A surprise for Doug!!

I feel confident posting this because he NEVER reads my blog....so the shirt will still be a surprise when he gets home on Wednesday.


this is Kwik Sew 3422. I *just* got this  pattern from Fabric.com when they had the Kwik Sew patterns as their Daily Deal.  I used shell buttons on the front. From pattern tracing to finish, photography and posting in the SAME DAY! This is a great pattern and goes together VERY easily.

the front pocket!! I love this pocket! I got another shirt pattern for Doug from Burda that has the most horridly boring pocket, and I think I'll use this one on that shirt, too.

Lots of top-stitching. Terah returned my blind hem (aka: top-stitching) foot today!

The back yoke and back of collar, also top-stitched.

A close-up of the fabric. This is a linen blend I got for $2.50/yd from Jo-Ann's clearance rack. It's SO pretty: a nice light ivory.

Thanks for looking! I've got a super-duper vintage pattern post coming up soon!

William's school clothes

William's preschool requires uniforms for his age group next year, so I'm on a misson! I know you can get uniform components pretty cheaply, but those aren't that special. And, on a skinny kid, they're usually ill-fitting. I hate clothing that doesn't fit!

I've know since early spring that I'd be making uniforms so I've kept my eyes open for fabrics to use that were a good price. I got some white poplin for button-ups at one of Golden D'or's big coupon sales for $1/yd, and I got some khaki twill on Fabric.com for $2/yd. I had some white interlock and ribbing for polos already.

Here's the completed outfit, with the polo. I hadn't made a polo before, so I did that first.

My recent Family Dollar store bargains! PJs and Swiffer Wet Cloths, and MORE!

I have been finding really good bargains at Family Dollar lately. What helps me find these bargains is that the boys are a bit more manageable at stores now. Thank goodness!!!

For those of you who use my Super Stain Soak, I have found this color-safe bleach, a small box for $1.
I have not tried this particular color-safe bleach, but you know how I feel about my off-brands and generics!!

We use cloth diapers around here, and Terah uses them on Audrey. Most of the diapers we use are homemade, and some are pocket diapers. Pocket diapers have fabric inside and out, with an opening to put a soaker insert. The benefit to these is fast drying times. You can use microfiber, hemp, cotton, prefold diapers, terry cloth, ....any absorbent material works well in the soakers. For a TRIM diaper, microfiber is great. However, it can be expensive. Since I make most of the diapers we use, I don't really want to buy premade inserts. I have found that using microfiber towels is the way to go. You just fold them in thirds, put them in the diaper, and VIOLA! you can use one, two or three towels folded together depending on your needs. And because these are folded up to get their thickness rather than sewn together, they're easy to get clean and fast to dry.

These are what I have as diaper inserts: the $5 for 12 microfiber towels from family dollar. These can be of unusual sizes or maybe "seconds"  because of stitching, but who cares? they'll just get pooped on!

If you want to get really fancy, you can get the $5/5 towels. Pretty colors!

Last year I discovered that Family Dollar had boys cotton pjs in cute-ish prints for between $4-6, depending on sizes. I bought three pair for William last year, because they were cheaper to buy than to make. This year Aldous will be wearing those, and I picked up these for William. I had to go to two stores, but I did it on different weeks, so I wasn't just running from store to store.

these have guitars and dinosaurs

And these, from my second trip, have race cars.

My Swiffer wet-cloth experiment.

I bought a new improved Swiffer a couple of months ago, and it came with a package of the wet cloths. I really liked these for quick cleanups of sticky spots left behind by Aldous. When I ran out of the package of Swiffer brand, I picked up some of the Family Dollar brand, a package of 12ct for $3. I bought another Swiffer the other day, just for upstairs use (I'm hooked!!) and it came with ONE sample wet cloth, that I used for comparison pics. It was all alone in it's package so it was a little more wet than ones I had tried before in a larger package.

Swiffer brand. has a green scrubby part that I've found totally useless. it doesn't scrub up anything. Barely quilted, and kind of thin.

 Family Dollar brand. Much thicker, and that extensive quilting on the pad part really works better than the scrubby part on the Swiffer brand. I am a happy Family Dollar shopper. Again, these are $3 for 12.

some other recent family dollar purchases:

2pk of 48oz Magic Power (generic Mr. Clean) cleaning solution, for mopping, $3 (a TWO PACK!!!)
lavender baby shampoo/wash 15oz, $1.50
pro-vitamin shampoo and conditioner, 13.5oz, $1.75
16oz witch hazel , $1.75
Original Pepsodent 6oz (I LOVE this toothpaste!!) $1
Cinnamon Graham crackers, $1.30 (they're $1.25 at Aldi)


Happy shopping!!

