Up the Rainbow Creek

Barbie Girl Twirl Skirt Birthday Outfits

2012-01-23T23:15:00.004-07:00

Our Morgan May turned 6 this past weekend. I was going to do a birthday post for her, but I was too bleary eyed from working with Big K on the Barbie Glamour Fashion Party plans. Tattooed Mama believes in Birthday Celebrations. As in week long pull out all the stops and invite no less than 35-40 people kinds of Celebrations! Cake and presents for breakfast on the actual day of the birthday? Absolutely! Family night out Birthday Dinner? Of course! Then the Birthday PARTY!

That's just how the Tattooed Mama thinks birthdays should be. We go along of course.

My contribution to this gala event was making the outfits for Morgan and Abby. I had originally planned a 3 layer bubble skirt, with the matching T-shirt for Morgan, but then Tattooed Mama decided it would be cute to make a matching outfit for her friend Abby, so I ended up with two different skirts because I didn't have enough fabric.

I made two drop waist twirl skirts and one has a black tulle ruffle on the bottom with pink satin bows all around it and the other is a black tulle overskirt with a satin ribbon on the waist.

I got the T-shirts on clearance and printed the Barbie silhouette and ironed Ultra Heat and Bond to the two different fabrics, taped the pattern to the paper backing of the heat and bond and then cut them out with my tiny super sharp embroidery scissors. And my hands were aching by they time I got all 4 of them cut out. OUCH! I used Super Bond fabric glue to glue the ribbon bow to the ponytail.

I found out that one of the silhouettes had to face the other way because the t-shirt has a teeny-tiny pocket stitched on the left side, so I turned her around. Of course the girls couldn't line up with them facing each other like they were supposed to. ahhh well...

There were mountains of new Barbie's and accessories.

Happy Barbie Girls!

A bunch of random pictures of a very special girl. How you have grown!

And you have always had the style to wear whatever you want and look like a Princess, 'cause you know in your heart that's what you are!

I linked up to these great parties! Go take a look!

Snuggy Up Your Kindle Fire

2012-01-23T02:36:00.003-07:00

I was so excited to get my Kindle Fire for Christmas! (Thank you, from the bottom of my heart Big K!) I wanted a cover for it right away, but the prices are a little steep for what I have left in my Amazon gift card balance after Christmas.

I have seen a couple of tutorials for Kindle and tablet covers that use elastic or pony tail elastics to secure the Kindle in the cover. I think the Fire seems a little heavy and worried that it might slide around or slip out. So I did some studying of the store bought ones and after thinking it over for several days I came up with a plan to make one with a fabric "window" to slide the Kindle into.

It turned out to be a little harder than I originally expected. Isn't that the truth about everything though? It seems that way for me anyways. I did take some pictures for a tutorial and I will try to explain this the best I can, but I just wanted to note that this is probably not a project for a novice unless you are just extremely patient and don't mind fooling around with it for a while until you get it right. That said, I'll start with the easy part.

Find some pretty fabric scraps that you like, and an 8 1/2" X 11" sheet of paper for the pattern. You will also need some medium to heavy weight fusible craft interfacing, about 4-5 inches of Velcro and a piece of Wonder Under or Heat and Bond. Wonder Under and Heat and Bond are paper backed sheets that you iron onto one fabric, then peel off the paper and fuse it to another layer of fabric. I think it is usually only sold in fabric stores, or Hobby Lobby and WalMart if they have a fabric department.

I actually used a scrap of fleece for the inside lining of my snuggy because I liked the softness and the idea that it adds a little padding if my Kindle gets bumped around. Also, it happened to match the fabric I picked for the outside of the cover.

For the outside and inside pieces I ended up using the 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper as the pattern, which left enough extra for attaching the fabric window and top stitching around the outside to hold all the layers together. So you can just forget about tracing around the Kindle and cut two rectangles of fabric and 2 rectangles of fusible interfacing.

The pattern for the window ended up looking like this. Trace around the Kindle as close as possible. This is where I had trouble, my first one ended up being too big. You want the outside edge of this pattern to almost exactly match the size of the screen side of your Kindle. One end of the Kindle has the charger connection and power button so you will need two tabs on that end with an opening for leaving that exposed. The other end has speakers or something that you need to leave exposed so draw that tab in the center. There are two larger tabs on the long sides, one will be sewed onto the cover, the other will have a Velcro strip to close it up after you slide the Kindle in. Now draw the window opening, making sure that it is covering the dark black area around the outside of the viewing area. I measured in 1/2" from the edge and drew a straight line with my ruler on each side, then rounded the corners.

Fuse the interfacing to the outside cover and the lining piece.

Now cut two rectangles of fabric and one rectangle of interfacing large enough for the window piece and fuse the interfacing to the wrong side of one of the fabric pieces.

Iron the Wonder Under or Heat and Bond onto the wrong side of the other fabric piece according to the directions on the product you are using. Peel the paper off and fuse the two pieces together. Note: I used Wonder Under, but I think it might have been better to use Heat and Bond because the edges on this are all unfinished and I think H&B might be a little better to prevent fraying. I have had a few loose threads I had to trim off.

Pin the pattern on the double sided piece of fabric and cut out. I guess I didn't get a picture of the pinned part, but you will want to pin it well so that you get a very precise cut. It needs to exactly cover the top of the Kindle, not exactly like mine, which did not. I did this twice and probably could have gotten it better on the third try but... Well anyway, it worked out pretty well and I figured I'll probably want to make another one for summer and can get it perfect next time.

Stitch all the way around the inside and outside edges of the window piece.

Now lay your Kindle on the lining fabric and mark where you need to stitch the tabs down to hold it in tightly. You will need to make a crease on the tabs. The large tab on the outside edge gets folded under. Mark that with a pin where you will need to stitch it. Be sure that everything is centered and you leave about 1/2" all the way around.

This is where I discovered that the corners on the side with only one tab needed to be secured a little better to keep them from curling up, so I cut a couple of thin strips from the leftover 2 sided fabric window cutout and stitched them close to the corners of the window piece. Those will get pulled snug and stitched under.

The large tab that is facing the center gets a piece of Velcro stitched onto the outside edge. You will need to put the Kindle in and tuck the tab under tightly and mark where to sew the other side of the Velcro.

I cut a 1 1/2" X 5" tab for holding the snuggy shut from the leftover cutout of the window. Topstitch all the way around the tab 1/4" from edge, then again as close as you can get to the edge.

Place the tab under the lining piece and stitch it down on the same stitching line as the tucked under tab. I backstitched a couple times to make sure it doesn't come loose. Stitch down all the other tabs on the lines you have marked. And stitch a piece of Velcro to the end of the tab for closing your cover.

Stitch the other piece of Velcro to the outside cover of your snuggy. You'll have to put the Kindle in there and size it up to see where it goes. Now lay the two layers together and trim up all the edges to be sure they are straight and match up perfect. I cute a piece of paper into a pattern and rounded all the corners nicely. Pin the two layers together and topstitch all the way around 1/4" from outside edge then stitch again about 1/8" from the edge.

Insert your Kindle and Fire it up!

You can use the Velcro strap to hold the other side of the cover out of your way when you are reading or browsing.

Now isn't this a lot nicer than walking around with a naked Kindle? I love it. If you decide to make a pretty snuggy for your Kindle I hope you will send me some pics and let me know how it turns out!

I linked up to these great parties. Go take a look!

Drunken Tiramisu Dessert Shooters

2012-01-03T00:40:00.000-07:00

I had been planning to make some red hot cinnamon Jello shots for one of our holiday parties but never found the time to experiment with a recipe. Anyway, Mr. Rainbow Creek is not a big fan of Jello shots so he was pretty happy when I came up with the idea to do Drunken Tiramisu Shooters instead to take to Missy's for a Christmas night poker game.

These are just a tad more than a dessert. After assembling them I drizzled each one with a little Kahlua and Bailey's Irish Cream, so in other words this is for adult only parties.

Mr. Rainbow Creek didn't turn them down whenever the tray was passed around. He likes his sweets and flavored coffees, and the extra kick from the liqueurs added a little to the festivities.

They were actually kind of pretty before I smashed them down with the lids to the little plastic Jello shot cups. I used my Pampered Chef Easy Accent Decorator to pipe the creamy filling in and sprinkled them with chocolate wafer cookie crumbs. If I was doing them at home I would have just refrigerated them without the lids.

Recipe for Drunken Tiramisu Dessert Shooters:

1 8oz pkg Mascarpone Cheese
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder (to be honest I used Folgers Crystals because my store didn't have instant espresso)
1 Tablespoon each Kahlua and Baileys Irish Cream

Mix above ingredients together with electric mixer, set aside.

1 cup heavy cream
2 Tablespoons powdered sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Beat heavy cream in electric mixer with whisk attachment until soft peaks begin to form. Add sugar and vanilla and continue beating until whipped cream consistency is reached.

Fold in the cheese mixture gently until well mixed.

I used a store bought frozen pound cake, thawed and cut into small cubes for the base. Place cake cubes in bowl and sprinkle with a little of the Kahlua and Bailey's. Fill each cup about halfway with cake cubes, pipe a little of the cream mixture on top. Pour a 1/2 and 1/2 mixture of the liqueurs into a measuring cup and drizzle over the top of each filled shot cup. Sprinkle with chocolate cookie crumbs or shaved chocolate for garnish. Chill before serving.

Enjoy!

Fabric Postcards and Projects from Christmas' Past

2011-12-13T02:54:00.002-07:00

I made these fun and mail-able fabric postcards for a swap group. I happened to run across one straggler in a box a while back and thought it would be fun to make some as mini-wall hanging/Christmas cards for family and friends that I don't exchange gifts with. I am putting a ribbon on top for hanging so my recipients can hang them up on a wall or memo board. I think I will need to send them out in clear envelopes to prevent them from getting tangled up when the Post Office does whatever it is they do to get the mail from here to there.

The first time I made these I did a search and found the best tutorial, it was so well done and cute too. I was really hoping to share that with you. But that was pre-Pinterest. So now after browsing through 20+ pages of search results I have no idea how to find it again. (It is times like this that we can fully appreciate how Pinterest has earned its place in our hearts, right?)

In case you do want to make some fabric postcards, HERE is a nice tutorial I found at Quilted Delights. And if you want to see more, take a look at Sew We Quilt. The guest blogger, Annie, does beautiful work and it is definitely worth going over there and oohing and ahhing at her artwork.

I bought a "POSTCARD" stamp to use for the backing on mine. Annie says she prints hers on paper and uses that for the backing. If you use fabric backing and write or stamp the POSTCARD and the line on it, be sure to cut your fabric a little larger than the 4"X6" finished size so that you can square it up if your stamp is a little crooked. Ask me how I know...

Some Simple Rag Quilt Ornies

These make great tree ornaments or you can tie one on to a package or gift bag as a little extra gift. I also think they would be cute as a garland. They are so quick and easy to make and are great for using scraps from some of your other Christmas projects!

Make a template from cardstock or an old file folder. Cut print fabric, batting and muslin backing, stitch all the way around taking 1/2" seam allowance. Snip around outside to rag. Embellish as you like. For the star Santa I used a small oval of muslin for his face, drew the eyes with a sharpie and blushed the cheeks with blush and a small stiff stencil brush. The hat band is a strip of batting, yarn for beard. Isn't he adorable!

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of my projects from Christmas' Past.

Oh Christmas Trees

2011-12-11T03:15:00.000-07:00

I glittered and glammed my ruffled trees. They make me happy even if they are destined to try to shine on the world's ugliest mantle in the black hole room. sigh...

And K wanted to make some too so we invited Missy and the kids over for a family craft day.

The pink tulle tree was my idea. Then Morgan set out on her own with a bottle of glitter.

Morgan and Anna are relentless crafters in their own right. They even have their own craft table and glue gun, which is where they spend most of their time when they conspire to arrange weekend sleepovers. As long as we have puff balls and pipe cleaners you won't see those two for days.

Anna did not approve of our menu of Spinach and Bacon Quiche and Fresh Apple Cake, she opted for a ramekin of peanut butter. Girl doesn't know what she was missing, the quiche was delicious!

Boys can be crafty too, in between rounds of Chinese Star Wars and Attack of the Zombies, Destructo Boy and Carter Tarter Sauce showed up to make a couple of cute trees too.

K told Missy that the polka dot tree needed gold glitter, but when she went to get the glitter the bottle was empty. Ummmm, I think that Miss Morgan might have taken more than her fair share. But we still had some red glitter and the polka dot tree is nice and sparkly now.

Don't blame me if all the pajama pants I am working on this week have glitter all over them. I was busy sewing ruffles while all this was going on. I think if I ever get this mess cleaned up I am going to be over my glitter craze for this year.

