Teacher Gifts December 2012

This year for Christmas gifts for my kids' teachers I was inspired by PINTEREST!!!  Now, I would love to say that all these ideas were MINE, but in reality PINTEREST motivated me to make a couple of little gifts for each teacher.

 First I took a quick picture of each kid holding their hand out so they could present their teacher with a candy cane.  They wrote a holiday greeting on the back of the picture. 
**Sorry the pictures are so blurry, not sure what happened. 

I LOVE this next idea!  There were many examples of this on PINTEREST, so darn cute!  I knew I had to make a couple!  Easy peasy too!  Gotta love that.  "Hand Santa-tizer"!! Still makes me giggle!!  

This one says "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!"  Cute, cute, cute! 

I wanted to give everyone a week off from doing the dishes!  The note says -

"Don't let the dishes pile up this busy holiday season!

Let us “do the dishes” this week!"

Merry Christmas!"

A little snack - "Twizz the Season to be Jolly!"

Finally, this one cracked me up when I saw it.  Had to include an extra funny one- 

"This Christmas you deserve the best...
...a present unlike all the rest.
We considered a new car or exotic cruise,
but decided on something you could really use!
Finally we found a gift to admire,
we hope you like your new washer and dryer!
Happy Holidays!"

Again, these are not my ideas, I borrowed them from the "real creative" people on PINTEREST.  Thanks so much!!  

  

Quote for the Day

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is life, fight for it.

 -- Mother Teresa

Quote for the Day

Let us cry for the spilt milk, by all means, if by doing so we learn how to avoid spilling any more. Let us cry for the spilt milk, and remember how, and where, and why, we spilt it. Much wisdom is learnt through tears, but none by forgetting our lessons.

- Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burt

Jelly Roll Quilt

I finally completed my first 'jelly roll' quilt!!  Yea ME!!  This is what a 'jelly roll' of fabric looks like.  It is a bunch of 2.5 inch strips of fabric in a roll.  The colors go well together and end up making a quilt topper.   

This was a bigger project than I expected!  Started off with a full size jelly roll and made the "front" (in my mind it is the front!) side of the quilt.  I saw this on YouTube and  got inspired to make my own.  I've seen the jelly rolls at Tuesday Morning and always wanted to make something out of it, but never had an idea of what to do with it, but now I've made my own EASY quilt!!  ...again YEA ME!!!

This is my daughter playing "Vanna" and displaying the front of the quilt.  The green border around the quilted strips is a $5.00, 200 thread count, twin size sheet from WalMart. I just sewed the quilt on top of the sheet.  Much easier than sewing a border around the sheet.  Phew, after I did that I felt like I saved a couple hours of measuring and pinning and sewing.    

You can see the green border much better in this view.

Alina is now chill-axing on the backside of the quilt!  She was exhausted after showing off the front of the quilt.  This part was a bunch of scraps sewed together to make a quilt for the back also.  It isn't exactly the picture I had in my head, but turned out pretty good.  The final touch that I wanted was a soft border around the entire quilt.  I wanted the same feeling I had when I was a kid, a smooth, satiny, soft trim around the blanky! 

I found some bright pink and brown satin at JoAnn Fabric. 

Both sides of the quilt were sewn around an old blanket that once belonged to my daughter.  It was a win-win situation for me, covered a blanket that would have otherwise been thrown out, and made a cozy "new" quilt for me to use on a cold winter day! 

Quote of the Day

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. 

 -- Thomas A. Edison

Addition to Shower Curtain Rings....

 An addition to a previous post about a bathroom update!!!  After updating the shower curtain rings I thought I should improve on the shower curtain.  Click here to see curtain ring update.  The white one we had was about 15 years old.   It wasn't very exciting and just needed a slight kick in the pants!!!  LOL.  So I found a bunch of fabric scraps that I had around the house and "quilted" together a new curtain. 

You can see the flowered rings and my new curtain.  I'm glad you can't get too close to it to see all the tiny mistakes that I made!! 

 The white scrap in the middle of the picture below is the old curtain.  Thought it wouldn't be bad to reuse a piece of the old one. 

 The white fabric at the top (that the rings are hanging from) is my old curtain.  I used that so I didn't have to add all the button holes!  Made it a lot easier. 

Also, I use an extra curtain rod to hang towels from.  I like it better than having the towels over the actual curtain rod, I feel like the bath towel doesn't get totally dry if it is touching the wet shower liner.  
I know what you are thinking - she is really weird!!!  Guess so! 

Thanks for looking, 
Have a great day, 
Cathy

Kitchen Hand Towels

While looking around on PINTEREST I saw these super cute dish towels. My first thought was "I can do that...." No problem! Except I don't have the patience or the expertise to make these. Nor to do I seem to have the time!!
I love the look of these and this would make it so much easier to keep the dish towels off the floor! Check out the details here.

And then I saw another idea for keeping towels off the floor! Check it out here.
These are awesome ideas!!! However I am NOT that motivated to alter each towel!!! I needed an idea that was a little simpler, a little less work for me!

My first thought was to sew buttons and button holes on each towel. I love the look but again too much work!  Button holes AND sew on buttons - not enough time! 

There were a couple other ideas involved between this idea and the final creation, but I'm not brave enough to show them to the 10 people who may look at this! Not sure if this is a combination of a couple ideas or if I saw it somewhere while checking out blogs, but this is the best one for me. I thought of this as a way to create the strap on the oven door and not have to make alterations on each towel. The final result helps to keep the kitchen towels OFF the floor.  Anyone else have that problem??  Drives me crazy!


This is the towel holder with all the pieces taken apart. Makes it very easy to change towels out and since the straps are made from fabric scraps they can be washed and it is SO easy to make.


