat remember and this has been in this box for over 2 years).

So here are 4 pillows for my customer...

And my 2 new pillows... not much but they are new and make me happy!

Too coordinate with my bay window

Doing something nice for myself felt good, and then hearing these words form my mother's mouth "Ahhh, good for you!! I am so proud of you" felt even better!! Thanks mom!!

Have you done something nice for yourself???

Speed Bump...4 yr old's opinion

Recently I put together a Project Plan for all of my projects that I need to complete before Christmas...Yes, the Procrastinator has a project plan (Learned this from my days working with IT folks.) I was going full steam ahead this weekend until my observant four year old daughter started mingling through my sewing stuff.

Here is our conversation...

L: Mommy this material is beautiful, I love it. Are you making me something?
M: Yes, mommy is making you a nightgown for Christmas and I am going to make Wesley PJs out of this material (trucks and cars not flowers)
L: (with a look of disgust on her face) I am NOT wearing this for Christmas...this is NOT Christmas-y...
M: Well, I thought I would make you PJs that you could wear Christmas day that are new and then wear them throughout the winter...(make sense to me)
L: Mommy, I would make this for me now because it is cold now, and then make me and Wesley Christmas PJs that are red and green.

She might as well ended that conversation with a big fat "DUH!!!!" But she is not 12 yet...thank goodness!

I was ahead of the game but now I am right back where I started...except that Lawson has a beautiful new nightgown that she loves!

She has a point this isn't Christmas-y at all... but it sure is cute!

Go Flower Power!!

This pattern is from 1975! I was talking to my sister about this nightgown and I am pretty sure we both had a nightgown made out of this pattern. If I find a picture of her or me (thanks to my dad) I will be sure to post it.


Gotta go...Lots of sewing going on over here!!

Final Touches for Halloween

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! Ours was very nice. My grandmother drove up from SC to visit and my parents came down from VA. It was a very busy weekend but not too busy to throw in a few projects!!

Thursday evening I was looking through some friends Halloween pictures and saw they had the cutest personalized Treat-or-Treat Bags...and my kids had none...Oops a little bit of an oversight on my part.

At 10PM I decided that was going to change. I was going to make my kids some custom trick-or-treat bags. No pattern...no problem. I've never appliqued...I'm not afraid!! A couple hours later....TA-DA!

This was my first attempt at applique and let me tell you I am hooked!! I won a give-away from Katie's Nesting Spot from You Can Make This and it had all of these wonderful applique projects. I didn't have time to read or attempt my hand at these complex projects. So I skimmed over the "How-to booklet" and just made my own templates and just went for it! I can totally see a lot more applique projects in my future!

My kids got to do a trial run on Friday and we went Trick-or-Treating in the Living room. Yep, they will work!


Here they are all done up for the big night!! W- is a dog "Butler" and L- is a cat- "Buster" my parents animals!


The fun didn't stop there. My wonderful and creative grandma rolled into town with her own project for the kids and everyone participated!!


Mamma II brought the supplies to make Chocolate-Peanut butter Spiders! YUMMY!


Here is our spooky spider!!


I hope everyone had a fun-filled Halloween!

BTW- Did anyone else heart start beating a little bit faster now that Halloween is over and Christmas is RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER!?!? Yikes!!