I Really Needed This Today: Chicken Tortilla Soup

2011-12-08T03:24:00.000-07:00

Still haven't gotten over my ruffled tree obsession. I had to go to Hobby Lobby to find decorations for some of them and played around with more tiny trees to gift to people. I have a baby quilt to make for a friend but my cutting table is covered with glitter and tiny tree ornaments. Glitter is so much fun until you remember that you have to clean it up, so I didn't make it back down to the batcave to do that today.

Instead I decided that I needed to make soup and grilled cheese for dinner tonight. It has been so cold this week so chili sounded perfect. But while I was fooling around trying to get me a few extra Swagbucks I tried a search for Tortilla Soup. And this usually never happens, but I found a perfect recipe that I happened to have every single ingredient on hand for. It is from the Pioneer Woman so that is how I knew it was going to be perfect because everything she makes is perfect, am I right? I have made tortilla soup before but never saw a recipe that calls for cooking the masa in the soup, so I wanted to try this.

The Pioneer Woman's Chicken Tortilla Soup

I actually followed the recipe except for the fact that I didn't bother dirtying any measuring spoons or cups because that is silly when the eyeball method will work just fine. And instead of baking the chicken I coated it with seasoning and seared it then braised it in a little beer until it was tender. I didn't plan that but after I browned it on both sides I realized I needed a little liquid in there because the pot was starting to smoke, so I grabbed the nearest liquid at hand, and my beer was closer than the water at the time. Continuing with that theme I deglazed the pan with a little more beer when I cooked the onions and peppers. I think Ree would approve of my improvisation here anyway. But you really should make this soup! With or without the beer, because it was perfect!

It made a huge pot, which I was thinking would be good because we are having a couple girls over for some crafting on Saturday so I figured I could pop some jalapeno and cheese corn muffins in the oven and we could have the leftovers for lunch. Well, there wasn't really enough left after everybody went back for seconds.

I did get 10 Swagbucks for that search later when I went back to get the link. So I guess Chicken Tortilla Soup was just what I needed. Now I need to go clean up that glitter, so I can get back to the sewing machine. I just added about a dozen more handmade gifts to my list and did you know Christmas is only 18 days away? No, neither did I until I just looked at my calendar. Good thing I am one of those people who works best under pressure. Don't we all?

Ruffled Christmas Tree on the Cheap w/ Tutorial

2011-12-05T03:15:00.001-07:00

I survived the craft fair on Saturday despite the fact that I had a major meltdown on Friday because I was definitely not ready and I knew it was going to be a total flop and I was just going to embarrass myself with my pathetic selection of wares. That's just me. I just freak out over things like that. Then everything turns out OK. Which it did, and I had a great time and had to apologize a few hundred times to everyone for being a psycho. I probably didn't have to apologize because they know me and know I am a psycho crazy person, but I did anyway.

So today I was all happy that I didn't have to stress out about the craft fair anymore and I wanted to do something for pure fun. Like make fabric Christmas trees. I have seen so many cute ones and for some reason I didn't pin any of them. But I did a search and found these adorable ruffled trees over at Craftaholics Anonymous. I love these ruffled trees so much! And I wanted to make them right now.

But I didn't have any paper mache or styrofoam cones on hand. I thought about running out to Michael's but we are having this thing called Winter here right now and there is snow everywhere and the high today was supposed to be about 20 degrees. Definitely a staying in kind of day, so I decided to improvise and figure out how to rock what I got so to speak. After all, how hard could it be to make a cone shaped object to cover with fabric ruffles?

Well actually it wasn't that hard at all! And I ended up staying warm and cozy and now I have 4 cute little ruffle trees for basically $0, love that!

So here is how I did it. I used 4 12"X12" sheets of cardstock from my stash. The color doesn't matter because you will be covering it with fabric anyway so I just picked out the ugly ones that I am not likely to use for anything else. You will also need masking tape, glue, newspaper or junk mail ads, some cardboard for the bottom, fabric scraps that can be cut into 1 1/2" strips, and a sewing machine.

First I rolled the cardstock into a cone shape and taped it with masking tape down the seam and around the point on the top. I also taped a little bit on the inside to hold down the loose part that was rolled to the inside. Don't worry about being pretty here, it all gets covered later. Now the bottom of the cone needs to be cut off evenly so it will sit flat so I started at the point and measured down to the length that I wanted and took a sharpie and marked it all the way around. Cut on the dotted line and VOILA! you have a nice flat sitting cone.

Since cardstock is a little flimsy I wanted to sturdy it up and give it some weight so I tore up some newspaper and stuffed the inside of the cone firmly. Warning: Resist the temptation to set the pointy end on the table while you stuff the newspaper in, or you will scrunch it and have to fool around trying to straighten it out and make it pointy again.

Next I traced around my cones and cut out a cardboard circle to fit just barely inside. I glued and taped the circles in.

Now I pretty much followed the tutorial over on Craftaholics, but I used 1 1/2" strips and I hand pleated them using my thumb turning method. I didn't get a picture of that because I have yet to figure out how to sew and take pictures at the same time. But basically I feed the strip of fabric through the machine and pinch it between my thumb and fingers to turn it under before it goes under the presser foot. It sounds a little complicated until you try it, but if you just stitch very slowly and keep turning the folded end toward yourself you will get the hang of it pretty quickly.

I stitched the pleated strip with about a 1/2" seam allowance and you can see that it isn't all perfect, but pretty close. I used craft glue and just dotted it along the stitching line maybe 12-15 inches at a time, then I started wrapping it around my tree. I overlapped it so it covered the seam line.

It was really pretty quick and easy until I decided to break out my ruffler, which I haven't used in 5 or 6 years. That took me a while to figure out because I was too lazy to go on a search for the instructions so I just kept messing with it until I came up with a ruffle that I liked.

And I can't quite decide which one is my favorite, but I love them all together like this. When I finally venture out to Michael's I think I might get some glitter to glam up the sheet music tree and the green one because the batik fabric actually is sparkly. And I want some sparkly stars for the tops.

Doesn't it just make you a little extra bit happy when you get something so cute from stuff you have laying around the house?

Linking up here:

Upcycled Frames

2011-12-01T02:21:00.002-07:00

Here is a super easy project that I did a few years ago and I still get happy every year when I get them out and hang them on the wall at Christmas decorating time.

Three recycled picture frames, dark green craft paint, foam core, a little wrapping paper and 3 whitewashed wood letters. I covered the foam core in wrapping paper, stapled the letters to the foam core and stapled it into the frame, then stapled the ribbon on for hanging. I have some bows that are supposed to be glued atop the ribbon hangers, but they fell off and I need to reattach them. Will get to that soon as I find the time.

I have been working on finding the ultimate jewelry organizer for K for almost a year now. I wanted it to be cute and stylish and functional and, you know, cheap. All of the organizers I saw in the store were cheap looking and high priced and they didn't really hold much. So I knew I could do better with making it myself. I started with these frames that artist canvases are stretched on and I got them for free from a friend.

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with it until I walked into the garage and saw a roll of wire mesh fencing material that Mr. Rainbow Creek had bought for some reason. (I secretly think he bought if for this project and didn't know it because he still hasn't used it for anything that I know of.) So I questioned him about it and asked if it would be possible if he could spare some of it and cut it at an angle so that it would form a diamond pattern and sandwich it between two of these frames. He agreed that he could indeed do that if I so desired. And then I wondered if he could fill the space in the frames with wood putty and sand it smooth and paint it black with Martha Stewart Francesca. And he said yes, he could do that if I really wanted him to. And he did. So then I thought if he added some white cup hooks on the bottom of the frame, which I just happened to have in a drawer, that would make a good place to hang necklaces. So he attached the cup hooks as requested too. And then I covered a piece of foam core with this cute decorator fabric, stapled it on the back of the frame and glued on a cute letter K.

Cute jewelry organizer. Big K loves it and I think it was her best birthday gift ever, if I do say so myself.

I have one more picture frame project I am working on for a Christmas gift. They are kind of addicting. Do you have a picture frame project you want to show off. I would love to see what you have done, leave a link please!

I have joined these awesome link parties. Please go check 'em out!

Craving Comfort Food

2011-11-05T01:50:00.001-06:00

Seeing that we are already past our second snowstorm here and might get a flurry again tomorrow I almost feel like fall has passed us by again. That must be why I am in a Christmas crafty mood already when usually I am a too late to craft last minute kind of shopper. But it's hard to get the seasons right in Colorado when it is 80 degrees on Tuesday and snows 8 inches on Wednesday, then back to 65 on Thursday. That goes on almost all year here except for July and August.

But it is comfort food season and I have a couple of must haves on my menu this weekend.

When I was visiting mom last month I noticed her apple peeler/slicer on top of the frig and asked if she was planning to make me an apple pie. I am notoriously spoiled that way so she agreed that I needed an apple pie for the occasion, whatever it was. I ran off to the store to get some apples and found that despite the season apples are not cheap this year for some reason. Go figure, we all have less money and things keep going higher and higher in price. I got the best deal I could and she still frowned a little when I told her what they cost.

The apple pie was perfect and I fell in love with the apple peeler/slicer. So of course mom was packing a coupon for Bed, Bath and Beyond (she always just happens to have a coupon) and off we went to buy me an apple peeler/slicer. The kids think it is the greatest thing ever because it makes these neat little round peeled slinky apples that are fun to eat.

And I love it because now if I want to make mom's Fresh Apple Cake it is hardly any work. Or if I can get Big K to make it then it is no work at all and I just get to eat it. She loves to bake for me. Yeah, I am spoiled.

I love this recipe. It is super easy and perfect for a fall weekend dinner or potluck.

Fresh Apple Cake

1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup canola oil
2 eggs
3 cups finely chopped apples
1 cup walnuts or pecans chopped (optional if you have kids who don't like)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour (I sub 1/2 whole wheat sometimes and it turns out still very moist)
1 tsp baking soda
1-2 tsp cinnamon to taste
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Beat first four ingredients together then alternately add apples, nuts and dry ingredients until well blended.
Pour into ungreased angel food cake pan (1 hour) or 9X13 cake pan (45 mins) Bake at 350 degrees. Remove from pan when cooled. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

I was shopping at WalMart and found a cryopack package of ham slices from Hillshire Farms that is basically the leftover end slices from spiral sliced ham. It is really good ham and it was so cheap compared to buying a whole spiral ham to cut up for a casserole! I am going to make this Martha Stewart Mac and Cheese with Ham for dinner tomorrow.

Comfort food and a little sewing is what is on my menu for the weekend. If it snows a little I won't mind 'cause I still have 50 stockings to make and I can snack on apple cake when I need a break. Ha ha! I just made a poem, unintentional. Sorry about that :)

A Lot of Lists

2011-11-04T02:01:00.000-06:00

I like lists and I need to make more of them.

Lists are good for us because they represent a commitment. When you write something down it becomes more than just a thought. It becomes a kind of contract with yourself. Some people are better at fulfilling their contractual obligations than me. I usually fail at something because I have a habit of letting life dictate to me rather than the other way around. I am not saying that I mind that so much, because I am basically happy with my slightly scatterbrained life. But I do have my moments when I beat on myself for not accomplishing things that I know would make me happier.

So I keep saying to myself "I need to make a list..." and now I am at the point where I guess I need to make a list of lists I need to make. Does that make any sense at all!??

Here are just a few that I can think of at the moment:
Christmas list
Handmade Christmas gifts I need to get busy on
Menu plan and grocery list
Things I absolutely without question need to get rid of before we move
Things I cannot live without and plan to take with me when we move
Things I love and want to keep even though I don't need them when we move

And now that we have to move and I have so much to do to get ready for the holidays and downsize and pack I have this sudden urge to sew a lot more and try to knock out all those projects I have had dancing in my head for years. Kind of like when I was in college and it was finals and my term paper was due I would suddenly notice that the bathroom was filthy and needed to be scrubbed inch by inch with a toothbrush. I am not making that up. Ask my friend Mona, she used to laugh at the silly things I could think up to avoid finishing that term paper or studying for a final.

Yesterday I did get started on a project that I have been planning for the last few years and I am pretty excited about it. Big K is going to help me with it so that will be even more fun. I'll show you in a few days I hope! It involves these burlap mini-stockings that I did a tutorial for last year.

If you want to make some you can go here to see the mini-tutorial for the garland.

I had these two runners already cut out so I got them finished up too.

I guess I am officially a day behind on NaBloPoMo now 'cause I wrote this post last night and then didn't get it published due to technical difficulties. Double post tomorrow or really today since it is 2 am.

