My Week in Instagrams

If you haven't noticed I've been a little MIA lately. I've been out of town constantly. My cousin got married this last weekend. Life is just moving too fast. I don't have any time to get anything done, which in turn means I have no time to blog. On the brighter side, this is my last week at work until July-ish so I will have plenty of time for new projects starting next week! YAY!!

Ok, sorry for the rant......moving on....

1.  My sis's bf talks about this "Tasty Tacos" place in Des Moines, IA ALLLL the time. So my coworker and I stopped there for lunch on the way to Minneapolis.

2.  Don't those tacos look like heaven?? The picture is not lying, they were to die for!

3.  Lifetouch corporate offices when my training was.

4.  If you follow me on facebook or twitter you know we made a trip to Ikea in Minneapolis. It was SOO much fun! And by the looks of it, you can see we made off with some loot :)

5.  Fancy chicken dinner at Napa Valley Cafe at the Mall of America. Yum-O

6.  Grooms cake at my cousins wedding. He's a huge Royals fan.....even made their wedding color Royals blue haha.

I can't promise you I'm going to have stellar posts this week, if I can get around to posting at all. Between work, my anniversary (tomorrow yay), my nephew's birthday, my brother-in-law's birthday, my niece's birthday and baptism, dental work, and more work work work, I'm kinda busy. And I'm hoping to get my flower bed planted on Saturday. We'll see if I have any energy by then.

{Sewing Tip Tuesday} #11

Hi all! Today isn't so much a "tip" as it is a TUTORIAL!! YAY! Everyone loves a good tutorial right?

For some reason I did a REALLY bad job at photographing myself in the mirror. It must have been the cold I had last week...clouding my head. Forgive my bad pictures.

Alright, here we go....

Take a pair of jeans you want to cut up and turn them wrong side out. Lay them out on the floor. Take a pair of skinny's you like and lay them on top, wrong side out as well

Next pin along the edge of the top pair of jeans as a guideline for where you will sew.

Then sew about 3/8" in from that line of pins. Don't make your pants too skinny that they will cut your calves in half when you turn them into capris! Make sure you backstitch at the top. Don't worry about the bottom because you will be cutting it off anyway. I used a denim needle and jeans thread, but you don't have to. I did it to match the inside of my seams with what was already there. If your pants have dark thread, I would use dark thread.

Ok, so try on your pants to make sure your legs aren't too tight. If they fit well, cut off that extra flap. I used pinking shears to prevent too much fraying on the inside.

Now you need to decide how long (or short) you want them to be. I put my pants on, decided where I wanted them and then just stuck a pin in the front of my jeans about 2 inches lower than that.....on just one leg. Take them off. Line up your legs and cut them at the pin.

This next part is key to making them look professional, like you bought them from the store. See how the inside seam has the yellow stitching, then that light blue serged edge?

Well I don't have a serger, so I can't serge my edges. You have have one, but all means serge your edges. If you don't, follow these steps....

I set my machine on the #8 stitch. I don't know what it's called, but it did the job I wanted it to. Find one similar on your machine.

Then sew along the outside seam at the bottom 3 or so inches. I used a cornflower colored thread to match the other leg.

It doesn't look exactly like the other side, but it gives your jeans a little something extra to make it look nicer.

Now all you need to do is cuff them, iron them like CRAZY, and tack those edges down. If you need help with this, check out this tutorial on cuffing shorts.

And that's it!! Way to refashion those jeans you weren't going to wear anyway!!

 Don't forget to like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter! I promise I won't hound you about this every day ;)

My Week in Instagrams

I'm back! Bloggy Boot Camp was uh-mazing! It is such an informative conference for a blogger. I left there feeling like my head was going to explode. I was saturated with info. I met some really great people too! I'm not necessarily "shy", but I am timid for sure. I don't just walk up to people and start chatting. That's not my thing. So I was kinda forced to break out of my shell and be friendly. It was a good experience for me.

Anyway, I drove back saturday night when it was over. Then yesterday, the hubs and I did nothing but lay around in our pj's all day and watch tv. It was a much needed, relaxing day. So I'm a day late on this post, but I'm still posting it!

Here's what my week looked like.

1.  I took these drugs like an addict all week and I'm still fighting this cold. I sounded like a 60 year old smoker at my conference. I'm sure it was super attractive. At least I didn't end up coughing while people were speaking!

2.  I mentioned before there's a new temple here in KC. Me, Mr. Perfect, his brother and sis-in-law all went to a tour. My bro and sis-in-law are both LDS and had been up there giving tours, but not on one for themselves. It was really interesting and gorgeous to see.

