Double sided Super Hero Cape

My sister has this adorable double sided super hero cape. I will be doing a tutorial on how to make one for your little man later this week! Just wanted to give you some time to get fabric.

You will need:

3/4 yard of red fabric
3/4 yard blue fabric
1/4 yard yellow fabric
You can get some scrap black fabric our you can make a stencil and paint it. It's your choice. I will be painting mine because that seems easiest to me.

Superman on one side


batman on the other!

Vacation

Bet you can't guess where we have been for the last 4 days!?!

We spent 3 wonderful days exploring the many treasures here. AND 1 glorious day relaxing on the beach.

But now it's back to business. I have had a few complaints about the sleeve pattern not working. I am not sure what happened, but I will be getting right on that:) Once that is fixed, then I will be......well, I am not really sure what I will be doing, but I know it will knock your socks off.

Paint Sample game and bag

I decided to enter Fire Flies and Jellybean's "Iron Crafter". The secrete ingredient was paint samples.
So, I actually didn't have any paint samples so I headed to Home Depot and got as many colors as I could.











Still puzzled as to what I did!?! Well I will tell you. I made a 4 in 1 game! Memory, colors, shapes, and letters. Complete with a game bag (but they would also make great gift bags too)

There was no white ones in the smaller size, so I had to cut down the bigger ones. That was kind of a pain, but I wanted a neutral color for the back ground.

For the back, I got 52 samples of the same color :) Hopefully Home Depot paint department isn't reading this. I glued it onto the back to cover up all that writing and make it uniform.


I cut out a bunch of different shapes from the bright paint samples and glued them onto the white paint samples. I added a little detail with permanent markers.

These 2 are my favorite. I think they turned out really cute.

Now my little woman and I can have fun and learn at the same time.

BUT, I couldn't stop there!!!! I HAD to make a little container for them. After I made this, I realized you could totally use this as a gift bag. You can make it any size by adding more samples. So, here is the tutorial for my paint sample bag.

I got 5 big paint samples: front, back, one for both sides, handle, and bottom

Sew Velcro onto the piece that will be the front of your bag.

For handle, fold one sample in half and cut off one section.

Zig zag around the open edge and sew Velcro on.

You will sew this part onto the piece that will be the back of your bag. Sew handle to the back side of paint sample.

For the sides you will cut one sample in half lengthwise. For the bottom you will cut one in half width wise.

 Bend the bottom up of the 2 side pieces and front and back. This will give you a guide to where to place the bottom piece.

Sew bottom piece onto the back piece. The edge of the bottom (yellow piece) should line up with the fold you just made.

 Sew the front piece onto the bottom.

Do the same with the side pieces. You should have something that looks like this.

Pinch the sides together and sew closed. You will do this on all 4 sides. The last side will be harder. I had to bend the paint samples a little to get the sides sew together.

You should have a game bag/ gift bag that looks like this now!

Now put your game pieces in it and enjoy. (Or present)

First Day of School

Well, Monday was the first day of school here. My first child entered kindergarten. There may have been tears, but not from the 5 year old;) So, I have been busy getting the bus to FINALLY stop where it is scheduled to stop. My little man was very distraught the first 2 days when he didn't get to ride the bus. Truly, riding the bus is the highlight of his day:)

So, I have been thinking about back to school and new beginnings. A quote comes to mind, "I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils" 100 hundred kudo points to whoever can guess what movie that line is from.

With that in mind, I give you a few tips that will save you time in the morning and make sure your kids are out the door in time.


1. Set clothing out the night before: including shoes and socks.

2. Get homework done right when they come home from school.

3. Give a realistic amount of time to dress and groom with this simple exercise: Get up early one morning and time your family(moving at a normal pace) to see how long it takes everyone to get ready. You may be surprised at the time it takes.

 4. Get the kids to bed early. "Early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise." Realistically, kids who get enough sleep are happier and easier to motivate to get moving in the morning.

5. Enjoy every moment and make memories along the way. Don't forget to enjoy life as it moves forward. It won't be long before gone are the days where a band aid will make all owies better, the days where it's "cool" to kiss and hug mom. So enjoy them while you have them.


I am STILL working on a project with pictures. I messed up and had to start all over. My bad. Here is a sneak peak AND hint (lots of bright colors) Enough said.

Make and Mingle

I am soooooo excited for this month's project. I found a huge desk that was broken on bulk trash day, so we get free wood for this project! YEAH!

The sign says your last name with 'families are forever' over the top. Then you can hang photos on the bottom.


Cost: For everything INCLUDING Rod is $15

If you want to make on with just one layer of vinyl (some of my greatest blessings call me grandma) it is $12

Couch make over

I have been waiting a long time for this reveal. Hubby has been graduated from med school for a year now, but we are just starting out, so I have to spend wisely. I have lived with an ugly couch for the last 4 1/2 years. I FINALLY have a cover for it. The couch is still in great condition, and it is REALLY comfortable.
I liked this look at Pottery Barn (on sale for $159) I would have bought it, but it wouldn't fit my style of couch. DRAT.


well, Sure Fit came to my rescue. I found a pre-made slip cover for the couch.

I added some pillows. I have been saving this fabric for a long time (1 year) just for this purpose. Look how beautiful it looks now! The idea for the all teal pillow I got from HERE. But I changed mine a bit.

Here is a close up on those rosets. I just hot glued mine on;)

Before:

After:
 I also changed the couch's position and put it in my bay window. My piano is on that wall now.

Now I need to get a couch table and put it behind my couch with a few well placed decorations. I also would like to do some very simple window treatments. Something like these from pottery barn

Or these from Ballard Design

Anniversary

I can't NOT believe I forgot waited to tell you this until now;) For my 7 year weeding anniversary, my hubby surprised me with something spectacular!!!!!

I am now the proud owner of THIS!!!! A Cricut expressions. YEAH!

On to different news, I am looking for anyone interested in doing a blog swap. Hopefully we can give each other more traffic and share some fun ideas along the way. If you are interested, please leave me a comment or email me at brenbren13 (at) ymail (dot) com!

Key board

PLEASE READ: I just saw a post that said it needed to be moderated first. It said they were so glad to find my blog and were wondering if they could share my story!?! BUT, I can't find it now that I posted it and I don't know how to contact you. PLEASE PLEASE contact me again because I would LOVE to share my story of therapy in crafting.




I realize you are so interested in what I spend my time doing!?!   :) Well, lucky you because today I am telling about my morning. I spent it cleaning my keyboard!!!! And I would have to say what a huge difference it makes in the feel of typing. But let's not forgot about the aesthetic appeal. It looks brand new and I LUVS it!

So here is a dirty, nasty, slightly embarrassing before (I also used it at a map just in case the keys got mixed up after I laid them on the counter)

Here is what I did between:  I placed the keys in order as I took them off on at a time to make reassembling easier.

Here is the glorious after: Aahhhhhhh, so clean.

$2 flipflop upgrade

Here is a fun new spin on the popular rag flip flops you see every where. This is what you will need:


 Water balloons ($1 from dollar store)
Flip flops ($1 from the dollar store)











Just start tying the balloons onto the flip flop. I alternated the way the ends faced to make it look fuller.

Once the balloons are all tied on, put them on those little feet and take a picture:)