Click on through if you want to see my photo how-to. I will recap with words at the bottom (for easy printing and all that jazz)!

1. Cut out rectangles of burlap or other similar fabric. Mine were about 3.5″ x 6″ and 3.25″ x 5″. I would go just a little bit bigger than those dimensions. It worked, but my little bags were TINY!
2. Cut notches about 1 1/4″ down and 1/4″ across. Basically this is lining up your top casing (the part the drawstring will go through) with the eventual side seams. We aren’t going for fancy, so we aren’t worried about folding edges to look pretty. Easy is the name of the game here! Mine were about 1″ down and it was a bit too snug for the threading part, for me. So go with a bit bigger like 1 1/4″.
3. Pin that casing down and sew across the top, about 1/4″ from the top of the sleeve. Make sure you have enough room for the jute to be pulled through, but aren’t cutting it too close to the bottom of the casing.
4. Fold in half, right sides together, and pin.
5. Sew your bottom and side seam. You will sew just a smidgen in from that notch at the top. Now your casing is even with the rest of your bag! Cut the corner out of the bottom. This make it easier to turn. Just make sure you don’t cut the thread that you just sewed with.
6. Thread jute (it’s a thicker hemp-like material) through the casing. My casings were a bit tight and made this part REALLY challenging. I recommend taping the end of the jute (to make it like a needle) and having casings just a bit larger. I also threaded them all on at once (as you can see in step 7) so that I did not have to keep re-taping the thread end.
7. Pull enough string through the casing and cut off. Flip right side out.
8. Write “coal” onto the bag (not shown). We were going to use a freezer paper stencil or something, but opted just for Sharpie, easy was the name of the game, after all! Fill with “coal” and tie closed. Now you have cute bags of coal to put in people’s stocking for Christmas!

I hope you enjoyed this little photo how-to. It was really hard for me to remember and take pictures at every step. It was also late at night, so trying not to get my shadow in was a challenge (I failed on a couple shots)!

This is easy enough that you can do it for your family members this year. Seriously. Go find whatever scraps of fabric you have and just go for it! I used fabric that I think used to be a jar cover that someone gave me. But I was going to use the inside liner from our laundry bin. haha

The name of the game: take one of your many pins on Pinterest and make it with your own spin on it. I was inspired by an office set-up on Live Creating Yourself. It wasn’t until I was searching through all my pins that I realized I had pinned it twice. Love at first and second pin:

I’ve been working on fixing up our guest bedroom and office. (You may recall my recent redo that has now morphed a bit more.) It’s a room that’s mostly been a catch-all for stuff we don’t want to deal with. The inspiration board will help give the space more life and bring some much needed color and pattern to the beige, beige and more beige. I couldn’t get that second photo out of my mind, so I hopped on over to Ikea and got my Expedit on. It will be perfect for storing my sewing and crochet stuff.

So I followed the tutorial from Live Creating Yourself and came up with this:

Not bad, right? I still need to add some magazine clippings and paint chips, but that will come eventually. I just had to add a light blue chevron pattern (from the Scarlet Poppe who so nicely sent me a rush order of a yard).

I love me a good challenge. Don’t you?

I pulled all of the leaves from the stems and wrapped the yarn around the wreath, using it to anchor the leaves. Did that make any sense? Maybe a picture will help…

Did it? I hope so! I used three different colors of yarn, and wrapped two colors one way around the wreath and the other in the other direction. That made for a pretty color pattern.

The wreath may have taken forever to finish, but it sure looks fabulous in our entryway! I have it inside because I think water would ruin it!

Have you made anything this fall? And doesn’t the vinyl lettering on the wall look so much better than the paper that was there before?

I forgot to get a picture of the jars with the candles inside — but they give off a gorgeous glow! As you can (hopefully) see, I used two different oranges for a little variety. Our cactus, Fred, needed to get into the picture as well…

The flowers in the back were a bouquet from a wedding I was in the weekend before. The orange ribbon and lilies matched the jars perfectly! Have you made any jar lights like this? Any suggestions for other seasons?

My desire is to create things and I find myself getting frustrated when I’m not doing something creative. It can be a big part of my day — accomplishing some graphic design task at work, for example — or maybe it’s just coming up with an interesting flavor combination for dinner. (Maybe one that uses up my leftovers and extra groceries).

I thought that this was one of my more creative moments, but my brain has been dry since then.

