Some Weekend Crafting

I did two easy craft projects this weekend, neither of which cost very much. I had most of the items I needed already, and what I didn't have I found at Dollar Tree or Wal-mart.

The first things I made were these magnets:

I got the idea from the tutorial found here. She did Christmas magnets, which I'm sure I will do in a few months.. along with Halloween ones too!  I pretty much just followed her tutorial, except that I don't have Paper Mod Podge, just the regular kind, and it worked just fine.

The second thing I made was a new wreath for our front door. Since I took the July 4th decorations down, I needed something to put there that would last through the summer months.

I simply tied scrap pieces of fabric onto a grapevine wreath... couldn't be any easier! As I was going through my fabric scraps, I found a lot of blue and yellow fabrics, so I just went with those, but you could do this in any color combination you liked.

I started a third project, but it's not finished yet, so I'll post about it once it's done. Hope everyone is having a good week.

More Pillowcase Dresses

I cannot stop making these pillowcase dresses... they are so adorable, and the pattern is so easy and fast. Here are three more that I have made:

I think I may try to sell some of them locally and see how I do.

I've Been Sewing!!

I am so thrilled to be working in my new craft room. I can't tell you how fantastic it is to have everything organized and close at hand. I've already been sewing. Here are a few pillows I made:

This one is for my craft room.

Becky found a fabric she loved in my stash, so I made her a pillow using it:

I have to say that I love that fabric too. I bought it at Hancock Fabrics over a year ago, so I'm sure they don't have anymore now... it's one of those fabrics I should have bought 4 or 5 yards of!!

I finally jumped on the bunting bandwagon... or pennants, or whatever you want to call them. I have seen them all over blogland and wasn't going to make any, but then I decided that I needed some color over the window in my craft room, but didn't want to put curtains there. Here is what I came up with:

It adds a nice splash of color without blocking the window too much.

I also made a couple of mug rugs. I am new to quilting, so these did not turn out as good as I would have liked, but I will keep trying!

Finally, I came across a pattern for an easy toddler pillowcase dress using 2 fat quarters of fabric. It was so easy to make, and you can whip one up in no time at all. The pattern can be found here.

I plan on making more of these, as I have lots of fat quarters in my stash!

Okay, off to do more sewing... have a fabulous day!

My New Sewing/Craft Room

With the help of my wonderful sister-in-law Becky, the sewing/craft room in our new home is all organized and beautiful. Let me take you on a tour. Here is the view from the doorway:

Right to the left as you come in, you see the cute picture frames that Becky made me:

Here is the view facing the closet:

Above the closet doors is my favorite thing in the room; it is a "Sandy Sewz" sign that Becky made for me... isn't it awesome???

Right in front of the window is my desk with my computer and printer:

On the wall to the left of the desk is the bulletin board, also made by Becky! The armoire to the right of the desk has my television on top, and is filled with fabric:

The fabric is stored on comic book boards, an idea I had seen here. It worked great!

Becky stayed up till the wee hours folding fabric onto boards... I am so lucky to have her!

To the right of the armoire is a 9-cubby organizer I purchased at Target that is filled with yarn:

Do you see the cute buttons above the storage cubby? Once again, my creative sister-in-law made these (inspired by the blog post found here)  I had seen that project and wanted to make them, but never got around to it - Becky saw it too and made them for me, and we had never even talked about them!

On top of the cubby are magazine storage boxes that Becky also made me! She purchased plain white boxes from Ikea and then decorated them with scrapbook paper.  They hold my quilting and sewing magazines.

Here is my sewing area:

It is pretty small, but it will do for now. Eventually I want to get a bigger table to sew on. In front of it is another Target cubby; the "Craft" and "Create" signs were purchased at Jo-Anns.

This room has a great closet, and we took advantage of every inch of space:

I needed more fabric storage, and Becky came up with the great idea of using closet organizers:

They hang from the rod in the closet and give me lots of room ... look, there's even empty space for more fabric... yay!

I found this ironing board cover at Ross, and since it was the colors of the room, I just had to get it:

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my wonderful sister-in-law for all of her help with this room ... she is so great at organizing things, I think she missed her calling!

I sooooooo love my new space, and have already made several things. I'll save them for another post though. Hope you enjoyed the tour!

More July 4th Decorating

So I decided I wanted to make a Fourth of July vignette for inside the house after making my easy wreath the other day. Once again, Dollar Tree and Wal-Mart to the rescue!

I got most everything at Dollar Tree - think the only things I got at Wal-mart were the red candle, the flag and the white picture frame.

That cute little printable is from here:  http://landeeseelandeedo.blogspot.com/2011/06/fourth-of-july-printable.html

I just found Landee's blog the other day and I love it... she is so creative. You should see what she did with styrofoam and thumb tacks!!

I love doing vignettes like these for the holidays ... they are so much fun!

Easiest 4th of July Wreath Ever

I can't believe July 4th will be here so soon! I wanted to make something for the holiday, but my craft room is not organized yet, so I couldn't get to my "stuff." So I went to the dollar store to see what I could find, and here is what I came up with:

The whole thing cost me around $5 and took about 5 minutes.... easy peasy! Here are the supplies you will need:

Grapevine wreath (I could only find a 9 inch one, would have preferred bigger, but that is all they had); ribbon; glittery star garland and some patriotic bows. I purchased everything at Dollar Tree with the exception of the ribbon; I found it at Wal-Mart.

First thing I did was wrap the ribbon around the grapevine wreath. I secured it in the back with a pin:

Next came the star garland. Again, I just wrapped it around the wreath:

The patriotic bow came with its own twist tie, so I just wrapped it around the wreath and secured it in the back. That was it!

That was definitely the easiest wreath I have ever made! If you need a quick holiday decoration, give this one a try.

Happy 4th Everyone!

Yes, I'm Still Here!!

Wow, has it really been since April that I have posted on here?? My goodness, so much has happened. We moved into our new home in Hereford on Memorial Day weekend and have been trying to get unpacked and settled in. Things were going along great until last Sunday, when a "little grass fire" started in the Huachuca Mountains behind us. As you probably have heard, that little fire grew into a huge fire that has now destroyed over 20,000 acres and many homes and businesses.

The fire swept through our neighborhood, but fortunately our home is still standing. We were evacuated from our home for a week, so we stayed in a friend's apartment for 2 nights, then went to our house in Tucson and slept on an air mattress there. Thank goodness our tenants had not moved in yet, or we would have had no place to go. Our families were awesome, they brought us sheets, towels and other necessities that we needed while we were there. We are now back in our home and trying to get back to normal.

Here are a few pictures.  This is the view outside my kitchen window last Tuesday when we were evacuated:

The fire did not even hit our neighborhood that day; that happened on Thursday.

How close it came:

We feel very fortunate and blessed to still have our home; some lost everything they owned. Our community has been awesome through this whole tragedy, helping and supporting one another. We plan to help out others as best we can; it is the least we can do.