3. LOL! We like to tease Carmen by putting her "bonnet" on. She looks like she's going to murder me in my sleep.

4.  My hair needed a color refresh. I just love the way it looks when I get done and it's all wet

5.  St. Louis Cardinals Stadium from my hotel room window. I had quite the view!

6.  I've seen the arch a million times in my life, but when I came up to this stop light, it just looked so majestic.


There you have it. My week in a nutshell. Tomorrow I'm driving up to Minneapolis with a friend from work for a training session. I was pretty excited about it when I said I would go with her, but now I'm not really wanting to go. I really just want to stay home and relax, not sit in a car for 6.5 hours one way. Oh well. We are going to go to Ikea on Wednesday after our training so that will make it worth it :)  Expect some Instagrams from Ikea, and frequent posts on my facebook page.

Oh, and I joined the world of Twitter. After going to this conference, I learned I'm apparently missing out by not being on there. I haven't tweeted yet, but I'll get into it. So won't you follow me please? You can click on the link to get to my profile. I'm @hautetosew. I think I did that right. I'm not really sure how to use Twitter yet. I tried to search for myself, but couldn't get "me" to come up. If you have problems finding me, please let me know!

Business Card Altoid Tin

I think I mentioned earlier in the week I'm going to Bloggy Boot Camp this weekend. It's in St. Louis, which is about a 4 hour drive from me. Soon as Mr. Perfect gets home from work, we will switch cars and I will hit the road! I'm pretty excited to learn some new things. And equally nervous. I'm not exactly the most outgoing, social person around new people, so this could be challenging for me. Mr. Perfect suggested I take a flask to help loosen me up lol. I don't think that's really necessary. I just hope I don't end up being the weird, socially awkward girl that no one talks to!

Anyway, I made business cards this week to take with me. They aren't fancy or anything, but I think they work well with my blog design. What do you think?

I feel so savvy having that QR code on there! Fancy right? But does it look like something is missing?? Yeah, that's my email address. I made these and had that "something's not right" feeling, but couldn't figure it out...then when I was like 2/3 done with cutting them, I realized I forgot to put my email on there! DOH! But I suppose it's going to be ok. My email is on my blog, so if someone wants it, they can surely find it right?? At least that's what I told myself to feel better about my mistake.

So I can't just throw these in my purse with a rubber band around it! Bust out the mod podge, scrapbook paper and an altoids tin.

SO CUTE! Now when I hand out a card, it actually looks like I'm crafty, not ghetto.

I suppose I should probably go pack, and figure out what I'm going to wear, and hope I don't have a breakdown trying to figure it out! Wish me luck! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

{How Pinteresting} #9 PART 2

Sad news friends...spraying tea on your legs for a tan did NOT work for me :(  Maybe I did something wrong. I don't know. I showered, dried completely and started to spray it on. It just beaded up and ran off. I tried rubbing it in and it still just sat on top of my skin. I thought maybe it was because there is shea butter in my body wash and that was creating a barrier. So I went in the kids bathroom and washed the other leg with plain ol' Ivory soap. Still did the same thing.

I'm pretty disappointed. So I don't know what to try. I read all the comments and advice on Born to be Blonde and did exactly what she said to do. Anyone have any suggestions? I will keep trying to make this work if anyone has some advice. Wish I could have told all my fellow pasty people that this was the best tan ever, but no. Please leave me your suggestions!

{How Pinteresting} #9 PART 1

There are going to be 2 parts to this week's post. I screwed up what I was going to do and I have to wait to finish it up. So so sorry my friends. Let's start with what I am wanting to try out...

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I saw this on Born to be Blonde. She shows you how to tan your legs using tea. Yeppers, tea. Sounds intriguing huh? I'm going to put myself out there and show you how SUPER white my legs are. This picture seems a touch blurry and I feel like my legs look like rubber, like the way Barbies used to look before they started using plastic.

YIKES!! As you can see, I am in desperate need of a tan. I don't want wrinkles and don't like to go to the tanning bed. I mean, how do you really know if they are even clean?? Gross. I also don't like tanning lotions. I always feel like I smell weird and my skin is greasy and it streaks. Where does that leave me? Tea.

So on this site, she says to steep black tea bags for 10-15 minutes in boiling water. I bought 50 tea bags for like $1.50 at my grocery store. Shower, exfoliate, dry off, then spray the tea on and rub in. Here's where my problem is and why this is a 2 part post...

....I made a sugar scrub to exfoliate with. But when I went to spray on the tea, it just beaded up and ran off my leg. My mistake is washing before I exfoliated in the shower. I ended up with a baby oil barrier on my skin. Oops! So the tea won't rub in. No worries though. I will do the tea treatment after my next shower and follow up with how it works. In the meantime, I will show you how I made my sugar scrub!

I bought all these things at my favorite bargain store...you guessed it...Dollar Tree!! $3! I used the entire bottle of baby oil and all but about 1/2 cup of the sugar. The ratio is about 1c oil to 2c sugar. Mix together and store in the jar. Easy peasy!

 

Here's my tea and supplies all ready to tan, but it was a no-go. boo.

