Fall wardrobe staple

Every fall, I look forward to breaking out my long-sleeve tops, blue jeans, and sweaters. My favorite fall wardrobe staple is the long sleeve t-shirt. I like my long sleeve shirts to be light enough to wear with shorts or capris as the weather starts to cool, but not so light to require a camisole underneath it. They should be light enough to wear under sweaters or jackets (I have a denim jacket I love, and a corduroy jacket I love EVEN MORE!), yet 'sturdy' enough to be worn with a skirt or blue jeans. Truth be told, I am not much of a 'layer-er', as in, I don't often wear multiple layers of clothing, but the perfect long sleeve t-shirt is needed for those occasions when I do layer! Unfortunately, because my long sleeve t-shirts get so much action during the fall/winter, they often don't last more than a year or two. I am excited because this week, Target has their Merona Ultimate Long-Sleeve Tee on sale for just $8.00. I have already purchased one in a lovely shade of green, and will probably pick up one or two more. Can you smell fall the air? For me, today, it smells like a new cotton t-shirt.

By the way, I am not affiliated with Target in any way. Their long-sleeve t-shirt just Works For Me.

Get Crafty

Last night, I had the opportunity to demonstrate basic sewing at an event called "Get Crafty." Several different crafts were demonstrated, including stamping, sewing, scrapbooking, knitting, and sewing. It was a fun evening of learning more about crafts, and spending time with other women. If you are reading this because you watched my demonstration last night, welcome! I will post pictures of the skirts I made later, but I wanted to give a link list of things I discussed last night.

I demonstrated simple sewing by showing the ladies how to make this skirt.

My sewing machine is a Brother-CS6000i, and I love it! It is not terribly fancy, but it accomplishes what I need.

For more simple sewing, try out this tutorial for Swaddling Blankets here--it is all straight lines, which is great practice for a beginner. If you want more of a challenge, I love this top by Made by Rae.

Other great sewing websites to check out:
Sew, Mama, Sew Blog
The Long Thread
Moda Bake Shop
I will be adding a blog list soon, and you can check those out.

My favorite online fabric stores:
Sew, Mama, Sew
Fabric.com
Pink Chalk Fabrics
JoAnn Fabric and Craft (I get most of my notions at my local JoAnns, but I often find things online as well)
Etsy (search for fabric under supplies)
EBay (it is best to search by fabric designer-i.e. Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner, etc--to help narrow the search)

I would love to hear your favorite sewing/crafting website! Thanks for reading.

Seeing stars

I hosted a baby shower here today, and had a lot of fun making decorations and baking. My friend is decorating the nursery in purple and stars, so I used that as a theme for the shower.

Purple and pink lollipops (I didn't make those:-), and wooden stars that I painted to hang on the front door. I used some of the texture paint I won in a recent giveaway (the sparkles on the stars), and they turned out nicely.

I cut stars out of several different scrapbook papers, and hung them from my mantel, back door, and entryway into the kitchen/dining room.

I cannot take credit for this mobile--my dear friend Alyson made it, and she did a great job! It is airy and beautiful, and looked gorgeous hanging over the food table.

Yummy cupcakes! Yellow cake cupcakes with buttercream frosting, and peanut butter cupcakes with milk chocolate glaze

Reversible (SEC) jumper

I made this reversible jumper for a friend's baby shower. She is a graduate of Auburn, and her husband is a fan of UGA (smart man, go Dawgs!). I used star buttons for the jumper because my friend is using stars as a theme in the nursery. It is my first time making this jumper, and it was super easy. I look forward to making more!

Honey Vanilla Granola

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
dash salt
4 cups whole oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In small saucepan, melt the butter and honey together. Stir in cinnamon, vanilla and salt until thoroughly melted and mixed. Pour over oats and mix well. Spread coated oats out in a thin, even layer on greased cookie sheet or jelly roll pan. *Bake for 8-10 minutes, take out of the oven and stir the oats well. Return to the oven and bake for another 8-10 minutes. Remove the oats from the oven when they start to turn golden brown or they will burn! The granola hardened and darkens as it cools.

*You may have to play with this baking temperature and length of time to get the granola the way you want it.

