jane joss' recycled quilt leaves

Here's a cute idea for an old quilt that is falling apart. You can find the tutorial here on Design*Sponge. The project is provided by jane joss, college roommates and now sister in laws. They sell these leaves already done on their etsy site.

Cute, Cute, Cute Girl's Dress!!

If I had a little girl right now I would definately be making this cute dress! Does this not look like the most comfortable dress to be wearing this summer? If you want to buy one you can get it here. This seller also makes some cute purses.



I love this bench she has covered as well! Check out her blog here.

Saturday Sewing

Last Saturday was one of the few days that I didn't have to do anything at work. After mowing the really long grass (we had a lot of rain last week) I decided to do something fun. I really should have been cleaning, but decided to sew instead. I made myself an apron. The pattern and fabric are from Amy Butler. I have purchased some of my fabrics and patterns from The Fabric Shoppe, an etsy seller.



It even has a loop to hang your towel through. What a neat feature.



Now I just need to make something so I can wear my apron. I'm thinking of hanging some hooks on the wall in the kitchen to hang our aprons from. They are too pretty to hide in a drawer. I have also purchased some really cute aprons from Momo Made It. She does a beautiful job.

I also found this pattern on Posie Gets Cozie. It's a bag to take shopping instead of using the plastic shopping bags. I have plenty of fabric laying around here, so decided to make one. I used Amy Butler fabric.



I really like how it turned out. It folds flat when not in use.



I have it sitting by the back door on the shelf, so hopefully will remember to take it with me when I go shopping. I'm planning to make another one with the fabric left over from my apron.

Bathroom Update

I found some prints on etsy that I liked for the bathroom. I wasn't sure if the colors would be exactly perfect, but I think they work just fine.





Another fun detail - we found a switch for the fan that allows you to set the exact time that you want the fan to run. So cool!



It's an energy saver too. It doesn't matter if you forget to go back and turn the fan off.

Family Room Fabric

I had my hair cut yesterday, so of course I had to stop in at the quilt shop nearby. While I was browsing, I heard another customer ask about Amy Butler fabric. While they don't carry this particular line, one of the employees at the shop referred her to a fabric shop in a neighboring town that carried Amy Butler fabric. Needless to say, I was very excited to hear this and headed right home to search for the location of this shop on the internet. It was a beautiful spring day - a perfect day for a short road trip. This is what I found -


a small fabric/yarn shop. They had a whole wall of the fabrics I was wanting for the living room. I had ordered some fabric from Etsy, but wished I had purchased a few additional ones. It was great to see them all sitting there on the shelf - visually being able to see how they went together. I picked up a few more fabrics and the ones I ordered came today. So here are the fabrics that I plan to use for pillows in the family room.

Very pretty don't you think? I also found a bowl that goes nicely in the family room. I have it on my shelf with dominoes in it.

I would love to spend the evening sewing something out of these fabrics tonight, but instead I have to head out to a 6 hour quarterly staff meeting at work soon.

Project Monday

Ed and I were busy around the house this weekend. He was busy repairing the walls in the laundry room and bathroom. He started painting a little color, but we have decided we need to prime the walls first. I am going to finish painting the trim today.


I finished entering all my receipts/etc. from the business that we needed to get our taxes done. I also sorted through boxes that had been stored in the laundry room.

When I was a kid we spent a lot of weekends going to flea/antique markets. My dad would buy railroad lanterns, among other things. He would buy things that looked terrible and clean and polish them up beautifully! Anyway, my thing to collect was salt and pepper shakers and tiny oil lamps. (I also collected candles, but stored them in the attic once. Obviously I don't have them anymore!!) One of the boxes in the laundry room was my salt & pepper shaker collection. I decided to take some pictures of them and see if I could sell them anywhere. Here's one set - a washing machine and dryer. Pretty cute, huh?

My jar for granola was empty, so I made of batch of that too.


Here's the recipe if anyone is interested. I got this from my friend Laura many years ago. Mmm good!!

Skillet Granola

1/3 c. olive oil (or part butter/oil)
1/3 c. honey (or other sweeteners)
4 c. oats (use rye, barley or other flakes instead of some of the oats if you can find them)
1 c. raisins

Stir oil and honey in skillet. Heat until bubbling. Add oats and mix to coat well. Cook over low to med. heat until browned. Remove from heat and add raisins.

You can add lots of extra things to this granola. I always add vanilla and cinnamon to the liquids. You can also add nuts, coconut, ground flax seeds, etc.

I store my granola in a glass jar on the kitchen counter. It's so very good with fresh fruit and yogurt.

Enjoy!


I also looked online for some fabric ideas for in the family room. I ordered these from Etsy. I can't wait to get them and see the actual colors. If I decide not to use them in the family room, they'll make a great purse! The actual plan for this fabric is pillows and hopefully some part of the curtains.

Sunday we had a great time at church and then visiting over lunch with our Sunday School class! We also relaxed in front of a fire with a bowl of popcorn in the evening.

So I have a couple projects to complete today. First is the trim in the laundry room, need to get busy at that one.

The other project that I have already completed involved these 3 things:

Ed bought this Food Saver at a garage sale last summer. I finally bought the bags we needed for it. I also bought this very large bag of pepperoni at Sam's the other day. So it was the perfect first project to vacuum seal in smaller bags. Ed's sister vacuum seals all her meat that she puts in the freezer and told us it prevents the food from getting freezer burned. I also packaged up some hamburger this morning. We'll see how well it protects the food.

Off to paint the trim and do some laundry. Happy Monday!

Searching on Etsy

I was searching on Etsy today to see if I could find something I really loved for on the kitchen wall. I found a lot of prints I liked, but not too many that would work in the kitchen.

A few prints on Etsy that I like:

mtjoyschool - flowers, circles.


budanART - Maple Lake.


sophiassweetspot - retro looking prints



PaintingPrints red tulips


This one may work nicely in the kitchen, but I think it needs a partner. What do you think?


LeaSeguin - cafe au lait