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?