Flirty Skirt

Don't forget to enter the Christmas Plates giveaway! You can find it HERE.

Mommas got a brand new skirt and it is all her own. This flirty skirt is the perfect addition to my closet:) The ruffles add a fun and feminine touch. I think I might be in love.

Now I am almost 30, flirty, and thriving:)
here are two things I love in sewing, ruffles and matching bling! I finally found a way to add ruffles to my skirt without feeling like I am over doing it:)

I am 5 feet 7inches. I wanted this skirt to hit just below my knee so the measurements are more of an idea, rather than a pattern.

Note: These next few pictures have weird lighting so the material looks a different color in everyone of them. Plus the fabric has a sheen to it. This is the accurate color.

Start by tracing the outline of an a line skirt you LOVE. Cut out two pieces. When folded the pieces should be shaped like this. Make the length 12 inches shorter than your desired finished length.

You can either create your own ruffles using strips of fabric from your skirt. If you need a tutorial on how to make ruffles check one out HERE or HERE or HERE.  But, if you are lucky like me, you find fabric that already has the ruffles sew on it:) Then you only have to cut it to the width of the base of the skirt. Hem the bottom.

Attach the ruffles to the bottom of main body of skirt.

Sew up the sides. On one side, starting at the top, baste about 8 inches down. Then finish off with a regular stitch. Zig zag around the raw edges to prevent fraying.

Add a zipper to the side that you did the bast stitch on. The instructions on how to do the zipper will be included in the zipper's packaging.



















Fold over the top or waist line twice and stitch down. I did 2 stitches to make it look more finished.

Top stitch the bottom of ruffles down so they will lay flat and not flip up.

Try on your new flirty skirt:)

Perspective

Hubbster and I have finally found this poem we read in our adolescent years. We giggled like school girls when reading this again. Huh-larious!

How I finally taught the big guy a lesson

“I did not provoke the fight, so I feel no remorse for what I was forced to do. We were arguing, and since I was right and he was wrong, he decided to fight to cover his stupidity.

He swung at me first, but because I was in top physical condition, I was able to act quickly and block the punch neatly with my head.

I then jumped to the ground, knocking him down on top of me. I placed my ear in his mouth and poked his finger several times with my eye.

His teeth hurt so much from the strength of my ear that he became irate and tried to kick me, but I cleverly blocked the onslaught with my ribs and face.

I scrambled to my feet and ran to my car in hopes I would get away and save this man from my deadly hands. Before I could start the car he pulled me from the still open door. I then proceeded to swing at him, but only managed to hit myself in the head.

To this I said, “What’s this two against one?” That was the final straw—I lost all control. There will be no mercy!!

Taking him in my death grip, I pounded him in the knee with my stomach—then I hit him two or three times in the fist with my teeth! He had had it! I could tell. After that he didn’t even try to pick me up off the ground. He was too chicken!!

Perspective is everything!

Just wanted to make you laugh! Cheers!

 

Learning to Crochet

Soooooo..... one of my things I have always wanted to do is learn to crochet. I finally bit the bullet and got a few crochet hooks and some yarn. I was looking around for some tutorials on you tube and there are TONS. I was on etsy and stumbled upon some AMAZING projects that have been crochet and it totally inspired me.  There are lots of things to make, but here a just a few that inspired me to want to learn to crochet.

Red Hat

Adorable doll

Baby Booties

Beanie

Bear hat

 Shrug

Hat
To be totally honest, I loved this one mostly for the little person on the pic. ADORABLE!

