FHE Treat

Family Home Evening treats always start out with a bang, when I set the goal to do them, then my family doesn't see them for another 3 months or so. My son and I made cupcakes Monday morning. I got an old mini bundt cake pan from my mom's kitchen a while back, and had never used it, so I started out with that.Then I added cool whip dalop things on top. For high class fanciness.
Close up, oh ahh delicious. They would have looked fancier with ganache poured on top, then cool whip, but my family is not so much a ganache family.
We are a fan of chocolate cake and cool whip in my family. Recently cool whip started packaging its product so you get all the great taste of cool whip, with the fun of whipped topping can.
This is how they started all beautiful. But me and my family agreed that isn't nearly enough cool whip for chocolate cake. So we had to add more, lots more.
And this is the reason my husband likes me, the mass of amount of long skinny limbs that flail everywhere. Let it never be said I only posted attractive pictures of myself on my blog.Mmm, lots of cool whip. My son had already had plain cupcakes after they came out of the oven, so in the evening he assumed he just needed cool whip added to his cupcake about 8 times.
I decided this is what Family Home Evening desert is all about. All three of us had a blast decorating the mini bundt cakes with cool whip. I think my son just had fun laughing at his parents.
Mmm, they were so good only had about 7. Luckily they were about half the size of a cupcake. But that doesn't include the 5 I ate earlier without cool whip. I have a problem, if I keep my cupcakes topingless then I think of them as muffins then they must be good for me to eat.Ahh, desert. I often find it surprising that my son likes family home evening. But tonight it was fun. I guess that is surprising because the only memories I have of it, are complaining at as teenager.

P.S. Happy unconstitutional federally mandated holiday to celebrate the adoption of the United States of America's Constitution today, back in 1787.

Pink?!

We decided we wanted to paint our living room, since we painted our dining room, since they share an open wall. The dining room needed to be painted, and the living room looked fine, but once the dining room was painted, the living room looked bad. Which is why I refuse to paint anymore in this house, unless the owner decides to sell the house to me. Which he should do, because I think it would be lovely not to have to move for another 6 years or so. Since the dining room is blue, and the kitchen is green, I figured the only color left, is yellow. I was thinking a nice Tuscan sunrise, (which really means mustard yellow, its very big this fall.)
Turns out, I hated every single paint chip I got at 5 different stores. I kept thinking I just didn't find the right shade, after like 30 paint chips. Until my husband said I hate the mustard colors, and I said yeah me too, but I don't want our living room to look like a baby nursery, which is what would happen if it was light yellow. We decided yellow was out, so we did pink!

And grey for the other two and an eighth of the wall. I was thinking a nice pewter. We called my mom to ask about color combination, because she is good about picking colors for houses to be painted. She told us, be careful about grey because it makes the room feel depressed. My husband didn't want after that, because he doesn't like me depressed. But it was either, gray or pale lemon yellow and plum (over the fireplace). We decided grey would be better for the retail rent value and we like to be good renters. But we did make sure to pick a really light grey to cancel the depression. We absolutely love the grey. Although sometimes I feel like we have two different colors of light blue in our front rooms, but it makes me like the dining room blue way better. See in the picture.
Actually we would have never painted painted our living room pink. That was the primer. At first we really hated the red, but once it dried, it wasn't red orange. It makes me not hate our ugly fireplace, so now I don't have to cover it up. We are going to put a picture in the middle, we just need a frame.
Here is the third wall. I need to hand quilt my first quilted quilt, that is a wall quilt. So I have something on this wall. I'm planning to relearn by the end of the month.

Labor Day

How did you labor on Monday? We painted.
We weren't planning to paint yet we just went to look at some more colors, because we didn't like we paint chips we had gotten earlier. But we decided to buy the paint and do it, because of the sale ending that day. We did most of the painting while our kid was sleeping during his nap.The finished product.
This is the dining room where we eat because the kitchen is not equipped for a table.The homeowner told us we could paint. The dining room looked awful, so I figured why not paint. But now we have to paint the living room that is attached, the rooms only have 3 walls each. After that I'm done painting, the whole downstairs is in desperate need of paint, but I'm not painting any of it, because once one room gets painted the rest do, and I don't to paint the whole house if I don't own it.
View from our kitchen. The kitchen is green was painted before we arrived.

Comissioned Works.

