Can I Get A Whoo-Yeah?!?

Or a woot woot? Or maybe a you go girl? Because after my last post about the turkey place mats and the fabric that I HAD to have, Bridget left me a comment about seeing that fabric at Hobby Lobby! (That's Roman's mommy who I made that circle quilt for. Remember?) So I quickly drug my two year old out the door before my hair appointment yesterday and headed to Hobby Lobby. I got there and found the fabric. It was originally $5.99 a yard compared to the $7.99 a yard on Etsy. And I paid for a little bit of gas as opposed to $6-$12 for shipping! Then, I looked up, and it had a 30% off sign on top!

Needless to say, I rocked it at Hobby Lobby yesterday!

I even found a background fabric to use that was $2.99 with 30% off, a small amount of orange for the beaks, and I went ahead and bought a chocolate brown corduroy for the turkey body. It has a smaller nap than the pants I was going to use. It was the only thing that wasn't on sale, but I only needed a 1/2 yard. I bought my Wonder Under and buttons for the eyes at Hancock's the other day. I have scraps of batting for the inside and now I am all set. Now I just hope I can do this without a pattern. I may be showing a quilt made out of all this instead!

Oh yeah! And there wasn't much left on the bolt of those 3 fabrics that I had to have, so I bought the rest of the bolts! I got a little over 4 yards of two of them and 4 yards of one. Just in case this works out and someone wants to buy some! But seriously, don't get your hopes up. I have never made place mats before....but we'll see!

Sara

Fun Fact Friday

Halloween Fun Facts:


1. Orange and black are Halloween colors because orange is associated with the Fall harvest and black is associated with darkness and death.

2. Tootsie Rolls were the first wrapped penny candy in America.

3. Halloween is on October 31st, the last day of the Celtic calendar. It was originally a pagan holiday, honoring the dead. Holloween was referred to as All Hallows Eve and dates back to over 2000 years ago.


Have a Fun Friday!

Sara

Thankful Thursday

This week I am so thankful for Etsy. I get a lot of inspiration from this site! This week I have decided to make us some Thanksgiving place mats. I found this little turkey here. Isn't he cute? Or is it a she? Anyway, so I remembered back this summer that I went thrift shopping. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just waiting for something to jump out at me that I could re purpose. I ended up coming home with four linen looking curtain panels. They had flowers embroidered up the sides which I didn't really care for. So this week I remembered I had purchased these and that it would be good to make my place mats out of. I got them out a little while ago and there is only enough fabric there to make four place mats after I cut off the embroidery. We have a table that seats eight, and I thought about making twelve. So I had to go to plan B. Maybe I could put fabric borders on each side in thirds. That didn't leave enough room for my turkey so onto plan C.

Now I am saving the curtains for maybe a few pillows and am going to get fabric for the back and front. This is what I have picked out for the turkey feathers. I also have a few pair of corduroy pants that are in my re purpose pile that I want to use for his body. I am hoping that they will match the feather fabric. If not, I will be going to plan D and buying corduroy. I found some at Hancock's today and it was on sale. Which means that when my fabric that I am ordering from Etsy comes in, the corduroy probably will clash.

That is my luck. I hope it turns out like it is pictured in my head. But it usually doesn't. You know, that's my luck, too!

Sara

Thankful Thursday

This week I am very thankful for consignment shops! Remember when I was doing all this here? Well yesterday was the day that I picked up my check. I did so good! I made a total of $653.18. I sold some to a friend and made $40.00 with her and the remaining $613.18 at Kid's Market! I got rid of a lot of maternity stuff too! Yay for me! So this week I am VERY thankful for Kid's Market. It makes me cringe at the thought of all the things I have just given away in the previous years. Don't get me wrong....I don't mind giving things to charity, but if they are items that are perfectly good I feel like I am being wasteful by just giving them away. I prefer to try and get something out of it and then donate what I can't sell.

Monday I took some of my clothes to Act II consignment. All of my work clothes that I wore when I worked at the bank that I don't use anymore. They are really picky there so they didn't take but maybe half of it. So now I am going to look for another consignment store for women's clothing and hopefully take some there. Let me know if you all know of another place.

This morning I took the things that were left over from the Kid's Market sale, went through and got all the name brand things out and I am going to try to sell some more here. I have never consigned with them so I don't know how that will go but I am at least going to try! It is all loaded up in the car and hopefully I will be able to get it down there this afternoon.

Never Again!

I finished Blaine's Halloween Costume Monday evening. I did it while Bryson was napping so I had to get it done. He is going to be a cowboy. It was an easy to sew/no sew pattern, meaning I could have glued it together instead of sewing. But since the request from Blaine was to have a costume that he could wear more than once, I thought gluing it would be silly. His reasoning behind wearing it again is...he plays a boy version of "dress up" in his Halloween costumes after the season is over. I guess that is okay...better than sitting in front of the TV, right? One day I even came out and he had dressed Bryson up as Spider Man and he was the Hulk. These are previous years costumes that weren't exactly cheap, seeing how they came with muscles and all.

