Packed away and out in a couple of months!

I've totally been a slacker these past couple of months.  Not just on the blog but in my home.  I usually am on top of things when it comes to the Holiday decor and I have always had the tradition of putting away all the Christmas stuff on New Years day....nope not this year.  See, I have been in a funk!  My crafty bug has not been very creative, well I shouldn't say "not" creative...I have just been to busy.  I actually went almost 2 weeks without stepping a foot into the craft room.  EEK!! LOL!!  I'm making a change though.  No resolutions here - just changes.  This past weekend I started up on some new projects and Monday night/morning I packed up alllllll the Christmas that was in my home.  Tuesday after work I took all of it upstairs to put away. Yay for me!

Here is my Christmas tree, I had already started removing stuff from the bottom.

 

I sure do have a lot of stuff that goes into the tree.



Well Christmas is officially put away....."see you in a couple of months".  Last Christmas post I promise.

I hope everyone has had a great week so far.

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I felt like I was sewing foreeeeeeeever!

Not really, it actually didn't take that long, it was the prep that took a while.
I must say you will be bombarded with a ton of pics.....sorry for that.  I'm a visual person, I like to see pictures and I feel that you will understand it better if you can see what I'm seeing.  I'm a weirdo like that, when people talk I have to see their mouth moving, if not all I hear is mumbles. LOL!!

Okay, now on to the project.  I have been wanting a mat for the entrance to my craft room.  Why you may ask....oh just because.  Well I went on a adventure looking for the right materials to make it.  I definitely didn't want to spend lots of money and I knew I wanted something handmade. By me, duh!! I went to Goodwill, sadly I couldn't find anything that I was totally in love with.  Now I realize I could have gone to Wally World to buy a cheapie for 5 bucks, but what would be the fun in that.  Then I went to $ tree and bought 200 feet of poly rope.  That cost me about 4 bucks. 

When I went to another Goodwill, I found this twin sheet for 3 bucks, it would have to do.  All the way home I thought about how I could snazz it up a bit.

I decided I would make some of the colors pop.  Boy, was I in over my head.   With 3 fine tip markers I went about my merry little way and outlined the green, pink and dark pink prints.  For this twin size sheet it took me 6 hours to finish!

Can you see the change?  It went from Dull to Cheery!

After the (6) hours, my fingers were cramping, my neck was aching from looking down and I had a headache from the permanent marker smell....but I was happy to be done with that.  Now I was ready to cut and tear.  What??  ←  that's what theHubs said....after all that you're going to cut it up.  Yup!  I took the pinking sheers and snipped about every 1 inch along the edge.  Then I just ripped it into what you see below.

Sorry, I didn't take a picture of the part where I tied the end of the rope and the end of the strip together.  Then I wrapped the rope a couple of times to cover it.  To start off the mat I folded the start of the wrapped rope down about 2 inches  (like this ║) then I sewed it together.  Then I just continued wrapping, turning, and sewing.

I used a zig-zag stitch for the whole mat.  I kept the center of the rope and the center of the foot aligned so I could get the zig-zag on both sides.  (╥)

Okay, I'm a lefty and I do most things backwards!! Lol!!  Well, this was totally my fault for not thinking this through.  I'm so impatient sometimes and I pay for it with mess ups like this.  When I was done with my first 50 feet of wrapped rope....I had a curving bowl mat......NOOOOOOOOOO!  Yeah, instead of running it through and turning left I was turning right.  So hence the almost bowl.  I had to start again and I did it correctly.  I took the seam ripper to the bowl and used this piece at the end.  So, it worked out.

See, I'm doing it the right way here!! 

Please ignore the Hobbit feet below!!  Geez, they look like stand in feet for the Lord Of the Rings movies, lol!!  There are shadows around, I don't have cankles okay! My feet are little and cute...so theHubs says, lol!! I love to stand on it barefoot because it's always cool. 

