Do you think it looks any better?

This week I had a wonderful breakthrough in the world of home organization. I am not extremely good at keeping my house free of clutter and I usually just adapt to the mess and forget it's there. Last week when we came back from vacation, I realized something could actually be done to improve the disastrous situation that we call home. I selected one area of our house to focus on which happens to be the craziest, most cluttered area I have ever seen. Let's see if you agree that the buffet is an improvement to the "organization" I had before.

The before shot:



And, the after:



I really love it.

Burp Cloths

These turned out really well. I like that they were started and finished in less than an hour and I even managed to use freshly laundered cloth diapers and less recently laundered fabric. I was proud of myself for washing and ironing both the fabric and the diapers. I guess it's good to take those small victories when they come along.

Washington trip

We recently returned from visiting my family in Washington for a week and a half. It was such a nice visit with wonderful food, beautiful weather and the very best company. The weather was gorgeous and we got to spend lots of time outside. I actually got to see all 5 of my siblings in the same place at the same time which hasn't happened in about 4 years. It was so fun! We saw my sister, her husband, and baby sealed in the Seattle Temple and it was a very special day. They were all glowing, but especially baby E. This is the sealing outfit I made for him. It wasn't the easiest project I've done to date, but like always, I learned a lot in the process.


The shirt is so light and delicate! My favorite is the corduroy pants, I love corduroy!

A return to older days

This is my first attempt at headwear. I did have some guides to help me along the way, and I think it turned out very well. This will be for Pioneer Day on July 24th, but I'm not sure I can resist wearing it around much more frequently. What a great way to beat the Texas heat while gardening!

This is my last effort

I haven't given up yet, but I am getting close. I bought a new tomato plant, some cucumbers, a dill plant, and a cilantro plant. I also picked up another package of beans. I wrapped the garden in plastic chicken wire and used tent poles and shoelaces to keep it from falling in and smashing the plants. I purchased some plant food and sprinkled it around the plants. I will do my best to water them daily or every two days.

Fruit Salad

6 cups sliced fruit
1/4 cup vanilla yogurt
1 Tbsp honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix yogurt, honey and cinnamon. Pour over fruit. Serve immediately, the fruit doesn't look good after refrigeration.

Some baby blocks

I briefly skimmed a tutorial the other day that taught how to make cute soft baby blocks. I decided to use 2 layers of foam and a jingle bell inside. These are just my first tries, but I was thinking I could applique all kinds of neat things on the different sides.



Oh, and for anyone who likes seeing where people do their creative work, this is my end table. I purchased it a year ago at a garage sale for $5. I use it as my sewing table so I can sew in the living room and watch tv while I sew. I can't really watch tv while I sew, but I still like being somewhere that is so open. I sit on the couch with my table in front of me and my sewing box on the couch next to me. The table has room for the machine, scissors, and a pin cushion. It works beautifully.

The tutorial I mentioned can be found here.

Our mini family!!!

I keep seeing such cute wooden dolls around in stores ($$$!) and on blogs so I decided to make some for Lincoln. They are in a rough state right now, Lincoln played with them before the hands and finish could be applied so Daddy especially is in a bit of a bruised state. I'm afraid I probably won't touch up those scars before finishing them up. Lincoln really loves them. He likes to make mom and dad kiss and the family went to the zoo and drove the bus the other day.

The garden update

I'm afraid there isn't much good news with regard to the garden. It isn't doing so hot. The birds? ate all but one cucumber plant before this picture, it has since perished as well. The dill died out, the cabbage plants died out, the cilantro is barely hanging on. The onions and radishes are doing relatively well. The beans, well, I'm not sure what's going to happen. There is a lot of damage, but also some growth. We'll see. I haven't gotten around to putting a fence up around it yet, but I may miss my chance. Oh, and the tomato and pepper plants seem to be maintaining their size without too many leaf losses. I tried to replant some cilantro and dill, but those lasted about a week before dying in the house and then outside.

A tote for Kate

I already sent it to her and she has received it so now I can post the pictures I took. Unfortunately, I packed it up before taking these pictures so I had to unpack and repack it.



Oh, and it's reversable.



The dinosaur didn't come with the bag, he was just exploring.

Another update

I seem to get all my blogging done in big spurts. Sorry about that. Here is a photo of Raelee in the dress I made for her. It turns out it fit her really well. I am so excited!

An applique project

One of my favorite artists/bloggers is syko. She creates some really beautiful artwork using scraps of fabric and stitched details. I have been inspired for a while, and now this is my first attempt at anything related to her craft. I don't really know how she does her appliques so mine may be way off, but I like it.



Oh, and the frame was just a test to see what it looked like flat, it doesn't fit and it isn't a permanent resting place.

My first makeover

From this:

























To this:



I bought the pillow for 50 cents at a garage sale with the intention of making it over in new fabric. I only took about a month to do it and I'd say that's pretty good. The other day, my husband was wishing we had more pillows near the couch and I remembered it was on the to-do list.

Maybe you're the one with the problem

So I drove 40 minutes to Garland to look through a lady's fabric stash. She advertised on Craigslist that she would sell some of her stash by the yard for $3-$5 per yard. I thought, well, ther probably won't be a whole lot I like so I'll put $40 as my max and I don't have to spend it all if I don't find enough that I really want. This weekend, I worked as quickly as I could to make the $40 doing my new data entry job. I took out the cash so I wouldn't spend more than my limit and Lincoln and I drove off on our journey to Garland. Chris took the old car so I could drive on the toll roads and that in itself proves how dedicated I was to looking at this fabric. The end of the story is she had a lot of really cool fabric that I really wanted and I spent more than 3 times my budget. Oops.

I bought 2 yards each of these:



Then 1 yard each of these:



Then 1/4 yard of these:

and these:


Can you really blame me though? I mean, come on!

Afterwards, we went to see where Chris works and have lunch with him. Lincoln fell asleep in the car on the way home. I managed to stay awake. It was a fun day trip, but it sure wore me out.

Another dress for Raelee

This was a learning experience. I learned that it is important to make casings for elastic and then thread the elastic through afterwards. I didn't do it that way and you can kind of tell. Although I tried to make the dress a 2T, it wouldn't go on my 2T model so I'm not sure it will fit Raelee either. The other part of it that I tried for the first time was the gathering at the waist. I loosely basted and then pulled the thread to the desired amount of gathering. I will do better when I try to do somthing similar in the future, but for now this was a pretty good first attempt. Maybe I will make one in my size.