Penning Pinterest

August Pinterest Day.  We decided to decorate canvas shoes.  We found some fairly inexpensive white "fake Tom's" (about $10, including tax) on eBay.  eBay Fashion.  My sister's company and division.  Support them.  She needs it.  Ha!  Where was I?  Oh yeah....here.....

We gathered some sharpies....

...and did a few doodles.

Melissa wanted to do MacKenzie's shoes first.  She settled on a daisy theme and got to work.

She added pretty little yellow centers and they turned out GREAT!  Just the perfect thing for an up and coming college freshman to wear.

I hemmed and hawed.  Couldn't decide exactly what to do, but finally just dove in.  Paris, it is....I penned the words to La Vie En Rose, added butterflies, La Tour Eiffel, and a postmark.  I likey, I likey...

Melissa couldn't decide.  She ended up experimenting and didn't really like hers. :(  We think maybe the bird ate too much breakfast.

You can't win 'em all.  At least she came out with one winner pair.  But we always have fun and we always have lunch!  We were headed to the Dog Haus area (with our Pinterest sister, KENNY), gonna try out the grilled cheese place, or maybe the Mediterranean spot.  They all share the same little patio.  Melissa had a slight meltdown and said, "I can't do it.  It's too hot!"  So we ended up at Chili's, sharing queso and chips and keeping cool in the A/C.

For the next two months we are working on our own individual Christmas stuff, so I may or may not post them.  Don't want to spoil the surprises!

P.S.  If you use Sharpies on canvas, don't use Scotch-Guard.  It has alcohol in it and it makes the colors smear.  My cute shoes now look like Paris on a dark, dull, rainy day.  Live and learn...

Orchid!

I have received many orchid plants in my life.  I have succeeded in keeping them alive for awhile, but then all the flowers would eventually drop off and that would be it.  I'd keep this "stem" sitting there for awhile, but nothing would happen and I'd end up throwing it away.

I got a beautiful little orchid plant from my son-in-law's mother, Tess, for Mother's Day this year.  It came in a beautiful little cement looking planter, with some sort of African Violet (I think???) in the planter, as well. The orchid had 4 or 5 blooms.  I put it in the window above my sink and would spritz it with water every now and then.  One by one, the blooms fell off.   The violet blossom also fell off.  This time I didn't give up.  I continued to spritz, spraying the leaves of both plants.  The root of the orchid, which lays on top of the pot, looked a little shriveled, but maybe it would be ok.

Jack and I went to Ohio for a week for his reunion.  When i came back, THIS is what I saw!

Both the little violet and the orchid had buds!  The orchid root was healthy and green.  Just like it is supposed to be.  Hooray!  So I kept on spritzing....and then one morning I saw.....

Blooms on both, and little green nodes on the orchid that will, hopefully, turn into blooms.  So glad I didn't quit this time.

Ten-Minute Aprons. Ha!

Pinterest Day again, last Saturday.  Melissa and I had shopped for some cute dishtowels for the last month or so, to do this project.  Dish Towel Aprons.  The original poster called them Ten Minute Dish Towel Aprons.  We challenge!  We each made four, and it took at LEAST 30 minutes each.  I brought my sewing machine with me so we could both sew as quickly as possible.  We brought our dishtowels and headed off to Jo-Ann Fabrics to get some ribbons and trims.  That took more time than we thought, because they didn't have the best selection of "by-the-yard."  It also didn't come cheaply.  I chose the entirely wrong ribbon for mine.  See that big spool of wide satin ribbon I got?  I didn't like it after I'd bought it.  It was too slippery to work with, and it puckered and pulled.  It was sort of pricey, but I had a 40% off coupon (LUCKILY!) Don't get that kind.  No matter what you see in the original blog post.

Here are some of the trims we bought, as well as some notions.  That green grosgrain ribbon Melissa bought was PERFECT for this project.

We followed the instructions in the Pinterest post, but made a few customizations of our own, and here are the finished aprons.  Some we used just one towel and some trim and some we mixed and matched, adding pockets from different towels.  Don't you just love the orange pom-pom fringe???  Also, we oriented our dishtowels the WIDE way rather than what appears to be the LONG way.  The girl who made the originals apparently used dishtowels a little bit bigger than ours, OR her mannequin is anorexic.

We LOVE 'em!  I think July Pinterest day was a SUCCESS!!!!  All I have left to do is iron and wrap them up as gifts.  Melissa made two for her daughter and her neighbor to take to college with them.  The others she plans to to pair with a cookbook and give as bridal shower gifts.

