Thursday, December 10, 2009

Tye Dye

I'm thinking about tye dying a skirt. I got a white skirt from a thrift store with the hopes of trying to break tradition and wear more white... well, white and me do not get along. I've never worn it. In hopes of actually wearing it someday, I am planning on tye dying it. I looked at this blog and became inspired to try and dye it.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Quotes from work

In honor of being at work one year now, I thought I would share some quotes that I had written down. The names will be withheld for security reasons :).

1. Pizza's like beer. It starts at good and gets better.
2. Two Ed's are better than one
3. Person 1: She's on the beach.
Person 2. I hope it's raining
4. Man... when I say "please" in an email
5. Will you be my friend?
6. The question is... can we do it from home?
7. We got women, men, questionmarks.
8. He's an idiot. He faxed me the page upside down
9. Sometimes, at this university, common sense doesn't mean anything.
10. (he) doesn't say hi, bye, kiss my butt
11. I am sitting over here fighting the urge to take my socks off.
12. The physical phone is moving
13. Tell them they can kiss my royal butt.
14. We need a beer machine
15. and I'd say screw you
16. I'm fixing to do the committee assignments and I'm going to put her on every commitee.
17. Forward me some trashy email
18. Man, will this semester ever end? (the second day of the semester)
19. Person 1: You got your keys?
Person 2: (while grinning mischieviously) I got a master key.
20. Person 1: Do you want me to stand in your parking spot until you get back?
Person 2: I've got a grad student for that.
21. Somebody build an ark.
22. I tried to get rid of him one way... I failed him three times. I guess I'll have to do it the other way.
23. Please send out an email telling everyone not to drink the water out of the toilet bowl.
24. My sister told me she's on her last pocket protector
25. No wonder the Rennaisance went away. I'm sweating like a pig in this thing.
26. Person 1: I like your ringtone.
Person 2: I do too. It sounds like her (their wife)
27. I got promoted. I went from Department Head to Queen.
28. A squirrel is just a rat with a fluffy tail
29. Person 1: You want a cookie?
Person 2: Hell yes!
30. Don't be cheating with no bums


That is all.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Tips to save money...

Saving money seems to be on everyone's mind these days. Whether it's trying to reduce credit card debt or saving a few dollars on grocerys each month, articles on saving money abound everywhere. In a world where everyone is trying to be recessionistas, how can the frugal shopper become more frugal? Articles such as 30 Easy Wasy to Save Money, 101 Ways to save One Dollar a Week, and 66 Ways to Save Money all have good ideas on ways to save a few dollars and give ideas for a good starting point.

The biggest challenge I have found today is finding ways to save money. I have already took the advice of these articles such as cutting up credit cards, not drinking Starbucks every morning, and not dining out, but what am I to do if they have already followed these sound words of advice but are still not saving the money like I would want to?

Over a year ago, my husband lost his job. We had to do some serious cutbacks. Of course, the first thing I did was look up articles on ways to save money. When one has to find cutbacks, dining out, credit cards, and brand-name foods are the first things to go. Here are some ways I was able to go beyond the normal money-saving ideas.

1. Go All-in-One. One way to reduce expenses with insurances is to combine policies. Insurance agencies have home, auto, and life insurance policies that offer large discounts to multiple policies.

Phone and cable companies will also offer a package deal if you combine phone, internet and television.

2. Don't keep what you don't need. If you use your cell phone as your main phone, there is no reason to have a land-line these days. Cut the land line. If you are worried about losing your internet that is tied to your phone, many phone companies offer a DSL-only package. I signed up for this package and cut my phone bill by $30 a month.

3. Show me the money! If you have a savings account, make sure it is working for you. Many people put money in savings and don't think to look closely at the interest rate. See how much your bank will give in interest before you put that hard-earned cash away. I recently moved from an account that gave me 1% interest a year to an account that pays .09% interest a month. By making this switch, I have greatly improved the interest rate that my money will bring back.

