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I'm a small blog. I know that. I don't pretend to have some huge following or tons of pageviews or anything like that. I'm not on Twitter or Facebook. I don't really have tons of time to network. I just blog to blog. I know some people read this {my mom, Amy}. I've had some features here and there. I probably do more stalking in blogland than I am stalked by others. And that's ok with me. So imagine my surprise when I looked at my stats last Thursday and had almost 800 pageviews in one day!!!! What?!?! I don't check my stats every day. I don't even check them every week. Some weeks I don't even blog at all. But I do know that I average about 170 pageviews a day when I'm not doing anything. And around 250 a day when I participate in other blogs linky parties. Not huge. Not even all that great numbers. But hey, like I said, it's ok with me. 800 though?!?!!! I was shocked. And happy. And confused. And maybe I squealed a little {tehe}. It made me feel special. So if you are one of those 800 people THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And if you aren't, but you read my blog at any other time THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It really means a lot to me that anyone at all reads my blog.

{Sewing Tip Tuesday} #5

Happy Tuesday! 

Boy, do I hope today is a better day than yesterday! Yesterday was one of those pull your hair out, drink vodka in the middle of the afternoon kinda days. Sheesh

So let's get to it

Today I have a tip for you that I use ALL the time. It's one of the most useful tips I've picked up along the way. If you sew anything that has to have a hole left open to turn wrong side out, then you need to read this one! I do this on bags, pouches, stuffed animals, practically everything I sew.

Ok, so I just used a couple fabric scraps to illustrate this, but lets say you are making a bag and you need to leave an opening in the bottom of the liner to turn the whole thing wrong side out. After you turn it you iron the raw edges of the hole towards the inside and sew it up, right? But does it ever really look perfect that way? Uh, no, no it doesn't. I know this from experience. Well friends, here is the magic fix to that problem!

First thing you want to do is make sure you backstitch when you start sewing around the edges of whatever you are making. Then backstitch again at the end where you would leave your hole open {make sense? see pics}. I hope you understood that. Right after you backstitch at the end, crank your stitch length up to the highest {mine goes to 5} and keep stitching until you close up that hole.

I bet that picture explains it better than my words did. I hope so anyway.

So now you will iron your seam allowance open, wrong side to wrong side, like this....

Take a seam ripper and rip open ONLY the stitches that were a longer stitch length. The ones that essentially where the hole is.

Now you once again have a hole to turn your project right side out, but with perfectly iron edges. YAY!

Clip your corners {I didn't on this scrap, but I do usually} or whatever else you need to do and turn right side out.

See how much easier it is to sew up that hole now? Hand stitch or machine stitch closed. Looks much more precise right. And I seriously think it is a major frustration saver, for real.

Remember this trick, you will thank me later, mmmkay

Dollar Store Wreath

 I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that Mr. Perfect hates wreaths. I'm not sure why exactly. But he does. He says something crazy like "a wreath screams 'a woman lives here'". Well, hello, a woman does live here! This is not your bachelor pad buddy!

I had a wreath hanging on this mirror at Christmas. Ever since I took it down I feel like the mantle has been naked....not completely butt naked, but like one sock is on, one sock is off kind of naked. It has been bugging me.

I've seen coffee filter wreaths in blogland and I like them. They look nice, they look clean, and let's face it, they're cheap to make. We all know I love a cheap craft. No money tree growing in this chick's backyard!

Here's what you will need to make one like mine:

*Coffee Filters
*Floral Foam Wreath
*Large knitting needle {or something pointy, but blunt}

 

 

for some reason the camera focused on the mat and not the objects...so sorry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Take your coffee filter and scrunch it up.

Fold the bottom part a little and place it on your wreath

Then push it in with the needle or whatever you are using.

Place all the filters relatively close together. I went all around the top and the outside edges. I didn't worry about the inside of the wreath since the puffiness of it all kinda hides the inside anyway.

Fluff and that's it!

What did Mr. Perfect think about this wreath?? Well, usually when I have something new hanging up in the house, he notices {without me saying anything}, and makes some comment on how great it is or how nice it looks in the room or whatever...he's very supportive like that. Not so supportive of the wreath...

Me: Did you see the wreath I made today?
Him: Yeah I saw it.
Me: What do you think?
Him: Are you trying to pay homage to a powdered donut??
Me: {rolls eyes}
end of conversation

A couple days later my brother-in-law and sister-in-law stopped by. She of course likes it and gushes over it. He does not. Here's how that convo went...

Him: Is that new?
Me: Yeah, just made it.
Him: What's it made out of?
Me: Coffee filters
Him: Oh, now that I know what it's made of, I don't think it's so cool.
Me: Your brother {Mr. Perfect} doesn't get it either.
end of conversation

Seriously. Men.

Sorry boys, I happen to like wreaths. So deal with it!

Kitchen Island

Did you see my kitchen remodel on Wednesday?? What did you think? Hope you love it like I do!

Today I'm going to talk a little about the island we built.

