Monday, April 30, 2012

Flower Favors


This idea sprang from my garden marker idea. I thought it would be cute and inexpensive to make seed flags as our wedding favors.

Time: 30 minutes for 30 flags

Supplies:

Seed packets
Skewers
Hot glue

Steps:
1. Make sure all seeds have fallen to the top of the packet
2. Fold the bottom of the packet and spread hot glue down the fold
3. Put the skewer in glue, and then you are finished :)
They could also be used as "Cheering" flags and seed tosses

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Hippie Skirt

This skirt would have taken anyone with even semi-good sewing skills about 30 minutes to do. Me....more like 3 hours. However, my hard work was not in vain because I adore this skirt! I started taking pictures of the process, but then gave up after I did a whole row of stitches through the front and BACK of the skirt at one point. This is to be expected because as you can tell from this blog, my sewing adventures are few and far between. I'm really wanting to take classes this summer so that I can actually learn to sew. I telling you all of this because I want to encourage those of you who are afraid of a sewing machine to give it a shot! Even an idiot-sewer like me can make this skirt!

Supplies:
 Elastic (I found mine at a thrift store for 25 cents...BAM!)
Fabric (Mine was on sale at Hancock fabrics for $2 a yard.) The original width of the fabric was a perfect fit around my bottom, and I needed about a yard for the length.

Steps:
1. Wrap elastic around your waste and cut to fit
2. Sew fabric to elastic (You will have over-hanging fabric if your waist is smaller than your hips)
3. Wrap fabric around you and pin (I was able to do alone, but I'm pretty flexible ha)
4. Pin out slit if you want one
5. Hem all sides

As you can see, I messed up with the placement of the elastic because I wanted the seam to be in line with the slit.  I had planed to put a flower or something there to cover it up. Since that didn't work out, I just wear a long shirt with it to cover the elastic.
I teach high schoolers and got TONS of compliments on my skirt Monday. Lots of girls asked me where I had gotten it, and it made my heart swell when I told them that I had made it. :) It's teenage-girl approved, so in my mind, that means something!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Trail Path


Our backyard slopes directly onto a public walking trail. Before our updates, everyone and their brother running beside them had a straight view down to my sunbathing and dog-playing zone. Now thanks to about 6 months of on again off again work from my sweet stepdad and fiance, we finally have some privacy and landscaping beauty!

You can't see the running trail from the before picture, but believe me, I've seen one too many skinny legged shorty short men running by over the past two years. The thing we still laugh at is when my stepdad was helping put the fence up, he kept saying to Aaron "and there's another reason why we shouldn't be doing this" every time a pretty woman would walk by. haha

I'm not going to lie, doing the landscaping portion of this was a B. We spent our whole spring break digging steps (not we on that, Aaron), laying landscape material, placing stone, spreading landscape, and planting.
The planting looks a little sparse right now, but hopefully it will fill out next spring. :) Either way, we think it looks so beautiful!

Friday, April 6, 2012

Garden Marker

To make this garden marker, simply hot glue the folded seed packet to a skewer stick. Very easy!

Update:
These are still holding strong after several rains!