Everything About Me

This is EVERYTHING about me. Or at least it's everything you may need to know about me? Okay so I can't tell you everything in one post because it would just take to long. How about the highlights of everything? You would probably be happier NOT knowing everything about me anyway. Need to have some mystery about me still... right?


I am joining up with the Ultimate Blog Hop to introduce Everything about ME and have a bit of a party on the side! I love a good party and 5 Minutes for Mom’s annual Ultimate Blog Party never lets me down in the fun department. As a matter of fact, if you are reading this post during the week of April 5-12, YOU still have time to join the fun too! There will be twitter parties, prizes and more!

Now for those visiting me for the first time a bit of everything about me... I feel so vain with posts like this! And that thought leads me to wanting to watch How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. Hmmm...

My name is Mom to most of who I know. That tells you right there that I don’t know many people. Heehee! I guess I should say the name I hear most is ‘Mom’. Usually it is more like, “Mooaaahhhm! I can’t find this… I’m hungry… <insert name here> is LOOKING at me… <insert another name here> isn’t doing <insert task here>” Ae you familiar with any of that? Yah… so my name is Mom.Very few people call me Dee. I love my family and wouldn’t have it any other way!

I started this blog back when we were building our home. It was basically a place where I could journal about the madness that is building and moving. Now my blog is an addiction. That's right... I am addicted to blogging. Are you addicted to blogging? It is SO relaxing to me. Blogging with a deadline stresses me out... but that is why my blog has no deadlines. Usually... Sometimes a bit of recreational stress can be good for a person. Right? (Just nod and smile here... humor me...)

Let's see... more about me. I am a bit crazy about gardening. I started my plants late (by my standards) inside this year but they are doing AWESOME! I already have some true leaves on my baby tomatoes and there are gobs of them growing. I hate the thinning part of the growing season. What if I pick the wrong little plant to chop off? Ugh! I agonize over which plant to cut down.

I am still a homeschooling mom. I am actually AT a homeschool conference right now! I have been planning like crazy for this trip and am still a bit overwhelmed. Incredibly excited to be going to a conference would be an understatement. This conference is enormous too! I may need a GPS for the exhibit hall. So much great information and I will get to SEE bits and pieces of the curriculum I am picking out for next year. Feels weird to be thinking of "next year" already. I just got adjusted to working with THIS year. Next year should be further away than it is...

Half baked hobbies used to be my specialty but now I try to make time to get something done. I love sewing! I never used to. A sewing bug must have bit me at some point in time and now I am hooked. Sometimes I am resizing costumes for a little production one of my kids is a part of or resizing a tshirt! I also sell some cute little things in my Etsy Shop. My favorite thing to work on would be my upcycled aprons I make. Love them! I've made a few of those now. Have some more to make yet too!

So... There is more about me but this little bit of EVERYTHING about me but this is just a sneak peek. I don't want to scare everyone off too quickly with everything, ya know?

If you are part of the Ultimate Blog Hop be sure to leave me a quick comment below!

I'd be happy to hop on by and learn a bit of
EVERYTHING about you too!

Take care and thanks for stopping by!
Dee

Find all my April Blogging from A to Z Challenge Posts Here

This is Letter E for my #atozchallenge
If you want to see more of the A to Z Blog Hop Challenge, click here!

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What Happened

Last week has been nuts. The weeks to come look to be even crazier. My Husband's job has adjusted and may be changing more soon too. We don't know yet. I think the not knowing is worse than just starting to get used to the changes. This will be huge changes though. I'm not happy about it all. Again though... nothing I can do about it but suck it up and adjust.

I had a post all thought out about this last night. I did not make notes of anything though so now I don't remember any of it. Thinking it through to get ready for a post helped me to feel better about everything though. Is your blog a form of venting and processing information for you? It is for me. I feel like writing helps me to look over all the angles and work through a situation before I explode from emotion on it all. Really trying to work on the emotional explosions around here. I don't need to add to the drama of everything going on.

We have not seen the changes yet. It's all speculation. We are awaiting to hear from the powers that be to tell us what they decide. When will they do that? I don't know. I have started adjusting our budget and schedule to fit what could happen. The budget adjustment was pretty cool though because when I adjusted it I included the older two kids in looking it over. They now have a pretty good handle on how to setup a budget! I created worksheets for them to work on and we did them together. I am very proud of them for working with me and the insights they picked up along the way were very neat. They really do grow up too quickly! I am considering posting my "budget class" on my blog here and see if others might benefit from it too.

