Count down has commenced

In 3 days my mom, dad, and sister Katie will be here In Iowa visiting for a week! I'm sad that my brother and other sister can't make it but I am definitely going to enjoy having half of the family here.

This week I have been wrapping up all the miscellaneous house projects that we have been putting off. I kept waiting for (G) to help but sometimes a girl just has to do it herself. I got lots accomplished and didn't need a boy to help. I finally got our mirror up that his sister gave us at Christmas... It only took 6 months to get it out of the box. I love love love it and it adds class to our empty walls in the master bedroom.

Today was also cleaning and grocery shopping day. I went to the dollar store to buy shampoos and soaps for the Guest shower. While I was there I scored an awesome rug that I totally love.

The rest of my evenings I have amerced myself in the book "The Help"... Yes it is better then the movie!

The weekend will consist of finishing the hog pen in the barn, painting the rest of the outdoor furniture, mowing, and getting ready for our guest! I know come Monday I am going to start getting gittery.

Dear Pinterest – Truthful Tales of Projects Gone Wrong

Dear Pinterest,

I want to profess my love to you. You are always there for me in boredom and for this I want to thank you. In my time of need recent living situation of having no friends I turned to you for guidance as to what to do with my time. I was thrilled with my boards of endless Pinning possibilities. However, I find you deceiving on the outside with your DIY column of lies. These so called “do it yourself” projects are misleading and should come with a disclaimer – Projects may not turn out as lovely perfect freakin awesome as these photos show.

Object Victim #1: DYI Chevron Prints

As seen in the photos above I tried to use this technique to spruce up some containers for my crafting area in the basement.

As you can see my Dear Pinterest… my experience did not come out with the same results. Was it because of my tape… probably but I used painters tape so I figured I was good to go. What really irks me about the chevron pattern was it took forever to get all the corners to match up. So for this I say – this project definitely has a disclaimer.

Puck this… it’s going to just be blue

“Crafters be aware that this project takes precision and accuracy to get the tape in the correct pattern, be aware that after all your blood and sweat that there surely can be tears…”

Object Waste of Money #2: Transferring Photos to Canvas Art

Disclaimer: Follow directions exactly! You MUST use laser printer photos only. Regular prints DO NOT WORK.

Dear P, I was super excited when I saw this result… until I started step 5 – peeling off the paper. Regular prints do not adhere so when I wiped this down it had chunks coming all the way off. I did try this again with a black laser print and it worked…

Disclaimer: Read the small print…….

Dear Pinterest…

I have grown to love Slash hate you… but realize I lean more towards L-O-V-ING you. You have done me dirty in the past but I can’t seem to move on. I still get those butterflies inside when I see a project that I adore. I can’t seem to shake you. Maybe it is because with your bad comes your good.

Lovable Pillows:

{ No Sew Pillow Project }

                                               Mine                                                                         Pinterest

 

United State Map Pillow

My Sun Dress:

 

DYI – Rustoleum Counter Tops

Oh the endless possibilities you give to me….

To see more of my finds and future potential projects you can follow me <3

Tips for Tuesday- Making my List and Checking it Twice…

During this settling process of moving to the country I have had to learn to REALLY adapt to a new living environment. We live 7 miles from town, Ogden, IA which consist of a cute main street and a Casey’s Gas Station – there really isn’t much more to it then that. We live 16 miles from Boone, IA that has a population of 15,000 so there are grocery stores, Wal-Mart, restaurants, small hardware stores. Then you have Ames, IA which is 30 miles away and has the entire Sha-Bang of retailers that I grew up with, a mall (haven’t been yet), Target, Best Buy, Lowes, Panera Bread, you name it they’ve got it.

I have really learned that I can’t just run out and get the items I need. Well, I shouldn't say “Can’t” I certainly can go drive the 7-14 miles for items but that is not an option when trying to save during high gas price and that fact that it is NOT convenient what so ever.  

Instead what I do is I start a list.. surprise surprise! Remember my post on my obsession with “The List”. I still have the obsession and it has grown.

Throughout the week I have a pad of paper on the counter that I add items onto that I will need to pick up on my trip to “town”. These list start out as just a need list then before I head out the door I sit down and organize the list into which stores I can get them at.

Grocery items- Fairway in Boone

Paint & Garden supplies – Lowes, Ames (Can’t wait for the super Wal-Mart in Boone to open!)

Home items – Target or Wal-Mart, Boone or Ames

I probably get some looks as I am walking around  the store, hunched over my shopping cart with my pen and paper in hand grabbing items and crossing them off my list as I go. If I don’t cross them off then I completely skip over them and think I got them but didn’t then I get home and swear at myself since it was the most important item I needed that trip. I also always write down which items are on sale and the price I saw them for in the paper so I know which to buy. We rarely by name brand at the grocer any more, it’s always store brand bread, meat, ice cream, milk.