Frugal vs. Poor

2011-11-02T02:35:00.000-06:00

You ever hear people say that they grew up poor but they never knew it? I hear that all the time and you know exactly what they mean don't you? Their life was so filled with the riches of a loving family that they were never aware that life was measured in material objects. They had a mom who was really good at faking it, putting together the latest fashion outfits from the clearance racks. Or loading up the Christmas tree so there were plenty of packages and surprises. And she could pull off a killer pot of "goulash" with a dab of hamburger, a can of tomatoes and some wide egg noodles. So were they really "poor" or not? Probably not in the way that we mean impoverished, like people who are homeless and go to bed hungry each night. They probably grew up in a family that despite working hard always had to stretch to make ends meet. And that seems to be where so many families are today.

So now we are more sophisticated, in touch with the world and maybe we don't feel so alone. So Frugal Is the New Black. I really like that for some reason. I like that it might get people started thinking about what is really important in life, not the material things but how well you live with what you have. I like that people are getting creative and having fun re-purposing a recycling and sharing their ideas. I even like it that if you are shopping at Wal-Mart and forgot the recipe for homemade laundry soap you can look it up on your smart phone. That's actually pretty funny, but true. And I have been using this homemade soap for over a month now and we love it!

No new sewing creations today :(

We will be moving in 3 months and I decided that I can't take the she-beast Pfaff with us to our new tiny house, so they will be coming to pick her up for consignment sometime soon. Now every time I am sewing I get a little pang of sadness. I haven't sewed on my old Kenmore for 7 years now. She is a good old machine and I am sure I will be just fine without The Beast.

Just some random thoughts, but I'll do better next time.

I May Be Crazy, but I Joined Anyway

2011-11-01T02:41:00.000-06:00

Ever see a blog reference to NaBloPoMo? I have seen it around and just figured "that isn't for me" the part time, loosey oosey kind of blogger that I am. But National Blog Posting Month caught my interest this year because I really do want to blog. I am not sure why I don't get it done most days because almost every day of my life I create something, or cook something, or just have some thoughts that I think I should write down. And isn't that what a blog is supposed to be? Yeah, but I guess I sucked at keeping a diary or journal when I was young. That's probably why I don't have any recipes written down, even though I mean to do it so I can remember when I make something that knocked everybody's socks off. Although, writing it down doesn't always settle everything in question. Big K and I have been arguing for 6 years over our "world famous" peanut butter fudge recipe that we invented. She wrote it down and left it here in my cooking notebook. But every year we get into a debate about the butter and chocolate chip proportions. Could very well have something to do with how much wine we had while we were inventing it, but I'm not sayin'.

Anyways, I have accepted this challenge to write at least one post per day for the next month. It could be anything, but write it down I will.

I am totally in love with the Graphics Fairy and rustic fabrics now. I made these cute tea towels just to satisfy my urge to play with graphics and tried the Citrisolve transfer method. It took a little playing around, but I think I got it now.

Pillow ticking is so classic, and blue is just my color. Love.

Off white bulap runner with ticking ruffle and matching plaid raggy ribbon.

More fun with burlap. Yes, I am in the Christmas spirit already. I think these will make awesome gifts for friends and family on my list. Come back for a tutorial on how to make these adorable table runners and best of all the price is well under $10!

A Basket of Fall Pumpkins

2011-10-30T02:48:00.000-06:00

I have been seeing a variety of cute fabric pumpkins around blogland this season and I so wanted to plan a crafty party and do some of these as well as a couple of other projects. I had it all planned because I so so so wanted to make that Mac and Cheese that I saw in Martha Stewart Living last month, and mom's Fresh Apple Cake. Then things got out of hand again, too much else going on and we couldn't find a time for getting everyone together, and things are still a bit too messy here in real life land. That made me sad. But I finally drug Big K down to the batcave to play one night and we put together a little basket to take to Mom the night before we left on the trip to almost hell and back.

It was supposed to be kind of a leisure trip to the East Coast to pick up some furniture from storage and a stop to visit with mom and dad for a few days when dad was going on the Honor Flight to visit the WWII Memorial in Washington DC. On day 2 of the trip I noticed that my throat was feeling kind of scratchy and funny. On day 3 I was feeling pretty bad but trying to convince myself that it was probably just an allergic reaction to something in the hotel room. And it just went from bad to worse for 11 days until I was begging for my bed so I could crawl in it and die. So I am stubborn and after 2 days of watching me trying to hack up a lung my daughter finally had enough, told me I am an idiot, called the Dr. and made me get an antibiotic. And within 24 hours I was feeling 1000 times better and decided that I wanted to live after all. I am still kind of weak in the knees and can't do a lot without resting, but I did learn something from the experience. Sometimes you might need to see a doctor when you are sick.

And now that I am feeling better I really want to make some more of these adorable pumpkins for my table. Mom loved the basket and they look so pretty on her table in her new house.

I did get back down to the batcave and started a few new projects last week, and I finally reopened my etsy store. Haven't made a dent in the fabric stack down there yet, but I might get motivated to try to organize one of these days. Right?

Got Fabric?

2011-07-26T04:05:00.000-06:00

I know I really shouldn't show you this. But here it is.

I went down there today and started working around the edges. Kind of picking through this and that to see if I could figure out what to do about my fabric. I was hoping that I could kind of whip through there and get things organized enough so that I could start working on a new beach bag and blanket. I saw this really cute big bag at the Gap a couple days ago and I am sure I can figure out the pattern and make one out of a canvas drop cloth and I want to tie dye it. So I was really excited to get started on it. But then when I saw all this...

You see, I have a lot of fabric. And when I work on a project I just have this habit of pulling out more and more fabric and spreading it all around so I can see what I have to choose from. And then I push it all aside and put it in piles here and there.

There is actually a full size pool table behind this stack of bins and bolts. You can see how big my problem is?

So Big K got home and said I need to just move it all out of there, organize it and box it up, paint, put up some new shelving and then put it all back in. But then she kept saying "How did this happen?"

And I am not making this up: I started stuttering every time I tried to explain. Now I have never had a stutter in my life and at my age I consider this a frightening new development. One that I really should do something about.

Then she went in the laundry room and announced "You have more fabric in here too you know!"

Yes, I do know. There is a whole wall of fabric in there and she knows it because she does her laundry in there every week and I think she was just trying to rub it in. Or maybe she thinks it's funny to hear me stutter.

Now I know that this looks like a scene from "Hoarders" but believe me, most days you can walk straight through my house without running into a bit of clutter, my bed is made every day, the laundry is folded and put away and the dishes are washed almost every single night. I even tidy up my outdoor room almost every day. It's just this fabric thing.

So I signed up for the September Stash Buster Challenge at The T-Shirt Diaries. She even had a little tutorial for how to organize your fabric. I thought it was really nice but in my case I think investing in a lot more plastic bins is going to be more practical. So if I finish clearing this out tomorrow and bust out the paint I should be all reorganized and ready to go by September. Right?

Or if I move it all aside for now I could get that beach bag made and deal with it later? Maybe I can learn to live with a stutter. Right?

Lemonade! How to Make Real Lemonade

2011-07-15T01:31:00.000-06:00

It's HOT! And nothing quite hits the spot like a cold glass of REAL lemonade. The fresh squeezed kind with that real lemon squeezy flavor.

This is the kind of lemonade that you have to sit down on the patio and relax for a while to really enjoy it. And it is so easy to make. Give it a try next time you need to quench your thirst!

Lemonade
1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 4 good sized lemons)
1 cup sugar
2 quarts water and ice
lemon slices to garnish

Pour lemon juice over the sugar in a 2 quart pitcher, add 1 cup lukewarm water and stir to dissolve the sugar. Add water and ice to fill the pitcher, mix well, float some lemon slices on top. Serve and Enjoy!

Happy 4th! My Great American Menu Reveal

2011-07-04T02:26:00.006-06:00

Well we got kind of all wrapped up with The Twinkies birthday cake project and I would say it was a big success. Big K was not sure what direction she wanted to go except that she wanted it to be tiered and "over the top cute." We finally decided on a stars and stripes theme, this being 4th of July weekend and all. But we added a colorful twist and I think it exceeded our expectations!

Big K did the baking and the actual work. I, of course, was just a design consultant and go'fer. I cut out a lot of stars and did the toppers for the cupcakes. And washed a lot of dishes. It is amazing how big of a mess you can make just baking a cake. Well, a cake like this anyway. It had 6 lbs of buttercream frosting, 2 chocolate layers and 4 white layers with fresh strawberry buttercream filling. And a whole pkg of colored fondant too.

It was a lot of fun and The Twinkies were so excited they could hardly contain themselves. What 9 year old girl wouldn't think this is something special? That was all we were hoping for!

But today is really one of my favorite days of the year. I am so excited to get the party started, enjoy some great all American food with friends and family and then head down to the park for the big fireworks show!

Here is my Great American Independence Day 2011 menu:

Barbecued Buffalo Wings from Simply Recipes. These look so yummy, can't wait to fire up the grill and get them going!

Bacon and Gorgonzola Sliders. Love sliders! They are small and leave room for a taste of all the other goodies!

Cole Slaw. I like the broccoli slaw mix and I make my own dressing with mayo, vinegar and sugar. Super easy. The cabbage kind is great too.

Boston Baked Beans, this recipe from allrecipes.com looks like the real deal with smoky bacon, ketchup and molasses.

Key Lime Pie, from allrecipes.com. I have made this a few times and it is super easy and delicious. I add a little lime zest to the mix and I am going to dollop the outside edge with whipped cream swirls and garnish with some fresh strawberry slices. Yummmmy!

And, of course, red, white and blue layered Jello shots! I had a bit of an adventure putting those together. They look awesome, but no guarantee how they will taste, I haven't tried one yet. The layers are Berry Fusion with raspberry vodka, Pina Colada with vanilla vodka, and Blue Rasberry with raspberry vodka. I am pretty sure everybody will love them. I have also have Blue Raspberry "shots" with red gummies for the little people. I made them with Blue Raspberry Crush soda since we went to 2 stores and both were sold out of blue Jello. I guess I wasn't the only one with the idea of R,W & B Jello shots.

Happy 4th of July from Rainbow Creek!
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Outdoor Room Reveal!

2011-07-03T03:50:00.005-06:00

Time for a peek at what I have done so far in the outdoor room! It is coming together and I am so excited. Now if we could just stop all the birthdays and holidays from taking up all our time I could get some time to paint a few things and pretty it up a little more. Not complainin', just sayin' I have a lot fun projects still to do and the days just keep flying by.

Remember how I said I got this idea to pull a little bit of junk from here and there around the house to decorate my room? We built the little whitewashed table last year from old fence pickets and I drug the bench from the front porch for a coffee table.

And this cute little side table/bookcase Big K and I put together from fence pickets and old chicken crates a couple weeks ago inspired my theme.

It gets windy here because we live in a canyon, so I had to rip up some scrap fabric to make ties for the tablecloth or else chase it down and retrieve it from the field every day. This plastic table and chairs are not staying, I have another one I am working on, but for now...

My outdoor daybed is done! This is absolutely my most favorite thing in the world right now.

It was originally one of those old oak school teacher desks. My mother in law had it cut down and put casters on it to make it into a coffee table in the 60's and it has been hanging around in the family ever since. We had gotten to the point where nobody wanted it and I was contemplating just free-cycling it when I suddenly realized that it wanted to be a bed. It will be getting a coat of paint soon as I decide on the color. White or blue? I keep changing my mind.

This little spot is under cover and shady almost all day. Perfect for lounging away on a hot afternoon. Love my little fence picket and chicken crate side table too!

I didn't find a twin size futon mattress on Craig's List, so I had to improvise and made a mattress with 9 cheap $2.50 pillows from Wal-Mart. Basically I just stitched up a gigantic 3 1/2' X 6' pillow case and stuffed the pillows inside. And I have always wanted a real featherbed. But who has $399 for one of those. Well, probably a lot of people, but not me. But I do have a really nice down comforter that I had packed away for years because it was too hot and made me cough at night. Actually I don't know if that is true, because we replaced it with a "down alternative" comforter and I still get too hot and cough at night. So, I found a bolt of ticking stripe fabric that I have been hoarding for...umm, about 10 years... and I made a duvet and folded the comforter in half to plop on top of my mattress. I rounded up some pillows from here and there and dug up an old quilt and VOILA! Daybed perfection for a little less than $25. So far that is all I have spent on anything in the room. It really pays to go shopping around your own house for stuff!

My little donkey is still sitting in the weed patch. I feel bad for him. Will see if I can get out there and pretty things up a bit this week so he won't look so sad.

I am linking this post to:

Lemonade Cupcakes!

