I'M BACK!!!!

HELLO!!! My poor little blog I have ignored for oh, 6 months :(  My laptop died in July. I've been stuck using my super slow, ancient desktop. So basically I only use it for paying my bills and...yeah that's pretty much it. BUT, mom and dad save the day! New, amazing laptop for Christmas. Yup, I love it. So now I can blog again :)


Is anyone still out there? Anyone?? I love you forever if you are....

Grrr

So my laptop is on the fritz....permanently. I went out of town last weekend with my mom and sis for a girls weekend and when I came back the laptop was D.E.A.D.  I'm so frustrated. Everything is on that computer. My parents can pull all the files off, no problem. But I'm losing all my software, photo editing programs, everything. Not sure what I'm going to do. Nothing right now, I'm going out of town again this week. In the meantime, I suppose I won't be blogging much. With all my trips this month and now this, I haven't had time for anything.

I'm writing this post from my desktop. Unfortunately, it is older than my laptop and doesn't have the capability to do much past internet and word processing. So forgive me for not blogging lately. Don't leave me friends. I will get this all sorted out, eventually.

In other news, I'm guest judging on The CSI Project this week. I'm pretty excited about it! Her theme this week is refashions and you all know how I love a good refashion!

Anywho, until I get my computer situation figured out, I'll see ya later!

Giveaway WINNER!!!

Pretty sure I said I was going to announce this winner like 3 days ago.....oops! After getting back from vacation, the holiday, spending most of thursday at the dr's office and packing to go back out of town, I forgot. Better late than never though right?

The winner, chosen at random, of the pattern to this super cute bag by At Home with Mrs. H is.......

MIKKI!!!!

Check your email Mikki :)

Off to the lake for girls weekend with my mom and sis! Have a great weekend!

Happy Birthday America!!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!! Whether you are spending today with friends or family, having a bbq or swimming, I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday!!!

Aren't fireworks the BEST?????? LOVE them!!!!!

Insta Friday

I didn't do Insta Friday last week because I had no motivation and had spent the majority of my week at work. So this week I'm going to overload you with pictures haha. And only a few of them are of my dogs this time. Enjoy!
 

Me and my sweet Zoey snuggling next to the fire pit.

Isn't this what summer is all about????

Correction.....Isn't this what summer is all about????

Just me!

 
Party supplies for the kiddo's 11th birthday! Love me some dollar tree. See those cupcake liners? And see the darling flags that came with them?? The kids loved them!

Cupcakes....ready for the girls to decorate

Decorated! Don't they look great?? They were thrilled that I let them each have 2 and load them up with sprinkles and sugar! Then they had a race to see who could eat both of theirs the fastest --- hilarious!

This right here is what makes me the best step-mom ever :)  It almost made me cry.

The girls did a craft too. I made salt dough and they all made it into whatever they wanted and painted their creations. They had a blast doing it.

Mr. Perfect is on a softball league. It was unbearably hot out, like 100 at 2pm. Ugh. Good news was the other team didn't show, so we won by default and didn't even have to play. Yay!

We were at the the game long enough for me to put this down. I'm not gonna lie, it was delicious.

After the game we took our pool over to our friends driveway where they have their pool and we had a little whitetrash party. It was awesome!

My mom bought this ring for me a couple weeks ago on her trip to Branson. I think it's pretty sweet!

My sweet baby will put her head on the edge of the couch and leave it there until you let her get up. It's the most precious thing ever! She's just so stinkin cute!!

And really......it's only June. BUT, I will not complain very much about this because I despise winter with all my being. I would take this 3 digit number over a single digit number every day of the year --- hands down!

Whew! You made it through my SUPER long post. Pat yourself on the back :) 

We are going out of town tomorrow to visit some family. I'm really excited about it. I have the next 11 days off work!! One trip this weekend and part of next week. Then another trip next weekend with my mom and sis to the lake!! So I apologize in advance for the lack of posts next week. If I was a super cool blogger I would have done some posts in advance, but sadly, I am not that cool.

Have a great weekend friends!!

Trunk Table

The project I have to show you today was almost an epic FAIL! It was super frustrating and I almost quit and cried in the middle of it. I didn't end up sitting and crying about this, but I did walk away from it for a day before I came back to finish it. Sometimes that just what you have to do to prevent yourself from hitting things with a hammer.

See this trunk....

Let me give you a little back story on this thing. When I was around 13ish I needed one of these trunks to take to girl scout camp. My parents bought this trunk and let me decorate it. They were both trying to convince me to stain it so I could use it after camp and wouldn't ruin the wood. Did I listen to them? HA! Does any 13 year old listen to their parents??? Not me. I wanted to paint it. So they let me. {Love my artistic skills? lol}

Fast forward 10 years or so -------> The trunk now lives, abandoned, in my parents basement......where their cat goes to puke. See where this is going?? Yeah, she puked on the lid. Right under the "M" towards the front edge. My dad did his best to clean it off, but there was still a slight stain. Um, gross.

Fast forward another 6 or 7 years ------> Dad brings this trunk to my house because he doesn't want it in his basement anymore. Great, just what I need. A child painted, puke stained trunk sitting in my spare bedroom.

And there is sat for months. I've been wanting to turn it into a little table. It's been on my project list for a long time, but it just seemed like such a pain. Plus I wasn't really sure how to add table legs to something. Anywho, I went for it anyway. First I had to sand all that paint off. Thank goodness we have an orbital sander!! I would not have made it through the sanding without it. Here it is all sanded down. Looking much better!

