Reverse Applique Tee

I've seen these cute tees around that have the reverse applique done on them. In fact, I even had one custom made from a local shop in town. I just love the look of them!

I know, I know. This idea has been around forever!

But here's MY first attempt at reverse applique...

Let's take a closer look.

Not bad huh?

{Note: We may just happen to be Texas Tech Red Raider fans. And since my husband got roped into coaching our 5 yr old's soccer team we took the liberty of naming our team the RAIDERS as well!}

Anyway, here's how I made this little tee.....

First off you have to have a borderline ADD active child that wants to play outside ALL day long.

This allows you the couple of hours you need to just sit in a chair outside and accomplish this task.

Just sayin'.

To start, I grabbed an old tee that actually had a little hole already in the front. (This got rid of that problem!)

Then I pinned the zebra print fabric on the inside front of the shirt, right where I was planning to put the letters.

I picked a font out in MS Word, changed it to outline, printed and cut the letters out & then just traced around the letters onto the tee with a pen (I used a regular black pen and was able to see my markings fine, but I know they have fabric pens around as well).

Now you take your embroidery floss (in my case, red) and hand stitch around each letter till your done. (I'll admit, the longer the word your doing be prepared to sit and sew for a while!)

Then it will look something like this....

And a pic of the inside of the tee. Notice I used my pinking shears around the zebra print fabric. This should help keep it from fraying.

After that, I ironed a bit of fusible interfacing to cover all of the stitching and zebra fabric. This will help keep it all together during washing and wearing.

Here's the fun part!

{This is where you get to see the "magic".}

Grab a sharp pair of scissors and carefully cut the tee away right up next to the stitching of each letter to expose the fabric underneath.

SO COOL!

I played around and also added stitching along the shoulders and neck across the back of the tee and a bit of stitching at the bottom. I really like how this turned out as well.

And there you have it!

A custom tee without the expensive embroidery machine.

{Now I have my Soccer Mom tee to wear and cheer on my favorite little soccer player!}

The possibilities for this are countless.

You could do a number for your little one's birthday tee.

You could do names.

Or even your favorite college, UT, CU, BU, OSU,  etc.....



A&J

Laundry Room Redo

Earlier this year our dryer (which was fairly old) decided it was time to retire.
I took this opportunity to pick out some new pretty red front end loaders for my laundry room, which turned into a bit of a redo for the whole space.

I absolutely love my little laundry room now!
{it just makes me happier to do laundry. :) }

Here's the After:

Here's the Before:

Let's take a look at how this transformed.....
Here's how the framing around the washer and dryer started. We also had to put down concrete backer board before we put the tile down.

See the space between the washer and dryer... I wanted to have my trash can there for lint etc.

 So we found a pre-made 10 inch cabinet that fit perfectly in between the two (knobs from Hobby Lobby) and I just painted it black!

 

 Here is the slate tile that we picked out from Lowes. They were 1 inch tiles that came in 12 inch squares.
{note: the pretty colors of the slate come out after you have it installed and apply a sealant on top}

On the other side of the room we had this small little cutout that originally just had a folding shelf right in the middle of the two walls. Total waste of space and pretty ugly. My husband and I worked on this built in and it turned out great. All the shoes are stacked neatly under the bench and the hooks are used for coat, backpacks etc.

 {Who am I kidding, I have two boys and a husband. Shoes are never stacked neatly under there, but at least I can stuff them under the bench with ease and get them out of the way for the most part. heehee. note: this is why you can only see up to the bottom of the bench in this picture. :) }

 As you can tell the room is pretty small, but I think this change has made it seem so much bigger. Before we just had the space on top of the washer and dryer to use to fold laundry or set things on as we walked in the door. Now the total counter space is approx. 65x34 inches.
Huge difference!

The slate tile counter top turned out EXACTLY like I envisioned from the beginning and is beautiful. This room is a walk through from our garage to our kitchen and happens to be where most of our company follows us into the house anyway, so I'm very happy to have a nice organized space.

Linked up here:

A&J

Just a few Halloween Decorations.....

A few of my Halloween Decorations!
{one of my favorite holidays to decorate for...}

Below is a shot of my dining room table.

Since we have a table in the kitchen area too, this room is really used soley for decoration. And is the first room you see when you walk into my house.

{So, no we don't eat at this table.... or I wouldn't be piling all of this stuff on it! ha!}

Let's take a closer look....

The book below was just an old book I had that I covered with kraft paper. I then used some rub on letters from my scrapbooking stash to add "book of spells" on the spine. (the black lines were just made with a sharpe marker).

The little Halloween figurines were inspired by this post from the Room to Inspire blog.
Found these two figurines at the Dollar Tree. And grabbed my can of Ivory spray paint.

Spray Painted these dudes.... then grabbed my burnt umber acrylic paint and just painted and wiped and painted and wiped etc till it looked like I wanted.


Here's how they turned out!

{notice my Dollar Tree black crow as well...}

And there you have it!

Who says you can't decorate on a budget. The pumpkins, skeleton jar, figurines and black crow were all from the Dollar Tree and I've shown you how to spruce them up! (Trick or Treat sign I got from Hobby Lobby last year). 

A&J

Halloween Dollar Tree Finds

I found several things this year to use in my Halloween decorating at the Dollar Tree
{Don't these skeletons just look SPOOKY!}

You can see in the picture below, it was just a 5 ft skull garland made out of foam that I stuck in a jar (which they also have at Dollar Tree) with some moss at the bottom.

Also picked up the black crow, some spanish moss for various projects and these really cool bottle labels.
I just need to find the perfect old jars and bottles to use them on!

And don't forget to check out these pumpkins I also picked up from Dollar Tree.
I just love Halloween!!

A&J

Book Page Pumpkins

Earlier this year, I made some book page eggs for Easter decoration. I just loved them so much that I left them out with my other dining room decorations until just recently.

Hey, eggs aren't really just specific to Easter right?

So I used the same technique and made a few of these book page pumpkins!

{and alot easier to do that the eggs, I might add!}

Just LOVE how they turned out!

Here's a quick little run down of how I made them....

First I grabbed these items:

pumpkins: from Dollar Tree

book: From Dollar Tree

Some Mod Podge

and a bit of spanish moss if you wish.

I simply ripped the pages into various pieces and started putting them on with the mod podge glue.

{and I just realized that I've always called it "modge podge", but looking at the picture just now it clearly says "mod podge" on the bottle. Huh..... learn something new everyday I guess!!}

Here's a shot halfway through the process.

And then I added a bit of spanish moss to the top (hot glued) and stuck a piece of a tree branch from my backyard in for the stem.

That's all there is to it!

What I also love is that you can find any ugly old pumpkins you might have in a pile to get rid of and decorate them using this idea. You don't have to buy expensive pretty pumpkins!

Be sure to check back for more quick and easy Halloween decor ideas...

We've got a few more Dollar Tree finds to share with you!

A&J

Homecoming Cheer Poster

Remember the days when you bought a poster board and the only other things you needed were some markers and stickers and it was really cool to know someone that could do bubble letters....

Well, those are now the dinosaur days.

Now we make posters with Bling, ribbons, tulle, PHOTOSHOP LETTERS (my personal favorite since I can't stand my own handwriting) and did I mention BLING.

There is so much bling on this poster.  Even the football stitching has it! :)

A&J



Vintage Desk is Finished...

What difference a can of paint makes. 

Brynley chose the color and I have to admit the girl has taste.  She declared in the middle of planning her last birthday party that she no longer likes pink.  Big uh oh because everything she owns is pink.  She also has commented several times that everything in our house are all the same colors.  Looking around myself, I realize she is right. :(

So, to honor her new found decorating sense of style and taste, I agreed to her choice in color and 

I LOVE IT! 

