May Challenge Day Two: Sewing 101, This is Your Sewing Machine

Does anyone else think it's sad that I had to ask my husband what I'm good at so I could write my post for day two of the blog everyday in May challenge?
Today's topic is:
Educate us on something you know a lot about or are good at. Take any approach you'd like (serious and educational or funny and sarcastic)
Don't get me wrong.  I don't think I'm not good at anything. At all. In fact, I think I'm quite good at a lot of things. The problem is, I view myself as a bit of a jack of all trades. You know, jack of all trades, master of none?
I really enjoy trying new things and so, I have experience doing all kinds of stuff. But I'm not an expert at any of them. My husband said I could write about playing the piano - but how do you write about that?  It's really more of a learn in person type of skill. He said I was good at writing, but a lot of us bloggers are good at writing so I didn't want to do that. He said I'm good at drawing, but I'm really not all that great at it. He said I was good at sewing - but I wasn't sure how to write about that either!
But the more I thought about sewing, the more I thought it was the perfect thing to write about today. When I started sewing I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't go out and take a class or anything but I did look at a lot of tutorials online.  And you know what? I couldn't find that many tutorials that literally just introduced you to a sewing machine.
This might be in part because everyone has different kinds of sewing machines, but for today I thought it would be a good idea to educate you all on the basics of a sewing machine.
This is your sewing machine.... ...or my sewing machine but yours should look fairly similar.

There a few basic parts you should know about your sewing machine.
The power switch is usually located on the side of the machine at the bottom.  It should look like a basic power switch.

You should also have a panel on the front of your machine. You can use this switch to adjust the stitch you are using at any given time. My machine has an entire panel on the front to show me the various stitches. If yours doesn't have that, check your manual for the available stitches.

This is the area where you will do all your sewing.

There's a few things here your should be familiar with here.
Your sewing needle is directly in the middle.   It should have a small metal plate under it called a needle plate. When you are ready to sew this plate will drop down so that it is flat against your fabric.

On the base your sewing platform you'll see a small door similar to this:

This is where your bobbin is located and it should have a small release latch.
This is a bobbin.

When I first started sewing my mom kept talking about the bobbin and I had no idea what she was talking about. I thought it was what the needle on the machine was called because it bobs up and down! Basically, your bobbin and your needle work together when you are sewing.  The needle takes care of the stitch from the top and the bobbin takes care of the stitch from the bottom. Thus, making a complete stitch. Without one of these components your fabrics would just fall apart rather than being sewn together.
Your bobbin will need to be threaded.  Unfortunately they don't come that way or do it themselves. If you thought threading your needle was difficult, try threading your bobbin by hand! Luckily most machines now come with automatic threaders for this. Mine looks like this:

Your manual should give you instructions on how to thread the machine so that the bobbin threads automatically.

And that basically wraps up all the basic parts of a sewing machine! You would think sewing would be this super easy thing since we've been doing it for hundreds of years and soooo many people can do it. But when you first start out all the little tedious things like knowing all the parts can really stand in your way.
Hopefully this will be helpful to someone so they can just get to making some fun DIY stuff faster!
Tomorrow's topic is: Things that make you uncomfortable (oh geez).

Close Call.

It's almost May and I am literally within 24 hours of forgetting to post about one of the blogger gift exchanges I participated in last month. I really just have no idea where my brain has gone to recently. I might lose my head if it wasn't attached.
Like, I just have absolutely no idea where my head is recently. I keep getting ideas for upcoming posts and then within two seconds I totally forget what they were. Even if I was making every effort to write down my ideas, I couldn't write them down fast enough.
Sigh.
My brain needs to get out of Winter/laziness mode and get it's act together. Anyway, in March I participated in the Covert Robin blogger gift exchange. It's hosted by a ton of awesome bloggers.
Here they are....
Cassie, Clara Courtney, Jane, Jill, Karen, Kelley Melissa, Rachael and Stephanie.
Whew. That's a lot of great blogs for you to go check out! There are two major things that set this exchange apart from the other exchange I participated in in March. They were both awesome exchanges but this one was different because...

one. Your partner is a complete secret.  It's like secret Santa. 
In March!!! (need I say more?)

two. It's all homemade gifts!!

When I received the name of the person I would be sending to I started stalking their blog day and night.  I got my gift all ready and sent it out (more on that later) and prepared myself to wait for the gift I would receive.  As March rolled on in I waited and waited and one rainy, gloomy, ugly March day I had a surprise in my mailbox.

It was so perfect and exactly what I needed on a cold March day.  It was like a little bit of Springtime coming my way in the form of a package.  The name of my secret blogger partner is Melissa and she sent me the most fantastic things!!

