Afternoon Tea

I have a new afternoon drink. Does anyone else have a mason jar fetish?? I just loooove mason jars. I have way too many.  But, I do use them. See?

They're great for all the bulk foods I buy at Sprouts! Especially with these self-sealing plastic lids (because the metal ones tend to rust in the dishwasher).

When I saw this idea on Pinterest, I knew I'd found my new favorite use.

Mmmmm, iced tea in a jar.  Here's how I make it: I put water in a big mason jar, leaving room for ice, with two tea bags (so far, Celestial Seasonings Blueberry is my favorite), microwave it for two minutes and let it steep for about 10 minutes.  Fill 'er up with ice (remove the tea bags first if you want) and add a lemon slice or two. Yum! This lasts me all afternoon and did you know that herbal tea (unsweetened) counts toward your daily water? Bonus :) Mango tea with orange slices sounds yummy too!

Life Events

So sorry for the radio silence this last week! In my defense, we are busy around here, celebrating some major life events!  First off, Casey and I celebrated our tenth anniversary a couple days ago! Second, I am officially graduating college on Monday, with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication and third, our little dude turns 3 next Sunday. Whew! Oh, and in a few months, I will be turning 30, so 2011 is a big year for me :)

I really don't like not blogging for a whole week because now I have too many bloggy thoughts rolling around in my head. I have to start somewhere, though, so I will show you some pics of Beautiful Colorado, where you can drive a few hours and find yourself in wine country, in a gorgeous hotel next to a mountainside and on a carriage tour escorting you from winery to meadery to distillery, where you can get a grand wine education. That's what we did for our big 10th. It was our first ever anniversary trip and we are thankful for the Grandmas who made our absence possible and worry free for a couple days :)

hehehe.

This is Mt. Garfield, a massive mesa that was literally right next to the Wine Country Inn, where we were staying!

This was our tour guide, Heidi and her sidekick, Millie :) Oh, and that's Clyde up front.

Casey picked these for me. Aw :)

I'm excited to show you all some things I've been working on! I've tried some great recipes, I've started on some Fall sewing for the girls and I've discovered some pretty good books, movies and music! Can't wait to share!

Cheers :)

'ello, me lady

So, we went to the Renaissance Festival and it's safe to say that I totally underestimated the beast in terms of traffic, parking, sheer size, bawdy humor, number of crazy-in-your-face bosoms, and the boldness of oversized people in undersized fairy tutus. And it was hot. We spent $25 collectively on water and did not have to pee, if that tells you anything.

It was fun. But, when we got in the car, I said, "I don't think I want to do that again next year," and Casey said, "Uh, or ever?"  We agreed that now that we've been there, we don't need to go there again, ha! I got some fun pics, though :)

We were on team Roderick. That's him in the black. Mom and I agreed he was the cutest one ;)

Those two extra kiddos are my niece and nephew, in case you were wondering :)

Men and their swords...

Casey and his bro. I took this for their mama :)

Fair thee well.

June Cleaver

One of the prizes from the Spring Top contest was two Lisette patterns of my choice.  I've been itching to make this one ever since!  I had some pretty white eyelet (also a Spring Top prize!), but didn't really want an entire dress out of it. So, I picked up some really pretty swiss dot at JoAnn while it was half off and put my dress together.
Here's how it turned out...

Casey really likes this one; he said I look polished, like June Cleaver, ha! He meant that in a good way :)  You can read my review of this pattern here.

I lined this whole dress using this awesome tutorial on lining a sleeveless bodice without hand sewing and it is pure magic! So, I just had to share :)

I plan on making the jacket on this pattern too. I never would have given it a second glance going by the pattern envelope, but I saw this version on Flickr and could envision it all kinds of ways! I already found the perfect fabric too :) Maybe I'm just barely starting to be ready for Fall, but it can hold off for quite awhile longer, if you ask me!

Catching Up!

I have taken lots of pictures of random goings on this week! I recently started a little list of things I want to blog about, but I realize now that just picking one of those things per post will put me behind pretty quickly. Sooo, I'm going to share a whole week with you, ha! 

For starters, check out my first Dahlia! It was well worth the wait and there are several more big ol' buds waiting to bloom. Wowzers, it is huge and so beautiful!!!!

