Bow Belt Tutorial

I found this tutorial after my sister told me about Stumble Upon. It's this great website that randomly brings up websites based on the interests that you select. SO much fun when I'm bored at work, and definitely worth checking out!

So this tutorial comes from Momtastic. You can click on the link to the blog for the full tutorial. A couple things that I did or wish I had done differently:

1. I added two snaps on the end of the band. One snap seemed to make the belt not line up in the back (but that's partially because I did a not-so-great job of getting it in the middle!). I think next time I am going to mark the center of the width of the belt to make sure that the snap is centered.
2. When sewing the "middle band" on the belt, the way it's done makes the back unfinished. While this doesn't show, I would suggest measuring where you would sew, then making the seam on the inside of the fabric. Then, slide the middle band down the belt before pinching the bow and pulling through. Or use Fray Check to stop fraying.

Overall, though, I love this belt and am excited to make more! Thanks, Momtastic!

"I Love..." Friday

This week has flown by for me! We heard back on our house and, thankfully, the cost to regrade the backyard is well within our price range. I know everyone always says that buying a house is stressful, but I didn't know it would be like this. 

I'm slowly trying to get back my motivation from my lazy month so there should be some new goodies in my Etsy shop soon! It's been a struggle recently with working full time, then going home to create for the shop. I'm always reading the articles on Etsy titled "Quit Your Day Job" and think that I could do it if I put in a little more work on the side. A lot of the women that are interviewed say that it was like they were working two jobs before they branched off to focus solely on their business. I would LOVE to do that! I already love creating and being able to do it as a job would be fantastic. I'll keep you posted on how this venture goes!


Today is Friday! So here are some Etsy items that caught my eye for this "I Love ...":

Viking Mug by CircaCeramics

Frida Earrings by tamar

Light Blue Alarm Clock from TheBig8s

Three Nesting Lotus Blossom Bowls by whitneysmith

Weekly Posting: "I Love.." Fridays and a Life Update

It's been a while since I last blogged .. mostly because my husband and I are trying to buy a house in my hometown! I'm really excited about it. Of course there have been a couple issues, namely that we had an inspection this Wednesday and the inspector found that there is a lot of water pressure on the foundation wall of the house because the backyard slants towards the house .. Yikes! We have to get it fixed before we close because of the type of loan we're getting, so hopefully it doesn't cost us too much. We should get the estimate before Monday. 


Another excuse for the lack of blogging falls into a real lack of motivation. It seems that when things get busy at work (I work at a Community Education office for a school district), I lose the desire to work on my Etsy shop or other crafty things. But when I'm at work all day with nothing to do, there's nothing I would rather be doing than creating. Plus, I really want a new sewing machine as mine was obtained by my mom at a garage sale. This is my newest desire: Brother PC-210. 


So I feel the need to start a routine. Enter "I Love ..." Fridays. I'll be perusing Etsy shops for things I love, just as I get into the weekend. This Friday, while I've been seeing all kinds of treasuries anticipating spring, I'm going to do one last hurrah for winter. I love sweaters, warm and cozy things, and all of the white. 

Multibubble Scarf from Clariceonline

Primitive Miniature Wood Town from saysthetree

Felted Wool Slippers from Grazim

Tealight Holders from wapa

The idea for starting the weekly collection comes from Hump Day Finds by What. No Mints?  Definitely a favorite blog of mine!

Yum Yum

It's kind of ironic how things work sometimes. Yesterday, I talked about how the storm of the century only gave us six inches of snow, which may have had a tinge of sarcasm attached. Well, the snow plow in my parking lot (I live in an apartment) plowed my little, sporty car in and it got stuck! Thankfully a friendly neighbor stopped and pushed me out.  It was a good thing I tried to get my car out last night so I didn't get stuck this morning, but then my car wouldn't start! Oh, karma ...


I found this foodie website that I absolutely LOVE and can't wait to try some recipes from. It's called Food Gawker and definitely lives up to the name. Check it out!

A New Venture

Now seems like as good of a time as any to start a blog, especially with the "Storm of the Century," aka six inches of snow, roaring on outside my window. Thankfully, though, it has given me a day off of work to start sharing!

This blog is intended to be a place to display my ventures in crafting, sewing, cooking, and gardening. These are my absolute favorite things to do and lend themselves to my short attention span and continuous desire to create new things.

Recently, I decided to start making clutch purses for my newly born Etsy shop. They are so cute and fun! I have yet to find my niche in the Etsy selling world but am enjoying trying new projects and seeing my family and friends' responses. As with all trials, this was a learning experience. But luckily I only had to remake the pattern two more times before I reached a successful one! Maybe sometime in the future I'll do a tutorial on making them, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself :). Here is one of my trial ones followed by a couple of the finished purses: