week recap...

This week so far has been pretty good. I got signed up for a 10-visit studio pass at our local parks and rec group and I went for the first time today. It was really good to work in the studio again...it always makes me feel happy. It also made me really sore! Who knew 2 months of off time would make me so weak! The lady who was running the studio invited me to help her out during her class for teenagers so I did and enjoyed it a lot. The teacher and her manager told me if my teachers would agree to it they would let me intern with them for the rest of the summer. I'm going to help a different teacher with a little kids class tomorrow. Even if I can't get an internship I'll still help out...it's fun working with kids and so different from the setting I'm used to. So here are a few ideas from my sketchbook that I'd like to try playing around with...hopefully I'll come up with something good to show my teachers when I get back to school.Altering/stacking forms is really fascinating to me and something I'd like to try to play around with more.

I made a skirt last night and it wasn't very good. I may try to pull it apart this weekend and do it over again. The little sewing projects I got to do this week were fun. Hopefully I'll be able to crank out a few more things before the summer is over.

Speaking of which there are roughly only 5 weeks left in summer. As nice as having a break is it will be good to have work to do and a schedule to adhere to.

Last thing to report is I found a gray hair on my head this week. At 22 I think I'm a little young for that. We'll see if it was just a fluke or if I should be on the lookout for more.

refashion.

I really like the recent trends I've seen for women's clothing that include lace, ruffles, flowers, pleats, etc. They're so feminine and beautiful. I'm a big cheapskate though. I'm a huge bargain shopper and I don't like paying more than I think is reasonable for clothing. I get really excited when I know I bought something for waaaay cheaper than it was originally intended to sell for. I guess it's the thrill of the hunt.

Anyway, there are SO many tutorials and posts about refashioned clothing all over the web and I decided to try my hand at a little refashioning project. I've been meaning to do some of these refashions for awhile now and yesterday seemed to be as good a day as any to give it a go.

Here is what I started with: a tee-shirt cardigan from Old Navy.

All I did to change it was add two rows of lace to each side and make some flowers out of some old material that I had and sew them on.

In order to really see the changes you may have to click on the pictures.

Anyway, it was super easy and the most time consuming part was making the flowers, which really didn't take much time at all. I didn't do anything to make sure the flowers won't fray so I might not put this in the dryer and I may just hand wash it...I'll have to play around.

I've had the cardigan for over a year I bought it on sale at Old Navy. The lace I bought at Walmart...you get 3 yards of each for between $.75 - $1.40 a pack. I found the fabric for the flowers in a box of yarn that my sister had pulled out...I'm not sure who bought it or when. This was stuff I had stocked up on and had handy...so the refashion really didn't cost me very much at all. The only thing I'd like to do to this cardigan to make it more fun would be to change the buttons. I left most of my sewing stuff up at school and am only using what I have here at my parent's so maybe I'll be able to change the buttons when I get back to school next month.

So it satisfied my desire to have a prettier, more feminine piece of clothing and I got to do something a little bit creative too...as much as I like bargain shopping I find this to be just as, if not more, satisfying of an activity.

Now I have some errands to run. :)

Christmas in July...

You remember that flower-tutorial post I had up recently? I made some felted flowers this weekend and then decided to make a hat to put them on.

After making it I realized it reminded a little bit me of a hat I've seen before... You never know where your inspiration is going to come from, but this shouldn't surprise me as I find a lot of Disney films to have inspiring material. I've always loved Mary Poppins...I think subconsciously I aspire to be like her...practically perfect and always a lady. ;)

Some more thoughts.

The past couple of years since going to college I've been attending a church near my university. It has been such a blessing to me! I have learned a lot and been very encouraged there. I have had the opportunity to start volunteering with the kids and as a greeter some Sundays and it has been so good to be around families and folks who are finished with college, etc. While college is great it seems like almost everyone you are around is your age and in a very similar situation as you are so it's really great to be around people of all ages and stages in life. It seems more normal and more like a family environment to me.

