Help!

Update: I was able to change the template back to the old Minima template that hosts the blog backgrounds the best. Yay! So now my blog is back the way I like it:) If you want to know how I got the Minima template back just send me an e-mail and I will explain it.
~Amy


Okay, so I have never had a problem changing my backgrounds or my banner before. I have changed it many times without the disaster that happened tonight. Blogger must have changed their templates since the last time I switched my background.  Either that or I just need a good nights sleep and a strong cup of coffee before I touch any more HTML!

Anyway, if anyone has any helpful tips for making my blog page design NOT suck, I would appreciate it!

I just hit spellcheck and realized just how tired I really am.

Please help me!

Goodnight.

Halloween Buddies

I don't know what else to call them. Any ideas?



Before you help with a name

you might want to know what they are!

Yep, they are Puff containers!

My son goes through one of these every 1-2 days, so they stack up pretty quick. I used to just recycle them and then one day I peeled off the label and took a look at it and realized that it could be made into characters!!! There are so many possibilities!

See?

Is your mind just racing with ideas of what to make

with this blank canvas?

I just love the shape of them.

Meet Lynette. She is a friendly witch.

She has fun googly eyes with eye makeup on that I found at the Dollar Tree.

Meet Stretch. He was VERY difficult to paint. Ha ha ha!

Meet Spazzy Mazzy.

I wanted something purple(it looks blue, but it's really purple) with googly eyes, so here he is.

Meet Langston. He is awesome.

Meet Frankie! He is my favorite...I pretty much adore him.

Here they are all together...My baby puff containers turned into my Halloween Buddies!!!

I don't claim to be an artist,

but I think they came out pretty darn cute.

Wouldn't these make adorable gifts? Fill them with goodies and give them to teachers and neighbors. They would make a great "Boo!" (If you haven't heard about "Boo"ing your neighbors you should google it)

I am linking up to these parties, and am participating in Get Your Craft On!

Jack O Lantern Tealights

After reading Kasia's Jack O Lantern String Lights post on Dream Home I was inspired to use up some of my glass baby food jars to make something similar. Go check out her post...it's so cute!

Here are my Jack O Lantern Tealights!

I did things a little different than Kasia.

She used food coloring and mod podge to get her gorgeous stained glass appearance, but since I didn't have the food coloring I used orange acrylic paint mixed with the mod podge.

Here they are in all their black and orange glory!

The candlelight really brings out the brushstrokes in the paint and adds a nice touch, don't you think?

I added some raffia around the neck of a couple jars to see if I liked it and think that I will be adding it to the rest of the jars as well.

I love how they turned out and can't wait to put them around my house for halloween:)

I am linking up to some of these parties

Halloween Beanbags, Part 2

While in beanbag restoration mode I saw this fabric at Joannes and decided that it needed to become beanbags.

It was it's destiny. Do you agree?

Cut the fabric 4 1/2 inches by 4 1/2 inches (or whatever size you want) and pin the right sides of the fabric pieces together.

Sew all the way around the beanbag leaving a space an inch or two open for turning. I used a 1/4 inch seam for my beanbags. Remember to backstitch at the beginning and end for strength when you turn the bag later. 

Clip the corners to allow for less bulk and turn the beanbag right side out.

Fill with dried beans and then topstitch around the bag closing up the hole used for turning.

I put too many beans in my bags(i like them full), so I could only topstitch two of the sides.

Tip: Use pins as a barricade to keep the beans away from the edge you are sewing. I didn't take a picture of this step so use your imagination:)

Here they are in all their adorableness.

Finish the bags, take pictures and then let baby (who should be sleeping but is not) play with them in his adorable fuzzy jammies.

Destiny revealed.

I am linking up to some of these super fun blogs:)

Halloween Beanbags, Part 1

The Parent Club for my daughters' school is working on the Fall Carnival right now and I have been so busy with meetings and helping plan out game booths.

We cleaned out the Parent Club room to see what we have and what we need to get for booths.

There was a crate of beanbags that were in desperate need of repair that I saved from the trash pile.

Here they are:

Pile of ratty beanbags rescued from the trash pile

Do you see the staples? Yep, that's right. Staples. Gah!

After removing the staples from the beanbags, I found crushed beans and crumpled paper inside and decided that they needed to be redone completely.

I dumped out the contents into the trash, and then cut down the rectangles of fabric into a more square like shape. I wasn't trying to make them perfect, but anything was an improvement over their previous state! Hi, remember the staples?

