Vintage Cowgirl Swap

I had a terrific time coming up with stuff for the Sweet Goodness Girl's Vintage Cowgirl Swap.My partner, Raesha, has already received her gifts, so now I can share what I sent!

First up, the embroidered cowgirl was made into an embellished dishtowel.

Next, I used made three zippered pouches with calico lining. Pardon my hand sewing.
 
I got three great vintage cowgirl comic book illustrations from Wanted Cowgirls and used Citra-Solv transfer to make them into patches for the pouches. Say that three times fast!


As always, you can click on any picture to enlarge them.
I filled each pouch with a few goodies.

Wanted Cowgirls had a slew of vintage cowgirl advertisements. This one was perfect to fix up a Trader Joe's candy bar. I think I also added some Big Red gum because I thought that might be a cowgirl favorite.


In one of the pouches I included these two posy pins. I took the logo from the Cowgirl Cafe in Santa Fe and modified it in Picnik to make my own packaging. I also included a thrifted paisley scarf that was bandanna-esque, a thrifted brass cowboy girl hat Christmas ornament, and the pajama bottom apron seen here.

For the craft part, I included glitter, ribbon, and some vinyl lettering that said, "Home Sweet Home."

This swap was especially fun for me because I was fix'n to go to Texas while I made all this stuff.
And, now I am officially back from Texas and the beautiful wedding of my baby cousin.

My baby cousin who is a beautiful woman full of grace.

The bride and groom had custom bobble heads made! Also, check out the groom's cake. Part of the groom's job is to get companies a higher google ranking.


G&J we had a wonderful time at your wedding and couldn't be happier for the both of you!

More Lemons to Lemonade

Thanks again for all your kind words and votes for my lemonade stand! It really is pretty exciting to win!

Speaking of Lemonade...

Check out this amazing lemonade stand by Anj of Multi Purpose Wings:

If that doesn't make you want to be 7 again this summer I don't know what would!

What's more, when I wrote to her about her stand she wrote this back:

Honestly it is such a blast to have around. And it teaches my kids about math, money management and saving. Right now they are using the summer lemonade stand income to help pay for their dance classes. 

People, I really think the Lemonade stand could be the new play kitchen!


Speaking of Lemons to Lemonade... I made a big mistake this month. BIG!! I booked a flight for the wrong date for my cousin's wedding in Texas...next week! Fortunately, my mom alerted me to the mistake in time for us to fix it, but alas it was a $550 mistake. Needless to say, I was really frustrated and angry with myself for not double, triple, quadruple checking the dates the first time. Now, not only did I have to shell out a buncha money to get a new flight for the both of us, there are extra hotel cost...meals...etc... Money...easy come....easy go. Sigh.

Then today I learned that my lemon of a brain may have made some lemonade after all. Because of my mistake, I am going to get a whole extra day with both my parents, my aunt and uncle and my most importantly my 85 year old "Grandpaw!" In the words of American Express- "priceless."

I am feeling very strongly that this was a "God thing" and I can not wait to make the most of every minute with my family next weekend. Priceless indeed.

Hope your week brings you some grace too.

Of Holes and Summer Memories

Recently, this post, A Sandbox for Our Son by Frugal Babe brought back so many happy memories. Basically, the Frugal Babe has made a sand "box" out of a hole in the ground.

My brother and I were the only kids on the block with a sandbox like that. One summer my brother decided to dig a hole to China. Several of the neighborhood kids took their turns digging. I made a huge mud pie bakery that summer and also did a bit of digging. I remember our imaginations running wild with the idea of digging straight through the Earth.

Finally, one day in late August my dad came through the yard and casually said, "Last week of digging. I am filling in the hole next weekend." Funny how I remember that.

Anyway, what do you do when you know you won't make it to China in just a week? Why you turn your hole into a "hot tub."  Above you see the beginning stages of the "hot tub." We invited our friends and they came over one afternoon for a soak. It was anything but hot, but it was pretty deep. The hole was pretty wide around the top, but all our feet jammed together at the narrow bottom. Sitting chest deep in cold, muddy water seemed like a  fitting way to end the "summer of the hole."

Flash forward nearly twenty years, I casually mentioned growing up in Brighton, NY on an infertility chat room and low and behold, one of the gals happens to be married to one of our former neighbors! It really is a small world.

When we reconnected one of the many memories Steve shared was digging the hole. He couldn't believe our parents let us just dig a giant hole in the backyard. So, I asked my mother about it and her response was something like this, "Why not? It kept you busy! Daddy was able to fill it back in."