Independence Day, and Another Race

Finally, some July 4th pics! I wish they were better, but I'm stuck using my phone for now until I get a new camera. Ug!!

Audrey! She's the only one who would cooperate with our attempts to get kid pictures.

Audrey and Aldous. Aldous and William still fit in their outfits from next year, but Audrey needed a new one. It's roomy enough for next year, tho.

What a disaster it is to photograph them!

Cutie-patooty!

Cary, Zachary, Brittany, and John (Mike's Dad)

Evelyn (in red and white) and friend of Terah's and Mike's

A crowd in the kitchen. This is where all the good food was! YUM!! Mike's dad made sausage and chicken, Mike grilled hamburgers, corn, and asparagus, and Terah made french fries, mac & cheese, cole slaw, and cheese cake. I brought a couple of desserts, and Evelyn brought banana pudding!

Dessert time (and dj hero time) Doug and Zachary, with Aldous helping.

William and Aldous

Terah and I.

On the 5th, we went to Fair Park for the big fireworks display. We took the train with both boys in ergos because we knew the train would be too crowded for a stroller. It was pretty crowded, standing room only!

I really think Fair Park is so beautiful and I can't wait for the State Fair: it's right around the corner!!

Today was my second race, after 7 weeks of running. I ran the Too Hot to Handle 5K at Norbuck Park at White Rock Lake. I ran about 1.5minutes faster, in a much harder race than my first one. Also, it seemed kind of chaotic, and the race started 20 minutes later than scheduled.

The shirt I'm wearing is the one they gave out! We also got these cool hats, the white ones people behind me are wearing. I'm not a hat person, but the boys have been enjoying it. I'm excited about this new shirt tho. I'm also wearing shorts! A first!!

This race was REALLY crowded and had a lot of walkers. I figured out that while I'm slow as runner, I'm not so slow that I need to be anywhere near those walkers!! I started way too far from the front and was totally stuck behind a lot of walkers who were walking two and three-abreast, making it difficult to pass. Many times I was really in my stride and had to slow nearly to a walk to get around them. Saying excuse me wasn't always helpful, as a lot of people use headphones. ARG!! It was a bit frustrating!

Another thing about this race is that about a half mile into the course there is a VERY STEEP hill. Almost everyone had to slow to a walk, it was so steep!! I ran up the whole thing, but was wiped out at the top and had to walk briefly. There were a lot of hills, but that was the worst. Crossing the lake was great, though. The breeze was so nice!! In fact, although it was hot, there was a breeze most of the time so I didn't think the heat was that bad. I overheard a lot of people saying that they got chills from the lake breeze, but I really found it refreshing.

My CardioTrainer program was off (distance) so while it was keeping accurate count of the time that had passed, I had no idea how far I'd go, so I had a trouble pacing myself. I had forgotten my shrek Donkey watch (which is my usual fall back). Since it was so hilly, and I had no trouble with the heat, I made a huge effort to run down hill, even if I had been walking a bit.

On the way back, most of the walkers were out of the way, so I returned to my 100 yard sprint program I like to do. The sprints feel SO good to me. I struggle with "jogging" and it really makes my legs feel tight and bound up....running feels so great, and getting my legs stretched out during a sprint is like how it feels in yoga. MUCH better! I managed to get in a bunch of really good sprints on the way back, and was able to finish strong on the last 2/10 of a mile, passing several people to the finish line.

Doug got this picture of me on his phone. the finish line is right in front of me. NEITHER of my feet are on the ground here. I like to finish in a strong sprint, so I'm running hard here. I was SOOOOOO pukey feeling right after, I thought I was going to throw up on Doug. I held it together, tho and was fine in a minute.

 After a half hour or so, there were chip times posted outside for us to check but my name/bib # weren't there, so I had no idea how I did. I knew my clock time was 40 or 41 but I had started toward the back, so I knew that was off by a few minutes. I hung around for a while, letting the boys play on the playground and I got a massage. We headed home, and waited for the scores to be posted. When they FINALLY posted them I STILL wasn't on there, and they had the 15K Athena scores posted on the 5K link. ARG!! I emailed them and they fixed it. I placed 24th out of 75 in my division, with a time of 38:17. Not too bad! I'm pleased that my time showed improvement, especially since this race was so much harder than the last one.

The 2010 Run, Walk, Roll benefitting United Cerebral Palsy of North Texas

This is my next race, in my neighborhood! It's on Katy trail, where I run every week, so I feel I might have some success here. Home turf advantage, if you will. ha ha! We'll see. I'm pretty excited about it and need to get registered.