I sewed them right sides together, turned them right side out through a 2 inch gap, filled with fresh dried pinto beans and top stitched for extra strength and added pretty:)

Isn't that better?

No chance of children getting cut with these now:) Yay!

Even though this fabric is obviously well worn,

I think these ones are adorable!

I am linking up with these crafty people:)

BFF Crayon Rolls

My daughter's BFF from school moved to another state.

A few weeks ago I went to pick B up from school and as soon as she got in the truck she broke down sobbing and told me that J was moving to Montana. After that she would start crying whenever she thought about it.

To make things a little easier on the girls I decided to make J and B matching crayon rolls using this tutorial. J was going to have a 2 day car trip and I thought this would be a perfect road trip gift and then B having the same one would make them BFF Crayon Rolls. Ha!

Aren't they cute?

I went to the dollar store and got a super cute tote bag to put the crayon roll in, as well as a coloring book and a package of those shaped bands that the kids are crazy about right now. I made a quick card and had all the second graders from both classes sign it and then dropped of the card and gift to the teacher to give to J.

I hope that J had a safe and colorful trip to her new home and that she makes lots of wonderful new friends:)

I am linking up with some of these blogs:)

Reversible Boy Vest

This is a little late, but here it is! I got to be a pattern tester for Little Lizard King's Reversible Vest in size 12-18 months. I told her I could do it and then it seemed like one thing after another got in my way. Sorry!!!

First we had a 2 day garage sale that took me days to prepare for and then several days to recover from. I was on the couch with a heating pad for 3 days after the weekend.

Then I got the vest cut out and sewed together only to freeze at the "add buttonholes" part. I have never done a buttonhole and I am so freaked out to get it wrong and ruin my adorable little vest!

I was waiting to do it, so I could practice a bit first, but just haven't found the time.

So today I decided to take a few pictures and show you what I've got. Buttons will have to wait.

Getting pictures of a very active almost 1 year old is hard to do! I took a ton and most of them were blurred or were of his rear end as he crawled away from me while laughing.

Stinker.

But then I caught this sweet moment with his sisters baby doll. **sigh**

Right after I snapped this he threw her on the floor.

Boys.


I am linking up to some of these blogs:)

{Colorbrick} a beginner’s Quilt-Along

My friend Rachel over at Stitched in Color made this incredibly stunning colorbrick quilt that I have been coveting and drooling over since the first time I layed eyes on it.

Well, now she is going to teach me how to make one of my very own! Okay, maybe not just me;)
You should go take a look at it and think about joining me and then we can have fun quilting parties together. Yep.

Never in my life did I see myself as a quilter...until now.

Colorbrick Quilt, here I come!

Here's the link to the quilt-along info

Ouch.

The last couple days I have been stuck laying on the couch with a heating pad. My lower back is killing me from all the lifting and moving of stuff for the garage sale.

I get up for a bit here and there to get a few things done and then it is right back to the heating pad for me.

Last night I was able to get a pattern and my fabric cut out for a project I am working on. I am pattern testing a reversible boy vest for Little Lizard King and I am so excited!!!! It looks so cute and I am hoping that my back will allow me to work on it some more this evening after the kids are in bed.

I'm alive!

I have gone blog silent for the past few days because of a huge 2 day garage sale that we just finished this afternoon.

Days of sorting and cleaning and pricing, followed by days of talking to strangers while they look at my stuff and try to talk me down 1 hour into the sale(I don't think so!).

In the end we got rid of a bunch of stuff and gained a good amount of money! Yay!

Now I am sitting on the couch with a bag of Candy Corn and a Mango Smirnoff Ice.

It is disgusting and I am too tired to care(or stop).

I am going to start on my next project tomorrow afternoon and will post about my progress on Monday.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and God Bless America!

We will never forget 9/11/2001.

He loves me.

My birthday was last Wednesday(Sept 1st)...I turned 31.

Jon had asked my what I wanted for my birthday and I told him Gilmore Girls, thinking he would get me a season or two. 

Yesterday this arrived in the mail:

I don't know if you can read the tiny writing at the top of the picture so I will tell you what it says:

 "The Complete Series"!!!

Yep, that's right! He bought me the whole series!

He loves me.

This show drives him nuts and he bought me the whole season...to watch whenever I want.

He really loves me!  ;)

Seasons 1-7 Uh-huh!

It came with an episode guide and

a complete guide to Gilmore-isms.

