Crafting & Television

It's summer. I don't have to go to school and actually be productive but I can't just sit around all day doing nothing. I will go CRAZY! This is why I occupy my time watching Beverly Hills, 90210 or Gilmore Girls on DVD over and over again while making things (that G thinks are pointless). It's what I do. Anyway, I have been really into crafting blogs lately and have found some great new ideas. I'm pretty into white lately and I first found a 4th of July wreath that I fell in love with. Her's is cuter and it took my some time to not only cut out the fabric but to arrange it. I then came across an idea for garland made from paint chips. I am not proud because I had to "borrow" several paint chips from Lowe's but I love the way it came out.



I have also been totally preoccupied with mug rugs and coffee cozies. If you are not up with the mug rug (like G), it's smaller than a place mat but bigger than a coaster to accommodate your drink and snack. I made a Halloween one for my mother.

Then I found some fish fabric yesterday. She loves fish as much as Halloween.

The fish one didn't turn out as well. I made a matching coffee cozy but I need to get velcro to be able to fasten it.

I also found a pattern I loved at Moda Bakeshop. So I got the fabric and got to it. Cutting all the triangles about gave me a fit. It's not quilted yet because I need to go get the backing fabric but I really love all the white. Sorry for the iPhone photo.


I am about to hack into a jelly roll to make another quilt I found on the internet. I was really excited about it but then they left out two fabrics from it and now I have to tweek it. I have been putting it off.


I am currently looking for some Halloween type crafting because I won't have time in October. I also found some patterns for reusable fabric zip-locks. Only I need nylon and I'm not sure where to get nylon. It's something I'm thinking over. Now kiddos, it's nearly 2:00 that is a sacred time in the summer for me... Sonic Happy Hour.

Vegas Vacation

Last week we ventured out to Las Vegas.

The boys were pretty pumped to be in Vegas. We stayed at the Venetian. It was beautiful but could have been more customer friendly.

The first night we went to see Mystere at TI. The pirate show in front of TI was way more family friendly the last time I was in Vegas. The show was good but very very dirty in a cheesy way.


The second day we ventured out down the strip. We quickly walked through Ceaser's. The Forum is still pretty and it had a H&M! It was three floors.

After the stop at H&M, we went over to the Bellagio. The boys lost some money while I walked through their fine art exhibit. They had some wonderful art. We ventured out into the heat to watch the fountain show out front. It was great.

We ate dinner at a great little Italian place in the shops attached to the Venetian. We headed back down the strip to Paris to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. They made it sound more interesting than it was. It was basically just an expensive picture taking experience.

There was a couple up there who were standing VERY close to me while getting WAY too friendly. The smacking, wet kind of kissing and rubbing.

On our third day after spending the morning at the pool, we took a cab down to New York, New York. We rode the roller coaster that runs through the building.

I got a large margarita there that had an insect floating in it. Not so fun. After a very hot walk, we ended up at MGM. We all won money and saw them feed the MGM lions!


That took us on the hunt for Wayne Newton merchandise at the Tropicana. His website says he has a store there but he doesn't. Tropicana was nicer than I expected but we all lost money there. Boo. And then back to MGM for our show Crazy Horse Paris. It was a girlie show. I loved all the dancing. We ate at Pink's hot dogs for dinner. I've always wanted to try Pink's! By the time we walked all the way back to the Venetian I was beyond tired so I went to bed. The boys stayed up and played more. It was a great trip and we all came back breaking even or better.

The Great Floor Remodel of 2011

We have been fairly busy with home improvement since April. It first started off with turning our boring backyard into something you may want to look at. We had two bushes and that was all. We had to rip out a lot of grass and put new plants in. It is still a work in progress but has come a long way!

We next moved onto the biggest project ever, the floors. It started in the laundry room where we somehow had linoleum. The glue was horrible to scrape BY HAND!



This was the first room G ever tiled. I think it turned out very well. But this picture was before the grout.


We ventured out into the rest of the house after the laundry room. It took an entire weekend to bust out all the old, nasty, ugly tile. It was an orange-ish color. The dust got EVERYWHERE! When you blew your nose, it came out brown from all the dust we were inhaling. That turned out to be not so smart as the dust mixed with the end of school stress got me sick. It was the worst sickness I have had in years. I had to quickly recover since we weren't done yet. As we were ripping out baseboards, the wonderful tile broke off with them.

We lived without the majority of our flooring for some time as we carefully went about laying tile.

The kitchen and breakfast nook turned out wonderfully! Keep in mind we are replacing all the trim with this project as well. And the table won't live in the corner like that forever.

After we finished all of the tile, we had wood guys come in to lay wood. That was the day that the tornadoes were ripping through the area. There was one spotted just west of us and the dog and I were freaking with workmen in the house. Herman and I ended up in the closet. We fell asleep. When we woke up at 10 pm, the wood was laid.


Last weekend we took it easy and had some guys come in and install the crown molding. We had to paint it ourselves first before it was put up. The next day, painters came out to caulk and paint it for looks.


We are still not done yet folks. As I write this, we have the floor guys here again scraping and staining the floors. Then it's on to the new carpet! I can't wait for new carpet that hasn't had the last guy's toe nail clippings in it. The carpet is really why this whole thing came about. Our carpet was the original and stained with holes. After the carpet goes in, it's on with the trim work. It's been over a month of work and we're nearing done. I will have to post more pictures of the finished project.

We are boring people

We really are. We haven't done anything interesting in awhile. It's just been life. We have been slowly doing some things around the house. G put in can lights and in ceiling speakers in the family room. They are great for late night crafting. Which I realize that I'm an old lady already with my crafting. When G was doing the lighting project he had a huge light out. The dog was sitting two feet from it and he looked kind of cool. I had to take his picture with my stupid old camera. I want a new pretty expensive one but that's another story.


It's my attempt at being creative. Speaking of creative, I have been crafting on my Spring Break. I finished a project for a friend having a baby. Can't post pictures yet. I pieced a hopeful baby gift. :) And I finished a table runner for my mother. It was fall themed and something different from my usual baby things. I know quite a few people with babies.

I have plans for one with a fish theme. I just need to make the trek over to the quilt store. It's not near as close since we moved.

Maybe we will be more interesting one day. We do have a trip to Vegas to go on.

Disney World- Magic Kingdom & Animal Kingdom

We started out Monday fresh and excited. Everyone had told me over and over that Magic Kingdom is so MAGICAL! Magical and full of everyone and their three screaming children. A picture of me looking happy because we hadn't actually tried to get on any rides yet.

After waiting over an hour to ride Pirates of the Caribbean being touched by the children in line behind us the entire time, we decided it was better to leave and go to Animal Kingdom. We had to take the ferry over and then get on a bus. It took forever and I was grumpy and upset. Not the highlight of our trip but G decided to document the ferry ride.

We had our picture taken in front of Animal Kingdom. I had to fake happy.

The Christmas tree at Animal Kingdom.

We rode the Kilimanjaro ride. It was pretty awesome and surprising.

A picture of me with the tree in Animal Kingdom.

After a few hours in Animal Kingdom, we decided it might be safe to head back to Magic Kingdom. We got there just in time to see Cinderella's castle lit up for Christmas. We headed to Space Mountain to use our Fast Pass. Then we went for the teacups.


Our dinner was a character dinner and we didn't have reservations until 10:00. Thankfully, the park was open for extra magic hours until 3 am. We dined with Pooh and his friends.

Here is a late night photo of the castle. So so so so pretty.

We were able to ride a bunch of rides between 12 and 2 am. We rode Space Mountain two more times and a few others.

We left and got to the hotel after 2. We decided to go back to Magic Kingdom our last day because I never got my picture with Cinderella. We waited for maybe 20 minutes and got my picture with three princesses. My Cinderella photo is blurry. We need to order the one from Disney.

Belle was very pretty!

Sleeping Beauty was great too!

We then ventured out to find Mickey one more time and we saw Minnie too!

It was a great trip with many good memories! Now on to Vegas??

Disney World- Disney's Hollywood Studios

Sunday we got up and headed out to Disney's Hollywood Studios. We headed to the Rockin' Rollercoaster for a fast pass then on to the Tower of Terror. It was AWESOME! I loved everything about it. I took G's picture on the way out of Tower of Terror and, of course, his eyes are closed. It wasn't even sunny!

I liked the 1930's vibe of the place.

We wandered around after Tower of Terror and happened across The Big Movie Ride. It was fairly entertaining and provided some time for sitting and getting warm. It was awfully cold in Florida!

We wandered around some more and came across Muppets 3D. I love the Muppets and had to pose with Miss Piggy!

As we were walking around, we came across Handy Manny. I forced G into taking a picture with him. I thought it would be amusing as he is a home builder.

Then we went to have our picture taken with Mickey. Of course, G has his eyes closed. While in line a ton of kids grabbed all over us and one even thought G was his dad.

We rode the Rockin' Roller coaster three times that day. It was tons of fun.


We had dinner at a diner time place and then moved on along to see one of the real reasons we went to Disney World at Christmas... the lights!



G loved it all! And the even sprayed snow down on us.

There were tons and tons of lights. We rode Tower of Terror again and then called it a day because it was cold and we were still super tired.