First she sent me this really awesome pen roll up.  She found out that I was a teacher and decided this would be an appropriate gift.  She was completely right but now I need to hide it from Jeremie so he doesn't try and steal the pens she sent me.  

Here it is unrolled with all my new pens!!

She also sent me a pin book which is basically a little cloth book with felt pages for me to stick my pins in when I'm sewing.  Why have I never thought of this before?!? Genius.

I'm pretty confident this one is not homemade but it's still a fabulous gift.  

It's a teeny pocket size notebook which is perfect for jotting down blog notes AND it matches my pen roll up (kinda).

Finally, she sent me a neck warmer and a winter head band!!! 

I could not love these two things more. 

Melissa wrote that she was hoping I would have some time to wear them this year and of course, right after I got her package we had a streak of 70 degree weather.  

Oh well.  These will be the first two things I whip out next November. 

So I just had to share with you all about this awesome gift exchange.  

It was a great first secret blogger experience!

Wedding Weekend

It's Saturday and quite honestly, I couldn't be happier about it! This week seemed so long and yet it flew by at the same time.
I officially have 8 weeks left of the school year. 8 weeks until summer vacation. 8 weeks until I can really relax. 8 weeks until I start my summer job which I seriously start looking forward to in February. 8 weeks until guaranteed summer weather. Beautiful, warm, green, bright glorious summer weather. Can you tell I'm sick of Spring? Maybe it's because we haven't really had a Spring.
Anyway, at this point in the school year I LIVE for my weekends. Not only because it's a small taste of what's coming my way in 8 weeks but also because with some (kinda) nice weather I can finally start getting outside and doing the stuff I love like hiking and gardening and reading in the sun. And I'm extra super excited that it's Saturday because it's always a good excuse to talk about some wedding stuff with a wedding weekend post!!
If you've ever read some of my wedding weekend posts like this one.... or this one....
You know that I loved every single detail about my wedding. I mean, honestly, what girl doesn't?
But I didn't just love my wedding because I was getting married or I got to wear a big, white wedding dress. It was because I made every detail of my wedding super personal. Everything at my wedding meant something to me.  Because it represented something special, because I made it with my own two hands, because I spent so much time on it.  You only get one wedding, right?
So I want to share with you one teeny tiny aspect of my wedding that made my day a little extra special. My table numbers.
Ok, they don't sound like anything special. What's in a table number? You print out a piece of paper with a big number, frame it and put it on the table, right?
Not me.
I had a pretty specific theme to my wedding.
Apples.
And I knew I wanted everything in my wedding to fit in with that theme. Apple centerpieces, apple colors, apple drinks, and you guessed it, apple table numbers.
My table numbers were actually really simple. Here's how they looked...

And here's how I made them:

one. I bought some mini apple crates at Michael's for a buck each. 

two. The crates were not a very pretty color.  They were just plain wood so I stained them to make them more rustic.

three. I painted the numbers and a different variety of apple onto each crate with plain old acrylic paint.

four. I threw in some fake fall leaves (also purchased at Michael's and originally in the form of a fall garland. I just ripped off the leaves) and some apples on top of the leaves.

My original plan for my wedding was to use real apples for everything and donate them to a soup kitchen after the wedding.  However, this would have meant buying a loooottttt of apples really close to my wedding and it would have probably cost a pretty penny.

I lucked out and found some fake apples, on clearance at the Christmas Tree Shop. 

Who would have thought?

So that's it.  They were pretty simple and they added a nice touch to my fall, apple themed wedding. 

Man, writing all of this really makes me miss the wedding planning process.  Not all the small, obnoxious details but definitely all the DIY stuff.

Anyone want me to do some DIY for their wedding? ;)

Happy Saturday everyone!

So You Wanna Start A Compost Bin.

If you've ever thought about composting, I know what you're thinking...
I enjoy doing natural things. I enjoy doing things that could help the Earth. I enjoy doing things that could improve my own life. But I don't have all the time in the world.
And if you've ever done any research on composting you may have found out that it seems like an awful lot of work. Between researching and getting it started and actually doing the composting... Who has time for all that?!  
About two years ago Jeremie and I wanted to start composting in our back yard. It's more environmentally friendly - which we like. And we have a garden so we knew that composting could help our crops.
So I started researching and I was so overwhelmed so quickly that I almost gave up on the idea.   All these sites are throwing around the words nitrogen and carbon. Add these materials. Don't add these materials.  Buy this compost bin. Make sure you layer the materials in your compost bin properly.  Turn your compost.  Make sure your compost doesn't smell.  Add compost starter. Don't add compost starter. Make sure it gets enough heat. And water. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah.
So. Much. Information.
And contradicting information, at that. What was I actually supposed to do?  And if I did something wrong, was it going to be a complete fail?
So you know what we did?  We took all the information we found and just winged it.   And I'm here to tell you that it's really not that hard.  In fact, it's pretty damn easy.
Here are some simple steps to follow to make your own - nice and cheap - compost bin and what to do after you're compost bin is ready to go.
Step One You'll need to get a large storage bin.   Nothing fancy.  Just grab a cheap one from Target or Walmart. It can be as big or small as you want it.   Ours are 16 gallon bins. 