So that’s my tip for today, whether you live 20 minutes from town or 5 minutes make a list before you walk out the door and save yourself some grief later by not forgetting what you needed in the first place.

Another weekend in the Dust…

Where in the heck do these weekends go? There is so much anticipation leading up to Friday evening that I get completely amped and then I blink and it’s Monday morning. Does anyone else feel like summer is flying by at 100mph?

Saturday was a day of rain, no complaining here, we really need the rain. I’m tired of looking at brown grass and the poor corn was starting to curl from the heat and lack of moisture in the ground. We took advantage of the day by going on a trip to Ames for Hog pen supplies. We really need to start getting our livestock before our insurance company takes us off the farmers insurance claim.

What I thought would take 2 hours turned into a whopping 4 hour trip to Theisens (Ty-sons… really?) and Lowes. Not completely our fault. We went to get a 12ft livestock gate and some lumber and while we were planning our pen out realized we should also get hog paneling. I called around everywhere and everyone was out of hog paneling but they had cattle paneling so we went to look to see if it would work. Wouldn’t you believe that when we pulled up that there was an entire pile of hog paneling in the back. Someone’s computers are not up to date with their inventory. Poor {G} when into Theisens 3 times to do exchanges because what we thought we bought was the wrong thing. We drove 30 mins for supplies so you better believe that we are getting what we need before we drive home.

The rest of the afternoon is a blur… all I remember is unloading the supplies and staying up to watch the Hangover Part two. {G} can’t even stay awake any longer for movies. We started the movie at 6:30 and he fell asleep during it by 8:00pm. We He is such an old fart anymore.

Sunday we went straight to the barn to start assembling the hog pen. Usually I love doing projects like this, sawing, drilling, hammering, I find it fun and a way to stay up to date on how to read rulers… fractions are not my strong point. Aren't 3/4 three forths the same as three quarters? Why does it have to be three quarters when you say it? Oh the dilemmas of my math skills.

As I said, usually, I find this stuff fun and challenging… however… working with my husband on these projects can certainly strike some nerves. Seriously, if you want couples counseling forget paying money to talk to a therapist and instead build something together. It will challenge every aspect of a relationship…. communication, listening, patience, problem solving, trust, etc and in the end you can really see how strong your relationship is by looking at how well you worked together. Did you argue over what length to cut the board… if so how did you fix the argument…. did you get frustrated and walk away or did you listen and talk through some troubleshooting points and come up with the solution?

{G} and I certainly do not see eye to eye on everything when working together but why would we? We may share a life together but not our brains. I will say that we make a great team though. We look at things from completely different angles and are able to stop and talk about our point of views. Instead of walking away and saying,“fine do it your way”, we are stubborn enough in our own ways to say, “No! explain to me what you are saying.” There are sometimes that you have to give a little, like when you think your way is the right way and he thinks his is and there is no way around it. Those are the times I think about what it is we are doing and say to myself (in this situation), “You’re the one who grew up with hogs so lets do it your way.” There is always going to be another argument (we’re married) that I can win and he will have to give in so I keep that on the back burner for when I need it. 

We spent a good amount of time on Sunday building the pen and stopped half way to go to a local estate auction in Boone. After the auction we came home and I made some peach cobbler and grilled supper. We spent the rest of the evening just lounging around reading and enjoying what was left of the weekend.  He even let me watch “Oprahs Next Chapter: The Kardashians… see what I meant by putting the argument on the back burner… (Yes, I know garbage TV but my argument was that “Pawn Stars” is to men’s garbage TV as “Real Housewives” is to women’s garbage TV, If I have to watch yours, you have to watch mine)  WINNING!!!

{ Before photo of hog area in the barn }

 

We’re half way done!

I love Peach cobbler

Sunday Supper – Bacon wrapped Sirloin with fresh from our garden asparagus and potatoes mmmmmmmmmm.mmmmmmmm

If you can’t find it… SEW it! {Easy Dresses}

That’s right people, Dresses SEW so easy I could even make one!

First I’ll give you my background in sewing….

- I watched a YouTube video to learn how to string a Brother machine that a friend gave me back in SD.

- I can hand sew a button to a shirt

- I have watched my mom sew since I was a little girl

Well, that’s it! Seriously, no lie, I have never taken a class in my life. Not even in middle school when we had to choose our elective classes, there was sewing class and wood shop, I choose wood shop.

When I came across a dress like this on pinterest I was completely taken by it. I love the simplicity and the length of it. You can find dresses like this but they are always way too short for this married gal. My sisters can pull them off being 21 but as {G} would say, “Please dress your age… jean shorts and short short dresses are not necessary”.