I love this simple, delicious granola sprinkled over vanilla yogurt. It works for me! You can add in all kinds of things like slivered almonds, or coconut, but my family likes to keep it simple with just whole oats. Sometimes I sprinkle a little brown sugar in with the oats for added sweetness and color, but it is not necessary. This granola is great for breakfast. Hope you enjoy! For other Works for Me Wednesday ideas, see here.

Creative spurts

I mentioned that I have several projects I am working on, so I thought I would show you a few things--not completed, by any means, but at least cut out and in process (cutting out is the hardest step, I think!)


Two nursing covers (on the top, the hummingbird fabric and the Pistachio Paisley), and three skirts (bottom, left to right, Ginger Blossom for Girl, Pistachio Paisley for the babysitter, matching Ginger Blossom for me, Mommy). I will post pictures of the completed products once they are finished!


Oh yeah, and cupcakes:

I am hosting a baby shower for a friend (hi Emily!) next weekend, and I want to make the perfect cupcakes. The only problem? My friend (hi Emily!) is a cake decorator. And she is GOOD. So I am afraid I won't hit that mark, but I am having fun trying out a couple of recipes before next Saturday.

SCORE! (aka Harris Teeter triple coupons)

I bought:
2 bags Wacky Mac pasta
2 packets Mahatma saffron rice
2 boxes Barilla pasta (one Barilla "Plus", one "Whole Grain")
2 boxes PopSecret popcorn
4 bags Martha White muffin mix
2 sticks Spray n Wash
1 Fiber One poptart
1 Sure deodorant
1 Colgate toothpaste
1 Kotex pantiliners
1 Dial handsoap
1 Betty Crocker frosting

Total before coupons: $25.68
Total after coupons: $2.49
Total saved: 90.3% Whoo-hoo!!

Kashi Cereal for CHEAP at Target

Last night, I got a great deal on Kashi cereal at Target. There are a variety of different scenarios out there, but I will explain mine.

I purchased five boxes of Kashi Honey Sunshine cereal at $2.88/box.
Coupons used:
One "Get One Free Box" coupon
one $2.00 off coupon
three $1.50 off coupon
Total cost for five boxes of cereal: $5.24
Plus I received a $5.00 Target gift card for purchasing five Kashi items. So if you count the $5.00 gift card, I spent less than $0.05/box! I used the gift card to buy some facial wash for my husband, which was also on sale, so not too shabby!

Sorry there is no picture, but I have already put away the five boxes of cereal and do not want to drag them out again!

** The free coupon and the $1.50 off coupons were mailed to me through Vocalpoint. The $2.00 off coupon came with a sample of the Kashi cereal. Target now participates in price matching, and I have heard that Walgreens had Kashi cereal even cheaper this week, so there is a possibility of getting things even cheaper. **

My handsome little man

My little Boy is about to turn one year old! How quickly time flies. He is crawling and into everything. He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth--much more than his sister ever did. It has made for some interesting discoveries, if you know what I mean:-) I am currently mulling over some ideas for celebrating his first birthday. His big sister, Girl, turns three in October (their birthdays are three weeks apart), so I don't know if I want to do a joint party or not. Did I mention that Girl shares my birthday? Yep, she was my birthday present three years ago! Hubby and I are so blessed to be the parents of a wonderful Girl and Boy, and even more if the Lord wills. I don't normally post pictures of the kiddos here, but how can you resist these dimples and rolls?


PS--I am open to birthday suggestions!

I have no originality

Seriously. All my creative ideas come from someone else. So, when I want to participate in something like this swap at Tip Junkie, I have no idea where to begin. I don't know if I have any good, original trade secrets that I can share in a swap. And that is kind of depressing. Anyone have any secrets they could loan me? :-)

Self-portrait

I wanted to get a picture of my new glasses and my current favorite earrings. I spent entirely too long trying to take a 'cool' photo--and it really didn't work:-) The flash went off in my face, but I looked terrible without the flash. I haven't had new glasses in three years, so getting these new frames earlier this summer was much needed. The earrings are from Silpada jewelry, which a friend of mine sells. In fact, I will be having a jewelry home party tonight--consider this your invitation if you know me, or check it out here!

I won a fun giveaway!

Little Birdie Secrets, one of my favorite crafting blogs, had a recent giveaway for Extreme Glitter and Texture Paint, and I won! I am very excited about some of the fun projects I can tackle with these products. Extreme Glitter--doesn't that sound that tons of fun? I would love suggestions for projects with these items.