My cousin isn't the only who is commissioned to create things. My aunt asked me to make her some nursing cover ups. My husband thinks they should be called booby blockers. Here is the first that I made.

Made 4 in all for her. I used this site as a pattern for hooters hiders, sort of, I don't know what type of boning she used I used the only stuff I could find. By the way, I though 18" of boning was too much, I think I finally used 12-15" by the end.
I think this is the end of my crafting for money. As other people before me have figured out, hobbies aren't as fun when you aren't doing it for fun. Although my husband loves when I sell stuff for whatever reason. These weren't too bad, the worst was when I sold a clock, ahh! I hated the looming deadline over me, even though my aunt didn't give me a deadline, I still felt a looming deadline.

Garage Sale-ing

Saturday we went garage sale-ing and spent a $150. I got another sewing machine. I love old Berninas. It was $65, I'm sure it needs probably at least $70 worth of work, it probably hasn't been touch in years. We got this at an Estate Sale that's why it was so much. And an old abacus for $8, my husband wanted it, I thought it was expensive.

Post Script: I ended up selling it to a sister in law for $65

Curtains

My son's room has recently gotten its latest update. New curtains so he doesn't destroy the blinds. I had a hard time finding material I liked, Jobo immediately picked this stuff out, but I didn't know if it was too expensive. We went around the store twice trying to find something unisex but all they had was florals or dark colored stripes. I could have done the stripes if I was having a boy, but they just didn't look unisex. So we stuck with what my son liked and figured it was on sale.

Half of his room is windows. The closet takes up a whole other wall, and then the last wall has the crib next to it.

Here is a close up. I was afraid it wasn't unisex, but my husband said it was and it was a good pick. I figured it had to be, not to mention, it was the one my son wanted. Although he has been known to pick out really girly material just because it has ladybugs on it. Remember red means good bug, black means they bite you. (Now I just have to make the pillow case I didn't make 3 months ago. But first I have do the work my Aunt commissioned me to do.)

He is so happy with his new curtains! Yeah! for mommy' s sewing.

Update

Yesterday evening I asked my son what he wanted to be for Halloween, a dog, a lion, or bumble bee? He immediately he said very enthusiastically, bumble bee. Then went about singing the song.

I'm bringing home my baby bumble bee
Won't my Mommy be so proud of me
I'm bringing home my baby bumble bee -
OUCH!! It stung me!!

I sighed and said I don't want to do a bumble bee. Then right as my husband was about to kiss me, I said I've got it. I'll make the body of the costume, black and yellow striped like a bumble bee. Then make the wings like the PB bug costume. Now I've very excited. Although I do think he would be a cute dog. I don't care if my bug will be incorrect as far as entomology is concerned. I put yellow on the wings instead of orange.

Getting Girly

This is the first girl thing I've made for my baby. I got the pooh material at DI for $1, and since its blue I wanted to make it girly, so I added the pink blanket satin stuff. I found it challenging to use. I can't turn down cheap classic pooh.

It is kind of a dumb size. Its about 5 inches wider than a stupid store bought receiving blanket that is useful for nothing. I guess store bought receiving blankets are useful if the baby likes swaddling, but my first born only wanted to be swaddled for about 5 days, after that he would fight and cry until he freed himself. I figured this would be a good size to tuck in around the baby in a car seat.
This took me way too long, almost 3 hours, to only machine sew store bought binding. I had issues with the pinning, and then with the machine, and about everything else.
P.S. Turns out it was the perfect size for covering the top of a infant carseat in the winter. We used it every day we left the house, for our winter baby

A necklace from forever ago

I made this the second to last time my mom was in town. The pendant was an earring on clearance at World Market, (by the way there is one 15 minutes away from my new place, I love world market)

My mom has the other earring on a necklace, but hers is slightly different. She doesn't have green turquoise in hers, she save those for something else. I've gotten more compliments on this necklace than any other I've made. If you are thinking my necklaces are ugly don't tell me. (I was afraid the bone china beads it looked like pukka shells, I have been assured they don't.)

New Curtains a month and half ago

A month and half ago I got sick of not having my bathroom curtains not matching my outer shower curtain. I went shopping, at Bed Bath and Beyond I found table runners on clearance, I bought two, and made them into curtains, for $3 plus about 30 minutes of time.

