Not a lot of space to write...

So everyone is getting into menu planning right now, and, for once, I am ahead of the curve. I have been planning our menus for years. As I'm sure all of you know, it makes it so much simpler to do your grocery shopping and to keep track of your inventory. I am taking, and joining the rest of you, it one step further to actually plan out what meals are on what days. Before I would list all of our planned meals on a notepad that was attached to our fridge, and then we could just pick and choose what we felt like making and mark it off after it was made. Very high tech.

It's not a bad menu, we just don't use it.

We also have had a dry erase board on our fridge for things that we needed to get next grocery trip....but the two of them did not look good. I mean, my fridge, is for goofy photos, drawn portraits of our family, self-portraits of my husband, and a host of magnets for the kids to play with. All of them look Terror.if.ic, but I'm going to consolidate my mess. The grocery list board and the menu planning notepad are no longer on my fridge...well the notepad is, because well you never know when you need paper, but the blah looking silver dry erase board....gone. So on to the show!

I didn't do anything spectacular really for this new menu area, but I'll still walk you through it.

I made this menu board a few years ago, but it rarely gets used. So I removed the wooden letters and sanded it down to remove the rough spots.

Oops, didn't mean to break the E. I fixed it though.

Mmmm....sparkly, shiny. I love ORB.

I found this list over at How Does She? It's perfect for what I want to do, but small. My frame is 11x17, that list is letter size. I tried expanding it and well I had a big gap both top and bottom. Hrm, what to do? Open up Photoshop and transform it to 11x17. Bingo!

Printed it out and then headed back downstairs. I trimmed off all the white on the page, and then used the mat board that I had in the frame originally as a backing, but with the edges trimmed you can see the mat board behind it. Time to pull out the ruler and center it. At least the chalkboard paint makes a nice contrast to the green, and it was free. :)

A quick spritz of some spray adhesive to the back of the planner and then back onto the mat board. Pop everything back into the frame and write-out my ever-growing grocery list. I also added some notes to dates that I know are coming up.

 Hmmmm......it's kind of boring. Functional, but boring. I look up to my hidden pile of fabric under the desk, and know exactly what this little gem needs. Some fabric rosettes.

I sort through some a lot bags of fabric, and decide on a chenille-type upholstery fabric and a texture-y (is that a word?) plaid. I eyeball the placement for the rosettes then realize I have not plugged in my hot glue gun. Well, sigh, I don't want to wait for that to heat up. Oh! I have Gorilla Glue Super Glue in my kitchen! It works in 30 seconds, just perfect for my lets-hurry-up-and-get'r-done attitude! Ok, I sound a little to much like an ad, but I blame the fact that tomorrow I get to start shopping for my bedroom.

Now she hanging up, ever so pretty, on my wall, and my fridge looks a little less cluttered. :)

I hope you guys will check out my Blog Frog community. I started it this week, and while I'm still learning to navigate it, I hope you guys will join me and discuss what's going on crafty-wise with you!

I also think that when I hit 74 followers I'm going to have a give-away. Why 74? Why not? In reality, my grandmother is turning a certain age and it seemed like a perfectly good reason. :) I know what I want to give away; I'll just have to get the wheels turning on that one to get it done. So tell your bloggy-friends about me and it'll speed up the process!

I hope you enjoyed, and have a great day!

I have been sewing up a storm this week, and today was no different. I am attempting to get ahead of my workload for the bedroom makeover, which probably would have been a better plan had I started earlier. Oh well, but at least this gives me a good segway. Enter two new pillows. This time they are braided and gathered. :)  I had some 14" pillow forms lying around. Now they are sitting pretty on my bed.

The instructions are the same as the original braided pillow, but the measurements are different as the pillow is 2" smaller than the original pattern. This is also going to make 2 pillows instead of 1. So on to the show!


Stuff you'll use:
1 yd fabric
1 yd contrast fabric (or not, your choice)
Ruler
Scissors
2 - 14" pillow forms
Sewing Machine
Serger (but you don't have to have one)
Iron

What you'll do:

Cut out 4 - 15" squares of your main fabric. Cut out 8 rectangles that are 15" by 20" out of your contrasting fabric.

You will not have much left over, but at least your scrap pile will be happy!

Mark a line a 1/2" in from the edge of a panel, and then make a hash mark a 1/2" in from each end of the pillow. From those marks measure 3-1/2" in and make another hash mark. Measure 3-1/2" from one of those marks. This last mark should be in the center of the pillow. Repeat on the opposite of the panel. Repeat markings on another panel.


Since I used a sheer for my contrasting fabric, I sewed my strips for the braid using a french or flat seam. I could have used my serger, but the french seam looks nicer and you don't need a serger. If you're not using a sheer then you can ignore this step, but you don't have to ignore it. This seam will encase the raw edges of your fabric, which is a plus when working with a sheer, because most sheers fray if you look at them wrong.

Fold a rectangle in half lengthwise, wrong sides together, sew in a 1/4" seam. Trim the seam, if needed.

Turn rectangle inside out, so that the seam is now on the inside. Align the rectangle so that the seam is on one edge, make sure to flatten the edge. Encase the seam with another 3/8" seam.

Turn right-side out, and press the rectangle flat, positioning the seam in the center back of the rectangle. Repeat with the other rectangles.

Using a long basting stitch, stitch the ends of the strips 1/2" from the edge and then again 3/8" in from the edge. Be sure to leave long tails on your threads to gather up your strip. Repeat for each end of your strips.

Now, I experimented with a few different ways of gathering up the edges and then pining them down on the panel, and the following way was the fastest and most efficient.

Lay your first strip down so that the top right corner edge is aligned with the upper most right mark. Pin down. Align the opposite corner (lower left corner) with the 4th mark down from the top on the left (just like with the original). Pin the opposite sides. You will have a lot of fabric in the center. Take two threads (either both top threads or both bottom threads) on one end of your pinned down rectangle and pull. Make sure not pull to much, because you can pull these threads completely out. You just want to gather your fabric enough  so that it lies flat between your pins. Pin down your gathers. They like to move. Repeat the weaving process as mentioned in the Braided Pillow. Repeat your gathers in each strip. After everything is pinned down, baste the strips to the panel on either side.

Your pillow will look like a hot mess, right now, which is where the serger will come in handy. Serge each edge of the gathers and panels, making sure not to cut much if anything off of your panel. Just cut the rectangles. If you don't have a serger, I would zig-zag stitch your edges inside the seam allowance then trim the edges even.



Pin panels, right sides together, and sew in 5/8" seams. Make sure to leave an opening for turning and stuffing.

Finish your pillow with turkish corners, if you like, or leave them plain. Trim your seams, and turn right-side out. Stuff with your pillow forms and then hand stitch the opening closed.

For some reason this pillow looks fluffier. I couldn't get the form to fill it out nicely, even tho both pillow were made the same way. Even punching the pillow a bit wouldn't help flatten it and even out the stuffing.

The two braided pillows right next to each other. :)

Yes, my bed pillows are missing their cases. I have plans for them. Maybe I'll show you tomorrow :)

Oooooh, shiny!

You can see where one pillow is better formed than the other. Same brand pillow forms, but for some reason the one is fuller looking. Oh well. I'm sure after the boys play with them some, it'll flatten out a little. :)

I am participating in my these parties! See the new tab in my menu!

I hope you enjoyed this variation and have a wonderful day! Oh and I almost forgot.....Here's a parting shot of how my quilt is coming!

So I have an announcement! I'm very excited! Ok, so that's not unusual for me, but what I am excited about is the fact that Saturday, the hubby and I are starting our bedroom revamp! So Ex.Ci.Ted! Can you tell? I don't think that I've used nearly enough exclamation points. :-P

So I'm not going to divulge much about the revamp....I'll wait to do that. I've been trying to post something every day, but this weekend I'm not going to be able to do that, because we have A LOT to do. I'm dropping the kids off at my grandmother's Friday morning and then picking them up Monday. We have 2 full days to get the room painted, and then mostly put together. I have furniture to paint, but I highly doubt I'll be able to get it painted this weekend.

So this week, I've been trying to get some old projects finished up and moved out of my work space. :) I was trying to do that this morning, when a piece of glass maliciously attacked me. Then my ever-so-helpful-but-squeamish husband was very little help when I asked him to clean up said glass after it decided that I did not need the small chunk of thumb it wanted. Not to get too graphic, but it was making a statement about my thumb. I dropped the glass (how it didn't break I'll never know), then quickly got to the sink to get cold water running over my thumb. Of course, during my dash to the sink, Harrison decided right then he wanted a nap. Now. So I'm bleeding all over and the baby wants to be put to bed. Steve puts him to bed, then comes back down to help me get my thumb wrapped. 45 minutes later I'm back working on the project, where I accidentally break the glass. It really was an accident!

This is the offending glass, after I cleaned it, again.

I am totally rocking this Lightening McQueen band-aid.

I swear. This was NOT an act of revenge.

You know you want my pink hammer! :) A hint:  this is a corner of our bedroom

I love the stars! They're not girly and they're just the thing to emphasize that bottom area.

I've also been plugging away on my quilt and following Obsessively Stitching's tutorial, but I will have a post dedicated to that when I'm done. :) So what have you guys been up to?

I hope you all have enjoyed this all over post, and have a wonderful day!