Illuminating Blogger Award

Kasey from My Life on the Divide went and done did it! That girl.... she went and made me get all teary because she nominated me for an award! Yes ME! I never get nominated for anything, well maybe World's Best Mom every Mother's Day by my kids but they have to. It's in the contract.

She nominated me for the Illuminating Blogger Award! Not only that but she sent me the sweetest email to tell me this and I really had to hold my heart because I was truly touched by her words.


Now let me tell you a little bit about Kasey. She has an adorable infant son, although all I've seen are his toes. But I can tell from those sweet, chubby feet that he is a stunner because if you see pics of Kasey in all her awesome re-fashions, you will see what a she is a stunner as well. Plus she lives in Nevada and has the most amazing views off of her back deck!

She just started blogging and she does the most amazing re-fashions of just about everything. Her goal is spend little or no money on new clothes for this season of her life and I would say she is accomplishing this in spades! I especially love her painted suede cuff  and she just posted painted shoes! She is fearless with her scissors and that inspires me to be fearless in the refashion arena. I think we'd make a great team if ever challenged to a crafty duel! So as the World's Best Mom, I am ordering you to get over to see her right now. Don't make me stop this blog.....I will pull over so fast your head will spin!!

Also PLEASE don't forget to follow her because as a new blogger myself, it encourages us to keep at it and I really want her to keep at it.

So as part of this award, I am supposed to tell you something random about myself. Okay, here it goes......This may surprise many of you but I am NOT a natural blond. Whew, I said it. That made me feel so much better. Half the battle is admitting you have a problem right?

I feel like a weight has been lifted and now our relationship can truly move forward. I love each and everyone of you who stops by to visit me and your comments are always so encouraging. You bring a smile to my face and a song to my heart. I think I might run into a meadow and start singing the "Sound of Music" you make me so happy! Keep visiting and I'm off to nominate me a few lights of my life!

Hugs and big, fat wet kisses!

Always being renewed,

Copper-leaf Drop Leaf Table

Finally got this girl finished!!! I didn't think this was going to be such an ordeal but drop leaf tables are hard to paint! I found her in the trash on the way to dropping the kids off at school!! Missing a foot and I didn't have tome to search so I just grabbed and floored it. When I stopped on the way back for a better look-see, I found the foot laying on top of the bagged trash in the can! Whoo Hoo! That sounded kinda morbid didn't it!

Anyhoo, I have a super busy night ahead so I am getting right to the photos. I hope you like!!

Before 

 She was so ashamed she couldn't even show her face.  

 But that didn't stop her from showing off her fabulous legs!

Pretty bad huh?

After: 

She looks so classy now. She doesn't need to show her legs to get attention 

 I wanted the copper leaf to be a little rustic on the legs and the line detail. I hand-painted the Allium detail with the sizing gel and then copper leafed it. I love how it turned out. I have been wanting to use leafing on a project for a while but I didn't want to use it the traditional way. No surprise there =0)! I will definitely be using this technique again.

 I used a heavy hand with the sizing so it looks raised and I really love that aspect of it. I tried to get a photo to show that but I was in a hurry and just didn't.

Lame I know. 

I shouldn't even be allowed to carry a blogging license. 

Recap....... Before:

After:

She's in the shop if you are interested!

Always being renewed,

Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are.      

Childs shoe refashion

I rarely by my kids shoes at a retail store. They are just so hard on them and they grow so fast. AND I can pretty much get almost new shoes for like $0.95!

I picked some adorable pink slip ons for $1.50 at the Red, White, and Blue for Tessa because she has only been wearing flip flops to church for the last 6 weeks and frankly I thought they might start taking up a collection for our family.

She loved them at first but about 3 days later she said she needed new church shoes. Why?

"Mama, they have no sparkly stuff!"

So Sparkle she shall have......and so can you! The secret ingredient is........

Glitter Nail polish. This should be in every DIYer's tool box!


This was two coats. I painted just inside the sewn area but I didn't like how the ring turned out so I painted the whole ring and not just inside the thread. Then I added some snappy dots and Badda Bing!



Tess gave this two toes up with a circle snap!

Always being renewed,

Little Clay People

Today I am going to highlight some cute clay creations my middle bean and littlest bean created! I love it when my kids  create things (who doesn't) and I thought it would be great to highlight when kids create.

So I try to have my kids NOT watch TV first thing in the mornings, especially all summer long. So the previous night I told the girls, ('cuz ya' know the 13 year old boy isn't waking up early during summer vacation), "You're not waking up every morning and watching TV. Do something creative or play quietly in your room". There, I felt like I had created an atmosphere where I might get a few extra ZZZZZ's in the a.m.

Well, who knew how this would take off! I came down about 20 minutes after I heard the girls get up and pitter patter downstairs. I made my coffee and mosied into the DR to see what the girls were doing.

To say that clay was everywhere was an understatement but I was so amazed at how cute the little clay people were I didn't really care. Although I was also amazed at how they did manage to get so much said clay everywhere in 20 minutes.

Then Izzy asked "are you gonna put these on the blog?"  Well......Yeah!?!

Her face lit up!

And then Tessa thought this sounded super great as well and started clapping her hands and saying 'She's going to put it on the blog!"........."What's a blog?" and my face lit up and I think coffee might have come out my nose a bit but I am not sure.

So you can stop holding your breath, here are the pictures and a small tutorial because after all, they are small people! Here's the story she told me as we took the pictures......

" Four friends got together and decided to take a trip....Hazel, Betty, Margaret, and Martha" I added the names because it made her laugh and I really like making her laugh. 

"So they take off to NYC! See the Empire State Building? And the tree by that building?"

"And you can't go to NYC without taking a cab or a Limo!" (Really? I never took a limo in NYC)  I suppose I should be glad they didn't decide to make the Subway System!

"And this is the M & M Store! 'Cuz that was my favorite place!"

I asked her to make all the pieces so I could photograph them and then she could put it together picture by picture. So this will become Granny. Izzy thought it would be funny to have "Granny" accompany Hazel and company to NYC. 

Dress, Head, Hair, Arms, and Feet

Roll dress clay into a round pyramid shape, add detail if you like.
Put head on top

 Put hair on top

 Add the arms, shorten them if you need to

Add the feet on the bottom. Pretty simple tutorial.

Now I said shouldn't the feet be the same size, she said "it doesn't matter, Don't worry"  Gosh darn it.

She was right!

Tessa and Izzy played with these little people for 4 hours! Now that I love and I felt like we beat the Cable beast for a bit. (Insert loud, evil triumphant laugh here)

Sometimes adults complicate things. We could learn a few things from them there kids.

Always being renewed,

Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are.      

How to make an easy, elastic cushion cover

Sorry about being away for awhile. End of school, my In-Laws celebrated 50 years together, WOOT,WOOT!! 

I mean they deserve a serious WOOT, WOOT!  

So I am finally able to show you some more progress on the porch.

Below is the before. Greens and blues although the green is seriously faded because I didn't use outdoor fabric but I still like it.  But my chairs needed an update as well and I wanted something a bit different but economical. So drop cloths to the rescue. I rarely shop for my fabric on the bolt. You need to get twice as much and even with a coupon you might be spending a lot of loot.

 If I need a large amount of fabric, here's where I go first:

tablecloths

sheets

shower curtains

drop cloths

Lots of yardage for not a lot of moohla. Now that deserves a WOOT! Today I adjust going to show yo how to make a cover for the bed cushion. I originally made the green cushion cover with a Velcro closure. But this time I wanted an easy on/off to wash it. So I made it with an elastic edge to just cover the top and sides. Super easy off and on is right!  

Here's the skinny on how to make it plus have some left overs for pillow covers!:

drop cloth ( I used a 4' x 15')

serger or sewing machine

matching thread and scissors (they don't have to match but if they do, then you are one amazingly coordinated crafter and I am jealous!)

your cushion to use as a guide

3/8" wide elastic (enough to go around 3/4 of the perimeter)   

Wash and dry your drop cloth. Lay your cushion on top and cut 1/2 " away from the edge all the way around. So the piece above is 1/2" larger than my cushion all the way around. This is your seam allowance. 

