Meet Mickey: My New Ride! :)

I mentioned in my last post that we bought a 2002 Volkswagen Beetle to be my daily driver.  Now that we have four drivers in the house, all with school and jobs to get to, we were having a hard time sharing three cars.  We scratched up a bit of money and bought my "dream" car. :)  I've wanted a Beetle since I was a teenager and the older New Beetles were finally in my price range (aka CHEAP). It's definitely a fixer-upper but I've had a blast working on it. It is a 2002, 1.0 liter diesel with 152K miles.  I'm getting about 31 MPG in town and about 34 MPG on the highway! The car was really dirty so Aaron and I have been cleaning it a bit at a time. I've also been giving it some Disney-inspired touches. It's still a work in progress but here's a look at how he's doing:

The front bumper was all scratched up and had a really bad touch up paint job on the passenger side. We found a replacement bumper cover at the Pick & Pull for cheap and it looks so much better now!

The dash bezel was all scratched up and the previous owner spilled glue or something on it - I'm really not sure what it was. Aaron took it off and I sanded it down and painted it red. Under the bow, Aaron drilled two holes and threaded a zip tie through so I have a permanent loop to hold bows. I can change them out as often as I'd like! How cool is that?!

Beetles are known for broken glove box doors. Mine was not just broken, it was completely missing! I made a curtain and used spring-loaded curtain rods to cover where the door would go.

...and of course I made a matching bow! :)

My sister Mamie, made me this awesome Mickey head table runner for Christmas. It fits the back of my trunk cover perfectly! smile emoticon

Happy New Year!

Hey everyone!  I totally fell off the radar there for awhile as we wrapped up 2014.  Sorry about that! :)  I'm back with an update to our debt journey!  Aaron and I recently sat down and figured out the progress we made this past year and we were amazed!  The Lord has really blessed us and helped us to be diligent towards our debt snowball.  We are happy to report that we are over 60% out of consumer debt!  Woohoo!  I can't tell you how good it feels to be headed in the right direction after living off of our credit cards for so many years.  I always blamed having five kids as my reason to charge basic things like food or gas, thinking one day we would have a windfall, a big promotion, an inheritance, or something  to get us out of the mess.  Now, I'm so grateful that I finally understand how to create a budget and, more importantly, stick to it!  We hope that by this time next year we will be working on baby step three: a fully funded emergency fund.  For now, we will keep plugging along with baby step two - less than 40% to go!!

We decided that we would have what we call a "no spend January" in order to jump start our debt snowball for 2015.  The rules are NO spending for anything other than essentials unless it's money on a gift card.  Well, for Christmas, my extended family just happened to give me gift cards to Hallmark, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's, Michaels, and Dunkin' Donuts!  I finally put them to good use today when I purchased a Lilly Pulitzer planner and supplies to decorate it.  I am already in LOVE with this planner!  I went with the jumbo size and it has so much room to write in!  I will show photos of the inside and how I'm decorating it, and more importantly, using it to organize my life once I get it put together.  I bought birthday stickers to mark friend's and family member's birthdays, as well as snowflakes to mark debt snowball payments, and extra fun stickers for....well....fun!  Here's a peek at what my gift cards bought:

Crocheted Chicken Potholder

So it's no secret that I am chicken crazy.  What can I say...I love my birds!  Since I love crafting and I love chickens, when I saw this Lion Brand pattern, I just had to make these cute little chicken potholders.  You can find the tutorial here.  (There are two separate patterns - one for the mama hen and one for the chick.  My link will take you to one, but check out the other linked patterns on the LB website.)

I found that these worked up rather nicely and quickly.  Definitely add the wing before you join the front and back sides together!  Also, I found it extremely helpful to steam iron my front and back before joining them.  They were curling a bit and by ironing them, they went together very nicely.

Note:  I didn't you the recommended Cotton Ease yarn.  I had Peaches 'n Cream already on hand so I used that.