It compliments her shabby chic room perfectly. 

Ta Da!!!

I also let her help with every step of the process.  See how much fun we had.

Next step....The Chair.

A&J





Is the crafting bug passed down?

I've always dreamed of having a daugther that would appreciate and enjoy crafting as much as I do. I've envisioned spending hours of quality time working on our various projects, shopping for fun finds to "fix up", and simply enjoy sharing each others fun ideas that we find on our favorite blogs.

Up until this weekend I've tried letting the girls "help" only to find myself redoing everything they've done or just putting off whatever I'm working on until they are fast asleep. 

Well, my heart floweth over this weekend when Brynley runs into the room (of course it's two minutes before we are walking out the door.  I guess she got her mother's "let me fit one more thing in" bug too!) with a pair of flip flops and a bag of leftover water balloons claiming she saw this cool idea to tie balloons on flip flops and she's GOT to make a pair herself.  Because I was trying to get us all out the door for lunch at my grandmothers, I tell her she'll just have to bring it with her to work on at Grandmas.  She does, and proceeds to work on it in the car all the way there.  She even recruited her little sister to be her Assistant to hand her each balloon.  How cute is that.  She was even super patient when her assistant proceeeded to tease her with handing over Every Single Balloon.  She happily played along and finished her cute little flip flops.  Her big smile showing her finished project was priceless and I must say, it made this momma the proudest mom I could be. 

I have little crafters afterall! :)

A&J



What makes you smile?

Do you have something in your house that will always make you smile?

I do.

I am absolutely in love with this framed picture series of the girls.  It was one of those purchases that I regretted splurging from the minute I placed the order and handed over my bank card.  It was one of those purchases that you "forget" to mention to your husband how much it really cost and pray he doesn't look at the bank account. And yes it was one of those purchases that take you back to your college budget where you automatically think ramon noodles for all this month. :)

That was until I got it back.  I quickly forgot all regrets and it was one of those times I could easily say, oh wow, this is worth it.  It was meant to be. The husband never even asked how much either! How great is that!  (please excuse the glare)

A&J

Fun With Photoshop

As you may already have read in an earlier post we have become addicted to Photoshop.  I can't do anything without it now.  Sometimes I get busy and post photos that have not been edited, but then it keeps me up at night.  So, I've made a new vow to be better.  I sat down this weekend and figured out how to use some cool new actions I recently loaded on my computer.  These are my favorite newest ones.

(I think this is called a money shot.  Notice the water perfectly lapping our title.  That was luck not photoshop :) )

I LOVE the color boost in this one along with the burnt edges. This is so much more fun then loading the dreadful unedited photos!!!

You can download free Photoshop actions at Coffeeshop Photography.

A&J

Get Well Basket

How do you put together a get well basket for a Grandpa whose had knee surgery?

It's not the easiest, but this is what we came up with.

Item list:

• 
  
  742-Dine gift certificate to call in food orders to participating restaurants
• 
  
  John Wayne DVD collection
• 
  
  Movie popcorn
• 
  
  sugar free candies (diabetic)
• 
  
  Starbucks ground coffee
• 
  
  Bailey's to add to coffee

It turned out pretty cute and the patient gave 2 thumbs up!!

A&J

Vintage Desk

Finally!!!!

That's right, I read all the fun crafty blogs and get so jealous of their nifty little furniture finds. Like oh, Look at me, I just found this fabulous piece of furniture on the side of the road for FREE. Really?!? Like how does this happen to so many people so often, but never me. So now it's finally my turn...yipee!!!
Ok. So I must confess....I didn't actually find this on the side of the road and it wasn't exactly Free. But I did find it on Craig's List and it was only $60. So that's close enough right.

I'm tossing around color options with my partner in crime as I type this.  hhhmmm.  What will I pick. 

More to come later.

A&J