Some Recent Winnings

I've entered a couple of giveaways on blogs recently and have been really lucky to win three!

The first one was from Rhonda at Southern Hospitality
I won two prints from Rusty Cricket. I chose the Crab Nation and Chowder Cove. These prints are so cute and very good quality. We are going to start finishing our basement and I'm hoping to use these to hang on the walls. I'm thinking they would look great framed in a white frame.
This is one of the prints that I received.

Then I won one from A Little Etsy Love. Have you checked out this site? If not you need to. They showcase different sellers on etsy and have lots of cute things that I normally wouldn't even find out there. I won a gift certificate to Misty Dawn Designs I chose a necklace and it is so pretty. I've worn it with long sleeve knit shirts and it looks beautiful with such a casual outfit but would also be super cute with something more dressy too.
This is similar to the one that I got.

Yesterday I learned that I won a $25 gift card to Stella & Dot through Sisters Stuff. Katie Hartzheim sells Stella & Dot and offered the gift certificate. I'm super excited because I ordered my daughter a necklace that came with three charms. This is the one that I chose.

So, if you think that you aren't lucky, just enter, it's fun to win. I'm enjoying the things that I've received.

I also added links into the blogs and the sites for the stores and for some reason they aren't showing up. But if you search for the sites you should be able to find both.

Mirror Makeover

When I was little my mom had this mirror on her dresser. It obviously wasn't this dusty, that's what years of storage will do! She always had her perfume and jewelery box on it. I've had this stored in my garage for the last four year. I found it when I was going through some boxes this summer. I decided that I really wanted to use it in my master bath to keep some of my things on like my mom used to.




However, the 1970's gold was not matching anything that I have! The before pictures really don't show how shiny that gold was! I figured a couple coats of white spray paint would help. I thought I would have to tape the mirror to paint. But when I looked at it, it was held to the base with 8 little nails. I was able to pull them out and just paint the frame. Then I just reattached everything. The back was also covered in a very thing layer of some kind of felt. It was falling off. I just scraped it all off.

I'm so happy with how it turned out. Taking pictures of this was so hard!





Linking up to Between Naps on the Porch Metamorphosis Monday. http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/2010/09/welcome-to-87th-metamorphosis-monday.html

The Francis Family Paint it Challenge

Apple Pie

Whenever the weather starts to get cooler I always feel like baking. Today I made an apple pie. It turned out perfect. Last year I made homemade apple pie filling. All I had to do was make the crust and crumb topping today. It makes for a quick homemade dessert.





Addison was very excited to help make the pie. She wanted her picture taken with the final result.

We also worked on a couple of projects today that I will be sharing later this week after we get them finished up.

Gardening

I have been busy outside working on our garden. Usually I don't plant anything until after Memorial Day, however we have been having unseasonably warm weather.

When we bought our house in 2006 this area just had some sand and clumps of dirt. The following summer we dug it up, put down dirt and planted perennials and some annuals. We lost quite a few plants that first winter. Each year it has gotten better. This year I was excited. I only needed to replace three plants. I did also add some more annuals for color.

We have also taken down the fence that was on the side and back of our house. Because of the frost it as starting to fall over. In the back between our yard and the neighbors we decided to put in three Spring Snow crabapple trees. These should get between 20 to 25 feet high and 18 to 20 feet wide.

Fabric Pins

I've seen these on various blogs. For the fabric one I printed out a flower pattern and added different sizes so I could have more on my pin. Then for the circle one I just used cups. I used a small circle of felt on the back and stitched on a pin back. Then I just attached the fabric to that through the button and back through the pin back.

The most time consuming thing out of them was making the patterns. I cut them out of paper and then out of a thin cardboard (from a 12 pack of soda). I have been able to reuse the cardboard patterns to cut out my fabric. I'm planning on making quite a few of these for gifts, so I'm going to cut a bunch of fabric out and then just sit down one night to stitch them all together.

 

Linking to Diary of a Craftaholic

Custom Resuable Bag

I saw this idea last year in an issue of Family Fun. I bought the iron on paper last year but never had a chance to do the project.

I picked up a reusable bag at Joanne Fabrics. I love their bags, they are big, have a cardboard piece for the bottom, and velcro to keep it shut. Plus they are $1. Can't go wrong with that!

Then I cut a piece of printer paper in half and drew two pictures on them. Then I let Addison color them in. After she was done, I scanned the pictures in as one sheet again. I printed it on the iron on paper and cut it in half.

I followed the directions on the iron on paper that I uesd . One word of advise is to really have your iron on low. It says the lowest cotton setting, well I burned a little hole in my bag. But I wanted to see how it would turn out so I finished it anyway.

I'm definitely going to be picking up more bags so I can use these as gift bags for all of the grandparents. They are not only getting a bag that they can use but one that is personalized.

I'm linking up over at Living with Lindsay http://www.livingwithlindsay.com/?
I'm linking up over at Miss Craft Pants

Fabric Bracelets

I originally found this idea on UCreate who posted a link for Blue Cricket Design. The tutorial can be found here http://sistersstuff.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-swap-with-blue-cricket-design.html


These were so easy to do. I actually found a four pack of Sesame Street rubber bracelets on clearance at target for 98 cents. At the time I wished I had bought more, but when making them these are kind of small compared to other rubber bracelets. They fit on my wrist, but my wrist is pretty small. I did also have one other bracelet at home that was regular sized.



I had some fabric that was given to me, so I cut strips from that. I made five of these in less than 30 minutes. I'm definitely thinking of making some of these for Christmas gifts.