I know my window looks way dirty. But we live on the second story, and I have no idea how to clean the outside of the window, and heck if I'm going to pay someone to clean my cheap apartment's second story windows outside.

This was the first day I put them up, so the wrinkles hadn't disappeared yet. I have to tie them back or our bathroom is pitch black 24 hours a day. I need natural moonlight in the bathroom because of pregnancy.

Close up, and a close up of my shower curtain in case you forgot. I think my bathroom looks really great now. Sort of, what I have done to it, I still have a yellow shower, and a mildewy floorboards, but I have tried to fix that.

New curtains to enjoy for a total of three months before a move.

Did I mention...

A few weeks ago my mom was at my house for two days. She was very busy during that time. I was planning to make the skirt but she made it for me, to accommodate my expanding waist line so I don't have rent.

I made this with the remaining material. I wonder if it was ok to post pictures of both, but White Elegance Website has similar pictures, so I decided it was fine. Click on the picture to see a close up of what the material looks like.

Close up of the lace and flower. I asked my husband if it was too gaudy, and he said what, its all white. So I figured it was fine.

I didn't want knee high stocking hanging out my dress, so instead we added a gusset. I love that part, it makes me feel so polished.

She also sewed the border on the blanket I made for my children. She and my aunt tied the blanket, while I thread the needles. It was like the olden days when the women all help to get the quilt done.

Finishing Projects

Remember this post. Well here is the finished product. Click to enlarge all photos.
A blanket for my children. He loves to look at all the bees.I included the pockets from the pants, its always fun to have a place for treasures or babies (somehow thats what stuff animals are called in our house). Here is the close up of the embroidery I added. We have a deal in my household, I get to blog as long as I don't put our last name. Considering my husband use to loathe blogging I figure its fair. We often sing that hymn in Family Home Evening, I thought the Ether scripture tied the other two blocks together. Not to mention back to the hymn, I do think my son sounds very very sweet when he sings songs.The back side.
Post Script the blocks are suppose to be uneven.

Baby Blanket Mania

In the last two months I have made 6 baby blankets. Which is quite a lot, I think.
It started off with Brent's best friend from high school's first born son. See the mini card, I thought it was so cute!
Next my sister asked for a second, for her 6 month old. Which I was happy to oblige a fan. Truth be known, she is the one that started this whole baby blanket thing, giving me one when I was 4 years old or so. And I still have it and use it in the summer, because it is so lightweight and soft. So she can clearly make one but she is a little busy trying to be come a doctor of educational psychology.
Next one of my sister in laws who wrote me a rousing thank you note, saying how much she has enjoyed the last 8 months of her daughters baby blanket, and how amazing it is, and amazing I am. I really like thank you notes from her she never fails to tell me I'm talented. So truly in this case since I was already making some I had to make her another one if she is going to the love the first so much. I big a fan of multiple baby blankets to make laundry easier. She didn't ask I just surprised her. I had to make her a colorful one because the email pointed out liking the colors. While my sister's blanket isn't so colorful other than the pink ties. I like black, white and small amounts pink in florals, is so Rococo. I think.These next two are suppose to be semi matching. But not the same, really just not clashing, I had a real hard time finding 4 pieces of material that matched. If they don't, don't tell me. I love the first one, both sides of the material. Really you should click on all these pictures so you can admire the material close up. I love material.
I love the first of these, but the second I think fits so many personalities of mothers I'm related to. Ok, I don't know about so many, but at least one on each side. I'll keep the personalities anonymous in case the personality itself does not agree.
This is the blanket I already mentioned. The one I made because my husband loves me so. I have recently kind of stopped putting names on the blankets. But my husband made a direct attempt to really remember the child's name so I knew that meant he really wanted a name embroidered. Its for one of his mission friend's first born son. Not to mention, I put my son's first and middle name on his blanket, and so my husband expects the same for his old mission comps but I didn't comply I never do, only my own children get middle treatment. Normally I wouldn't pick a sports theme. But I don't really know the couple that well, and I struggle find boy prints, and my husband told me to get sports. This soccer printed looked about as quilty as a sports theme could so I got it, and because they served in Chile, so of course Football is big.This is not a blanket yet. I love all three of these colors in this print. I love stars. I originally bought the blue because I thought it would be a good boy print, but since I've found all three colors, I don't know if I can give away these prints in blankets, maybe I'll have to make a blanket for me. Oh I love these! Really it is love.