Bliss!

I am seeing long nights of watching Gilmore Girls with a ho-cho (for those of you not in the know that's a hot chocolate) while sewing in the very near future.

Sew Inspired: Alphabet Pennant Banner

So this morning after dropping the girl off at school and while my boys were still sleeping, I grabbed my coffee and started reading through my blog roll.

I read so many amazing posts about fall decorating and back to school, but this one really grabbed me.

This is an Alphabet Pennant Banner by Sarah at Restorative Living

Isn't is darling? Go read her post.

I love how she talks about praying for the children in Nicaragua as she was sewing this banner for the preschool kids there. I had tears in my eyes when I finished reading her post.

When I am making clothes or even a crayon roll I pray for the person who will wear or use what I am making.

With each stitch, I ask God for protection, peace, joy, strength and whatever else comes to mind for that specific person.

When I see my daughter wear the skirt that I sewed in prayer for her I know that she is literally covered in my prayers and I feel such peace.

To all you sewing mama's out there:

Do you do this as well? If not, you should try it!

Garage sale score!

This morning found me up at 7, quietly getting ready to go to a garage sale. Not just any garage sale...a "quilters heaven" garage sale(it said that on the signs and on craigslist). I am not a quilter(yet), but we use some of the same stuff(duh), so I though I would check it out and see if there was anything I would want to add to my fabric stash(cuz I have one).

I left with plenty of time to get a coffee and then was so excited to get there that I drove right past Starbucks! I laughed at myself when I realized that my autopilot brain bypassed coffee to get to a fabric garage sale...I am so cool.

I pulled up to the house to see 3 other cars already there, filled with women decades older than me, drinking their coffee's...I felt like such a rookie.  ;)

At 7:55 they all started getting out of their cars, and not wanting to be left behind, I did the same. Then I noticed that in addition to their coffee, each lady was carrying a reusable bag. What? How did I miss that memo? Rookie mistake #2.

8:10 and the garage was still closed, so the ladies nominated me to go knock on the door.

There was a vote and everything...true story.

I knocked and a very embarrassed woman came to the door and then went to open the garage door for the mob that had accumulated in her driveway. She had put the signs out at 5 and then had fallen back to sleep. Garage sales are hard work!

The fabric was organized beautifully and even though there were so many women there I was able to get what I wanted because we were there for such different reasons. I would see 3 women pass right over the piece I wanted and move right along to something that made me go "Huh? Monochromatic cats?".

Whatever, that felt is mine!

A few women brought their "muscle"(aka: really old husbands) in case things got out of hand, but thankfully things stayed under control and they weren't needed.

Enough of my coffee-less ramblings...here are pictures of what I bought!!! I know you wanna see!

Tons of felt! I got these for applique's on onesies and for making felt flowers for, um, everything!

Here are two huge pieces of felt that I could not pass on...I am sure I will need these at some point.

Solid knit pieces, about a 1/4 yard each. So pretty and so soft:)

Batting, pink flannel and what I think is linen(don't laugh, I'm new). Several yards of each!

For some reason this fabric reminded me of my childhood and I had to have it! Isn't it gorgeous???

Mom, is there a reason for that? Did I have something made out of this?

Some solid cotton and some patterned cotton.

Two sizes of button covering kits, stretch lace binding and thread.

Here it is all together:

Grand total: $15.50!!!

Yep.

SOAP

This laundry soap is amazing!

I have tried several different kinds of detergents for washing my cloth diapers and they were always left with residual "smells"(If you use cloth diapers, you know what I am talking about).

After one wash with this stuff, the smell was gone! I sound so lame, but it's true. This soap has changed my cloth-diaper-life. It is Nellie's all natural laundry soda and you can get it here on their website(which is a really fun site), but I get it from Cottonbabies because there is NO shipping! Yay!

I got it to use on my diapers and now I use it on all of our laundry...our clothes just feel cleaner now.

Here is the back of the package: Isn't it so much fun?

And here is a closer view of the comic:

Even though I love the packaging, I do not like to unzip and zip the, uh, zipper on the bag each time I do a load of laundry. 

To fix that, I took a glass cracker jar that I got at Target(favorite store!) and covered the sides with scrapbook paper and epoxy letters to spell out "SOAP". I added a paper flower to the top and some ribbons around the neck of the jar to pretty it up.

I love it, don't you? It just makes me smile:)

Anything to make doing laundry a little more pleasant, right?