The first time we tried composting we got a ginormous bin thinking the more we could compost, the better.  But we failed to realize such a giant bin would be really hard impossible to move and turning the material inside would be extremely difficult.  It all worked out in the end but we decided to go a little smaller, and more manageable this time around.
Step Two

Drill 8 - 10 holes in the top and the bottom of your bin. This allows for air to reach your compost, for moisture to get in, and for bugs to get in and work their natural magic to break down all that waste.
Step Three

Gather some leaves and layer them into the bottom of your bin.   We also had some wood chips from trees that came down during Sandy and Irene and the Autumn Nor'Easter so we threw some of those in too.  You can use your storm damage wood chips if you have them, but use them sparingly.  Don't throw three pounds of wood in there because it won't turn out all that well.
Step Four

Fill your bin about a quarter to half full with top soil.   You can get top soil in bags at Home Depot for super cheap.  Like, less than 2 bucks.   We needed about two and a half bags for our two compost bins.
Step Five
If you choose to use a compost starter make sure you follow the directions on the bag.   We decided to use a compost starter this time because it just speeds up the process a little. We had to add a layer of compost starter after our leaves and after our dirt layer and add a little water each time. It's as simple as that.
Step Six

Mix up all your brown materials and place the bin in a place that gets some sun and some shade.  We have ours positioned right off our deck so we have easy access.  
Step Seven

Put a compost bucket in your kitchen so you have a convenient spot for all your compostables. You'd be amazed at all the stuff you can compost, so do a little research and see what is and is not compostable.
Here are some of the sites I use:
Really Awesome Compostables
Step Eight
You're ready to compost! Throw some stuff in there and make sure you give it a turn with a shovel at least once a week.  You might see other sites saying that you should layer evenly and make sure you have an equal amount of brown (carbon rich material) and green (nitrogen rich material) at all times.  Honestly, in my experience I have found that it doesn't matter all that much.  
We just take out our compost every day and throw it in the bin.  We give the compost a turn with a shovel at least once a week and everything is fine!  If you notice that you are putting a lot in your compost and you have more waste material than leaves and dirt, you could add another layer of leaves and dirt and continue.  
So that's it. Super easy, cheap and natural. If you're a gardener, I swear it works wonders. I used our compost in our garden last year and my crops went crayyy - zeee.  
If you're so inclined, give it a try.  I promise it's totally painless!

I Came. I Saw. I Pinned. I Crafted.

I finally did it. 

I saw it.  

I pinned it (like a year ago).  

I crafted it.

I finally made a DIY card book for all the cards we got at our wedding.  Do you ever wonder what to do with all those cards you get?  On one hand, they are special.  They contain all these nice messages from your friends and family.  Everytime I throw out a card from someone I actually feel awful about it.  Like I'm throwing away a gift that they sent to me.

But then again, it's just a card. What am I going to do with all those old cards just laying around the house?  So for the most part I end up throwing old cards away.  But my wedding cards?   I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

So I saw this idea on Pinterest probably about a year ago.  I pinned it and swore I would do it with all my wedding cards.  Then we got married in October and I didn't have time for DIY after the wedding. 

I needed some time to destress and relax and I still had a lot of organizing/cleanup to do.

Then November came and went....and it's a busy month. 
You know?
Fall cleanup, mashed potato eating.  That sorta thing.

And then December came....and so did the holidays, and some other events and I just didn't have time for DIY gifts that weren't presents.

And then January came and there was no excuse. I was just lazy.
February....

 March...

And I finally had to put my foot down.  I was lazy and I was going to do something about it.

So I grabbed all my cards and whole punched them as I watched TV one night.  

I took two of the ribbons off my bridal shower bouquet and threaded them through all the cards.

Tied some nice bows.

And voila!  

A beautiful card book that I can forever keep all my wedding cards in. 

It was a little less compact than I thought it would be.

A lot less compact.