Anyway I remember one service our pastor was talking about how Jesus used parables about nature to explain so many lessons to his disciples and the crowds he was teaching and the more I

thought about it I thought how neat it was that things in nature can be used to so naturally and perfectly explain our relationship with Christ, etc. And then I was reminded of this passage of scripture:

Psalm 19:1-4a

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words;

no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,

their words to the ends of the world.

I realized that of course nature explains things perfectly...it belongs to God. He made it. Although I've heard that passage before and I have been told that creation points back to God it clicked a little more with me then. And it was so neat...just thinking about it made me really happy. So I thought I'd share it here. :)

On that same thought this goes along with the post perfectly and also makes me happy. :)

Phil Keaggy wrote a song called Shouts of Joy and the opening verse goes like this:

All creation shows the glory of the Lord.

The earth proclaims His handiwork,

The sky cries out His word.

Night and day sing out,

the glories all about,

So raise your voice with shouts of joy.

Flowery.

I really want to make some flower pins, headbands, brooches, etc to dress up outfits and hairdos. I have found a bunch of tutorials/ideas for different styles of headbands and flowers and wanted to post them here so they wouldn't get lost in my list of bookmarked websites.

Ruffled rosettes and dahlias from Kojo Designs...

Ruffled petal flowers from Two Shades of Pink...

Felt daffodils (my favorite flower) from While She Naps...

Ruffled, flowery headbands by Mary Jane and Galoshes...

These cool yo-yo bobby pin flowers by Sew Much Ado...

A use-up-your-scraps idea for a headbands by The Mother Huddle...

And finally a pleated flower tutorial from Craftaholics Anonymous.

A few other non-flower-related-but-cool-nonetheless posts I found are here, here and here.

Over and out. :)

Happy Independence Day!

My wish to see some good fireworks came true! We didn't even have to leave the house. Our neighbors set some off and they were practically right over our heads. You couldn't have asked for a better place to watch.

Ahh...the perks of having neighbors. :) I hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful day. I am under the weather and heading to bed kind of early. Although I'm feeling yucky I am grateful to be where I am today and thankful for all the sacrifice and bravery on the part of our soldiers, past and present and future. Happy Holiday, everyone!

A little drink idea!

I like drinking and eating pretty things. Colorful, fizzy, whatever...so my sisters and I have come up with this sparking strawberry lemonade drink. You can use a powder and a syrup (I bought some strawberry syrup from a local coffee shop last year when my older sister and I made this) or you can do things the hard way and squeeze your own lemons and make your own syrup (like my younger sister and I did this year). Mix all that stuff with some sparkling water and you have your beverage. :)

We squeezed 7 lemons and a whole bunch of strawberries to make a whole jar of the concentrated stuff.

To make the syrup chop your strawberries into small pieces and crush them with a fork.
Boil them until they release a lot of their juices and become syrup-y. The fruit itself should be very crushed and more of a pulp at this point.
It's totally okay to stop and eat some gluten-free cake while you're watching your strawberries boil.
Pour the strawberries over a strainer so you separate the pulpy stuff from the syrup. You will also want to strain your lemon juice to get rid of the bigger pulp and seeds.
Then add sugar until it's as sweet as you want it to be.
You will want to wait to add the sparkling water until you're ready to drink it to avoid having it go flat...so you can mix in your water and serve it right away (crazy straws make it more fun)...
Or put it in a jar and seal it and refrigerate it. I don't know how long it will last since I've never made or stored this stuff before, but it has lemons in it which should help to preserve it for at the very least a few days. If you made it for a get-together you could make it ahead of time so you don't have to worry about it the day of your party. You could also just add regular water for a simple lemonade. You could also make a single serving by pouring a little into a cup and adding water to it. It's not very fussy.
PS: Does this picture remind you of the Twilight cover at all? Sorry if it does, it was entirely unintentional. :)

Happy 4th of July!