2011-06-30T03:04:00.005-06:00

So Big K and the Tattooed Mama came through big time on the Strawberry Lemonade party.

The food was awesome. Steak and Cilantro Lime Shrimp Fajita's with corn on the cob, grilled potatoes and fresh Pico de Gallo. I starved myself all day and it was worth waiting for.

I was a fail at getting pics of the actual strawberry lemonade cupcake stand. I hope Big K did, but I can't wait for her to send me pics, I'll be waiting forever...

Anyway, this is kind of what it looked like. See that big giant cupcake in the middle? That was all mine!

I will be posting the Strawberry Lemonade cupcake recipe next week. Big K made up her own recipe so I will have to get that from her. They were absolutely delicious!

So later the twins both cornered her and privately begged her to make their birthday cake for their party this weekend. I am supposed to be figuring out a theme for the cake. I thought it would be fun to do twin silhouettes, but K wants to do a tiered cake with pillars so I am stuck for now. Guess I'll go Google for twin cakes.

Strawberry Lemonade Jello Shots

2011-06-23T01:10:00.003-06:00

It's my birthday! I am not usually a Birthday Girl kind of girl. The Tattooed Mama is the Birthday Should Be a National Holiday kind of girl and believe me we have never missed her birthday. But mine is usually only in the back of my mind, 'til I realize one day that it's my birthday.

But, a couple of weeks ago I saw these awesome cupcakes on The Tomkat Studio blog and I was just all twitterpated about having Strawberry Lemonade cupcakes and I wanted a full blown pretty pink fluffy strawberry lemonade party. It just screams summer and my birthday is actually on the first official FULL day of summer. And summer is the only season that is worth talking about in my books anyway. So we have to pack as much fun into it as is humanly possible, Right??

So pretty! Don't you just want to call and order a batch of these right now?

So I texted Big K and said I want this!!!! And who wouldn't? Right?

Actually I don't know if I am going to get those delicious cupcakes or not because they have my party planned for this coming Saturday. But in the meantime I figured we might need some Jello shots too. We have a serious Jello shot situation here.

Ever since the Tattoed Mama showed me the Jelly Shot Test Kitchen I can't stop fooling around with these jiggly cocktail concoctions for every occasion. They are too much fun, and everybody loves them.

So today I whipped up a test recipe for Strawberry Lemonade shots for a little poolside party. I will be making more for the party on Saturday. The Tattooed Mama kind of insisted on keeping the leftovers today :-)

I used the larger 2 oz Solo cups for these because you can get them at Wal-Mart. They also sell smaller 1 1/4 ounce cups at the party store if you want to get more shots from a batch. I like those because they are clear and look prettier. Keep in mind that this is about a 30% mix of alcohol so portion accordingly. This recipe makes about 35 shots in the big cups.

For serving you can get some cute buckets and bins from the Target Dollar Spot of course!

Strawberry Lemonade Jello Shots

6 oz box of strawberry Jello
3 oz box of lemon jello
1 1/4 cup vodka
1/2 cup Limoncello Liqueur
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups ice (crushed is nice)
about 8-10 ripe strawberries sliced into thin rounds

Heat 2 cups water in microwave to boiling in large glass bowl. Dissolve strawberry Jello. Stir in 1 cup of ice to cool before adding liquor. Add 3/4 cup vodka and 1/4 cup Limoncello. Lay your cups out on a baking sheet and fill about 2/3 full. Place in freezer or refrigerator to soft set.
While strawberry layer is setting heat 1 cup of water in microwave to boiling, add lemon Jello to dissolve. Cool with 1/2 cup ice, add remaining 1/4 cup vodka and 1/4 cup Limoncello.
When Strawberry layer is slightly firm to touch lay a strawberry slice on top.

Pour a layer of lemon mixture over the strawberry layer. Return to freezer or 'frig until fully set.

You can put the lids on after you do the lemon layer.

If you are packing these off to the beach or the pool don't forget to fill your bucket with ice to keep them chilled!

A Start on A Mid-Summer Dream

2011-06-19T01:54:00.001-06:00

Last summer while we were trying to survive the transition of Big K and kids moving in we were so broke, we were depressed about the breakup and the kids were pretty much a wreck. At some point we decided that we had to do something besides sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves. We needed a beach day. Our beach was 2000 miles away and a thing of the past. So we promised the kids a big fun-day and headed to our new "beach" at Cherry Creek Reservoir. I'm not kidding when I say we had to actually scrounge to come up with the means to do this, $8.00 for parking and a couple cans of tuna, a loaf of bread and some juice packs, probably a 1/2 package of Oreos and we were good to go. While we were unloading our car we spotted a really cool van in the parking lot, all painted up with a Pacifico Beer logo.

This isn't exactly the one we saw, but I found out that Pacifico had done an ad campaign a few years ago where they commissioned some artists to design artwork for 18 restored VW vans.

I started talking about how cool it would be to have a funky old van to pack the kids in and go traveling, camping and beaching our way through the summer. Big K was down for that, but she figured that we would have to change the name to "Pathetico" because we were so pathetic and penniless. So that became our theme for the summer. We laughed at ourselves as we planned our "Pathetico" trips. If we had $8.00 and a dozen eggs we were off to Cherry Creek with a bowl of egg salad and a loaf of bread. We had a blast and the kids did too. They never had a clue that life was anything but grand and carefree.

At night when we were sitting out on the deck we would talk about how cool it would be if we had some money to fix things up and decorate a cozy little outdoor room to hang out in.

Maybe something like this would be a stretch for us...

But something like this from Apartment Therapy would be nice.

Then summer faded and we never really did anything. I started talking it up again as soon as the weather started getting warm this year. But I still couldn't see where I was going to get $$ to buy furniture and rugs and curtains to do everything I envisioned. Until... last weekend I stopped by one of my favorite blogs in the whole wide blogosphere and Donna at Funky Junk Interiors (bless her heart) sent my head spinning with possibilities from just rounding up all the funky junk and fabrics and pillows and wicker chairs I have laying about already.

I started babbling on about floor cloths and drop cloths and how I was going to turn that ginormous coffee table into an outdoor bed. And I went shopping in the garage to find a few things that I recalled owning but haven't laid eyes on for quite some time. Like these:

I got these from my mother-in-law years ago. I didn't know what they were or where she got them, but they are very heavy and are made of oak. Mr. Rainbowcreek had to hammer them back together because they were falling apart, and then he proceeded to stain them and used them to store odd stuff in, like tools and a case full of refillable beer "growler" jugs.

We made a good bit of progress on arranging things today. Too bad no one has responded to my "wanted" plea on CL for a twin bed size futon mattress :( I really need one of those for my day bed.

So in the meantime, while I am waiting for that mattress, Big K and I hit on the idea of using the crates and some painted old fence pickets to make this awesome sidetable/bookcase.

Notice my sad mattressless day bed in the corner? I can't wait to add a stack of magazines to my bookcase and spend some lazy afternoons lounging on my outdoor bed looking at pretty pictures. Big K will probably prefer to hang out with her laptop there, but she'll have to beat me to it.

So there is our little side table, mostly put together with some zip ties in case I ever decide to repurpose the pickets and crates someday. Now if you all would just send up some prayers for someone to answer my ad for a futon mattress... Until it arrives I have plenty of painting and floor cloths and drop cloth curtains to keep me busy.

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My Free Crap-a-Thon

2011-06-15T00:59:00.000-06:00

Success. Well at least on one front of the battle anyway. I got a ton of decluttering done yesterday and was feeling quite satisfied with myself. (patting myself on the back) There was about 6 tons of stuff that went into the trash and that was just from cleaning out 2 cabinets and the beverage frig in the kitchen.

Mr. Rainbowcreek was busy in the garage all day yesterday and informed me that he had managed to make some space. He was putting some finishing touches on the cleanup today before he left for work when I showed up to inspect the progress. That is actually not true. I went out there to look for an old 20 gallon aquarium that I had spotted yesterday on one of my trips to the trash can. BECAUSE... last night I found this...

Awesome Mini-Outdoor Fireplace tutorial at The Art of Doing Stuff.

I so want to make one of these for my outdoor living room. And I happened to think that the aquarium might do the trick rather than tracking down all the parts to put this together. I'll let you know how that turns out sometime soon. I don't actually have an outdoor living room really. I just have big plans for one. But I can't start that until I get some of the mess cleaned up and make room for working on new projects.

So after I located the aquarium and placed it on the workbench I noticed that the garage was just chock full of crap and I started digging through it and piling it up in the middle of the garage. Mr. Rainbowcreek became alarmed, here he had spent a whole day neatly stacking and organizing this crap and I was just dragging it out and undoing everything. I told him to get on his way to work and I would have this taken care of before he got home. It was time for a Craigs List FREE Crap-a-Thon! So I kept adding to the pile, call me RUTHLESS! I kept digging for more goodies to sweeten the pot, to draw the hoards of hoarders to race to the finish line to claim all my treasures. I took pictures and posted the ad.

Some of the crap wasn't even in the garage, I rounded it up from the junk pile outside.

And I found all this in the closet in our office.

I sat back and waited about 30 seconds for my phone to start ringing off the hook.

By the time Big K got home from work I was taking names for the frig, snowblower, gas grill and lawn mower, one guy was on his way to pick up anything I had left and another guy called and said he thought he could beat him here. They both showed up at the same time and a good time was had by all. They divvied up the goods between them and a couple of other stragglers. Then they came inside and gave me a bid for some tile work I need done, checked out a couple of sewing machines I have for sale and one made on offer on our broken down van that has been sitting in the driveway for 3 years. Nature girl Annie even got in on the social networking and sold a couple of her fuzzy puff ball bunnies to one of the ladies.

When Mr. Rainbowcreek left for work he warned me to make sure there was enough room to put the Harley back in there by the time he got home. He had a lot of room to spare. Oh how I love Craigs List. I might have another FREE Crap-a-Thon next week, just cause it's so much fun.

Let's Try This Again

2011-06-13T02:18:00.000-06:00

Arrrggghh! This is not going to be my FAIL post. I just haven't decided if I should pick up where I left off and act like nothing happened or do some mea culpa's with explanations for my long absence and try to make a new start. I am ready to blog again so I guess I will just forge ahead. 'nuff said, huh? Yup, I thought you would agree with me.

So I have 1 new grandson since my last post. Here he is... Lucas Tyler

That's about all he does so far.

But he sure is a cute little froggie, isn't he?

And his big brother has taken a real shine to him.

I was holding Luke when we were getting ready to leave and David made darn sure that I returned him to Mommy before we could go. He seemed quite concerned that we might try to take him home with us. David still has a little bit to learn about Grandma's and Grandpa's. We just like to come and play but we are soooo over feeding and bathing and changing diapers, we are quite happy to leave that part to mommy and daddy.

6 Days in 2011

2011-01-07T02:00:00.000-07:00

Wow this year is getting off to a fast start. Six days already passed? Well, I started New Years day with a swollen lymph node that felt like I was being stabbed in the neck from my ear to my collar bone. But I felt fine and figured if I just got out and got a little fresh air it would be OK. NOT! An evil virus crept up on me that night. I used Zycam and my secret arsenal of jalapenos and green chile to fight it off, but I ended up sleeping in my chair for 4 days anyway. So today I finally got back to feeling all motivated and New Yearsie (I just made that New Yearsie thing up. Not a real word, but I think you know what I mean.) And now I am ready to tackle some of my goals.

So who needs one of these?

I am not so good at math but I had 5 quilt kit orders to cut out yesterday and it amounted to something like this: 4 X 144 + 1 X 240 = and I guess it was somewhere around 750 squares I cut out.

I know that Accuquilt was doing all those GO! giveaways last year and I entered to win a few times. But this Accuquilt Studio cutter is really the thing I have been dreaming of and it has been on my New Years Resolutions for 3 years in a row.

This year I took a different approach and decided that I would actually set a goal and save the money specifically for this. I started with a little bit of Christmas gift cash and then whatever comes in from my sales I am adding to the kitty instead of just spending it. GUESS WHAT??? I am almost halfway to my goal already!! And the amazing thing is that when I have that goal in mind I have a totally different attitude toward the cash I am carrying around. Like I have no desire to spend it. When I see something that I want and I know I have the money in my pocket I just mentally subtract it from my goal and then it is so easy to talk myself out of buying something I don't really need. Well this is probably not that amazing to people who know how to manage their money well. But that is not something I am good at so I am loving this new me! I am hoping for the end of February to reach my goal!

And I started my first ever in my lifetime diet today. Really, I have never done it before and it is a little strange and scary to me. My goal is to lose 15lbs. by March 15. Yeah, I can do that.