Healthy Marriage

I stumbled upon Love, Actually blog and fell madly in love with it! My hubby won't know what hit him! It has AMAZING ideas for a healthy happy marriage from sex to date nights. There are some great FREE Christmas present;)

Check it out and improve your marriage today:)

So, side note. I know a lot of med student wives/friends read this blog. I need to put this out there. Hubby and I didn't do a lot of date nights while he was in medical school because he was soooooooooo busy. I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back, it was a BIG mistake. Our marriage has never been bad, but it changed and we have had to put in more time to change that. He doesn't have any more time now as a resident. In fact, he has less, but we have made it a priority. Our marriage is already stronger because of it.  If I could give you one piece of advice it would be have date night EVERY week. Whether it is 15 minutes or 3 hours. Do it! That is one thing I would change if I could do it all over again. Learn from me:)

Free Printables

Here are 2 new Christmas printables. You can print them as any size. I didn't limit the size this time. You can have the printed professionally for a bigger size.

NOTE: These are for personal use only. You can NOT sell any items made with this file or any modifications of this file. You can NOT sell this file or any modifications of the file.

Same drill, click on picture, then click on it again to get full size.

This would look great framed or mod podged onto a big board. Good luck and Happy Holidays:)

Don't forget to enter Christmas Plates giveaway. You can enter HERE!

Christmas Plates

Because I am feeling in a generous mood, I made 3 printables.  One lucky winner will be sent the JPEG file to create their own plates. So, leave a comment on this post with your email address for a chance to win.


I got my red salad size plates at Target.

***Giveaway ends December 5th at midnight***



















Can't wait!?! Well, I am selling the file for only $4. For only 4 bucks you get the instructions and 3 files to make gorgeous Christmas plates for the up coming holiday:) You will find the buy now button on the left side of the blog.

Feel Great in 8

Alright, general consensus was to postpone it until after Thanksgiving. We will be starting FG8 Nov 29th. It will end January 24th. There was a lot of interest initially, but I am not sure how that still stands.

I need a final head count of who will be participating. Plus, I need to email you the updated information (the PDF conversion is taking FOREVER). If you are planning on participating, please leave me a comment with your email address on this post. Thanks!

Giveaway winners

And the winners are.........

Vicki T is the winner of the PDF pattern

Alexa is the winner of the necklace

Thompson family is the winner of the little girls dress kit.

Please email me at brenbren13@ymail.com to claim your prize! Congrats to everyone and thanks for supporting Therapeutic Crafting:)

Star Wars Silhouette

I needed a template for star wars. I wanted to make matching "manly" aprons for my son and hubby.
Here is what I found. Coloring pages make GREAT templates. You can find them everywhere just by googling it.

Star Wars coloring pages can be found HERE or HERE. For the clone helmet I used THIS picture and put it in a word doc to adjust the size.

I used t-shirt vinyl found HERE. It was my first time using it and I am hooked:) Super easy to use. I taped the picture onto the vinyl and cut it out with scissors. You could also use it on any cutting machine, but I am still learning to use the Sure Cuts Alot so adding images is beyond my knowledge at this point:) I am working on it though.

Here they are in all their glory on the top of the aprons. They are going to be reversible.

Have You Seen

Have you seen these great finds on etsy?


String of Christmas

















Muffin tin advent calendar

Snow Globe Glasses

Joy Pillow

Glittering Santa Claus

12 Days of Christmas

 Scarf

 

Let it Snow

Here is a cute little winter printable. 5 X 7. Same drill, click to enlarge.

NOTE: this is for personal use only. You can NOT sell any items made with this. Please respect the time and effort that went into creating this.

Click on the picture to download

Ugh

I am sick. I have no voice, I am coughing, and running low grade temperature. My head is pounding and I just want to curl up and sleep. I am going to have to postpone FG8 just a bit until I am feeling better to get everything organized. I am thinking next week. I am sooooooo sorry about this and any confusion it may cause.  Please let me know if you are still interested in participating.

Quality

My father in law is really into photography. He has one of the most expensive  amazing cameras available. Hubby and I are in the market for a new camera. I am thinking a Canon Rebel T1i. The difference in quality between a point and shoot versus a SLR is...well, here are some pictures my father in law took. You be the judge. (He shot these in Hawaii.)

