Getting In Touch With My Inner Seamstress And My Janome Jem Gold Plus Trim And Stitch

I have failed to mention that something very special happened to me a few weeks ago.

My sewing machine quit working.

Special huh?
Well this gave me a reason to start on the fantastic hunt for a new one. After searching, asking, getting frustrated and so much more, I settled on this one.

To say that I have fallen in love is an understatement. I'm not sure if I love it so much because it just does what I ask it to do, or for the fact that it's a new machine and my old one was probably considered an antique.

This is a Janome Jem Gold Plus Trim and Stitch, which means it has a simple little attachment so that you can make it do light serging. Cool huh.

Anyway, this has opened new windows for me as an acclaimed seamstress. I plan on going places with my talent now!
Just kidding, but I have managed to whip some things up so far.

One of my nieces had a very special birthday and I wanted to make her something. Not sure that it's special, but now she knows I'm still alive and I think of her:-)

I'm not sure if this little dress is coming or going. Originally I made it for my newest niece, but it didn't quite turn out as I had hoped. We'll see...

Making flowers is snap now and I'm having fun putting them on everything! (I'm trying to avoid embellishing my boys clothes with them so far)

Now I just need to clean up the huge mess that I tend to make whenever I sew.

Scratch that, tornado sirens going off again. *sigh* Living in Texas is never boring!

We Can Do It Cheaper - Monthly "Copy" Link Party!!

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I decided to jump back in time for my own project for this months We Can Do It Cheaper.
If you want to see the original post then you can look here, or just read it all as it was...


This weeks project was spur of the moment and turned out to be my favorite one to date!

I saw these chippy looking peg boards on Pottery Barn and fell in love. With the price tag of $49 and $149 then I knew I could only dream of owning one.

Aren't they wonderful!


I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up a pre-made peg board and some crackle finish that works with acrylics.

My 3 year old even got to help me on this one. We put a base coat of a weathered gray color then some random spots of pure black. (all acrylics)

I then applied the crackle finish randomly as well and let it get tacky. I mixed up my own color of white by adding a bit of brown and started painting over the whole thing. As the paint became a little dry then I scratched, rubbed, sawed (with a plastic knife) and poked at it to get the right look.

The whole project took maybe an hour and my total investment was $6.50! I can't wait to hang this up in the pool house someday soon.
*Update Picture*

We use it every day! Don't know what I would do without it. (yes it was cleared of all its garish swim trunks for this photo;-)

So that was then, this is now...
Ready to link up? Here are the rules/suggestions:
1. Item needs to be a recreation/copy of something that you have seen on the internet/magazine/catalog.
2. Take my button with you to show where you're linking.
3. Wow me!
This months winner will once again be chosen by you! They will win a $10 gift certificate towards any item from the wonderful shop of The Snootie Pig.  I'll be proudly introducing her to you next week, but in the meantime, stop by and see what treasure you would use your $10 on!

Can't wait to see whatcha got!

The Building Of A Shark

There is a certain clothing company that hails from the land of prime ministers and "they're getting married this weekend!".
I love their kids clothes (and adults too), and when I saw this little t-shirt then I knew I must try and reproduce it for my boys since I could not justify spending the $$$ for it. They happen to love fish, sharks and the like and were ever so pleased that mommy was going to "make" them a shirt.

My Inspiration

I started by blowing up the image a little on Paint.net and then tracing it off my computer onto normal paper (yes it took more than one piece of paper, I just pieced them together). Could I have printed it off? Yes No, because my printer quit on me and I need to buy a new one.
I then cut out the pieces, one by one...

I also got out my supplies. I was making two shirts so ignore the doubles.

I used my scraps of fabric and my HeatNBond to start my masterpiece. (just cut the fabric to the general size of each piece of the template and iron to the HeatNBond)
After it was all adhered then I used my templates to trace the shapes onto the HeatNBond paper and cut them out. Ending up with a bunch of these...

Next to start building. The biggest thing here is to lay it on there and make sure it all fits right.

With every piece you lay, make sure it will all fit together again, then iron on that piece.

Peel off your backing and lay it all on there again to check it....one more time.

Almost there... you get the idea though. After it was all said and done ironed on, I took my handy dandy sewing machine and went around all the edges, changing out the thread for each color of fabric.

So at the end of the day your shark should look like, a shark, and your kids should look like this...

My other son was just as pleased but since he was asleep, I saw no reason to awaken a shark and try to take its picture without it biting me.