I was intrigued so I clicked on the picture to see how it was made by going to this girls blog and that was it, a super easy tutorial on “How to” make this dress and after reading it over and over I thought to myself, I can do this! Plus as stated in previous post, I have few friends here in Iowa so this is a great project to replace human contact.

I’m not going to go step by step through how to make the dress since LeAna over at A Small Snippet does such a wonderful job of doing so.  I will, as always, just put in place what things I changed and what may help others trying this project. I will say before hand I am 100% satisfied, LeAna was right, this is super easy!

{ My fabric }

I went to Joann’s and found two cute prints. The blue was just to great to pass up for a summer dress! I just love the color and will pair it with a grey laced tank top like in the picture above. The second fabric has poppy flowers on it! How could I resist! It’s more a spring color but who cares, I could rock it all the way through Fall if I add a brown belt and brown cardigan.

I made it through all of the steps with making the box-y skirt and then hit a road block when it came time to put an elastic seam around the top of the skirt. I read LeAna’s blog on how to thread the machine correctly and it just was not catching the elastic thread. So… I read another blog… and another about using elastic thread. It took me about an hour off course but FINALLY I got the thread to start working!

* Even with the elastic thread my skirt was way too lose so I took the tip LeAna gave about Ironing the skirt so the elastic becomes tighter. It did but was still way to loose so I added a step by making pleats at the top and then running the elastic through it again. This solved my problem and made the skirt fit properly.

Adding pleats

By adding a few small pleats at the top it shrunk the waist band more to fit

Skirt test run #1 ( Too put on the skirt it has to be put on over my head, it is too narrow to put on from my feet over my hips )

Butt Rear shot

After I was able to do this properly I wanted to see if I had cut the tank top to the correct length so I tried it on.

{Not sewn together yet}

Does anyone else have problems with taking behind photos? 

My tank top was still a bit longer then I liked so I took another inch off using my fabric cutter. My FAVORITE cutting tool ever! 

After this I followed the instructions on how to sew on the top.

*Make sure that when you are sewing these together that your matching the seem from the skirt to the back of your tank top. You don’t want the seam to end up in some random spot on the dress.

Sewn together!

Front Side Shot

Before I made the sash I tried it with a thick brown belt and my boots! LOVE!

After I went back to the sewing table and made my sash for a more completed dress look

Ugh… I hate bad back shots but here is what it looks like with the sash from the back

Finish it up by adding some cute boots to the mix!

 

Thanks to LeAna for putting this tutorial up on Pinterest! I am so pleased with the dress that I sent a photo to my Best friend to ask if I could make it in brown for my brides maid dress this Fall. She is having a laid back wedding and told us girls to just find a brown dress and wear boots.  I have search far and wide and couldn’t find what I was looking for until now!

I am so excited to make my blue dress and start the search for some great brown fabric to make my brides maid dress. Hope you all love the dress too and if you are daring for an easy first sewing project this is the one!

Crafting Spaces … Pretty vs. Practical

How many of you are obsessed with Pinterest? Me Me Me! I love going on Pinterest at least twice a day whether on my phone or on the actual site. There are so many wonderful ideas out there that get these creative juices going.

However, in order to be able to create you need to have your own space or else things end up all over the kitchen table and countertops. Another thing I love about Pinterest is not only does it give projects for me to go elbow deep into it always shows photos of “Dream” home decor.

Here’s where I scratch my head. Picture of these craft rooms make me oober jealous but are they practical?

Maybe the answer to my question is, “Yes, they are pretty and practical”. My fear is getting them dirty! When I craft I have paper scraps everywhere, glue on the table, fabric scattered, cartridges for my cricut lined up…. it certainly is far from what these rooms are above.

Since moving to the new house I have gotten a craft room of my own. On the unfinished side of the basement sat an old built in tool table that I called Dibs on! {G} has an entire shop in the farm building for his boy stuff so I needed this space.

Believe me it is far from looking real pretty but I hope that over time I can do some painting and organizing to bring it up to 2012-2013. I am so excited to have it and use it almost everyday!

I love that the craft bench is red!

Not the Prettiest room but it is certainly practical!

The sewing side to my craft table… I actually got the sewing machine working!

Organized some of my crafting tools

My plastic craft bins under the bench

Reused cans that I spray painted blue

Built in drawers to keep supplies off the bench

My Cricut machine out of the box and dusted off!

Knitting bag, photo boxes, and other crafting supplies

Some day I will get around to beautifying my craft space but for now I’m just thrilled that I have it! Here is one of my first projects I completed in my space, of course from Pinterest! Pictures transferred to canvas art!