While looking for the hole picture, I found this one of the Little cousins  in our grandfather's gravel driveway. Does anyone still have a gravel driveway? It was wonderful. We spent hours playing there.

I don't know if "kids today" could be entertained for hours digging a hole to China. Are they too sophisticated now? What I do know is that it is nice work if you can get it.

Have a great week!

I made the lemonade stand for my secretary's grandkids. On the way out the door today I asked her what she was doing this weekend.

She replied, "Well, I may be working this weekend."

"Oh?"

"Depending on the weather, we may start selling lemonade!"

Her two bosses are ready to get started! And I think their loyal employee is just as excited.

That was fun! Thanks for your votes! I can't wait to show and tell about my prize!

BBQ Hostess Gift

Here's an assortment of random stuff.
A diet Coke can,
a 2" scalloped circle punch,
a hole punch,
one leather shoestring
and some kitchen scissors.


Add a bandanna...

and a bottle of wine...

or barbecue sauce...

and you have a perfectly dressed BBQ hostess gift.


Bolo Tie Wrap How To:

1. Wear gloves and cut open the soda can with your super tough kitchen scissors.

2. Flatten out a section and punch out a scallop. Amazingly, the edges are not too sharp. I wouldn't caress them or anything, but they weren't too sharp to touch or anything.

3. You can add some fancy details by pressing firmly with a pen on the print side of the can. Use a magazine or something  soft underneath it. The indents will show nicely on the plain silver side.

4. Hole punch two holes top and bottom.




5. Wrap your gift in a bandanna.

6. Wrap the shoelace around the neck of the bottle once and then thread it through the top hole, behind the scallop and into the bottom hole-bolo tie style.

There you have it- a western style wrapping on a shoestring budget!

This won't be the last you'll see of punched soda cans around these parts!

I am linking to Frugal Friday on the Shabby Nest.

Easy Arranger Giveaway-Winner

 

Generator Min: Max:   Result: 6 Pow

 The radom generator picked #6

she wears flowers said... Love it! I NEED to do the cupcake arrangement!!
Thanks for sharing!

How appropriate- she wears flowers wins the Easy Arranger!
Congrats to Tammy!

 

Trash to Treasure: Pajama Top Apron

I found this pajama top at the Goodwill. I loved the fabric right away and knew it would make a terrific apron. I know, there are already a thousand apron tutorials in the big world wide web. Now there's another.

Really though, pajama tops are perfect. Pajamas come in the best prints. While my pajama bottoms are worn thin, my pajama tops are always neglected in favor of a tank top. They get hardly any use. Many pajama tops have big pockets and the bottom is already hemmed. Also, at our So. Cal Goodwill, pajama tops are just a buck.


Quick and Easy Trash to Treasure Pajama Top Apron

Supplies:
A pajama top- the one I used was a medium and it was plenty big enough.
Thread and any other embelishments you like. I used some pom pom trim I had.
One spool of grosgrain ribbon for the ties. Or if you like, you could also use other fabric for the ties. Since making the ties is my least favorite part of making an apron I opted for ribbon.

Directions:
1. Cut the bottom off the top.

I cut right below the armpits.
 
2. Add trim to the bottom if you choose. I added some pom-pom trim to the already hemmed bottom.

3. Gather the raw edge top. You can sew a loose basting type stitch and then pull the tread to gather as I did. Or you could pleat it and sew across. I also sewed a tight stitch across my gathers to secure them.

4. Once you have gathered your top edge, measure to see how long the top is. Mine was about 20" long. So I cut a strip about 4" X 20" from one of the sleeves to use as a waistband.

5.Sew the waistband right side facing the wrong side of your gathered edge fabric. I know that is hard to explain, but after you sew the right side of the waistband to the wrong side of the fabric, you should be able to fold it up like this:

6. Iron a bit of a hem to the top edge as shown above. Then fold down the waistband so that it now looks correct and matches the front of the apron like this:

7. Pin the waistband in place. Make sure to cover any of the gathering basted stitches. and top stitch it in place close to the edge.

8. Pin the ribbon so that it is centered on the waistband. Then sew it across the waistband. Be sure to sew some extra stitches at either end so it is good and secure.

I like my ties to wrap around and tie in front. Ribbon makes this so easy to do.

9. Trim any loose threads.
 
10. Pose for blog pictures.

How easy was that? Really, steps 9 & 10 are fluff. This is a quick project!

Oh and one last thing, you can still vote for my lemonade stand!


I am sharing this at Reinvented for Trash to Treasure Tuesday!