Lovely right??

To refresh you, it is made from a desk and hutch I bought on Craigslist for $20. Score!

Now, I didn't take very good pictures of the process because we were doing it mainly at night, in the garage and quite frankly, I was busy and tired. Let's take a look...

First we cut the bottom off the hutch to make it the same height as the desk.

Then we Mr. Perfect screwed the desk and the hutch together

And we attached a base.
We also added a shelf in the space where a chair would slide under the desk side.
The whole thing was put on locking casters.
Caulk it all.
Paint it all.
Add a countertop.
And you have a kitchen island.

Told you my "process" pictures suck! HA!

Let's look at the after pictures instead, shall we...

 ...that's our recycling on the bottom shelf, in case you were wondering...

With the same hardware and paint as the rest of the kitchen, it looks like it was here the whole time. A match made in heaven...kitchen heaven that is...

I don't mean to brag, but we did a pretty AMAZING job on this island!!!!!!!!

LOVE
LOVE
LOVE IT

{How Pinteresting} #3

I'm really getting a great response with this series and that makes me HAPPY!

So let's get to it with another Pinterest project by yours truly

The inspiration this week is these lovely yarn covered bottles.

Penelope and Pip

Like they say "very easy and super cute!" I have to agree wholeheartedly

And here's my version...

If you can't tell, this bottle is GINORMOUS.  I used a magnum bottle of wine, cuz that's how I roll..sometimes.

I didn't mod podge mine though....I hot glued. I used hot glue on the entire bottom row then only every several inches in one spot or when I switched colors. Now the bad part...there's always a bad part right?...nothing is just blissful and perfect all the time... my bottle curved rather sharply towards the top there and I ended up having to use a TON of glue to keep the yarn from sliding. I tried for a minute to use mod podge on this area but that was completely useless. Ok, so it really wasn't that bad, but a little frustrating. Oh well, still turned out great!

I plan to put this bottle in my living room when I get some shelving up...soon!

Ok friends, I must go nap. My sore throat has now stolen my voice and turned into a full blow cold. A yucky one! UGH! I was just sick 6 weeks ago, why is this happening again?!? I suppose it's all the crusty germy little kids I'm around at work every day. I cringe every time one of those little buggers coughs in my face. Maybe I should be closer friends with Mr. Hand Sanitizer....just a thought.

Hope you are all feeling better than I am!

Oh, someone please visit my Pinterest and tell me what you would like to see next week!! Purdy Please!!!

Kitchen Remodel

Right before Christmas we decided to finish remodeling our kitchen. See, we half did things 2 years ago and never got around to the rest. We talk about what we want to do with certain spaces and then never get around to doing it.

This is going to be a lengthy post with picture overload so bear with me, mmkay?

So here's what we started with over 2 years ago...

These pictures were all taken before the previous owners were completely moved out so their junk is still sitting around everywhere. But seriously, don't these pictures make you want to puke?!? I do {gag}.

When we first started working on fixing up this revolting mess, we removed those weird decorative barrier wood things on top of the bookcase. And the heavy cedar beams that run around that opening to the kitchen. Buh bye! I mean, what are those things away? Hideous! So if you look at the cabinets, there is this weird braided thing running down the inset on all of them. Those were barely stapled on so we popped those off too. And we also did away with all the ugly scalloped trim along the top of the cabinets.

Ok, so after we did that destruction, next came paint. Painted the cabinets, the walls, trim, painted that bookshelf, got a new dishwasher and fridge and all new hardware.  And then we stalled out. About a year later I couldn't stand that awful lemon yellow tile. We put up a faux tin backsplash. Then another year went by. We had talked of putting a bar top on the top of the bookshelf and adding a kitchen island, but never did. And lets not forget that we still had the old fake butcher-block laminate countertops. I LOATHE those counters. They are the same ones my parents had growing up, ugh, gross.

Now that you are up to speed on what we did in the beginning, let's talk about what we completed this Christmas....

I want a kitchen island. Mr. wants the bar top. Are they both going to fit and still have walking room?? We don't know. I found a desk with a hutch on Craigslist for $20 that I wanted to convert into the island. It was solid wood and in excellent shape. So we brought it up into the kitchen and put an old door on the bookshelf to see if this was going to all work.

Yep! Looks like it will work out just fine :)

When we were doing this, we were shocked at how perfect that door was. Right length. Right height. And free! I'm totally giving Mr. Perfect credit for this idea...it was all him. Saved us from having to buy wood. I LOVE the fact that we recycled a door that had no use in the basement. Win Win!

Let's get to the good part....the REVEAL!!! YAY!!

It's a breath of fresh air in here. I absolutely love how it all turned out!

Our kitchen has been so much more useful since adding the island and bar. See the laptop over there on the end of the bar? Yep, that's where I sit to do all my blogging and blog stalking and pinning :)

Let's look at the before one more time...

PUKE! And the after...

AHHH..

Friday I'll show you the process of making the island so watch for that.