Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Mysterious Case of the Absentee Blogger: Part 2

I have to admit it: I'm a little biased when it comes to making gifts. It is so much more fun to make things for girls than for boys. Girl things are just so cute. And boy things, well, they take forever to think of and they don't always turn out how you want them to. My next couple of posts will be about boy gifts but this one is about a girl gift.

My niece turned 12 this year (in April...I know, I know, I'm a little late). What to make for a beautiful 12 year old girl? How about a super cute make-up bag? All girls love make-up, right? I've had this pattern sitting around for awhile:



I decided it was time to put it to use! The pattern had 5 different ones to choose from....I chose the small one in the picture in the upper right corner. It seemed to be the perfect size for make-up. The others were a little too large, unless you do your make-up like Tammy Faye then the bigger sizes would be perfect. But my niece does not.

The pattern called for a patchwork of different material for the the middle portion but I wanted it a little more simple. And this is how it turned out:



Hmmm....it's so cute, I might make one for myself! It's even cuter on the inside:



A little pink surprise! And now for a rear view:



And the little tabby-thingie:


This was actually pretty simple to make. The pattern instructions were easy to follow and I completed this in a few hours. That's a record for me! I might even try my hand at one of the purses!

The Mysterious Case of the Absentee Blogger: Part 1



Hmmmm....it seems our esteemed blogger has gone missing. Not a blog post for a whole month! Where could she be?

How about buried deep inside this?:


And this?:


And learning all about this?:


Yes, school has officially started for me and, while I cannot be more excited about it, I'm having a little difficulty prioritizing my To-Do list. So, poor Adelaide's blog has been neglected. However, I have finished a few gifts - from birthdays to Father's Day - that I'll tell you all about over the next few days.

First up:
Happy Father's Day to the best dad in the whole world! Seriously. Those of you out there who know him can vouch for me when I say, "My dad is wicked awesome!" He's sweet and kind and funny and I am so lucky that I'm his favorite child :) One thing about my dad, though, he's impossible to get a gift for. He has everything he wants and a lot of things he doesn't want. So I had to get a little creative.

He is a HUGE Oregon Ducks fan (I mean HEEE-YOOOOOU-GE). And this is what I came up with:



Yep, that's a U of O tie. So he only wears a tie maybe once a year.....details, details....

For something that would seem to be so easy, it was surprisingly difficult to make. I followed an old pattern that I had bought at Goodwill awhile back (I love me some Goodwill!):



And everything was going smoothly until it came time to create the point in the tie. Damn you, Point In Tie! (Shakes fist in air)



I had some issues with the point. Clearly. It's a little wonky. But, then, so is my dad...

I found the U of O fabric of Joann's and added a dark green lining to the inside:


You can see I also added a little loopy thing for the inside part of the tie to sit inside. I think that's the technical term, "little loopy thing".



Not too bad, I would say. Next time I make one, I'll have to figure out how to get the point, well, more pointy but I like it. And I think my dad liked it too:



I love you, Dad!!




****Note: the above picture was not taken at time of gift giving****

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Summer Backyard Makeover



I am a little behind on my gift projects and my blog posting. And when I say "a little", I mean, stupidly, embarrassingly behind. These past couple weeks have been crazy hectic and I just haven't been able to get myself organized. I'm getting ready to go back to school in a few weeks, my stepdaughter was visiting from Texas (and Big Daddy and I finally got to meet our little 5 month old grand-daughter!), I've been plugging away on a few projects (posts on these to come soon!), I'm leaving in a couple days for a week-long road trip (woo-hoo!), AND we hosted a BBQ for my in-laws to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversery this weekend. Yeah, I've been a little busy.

In addition to all of this and in preparation for summer and aforementioned BBQ, Big Daddy and I decided we needed a backyard makeover. First, a little history: I hate yard work. I mean, really hate. I would rather have an ugly, weed infested yard that I hate to spend time in than to do yard work. And that has basically been what's been happening for the past several years. In the past, we have rarely used our outdoor space just because it has been so ugly and so much work that I didn't want to bother with it. Because I hate yard work...did I already mention that?

So we decided that this year would be the year to get the backyard in ship shape. I had a lot of grandiose ideas but I wanted to keep the makeover within these parameters:

1. Reuse as much stuff as possible
2. Spend as little money as possible
3. Turn the backyard into someplace that relaxed me rather induced hyperventilating fits.

And that's it. Sounds simple enough, no?

Well, simple, I guess. Time consuming and exhausting, definitely.

First, we hired a landscape company to come and rid the yard of about 5 years of neglect. I wish I would have taken a before picture but I was just so excited that someone else was going to be doing all the crap work, it completely slipped my mind. And then Big Daddy and I went to work with cleaning up everything else. Here's a few before pictures:



This is the deck area immediately outside the dining area. It's a long, narrow deck that leads to the backyard and deck and is really just a weird and unusable space. Here's a view looking towards the back deck:


Yawn.
Here's some more "Before" pictures of the back deck:











The gazebo used to have an old non-working hot tub in it. It hadn't worked in a few years and it was too expensive to fix and/or replace. So we just left it there. Until a couple moths ago when we finally had it removed.