It's about 5 inches high?  So it may take me a little time to find a good place to keep it.
I counted.  We have 73 cards in the card book.
I had no idea when I started making it how many we had!
Nonetheless, it looks great and it's a creative way for us to save those memories from our wedding.


Have all your wedding cards just laying around?  I'd totally recommend this!
I also plan to start a Valentine's day one that I can add our cards to each year.
Because those are fun too ;)

The Paper Crane Project.

Have you ever heard the legend about paper cranes?  It says that cranes are mystical creatures that live for 1000 years.  Japanese legend says that any person who makes 1000 paper cranes, one for each year of a crane's life, will be granted a wish. Some even believe that doing this will bring you eternal good luck.

So, as you can imagine, paper cranes were a very popular item delivered in the mail to Newtown after the Sandy Hook shooting.  Hundreds of thousands of items were donated and one of the most beautiful things we received were thousands of paper cranes from all over the world, most made by kids.  We probably have at least 50 wishes coming our way! 

All the items that came to our town have been displayed at our town hall over the past couple of months.  People took hours and hours to sort through it all and put it out for all to see.  If you missed my guest post on Forever Newly Wedded you can check it our here to see some photos of the amazing things that were donated (also, check out her blog while you're there - it's pretty awesome!).

After a while, the town allowed people to come in and tag things they wanted to keep.  First the victim's families came in, then the Sandy Hook School community and finally Newtown residents.  My mom, who works at the town hall tried to tag a mobile for me that was full of the beautiful paper cranes to put in my classroom but we found out that Sandy Hook had decided to take all of them for the school.

This was fine with me.  Sandy Hook should take everything and anything they want.  And the papers cranes will be so perfect in that school.  

Bright.  

Colorful.  

Cheerful.

Excellent medicine.

Luckily, we were able to find several boxes of extra cranes and I took those.  The cranes I got came from Arizona and Washington.  They came in boxes that were littered with positive, healing messages.

My mom said, "the only problem with these cranes is you have to put all kinds of work into them to make them look nice."  She was right.  It was a lot of work.  But this project could not have fallen into my lap at a better time.  Last Wednesday, when I got the cranes, I had just found out that I would have an additional week of school off as they continued to try and clean up after the blizzard.  

Needless to say, I had the time.    

So, I started to work on it.  I got the rings for the top of the mobile.  I sorted it all.  I made sure all the strands were even.  I laid it all out, tied knots where they needed to be tied, glued, drilled and I finally got it all together.  It was the perfect project for me to work on during my spontaneous week off.  

And it 

came 

out 

BEAUTIFUL!

I really can't imagine it turning out any better than it did.  I love it and when I put it up in my classroom tomorrow, I know my students will love it.

Fun side note: the yellow crane at the very bottom of the mobile is one of one thousand paper cranes that Jeremie made me when my dad was diagnosed with cancer almost four years ago.  He's now cancer free and enjoying life.  So who knows, maybe the legend of the paper cranes is true.  

I can't wait for my students to see it tomorrow. I don't think I'll tell them where the cranes came from.  They don't need a reminder of what happened at Sandy Hook.  But every time I look at it, I'll know what it symbolizes. 

Hope.

Healing.

Happiness..

Home.

Wedding Weekend - Solving the Kids at Dinner Problem.

It's a tough decision and most people have to address it at some point in the wedding planning process.  To invite kids or not to invite kids?  With us, it was an absolute from the moment we started planning.  We would be inviting kids.  Jeremie has several nieces and nephews and I have a young cousin, not to mention I babysit for two kids that I'm extremely close to.  We didn't want to celebrate one of the most important days of our lives without these little people by our sides. 

So the question became not whether or not to invite kids, but how to keep them from disturbing everyone else at the wedding especially during dinner.  Let's face it, people don't care about kids being invited to a wedding.  They care when the kids are running amuck when everyone else is trying to enjoy their dinner.  After that, everyone is up, dancing and laughing and having a great time.  Nobody even notices the kids!  So what do you do during dinner time so that everyone is happy?  

here's what we did:

We made kid packs!  They're simple, cheap, can be made weeks before the wedding (definitely a plus) and they really help to solve the problem at hand. 

To make them I shopped around for fun, kiddy items at the dollar store and at Target.  I originally planned to just put them together in paper bags because it would have fit in with the rustic theme of our wedding, but we found these cute little chinese food containers at the dollar store and they were 4 for $1!  I call that a win.

I purchased a variety of items that I thought would be fun for the kids like toy cars, crayons and drawing pads, silly straws, stamps and the icing on the cake - glow sticks.  I found that the hardest part of the process was trying to pick items that would keep kids of all ages busy.  We had kids as young as 2 all the way up to 12.  But it all worked out in the end.