Fabric Basket

Recently, I found a new You Tube favorite:  The Crafty Gemini.  She uploads weekly sewing and cooking videos each week to YT, and she has a fun blog and Facebook page too.  In one of her tutorial videos, she shows how to make a fabric basket by repurposing a cotton clothesline and strips of fabric.  It looked easy enough so I thought I'd give it a try.

For my fabric basket, I used strips of my white VBS t-shirt (please don't tell Ms. Jesma!) and an old, dirty clothesline that we used to take camping with us.  I finished it off with a few scraps of quilting fabric that I made yo-yos out of and added covered buttons from my stash.  There was an uneven spot where I stopped my cording so I wanted to cover that up, hence the yo-yo flowers.

The next one I make, I think I will try to add handles and maybe make it a bit wider at the top. 

If you try out this project, be sure to test your machine to make sure it can handle the cotton cording.  Sewfia had a bit of trouble starting so I had to really coax her into cooperating.  Definitely use a new sharp needle (a ball point needle won't work) or you'll have lots of thread breaking.

Here's a link to the tutorial.  If you try it out, let me know how it goes!  :)

The Shabby Chic Cottage Style Kitchen is finished!

Well, it has been a work in progress for a few weeks now, but I am happy to announce that the kitchen is finally painted and put back together.  I still have a few finishing touches to make, but for now I am loving my new, hot pink kitchen paint.  All of the colors in the kitchen and dining room are from Martha Stewart's new line of paint at The Home Depot.  I went with a super-light pink on the top of the dining room walls, and a mossy green on the bottom.  The hot pink in the kitchen really helps those other colors pop!  Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Hold the pot...

After many interruptions in my life (some good, some not so good *sigh*), I was finally able to set aside a bit of time to sew.  My fabric finally came in at JoAnn's last week so I've been working on my roman shades, but the other day was able to make a couple of pot holders.  It was great to complete a project in an afternoon, as the roman shades are quite labor intensive.  :0)

I used the same two fabrics that are in my window valance.  (The shades are made from the white & green swirly fabric.)  I appliqued a heart - cut with my Cricut - on each front.  There are two layers of terry cloth inside so they're flexible, yet quite heat resistant.  They were fun to make - so much so that I am thinking they might make nice Christmas gifts!  If you'd like directions on how to make your own, please email me or post a comment.  Have a great day!   

The Mother's Day Apron

For Mother's Day last week, my awesome husband and wonderful children went to my favorite "real" store.  (I say "real" because I love second hand stores, but those are more "fake" than "real".)  :0)  Anyway, the favorite "real" store is Hallmark.  Why do I love Hallmark?  Well, because that is where all of Vera's treasures reside.  That's right - Vera Bradley.  She is my fabric hero!  I love her tote bags, clutch wallets, rolling duffel bags, stationery and more!

While my favorite people were at my favorite store, they bought me my new favorite thing:  a beautiful apron and recipe card box in the new pattern called "make me blush".  It is probably my favorite Vera Bradley pattern of all time with its pretty pinks, mossy greens and hints of yellow and gray.  It's just beautiful!  In fact, I like it so much that I have decided to redecorate my whole kitchen and dining room to match the apron!

So, I will be working on my new kitchen curtains and wall colors this next week or so.  Here are a few pictures of what I'm working on:

The far fabric on the left is my new apron.  The other two fabrics are what I bought at JoAnn Fabrics the other day to coordinate with the apron fabric.  The next picture show you the wall colors I am leaning towards.  They are from the new Martha Stewart paint color collection available only at The Home Depot.  (Another of my favorite "real" stores.  Oh, and Martha Stewart is another one of my heroes.  Like her or not, she knows her crafts!)

I am certain of the bottom color and a bit unsure of the top color.  I have decided to make my curtains first and then decide on the paint colors for sure.  I may mix my own upper color with white paint tinted with some of the green from the lower half of the wall.  Like I said, I'm still undecided, so we'll see after the curtains are made.

I'll post pictures as I finish up my projects.  Keep in mind, we are also building a chicken pen in the back yard as well, so this should be a very busy week!  :0)