A Moment of Truth About My Addiction

2011-01-04T01:13:00.002-07:00

I. Have. Fabric.

And I am going to be honest and admit that much of it is never going to see the light of my cutting table. Because, I move on, change direction and just lose focus on what I had in mind on a specific day that I decided that this fabric had to be mine.

Did I mention that I am easily distracted. Or that I went to the laundry room tonight to put something away and spotted a pair of worn out Levi's on the table and went and got a pair of scissors and proceeded to cut out an apron for Sis, just because I had seen one on someone's blog tonight.

So I am going to be opening a little fabric shoppe corner on my Rainbow Creek quilt kits site to try to find a new home for some of my most beloved pieces. I thought I would give you a sneak preview, just in case you are under-stashed and in need of something that I have been hiding away in the bat cave here.

FQ's Michael Miller Baby Goth and Dumb Dot in turquoise and espresso. I have 4 of each.

Really, these are THE Poker Dogs, from the Cassius Coolidge prints. My mother in law had a framed set hanging in the basement of her house, really. I have 2 1/2 yards.

Oops, this flannel Dale Jr. print never got made into a baby boy quilt before he changed his number to 88. Or something like that. 2+ yards.

One yard of the most adorable retro Michael Miller flannel, baby girls in rain slickers. So cute!

This deep red on cream children's toile is a soft shirting cotton. I still think it would make a gorgeous nursery set. 4 yards + two coordinating fabrics below. (And by the way, if you don't sew and would love a pretty vintage nursery set of this I do take custom orders still. I have enough for a crib set plus valances and maybe some basket liners and pillows or other accessories.)

Black and dark blue on cream shirting. 2 yards

Deep red on cream floral shirting. 3 yards

Black and red on cream shirting, 4 yards

Another MM retro flannel, Playpals. Only 1 yard.

Strange Kokopelli print for Museum of New Mexico, 2 yards.

Red and white Cowboy print, 2 yds.

MM, Tossed Geisha on pretty purple, 3 1/3 yards in two cuts.

MM Geisha Room Royal blue, 1 yard

Retro look "Our Family" at the beach, on a pretty turquoise, 2 yards

MM retro ladies "Spring Rain" on yellow, 1 yard only

Patty Reed Paper Dolls, on the prettiest blue. 1 yard only

MM Tossed Geisha Turquoise, 3 yards.

Marcus Brothers Playing in Spotzville, 2 yards

Tre Chic "packed pocketbooks" for Vintage Workshop, 1 yard +

Hula Hoop fun! MM retro on yellow, 1 yard only.

John Deere OOP tractors, yellow check background, 1 yard only.

Moda from Paris Cats cobalt blue colorway, 1 yard. Also have the light blue starburst, 2 yards.

Really nice Batik flower print in teal, 3 yards.

Classic Cottons feedsack reproduction, kittens with yarn, 34 inches.

MM Pink Baby Goth and Dumb Dot, 4 FQ's of each + 2 yards of each.

MM retro Boomerang and Car Hops, 2 FQ's of each.

So if you see anything you can picture for your next sewing project feel free to email or check out my store over the next few days for pricing. These will be going for about what I paid for them or a little less. Now how is it that I can't remember my own grandkids names half the time but I remember what I paid for a yard of flannel 4 years ago? Is there something seriously wrong with that or what?

I am going to try to figure out how to install a Paypal button on my blog, but that might not happen for a while. I'll combine shipping or waive shipping fees on multiple orders too, just haven't worked out the details on that yet.

Low Tech Kid's Stuff - Fabric Checkers Game

2011-01-02T23:59:00.002-07:00

I was hoping to have this posted before Christmas, but being organizationally challenged as I am I barely made it to my own Christmas Eve party. That's because I was downstairs putting the finishing touches on a couple of sewing projects and wrapping gifts while the kids were ~~waiting patiently~~ rampaging through the house waiting to open presents.

So I came up with this idea for Destructo Boy because he likes to play checkers and I thought a travel checker set that he could throw into his backpack to play on the school bus would be fun. For some reason their bus has a "layover" every morning before the driver is allowed to drop the kids off, so the driver kind of encourages the kids to bring something to entertain themselves. All well and good, as long as it is not something that is going to end up in the principals office later in the day, huh?

So this was a "no cost" project that I made up from scraps I had around the house. It was really pretty easy and I wish I had remembered to take pics for a tutorial. But that might happen soon because I think I might make this again for the Twinkie's in a girly theme. I happened to have the sports themed fabrics and some pieces of felt, so that is what I used, but you could use just the felt for the pieces and paint or mark one side of each piece for the King side. So here are some basic instructions, I think you could follow without the pics.

I strip pieced the 64 1 1/2" squares together so that was nowhere near as hard as it looks. For a 12" checkerboard you will need two 2" X 44" strips of each color. (If you cut the strips 2 1/2" you will end up with a 16" square checkerboard) Cut the strips in half so you have 4 2"X22" strips and then stitch them together with a 1/4" seam alternating the colors. Iron the strips so that the seam allowance is pressed toward the darker color. This is important if you want your corners to match up nicely. Then take the pressed piece and cut it into 2" slices, reverse every other strip so that you get a checkerboard pattern and stitch those together. Butt the seam allowances up tight against each other to get a nice corner. Steam press it all when you are done. I added a 1 1/2" border around the outside.

For the checker pieces I used the No Sew Ultra Heat Bond and ironed the fabric to red and tan felt, then cut out the footballs and basketballs. I made a little felt pouch with a velcro closure for each set of 12 pieces. I ironed a football and basketball to the outside of the pouches just because.

I cut a backing piece from coordinating fabric and stitched a felt tic-tac-toe board on the center. You can use bias tape to make the lines or cut strips of fabric like I did. I put the backing and the checkerboard right sides together and stitched around, leaving an opening for turning, then topstitched all the way around, closing the opening.

Then I folded it into 3rds each direction with the game piece pouches inside and put a little strap with velcro to hold it all together. I stitched one end of the strap to the center of one outside edge to keep it from getting lost.

Destructo Boy had to practice up with Mr. Rainbow Creek and Nature Girl before he goes back to school tomorrow. Not sure who won, but they were laughing and having a great time. Take that Xbox!

I am joining these linky parties:

Happy New Year 2011!

2011-01-01T01:01:00.000-07:00

glitter-graphics.com

Whew! I made it to the finish line again. That is how I always feel when the holidays are all wrapped up and I am just so ready to start the new year fresh.

As usual 2010 was not without a few stumbles, but overall I think I have a lot of accomplishments and a lot to look forward to in 2011.

I have a few resolutions, which oddly enough are pretty much the same resolutions I had in 2010 and 2009 and 2008. Practice makes perfect??? Well not so much in my case. But here we go again!

1. Blog (more.)

2. Create (more.)

3. Sell (more.)

Pretty simple. I have projects, tutorials and lots more in store for next week. For now I am just focused on this one thing... getting to Monday morning and seeing that school bus show up at the corner. Yeah, it has been a long 2 weeks.

Have a great weekend! See you soon!

Burlap Mini Stocking Garland

2010-12-13T04:50:00.000-07:00

I dug out some homespun fabric a couple of weeks ago and got this idea to cut ribbons of homespun and pleat it. I just cut it into long strips and used my thumbs to flip the fabric under as I stitched down the center. Then I pulled some of the threads off of the unfinished edges to give it a lightly fringed edge.

My downstairs Christmas tree. This little Alpine tree is a favorite of mine. I wired eucalyptus to the branches and have been playing around with different ideas for decorating it this year.

These burlap mini stockings are pinned to a jute clothesline with mini clothespins. I saw a cranberry garland at Donna's house over at Funky Junk Interiors and I am pretty sure I am going to have to add one of those to the tree this week. Wonder if I could talk the kids into stringing those for me?

I got so excited about the pleated ribbon that I had to make some table runners with pleated ribbons too.

Then I tried pleating the burlap. Love it! You have to watch out how much of the thread you pull out for the fringe. It will keep going and going until you don't have any burlap left if you aren't careful! This runner ended up fitting on the bench in the entry way. It was part of our clean up the clutter project before our cookie party. Convincing the kids to keep it picked up is another story, but we tried and it did look good for a day anyway.

A pretty osnaburg runner with a long ruffle topped with pleated homespun.

If you want to make a cute burlap mini-stocking garland here is how I did it.

Draw a stocking shape on piece of cardboard and cut it out. I had to use a sharpie to trace it onto the burlap because my fabric marker didn't show up. I drew 3-4 out at a time and pinned two pieces of burlap together so they wouldn't slide when sewing. The white line you see is where I stitched 1/4" inside the the sharpie marking. Cut them out on the line after stitching.

Turn them right side out and turn the top edge under, press well with steam. Glue the pleated ribbon to the top with craft glue or fabric glue, the glue will soak through the burlap and hold down the turned under edge too. Embellish with buttons or a bundle of twigs tied with jute twine. Clip them to the clothesline with mini clothespins. I tied a loop at each end of the clothesline to hang it.

Enjoy!

Holiday Wish List 2010

2010-11-28T02:56:00.001-07:00

Well there is no way you are going to want to pass on entering this. And besides that I love the questions and would love to read all your answers too. So here is my entry:

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

TodaysMama (link to: http://bit.ly/tmwishlist) and GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family?

Lots of laughter and spending time together creating great memories.

2. What is your Christmas morning tradition?

We have a big buffet dinner and open most of our gifts to each other on Christmas Eve, so Christmas morning is for opening gifts from Santa. We have coffee and everybody usually scrounges up leftover meatball sandwiches or green chile tamales or ham and eggs while we play with the kids new toys. We are usually very lazy on Christmas morning. Oh, and I turn on A Christmas Story and watch it all day, well I don't really watch, just leave it on all day until Mr. Rainbow Creek can't take it anymore.

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be?

No brainer. This would definitely be a beach vaca. Someplace warm and tropical, a cottage just steps away from the water.

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money?

We love to bake and decorate cookies with the kids. The girls and I love White Christmas and try to watch it every year.

5. What games did you play with your family growing up?

My mom would play Monopoly with us, I think she usually won. Dad liked card games and would play almost any card game with us. We also played Sorry and Trouble.

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood?

Not much really. I sort of adopted my husbands family traditions since we were living near his family, then eventually it just evolved into our own traditions. The one thing I would say I have carried on from my family is that Christmas is more about the children and creating a magical time for them. We don't really expect a lot of gifts or spend much money on the adults, to me being together and enjoying the excitement with the kids is the best part of Christmas.

7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip?

See #3 above. The beach of course, silly.

8. Check out GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) and tell us, what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year?

Ha! this is pretty funny because I am clueless when it comes to games. But I did go to see what a Kinect is and that is definitely on the top of my list for Destructo Boy and Fatty. And I know that Anna would love a Wii, so I could go with that. And probably music games for the Wii since they love dance parties.

12 Days of Christmas Giveaway Day 5

2010-11-18T01:10:00.003-07:00

Day 5. I know you were hoping for 5 Golden Rings. Me too!

Go on over and check out what's in the basket today and leave your comment to enter!

I am trying to change my ways. I got up early today at 8:30 in the morning, so that I will be tired enough to go to bed before dawn. I decided that 5 am is not a good bedtime when living with 7 other people who keep normal people hours. So tonight I am shooting for getting to bed before 1 am. That is ~~probably~~ definitely not going to happen since it is 12:55 as I write this. So goodnight...

2010-11-17T01:54:00.002-07:00

12 Days of Christmas Giveaway is here. Go check out what has been added to my gift basket. Hint: only "time" will tell how it all ends.

Cut, sew, blog, tweet. Repeat. Keep this up and it is starting to seem like real work. Oh the lengths we will go to in order to avoid getting a "real job," huh?

Before I show you what I did today I wanted to show you these pretty Baby Clothes Memory Rag Quilts that my friend Barbara is making.

She has a listing for these adorable, custom made baby clothes quilts on her etsy store right now and she has a holiday sale on her blog. She does beautiful work and what a sweet way to keep all those memories of your favorite little outfits out there where you can enjoy them instead of packing them away in a box. Love this idea.

So, I did get a little Thanksgiving sewing done today too. I had these table toppers already done and I finished up some matching towel sets and a coaster set.

I just love this Alexander Henry print. The colors are so vibrant.

It's nice to have a pretty new holiday towel to hang in the kitchen. My everyday kitchen towels look they have been used for mopping the garage floor, which I wouldn't be surprised if they have.

Some pretty coasters for our coffee mugs when we are enjoying that pumpkin pie!

Another centerpiece mat in another gorgeous harvest print.