Oh, and we had a great lunch at a place called the Dog Haus, in Pasadena.  Hot dogs served on grilled Hawaiian rolls, tater tots and homemade cookie ice cream sandwiches. MMMMmmmmm....  What will we eat...I mean, CREATE...next month?

Days of Pinterest Past

Melissa and I had our latest Pinterest Day and she asked me why I hadn't blogged our projects for awhile.  Well....I don't know!  I haven't taken pictures of all of them.  Sadly...I can't even remember all of them.  I guess that's why I need to blog them.  Since last posting, we've done a lot.  We generally have some failures and some successes.  Here are a few:

• We met to work on our Christmas projects.  I tried to do a crocheted scarf and paper pinwheels.  Fail.  I can't remember what Melissa worked on.  Emily joined us and did some embroidery.
• We made some fudge and some orange creamsicle truffles.  YUMMMMMMMMM.  Success!  The hard part was not eating it before we gave them to friends.

Melissa does tax work and is unavailable to me until April 15th.  So I had to do Pinterest alone.  I had some leftover candy melts from Christmas.  First, I melted three different flavors of candy melts from Michaels and grabbed a sleeve of Ritz crackers.

Then, I dropped "blobs" of the melts on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and put a cracker on each blob.

Once those dried, I peeled them off and this is what they looked like...

Next, I laid the crackers out and put a small scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of  half of them.

Then, I put the lid on, and they were ready to eat!  I wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer, where they did not stay for very long!  Quite tasty.  I highly recommend this project.

By the end of April, with Melissa BEGGING for a Pinterest Day--free at last!--we did beading...

Don't you just love beads?  They look so pretty in their boxes....

Here's what we made:

In May, I made a maxi skirt and Mel worked on a pillow.  No photos, please.  My large booty wouldn't have it.

In June, we did watercolors.  For the first time ever.  We had FUN. I'd had a box of watercolor paper greeting cards for a long time.  Years.  It was time to bring them out.

We used fairly cheap watercolors and brushes...

But, watch out!  If you use the cheap brushes, you must be sure to have a pair of tweezers with you to remove the stray hairs that end up in your masterpiece.

Here are some of our creations.

July's Pinterest Day will be aprons made out of dishcloths.  I'll be sure to take pictures!

It's About Time

Last September 14th, in remembrance of the one-year anniversary of Jackson moving on to the other side of the veil, we held a Garden Dedication.  I suppose it is time for me to finally post the outcome of our hard work!  We call it Jackson's Garden.  At the event, the yard was still pretty bare, all dirt, but we had a great gathering of our friends and loved ones.  When we began working in the Spring of 2013, it was a mess.  If you don't believe me, click here.  We worked hard all summer.  This time last year, we were still plugging away, clearing away grapevine, digging, laying down weed barriers and using every possible ounce of our strength and time to finish by September 14th.  This is what it looked like that day, with everyone having a good time. 

You can scroll down for earlier blog posts about fighting with the yard and see that the back corner, which used to be a grapevine, is now a nice fire pit area.  We planted a vegetable garden in planter boxes my dad built.  

Who would have thought that our little "jungle" could become a place where we could enjoy our family and friends?  Jackson did!  I never go outside without thinking about how happy he'd be here.  At the dedication ceremony, I read a little quote from Brigham Young:  "Build cities, adorn your habitations, make gardens, orchards, and vineyards, and render the earth so pleasant that when you look upon your labors you may do so with pleasure, and that angels may delight to come and visit your beautiful locations."   

My cousin Donald made a sign for the garden.

Around him, you can see some of the plants that people brought.  We are doing our best to take care of them!  We have become much more of an outdoor family, and this is in direct relationship to Jackson's desire to create a space where we could do just that.  

Friends not only brought plants, but other things for the yard....

My friend, Melissa, created a backdrop of streamers and took pictures of many of our guests.  We were especially pleased that some of Jackson's friends could be there.  Here are just a few:

Pat, Michelle and Sara

Sara, Ina, Betty, Suzan and Emily

Richard and Amy Bernard

Tom and Kathy LaBerteaux

Jakob and Lacey Bredsguard and Crew

Libby, Suzan, Nickie, Melissa and Linda

Luis and Karina Corona

Rachelle, Ben and Vanya

Elijah, Tess and Free

Jack and Suzan

I wish I could put everyone in!  It was a happy, sad, emotional, support-filled evening.  I don't know if we'll ever do anything like this again.  It was the right thing to do that day--surrounding ourselves with loved ones so we didn't have to face it alone.  

I am planning to take some pictures as the garden looks today.  I will post them soon.