4. Hang it out to dry. Line-dry the clothes when possible. I followed this tactic and cut my energy bill by $20. In the winter, I use the dryer, but mainly because it is a good source of heat for the apartment. I dry a load of clothes when the apartment is becoming chilly, and Bam! a two-for-one deal. Not only do I have nice, fluffy clothes, I also have a warm apartment. Did I mention that I haven't used my heater in over a year? .

5. Get a coat. In the winter, it isn't necessary to have a toasty room. If you are cold, put on a coat. If you get too hot, take it off. It's that simple. You don't have to have the thermostat set at 80 degrees when you feel a little cold.

These are just a few of the things I've done. Let me know if there are any other ideas.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

macrame!!!

I have decided that I grew up in the wrong decade.... Macrame is so cool. Unfortunately, my husband probably wouldn't be too wild about having an owl hanging in the living room. I may go home and do some macrame today instead of studying for finals.

This person is also caught up in the macrame mayhem.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Wreaths

I have fallen on the Christmas wreath bandwagon. I recently made a wreath for work out of ornaments.

To make this project, I went to Dollar Tree and bought about 93 ornaments for around $7.49 (including sales tax).






I then followed these instructions to make a wreath. I was surprised at how well it turned out.



I will post pictures of the final outcome of the wreath later on.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Holiday Bazaar!!!

The Holiday Bazaar is on-campus today and tomorrow. I can't wait to go and "borrow" ideas from the vendors. Here's a link to the holiday fun.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Recycled project

My cat is fat. He also poops a lot. Because of this, I go through a bunch of litter and end up with a bunch of litter buckets. I don't want to throw the buckets away because they are perfectly okay, but one can only have so many buckets in her closet before it begins to overflow. To remedy this, I have started using them as pots. They are a whole lot cheaper than the $14 pots than the discount chain stores sell. The only problem is that buckets with "Cat Litter" printed on them aren't very attractive for your house.

Did I also mention that my cat likes to sharpen his claws? This isn't a new discovery for cats, however, my cat only likes to use the leopard-print scratching post. I discovered this the other day when I tried to replace his old scratching post with a new one. He would not use it.

One day, I decided to clean out the closet, which involved me pulling out the old scratching post. The cat ran immediately to the old one and started scratching, even though the rope was worn out.

Since I am stubborn, I decided I would not be bested by a cat. I also hate spending money on stuff that's not used so I decided to do an old switch-er-roo on him. I replaced the old rope with the new rope from the new scratching post. He loves the old one even more now.

I didn't want to throw the old rope away, so I decided to save it for something. Thanks to my cat, I now have a cute flower pot, made from reusable materials from my cat.


I also used some jute string I had laying around the house too.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Painting Tiles

Lately, I have also been painting tile. I've discovered that Lowe's sells 6 x 6 tile for less than $.50 a piece. Pair that with paint on-hand and some left over polyurethane from previous projects, and you have a very inexpensive craft project.




My biggest fear was that when putting a hot pot on it, it would melt and maybe even explode (It wouldn't explode, but I always imagine the worst in my theories ;) ) I boiled a small pot of water and set it on the tile and, what do you know, no cracking tile!

Here is another shot of more tile:

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Free-motion quilting

I am working on a quilt now that has a solid front and back. My idea was to have a quilt that showcased the free motion quilting on it. I saw the stitch design on a quilt at J.C. Penny and decided to sew it. It turns out, someone else had the same idea, except her's is in a smaller size. Watch the video of the checkerboard pattern being sewn. If only I could sew that fast...

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Previously Designed Quilts/Afgans

Here are some quilts and afgans that I have made throughout the years...

This is the first afgan I had ever made. It is made from a loop loom. Who knows how many of the loops I used. I even seperated the colors out into individual plastic baggies so that I could gather the colors so easily. The only downside to this blanket is the sheer weight of the afgan. It seriously has to weigh at least 20 pounds.

My favorite memory about this afgan is where I made a lot of the squares. I would go to work with my dad during the summer and sit under the trees and loom (if that is the correct verb) while he cut timber. Then, I would ride with him in the log truck and loom squares. Some of the loops were made from my mother's stockings. I even used socks when I had run out of stocking loops.