So my question is: How do you flex your creative muscles? I seem to have hit a wall in my desire to create. Maybe I need to take more artistic risks and maybe this means adding new skills to my repertoire. Yet, when I’m this tired, I find myself thinking: What’s the point? After all, being creative isn’t always practical and it isn’t always successful. Perhaps I’m letting those fears get in the way of tapping into my imagination.

Or maybe I just need to get to bed earlier and eat better. Who knows? Do you ever find yourself in a similar predicament? How do you handle it?

For our wedding, we gave out miniature recipe books as favors.  The recipes had come from both our families, and we were excited to share some of our favorite family foods with our friends and loved ones.  I have compiled a list of those recipes, plus a few more easy ones, as a gift for brides.  I typed all of the recipes into a word document with formatting so that I can get 4 recipe cards out of each page.  It is separated into categories like “main dish, salad, breakfast, dessert.”  When I know a bridal shower is coming up, I print out the recipes on cardstock and cut them into the perfect recipe card size.  I will try to find a cute recipe box (Michaels had great deals on their dollar aisle, which is now the 2 for $3 aisle, lame) to put the card in.  If I have time, I will create dividers so that the cards are orderly.  I also add some blank cards, so that the bride can write down new recipes that her husband loves.  Do you share your recipes with friends or brides to be?  Have you ever gone to a shower where you had to bring a recipe?

Red, White, and Blue Coasters for our home!

It seems like having patriotic decor would have been automatic, given our love for the holiday, but that has not been the case.  I realized last year that we had NO Fourth of July decor.  This year, I made some super cute star coasters to celebrate with.  And a few years back, I made my mom this awesome table runner — but we still need one of our own.  Hopefully I will make one by next summer. My goal is to make one decoration for each season, each year. Then we will have a stylish house when we hit our 10 year anniversary!

A quick pic of the table runner at my parents house

What do you do to decorate for the Fourth of July?

This is a really simple skirt to make.  I’m sure someone else has already thought of this, but I have not seen it anywhere. This is actually similar to the same way that I make my coffee cozies, just on a much larger scale!

If you want to see how to make your own summer bubble skirt, go on and click over the jump!  You will LOVE the finished product!

Materials

• Fabric of your choice (the size is 2x waist width [so for me that's approx 30" x 2 = 60"] by 36″)
• Thread (it will show, so make sure it is a good contrast for your fabric)
• Elastic (I used 1″ elastic, the width of your waist)
• Pins, Scissors, and all that other stuff to sew

Either sew two pieces together or set out your one large piece of fabric.  If you sew two pieces together, know that the 60″ is the width of your skirt.  So make it two even pieces, so you have a seam on each side, instead of along the back.  This fabric is 60″ across the top and 36″ on the sides (it is one yard of 60″ fabric).

Lay fabric flat, right side down.  Fold up a 1/2″ seam along both 60″ sides.  Iron and pin.  Do not sew, just pin.

Fold it in half, right sides together, so the 36″ side matches up.

See the folded / pinned seams on the top and bottom, and the pinned seam on the side that you will sew.

Pin together and sew a seam along the side, about 1/2″. You need to leave a gap, for threading the elastic. Start at the bottom and sew all the way up, stopping about 1 1/2″ from the top of the fabric, lift the needle and then sew from 1/4″ to the top. I used stitch #10 on my machine. Basically it is a straight seam on one side, with a zig zag on the other. The zig zag is to make it hold better. Make sure the straight seam is on the inside of the hem — the side that will be showing when you flip the skirt right side out.  If the zig zag is on the inside then the stitches will look weird and show through the skirt.  So zig zag side = rough side / inside the skirt.

This is the correct way, note the triangles on the rough side

This is what happens when you sew with the triangles facing the other way. You get weird gaps in the seams on your skirt.

Now comes the tricky part. You are going to make the top 60″ part match the bottom 60″ part. So you can take the bottom and flip it up to the top part. This is the top of you skirt.  Pin the two pieces together.  You have a tube of fabric now.  You will sew a seam all the way along the top, about 1/4″ down from the top of fabric.

Mark a line all way way around the fabric, about 1 1/4″ below the top seam.  This ensures that you will have a straight line for your lower seam, and that the elastic will fit and not bubble. I use a water soluble pencil.