After I sanded it down I stained it with some stain my dad gave me. Lucky for me, the stain wiped right off the hardware so I didn't have to remove any of it. Win!

Then I added these cheap 6 inch table legs I bought at Home Depot.

Here is where my project went down the crapper in a hurry! I should have googled how to do this before I started. I must have lost my mind that day! I'm going to spare you all the details, but warn you to google this, or ask an experienced man or something before trying to attach table legs to anything!! Seriously.

{Insert pity party for 1}

Day 2:

Figured it out/rigged it to work my way. And now I have this cute little table to set in my front window with my chairs. So happy :)

Slowly but surely this room is coming together. Now if only I could remember to water that plant....

And if you are new here, here's some other projects in this picture you may have missed:
DIY Faux Nail Head Trim
Bow and Flower Pillows
Tea Dyed Curtains
I thought I had blogged about that little magazine bowl, but I can't seem to find the post...hmmm...

Have a great hump day!!

Giveaway Time!!!

Hi friends! Sorry for my absence. If you didn't know, I am a school photographer by profession. My summer, sadly, is over. I went back to work last week. We have lots and lots of seniors to photograph during the summer. It's a total bummer because I'm never ready to go back after having 6 weeks off. It just doesn't seem long enough. I always have a difficult time having motivation for anything when I go back to work. I get off, I come home and I seriously sit on the couch the rest of the day. Maybe because I'm used to going about my day at my own pace by the time I go back and working wears me out. Ugh.

On top of work, the kiddo had her 11th birthday last weekend. Talk about exhausting. Shopping for presents, food for the sleepover, planning the sleepover, entertaining the girls, cleaning the house, it seriously stressed me out. I'm SO glad we are done with the party. The only thing I still have looming over my head is her family party....which may never happen. We cancelled the family portion last weekend because 3 of her cousins have chicken pox and 3 more of them are in contagious stages. Seriously bad timing for that. But now that it's all over, I took the kiddo over to share lollypops with them yesterday. 2 weeks from now, we should be seeing spots. She's not thrilled about it at all. I'm not thrilled either, but we figure it would be best for her to get over it now when she's 11 and she won't miss any school for it. Can we just fast forward to like, September????

I'm sure you are tired of my ranting, so I will stop.

I don't have any wonderful sewing tip this week. BUT I do have a little sewing project to share with you AND a fabulous giveaway at the end. Woo Hoo!!

A couple weeks ago I replied to a request for pattern testers at At Home With Mrs H. Samantha was wanting people to test her pattern for a bow pleated bag. It's super cute!

Here is how mine turned out!

Ignore my chipping polish {yuck}.

Cute right?!?!

Her pattern is super easy to use. It has options for a fixed strap, as opposed to the adjustable one on mine. And it has an option for a slip pocket inside instead of a zippered one.

Wanna make your own?!?!?!?  Samantha is letting me giveaway one of her patterns to one of you lucky ducks! All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me what color you would make your bag if you won!!  :)

For a bonus entry, like me on Facebook. Then leave a separate comment telling me you did so. If you already like me, leave a separate comment saying you already follow :)

Last giveaway I did a couple weeks ago only had ONE person enter, so your chances are pretty good at winning if you enter. Just sayin'

Giveaway closes next Monday (7/2) at 11:59pm. Winner chosen by random and announced Tuesday July 3rd.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE --------->  If you don't win and still want a pattern, Samantha is offering my friends 15% off the pattern in her etsy store!!!! WOOT!!! Click here to visit her etsy store. Enter the code BOWPLEAT15 for the discount!

Go enter people!!

{Sewing Tip Tuesday} #15

I know I didn't have some genius tip to share last week. And I don't have one to share this week either. BUT, I do have a little tutorial and it involves sewing so that counts, right? I think so!

I made this comfy tank about a month ago and have been wanting to share it with you, but I every time I've worn this shirt I forgot to take pics. Call me lazy or whatever, but I finally got around to pics of it on.

I started with this $3.00 shirt I picked up from Walmart on clearance. I loved the stripes and I love gray.

So first thing I did was cut the collar out of it. I knew I was going to cut the sleeves off and I didn't feel like that banded collar would work without the sleeves. After I cut off the collar I folded the edge down and top stitched it with a double line.

Next I used a racer tank that I already had to draw out where I wanted to cut the sleeves off at. Cut them out and hem the arm holes with the same double stitching.

Now you have made a basic racer back tank from a long sleeved shirt. You could stop here, but I decided to add some ruffles on the back. Make it a little spicy!

I didn't really measure this part. I just cut some strips of fabric from the sleeves and gathered them. Then pinned them on the back of my tank, matching up the stripes as best I could.

The top stripe I sewed upside down first, then flipped it down and top stitched it. I did this so the unfinished edge wouldn't show up by my neck. The other 2 ruffles are partially hidden from the ruffle above it so it didn't really matter. But you can do what you feel looks best.

That's it! Put it on and strut your stuff!

I'm not entirely sold on the ruffles on the back, but I haven't heard anyone say anything negative yet, so I'm going with it for now. The only I thing I would change is that I wish I had known about this tip about sewing with knits before I had made this shirt. I feel like my seams are a little wavy and had I known how to fix that I would be happier. But, next time I will know. Overall, I'm still excited about it :)

Guess what else I'm excited about??? I received a national award for my photography at work!!!! This is the second time I have won one of these awards. Although I'm in a category with higher standards this time because of my experience with the company. Anyway, it's still nice to be recognized for your work once in a while. Yay!