OSU Applique Shirt

Today's post is about one of my favorite people in the whole wide world.  Her smile is infectious as is her laughter and she always brightens my day when I get to see her.  I'm so sad she lives back in Dallas and our interactions are few and far between.  And she's 2.

Everyone, meet Rylie:

 

J'adore.  She is one of E's original besties and we always have a good time when our family's get together (which I wish could be more often!)

So last week was War Eagle Craft Fair up here - it's kinda a big deal.  I usually stay away because traffic gets crazy, but decided on Thursday to hit up one of my favorite stores because for the first time they opted out of the actual fair and just had their sales in store.  So up I drove to Vintage Glam & Junque in Rogers in hopes of finding some gifts for the 2 birthday parties that E is going to over the weekend.

I walk in the door and I see the headbands and it hits me - I'll get those girls headbands!  And they had them on special :).  Here is a pic of Ev with her new one on.  She has a Razorbacks one too.

So I'm digging through the basket and I find an OSU one!  It was so cute and I just had to get it for Rylie - both parents are OSU alums and make frequent trips to the football games in the fall.  I just love the fabric they used.

So I get home and I thought - I can't just send Rylie Bug a headband....I should make a shirt to match.  So I grabbed some orange gingham plaid and made this!

Now she can show her support at the games, or out on the town! 

 

I've decided - or come to the realization that sewing is "my thing".  I really get a lot of enjoyment out of it and I get to use a bit of accounting because it really uses a lot of math and figuring out things like a puzzle.  I rarely use a pattern and I think that's part of the fun; figuring out how to do it!

 

Tomorrow I'll discuss my experience of my first deco mesh wreath.  And in case you were wondering about my loyalties - it's a Razorback one!

 

Fancy Smansy Nursing Cover

Monday's are always such a wasted day.  I do laundry and get the house back in order from the weekend (since E's at school), and run errands and next thing I know - it's time to pick up Ev from school!  Crazy.

I spent today also listing a bunch of stuff on Ebay to sell.  We had some sort of wild animal get in our garage last week (maybe a raccoon or possum) it ate through the wiring for the sensor on my side of the garage and used the bathroom on both sides A LOT.  We decided this was a great excuse to clean out and go through all the boxes of stuff in our garage. 

Emptying the garage and cleaning only took an hour - and No, we didn't find an animal.  Then going through the boxes and documenting our charitable donations and throwing away and putting away and deciding what to sell took about another 8 hours!  It was crazy, but the garage looks great!

So I listed some stuff on Ebay but also had an amazing 2 hours (tops) project I just jumped right into.  I had a person contact me through Etsy to see if I could make a nursing cover for her friend with my flannel monkey fabric.  So I got out my Hooter Hider from when I was pregnant and decided yep - looks pretty easy.  It's essentially a blanket with some straps with attached D rings.  So poor Rita agreed to be my test run - and ya know what?  It turned out great!  I love the fabric I used so much that I want one now!

I did a regular cotton fabric on one side and used minky on the other side.  It always bothered me the hooter hider didn't have anything soft on the inside since that was the part that touched the baby.  I made it 35" wide by 25" tall and here it is!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow I'm posting about another sewing project I did this weekend for a friend's little girl - OSU fans will want to check in for sure!

 

Diptych Whale Art

Well, I just concluded another wonderful girls weekend with my college friends:  Rita, Whitney and Lauren....I've spoken of them before.

If you are one of my frequent followers you know that Rita is pregnant. I've been having such a great time helping her with Dylan's - that's the baby's name - room!  I pretty much send about 100 emails or texts a week with different bedding, fabric, and accessories, and she writes me back with likes and dislikes and sends pics of how she's coming along. 

Rita picked out some adorable Pottery Barn bedding by the name of Jackson.  Here it is:

 

After she picked this I referred to my handy dandy Baby Rooms Pinterest board and already had some great matches for the bedding:

 

Source: wethefreebrooklyn.wordpress.com

 

One of my favorites - I love this dresser. Rita had already purchased Munire furniture for the room so we couldn't do this project. This dresser single handedly makes me want to have a baby's or kid's room with something ocean related so I can do this to an Ikea raw wood dresser.

 

Source: Etsy store - spellitwithstyle

 

Rita and her Mom totally did this already!  I was so proud of them - it looks great!  Here are some pics:

 

 

 

And last but not least.  The diptych whale canvases. 