I don't know how I came up with some of the patterns. My favorite square pattern is the houndstooth pattern. I made this one by having 2 loops of one color, followed by another 2 loops of another color. This was done on both sides of the loom.


My second afgan was this one. This quilt is memorable to me just because it took me forever to finish (almost 3 years!). It took me that long because I was just learning how to crochet and was not very fast. I remember working on this quilt my freshman year on my way to the Beta Club Convention in Biloxi. Another memory of this afgan is the fact that my mom made some of the blocks for it. you can tell which ones she did because her stitches are a lot tighter than mine.




I didn't crochet any afgans for a while after that. I made one my freshman year, but I gave it to a lady at my parents' church. I will try to get a picture of it sometime. Here is the picture of the pattern that I crocheted. It's called the Prairie Star Afgan.

My next afgan was made from yarn I got for Christmas in 2003. I wasn't sure what I wanted for Christmas, but I did know that I wanted to make this particular afghan. My mom let me have the yarn early so that I could work on this project during Christmas break from College. I stayed up many nights watching TV and crocheting. Songs from the Wizard of Oz would pop into my head while crocheting this quilt because of the colors.



My roomate, Lauren, loved to quilt and inspired me to try quilting. This is the first quilt that I made. It is not advised to let circles be your first pattern... My squares don't line up perfectly. This pattern was called an eclipse. I didn't follow the suggestions for the colors, as you can probably tell.


I also pieced together the back of the quilt with leftover fabric from the quilt. I miscalculated and bought WAY too much fabric. I bought 3 yards of each color instead of having 3 yards total the shapes.

Because of the fabric overpurchase, I made another quilt. One would think that sewing large blocks together woudl be easy, however, that was not the case. They never line up ;).

The back of this quilt is frogs. I like frogs.

The next quilt I made was made for a boy in college... a boy who is now my husband :) He loves Megaman. I was talking about making a quilt one day and he is like "why don't you make me a quilt with Megaman on it. He was joking, of course, but I took it as a mission... a mission to make a Megaman quilt. I used my mom's overhead projector to blow up the image to be four feet tall and then traced it on wax paper. I then cut out the pieces of megaman to the corresponding color. I used sewing glue to sew the pieces together and then stitched them on the quilt. I used a navy twin-sized sheet to sew the character on and then used a light-blue back.

Now, he wants me to make him a Protoman quilt to go with his Megaman quilt.

The next afgan I crocheted was this one. I made it because I was tired of quilting. I came up with this pattern on my own. I gave it to Christopher as a Christmas present. That year was the first year that he had celebrated Christmas with my family.


This crocheted afgan is one of my favorite ones, even though I don't use it. It reminds me of a men's shirt. This is the cat's blanket. He loves lying on it.





I made this next quilt after I got a bunch of yarn one Christmas. I thought it would be fun to make a quilt with a bunch of different colors, while at the same time, using up the bits of yarn that I had on-hand.
I made this quilt while working at a TV station. The room where I worked was kept at around 60-65 degrees farenheit. That is one reason why this afgan is so large. I wanted something that I could wrap around me and keep me warm, no matter how cold the room got.

The great thing about working at 3:30 a.m. is that no one else is around. This is a good thing because this is when I did most of my crocheting. It also was a great way to keep warm.


This is another afghan I made while working at the TV station.
I made two baby blankets too, but I don't have pictures of them right now.


This is the latest crocheted afghan. I'm not sure if it is a great baby blanket since it's made from regular yarn. It is made from granny squares.
The special thing about this quilt is that I made most of it while driving to and from Cleveland, Ohio for a wedding.
Now, you are up to speed on my latest afghans and quilts... and I can keep track of what I have made over the years :)

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

I need to update this thing.....


So, I finished my tie quilt, officially... Here are some pictures:


The whole quilt. It's a lap quilt.



Close-up of free-hand stitching


The back... I decided to free-hand quilt on the sewing machine.