I miss the fall colors terribly. So the top row is of Idaho's fall colors. The next 2 rows are from a trip to Hawaii.

After seeing the photos I have officially determined that Santa WILL be bringing us a new camera. Let's hope Santa can find a good deal on Black Friday:)

100 Followers

I have officially reached my goal of 100 followers exactly at 9:08am November 11th. I know because I was updating my tutorial links when all of a sudden the followers changed from 99 to 100! YIPPEE!!!!

You know what that means!?!?!! It's give away time:) All you have to do is leave me a comment saying you are a follower of this blog and you are entered to win.

Not a follower!?!? Well, become one and you can be entered to win.

For one more extra entry, you can spread the word about the give away (post it on your blog, facebook, or tweet) Leave me a comment with the direct link to the post.

****Giveaway Ends November 18th @ Midnight AZ time.****


As a reminder, there will be 3 lucky winners.  The prizes are (drum roll please)

Mei Tai sling PDF pattern. There are four ways to wear it.













This necklace













One dress kit any size from 3-7. I will have the pieces cut out and include directions. All you have to do is sew it together.

GOOD LUCK! And thanks for following my blog, supporting me, and leaving me all those nice comments:)

Inspiration

FG8 starts in 4 days:) I am so excited! Make sure you download all the information and get your money in:) If you would prefer to mail the cash directly to me then leave me a comment with your email address.

I saw this button on Jeremiah-2911.

She shares a really inspiration story about her struggle with weight. She has lost 50 lbs!!!! She has 14 more to go to be at her goal weight. It was just the boost I needed. I was feeling a little bit down that I have so much too loose. I get frustrated at myself for allowing this to happen. I am sure she felt that way too when she was starting out. So, I added a weight tracker to my blog. I will try to update it every week once FG8 starts.

I just wanted to thank those individuals who are willing to do this program with me because I need a support group and someone to be accountable to. It wasn't working with just hubby because "I would rather have harmony in our marriage and you not sticking to your goals, than to force you to do something and end up fighting all the time." Well, CRAP!!! I guess I am too pig headed:) I would get mad at him when I wanted to eat cookies and he suggested I do something else. So, that's where you came to the rescue. And to say thank you, I wanted to do a little somethin' somethin' for everyone participating in FG8. Well, I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't break the bank. I was thinking matching T-shirts, but then I would have to get everyone's size, make the shirts, mail them, blah blah blah.  So, I came up with a better idea. I will give you the design and you can print it off onto heat transfer paper.  Easy and cost effective:) Then every time you exercise, You can wear this and push yourselves just a little bit harder:)

Onesie to t-Shirt

I have this problem. My 2 1/2 year old is potty trained (that's not the problem). She insists on picking out her cloths. Fine, I don't care, BUT she LOVES her onesies because they are pink. Although, she will NOT and I mean NOT button up the onesies. Plus, I won't either because then getting her on the toilet fast enough would end up in a big mess.

We have a lot of onesies that she never wears that are really cute. Soooooo...... {enter crafty brain here} I turned her onesies into t-shirts:) Perfect solution. Especially because at Children's Place they have onesies that go all the way to size 5T (who puts a onesie on a 5 year old!?!?!) Needless to say they are always really cheap at the end of the year. So, stock up because I am going to teach you how to turn that onesie in to a t-shirt for your toddler.

Start the clock because this took me all of 5 minutes:)

So here is the glorious outfit she picked today. Every outfit HAS to have pink.

I just made a straight line across the front and back and marked it with chalk.















Cut straight across and cut right on the edge of the "bias tape".

Cut off the snaps.

With RST (Right sides together) sew the 2 ends of the bias tape together. Then sew bottom of the shirt to the bias tape.

Flip right side out and right in the trough of the seam you just made, top stitch. This will prevent the shirt bottom from flipping over.

Put the shirt back on the toddler.Worked like a charm. Now mommy and daughter are happy. Now if only I could teach her how to match:)