Not sure if this is enough details to show my ideas, but this shows the basics.  I hope!  :)

Thanks for looking, 
Cathy

Quote for the Day

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.

~~ Groucho Marx

Shower Curtin Rings

I was getting sick of looking at our Virginia Tech shower curtain holders. We have had them in the master bath for a couple years and I needed a change! This was the before look. Wasn't sure what to change it to, but the idea hit me while walking around in the Dollar Tree.

I saw these shower curtain rings and I knew that I had a TON of fabric flowers carefully stored at home (that of course means they were stuffed in a shoe box!). So I made the connection - improve the shower look and use up some of my flowers! BINGO!!

I dug through my box of flowers and found all the yellow-ish ones! Yellow is my favorite color and thought it would brighten up the small bathroom. I just sewed the flowers to the each one of the rings then secured it with a little hot glue. Presto!! I think they look better than the VT hooks.

I took a close up of each group.....




Not too bad! Not perfect but it will do for now! :-)

Thanks for looking and have a great day.
Cathy

Quote for the Day

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

~~ John Wooden

Extra Coupon Wallet

I LOVE couponing!! It is such a challenge to find all the sales then save, save save!!! However I inevitably have coupons that haven't been sorted and put in my binder after cutting them out. SO I needed a little wallet type holder for the extras - kinda like a holding spot until I get around to putting them in their correct spot. I used a couple fabric scraps to make this little extra coupon wallet. Very simple and comes in handy when I just can't finish organizing my coupons in one evening!

I love the bright yellow lining! So happy!



This is a quick look at my coupon binder! I carry the binder around in this bag - made from 2 cloth napkins. Not really pretty but gets the job done. My next project is going to be to make a much cuter bag for my coupon binder!







The binder is from Staples. I like the 3.5 inch size, easy to put lots of "stuff" in there! I also like a pencil case inside just in case there is a paper clip emergency!! LOL!






There are about 35 categories for coupons. I used The Krazy Coupon Lady's ideas for the categories. She has tons of great ideas there! Also the BEST database of printable coupons.







The coupon pages are baseball card pages. I found them at the Dollar Tree. Not sure how many are in a package, but the work great. I've also seem them at Office Depot or Staples but they cost more there.



Thanks for looking! Happy Couponing!

Cathy

Grocery Bag from Scraps

Mmmmm what to do with my fabric scraps and an old pillow case???? I admit I'm a "bag lady"!! So what else is there to make but a reusable bag. Easy peasy!

This is a small selection from my MOUNTAIN of fabric scraps! I had an idea just itching at my brain - to make a reusable grocery bag from a pillowcase. It seemed so easy to me.... just cut the scraps and sew them together.
I started by cutting 3.5 inch strips from each fabric. They were all the same length so I didn't have to decide on a length! The measurements were purely by chance! I was just hoping that they would work out, no pre-planning involved here!
After cutting all the strips, just sewed the pieces together.
Next I folded the "quilt-like" pieces in half lengthwise and cut. This was to make both sides of the bag.
To make sure the pillowcase fit just right, I cut that after making the quilt part. And, to my surprise the width was just right. I had to trim up the length by cutting the pillowcase. Not a big deal.
Because I'm a wild and crazy kinda girl, I put one side vertical stripes.....

and the other side horizontal stripes! Cute! The handles are made from 3.5 inch strips also.

To make sure the pillowcase stayed securely in the bag, I sewed buttons on the bottom corners. It looks nice and serves a purpose.

Finally, as an added touch and to secure the handles in place I sewed buttons at the base of each handle. Buttons are my favorite embellishment! Love it.

Sorry I don't have more pictures for you to see. I have to get better at taking pictures while working.

Thanks for looking
Have a great day.
Cathy

Full Length Mirror "Blinged UP"!

All right there really isn't any BLING added to the mirror, but it was embellished with my favorite embellishment - BUTTONS!! Bling sounded better than buttoned-up!!
I wanted a full length mirror in my bedroom (I was getting sick of asking my 11 year old daughter if I could borrow hers!), but didn't want a Blah one!

Started off with a plain $5.00 mirror from Wal-Mart, and added my own touch to it. This is the final product -

Sorry about the blurry pictures, I think the camera was focusing on the trees in the reflection!

I think it turned out pretty cute. Used my trusty hot glue gun and a bunch of buttons that I bought at Michaels in a bucket (and of course used my 50% off coupon!). Total cost was less than $8.00.
Love it!

Thanks for looking.
Cathy

Quote for the Day

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

~~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

A Little Giggle for Today

SKIPPING CHURCH!!!

A church Pastor woke up Sunday morning and realizing it was an exceptionally beautiful and sunny early spring day, decided he just had to play golf.

So... he told the Associate Pastor that he was feeling sick and persuaded him to preside over the services for him that day.

As soon as the Associate Pastor left the room, the Pastor headed out of town to a golf course about forty miles away.

This way he knew he wouldn't accidentally meet anyone he knew from his church. Setting up on the first tee, he was alone. After all, it was Sunday morning and everyone else was in church!

At about this time, Saint Peter leaned over to the Lord while looking down from the heavens and exclaimed, "You're not going to let him get away with this, are you?"

The Lord sighed, and said, "No, I guess not."

Just then the Pastor hit the ball and it shot straight towards the pin, dropping just short of it, rolled up and fell into the hole.

IT WAS A 420 YARD HOLE IN ONE!

St. Peter was astonished. He looked at the Lord and asked, "Why did you let him do that?"

The Lord smiled and replied, "Who's he going to tell?"


Tee hee hee!!! Love that one! Have a giggly day!
Cathy