 

 Source:  Etsy shop - SennandSons

My friend KJ has already done a version of this herself.  And it sure didn't cost the $40 being charged on Etsy for it.  Therefore I will henceforth call these entries - Etsy Can Eat It.

Lauren, Whitney and I wanted to do something handmade for Dylan's room so he'd always know how special he is to us.  And we totally all got tunnelvision when it came to this art project.  Oh - and Rita liked it too. 

Poor Rita, flew into the Tulsa airport and I picked her up on Friday.  That evening she started having an upset tummy and was that way until late Saturday.  Not cool when it's girls weekend.  Of course I managed to get a sinus infection to add to the fun too.  Rita gave us the go ahead for the canvases so us remaining - semi functioning girls (did I mention Lauren had sinus problems too?) headed to Hobby Lobby for supplies for our project.  It cost us $10.  $10! Instead of $40.  I do love a good bargain.

We started painting in the afternoon and Whitney did the sketch of the whale, spout and waves as she is the best artist.  Lauren we found out is the best detail painter - I'm the best all over painter - and Rita is a fabulous supervisor, even when laying down on the couch drinking Pepto Bismol. 

We took a break to let the first coats dry and headed to the Razorback game.  Did you hear about it?  Rain delays and calling the game because of weather?  Oh yea - we were there.  Luckily in a suite so we didn't have to brave the elements.  We left at halftime and ran to the car and made it home before the second huge storm rolled through.

 

After the Hogs game we finished up the canvases with some Buttershots spiked Hot Chocolate - Rita excluded of course. 

 

Here is our finished product!  I can't wait to see it hung up in Dylan's room!!!  I love my girls and I love our quick teamwork. 

We signed it "bl(heart)w".  BL&W being the artists initials.  It totally looks like "blow" so we expanded on our signature and said this way we'll always be blowing Dylan kisses~even when we aren't there.  His Aunties already love him! 

What NOT to Read

I've been doing a lot of reading since the beginning of the year and thought I would give some mini-reviews.  I've been working my way through People's list of Top 10 Books of 2011.  Some were great - some just so-so as far as I'm concerned.  I've also read some random books that were super cheap to download to my Kindle.  One of which was my FAVORITE book of the year.  Let me start with that one:

This was my favorite of all the books I've read this year - it almost made me cry.  No book has done that since Outlander (my favorite book of all time). It's an epic tale of young love in East Texas - and a family with a tragic "curse".  You know at the beginning what the result is - but you will not be able to put it down trying to figure out how it gets there.  SO GOOD. 

Before I started reading this book - I just knew Jobs as "that apple guy named Steve that wasn't on Dancing with the Stars."  Within 3 pages of this MASSIVE biography I was hooked.  The writing was excellent, Jobs is a very interesting character with a very interesting past, and I encourage anyone in a management position at a company to read it.  Takeaways:  Only hire "A" talent.  A little encouragement can cause people to do extraordinary things.

Hello Gorgeous.  Been crushing on him since Tommy Boy came out and "lit'rally" love him on Parks and Rec currently.  This book was like reading People magazine.  Tons of gossip and backstory on the Sheens and many other 80s young stars.  You be mad at NBC for his treatment while on the West Wing, you will recoil in horror about the tale of his bodyguard in Paris.  I read this in 2 days - couldn't put it down. Did I mention he wrote it himself? 

I wasn't allowed to read this in bed after Joe went to sleep because I laughed so hard the bed would shake and Joe would wake up.  I'm a huge 30 Rock fan so I'm familiar with Tina's delivery for jokes.  I hope that translates to people not as familiar with her. You let me know. Definitely worth a try.

Liked it, didn't love it.  I had a hard time not reading this like Kelly Kapoor (from The Office) was reading it to me.  Which is totally ironic because a big part of the book is how she's been pigeonholed into that part.  Towards the end she has some amazing insight to unhappily married couples.  So much so I'm thinking of dedicating an entire blog entry to it. Funny, but not Bossypants funny.  I do love her new show on Fox though - The Mindy Project.

If you like Outlander, you'll probably like this one.  Takes place in the early 1800s in New York about a woman of Quaker decendency who leaves England to live with her father in the Wildnerness.  Love and crazy situations ensue - and apparently 4 subsequent novels as well.  I'm about to start #2.  It's a long book so block off 3 weeks to read. 

