Happy Fourth!

Some very good advice to remember for today's festivities!

Drunken Tags available in Farouche's Etsy shop.

Ignore this: 96i8udt3xs

Baby Moose's Church Outfit

Knowing how to knit really comes in handy when you have umpteen-million friends having babies. However, when those babies are primarily being born in the summer, knowing what to knit is not very easy. It's usually then complicated further when the parents wait to find out the sex. So I thank Miss Shelley immensely for finding out she's having a boy! It made knitting for her July baby SO much easier! Plus, she goes to church, so I knew I could dress that baby up a bit.

A sweet little cabled vest and bow tie. The buttons at the top are functional.

Daddy Reed is a lawyer and wears bow ties all the time. It seemed fitting that his first born son should have a baby version. I didn't have a pattern for this, and really had no clue either. So I basically just sewed a rectangle and then a little strip to go around the middle. I fastened a clip-on earring to the back, because I didn't want to be held responsible for anything being too tight around the baby's neck!

The code name for Baby Boy Cornia is "Moose." I found a little moose button and sewed it to the bottom much like Abercrombie does with their appliques.

A baby tweet card to go along with the gift.

My Chronicle Iron-Ons!

Back in May, I won free iron-ons from Mike Perry's Chronicle Book Iron Me On. I received them a few weeks ago, but I didn't have anything to put them on. However, a quick trip to Goodwill solved that.

Here are the iron-ons I got. I received multiple copies of each, and then shared a copy of each with Jessica.

I bought a plain pink t-shirt for $3.

I cut out my iron-on piece. I thought this would be more like the 80's iron-ons I remember from when I was kid. You, know, the kind that could be picked and peeled off after a few washes. But instead, this was more of an ink transfer. It required a very hot iron, but worked really well.

I put the transfer on the bottom in case it didn't work out. I figured I could cut the bottom of the shirt off and try the transfer again somewhere else.

...But that won't be necessary. It turned out great. (Despite what my pics may show). It says "We are what we do." True.

Now I need more ideas on what else to iron these onto!

Sew What: Grocery Bag Tube

In between riding bikes, garage sale-ing, and taking walks, I made this fun little bag using instructions from the book Sew What Bags. I know I shouldn't even have plastic bags given the number of cute fold-up totes I own, but they still seem to sneak their way into my home. And when you can't beat 'em, you join 'em. I made this tube using some leftover fabric I had. It's quite simple...just a two casings on the end for elastic and one seam down side. Voila!

If you look closely toward the bottom (or click the pic to make it bigger), you can see a Target bullseye showing through.)

I'd really like to make more of these since they were so fast and simple, but I'm guessing that I shouldn't be encouraging plastic bag collecting.

There are lots of fun bags in this book. Now it's just figuring out which one too make next!

With the exception of that big gray bag in the middle (which could hold a small body), all of these bags fit into the tube. And now I can actually find things under my kitchen sink again!

Pretty Wallpapers

I'm constantly changing up my work computer wallpaper. I used to just go to Smashing Magazine at the beginning of each month and grab one of theirs, but I think I may have found another site to add to the visit list: thekindredsite.com. How can you resist having such lovelies as these backing up your work? The bunnies from Fifi Lapin are currently my morning greeters.

Craftster, You Tees.

Oh, Craftster. Why is it you sell such cute tees when I'm supposed to be saving money for the homestead? You're killing me.

$1 Computer Desk Meet $7 Sewing Table

I think I've said that I've needed a sewing table since I got Miss Curvy last year. But alas, I've just been sewing at the dining room table. I don't mind, but it requires me setting everything up and taking everything down each time I want to sew something. And if it's just something small, it seems like a waste.

So the big guy in the sky (Jerry Garcia) was smiling down upon me at a garage sale where I found an old computer table for $3. I know, what a steal....but it gets better. It was marked down to $1! Turns out it was an estate sale and the daughter just wanted to get rid of everything. She was ready to give me the table but I insisted on at least paying the dollar.

It's just an ugly old table, but I've been so inspired by Crafty Nest and the before and afters on Design*Sponge that I knew I could spruce it up a bit.

Here she is in all her boring ugliness.

And...bam...$6 later and she's purty!

I started by cleaning off the top.

Then using a $6 roll of shelving paper from Target, I measured, cut, and covered.

The metal on the feet was all messed up.

But a few pieces of contact paper covered that up, too.

There was some random paint on the legs, but it scraped right off with a straight razor.

And now my Miss Curvy sewing machine has a permanent home!