(by the way, the camo I used was just handkerchiefs/bandanna's I bought from Hobby Lobby)

For those that have asked... I have progressed to a very large size. This photo was taken about a week and a half ago. The good thing is that I only have a few short weeks left now!! I am ready to have this child that I am sure has 15 feet, all of them in the upper right corner of my stomach. Loving it. (for real, but also ready to meet the 15 feet:-)

 

A Chair, A Bench & A Pillow

Sometimes I can't think of very good titles. Today was one of those days. But that really is what this post is about.

Let us start with the chair. This last weekend was the twice a year event of Antique Alley. I loaded up my boys and my belly on Friday and traversed out into 50 mph wind gusts to take in the sights of Antique Alley. Wow was it ever windy!
I didn't have much in mind that I wanted to buy except for a bench for my dining room table. A friend of mine found me a darling white one for $20 about five minutes after we got there, one problem though....it was sold. I blew around the rest of Antique Alley and ended up with this chair for just $10. I was happy. I went home.

I still had one problem though. I had found no bench. This would have been no big deal except that I was having a yard sale at a friends house the next day and I was planning on selling all my current dining room chairs (they sold!). I needed something for my kids to sit on.
When I got home from Antique Alley then I my eyes fell upon my pile of scrap lumber. My hands starting twitching as I they reached for two sawed off cedar beams and a large board. A few hours later I had my bench.

Hmmm, not quite what I had dreamed of. The cedar beams were very convenient but not as stable as I had hoped. My four year old almost crushed his toes after he knocked it over... five minutes after I brought it into the house.

I had to add some funky little feet to keep it from tipping. Oh well. The whole thing cost me a whopping $0, and I'll keep hunting for that super cute bench that is out there somewhere.

Meanwhile, the boys are having fun telling secrets on it.

I attended a small garden party this week where we had to bring something second hand or homemade. All the girls outdid themselves with the things they made. It was so much fun! This was my contribution, a dropcloth pillow with french ticking stripes painted on it.
I'll share more pictures of the party later.

One more day left to vote on your favorite We Can Do It Cheaper project!

We Can Do It Cheaper - Monthly Link Party

<center><a href="http://www.thevirginiahouse.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/zz360/jvc80/newlogowecan.jpg" /></a></center>Hey all, welcome to the party!

As usual I tried to get my own recreation project together to hopefully inspire you and all that stuff.

Lands End

This was my inspiration. One of my friends showed me this sign from Lands End and as a birthday gift (late) I made it for them.

I have yet to actually give it to them, but I was fairly pleased with how it turned out.

What about you? It's your turn to start linking up your recent (or not so recent projects).

The rules you ask???
1. Your link must be something you have seen somewhere and copied. (please don't link up other items since I will have to be a mean link witch and delete it;-) Otherwise link as many projects as you would like!
2. There needs to be a photo or link somewhere in your post of whatever your inspiration was.
3. Please link the URL to your post and not to your blog address.
4. Take my button with you from the top or sidebar to let everyone know where you're linking!

Now the fun stuff...

I will once more pick the top five projects from all the links. Then YOU will pick the winner! The winner wins a hat of their choice from the adorable Haley Abigail Etsy store.

I know that even if you don't have a munchkin of your own to crown with one of these, you must have a friend,niece/nephew, grandchild or random neighbor kid that would love to own one.

You can link up until next Thursday, the 14th of April.

Can't wait to see what you have for me!

While The Cat's Away...The Mouse Will Build A Potting Bench

Last Saturday my husband was out of town, and a brilliant thought hit me...

"Why not build a potting bench!"
The thought actually came to me after I re-found this crate sitting in a stack of wood outside.

I am no carpenter, but I was fairly certain this was something I could tackle in a day.

Especially since I had long envisioned a potting bench on this lonely wall. I went ahead and got to work.

All I needed was one crate, cut in half with one board cut out of it. (This one was 7 boards wide and I only wanted 3 on each shelf)

Four 2x4's cut to your own desired length or height I should say.

And of course one cute little helper. (I had two helpers but the other one wasn't much on the "help" part.)

I finished it off with two pieces of "trim" for the front and a light white wash that I added some black to so that it would be more grayish.

Our lovely neighbor kids kept throwing this huge branch over the fence, so finally I decided to quite putting it back and use it instead. Some plant hangers hung upside down and screwed in with a mason screw kit worked perfect. Target had the metal buckets on their dollar spot and they were just what I was looking for to put all of my "many" gardening tools in.

Although it wasn't my dream potting bench, it was free except for the price of wood screws! There's just something about doing it yourself that gives you that extra measure of satisfaction as well. I am satisfied.

Next up, planters made out of free wood fence panels... (do you see a theme here?)

Have a safe and happy weekend!