 

I think I jumped the gun on sharing my couch makeover because the very next day, I turned some embroidered tea towels, of which I only had Sunday and Monday, into some quilted pillows. The vintage ball fringe is something I got at a yard sale several years ago and have been waiting for the right project to come around. Turns out, this was it :)

I got my carpet, rug and couches cleaned this week and boy do they look better! If I had taken this picture on Monday, I would have been too embarrassed of the yucky carpet to post it, but not today...

This is my boy trying on some of the girls' stuff. Don't tell Daddy :)

Gotta love that cute little plumber's crack, right?

Last night we had a movie night! Some friends of ours found The Lion King on VHS and they brought it over (along with their VHS player because we're losers and don't have one) and we cuddled up to watch. Granny came...

Love that pic! :)

For dinner, I made some pizza bites. I found these on Pinterest and I must link the recipe because they are FABULOUS! You bake them in muffin tins and dip them in pizza sauce. I've made them twice now and they are my new/easier version of pizza and movie night. So much fun. You can find the recipe here. Instead of chopping pepperoni, I use the new mini pepperonis which make it even easier. Yum. Double it because they go fast :)

I have lots more good recipes waiting to be tried on my Pinterest "Yum" board! 

Tomorrow we are going to the Renassaince Festival! We have never been before so we are super excited. I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures to share :)

I made over my couch!

We bought this little couch long before we had kids. It wasn't the wisest, most forward-thinking fabric choice. Not only does is stain easily, the kids wallered the cushions until they were lumpy and squat and it was becoming less and less comfortable. Sooooo, I recently brainstormed for a solution. Here's what it looked like before:

I found a four yard chunk of this beautiful fabric in the Hobby Lobby remnant bin for only ten dollars and after another ten dollars for batting and a few afternoons' work, I had this...

You can't see the quilting in the picture, but I did use batting behind the fabric and quilted some basic diagonal lines. The quilting gives them more structure and avoids the lumpiness that happens when you make pillows out of cotton like this. I reused the stuffing from the previous cushions, so this makeover (unless you count what I paid to have the couch cleaned and Scotch Guarded today) was very inexpensive!

The fabric wasn't enough for all the backs, so I mixed and matched some fabrics from my stash. It looks pretty from the back :)

Casey was thrilled at how much more comfy it is now. He said, "Aw, you saved the couch!" Haha.

Quick change of subject, but I thought you might like to know that a spider had babies in my sewing room. Dreams of spiders kept me up all night and I felt itchy everywhere, like they were crawling all over me. EW! Our Terminix guy is coming tomorrow.

In the mean time, my sewing has migrated to the dining room, where I managed to remedy this little mess...

...into this...

Much better :)

The best kiddie pool ever!

My friend Angela invited us to her community pool and it has an awesome kiddie pool. We stayed for three hours, it was SO much fun!

Snack time. Kelby may or may not have spit out a mouthful of pepperoni into the pool. I'll never tell. If he did do that, though, and if I did have to pick it up and put it in the trash...it was a little gross.

Aw. These two have always had a special bond :)

This is Carsten. He's a cool dude.

This is not my kid, obviously, but we had a good laugh over him standing over the little fountain like he was peeing--for at least 15 minutes. Soooooo funny!

There were also lots of mamas in itty bitty bikinis, stretch marks and all. Oh, and one Dad with a very feminine tattoo, hahaha! People watching at the kiddie pool is rather fun, it turns out :)

So, I am going to sign all the kids up for swim lessons in August. Hopefully whatever they learn there sticks until next Summer.

Big finish

The monster nine patch is done!!!!

What I love about scrap quilts is the memories that all the various fabric hold! In this quilt I can see things I made for my babies, gifts I made for friends, projects made in Georgia while my husband was deployed, in my friend Jenn's living room watching the Disney Channel and cracking up over homemade pizza dough. Good times :) Scrap quilts are so personal, which is what makes them great!

The inspiration for this quilt is here. A few years ago there was a related sew-along. Obviously, I got behind, ha! I left off the border because I was using 3" squares instead of 2.5" ones and so it was quite large already. I decided on a white border so that the scraps and squares themselves would remain the focus. The white looks quite striking on the back, though, of which I did not take a picture. Sorry.

The next quilt on my to-do list is this Cog and Wheel one by Denise Schmidt:

I've had this pattern for awhile and I have also had a little pile of car fabrics for awhile. I'm going to make this for the little guy because he'll be in a big boy bed soon. It's a full size bed, though, so this one might be a doozy! I can handle it. Right?...Right???