It’s time to put your elastic in! To figure out the length, I started with my waist side and held it together around my waist until I felt like it would hold up a skirt & I would be comfortable in it (not worrying that it would fall down). Make sure you leave about 1″ of overlap for sewing together.  So I think mine was my waist width – 1″, but that left room for the 1″ overlap. Pin one side of the elastic strip to the skirt, so that it does not accidentally slip inside the casing.  Then put a safety pin in the other side and thread it through the casing that you made.  Try to feed it in the direction that the fabric went in the seam.

Once you have the elastic fed all the way through, pull both parts out enough so that you can sew them together.  Make sure the elastic is straight all the way through, and did not flip.  Sew the elastic together. I sew in a square and then back and forth across the middle a few times — you do not want that to come apart!

Once you have sewn it together, you can pull the two sides of the back center seam away from each other, and the elastic will pop into it.  Some people would probably sew a blind stitch on the hem, but I say it’s not necessary.  The zig zag and seam lines make it so that it will not come apart.  I think it’s just fine without sewing.

The unsewn part of the seam is in the middle, see how it blends in?

Now you are ready to model your skirt to the world!  It’s fun and cheery — and reversible too!  And you can say — why yes I made that (and it doesn’t look like your grandma made it in home ec)!

Go ahead an access your inner sass — and have fun modeling your new skirt as your hubby takes pictures!

That’s some grade A sass right there!

Feel free to get your vogue on too!

Thank you so much for sticking with me through this whole post.  Are you going to try this out?  I think you should!!

Project Number 1:  Journals.  I scrapped this project.  I knew I would never finish them, so I just tossed them.

Project Number 2:  Wedding initials.  Done.   I showed my newsprint one earlier.  Here are the other two…

Project Number 3:  The beanie was unwound and I am currently making a bunny with it.  It was for Easter… maybe I will finish it by next Easter.

If you want to see the rest, click on over the jump…

Project Number 4:  Blue beanie is finished.  I don’t think I took a picture though.  Oh well!  Instead I will show a picture of my craft room as it was being cleaned… so you spy the kitten?

Project Number 5:  I definitely made the potholders.  I also made a coffee cozy with the teacher fabric, and a cute little apple button!  Still haven’t used the HSM fabric.  I think I will make it into some reusable grocery bags.

Project Number 6:  Aprons.  Done.  Mostly.  There may or may not be a few that still need to be completed.

Project Number 7:  Felt Ornaments.  Still in the same condition as a year ago.  Sad days. haha.  I have cleaned off the craft table though.  It is actually put away now.

I could create a whole new post with current projects… but this is how things are now!  Thanks for the reminder to finish up my projects!

Step One:  Pick out towels and cute fabric to match.  I usually find towels in the dollar aisle at Target.  Although, they do not stay long once they are there, so be sure and stock up!  Cut your fabric into strips (one strip per towel) about 5″ long and the width of the towel plus 2″ for neatness on the back.  So if your towel is 30″ wide, cut your fabric to a 30″ x 5″ strip.  Make sense?  Okay, moving on…

Step Two:  Fold your fabric in half and iron.  Then unfold and fold the two edges in to the middle ironed line (hot dog style) and iron.  That is how I did the white fabric.  You can see that below.  For the blue fabric I just ironed each side in about 1/2″ which created a much larger fabric strip.

Step Three:  Pin your fabric onto the towels.  You will be pinning it exactly as it will appear on the finished product, so make it nice!  I followed one of the lines on the waffle weave, to keep it nice and straight.  I forgot to take a picture of the back, but I will try and explain what  I did.  Fold the short side in on itself and then pin down.  It should create a crisp folded line on the back, and you will sew it down while you sew the front.  Put your last two pins right on the edge of the back folded part, this way you know to sew over the pins to catch the back part.  Make sense?

Step Four: Sew!  This is a really easy sewing project, perfect for beginners!  You will just sew about a 1/4″ in from the edges of the fabric on all sides.  I usually use the edge of my sewing machine foot as a guide, it is a little bit further than 1/4″ from the needle,  but it works for me.  Remember to go over those last needles, and then sew down the short side, so you catch that fabric on the back.  Just sew back and forth a bit at the beginning and end to knot the thread.

Step Five:  Admire your handiwork as you hang your towels on the oven door.  Give yourself a round of applause because you just created super cute decorations to last for years to come — in less than 15 minutes!  Woo hoo!

You can be creative and create towels like this for any season or holiday.  Your best bet will to make them this year — after each holiday.  That way you can get fabric on super sale!    Have you made any decor like this before? Any tips for making it easier?