 I love me some history and this fictional book with true events......I couldn't put down.  It's about 5 women who's lives intertwine in the English countryside during WWII.  It's a little unbelievable and transparent at times.  But I still highly recommend it - I really enjoyed learning about the preparations the British made for bombings and the Blitz. 

So, I read a lot more than I thought I did so this is going to be like a 2 or 3 parter.  In part 2 I will take on the Shades of Grey trilogy, Sookie Stackhouse, and Chelsea Handler.  Don't miss it!




 

New School Spirit Pumpkin - Texas A&M

I love me some ceramic school spirit pumpkins - and apparently so do all of you!  I literally bought every single pumpkin at 3 different Hobby Lobby's and have sold them all. Here is the arrangement I did on our countertop to support our Hogs this football season.  It didn't help the cause as I'd hoped.

 

Ceramic white pumpkins are from Hobby Lobby.  Pig statue is from Signed, Sealed, Delivered in Rogers and "Go Hog Wild" letter A is from Vintage Glam & Junque in Rogers.

 

Per usual, I did the Arkansas and OSU pumpkins, but got a special request to see if I could do a Texas A&M one and I gladly accepted the challenge.  I have truly never met anyone from A&M that I didn't like so I was happy to give it a try.  Do I feel bad now that we received a romping from them last weekend?  No! That's totally not my fault.  I'm not that superstitous. 

 

Finding the perfect color paint pen to use was a challenge.  I almost tried out oil based paint by hand and then I saw a Krylon Red Leaf Paint Pen - you know I LOVE my gold leaf paint pens.  Turned out - it was the perfect maroon A&M color!  Take a look. 

For the life of me, I could not find a ribbon that looked good with it.  After discussion with the buyer, we decided to leave it off.  I'm so nervous about her getting it because I shipped two pumpkins last week and they arrived to the buyer like this:

I almost cried.  They were so beautiful and reduced to shards.  The box was totally undamaged and I haven't had a problem with any of the other ones I shipped.  Heart breaking.  I also had a problem with finding another white pumpkin to make a replacement, but luckily my Mom found one in Fort Smith and brought it up yesterday.  So between repainting those two pumpkins and making curtains I'm staying busy and getting a good night's sleep lately.

Here is a fun pic of Mom and I working on the curtains yesterday.  Whenever I lay fabric out the dogs immediately come from wherever they were in the house and want to walk all over it and lay on it.  Luckily we got E to nap yesterday, so she was a non-factor during the laying out 11 yards of fabric and cutting into 4 equal panels. 

 

Back to work! I'll be lucky to get 2 panels done by the end of day at this rate.  To break the monotany I'm working on a petal pillow for E's new room as well.  Sewing extravaganza week!

Vegetable Painting - My Newest Flea Market Find



I've been pretty busy since returning stateside.  The jet lag was truly atrocious the first two weeks - not to mention Joe had to fly out the Tuesday after we returned to Chicago for the week.  So "no-nap" Evelyn and "desperately needs a nap" Mommy were left alone to fend for themselves.  The thirteen hour time difference took a toll on me.  That and I don't sleep on planes so I was always trying to catch up on sleep.

 

The Etsy store has been doing some business too since I've come home so I had to play catch up on getting orders out the door.  Last week I managed to find some time in the middle of an errand running day to hit up a Antique Mall I've been eyeing for the past year near downtown Fayetteville called The Flying Dog. 

 

The first thing I saw I bought.  It was a framed painting that was right by the front door.  It didn't have a price tag on it so I was a little nervous because a lot of the other pieces in that area were marked $80.  I ended up asking a guy that worked there after I circulated the entire store what the price was.  He said he'd ask - Oh good! That means I picked a piece owned by another employee and I can negotiate on site - that's always better than over the phone.

 

So he asks the lady behind the counter how much and she says "$60" and I'm like "Whew! That's cheaper than $80....I bet I can negotiate it down to $35." So the guy walks over to me and says "Yeah - only $16!!!!!"  $16??!! Not, $60?  I had to maintain my composure as best I could and did a mock "Mmm I'll think about it" face and then I said "Oh, ok. I'll take it."  I was ELATED!

 

The painting by itself is so-so.  The frame makes it grand!  And I knew that purple and orange would pop on my olive green walls and next to the raspberry curtains in the kitchen.  Here it is... 

