Eye-spy, a blogaversary and a give away

Eye-spy:
I struggled with this one for some reason. We don’t have a whole lot of small things around the house. Mostly cuz one of the critters with chew it up and leave the remains all over the house. So I decided to pick something from work…

My sister and I made these a while back for a craft fair booth and I really liked the lady-bugishness of this one. It’s made from a terracotta pot that is only 2” high and about 2” wide. It holds photos of Jasper and Sasha and my friend Gloria’s pets - Joshe, the cat, and Bear, a HUGE black lab. (Just a piece of trivia for you…three out of the four animals were brought home because they were strays or abandoned and showed up at our office. Bear is the only non-rescue)
For more small things, visit BugandPop and check out the players.

Part deux:
I was reading up on some favorite blogs when I came across CurlyPops’ Blogaversary post. She’s reached her one year mark and the dinger in my head went off cuz CurlyPops was one of the first blogs I came across after starting mine and I had noticed that she had just started hers too. So, not knowing the exact date I started blogging off the top of my head, I looked. Lo and behold it was the 28th of January 2008. That was this past Wednesday. I also have past my 200th post (I’m at 208 with this one). And, if you’ll remember I had talked about a give away way back at my 100th but never got around to it because of the Big Move. So what better time than this post to have a give away?!

I’ve been obsessing over lunch bags lately and have decided to finally make one for myself. My normal lunch bag is whichever plastic grocery bag I can find, not stylish, I know but very handy. After trying very hard to go green and take re-usable shopping bags to the grocery store, I’ve found that I’m plastic bag deficient. So making my own lunch tote just makes sense. I had bought one from a market stall a few years back but the handles started coming undone. I took it apart and used it as my basic starting point but with a few tweaks and twists to make it my own.

So for my give away, one special person will receive one of these lunch totes…

This one is made from fabric I got in my tin from Tinniegirl (thank you, you’re awesome!). They come in 2 sizes. This one is the small size, just big enough for maybe a sandwich and a yogurt and has little pockets inside for knife spoon and fork. The other size can hold one of those throwaway type left-overs containers, has the little pockets, and comes with a placemat. It will be filled with various bits and bobs, not sure what yet.

I’ll leave it open for one week from today. Just leave a comment telling me the size you want and your favorite color. Oh, and tell all your friends who, like me, are completely unstylish and take a plastic grocery bag to work for their lunch, that here is the perfect opportunity to gain some style street cred.

Eye spy...something that starts with J.

My first and most obvious choice would be, of course, Jasper…

I mean who wouldn’t think of that cute little face first? I think he must have some kind of hold on me…almost like I’ve been hypnotized. (*shakes head to clear the fog*)

But really, what I spy is January. So far, this January has been very strange. The first week or so was very chilly. So chilly I was sleeping in, not only my pj’s, but also a sweater on top of them and about 7 blankets. Then it got really warm, in the 80”s type of warm. Then we got a couple of days of drizzle. Then, last night, hail, thunderstorms, wind, the whole shebang. Today, sunny…

Weird, I tell ya.

For more J things, go here and check 'em out.

This weekend's project.

Because we have a very very far way to go to get the house where we want it I've got a list of projects that will take approximately one weekend to get finished. This weekend's project got put at the top of the list because we are having a candle party (think Tupperware but with candles and candle holders) and we have very limited seating. So, I decided I'd finally make cushions for this chair...

My family has had this chair since I was a kid, when my dad brought it home from somewhere. I always sat in this one (he brought home 2, this one and one with arms that are arch shaped) reading or watching TV, usually with my feet in the air and my head hanging over the edge of the seat. It's really a huge chair if you can't tell from the photo. For the last 8 years I've had it in my possession in this poor state. No cushion, paint peeling, etc. I kept telling myself I'd get to it but never did. Finally, though, due to necessity, I have. I spent the weekend making these cushions...

The seat cushion was made from scratch but the big pillow is a pillow form that I bought and I just made a sham. I love that Alexander Henry fabric on the seat cushion. There's something about the black and white combo that really speaks to me.

Eventually, the frame will be painted white and the arms black but for the party, this is ok. The back of the big pillow looks like this...

I was originally going to put buttons with loop closures on it but I just thought it would be too much. I'm a minimalist at heart.

I've made pillows and pillow covers before but the big cushion is a first for me. It was a challenge. I've never done anything box like. Making sure corners all meet up was an interesting experience.