I'm very worried about a few illness in the family right now too. My Mom is sick and it seems like all the Doc's are doing is grabbing at straws. My second child has been mostly confirmed with an illness called Inflammatory Bowel Disease (more on that later) and we are treating it with medication as well as making huge diet changes to help out but sometimes nothing seems to help. My third child currently has a cold... or something... it doesn't seem to be a cold. I am thinking maybe allergies. I'm worried it may asthma. I will have to figure that out soon. I'm waiting a few more days because if it is a cold it should be wrapping up soon. And by waiting I feel that I may be messing up.

I have started up my home businesses again. I wasn't going to but we could use the extra money for some things. I have a few businesses to work with up my sleeve. I am a web designer, a direct sales consultant and I have a little Etsy shop. I love them all but they all take a chunk of my time so that leaves my blog out. I have two web designing jobs right now, 3 parties scheduled for next month and have stolen any moments I can in our den with my glue gun and sewing machine. I should have another cute apron and several new hair clips to post in my shop soon! I love hair clips and fun frilly things.

So what happened to me? I fell off the side of earth. All though we have studied a lot of Columbus recently and the earth is round! (gasp) So how am I falling off the side? I don't know. I feel like I am sliding fast though and nothing can stop me. I am praying.

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Skort to Skirt Tutorial

This was one of my very first little sewing projects I tackled. Learned a TON from it! So glad that I have found sewing. It is really fun! I think the reason I like it so much is because I actually FINISH something. You know that I mean? I am a mom of 4, homeschooling, keeping up with the house, throw in a few critters and a busy Husband. Nothing I do ever gets finished. Except now I can say I finish things a LOT because of sewing. Woowho!

First off, this is a photo HEAVY post. First tutorial… I took pictures of everything and I only used half of them here! Ha! Secondly, all pictures were taken in a hurry with my phone. Some of them don’t look so well. Sorry!

Materials:
1 too short skort
1 old nightgown, dress
or approx 1yd of 60in fabric

PLUS:
thread
sewing machine
pins
bandaids <- - yes… get them

And the desire to have an adventure with your sewing skills is always a bonus.

Now to get to work!
Grab a snack while you contemplate your plan of attack.

Wait… no… you have a plan here.
Cut out the inside shorts of those skorts.

Be careful of the inside pockets!!!
Oh and my fingers look grotesquely bent in this photo. Weird…
At any rate, cut carefully along the inside pocket with scissors.

Now figure out what length you want to cut down your skorts. I wanted the back pockets intact. Originally I thought making the front shorter than the back would be cool, but I couldn’t figure out the logistics of the nightgown so I just went for straight across. Hehe…

Ta Da! Now you have some really, REALLY short skorts.
I used my handy-dandy-sewing-ruler-thingie (that’s the technical term) for cutting as close to a straight line as I could. You might want to use a fabric marker to make a line though. Might work better.

It’s the nightgowns turn on the chopping block. I didn’t want the strip of buttons down the front so I just cut straight across from that point.

This next photo shows how much wider the nightgown is from the skorts.
(Ahem... maternity night gown. Thank you.)
Time to pull out the iron and set up your hem! I made my hem about 1/2in because I wanted to make a ruffle. Use pins to hold it after you iron and be sure to have that box of bandaids handy now.
(You think I’m joking don’t you? Get the bandaids!)

Now, at this point I had a bleeding finger. (Thank you bandaids for protecting my white patterned fabric!) I wanted a little ruffle where the skort meets the nightgown, so sew your longest regular stitch at the bottom of your oversized hem that you just made.
(If this doesn’t make sense, just keep reading… you’ll see it. I hope!)

Not sure how to gather an item?
Check out this pinterest pin for detailed directions.

Here’s three steps in one photo. Are you ready? After you’ve done your gathering stitch pull on the bobbin thread (bottom thread) to gather the skirt together (A). Be sure to check the width of the gathering to the skort (B). And than tie off the gathering thread with a few knots to keep your gathers from skoo-tching (yes, another technical term) around on you while sewing (C).

A somewhat tricky part. Remember how I wanted the cute ruffle (from above) peeking over the skort? Well, this idea breaks all logic (for me) of attaching a gathered item to a non-gathered item. So… here goes…

Line up your skort and nightgown hem. Both items should be wrong side out. Put the nightgown under the skort and pin. (In retrospect I think both of the items right side out with the nightgown on top would have made for easier sewing… live and learn. You should try it that way though. You can see the gathering stitch line better and cover it with the attaching stitch.)