If you have some time to pretty up your kitchen before the big day I have a tutorial for the kitchen towels and coasters here. If you want to make a rag quilt centerpiece mat or runner shoot me a message. I haven't done a tutorial on those yet but they are pretty easy and I can send you some simple instructions.

enjoy!

Burlap Christmas Shopping Tote with Rosette

2010-11-14T03:59:00.006-07:00

I have been seeing a lot of burlap bags around and I am loving them.

This one at La Maison Reid is adorable. She also has a link there for a simple lined tote bag in burlap with a rosette.

So I thought I would use some of the burlap I bought the other day and give it a try. I was trying to think if I have ever actually sewed anything from burlap, and as far as I can remember I haven't. But it turned out that it isn't hard to work with and it was totally fun putting this little Christmas Shopping Tote together.

It was late, very late, when I started on it and I fooled around quite a while with measurements and deciding on the fabric. It ended up measuring about 14" tall by 13" wide. Then I had to figure out how to make the rosette because it needed some embellishment, and I didn't have time to run out to the craft store. But I probably would have if I knew of any 24 hour craft stores in this podunk town. Just sayin' if you happen to be up with a glue gun in your hand at 3 am, maybe a 24 hour craft store wouldn't be out of the question...

So I am pretty satisfied with the end result and I think this cute green burlap bag will be perfect for someone to carry all their little holiday goodies in. It has one large pocket inside to round up your essentials like wallet, car keys and phone.

Don't forget to enter to win the 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway! Go to the original post here to see what I have in my 12 Days of Christmas Basket. Leave your comment and you are IN! It is a very simple contest, so get over there and check it out!

And link up your store specials if you want, so we can see what you have to offer and shop in each other's stores. After all, we are going to be shopping somewhere so why not make it easy to find some awesomeness right here!

Black Friday Giveawy and Linky Party!

2010-11-13T03:32:00.006-07:00

Rainbow Creek's 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway!

Are your ready for an awesome giveaway? I haven't done one for a while, but I am really getting into the Christmas spirit already and just can't wait to start giving!

I have gotten so many nice comments on my upcycled brown bag basket, and I have to admit that I am totally in love with it, especially after I GLITTERED it tonight. So now it is all sparkly and ready for gift giving and I counted on my little fingers that there are 12 days to go to Black Friday. So I shall be adding one gift each day to my basket for the lucky winner of this giveaway! Come back every day to see what I add to the basket. You can enter to win each day until November 25. Winner will be announced on BLACK FRIDAY, November 26, 2010.

And don't forget the linky party below, feel free to link up all your store promotions for the Holiday Shopping Season!

Update:
On the first day of Christmas Giveaway, I made for you:

This cute green burlap shopping tote with rosette and a pretty snowflake print lining!

On the second day of Christmas Giveaway I give to you:

A fun sparkly Christmas tree watch from Avon. Cute and casual for shopping days or work days.

On the third day of Christmas giveaway I made for you:

Three cute purse tissue pouches for stocking stuffers.

On the fourth day of Christmas Giveaway I placed into the basket:

A journal to jot down all your plans, recipes, memories. And a note pad for your "to do" lists.

On the fifth day of Christmas Giveaway I bring to you:

This gorgeous wine bottle gift bag handmade by my BFF Peggy. She makes these exclusively for the Bonnie Brae. I love the shimmery burgandy fabric with the black velvet flocking, so festive!

The second part of my Black Friday celebration is the linky party for you to post your Holiday Specials in your stores or on your blogs. Post a link to your blog with a coupon code or a special Holiday Sale so that we can Shop With You!

How to Join the Party:
Click on the linky below to add your blog post. Please link to your Holiday Sale post or store, not to your main blog page.
Follow me and leave a comment to enter the giveaway.
Grab my Giveaway Button and post it on your blog so everybody can join in.
Tweet, Blog or add a link to your Facebook page to let others know about our party
Go visit each other's stores and shop with us!
Show some love, leave a comment to let someone know you appreciate their work!

Upcycled Brown Grocery Bag Basket

2010-11-11T00:56:00.026-07:00

Now for a new and exciting NO SEW tutorial that I have been planning for a while. I think this project is so easy and fun and it can be used in so many ways.

I came across a baggie of Paper Twist at the thrift store a couple years ago and remembered these brown paper bag baskets my mom taught me how to make a long time ago. I found out they still sell the paper twist at the craft stores.

So I decided to revisit this pattern but I updated it a bit since the ones we made in the 80s were mauve and country blue calico with big bows ;)

I used red burlap, brown paper twist and this music fabric I found at Hobby Lobby. The fabric was black and white so I dipped it in a bucket of hot water with a little tan dye to age it some.

To make the basket you will also need 2 large brown grocery bags and a glue gun. So next time you go to the store if they ask "paper or plastic" you know. I go to self checkout a lot and they have paper bags there too, so I take one or two when I have heavy items.

I tear my fabric strips so they are a little ragged on the edges. Just measure 4" and snip through the selvedge edge and then rip it the rest of the way. You will need 3 strips for weaving around the outside. I also cut 3 strips 4" wide of the burlap.

Measure up about 9 1/2 inches on the sides of your two bags.

Cut off the top so your sides are 9 1/2" the put one bag inside the other to make it doubled.

Fold the top of the bags down about 2 inches and hot glue the two bag tops together then glue the folded edge down all the way around.

So your basket base will look nice and neat like this.

Now go turn on the TV to your favorite show and sit down and untwist the paper twist.
This takes a little while. You have to untwist it and gently pull it open so it looks like this.
Then I roll it up so it is ready to work with. Measure two pieces of the paper twist to go from the inside front of the bag, under the bottom and wrap up the back side.
Glue the ends of the first piece to the inside of the bag.

I am totally stupid when it comes to using glue guns and always end up with at least one nasty blister. I hope you are better than me at this. But you might want to find a plastic knife or something to use to push the paper down on the glue so as to avoid the blister part of this project.

And you also might be smarter than me and not leave it laying on your $60 Olfa Cutting Mat. Apparently they warp from heat. But I will worry about that tomorrow. Sigh...

Glue the other pieces on to cover the front and back of the bags. Don't worry if they don't fit exactly because you will want to scrunch them a little anyway when you weave the fabric through.
Now you want to weave the side pieces through the bottom before gluing them down.
Just do an over/under thing and then pull the ends up the sides and glue.

Take your ripped fabric strips and starting at one corner weave it all the way around the bag. Leave the ends loose for now.

Add the other two strips, scrunching them a bit as your go so they all fit in there.

Now glue the ends down under the corner pieces to hide all of them.

And put a couple dots of glue here and there to secure everything.

Step back and admire your basket weaving skills. You might want to fluff it and cut off some loose threads too.

Cut 3 strips of paper twist about 24" long and glue the ends together. Braid them together to make a handle.

Glue the ends of the handle to the inside of the basket. Press it down as flat as you can get it.

I made a lining for my basket from some tea dyed osnaberg linen. Since I promised a "no sew" project I did it with hot glue, although I probably would have found it easier to zip this up on the sewing machine. Or you could line it with tissue paper or wrapping paper if you don't want to use fabric.

I cut a rectangle about 22"X26" and folded the 26" side in half. Glue the side seams together.

Now open the sides out to make a point in the center.

Place the bag on top to find the width of the bottom of the basket, fold and glue the triangle up to the side seam.

Fold under the top of the lining and glue to the top edge of the basket. It won't fit perfect so do a little scrunching where needed to make it fit.

I added a little paper twist rosette and glued it to a burlap leaf. I am thinking about glittering it, but haven't made it that far yet.

This makes a cute gift basket for Christmas gifts, but I also use them for centerpieces and even for holding guest towels and extra TP rolls in the powder room, or anything else you need a basket for.

Enjoy!

I am linking up to:

Black Friday Shopping Bags

2010-11-10T00:31:00.004-07:00

You remember what a mess I have here since I had to shut down my quilt kit store and move everything to paint? But my etsy store was still open and I sold one of my bags the other day and I thought that bag was in the baby cradle where I keep important things, like bags I have listed for sale. But no such luck. It seems I had packed those up and replaced them with a pile of UFO's and remnants. So I made a mad dash through a stack of boxes in search of that bag. Whew! I found the bag and shipped it and I also found these:

A pair of Christmas Shopping Tote Bags that I forgot I made.

They have a cute red print lining and a couple of handy pockets inside, a button closure too.

They are two different sizes. I think they could use a little fluffing in the dryer because they were smashed in that box for a while.

But they got me thinking about Black Friday, well, for obvious reasons (see, they are black and they are Christmas shopping bags, hello.)

So I decided that I should host my first ever Black Friday Linky party and Giveway! Which will be my first ever linky party of any kind, plus I am going to throw in some giveaways too. I went off in search of a linky tool and found it was really easy to set up an account. Now I would like to invite anybody with an online store to join in if you would like to.

The idea is to run a special sale or coupon code for your store on your blog for the holidays and add your link to my giveaway any time before Black Friday. I will post the link this Thursday night and announce the winner of the giveaway on Black Friday. I will have a button for you to add to your post so your followers can enter the giveaway and also find all the sales specials. Sound like fun? Hope you will come back and join in!

We finally got a blast of winter weather here today. Too cold to paint, so I have a no sew gifty tutorial planned instead.

I am linking this post to:

I Am Feeling Kind of Blue

2010-11-07T04:10:00.009-07:00

A reveal, kind of. I finished painting the family room and put the furniture back.

It is clear that the white slip cover is going to the top of my "to do" list.

I think we can all agree that this wall is just a little too much blue.

The enamelware color on the chunky table is making me happy. I was reluctant to do too much glazing but have since changed my mind. It definitely needs a little aging.

I am debating about keeping some red in the room. My plan was to go all white. But I like Americana and red. Maybe I will just transition it out as budget allows??

I saw a vintage pay phone booth sign on ebay that I would love to buy for my phone booth. Way out of my budget though. So I am playing with some ideas for making one myself.

I don't mind too much living with all the undecorated space. I do have the urge to run out and buy things just to fill it up, but my budget for this project is about a $dollar or 2.98. So my goal is to challenge myself to find frugal ideas to create some unique artwork. Right now my mind is as blank as my walls. Sigh...

A GO Giveaway, please let it be mine...

2010-11-07T03:38:00.004-07:00

I just entered another Accuquilt GO giveaway at Lavender Ridge. I cannot tell you how happy I would be to win this baby! But I am sure you know anyway.

I will be starting on my craft room makeover tomorrow. I better hurry and get it done so I will have time to play with my new GO when it arrives ;)

A Little Shabby Rose Quilt

2010-11-05T00:47:00.008-06:00

Well, I surprised myself that I was able to move the sawhorses, paint cans and boxes of junk to make a path to my sewing machine and find all the fabric, and my rotary cutter so I could get this done.

I made a sofa size rag quilt throw from these fabrics last year and took it to the Holiday Show I did with Di. It didn't sell at the show but I sold it later online and it has been one of my best selling rag quilt kits ever. So I got a call a while back from a lady who had seen the quilt at the show and tracked me down online but she doesn't sew, so she was looking for a finished quilt. Of course I agreed to make it for her, and of course that was right when I was starting on my redecorating project. (which I expected was going to take about a week or two) But no worries, she said she didn't need it until November and that seemed a long way off at that time, to me anyway.

It was in the back of my mind that I needed to get started on it. I have been meaning to go look for one of those Procrastinators Anonymous Calenders, but I just haven't gotten around to that yet.

The original quilt had a sage green chenille in it which I can't find anymore. So I had to sub some other fabrics in the baby quilt kits. I had never actually made one from the fabrics in the kit, so it was kind of fun to see how it turned out. I think the green damask is pretty. And there is a pink minky with embossed roses that I added too. They don't really show up in the picture.

I am such a shmuck, I always feel bad when I have too much going on and can't wiggle my nose and whip out orders instantly. And then I worry that my customer might get a bad impression of my business. So I often feel the need to add a little something extra to make up for my guilt. And who doesn't love a little freebie gift?

So I took some of my scraps and made this adorable little burp cloth.

And made it into a little cupcake to go with the quilt.

So she was very happy with the quilt and the cute little cupcake. And I am happy to get back to my regularly scheduled chaos.

I am linking this post to:

Go Check It Out!

Sad Goodbye Red Table...

2010-11-04T01:01:00.005-06:00

I had to take a break from painting to make a custom baby quilt order. It was really tough to tear myself away and get started sewing so I kind of snuck back to painting a bit in between cutting and stitching. I really wanted to get started on my tables. But then I am a little sad that my red table got nixed out of my color scheme. I am going to miss my red table.

The quilt turned out really pretty, I think. It is in the dryer now blooming. I will get some pics of it tomorrow when the light is better.

So all I have now is a sneak preview of my tables.

The base coat is Martha Stewart Home Depot "Enamelware." I just love this color! I mixed up some whitewash for the second layer, and will have to do some sanding to see how that turns out before I distress and glaze it.

I just love this Craftsmen Workhorse bench. I bought it for Mr. Rainbow Creek for his birthday many years ago. Wasn't that thoughtful of me! That is the really cool thing about guys, huh? You can actually give them tools and work stuff for gifts and they think it's great. Not at all like if they gave you a vacuum cleaner or Swiffer for your birthday. That would be very uncool!

Random Beauty

2010-10-30T01:56:00.008-06:00

After posting about my Ugly Room I felt kind of bad. I mean, it is true, I do have the ugliest room in universe, and maybe the ugliest house. But I didn't mean to sound like a whiner either, and then there is this...

The back yard in summer. This is why we don't bother with curtains on the windows.
That ugly 70s place we call home. All 8 of us. (yes it is true, 8 is enough!)

Nature Girl.

Three cousins eating watermelon and swinging on the porch.

My daisies got a dusting of snow on the last day of summer last year.

Time to hibernate. I have lots of sewing projects and don't go out when it looks like this.

The baby boys take a break from fighting over their toys.

Our hand me down tramp arrived on our porch one day when Mr. B was cleaning up his yard and happened to notice that his son Sam had outgrown it and we had a bunch of kids hanging around here. Thanks, Mr. B!

Anna's Hummingbird.

The Rainbow Creek Kids at play.

The ugly room transformation is coming along. I have my tables primed and ready for painting, can't wait to see how they turn out. Mr. Rainbow Creek is off for a few days to help me move furniture and we are going to go looking for used cabinets at the Habitat Store to try to build a custom desk to replace the ugliest desk ever. He is kind of reluctant to get into my home decorating schemes, but if I take him out for a beer and pizza and talk it up he usually sees things my way. He is kind of pushover when you ply him with a little beer and pizza. We have actually done tons of remodeling projects together and we have fun. He just forgets how much fun it is if I let him sit around and get too comfortable for too long.

Story of An Ugly Room

2010-10-27T23:56:00.012-06:00

This is a story of an ugly room. It didn't really mean to be ugly, but it just happened. It started out as my hangout room, and I just kind of threw it together to fill up the space and and have a place to take a break or eat lunch while I was working...

down here in the "bat cave" as Mr. Rainbow Creek called it. Now that I am a blogger I have learned that these are called "mommy caves."Technically mine would be a "grandma cave." But never mind about that.

It was the original home of Rainbow Creek Creations and I spent my days peacefully creating rag quilt kits and purses here while Mr. Rainbow Creek was out slaying the dragon so to speak.

And then one day the recession began and the boomerang kids began to arrive. 3 by 3. I guess that is what happens when you have kids. They go forth and multiply by 3 apparently.

The demand for highly skilled carpenters was low so the Tattooed Mama and her husband and baby were on the brink of homelessness but for the fact that we had all this glorious space to gladly share with them. So they moved in and I moved Rainbow Creek Creations to the North end of the upstairs and managed quite nicely. Until the heat of summer hit and I realized that we DO NOT have AC in this house because conventional wisdom in the 70s was that you do not need AC in the mountains, even though it regularly hits 90 degrees in July. Luckily Mr. Tattoed Mama found a job and they were back on their feet, so I was able to reclaim the bat cave.

Lesson learned. When Matty Matt and Little K and the Little Prince arrived on our doorstep the next spring Mr. RC suggested that we move our bedroom downstairs and give them the master bedroom and the family room. That seemed logical because I would be able to keep my business running and have my own space to retreat to.

One year later: enter Big K and Destructo Boy and Annie Bannani. More room shuffling and furniture rearranging and we gave up the office and playroom and the living room. And everything that the upstairs people found of mine that they didn't want in their space they just brought it down to the bat cave and dumped it.

And eventually it looked like this. You know what they say about boxes of stuff. If you put it in a box and you haven't gotten it out and used it for 6 months you should just pick up the box and throw it out. Do you believe that? It sure is tempting. But then again it might be something I need, cause I don't even know what's in there. Heck, I don't even know what's anywhere anymore.

So this lovely dark brown paneling and worse yet a wood ceiling that was stained dark, dark, dark brown, nice huh? And what a nice collection of crap you have stuck on your walls. What the hell is all that stuff anyway? I must say it does nicely complement the ugliest desk in the universe. And the gray folding table with 2 printers on top and 2 beat up file cabinets underneath does add a touch of whimsy, don't you think?

And my work space: inspiring huh?

So I got this crazy idea to redesign the whole thing. And it is terribly overwhelming. But I got some paint on the walls! I think I like it so far.

You really can't believe how big this room is. My goal is to transition the 3 rooms from a calm living room space to a bright office space to a colorful sewing/crafting space. I am not sure where that dark blue wall came from. I really did not intend to buy Blue Suede at all. It just jumped into my cart. Martha is confuzzling me with all these gorgeous colors to choose from!

Well actually I really like blue. And white. I love blue and white. Hopefully with Hosta and Sultana and Enamelware this is all going to work out.
This picture was taken with the sun shining in and all the lights on plus a halogen work light. I told you I am camera challenged, either I am terrible at this or my camera just sucks. The ceiling is actually white, but the walls are Sisal.
Well, that is the story of the ugly room so far. To be continued....

Time For a List

2010-10-26T03:00:00.004-06:00

Things I Did Today That I Didn't Want To Do

Paid some bills.
Spent $200 at Sam's and then came home and found out that I bought things we don't need and forgot things we do, sigh...
Cooked Ree's Perfect Pot Roast for dinner but I didn't enjoy it because I was aggravated at the kids.
Got aggravated at the kids, sigh...
Wished that I had time to do the things I wanted to do.

Things I Wanted To Do Today That I Didn't

Pay all of the bills!
Stay home and finish painting.
Enjoy a perfect pot roast dinner with a nice glass of wine.
Put my life back together so I can be creative and think again.
Figure out what I want to do with my blog and do it.
Learn enough HTML to get by.

The Short List: Things I Did Today That I Wanted To Do

Count my blessings and tell myself I will do better tomorrow!

Frugal Fun Mini Muffins

2010-10-23T03:04:00.001-06:00

I love to have some Jiffy Mix in my pantry. I like to pick up a variety of those super cheap muffin mixes to have on hand when I want to bake a little quick bread or snack on short notice.

So it was short notice when Marcy and me decided on Tuesday night that we might lose our minds if we had to spend the rest of "Fall Break" ~~drinking wine and listening to 5 kids whine about wanting to go to Skate Park~~ hauling the kids to the skate park. That is when we hit on the idea of scrounging up the funds to head up to the mountains to Indian Hot Springs Lodge and getting a couple of cabins for a night. We did some creative math and figured we could swing it if we could cover all the food from our pantry supplies.

We came up with a menu of:
Lunch - tuna or egg salad sandwiches, carrot and celery sticks and dip
Dinner- spaghetti and meatballs, Caesar salad, garlic bread, choice of Cabernet or Root Beer
Breakfast- pancakes, bacon, eggs, English muffins, choice of Bloody Mary or MILK

We had all that covered and I pre-cooked the spaghetti and meatballs the night before so we only had to heat them up and toast the garlic bread, which worked out great. Then I thought since this was a special occasion of sorts we should have a treat for the kids. Jiffy Mix Chocolate Muffin Mix to the rescue!

I decided to make mini muffins because kids love mini things. And I used two boxes of mix and ended up with 42 muffins so there were plenty to go around for 5 kids. (Approx. cost less than $1.50!)
I always spray my paper muffin liners with a little non-stick spray so they will peel off clean without ripping half of the muffin off. I just hate that! Then I dropped a little dollop of peanut butter into the center of each chocolate muffin.
The peanut butter melted as the muffins baked and made these nice little streaks of peanut buttery goodness.
I mixed up a half batch of Hershey's cocoa buttercream frosting and happened to have a container of orange sprinkles with little bats so that added a little to the "Fall Break" festivities. These were definitely a hit and the kids didn't even lick the frosting off and throw the muffins away, they ate them all.
After relaxing in the pool all afternoon the kids were ready to head back to the cabin for a good spaghetti and meatball feast.
It was a Thursday night and when we trekked back to the pool for the evening we found that we had the whole place all to ourselves! That's when we decided maybe "Fall Break" isn't such a bad idea after all.

Waking the Sleeping Beast

2010-10-17T20:55:00.006-06:00

My decorating monkey finally came back! Now I don't know what took me so long to get my groove back. It has been about 5 years since I gave up my obsession for decorating. I can't really say why, just that life got changed up and I got a little depressed and forgot how much it matters to me. This project has been too overwhelming and I had to step back for a while and wait for it to reveal itself to me. And while I was waiting there wasn't much else to do but sit up 'til 4 am (that's a lie, it was actually 4:57 am) blog hopping around the decorators bloggyverse. And the rooms I saw, and the craftiness and clever upcycling were just so clever and crafty and they filled my head with ideas. So many ideas that I became more and more confused. Dang, that wasn't supposed to happen! But I do want to share some of the amazing sites I have been visiting, hopefully I can do a links list in the next few days in my spare time. Right??!!

But today as I was pacing in and out of the house asking myself why on earth did I buy this gallon of Cityscape and that gallon of Sandpiper I spotted my inspiration pieces and my plan was finally revealed.

See this little whitewashed weathered wood table we built from our old recycled fence pickets a few months ago? That's really exciting huh?
And my frumpy PB Charleston style denim sofa that is begging to be dressed up in a new white slipcover?
And my weathered fence picket beach sign with the blue and sand and aqua... Those are actually my colors. They are all lined up here in those precious little Martha Stewart Living cans I have been stockpiling for the past 2 months.

Now that my plan has revealed itself I am in a huge hurry to get that paint on the walls so I can get on to the fun stuff like sewing curtains and slipcovers and painting furniture. I have at least 3 major furniture projects planned! Hopefully with tutorials if I can remember to keep that dang camera within reach.

The Blue Suede wall done!

This wall is probably going to change. The niche is going to be Cityscape and my black wine bar will go back in there.

I have a feeling this isn't going to be the quickie redo that I originally planned. It is nice to have my funky monkey back anyways!

Here is a little color quiz I ran across tonight. Big surprise, I am Blue! What color are you?

You are most like: You are Blue
You are cool and soothing, with a hidden spontanious side. You are deeper than most people percieve, and you care a lot for those whom you surround yourself with.
Take this quiz: Which Crayola Box of 8 Color Are You?
Visit Toys For Your Blog.com for more blog quizzes

You are most like:

You are Blue

You are cool and soothing, with a hidden spontanious side. You are deeper than most people percieve, and you care a lot for those whom you surround yourself with.

Take this quiz: Which Crayola Box of 8 Color Are You?

Visit Toys For Your Blog.com for more blog quizzes

Got Paint?

2010-10-15T01:36:00.002-06:00

What to do with the "OOPS I don't really like that color" paint? Now looking at 8 gallons of Martha Stewart $25/gallon paint.

Bamboo is out. Rice Paper is out too. Sandpiper, Cityscape, Hosta, Blue Suede and Heavy Cream? We'll see. Found the camera cord anyway, so pic tomorrow unless I have to run off and join the circus. That is quite possible. Nah, I am going to get painting in the morning, hell or highwater.

How Not To Paint a Huge Room

2010-10-13T23:57:00.011-06:00

I am still stuck in a mess here. Changed my mind about the colors and it really isn't like me to stop mid-stream on a project, I just can't figure out what is holding me up. It is only paint for goodness sake! I have usually been pretty fearless about color and design choices. I don't have a problem ignoring Mr. Rainbow Creek when he keeps urging me to go a couple shades lighter because everything darker than white is bound to be "too dark." I plan to go tomorrow and pick up new colors and have it done by Monday. No excuses.

Just so you know what I am up against...

Here is the "Before"
And this was when it was actually cleaned up and functional.

Now it is a big jumble of boxes and furniture piled in the middle of the rooms with half painted walls.

I keep forgetting to go find the cord to plug in the camera, so I can't really show you the utter devastation I have wrought.

So really the only thing to do when you get into a mess like this is bake something, I think.

No picture of the Dulce de Leche cheesecake (that camera cord thing, again.) After a hard day of shopping we hit up the Cheesecake Factory for an afternoon break. I became convinced that their Dulce de Leche might be a no bake cheesecake. I have tried a couple of other Dulce de Leche cheesecake recipes but they didn't have that light creamy texture I was looking for. I finally found this one and had to give it a try. I did have to stop at 3 stores for the Nestle's canned caramel, which is usually found in the Mexican food section, not the baking aisle. If you can't get the real thing, I would suggest the caramel apple dip that you find in the produce section will work as well. Also I used a vanilla wafer crust, which everyone seemed to like better than graham cracker. I did not try to duplicate the chocolate martini I had there... maybe next time...