And now for the after pictures:



Yes, that is a putting green. No, it wasn't my idea. Big Daddy is just beside himself with giddiness over this addition. When we went to Home Depot to get the supplies, the sales guy was high-fiving Big Daddy and telling him how awesome he is for putting a putting green in his yard. Seriously.







This is an actual golf course ball washer that we found at Goodwill awhile back for $15.....nice!



















A million times better, no? The main things we did were lay bark throughout the back yard, add the putting green, paint the deck furniture and gazebo (it used be a butt-ugly redwood color), added a few plants, and got rid of a ton of crap. And now I love it. And just as soon as it stops raining and warms up a bit, we can actually start enjoying it :)

Monday, May 3, 2010

It's Getting Hot in Herre!



I hope there's a fireman around here, because you are smokin'!

OK, that was lame. I know. The above picture is a close-up of the fabric I used to make a gift for a good friend of mine. She sorta has a thing for firemen. So I when I found the above fabric, I KNEW I had.to.have.it. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to make with it but, come on, check out that 'stache!

But then I found this pattern from Vanilla House Designs for the Friday Night Apron:



Perfect! After much consideration over what type of coordinating fabric to use, this is what I came up:



For the life of me, I could not get a good picture. I keep blaming my poor photography on bad lighting, but I'm thinking it's my camera. Yep, definitely my camera. Not me. So here are a few of the random shots I took. They're not all that great but it will give you an idea of how it turned out.







I think it turned out pretty good and it was a HUGE hit! You gotta love a cheesy, beefcake fireman!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Organization for a 10 Year Old Boy

Because what 10-year-old boy doesn't love being tidy and organized? What's that? None of them? Oh. Anyways, I just finished my nephew's birthday present, who turned 10 on April 8. (Two weeks late isn't that bad, is it?) I haven't given him his gift yet as I have to mail it to him but I thought I would post about it anyways. I don't think it will ruin the surprise for him because I doubt that, as a 10-year-old boy, he is reading any sewing blogs. So, here it is:



Um, what is it, you ask? It's a Nintendo DS carrier! I found a pattern for it here. I had to make a few adjustments to it to make it look how I wanted it to, but the basic pattern is the same.

I added a strip of black nylon webbing around the center of the carrier and attached velcro to it:



The inside of the carrier has a pocket for the DS, pockets for games, and an elastic strip for the little pen-thingie that comes with it (I can't think of what it's called!).



The outside is made from a blue and black striped sweatshirt fabric and the inside is black jersey cotton. Because of the stretchiness of the fabbric, it looks a little wonky and uneven in the picture but, trust me, it's all good. The tutorial was pretty easy to follow. The only part that really had me confused was where I was instructed to fold it in half "hamburger-style". Um, what? Do people fold their hamburgers in half? Other than, though, pretty simple. And, I like how it turned out!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

10 Projects in 10 Days Update

So it's been a few days and I thought I'd update you on how my project list is coming.

1. Finish deck chair cushion and pillow - Done! Last summer I bought this old wooden chair at a garage sale for $3:



Three dollars, People!!!! I love how it's old and rustic looking. But it was missing something. A few weeks ago I found a cute cushion cover at Goodwill, some scrap fabric at Joann's and, of course, my beloved dingleberries. And now this is sitting outside my front door:



Cute! I tried ironing the cushion cover but ironing is not really my "thing". I'm OK with it being a little wrinkly.

2. Wash windows inside and out - Done! And it was disgusting. Cleaning windows isn't really my "thing" either. I even got out some Q-tips and cleaned out the window tracking. Yeah, I'm hardcore.

3. Bark the flower beds - Half done. Ran out of bark but just got some more yesterday so no more excuses.

4. Clean off potting bench - Nope, haven't even started.

5. Finish Big Daddy’s birthday present - Done! Posted about it the other day.

6. Finish nephew’s birthday present - Done! Will be posting pictures soon!

7. Finish friend’s birthday present - Not yet. That's my plan for today.

8. Sew pocket storage for trailer - Done! A while back Big Daddy and I bought a tent trailer and we love it! However, it needs some handy storage, mainly near the bed so we have easy access to our glasses, headlamps, books and that sort of thing during the night. I thought that I would just sew a couple of pockets to hang from the tent poles that are near our heads when we sleep. And this is what I came up with:



I was looking for some camping-themed appliques to put on them but couldn't find any so for my pocket I put on a cute little owl:



I wanted something a little more "manly" for Big Daddy. This was all I could find:



Need a closer look? Watch out..you might get judo chopped!



9. Clean up debris in yard - Nope

10. List stuff on Craigslist - Nope

And quite honestly, these last two probably won't get done before we leave. But I'm OK with that :)