A trip to Commerce, and the "new" William

Last Friday, I made a trip to Commerce to visit our stuff in the storage building. Doug had remembered the code incorrectly, so mostly it was just a fun trip.  We started it off by meeting my friend Bree for lunch at Molina's. She had a meeting that morning at the university, and we were rolling into town right as she finished. The boys were both marvelously behaved, and we ate some yummy food, and had a great time.

From there we went to the storage building, but I couldn't get in, and Doug tried, in vain, to get in touch with the manager. We headed to the local park to play while we waited to see if he could be "reminded" of the code. This park is two blocks from where we lived, and it has the city pool where Amanda was life guard for a couple of years.


This thing is so old! Nice, fast metal slide. Sadly, tho, it was too hot to use when we were there in the middle of the day.

It's a Two-Post Day! My Pall Mall Cigarettes Soft Sculpture.

I was looking at some old pics today of a soft sculpture I did for a competition (online). I didn't win: i only got about 11% of the votes, and a lot of comments about not liking smoking? It wasn't an art contest, but a craft contest, so I get it wasn't exactly the right audience, and I'm cool with that. The winner was a project that was a copied idea: versions of the winner had been posted all of that board, and it wasn't an original idea. So, again, wrong audience for this. Nonetheless, this is one of the cooler things I've made that go along with a series of paintings I've been (not) working on for about 5 years.

Some models and examples. I had these because, again, I need them for a series of paintings I'm doing.

The pieces of felt for the ashtray. I used acrylic felt from wal-mart for this.

For the sides of the cigarette box, I enlarged, by hand, the front label of the original box. This is easy for me, but I suppose you could scan and reprint it. I didn't have a scanner, and I frequently and easily enlarge by hand all the time.

The foil top is constructed from silver vinyl scraps I had on hand. Everyone has random pieces of silver vinyl, right?

This shows  the seal well. I was so excited that wal-mart had felt EXACTLY the same color as the original seal!

Here is the finished product with the originals, to show the size. I really like how this turned out, and I love looking at these pics again!

Thanks for taking a walk down memory lane with me!

Sewing for Others, and My Favorite Aldi Purchases

I've been doing a lot of sewing for other people lately, and really it's exhausting and stressful, plus I don't have enough time to do my own family's sewing and stuff for gifts. I think I would rather spend my time making my family's things, and gifts. I feel like I'm constantly in a frantic mode trying to get stuff done for other people, and that, really, takes a lot of the fun out of sewing. On top of that, I really don't like making the same stuff over and over. If I have some extra sewing time, I may do some more longies, for my Etsy Store, but really, I don't want to. My sewing time has greatly reduced now that I have two toddlers, and I want to spend that time on my OWN things. Enough complaining.



I LOVE my Aldi!! I shop at the one on Haskell & Gaston (4120 Gaston), and it's awesome! I typically go on Tuesday after William's speech therapy, because it's just down the street.


There are some things I get nearly every week, so I thought I'd share the prices of those. I have bought other stuff, but I didn't save the receipts for those, and can't share the prices. I'll do that next time I buy it!

gallon milk, $1.49 (last week was 1.69)..I have paid as little as $1.29
dozen large eggs, $.69 (last week, .89) I've paid as little as .49
solid white albacore tuna, $.99
probiotic yogurt (sorta redundant title...that's what the receipt says) 4pk $1.69  these are like YoPlus and they have strawberry, peach and vanilla flavors.
1lb of salted butter, $1.79
Disposable diapers, size 4, 34 ct. $5.79 (I have seen 31ct sz 4 for $6 at other stores)
Cinnamon Graham crackers $1.25 (these may be cheaper somewhere else, I'm hoping others will chime in with their prices)
Chewy Granola bars (these are the small skinny ones, like Quaker Chewy, etc) $1.69 for 10
Premium bacon $2.69/lb (they have a cheaper one, $1.69ish, but I like this thicker one)
5" deep dish pizza, 6ct (frozen, cheese) $4.99 yes, I'm aware of what a ridiculous purchase this is.
Fiber Now Granola bars (like fiber one, comes in caramel, chocolate chip, and peanut better) $1.89
12 Grain Bread, $1.69 (they aslo have 100% whole wheat for about $.50, but I need this one)
Tubs of lunch meat (ham, turkey, beef, chicken all various flavors) $2.49
Lacura eye cream, $3.49...I love this stuff and I'm on my second tube. So far, all of the Lacura products I've tried are awesome.
12 pk Diet GT soda, $1.99
Disinfectant wipes (like Clorox, the small dispenser) $1.39
Chocolate Spread (Nutella) $1.99
I also usually buy bananas, berries, and apples, but the prices very widely, and I don't buy bananas if I'm going to Newflower that same day because theirs are better.

Aldi, if you haven't been, is a small store that carries mostly it's own label of foods. I haven't' tried anything that isn't good quality! The do carry a small amount of name brand products, but I can't think of any of them now. You need a quarter to borrow a cart, but you get it back when you return the cart. AND it's best to bring your own bags, as you bag everything yourself.

Have fun!

Brownies, Bacon-Cheese Cornbread and Birthdays

This summer, my nephews, Alexander and Zachary, have been helping keep my little guys entertained so my brain won't seize up. Kind of them, really. So in return, we do fun things together, and I feed them. This week I fed them pinto beans, bacon/cheese cornbread, potato pancakes, and brownies.

Family Dollar Day, and some recent sewing!

A lot of my friends are into shopping at the Dollar Tree, but it's not very close to me, so I only go there occasionally. However, Family Dollar is right on the way between Aldi and Newflower, so it's perfectly convenient. There may be another Dollar Tree closer, but I'm still a stranger in these parts.

These are nothing spectacular, but it's what I got today. A couple of 8-packs of ice-pop molds for $1 each. I have a recipe for yogurt pops that I'm going to try in these. It's a rather lame recipe actually, as it's my kid yogurt recipe.

These I'm sort of excited about. I have an air freshener that requires these little scented oil dispensers. The name brand (and much smaller) ones at wal-mart are about $5. The same size Aldi brand ones are $2. These are also $2 but are twice the size! There aren't as many scents to choose from, so if you have to have double-dipped chocolate sunrise linen breeze, you're stuck paying $5 for the name brand at wal-mart. But if you like lavender, Hawaiian blossom, or cinnamon, you're all set!

***update...they look bigger but have the same volume, making them same price as the Aldi one. So, now it's down to quality.***

 Family Dollar is already cheap, that's been established. Last week I bought the boys some sets of toy tools for $2 each, on clearance! This week I picked up some play foam with accessories. Perfect to reserve for those "oh my gosh these kids are driving me freaking nuts" days. Also $2 and we got the Crazy Face and Animals sets.

 

Their brand of disposable training pants. William has to have these for nap time at school, and for the nursery at the gym. These are $8, and have Dragon Tales characters on them. I couldn't care less about the characters, but the price is good. They WERE $6 for a while, but now they're $8.

 

 My spiel about the disposable diaper racket: They all work the same. Over the last few months I have done a ton of traveling and just picked up the cheapest disposable diapers where ever I could find them. Most of the time the were store brand/generic, and sometimes name brands like Huggies, Luvs or Pampers. I've also used the premium "green" brands like Seventh Generation and Tushies. All of the diapers were identical in performance. I won't use the Seventh Generation diapers because both boys are allergic to the elastic, but as far as containing poop or pee, they all worked exactly the same way. I had no more leaks or disgusting messy poos with one brand than with another. I can't imagine paying more than the cheapest price possible for something you're going to throw in the trash (baring allergy or chemical sensitivity, or moral issues regarding production, etc). Since I use cloth diapers, I am not happy with the performance of any of the brands for overnight use. For cloth, you can add in an extra layer. With disposables, what you get is what you get.

I'm very happy with the disposables we buy (for Aldous) from Aldi, and would buy the disposable training pants there, too, if they sold them.

Recent Sewing 

this is the dress I made Audrey for Independence Day.

I used some vintage fabrics I had gotten from Bonnie, and some vintage trim from another source.

 

 A close-up of the ruffle with rick rack trim. This was the tiniest rick rack ever.

 

 The bloomers! I loosly elasticized the legs.

 

 The waist elastic. I remember back when I used to just run elastic thru a casing...silly me!

 

 Bloomers hem trim...more rick rack! Bigger here, tho!

 

 This is the pattern I used. I can't really review it, tho, because I didn't follow the directions. I just used the pieces. I used the largest size (lg 22-25lbs) which I would guess is closer to a 2T as this was just a bit big on Audrey.

 

 William still wears diapers at night, and was down to only two large enough to fit him, so I whipped up a couple more for him. I hope to do about 2 more so I don't have to do laundry so often. He rarely wets in it, but I don't reuse it again without washing.

 

 More diapers. The two in the front are for Aldous, who barely fits in his old diapers, and the one in the back is another for William.

 

 Aldous in the brown diaper.

 

 Aldous with a back view of the diaper.

 

 That's all folks!!