For the Caramel Apple Pie we made homemade caramel, let it cool before dumping it right over the top of a basic apple pie, then topped it with streusel topping. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on a cool fall night. Enjoy.

(Sorry for the awful pic, but I am just so camera challenged.)

Just for fun I made a little stick family. You can go give it a try if you want one too.

My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com

Little Pumpkin Spiders and Bats

2010-10-04T00:38:00.003-06:00

Andrea's Crafternoon Witches Tea was so much fun. Missy planned the crafts for the little witches and I just love how the little pumpkin bats and spiders turned out!

She brought a bag full of tiny pumpkins and spray painted them black, then they cut the bat wings out of a sheet of black craft foam and glued on the eyes and wings with hot glue. Annie came up with the idea of twisting the black pipe cleaner's around the stem to make some spiders too!
The ladies hat's had to be embellished too so we could be properly attired for our afternoon tea.

The Crafty Witches.

We made a few really cute projects, I'll have to get pics and get with Andrea for the links later this week.

I am linking this post to:

Go check it out!

A Bake-Off Loser? Really?

2010-10-01T21:02:00.007-06:00

Big K and I were sure we couldn't lose her company bake-off with this:

Heart of Darkness Whipped Truffle Cake

I started with Ina Garten's recipe for Double Layer Chocolate Cake from Food & Wine. We decided that what we wanted was a really dark almost black cake, so I used Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa. The cup of strong black coffee helps with the color and enhances the chocolate flavor. You really don't taste the coffee flavor at all.

So, actually our first attempt was a FAIL. The center didn't rise and it couldn't be torted, it turned out pretty ugly. But it was a test cake anyway so we had to force feed it to the children. They cried, please don't make us eat chocolate cake for breakfast again!

I spent about 5 hours reading up on the science of cakes. Who knew that cakes involve actual science and can succeed or fail from just a slight mis-measurement? I finally decided that our problem could be one of about a few dozen reasons, which I narrowed down to either over beating, oven temperature, pan size (I used 9" instead of the 8" the recipe calls for) altitude or something else. Ina lives on the east coast and we are about one mile higher than that. So I just took a stab at adjusting a few things.

I assembled the ingredients again and this time I added one egg, reduced the sugar by 3 Tbl and reduced the baking powder by 1/4 tsp. I also took care to mix only until the ingredients were incorporated.

The layers came out nice and even this time. Yay!
We decided on Rose Levy Beranbaum's ganache recipe for filling and frosting. But we whipped it to make it soft and fluffy. One bag of bittersweet and one bag of semi-sweet and almost a quart of heavy cream. It was a LOT of chocolate and this process requires a lot of tasting to be sure you have it right. It was also messy and required a lot of hot water and cleaning the food processor several times. Yuck.

K was going to post this picture with her entry to prove that the cake was actually homemade. But I guess I was in a chocolate coma by the time we finished it and couldn't get the pics uploaded last night.
The final version with swirls and chocolate curls looked like a sure winner to us.
Ahhh, but we didn't win. Perhaps it was just too decadent. Some people confided that they did not to vote for it because they believed it was bought from a bakery. And I guess some people are just not choco-holics if you can even believe that!!!

And the winner of the spa gift card was... I am not lying here... something that involved graham crackers, vanilla pudding and cool whip and cherry pie filling. But I heard it WAS really good.

I am linking up to:

Go check it out!

The Winning Colors Are....

2010-09-06T00:23:00.004-06:00

My Inspiration Rooms!

From Martha Stewart Living for Home Depot the winning colors are: Sultana, Rice Paper, Lagoon, Sunken Pool, Enamelware, and MAINE LOBSTER!

I picked up about an inch high stack or color chips last weekend, and I shuffled and reshuffled them and was going to go with a couple of soothing sand and sea colors. But I just kept feeling drawn back to the citron, turquoise and red combination.

We went back to Home Depot today and I just grabbed a handful of colors and there you go. These are definitely colors that will put me in a happy and creative mood and since the living room, office and craft room spaces are basically one big open 40'X18' room I can mix the colors from one area to the next and go from soft and soothing to bright and lively. I was a little worried that blue and beige might be too cool for a creative space, so I think citron and red will heat things up a bit and inspire me. Well, that is what I am hoping anyway.

We have 5 gallons of primer, rollers and tape and a new light fixture for the office area! Ready to get to work now!

Dreams of Downsizing and Simplifying

2010-08-26T22:54:00.010-06:00

Now that we are 3 families living under one roof I have been seriously contemplating my "space issues." I have always had space issues, and one of my symptoms is recurring "house dreams" in which I am living in a home where I find rooms that I didn't know were there, and I claim them to fill some need I have for more space. Oh yeah, and these rooms are usually furnished by the previous owner in some outdated but strangely appealing style, as if somehow I found a secret passageway and find myself in Mike and Carol Brady's ultramodern powder blue and sunshine yellow master suite. And I am so excited to move in to the space and make it my own.

So I have gone through many interpretations of my dreams and space issues and for a long time thought it had to do with people in my life and my need for personal space. But I am older and wiser now and have finally come to the conclusion that I am constantly overwhelmed by my material possessions and the need to maintain them. How silly is that? The simple solution is to just get rid of stuff I don't love and the things that don't serve any purpose in my life and create a space that will make me feel good. I have been blaming my lack of energy and creativity on the fact that I can't get motivated to organize my stuff. And I look around and see that there is plenty of space and I don't want to organize it because it just doesn't fit into my life or make me happy.

Step 1: I took some pictures of how I am living now. Things I love and things I hate.

I am not a "hoarder" really! This is how everything landed when big K moved in and we relocated my office downstairs. It has been 4 months and we haven't used anything in those boxes. Maybe they don't belong anywhere?

Who could work and feel inspired in such a dark ugly space?

These things have been in storage for 6 years.
Another storage room, some of this stuff is actually used, some should go bye bye!
I like my bedroom, everything in here makes me feel happy. I painted this room 5 years ago and still love the colors.
I like these two chairs. They can stay. the bookshelf is hideous and the wall decor is going.
The denim PB Charleston sofa, good. Red table, yes. Pay phone, yes. Rocker and Harley blanket... hmmm. I am going to make a white denim slipcover for the sofa, and find a matching chair to slipcover too eventually.
Coffee bar and troll dolls make me happy. I salvaged that enamel top farmhouse table sitting top down in the mud in my friend's back yard and painted it cobalt blue, then I saw an exact replica in cobalt blue in the LL Bean Home catalog a couple years later. It even had the same brushed nickel bin pull! $500.

I can never have too many flip flops, but maybe they don't all need to be right inside the doorway.
This shirt from Old Navy makes me happy. It is so soft and in my favorite color.
I can see my bird bath from my bedroom window in the morning when I wake up. We have Mountian Bluebirds and Nuthatches year round and hummingbirds in the summer that we care for, they make me happy.

This little table we built from recycled fence pickets makes me happy. I am planning to whitewash it and make another one to match.

Crank and Trixie bobble heads make me happy, the kids call them Grandpa and Grandma. Yes, they do look just like us, except for the cleavage maybe!? Art deco cigarette box and ashtrays are chartreuse so they must stay, and the martini picture is just kind of my style.

The beast, and my Baby Lock serger. Well maybe one day I will replace the beastie with that Viking Diamond, or maybe not.

Couldn't live without my cobalt blue Kitchen Aid.
My really huge blue clock. I have a thing for clocks even though I could care less what time it is.
My maid Flo, and Charles my butler, always ready to serve a plate of canapes or Christmas cookies, and their salaries are quite reasonable.
PB knockoff wine bar, minus the rodent. I hate the rodent thingy but she makes Anna happy so I tolerate this travesty for the time being.
My Fiestaware collection. I have stopped adding to it. All these colors inspire me. This is one thing my kids will fight over when I die. They have already told me so.

So my plan is to start with a blank slate, clear out the entire space and paint then move back in the things I want to keep and get rid of everything else. And after months of contemplation and feeling overwhelmed trying to decide what I need to do to make my life simpler, more organized and more conducive to creativity, I finally came up with this plan. Then tonight I ran across this blog post by {Simple Mom} and I had to laugh!

Stay tuned, I will be posting our progress throughout the weekend.

TOMORROW: We choose colors, finally!

Featured Artist - Marly

2010-08-19T00:56:00.006-06:00

I won't say that I have been unproductive these past few weeks. I actually have been busy with quilt kits and kids and lots of fun stuff. But I haven't got any new crafty stuff to show off, boo hoo. That's OK, 'cause I got people and they can pick up the slack here for me. So I decided to do a "featured artist of the week" to show you some of my favorite peeps and their awesome stuff.

First off is my sis 'n law, Marly. She is, of course, one of my favorite people in the world and oh so talented too! Marly has always done the most beautiful handwork, quilting and embroidery and punchneedle designs. I am a machine sewing kind of girl, so it always amazes me when someone has the patience for sitting and doing beautiful hand work.

A few years ago she started playing around with wool felt and designing these amazing primitive style ornaments, tags and seed packet holders. I love the way she puts the colors together and embellishes them with little buttons and embroidery.

She is a bit of a "CCL" and has a "few" feline friends sharing her work space at home. They keep her company and inspire her too. The kitten mitten ornies can hold a little bag of cat nip for your favorite kitty.

Love these little candle mats to decorate a side table or mantle.

Garden decor, perfect for hanging in the kitchen or on the garden shed above the potting bench. These are my favorite!

Holiday tags and ornies for the primitive/colonial home.

I love the snowmen even though I hate snow and cold weather!

Pet mitten ornies with treats for your favorite four legged friends.

Personalized wall hangings "Portraits" of your own fur babies are her newest art pieces.

I hope you enjoyed Marly's art. She doesn't have a store but sells locally. Reach her through my blog if you are interested in seeing more of her designs.

Recycled Fence Picket Beach Signs

2010-07-19T00:16:00.010-06:00

I kind of got this idea from another blog I saw at someone's linky party, but I can't for the life of me find it now to give her credit and add her link here. Anyway it was a cute little chipboard plaque that said "gone swimming" and was decorated with some pretty shells and I loved it and wanted to make one.
Oh here it is, she found me! Thanks Amanda!

K and I are "beach bums in exile" this summer since she moved back to Colorado. So we are making do with lake swimming and trying to make life as beachy as possible when you live in a desert. That means that every chance we can scrounge up $8 and a bowl of chicken salad and a loaf of bread and some fruit we pack a little cooler and a jug of our special "mommy juice" and head to the water.

Which is exactly what we planned to do one day last week when we were suddenly grounded when Destructo Boy was laid low with a nasty tummy virus.

Poor baby, this is how he looked the entire day.

I figured if we can't go to the beach that we should do the next best thing, crafting...

A trip to Michael's was not in the budget... We are living frugal this summer and trying to use what we have on hand. Being broke has it's upsides I have found. By that I mean that I have found it immensely satisfying to get creative and use something that otherwise I would have considered useless. More about that soon...

We live in the country so we can have this big mess over on the side of the garage that no one seems to care about. So we trekked over there in our flip flops through the weeds and yucca's and found this pile of 30 year old fence pickets from a fence we tore down, oh about 6 years ago, and Mr. Rainbow Creek had the good sense and foresight to throw them over there and save them. We did not meet any rattlesnakes on our journey, which was a good thing.

We have power tools and we know how to use them! This is a chop saw that just happened to be handy because K and Mr. Rainbow Creek were making some repairs on the stair rail. We used it for cutting the pickets into lengths for our signs.

Then we used some scraps of lattice that we dug out of the wood pile for strapping and stapled it on the back to hold the pickets together using my power staple gun.

We mixed up some whitewash, 1 bottle of craft paint to 1/2 bottle of water, in a coffee can and coated the signs. It took less than 5 minutes for them to soak up the paint and dry in the 100 degree heat.

I found a bag of seashells potpourri and some sand dollars that Nature Girl had collected at Crane's Beach last summer for me. We decorated the signs and then brushed glue around and sprinkled them with sand from the LP's sandbox. We made some for gifts for friends too, but I can't decide which one is my favorite.

Yeah, I think this one.

I linked this post to:
The Girl Creative, Just Something I Whipped Up Monday. Stop by and check all the creative ideas over there!

A Soft Place to Land, DIY Day-Outdoor Edition

Fireflies and Jellybeans Show Off Your Stuff Party