I did a flower. You can see the hand-sewn stitches in the upper right-hand corner. I gave up hand-quilting. The machine is where it's at... except when you forget where the needle is and sew your finger, like I did. It was not as bad as this person's mishap.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Latest Project update


I've worked on several projects between June 17 and now. I will post pictures later. The main project was a cross-stitched Christmas stocking that matches the one that my Father-in-law made for my husband when he was young. I can't wait to use it this Christmas. I also picked up the colored pencils again and started to draw a little. The drawings aren't great, but it is something to do to occupy the time.

I have also went on a cleaning/money-saving kick. I rearranged my spare closet and purchased a shelf and small boxes to make a toolbox out of. I organized all of my tools into the various containers. Now, I can find what I need when I need it. I also cancelled my home phone since I am not really using it and only purchased the line so that I can have DSL. I don't have cable so I couldn't do the cable internet thing. (I cancelled my cable service after the rates kept rising and the quality of service kept going downhill.) I found out that I could have DSL and no phone line. I also bundled my cell phone onto the DSL bill. Now, I will only have one bill for phone and internet service.

My husband and I spend a lot of money drying clothes... which in turn, raises our air conditioning bill, because our dryer does not vent outside. The landlord blames the contractors who built the place, and instead of fixing it, he just has the dryer run into a little box on the wall that we fill with water... anyhoo, I don't know why I haven't thought of this sooner, but I have decided to build a clothesline outside. It will not be like your typical clothesline, however, because clotheslines are not allowed. Instead, I will create a shelf-like contraption out of PVC pipe that can be raised and lowered from the ceiling that I can hang my clothes on to dry. By placing it on the porch, I will also be able to dry clothes when the weather is a little questionable.

The only problem with this is that I have not decided how I will reach the top of the porch in order to hang the rack. I don't own a ladder (yet). I may can recruit my husband to help me... I'm sure he will love that ;).

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Bird mobile


After the quilt, I decided to make this mobile out of the scraps. I really like it.




quilt.... done

I finished the quilt. It is definitely not as big as I had originally planned for it to be, but I was running out of time and supplies. Here is a picture of it.





It is about the size of an afgan, perfect to use on a cold, winter night.

Friday, June 12, 2009

quilt update

I am toward the end of piecing the top of my quilt and it looks nothing like I had intended it to when I first started quilting. Sure, it has puckers, but that adds character. I went from quilting a full-size to a somewhat-twin size quilt because I was running out of ties. I will have to post pictures later of what it is shaping up to look like. Now, I am piecing together pieces around the outside edges so that it will be even. right now, the quilt edges are very uneven. (this is because i was "eyeballing" the measurements when I was piecing the blocks together. I am pleased with the results so far. I am thinking that I will loosely stitch it so that it will look fluffy. This will also disguise the puckers in my sewing. So far, I have spent a total of $10 on the quilt. This cost was mainly for the quilt batting and thread. The ties were free or scraps left over from my purse.

Monday, June 8, 2009

I've started the quilt. I figured that I need to make 42 blocks for this quilt. I'm going for a full-size quilt. I thought I would have enough ties to make the quilt, however, the quilt is using more ties than I thought it would. Thirty-six ties seems to make about 20 blocks. I'm thinking about incorporating some other material I have laying around into the quilt as well as some old shirts of Christopher's that need to disappear. :)

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Reuse, reuse, reuse

Well, I have made a tie purse and had plenty of scraps left over. I didn't want to make another purse and not use it, so I decided to put my creative talents at work and come up with another product to make out of ties... the decision..... a quilt! I have already started cutting out the triangles to piece together.

I want it to look like this quilt





http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/KVAXBR4MEYtaBCN32TPvDA



but with all of the left-over ties, i think i will need to use the scraps to make a border like this.





http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/1501980339055053538FEhAah

Wednesday, May 27, 2009








Here are a few of the things that I have been working on recently:


an old school desk



an old office chair






and using old ties to make a bag



I can't decide which tie is my favorite. It is either the green and gold paisley tie or the tie with ducks on it.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Opening up shop in my little piece of cyberspace

Since i love to create things and am running out of room in my apartment to store them, I have decided to unleash my talents on the world... beware!