Summer Ruffles

Our sand volleyball (or beach volleyball as we like to call it) team had a Beach Party to celebrate both my hubby's birthday and the engagement of two of our teammates. My hubby and I hit the thrift stores in search for "beach party" attire. I found this very fun floral dress (2nd from right). 

I also found this very cute Ann Taylor Loft dress for $9. 

I loved the ruffles and loved how it was made of horizontal strips of fabric. 

It was a size or two to big, but I didn't care! It was only big around the bust so I took two pleats and turned them into two seams that would make it about 2 inches narrower. I was worried that it would pull the dress too much toward the back, but it actually looks just fine on. 

I had to remove the top trim to do this, but after I made it smaller I put the trim right back on and whabam it's done!

New dress to wear on my vacation to California! One more reason (actually two) why I L.O.V.E. thrift stores!

xoxo 

Little Bicycles

My new Mod Podge / fabric / earrings love...

A few nights ago a silent bike ride was organized in support of cycling safely and riding for friends and loved ones who have been injured or killed by vehicles while cycling. I couldn't make the ride, so I wore these cute earrings all day instead. 

Don't forget to ride defensively and please drive carefully! Watch out for cyclists! They are doing great things for their bodies and for our environment!

Fun Times with Felt!

It has been a really really really long time since I have purchased, or even thought about purchasing, felt. That was until I caught a glimpse of the absolutely adorable felt flower pillows. The web is crawling with these pretty pillows so I thought I would make one.

I found a great tutorial on Cluck.Cluck.SEW and let me tell you, this project is SUPER easy... It would have been a tad more time consuming if I had not been able to use one of these:

A circle cutter! 

I don't own one, but it is certainly now on my list of cool gadgets that are "super-useful-every-now-and-then"... I borrowed Ali's during the last Modern Sewing Guild meeting and got all of my circles cut in a jiffy (and they were PERFECT). And after showing off my felt flower pillow, I already have requests to make more. I think that warrants me NEEDING a circle cutter. 

The flower is made of a bunch of felt semicircles sewed to some fabric and will soon become a pillow!

Close up of the flower and the button in the center. Can you believe nearly all of the felt I found while shopping was made of recycled plastic bottles??? Yay for recycling plastic!

Close up of the pillow fabric. 

For those of you that don't sew, the Crafting Chics have a tutorial using glue.

Hooray for Fridays!
xoxo

Backyard Update on Mother's Day

It is starting to warm up around here, actually, it was just plain hot this weekend here in Albuquerque. However, this evening is just perfect (as I write this post siting on my new "Adirondack" chair in the backyard). We had a lovely Mother's Day picnic at Sandia Lakes with my parents, gma, and aunt:

Watching and running from these guys:

Helped my mom work around her yard, then came home and worked around my yard. Before getting some actual "yard work" done, I snapped a few photos of new flowers blooming (or in the case of my hibiscus...croaking).

The bad first...the tips of my hibiscus froze after they were about 18-inches long so I gave 'em a haircut and am hoping new growth will continue. 

I was about to toss out this flower pot when my hubby noticed something had sprouted. I started watering it and whala lillies! Yay, 3 new lillies!

Not sure if I can actually keep fushia alive, but I'll give it a shot because they sure are gorgeous!

I wish I could send the amazing aroma of the wisteria through my blog because these smell amazing. 

Marigolds and cute pink things (can never remember what these are called) next to my cute solar light (awesome gift from mom).

I was thrilled to see my ice plant blooming! These close up around dusk but look so neat during the day. Gotta love desert plants since I live in the desert!

Ok the breeze picked up and I am getting cold. Moving this party inside....alright that is better.  Lots of pretty roses around the yard (well these are nothing compared to the roses in my dad's yard). 

And in 4 years...this is the FIRST iris that has actually bloomed in our yard!

Now for the work part. I turned this:

Into this:

My mini-garden! My gpa would be proud.

Hope you had a lovely Mother's Day too! Now go get some rest.

XOXO

Weekend Project = Curtains + DS Clutch

A coworker of mine wanted to surprise her granddaughter with some super fun curtains to match her new room decor. She grew out of the "princess" phase and her bedroom got a facelift! She bought two blackout panels and wanted me to embellish them with zebra print and turquoise fabric. Cute fabric, however, not that easy to sew! When I pulled out the panels, I was shocked to see how big they were...check em out.

Trying to line up and pin down the slinky turquoise fabric!

Holy schnikeees! This curtain is long....way longer than my dining room table! 

Two panels completely done. Quite a chore using these "challenging" fabrics (the zebra print was a knit of some sort, lots of stretch to it, ugh). But yay, they look great in her bedroom. I got to see a cute video of how they look in the room!

And for a little surprise, she got a "clutch" to hold her Nintendo DS and it matches her room as well.

Lookie! It holds 10 games. Five on each side (I used my hubby's games to figure out how big to make each slot). 

This photo is merely to show off how desperate my hubby was a few years ago to get me to play video games. He bought me Ultimate Frisbee & Disc Golf game for the DS. LOL, he is awesome, but I still don't play video games....

(PS - if you know me, this game is probably the best attempt at getting me to play video games as I am a Frisbee loving lady)

Hope you had a happy 1st of May! What a crazy day it was...wind/rain/snow you name it! I am already looking forward to later in the week when I can plant all of the flowers/veggies that I bought yesterday!