I really love the way it turned out!  Even though it did take the (6) hours to add the color I'm glad I did....it pops right?

I'm really tempted to make a bigger one...who knows maybe I will!  So in total it cost be less than $8.00 and my time. 

I'm glad you stopped by to check out the latest project.  Everyone have a great week.


Linking up at the fabulous parties in my party tab and also at these great places -
Craft-O-Maniac
Watch Out, Martha!

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Fishing line trellis

Hey every one...remember when I posted about allllll the fishing line that I received on one of my freecycle trips?  No, didn't think so!!  Well here is a pic to refresh your memory.  This is only one bag of it.

Since I am crafty and cheap ($ wise), I have been looking on-line for different ways to use up this stuff.  One of the ways to use it up was to make a trellis.  So I got to it.

I pulled out my little box of all the misc. screws and bolts that have been left over or recycled from stuff that has been put together in our home and 1 handy dandy screw driver.

I marked the fence where I wanted to put the screws...I didn't measure, I'm a big believer in eye-balling stuff, lol!!  

I found the strongest fishing line in my pile and got to wrapping and knotting.  If you look very closely I have (5) lines a that go from left to right and (2) lines that make a (X) in the center.

I bought flowering Jasmine to grow there.  I wish there was more to show you, but that's it, that's all that has grown.  It doesn't even have flowers  (*.*).  I really hope it works out the way I want it to.   It has been really hot and I've been trying to water, so we'll see.

Until next time!! Thanks for stopping by.

Linking up at these fabulous parties this week!

The Dedicated House

Savvy Southern Style

My Repurposed Life

 

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Spray Paint project!

I ♥ spray paint!!!  Why, because this stuff can pretty much change anything into something pretty to look at.  Frames, furniture, glass, even shoes!!!!  I'm still trying to convince theHubs why I have so many spray paint cans or why I keep buying more....lol!!

I spent one of these past Saturdays spray painting outdoor plant pots.  They were due for a upgrade.  When we first moved into our new home we had no plants what so ever, the front door looked sad and lonely.  My mother-in-law gave me this potted plant, it is a type of Ivy.  The pot was painted white, probably with house paint not sure and after 7 years the paint has chipped away.  I sanded down as much as I could as you can see from the picture below.

It's no secret, I love easy projects.  This was super easy too!  I didn't remove the plant, because I was lazy and I said I loved easy projects.  So I just covered the plant with a plastic bag, tucked in all the long Ivy arms and pushed wooden skewers in around the bag so I wouldn't get spray paint all up in there. 

Ta-da!!  Fresh and white! 

I picked up this salmon colored pot at a garage sale for $1.00, yay!!  I washed and dried this baby and it was ready to be painted.  I loved the shiny color it had, it just didn't go with the outdoor color of the house.  So I just chose another shiny color to make a statement in the entry way.   

LOVE IT! Who doesn't love a nice turquoise?

Now, they are ready to show off!

I just put them here to take the picture.  They have since been moved, the blue one is on the walkway now.  

Everyone have a fabulous day, stay cool if it's hot out or stay dry if you're getting the rain! 



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Crochet Covered Jars - Mother's day gifts or whenever gifts!

Well I took a break from all the scrap busting this week! I wanted to do something else so I decided to cover some jars with some really bad crocheting.....as you can see from the pics below I'm not the worlds best crochet-er.  I did get the affect I was looking for though. This is what I will be making for Mothers day gifts for my mom, sisters, M-I-L and S-I-L's.  

I have about 100 empty jars and bottles in a spare closet waiting for future crafting plans.  When I get to them is another question and theHubs is getting a bit worried with all the jar hoarding going on. "Men", sometimes they don't understand.

I know the big thing that's going on around blog land is painting and tinting glass jars, but I don't want to do that just yet.  I don't want to do it because everyone else is doing it. Sometimes I want to be the oddball when it comes to crafting. ('',)  Yes, I know I'm not the first the crochet cover jars, but I'm showing you the jars that "I" covered. 

