Getting My Stuff Together

My mother called me crude this week so I will try to keep the cursing to a minimum but just know what I wanted this title to be. I've spent a small fortune since I've started feeling crafty again ($100 at JoAnn's and $30 on junk out of the dollar bins at Michael's, $40 at Hobby Lobby) but for someone who is unemployed and married to a college student that's lotsa moola. So in the name of to started to take it more seriously I decided to create my own little "craft corner" (original I know but my husband thinks I made it up myself and loved it, nerd).

Drew has a desk he does his homework at (or more frequently plays StarCraft at, again I say nerd) and that is kind of our catch all room, where the futon (dog's bed) and the ironing board are. Since it's off to itself a bit I started piling all of my purchases in there.

Luckily Drew and I don't iron much, unless it's for church and then we end up just trying on 18 different outfits until we find one that doesn't HAVE to be ironed (but still probably should be).

I thought about taking over Drew's desk but I guess since he is in school it wouldn't be fair but then I had an epiphany. A couple of months ago Drew and my dad almost lost their religion while carrying an armoire up 3 flights of stairs to our apartment. My parents wanted to get rid of it and what is my apartment if not a thrift store haha. Deno and Drew were none too happy but Lisa was happy to be rid of it and I was happy to have a huge piece of furniture to take up a good portion of a really long (and undecorated) wall in my apartment. And so.....

TA-DA!

And when I make a huge mess I can just close it off.

Oh and in case no one noticed I will tell on myself. I did not read a book this week, I have no great excuse I just didn't, however I could have read several while I waited in the doctor's office Tuesday had I had any with me. But it was totally worth the wait when my gyno called me a fashionista and listened intently as I described how I made my diy scarf.

Also I'm conducting an experiment and being mocked mercilessly by my husband. I wanted to see just how hungry birds here in the NRV really are so I am trying to feed them.......

You guessed it, the off brand frosted mini-wheats. So far I haven't seen any but my mom always says it will take the birds a few days to find the feed you put out so that's my excuse. I will keep you posted on my bird sightings.





Scarf anyone?

With all of this free time on my hands I'm attempting to embrace my crafty side. When I did my first t-shirt scarf a couple of days ago my husband said "Hmm... Maybe you are crafty like the rest of your family." (stink eye given in response). I guess his reason for saying that has something to do with the last time I was staying with my grandmother who was trying to teach me to embroider, needless to say when I left there we were both wondering if I were truly her granddaughter (in that sense only, it's her not so glorious traits that I inherited).  I read on another blog recently there are those who are crafty and those who desperately want to be well I am a member the the latter group. But I'm trying to prove myself (and my husband) wrong! Bare with me.

All you will need for this scarf is an old t-shirt (the bigger the better) and scissors.....that's it! Oh and fingers. I'm not going to post step by step directions but I will post pics and link you to the tutorial I used.

It's super easy and super cute if I do say so myself. I will offer a couple of suggestions:

1.If you have a jealous dog like I do....give him a bone to chew on so he is busy and you can work faster.

2. I bought my t-shirts at Goodwill, they had a wide variety of colors and sizes (I tried to buy mostly 2 XL) however these ratty old t-shirts were $3.50 each....ehhh I wasn't impressed. But because I really wanted to try it I splurged. You can probably buy them new for less than that and not have to wonder where they've been.

3. Make sure your shirts have no side seams, the first one I made did and it wasn't pretty. What I have found out is ALL of Old Navy's t-shirts have side seams so rule them out now.

4. Make it your own, use different colors or paint or anything. Mine is plain jane because well...I'm kinda plain jane.

Now that you have wasted your time reading all of this here you can read it from someone who actually knows what they're doing:

http://thisolddress.blogspot.com/2009/07/diy-recycled-t-shirt-braided-scarf.html


I have links to other scarves I plan to try next so stay tuned. Let me know if you have any questions.