The scrub smells good. It leaves your skin SUPER soft. It's cheap {what's better than that}. And it's easy to make.

Stay tuned peeps....I will post part 2 when I have a verdict on the tea tan.

{Sewing Tip Tuesday} #10

I seem to getting another cold. I'm not happy about this. I have lots of things to do this week and NO time to deal with crud. I'm also attending Bloggy Boot Camp in St. Louis this weekend and I don't want to be sick for that either! Ugh! Hopefully I can pump myself full of enough drugs to kick this cold quick!

On with the show...

This week I'm sharing a tip with you that I saw on Sew4Home. If you have trouble turning little tubes right side out, then this might make your life a little easier :)  I always push them out with knitting needles or a pencil, but this seems like a lot less frustrating.

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Use a hemostat! She says she bought hers on Amazon for cheap, like $7. I would spend $7 to make my life easier. Pretty clever huh?

My Week in Instagrams

I can't get over how much I love Instagram! If I wasn't obsessed with my phone camera enough...

Here's the highlights from my week

**I only missed 3 pins on Wii bowling!! That was a personal best for me. Quite proud, I might add :)
**Miss Carmen loves taking car rides. She sits like a person. It cracks me up
**Saturday was an emotional day for me. I was hormonal. A good beer soothes me.
**Mr. Perfect cooked the BEST whole wheat chicken alfredo. YUMMO!
**I gave myself some french tips
**There was a ball pit at a school I was at. I just wanted to lay in there and nap LOL

Hope everyone has a great week!

THE END!

A Spring Wreath

I FINALLY won over Mr. Perfect with a wreath!!!!

Woo Hoo!!

If you've been reading for any length of time you know Mr. Perfect hates wreaths. Well, I may have changed his mind with this one :) 

I believe his exact words were "Looks great hunnie".  That's a whole lot better than the response to my last wreath, which was "are you trying to pay homage to a powdered donut?"

Did I forget to mention how much this beauty cost me?

Let's break it down...

*wreath form = $1 (dollar tree)

*felt = $1.30

*Ribbon = free (already had it)

TOTAL = $2.30!!

You know how I love a cheapo craft!

Since Mr. Perfect likes it so much I just might leave it up all year round. Pretty sure I'll never sell him on another wreath again. This was a once-in-a-lifetime, isolated event lol

And this is what the kiddo had to say about it..."woah, that is so cool how you got those twigs to curl together like that".  ME: "I bought that". KIDDO: "oh, well I like the pink flowers"

ME (silently in my head): "Big shocker! A 10 year who loves pink (eye roll)"

hehe

{How Pinteresting} #8

Can you believe I've been doing this series for 2 months already?!?

Wow!

I've seen several projects around the web world using nail polish to paint jewelry, bobby pins, and keys!

Yes, I said KEYS!

So genius, why didn't I think of painting things with nail polish??

Saw this as my "pin-spiration"

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Woah

And mine...

Sweet! Hope my boss never wants the key to the office back {tehe} cuz it's teal now!

Notice anything different about these pictures???

That's right, they're Instagrams!

I'm so stoked that Android has Instagram now. I have several other apps on my phone that are VERY similar to Instagram, but they don't have the nifty borders and online community sharing. Squeal!

I've been thinking that maybe one day every weekend I will do a post with Instagrams from my week. After all, I am a photographer by profession {wink}. 

What do you think?? Wanna see pics from my week?? Lemme know

Also, if you are reading this in a reader, click on over to my blog for a sec, would ya...

See over there in the side bar where I have a FACEBOOK button????

I decided it was time I created a fb page for the blog.

I haven't really done much of anything with it yet, just a few posts. But I'm working on figuring it out. I'll pretty it up and post more often...like all the time...I'm a fb junkie :)

So do me a favor, click on over there and "like" me. Please Please Please. I love you forever!

Now get out all your polish and bling out your keys!

{Sewing Tip Tuesday} #9

Yesterday my kiddo came home from school and said her school nurse passed away from cancer over the weekend. She wants me to take her to the funeral. I think she's old enough to handle it, she even has plans to make a card. But should I? I hate funerals. Ugh.

Just need someone's opinion on that...

Now moving on

The tip today is useful to anyone who sews any kind of pouch or bag with a zipper that you sew all the way around at once. Did that make any sense?? Let's look at the picture first then I'll talk about it.

So in this picture I was making a cute little coin purse. I have my outside fabrics sewed together at the bottom and my lining fabric is sewn together at the top. 

See on the right side where the zipper is parted? That's the side the zipper pulls towards to close. You can see that in your head right?

Here's the genius tip...

When you start to sew something like this all the way around, sew TOWARDS the teeth on this side.

Believe me when I tell you that it is 100 times easier to keep those ends of the zipper lined up if you are sewing towards those teeth instead of sewing through the tape edge first. Not that I know this from experience or anything ;)

Hope that helps someone!

Have a great Tuesday friends!!