I used some yarn that I had bought at the $ store...and used some jars from my stash and cut some knock-out roses from my backyard.  Doesn't it feel great to be able to use what you have and not go out and buy anything.  The jars can be used as plant holders, candle holders or what ever you decide to do with them.

I hope everyone has a great week!  Look out for me I'll be linking up to lots of parties this week.  Check out my I ♥ to Party links page to see where I link up and where you can link up as well.

One of the places where I'll be linking up at is Craftbotics

Rosie is having a month long link up, so what'cha waiting for go over there and link up your AWESOME projects.  She also has co-hosting opportunities if you email her.  Go and check out her cute and crafty blog.

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Spring cleaning in the yard!!

Besides scrap busting for the past couple of weeks, I have also been doing a little Spring cleaning in the yard.  Well when I say "I", I really mean "we" as in theHubs and myself.  He cuts the yard and edges and I do the weed pulling, planting and sprucing.  This is sort of looooong post, but I have pics!  "You've been warned" lol!

March was here and then it was gone, I kept putting off the yard work.  I had no motivation to get in the backyard and clear thing up...it was getting kind of ugly back there.  Looking in the back yard is kind of scary....weeds up to my eyeballs, which isn't saying much because I'm like 5'2, there are spiders in the grass, wasps and bees a buzzing, ants.  Fun times!!  

Look at this....ocean of weeds!!  Looks like a family of Leprechaun's invaded my space. This stuff was in the WHOLE BED.  Which is about 50 ft across and varies between 3, 5, 8, and 12 feet wide in some places.  Every time I pull weeds from this bed, I ask myself....."WHY"  well more like screaming that is.  I knew it had to be done.....theHubs said he would hire someone to come and clean it out, but I said why should we waste money paying someone to do this.  Plus, I could use that money to buy more plants or potting soil. So I got to it and started.  One Sunday, took me about 5 hours minus this corner below.

See this pic below....well in this corner there should be a moss rock border, Lantana bushes, a hibiscus plant...I think. Sometimes I wish we had nothing back there, it's too much work.  But then I'd be mad because I'd want plants and color back there.  

I was there another weekend and only got halfway done here...I started to see my plants! Now you can see the rock border too!!  I just wish you couldn't see the cable boxes.  Thanks "SBC"  why did my yard have to have them....oh well once the plants start growing you can barely see them.

This is what I did on Good Friday!!  It doesn't look like much yet....I have to wait a couple more weeks before the flowering plants start blooming.  I also added a Yellow Lady Banks Rose bush....I can't wait to see that start to crawl.

This whole bed was full of weeds!  The biggest tree here is a Texas Lilac, it can be trained to grow as a bush or as a tree.  I loooooove this tree,  it has about a zillion buds on it and it looks awesome with its flowers.  The only bad thing about this tree is the tree leaves look very similar to a marijuana leaf...weird, lol!!  I can assure you, there is no illegal plant growing going on in my back yard.  I have a Bradford pear tree,  a couple of Crab Apple  trees, Althea bushes, and a Rose of Sharon bush, Lantana bushes, sage bushes.  The knockout rose bush is in full bloom....even though it hurt me to my heart to hack it up, it was getting kind of wild.  See below ↓ I cant wait till all the color comes in.  It looks amazing....then when fall comes it looks sad and pathetic no color and no leaves.  I can see the backs of my neighbors houses and we have no privacy at all.  Due to deed restrictions we can't put in 8 ft fences....booooooooo. And since we to share fences with 4 different houses it would be kind of hard to get any of the neighbors to pitch in any funds to replace the fence.  That's the burbs for you. 

Lookie here.... we have some buggy competition going on.  It's good and bad....these are the leaves to the Crab Apple tree.  So now they're gonna get eaten by the caterpillars...and I saw like a billion of them.  No worries,  they asked for permission and I said as long as you turn into lovely butterflies and visit it would be okay.

