Monday, March 28, 2011

Crafters in Training ...

Season 8 of So You Think You're Crafty is just around the corner, so to prep ourselves for the intense competition - we are starting to train this week!

How do you train for a craft competition? YOU CRAFT ... duh!!!! Emily & I will be following along with Season 7 & making crafts for each of the themes.

Week One: Dollar Store Crafts
Could this be any more fun? I LOVE the dollar store and since I'm always on a tight budget, this weeks theme is just up my alley! We make our trek to the dollar tree tomorrow - wish us luck & check back soon to see what fun things we create!!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Cookie Dough Inspired Crafts

There are times in every crafters journey when ideas simply aren't flowing. During our weekly crafting fiesta, Emily & I ran into this problem and quickly found a marvelous solution in home made cookie dough. Two spoonfuls in we were completely inspired by giggle fits due to our sugar high and created some adorable hand painted buckets for Easter!
We are now all out of cookie dough but I'm busy cooking up some yummy brownies for our next craft day ... Bring on the inspiration {and the pounds that come along with it}.

Sincerely, 
Laura

Friday, March 11, 2011

Blogger For Dummies

Today I decided to dive head first into the world of Blogger.  Before my last post, I had never clicked on anything past the dashboard, in fear that I would send our blog into deep cyber space- never to return again.  However, I got up the courage with a little help from Jill at sneaky momma blog design and started playing around with some of the layout.  Jill's blog is SO amazing... you MUST go check it out. 


Sneaky Momma Blog Design


If you are like me (a bit tech challenged) you will find this site very VERY helpful.  She is super easy to understand and covers any category that you can think of.  She categorizes all of her tips into convenient little drop down menus labled "Beginner", "Intermediate" and "Advanced", you can just skip on over to your ability level.  She also has links to plenty of helpful blogs and websites that are full of blogger-gold. 

Go check her out!!

My goal for this weekend is to have our blog looking AMAZING with the help from Jill's blog.  So keep checking in to see the improvements!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Quick Lesson on Sewing Basics


Ever since my 8th grade home economics class, my knowledge of sewing has slowly declined, and that is a bit of an understatement.  I learned to make a pillow that ended up falling apart a few days afterwards, broke PLENTY of needles, almost ALWAYS got the thread into knots that even the boy scouts would be jealous of, and nearly cost the school a pretty penny by almost breaking the entire sewing machine due to my lack of sewing abilities.  After the nightmare of home economics ended, I decided that sewing was just not for me. 

Until now....
 

I just wanted to share with you guys how Laura gave me a quick (literally 5 minutes) lesson on the basics of the machine. We were about to leave for our Zumba class, so please excuse the pictures- they were taken on my phone.  She showed me how to thread the bobbin and then also how to thread the machine.  I sewed a straight line on a piece of scrap fabric, just to get the feel of the machine.  For some reason I am terrified of this machine!  Is it just me or does it seem like the needle is inevitably going to pop off and soar into someone's eye socket? 
This is my first needle and thread contact since middle school.  I am so proud! haha.
I will obviously need MANY more lessons on sewing, but hey! You have to start somewhere, right?
Laura (being the amazing cook/baker that she is) ALWAYS has something for us to munch on, so tonight it was chocolate chip cookies. Probably not the best thing to eat before an intense hour of working out, but they were fantastic!

So, now you have seen my mini lesson in sewing.  It isn't much but it's a start! With my busy work schedule, it's hard to find the time for a real in-depth lesson, but I am planning on practicing on my own very soon. My goal for March is to be able to make pillows and fabric flowers.  Next time I will make sure I have enough time to take better pictures and make something cool (hopefully).

By the way... this is also my first time posting anything onto Blogger, so I can also cross that off of my list of "Things to Learn".  Yay!!