Here I zipped away attaching them together, sticking myself with more pins and I did an overlap stitch at the bottom of my skort, but forgot a picture. It really isn’t necessary.

Oh and I also attempted to break my machine by letting a pin sneak past me. Don’t let them do that…. grrrrr…

And there you have it! (Notice, no bandaids on the fingers? It’s because I took this picture a few days later. Hehe… I did get to finish the project in one day though! Without interruptions I think this should take less than 45 min. Maybe… should… let me know! Hehe…)

PS- Yes, I made the upcycled tshirt in the photo too. That was my FIRST ever sewing project. Love it… but never wear it because it says “I Wanna Ride” all over the back of it. Hehehe… Whoops! It’s one of my Hubby’s unwanted motorcycle tshirts.

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Grand Opening

It's been open for awhile but I only had it open to test it all out. Now is the big day for my Etsy Shop and the day my personal life and online blog life come colliding together. (Breathing Deep) I'm very nervous about this, not because my online life is some super big secret or anything, but just because they've never mixed before.

I have prayed about it and thought about and thought some more and came to realize that this is a horrible, long sentence lacking in proper grammar I don't talk about anything on my blog that I don't talk about in real life it's just different. Not a bad different either. My blog is my journal for me and a place to be creative. A lot of people in my personal life may not know some of the things about me on my blog. It'll be interesting to see what they say or do knowing this stuff. Hehehe... I assure you all, I'm still crazy.

At any rate, on with the Grand Opening!!! I am so excited about my Etsy shop! It's doing well (for little 'ol me) and I love having the creative outlet. I don't have to only make for who I know, I can just MAKE! And trust me, I have plenty more ideas of things to make! Some of them are on the chopping block now but are in limbo because I am learning new things with everything I make and I need more time to make all I want to.

So check out my little piece of e-commerce world (look over there ---> and you will see some items in my shop) and let me know what you think. I even have a coupon code (If you do know me, you know I love coupons!!) that's available until 8/20/12 to get 20% off your order too! Use the code GRANDOPENING85 during checkout to receive that discount.

Take care!

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My Pinning Madness

 

I have been a crazy person with Pinterest lately. Even more so than I usually do. Of course, isn’t it true that if you start pinning that you just can’t stop and that technically just makes us all crazy pinners?! Oh I dunno…

At any rate, I am learning a new craft. SEWING! Pinterest is totally awesome for learning a new craft. You can store all those wonderful bookmarks with IMAGES to drool over all you want. Now… how does one restrict themselves in pinning so as to not overwhelm yourself with projects? Anyone? If you find an answer for me, let me know. M’k? Thanks so much!

On to some of my favorite pins:
(Not for the week… just all time because I’ve never done this before so I have lots to share! Hehe…)

Tshirt remakes are all my rage right now! Have you ever done over a tshirt before? My recent redo was AWESOME but I have not been able to cover the wording on the back so I won’t wear it in public. HAHAHAHA! Ah well… was totally fun!

Me want! Isn’t this AWESOME! I love journals but often cannot afford the more expensive, adorable, covered ones. This will be my solution! I hope… Have you ever made one?

I have officially learned the art of the gather! It’s not that hard at all either. It’s opened my sewing doors to sew so much more too!

Now onto a different board. You can see all my Learning to Sew pins here. I’ll warn ya, I’m not a pattern following type person so very few of my pins will have an actual pattern. Hehe…

How about a Must Remember:

I have not tried this yet but I need more wax paper first. I will <3 it all over the place if it works. Have you tried it?

And two recipes…. oh many, many, many…

Chicken Tostado Upside Down Bake from Picky Palate.

Truthfully, you just can’t go wrong with much of anything on Picky Palate!

Homemade goldfish crackers. Do you have another recipe of these?! We are LOVING them! I didn’t make my own goldfish cracker cookie cutter like she did and I have adjusted the recipe a smidge now but…. WOW! These are delicious! We use our pizza cutter and just make squares. Make these as FLAT as you can because they puff up and bake a bit longer than you’d expect for extra crispiness. Yummmmm!

And I’m off… PHEW! Only one pin here that I have not accomplished yet. I guess before I pin more on my boards I should work on a few more first, eh? Hehehe… Ah well!

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