Now cut 2 short pieces as long as the short side  and 2 long pieces as long as the long sides. These will cover the edge of your cushion.  I made mine 6 inches wide but make yours wide enough to cover the side and a little but of the bottom of the cushion plus 2" for the elastic casing and seam allowance. If you can, use the finished edge as your finished edge for these pieces. Just saves time. If you can't, don't sweat it you can finish them later with a zigzag stitch.

 Sew these four pieces together at the corners, like above. With side seams facing out, lay on your top piece. This is right sides together for you sewing aficionados. Sew around the perimeter, 1/2 " from the edge.

This is what it will look like up close when you are about to turn your corner. 

I lifted the corner so yo can see how you are to end the corner. The bottom material is your top piece and the top material are your edge pieces.

Open your side seam allowance to lie flat and sew until  your needle is in the middle of that seam. Leave your needle down in the material but lift your presser foot. Spin your material so you are now working on the next side. Take the edge material and make it lie flat and out of the way and now you side seam should line up with the next edge of the top piece.

Like this. Put your presser foot down again and keep sewing. Do this for all corners.

It will look like this when you turn it right side out.

If your edge isn't finished, either serge it or zigzag the edge to keep it from fraying. My long sides have the finished edge already so I had to serge the short sides. Apparently I was only half as smart today.  

Fold over 1/2" and sew along the edge. This will make a sleeve to thread your elastic through. Do not sew the whole thing shut or you will not be able to thread your elastic. Leave about a 1.5" opening. 

This is where I really should have thought of a clever tool to use other than a  safety pin to help me thread the elastic through the casing! Half way through this as I watched  my thumb and pointer finger become horribly gnarled and frozen in one position, I thought "HMM, maybe I should have stapled the end of the elastic to a chopstick and that would have made this go so much faster!!!!!"  My arms and hands literally ached  the next day. Makes you want to go out and start on this project straight away doesn't it! 

Be smart, use a long chopstick! I am betting I am the first blogger to say use a chopstick in a sewing tutorial. I set such great standards. We might even start using them as knitting needles because if you read this blog long enough you will find I never use anything the right way and for it's intended purpose. Well, maybe the sewing machine. I'll have to see how i can re-purpose that in another post =0)

Once the elastic is threaded, pull both ends out together and sew them well using the zigzag stitch. Now even out all your material around the elastic. It should look like this.

Try it on your cushion.

I decided I wanted to make sure that it won't come off with the random jumping on the bed that occurs so I sewed on some ties using the cut off finished edging.

Finished product!

I have two regular pillow on the bed so I just made some pillowcases out of some more drop cloth. Definitely use the finished edge here. Took like 4 minutes to cut and serge!

Added ties to close it up and DONE!

Now on to some pillow covers.  The material on the left is a shower curtain and the right is a king size sheet set. Shower curtain cost $3.00 at the Goodwill and the sheets were $5 at a yard sale. Buy it when you see it because you never know when you can use it. I just got the sheets but I have had the shower curtain laying around since winter. Trust me. You will use it.

 I layed my pillow on the material and cut out my drop cloth back first. Then used that square as a pattern to cut out the shower curtain material. Do this with the right side facing up (white geometric) because the shower curtain already had a tan liner and if I had to flip it to make it right sides together the liner and material would have come apart. So i pinned it in place with right sides together and then cut it out and then I was able to just take it to the serger and stitch as is. Leave about 8" open so you can stuff your pillow form inside.

Pin your edges inside and hand stitch the opening closed.

Not sure I like the blue with the tan but until I find some black and light tan print material, it will have to do. 

What I do like is it is relaxing, easy, and looks sa-weet!

I am currently working on the chair -re-dos and a rustic element to add to the sitting arrangement. I am seriously hoping it turns out like I envision it in my mind. So check back and I will eventually show you the whole thing, you poor patient dears!

Always being renewed,

Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are.