So I get the pattern for $.99. (I don't think I have posted about this, but if I have, I am sorry to repeat myself.) The fabric was a chocolate brown faux suede for $5.99 a yard with 40% off. I only needed two yards for Blaine, but decided that since Bryson has new cowboy boots and a hat too, why not get one more yard and make him one too? Because if Blaine is doing it he will want to. So I get three yards, the pattern, thread and velcro (which I had to buy a whole package of for 2 little dinky pieces) and spent right at $31.00. I was so proud of myself. So, I make Blaine's vest and chaps Monday night and go to try it on him and the vest is to small.

Well, there is Bryson's vest.

Then I proceed to put the chaps on Blaine. What did I get?

"Thank you mom! I love it!" NO.

"These are the coolest things ever!" NO.

"I can't wait until Halloween!" NO again.

Instead of Blaine being grateful for my super savvy ability to not spend much money, or my ability at making his costume with very little sewing ability and for sure no pattern reading ability (it really is a different language, I think) I get a very disappointed look.

"Well, I was really hoping for real chaps and vest."

"Blaine, what do you mean a 'real one'"?

"You know. Leather ones, Mom."

"Blaine, I know you want to reuse your Halloween costume and all, but I am not about to buy you real leather chaps and vest. This is a "costume". And besides, you got a real cowboy hat and boots to go with it so this is as real as it gets."

Boy did I bust his bubble. So I set my alarm for 5am on Tuesday morning to get up and make another vest. One that fits him. It only took a few minutes. I think I had to stitch maybe a total of 6 inches. I did have to redo the pattern, making it bigger because I made it as big as it was t he first time. I get him up for school and tell him I redid it. He jumps out of bed to try it on.

"Well, I was kinda hoping for a cow print vest. Like the one in the picture. And do you think you can take those tie things off of the chaps? I don't really like that part. Maybe you can just sew it up."

"You know what Blaine? Why don't you give out the candy and me and Stephen will take Bryson trick-or-treating. Then maybe when you grow up, you can be a cowboy and get your own costume!"

And the worst part is, the pattern must have rounded up what I needed as far as fabric goes. Since I don't sew (quilting is different) I rounded up to make sure I had enough. Now I have enough to make a cowboy vest and chaps for everyone I know. Normally I would be excited about leftover fabric, but I can't quilt this. Unless maybe I make someone a faux suede quilt. HMMM.....I may have to think about that.

I had looked at several places for boots and a hat, but had no luck. When we went to Gatlinburg over fall break I saw a sign that said, "Buy 1 get 2 free!" Well, I couldn't pass that up so I went in. The boots were $60.00. Hold on! I can justify this!! I wasn't sure what size Blaine would wear so I got him two pair. The smaller pair fits so he can grow into the second pair! Bryson got the third pair so it equaled $20.00 each. Then if I sell them in Kids Market I will make money off of them! Woo hoo! And they have stars on the side that light up when they wear them! Safety first!

So whether Blaine thinks I did good this year, I think I did good this year. But NEVER AGAIN!!

Sara

It Ain't Food Network, But They Eat It....Tuesday!

I'm not even sure if this could be classified as a recipe because it is so simple, but it's my blog and I will if I want to! This was given to me around 15 years ago at a singles devotional at church. The lady hosting the event made this and I came pretty close to eating every bit by myself. I.love.it. The only problem with putting it on here is it doesn't really have a name. And what we call it isn't a good name for it. Because it looks kinda like vomit, we usually refer to it as puke dip. I know, terrible isn't it? Yeah. I live with all boys, remember? And if we let Bryson name it he would call it booty dip so I am choosing right now to name it Creamy Salsa Dip. Yes, that's better.

Creamy Salsa Dip

1-8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened

1-jar of salsa

Your favorite tortilla chips

In a large bowl, mix together softened cream cheese and salsa. Stir some and then use the mixer for about 30 seconds. This does splatter when you mix it, so maybe wear an apron and make sure your bowl is big enough. Then transfer a smaller bowl for serving and refrigerate until ready to eat it.

Sorry don't know how many ounces for the salsa, but it is the short jar. If I had to guess I would say it is around 12-15 ounces. I made this the other day for the Tots to Tikes get together and I used medium salsa, but it is good with mild or hot also.

Enjoy!

Sara

Love This!

So I have been going through these quilts in the Blogger Quilt Festival. I have found one that I HAVE to have. I even emailed the maker and asked her to send it to me for Christmas! When I checked my email the other day there was a response from her!!! She politely told me that if I was waiting by the mailbox holding my breath, I really should stop because she wasn't sending it to me. Well then. I was really sad but I told her I understood and we could still be friends.

But what else would I have expected from a total stranger?
Click here to see her awesome quilt. And yes, part of the reason I like it so much is because it is green. I think most of you know that already, but just in case Candy didn't know, there ya go. Any who, so now I am on a quest. A quest to collect the selvage edge from all different fabrics. Selvages of any length. A good inch to two inches from the edge would be great. My only problem is I have one friend that I know sews and I contacted her immediately. So if you sew, or you have friends that sew, or if you have friends that have friends that sew, I want the selvages.

Give them to me and no one gets hurt.

You are going to throw them away, anyhow. You will never use them, and you know you would never get around to making one of these yourselves! You are too busy so don't even try it! Thanks!

Sara