How did you spend your weekend?

My first apron

It feels good to have a sewing machine again! Ours is still loaned out but my sister belatedly remembered that she teaches sewing as an elective every summer and has 10 sewing machines just lying around her classroom during the school year. She loaned me one of those and, frankly, it's a better machine than our own. So now I can make those Christmas presents that never got made, maybe they'll end up being Valentine's Day gifts.

Anyway, I joined a swap on swap-bot called "Sound of Music - My favorite things" swap. Basically you make something that is inspired by the lyrics of the song. So I made this apron as my "girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes" interpretation. It's my first apron. It came out a little narrow but other than that it came out pretty decent. I lucked out and found this 3 inch wide satin ribbon at Joann and just used it like bias tape for the waste band / ties. And used some white eyelet from the stash so it was a very cheap project and a quick one too. I finished it in just about an hour a half...for me that's super quick.

In other news, I got a pleasant surprise the other day when I got home from work and this was in my mail box...

My very cute ornament from Edward and Lilly. Isn't it adorable?! Thank you, Rebecca!

Eye spy...some bling

This week's theme was a bit hard for me to get a handle on. I'm not a bling-y person. I rarely wear jewelry, I don't like rhinestones, and I don't generally decorate with shiney objects. Attracted and distracted by shiny objects? Of course. So, I decided to use this little ornament...

Do you see it? It's right here..

It's one of those ornaments that have made it through years of Christmases in our house. I can't remember a single Christmas with out this and several other ornaments. My mom, just a couple weeks ago, gave us a box of stuff she had packed away with s ton of her handmade ornaments, this one single glass ornament and a couple of other odds and ends. I was so tickled to see this shiny little bauble! Too bad this is the only one of the glass ones that survived.

Thanks to Hoppo Bumpo for the topic! Check out some more bling over at Bug and Pop.

As a side note, a while back I said that since this is the first fireplace I've ever had I will make a point of making a fire and drink hot chocolate in front of the fire. So that's what I did. We were all cozy and warm with our frst fire in our new house with a nice big mug of steaming hot chocolate...

Eye spy...a burst of color

This week's theme (by Flossy-P) was just plain hard for me to narrow down because of all the Christmas decorations that are floating around right now. I finally picked one of the ornaments on our tree. Made by mom. I love the colors of Christmas!

The preceding installment of eye-spy has been brought to you by BugandPop.

I spy...in my garden

Here's the new meme that all the cool kids are joining! I Spy over at Bug and Pop (thanks to Cindy for starting this!).

Today's (ok, really it was yesterday's, once again, I'm a day late) theme is brought to you by CurlyPops.

At the moment we don't really have a garden. We've been in the new house for a month now and haven't had time to focus on the outside of the house at all so here's what our yards (both front and back) look like right now...

Not much to choose from. I did try and get a picture of the neighborhood stray cat that I've been feeding (shh don't tell anyone) but she wasn't out there when I came out this morning. She's usually out there waiting for me every morning...I hope nothing happened to her.

If you'd like to play along, go on over to Cindy's blog and sign up!

Christmas Tea

A while back I mentioned that our church's annual Christmas Tea was coming up in this post. And that my inspiration was this table...

Today was the tea and here's how my version turned out...

The picture makes it look way more bland than it really was. Maybe this shot will be better...

Or how about this one...

Anyway, in person it was very sparkly. I scoured all the thrift stores in a 15 mile radius for just the right pieces. Almost all the candle holders were thrifted, except for one from Michael's and one from Pier 1. This dessert stand...

I made from plates and cups that I found at a thrift store. The things not from a thrift store were the two teapots

and a leaded crystal bowl that belongs to my sister. And the place settings

that we already had. As a substitute for place cards, which is what we've done in the past, we made these initial ornaments for everybody, they turned out ok, I think.

But the most popular thing on the table were these...

Bacon-and-cream cheese scones...yum!!!! I found the recipe here...a blog about bacon - makes me giggle. If you like to cook or even if you like to just eat, you should try it out. If you're a vegetarian, well I've never used the fake bacon so I don't know if it crumbles like real bacon but I would imagine just cutting it up into appropriate sized pieces would work. Anyway, I, and many of the woman at the tea HIGHLY recommend them.

So that's how I spent my Saturday afternoon, how about you?