The Crab Apple is full of blooms too!!  Soooo pretty!

The front yard is pretty much full of colors.  I love it!  This plant below is a Duranta bush and will flower all the way to Fall.  

Pretty right???? Next to it I have some Morning Glory and Passion vines crawling. 

Hey lil fella...what'cha doing there.

With all the Spring cleaning going on, I broke all my nails, went through 2 pairs of garden gloves, got bit by ants (knee, arm, shoulder, hands, ankles, thigh, and a toe)....why do their bites hurt so bad, killed  6 (BIG) spiders, scraped my calf with the shovel, got a lil sunburned, almost ate a knat, almost stung by a red wasp - there's a nest in one of the bird houses and had a lizard jump on my leg.  I told theHubs that I'm glad we only do this a couple days out of the year....my back was killing me.  See fun times!

I hope you enjoyed my Spring post.  Thank you for stopping by.

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Scrap Busting - Yes....more! It's a desk pad.

The Scrap busting fool is back!!  Since all I'm using is scraps I didn't have enough to really make something more glamorous, like fancy place mats for the dining or breakfast tables. But I did have enough scraps to make a desk pad for my laptop.....yay!!

Here's what I did...

1) I cut up 2 x 2 inch squares

2) I arranged them the way I wanted it to look, stacked them by rows,then sewed them to make the strips.

3) Sewed the strips together and now you can see it what it will look like.

4) Here you can see what the back will look like.  I used a white on white paisley print.

5) Now to baste, bottom and top sandwiching some batting.  Then I pinned to keep it all in place.

6) Since this is a hodgepodge of different scraps I just top-stitched squares on the inside of every square on the top. (boring)

7) Whew....I was close to not having enough scraps for the the binding.  I had to sew lots of little pieces together, then cut to make it about 2 inches in width.  Make 2 folds towards the center, press with the iron....then fold that in half and press with the iron....done!

8)  I pinned the binding allllllllllll the way around.

9) Sewed the binding on and mitered the corners....at least I didn't mess those up because that sucks!

10) Done......It's not perfect but it will work for me.

11) Now my Laptop can sit all fancy on its new desk pad.  Perfect fit too!!

11)  Just had to show off my little desk top too!  You can barely see my plant on the left side. I've had that ivy for about 13 years now.  It stays on the desk in my craft room...why?? Oh because I have 2 really bad and sneaky fur babies that like to shred my plants.

Hmm....I wonder if I'll have more Scrap busting posts!  Maybe, I do have lots of it.  You might get too bored with it.  We'll see, lol!

Thank you for stopping by!! Have a great day!!

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Scrap Busting - Scrappy Table Runner

Well sadly I was not one of the winners of the $$MegaMillions$$ 
<insert sad mopey face here> lol!  
But I'm happy that I'm super blessed to have what I do have and I am not without. I have the things I need and most things that I want.

Okay, there has been a lot of scrap busting going on in the craft room.  I have bins of scraps that I just don't want to get rid of.   So, I decided to get busy with the scrap busting.  

Without going into too much detail - the hearts were made from scraps of a quilt (not so mellow yellow) I am still working on from last summer <sigh>, the top is a piece of muslin fabric, the bottom is a piece of white on white paisley print and batting for the middle.  

I never tire of seeing what people are making or creating.  So I hope you all never get tired of seeing the things that I post.  If you really read and visit most blogs you'll see the same things, just different spins on it.  Bags, totes, clothes, pillows, curtains, mug rugs, painted furniture, recipes - you name and there are about 3 zillion different variations of the thing. Which is why I never get tired of seeing so much inspiration.

Here is my spin on one of the many things that I have made.

Tumbling Hearts

Scrappy Table Runner

Thanks for stopping by!  
Let me know what you think.... I ♥ comments!
(I try to e-mail to all my comments, I want you to know that I do read them and
appreciate them.  If you still have no-reply set up, I reply to the comment on the post.)

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