 

Like I said, by itself it's nothing to write home about.  I even was thinking in the store that I'd paint over the black band on the frame but once I hung it I changed my mind.  Here it is in the room...

 

When I told Joe how much it cost (Joe is a closet Flea Market Fanatic), he almost spit his dinner out.  He said "Good Lord! The frame probably costs $60 by itself!"  Oh, at least.  I hadn't antiqued in awhile and was soooo happy to find some wall art for that space. 

 

Oh - and did you see the curtains?!  I banged those out right before I left for the Philippines.  My Mom is on her way up right now to help me try to finish the other 6 panels today.  The den has become the first priority for now.  Joe and I ordered a new couch and rug that will be here around Thanksgiving for the room.  I'm so excited!  I'm ready for the room we spend the most time in to be completely updated!  YAY!

The Philippines!

I'm BAAAA-aaaacccccckkkkkkkk.

I know.  I know.  It's been awhile.  Exactly a month since I returned from the Philippines.  I should have posted sooner because I did get some concerned emails about if we were okay after the earthquake hit over there - we are.

I was packing for the airport when the earthquake hit and Joe was in the shower.  I sat there for a minute and thought to myself "is this really happening?" and then I hear Joe from the bathroom say "Beeeeetttthhh?  What's happening?"

Beth - "We're having an earthquake." 

Joe - "How do you know?"

Beth - "Because it's an earthquake - I know what they feel like."  (See that post here).

Joe and I both got nauseous during the quake.  We were 18 stories up in a high rise and buildings in the Philippines are made to be earthquake resistent so they sway back and forth....a lot.  We were told on the ground they only felt it for 30 seconds and Joe and I both agreed we felt the building move for over a minute - closer to two.

So being American - we FREAK.  We were in a tall building on the side of a mountain (landslides are common there). We start throwing all our stuff into our suitcases and we are out of that building within 5 minutes.  Our driver was already there - even though we were leaving for the airport 2 hours earlier than we needed to. Our driver, Michael, kept telling us that it was okay - they don't have tsunami's in Cebu.  But the only thing we could understand on the car's radio was "Tsunami Warning Level 3" - FREAK OUT.  Once we got to the airport and found a computer with CNN.com in English we calmed down a bit.  Since Cebu is between other larger islands there is never a threat for a tsunami. 

Thank you everyone so much for thinking of us - that was so sweet we were on your mind.  In return I give you the best of our Philippines trip - Enjoy!  Make sure you check out the jellyfish story at the end.

 

 

This is from our first full day - we visited Tagatay which is more of a resort area or weekend getaway.  We are standing in front of the world's smallest volcano!

 

 The volcano is right in the middle of the pic below

 

Pineapple plantation!

Mavs fans are everywhere

Myself and Michael, our driver, after delivering me safely to the Cebu Int'l Airport

 

In Joe's Dad's apartment about to devour some Jollibee.  Jollibee is on almost every corner in every city.  It's their McDonalds.  They have McDonalds too - and KFC and Pizza Hut, but no Taco Bell :(.

 

So, the people of the Philippines are obsessed with fried chicken.  It's "A Thing" over there.  The main menu items at all the restaurants are fried chicken and spaghetti.  Obviously these are not native foods to the country, but the population Loves it.  The chicken is very good - very similar to how it is in America.  The spaghetti is very different, but good. 

Joe and I snuggling on the beach in Boracay.  BEAUTIFUL!

 

 We have fun wherever we go...

Last but not least....Joe and I went scuba diving one day.  The first dive went great.  Saw lots of beautiful coral and different types of fish than what we are use to seeing in the Caribbean.  Second dive was going great too - we got to feed the fish underwater (never done that before) - having a great time....and then my knees start itching uncontrollably.  Then they burn - so I scratch them. 

We start to ascend to do our decompression stop and Joe signals that he's in trouble. So our dive master goes up and waves the boat over and then we all go up.  Long story short, I got stung by a jellyfish and then kicked it and propelled it straight into Joe's face - he was following me. 

So here is my damage:

 

And here is Joe's:

 

 

Not to mention we pulled a tentacle off his lip and his top lip was so red and swollen - we didn't discover that until about 20 minutes after we got out of the water. 

I leave you with this picture - which will make you smile.  Shhhhhh...I know.  I rock that wetsuit and gear.