My dangerous new toy

When my grandma (basically my favorite person in the universe. I can't believe I haven't really mentioned her in this thing!) died, she left a few sewing machines behind that were given to my mom do with what she pleased. My mom, being the psychic that she is, knew that I'd eventually want to be a wonderful seamstress/quilter/all around awesome sewer so she kept this beauty safe for me until I discovered exactly how much I loved sewing.

That's my very own!

And of course, along with a sewing machine, you need several other little materials. We uncovered me a magnetic pin-cushion, and an old miniature ironing board that was my great-grandma's.  

Looks pretty old, doesn't it?

So of course, I promptly took a page out of my mothers proverbial book and Christmas wrapped the board with fabric and pinned it up so it would stay put.

And ended up with that awesome finished product to iron my little heart out.

After doing some practicing and trying to decide what the heck I'm going to make, I started into making a little bow. It was a little bit of a disaster...

Don't worry, the second one turned out great! I don't know what I'll do with it, but I'm sew (hehe just being a little punny) excited to start sewing up everything made of fabric that I can find...And I just might be up all night trying new things and becoming a professional sewer before my very own eyes....

P.S-- I'm considering starting another blog or doing a weely post or something in which I try a new little DIY/sewing project every day for however long I have ideas for. Yea or Nay? 

Love Hate Realtionship

There are a lot of things that I love. On the flip side, there are several things that I hate. And sometimes, I both love and hate things.  All of the below photographs are things that I both love and hate.  

I really love to cross stitch. But it makes me horrible sat when I make a mistake and I have to either cut my thread up and waste a bunch, or I have to un-stitch  inorder to save the thread...It drives me crazy and makes my very relaxing hobby stressful.

Even more then having to un-stitch or waste thread, I hate knots. Because the floss is stored on small rectangle bobbins, the thread gets kinked in that shape. It's also three strands of thread, so if you aren't paying careful attention to every single stitch, you get a huge messy knot that you have to untie. And if it isn't fixable, sometimes you have to cut it and yet again waste thread...ugh.

I also love projects. I think it's fun to find something that needs improvement and make it better. But sometimes, I bite off just a little bit more than I can chew. My latest project is called "Operation find the missing socks spread all over my home". This is just the first basket of socks that I found and then folded. Currently, the room I took half a day cleaning has about 50 pairs of socks without buddies spread across it...and I have a whole other basket and then some left. I hate that

If I'm being completely honest, there is nothing that I hate about this little vacuum. I love this thing. I have hard wood floor in my room and it is just a pain to sweep. but this little guy picks up everything. I love it so much that I instagramed it...Yes, I love a mini vacuum cleaner...

I absolutely love cooking and eating my delicious meals...but I hate that I can't just eat a small portion, I have to eat half of the Cream-a-Soup concoctions. It's not helping the whole negative body image issue that I've got going for me...

Don't ask why this picture is upside down...because I'm not really sure why. But these three beauties are my biggest weaknesses. I can't stay away from them and they are making me gain weight...all that extra sugar is no good so I really love and hate them a whole lot.

A DI Kind of Day

Today, I took a trip to a couple of different Deseret Industries stores. Known to we Utahns as the DI. For those of you who don't know, the DI is basically a secondhand store that is run by the LDS (Mormon) Church. It is a non-profit store that takes any and all donations. They have tons of clothes, appliances, furniture, house wares and basically anything under the sun that you could thingk of. They have it.

I went with intentions to find things to decorate at my wedding with. It might sounds strange to shop at the secondhand store for something like this, but I think it's smart!  I found myself exactly what I was looking for. I didn't really intend to buy 22 Mason jars...but I did. Each jar was only $.50.  I couldn't help myself.  I gave myself some rules before I left to shop. (1) I wasn't allowed to spend more than $30.00 and (2)  If I couldn't fit it all in the box, I couldn't have it. Lucky for me, I'm really good at packing stuff into a box : D. I ended up with jars of different sizes that will look great filled with stuff and painted and all cute...I'm so excited about it!

Also, I found these wicker basket deals that you put your paper plates on so that they don't dump your food off of them. I got 10 of them for $5.00. I'd call that a good find!  I'm planning on putting the jars on the wicker plates with hot-glue after decorating the jars with different things inside and out and putting something cute on the plate. Then I'll have these adorable little hand made center pieces that won't cost me more the $30.00 to make!

I feel very accomplished with my outting and I also feel like this DIY wedding is going to be possible. I'm so excited to start making and buying more things that are going to make our wedding special.  Oh, thrifting, how I love you!

Thrifty

I, like most women these days, have an obsession with Pinterest (<-----That's my page)I'm allowed to be on it at work between calls and I pin like crazy!  Most of the time though, I don't actually do the stuff that I pin or use it. But I always think, One day, I'll be so glad I pinned this. And some times that is totally. Sometimes they're simply pipe dreams (I mean, come on, I'm never going to plan meals every sunday night and post a menu on the fridge...).


Today, my sister, my mom, and I took a stroll through The Quilted Bear (It's a store filled with home-made stuff that people sell i.e. home decor, jewelery, etc.) and there were so many cute things that I thought were so cute and I'm so sure that I could make with my brain tied behind my back. Seeing all this stuff made me think of all the crafty little things that I have seen on Pinterest and how I should be using the knowledge I've gained from it to actually do some of those things I pin and want to try sooo badly.

So, we went to Savers, The Desert Industries (The D.I.) and the overstock stores and looked around for things that we thought we could "up-cycle".  I decided on buying an old jelly roll pan that had been all burnt and used for one too many Totino's Pizzas that was completely perfect no bend or imperfections and I bought it.


J has some strange hate for fridge magnets. But I LOVE them. I think they're cute and I buy one pretty everywhere I visit. I have magnets from all over. He says that he want a stainless still fridge and NO MAGNETS. When I saw these little magnets boards I thought, Perfect! He never said anything about hating magnet board magnents! 


So I brought it home, found some fabric I had laying around (I opted for fabric because the pan was pretty beat up and I didn't think that spray painting would look as good or last as long) and I began working away. I just sorta winged it.

First, I fliped the pan over so that if I was cooking a pizza it would be all wrong and I started gluing with some fabric glue. Basically, I wrapped it like a present and I got glue EVERYWHERE. I've got some work to do on my crafting skills but this was a start and I'm so proud of my finished product!

I'm so excited to put  my own spin on other craft ideas I discover from other pinners. I'm so happy with how this turned out. :)