Finally, we put a little note on top that said: 

"Something to keep you happy while the grown ups are being boring at the dinner table!"

Stacy & Jeremie

I'm so happy we did it because I had several parents come up to me during the wedding to thank me for the kids packs.  If nothing else, I'm sure it gave parents a few minutes of peace during dinner time where they could enjoy a couple bites of food!

So if you have kids that you absolutely must have at your wedding, go ahead, invite them!  Just make some kids packs to help them out during that long and torturous dinner time before the real party starts!

Cute, Quick, Festive Aprons.

Who doesn't want a cute apron to wear when they're baking?  Especially around the holidays.  Just take a second and picture it now - there's a light snow falling outside the window, the fire is nice and toasty warm, the Christmas carols are playing in the background and you have a nice cozy cup of hot cocoa and a super cute apron to wear as you take your freshly baked Christmas cookies out of the oven.  Sounds nice, right?

Ok, well I can't make tutorial on how to make all that happen - although it would be fun to try.  How to make a toasty warm fire tutorial, step 1:  you'll need some fire wood so go outside and cut down a tree -  anyway, what  I can give you is a tutorial on how to make a cute apron to wear during the holiday season.  If you're not a sewer, have no fear!  I'm not a professional sewer by any means so if I can pull this off, so can you.

Once you're done it will look something like this:

Cute, right? Look like something you would enjoy?  Here's how you do it:

This apron is pretty easy.  It can be basically made by cutting out a bunch of rectangles, hemming the edges and sewing them all together.  You'll need to grab a couple yards of fabric first.

1 yrd. of a fabric of your choice for the main apron

1/2 yrd. of a fabric of your choice for the waist part of the apron and a pocket

First things first - you'll need to cut all of your rectangles.

• Sash - two 34 in. x 3 in. rectangles (these two put together fit around my waist with extra room to tie it in the back. Make sure you keep in mind the size of the waist of the person who will be wearing it)
• Apron - 26 in. x 22 in. rectangle (22 inches went to right above my knees.  You may want to measure to find a good length for you)
• Pocket - 4 1/2 in. x 5 1/2 in. rectangle
• Bow Rectangle # 1 (left side) - 29 in. x 2 1/2 in rectangle
• Bow Rectangle # 2 (right side) - 16 in. x 2 1/2 in. rectangle

Step 1:  To make the sash around the waist of your apron take your two 34 in. x 3 in. rectangles and sew them together on one of the short ends to make one long sash.  From there, you need to hem the sides of your sash.  I like to do a double fold for hems because it makes it look neater.  After you've double folded and pinned both sides of your sash go ahead and sew them.

Step 2:  If you want to make the ends of your sash curved or angled for a little extra flair you can simply cut them into the shape you desire, double fold them for a hem and sew them.  This will cause a little extra fabric on the ends of your sash like this:

Just snip that off so it's even with the edge. Your finished end should look like this:

Step 3:  Put your sash to the side, you're done with it for now!  Woohoo!  Grab your 26 in. x 22 in. rectangle that you are using for the main part of your apron.  Double fold and pin all four edges of this fabric and hem them. Just like that, you're pretty much done with the main section of your apron.  See how easy this is?

Step 4:  Here's where it gets the teeniest bit confusing but I promise it's not bad at all.  Grab the sash you made earlier and lay it out on your workspace backside up.  Grab your apron and lay it out as well, backside up.  Line up the bottom of your sash with the top of your apron (I look at the lines I've already sewn to help me line them up well).  Make sure you have it evenly laid out so that it is right in the middle of your sash.

Step five:  To make the pleats in your apron you can just fold a small part of the fabric over itself and pin it down.  Do this several times until the whole top of your fabric is pleated  Again, make sure you are keeping the top of the apron even with the bottom of the sash.  It should look like this when it's pleated and all pinned up:

Step six:  Go ahead and sew down your pleats using the lines you've already sewn on the hem of your apron fabric for a guideline.

Congratulations!  You've successully made a cute apron that is perfect for baking and gift giving.  You can stop here if you want or you can go on to add a pocket and a bow at the top.

to make the pocket

Cut a square (4 1/2 in. x 5 1/2 in.) of the fabric you used for your sash.  Double fold and hem all of the sides.  Pin it to your apron wherever you like and sew down three of the edges.  Bam - done!

A small tip - when you're sewing your pocket to your apron, if you line up your sewing needle with the lines you've already sewn when you were hemming it, it will make your pocket look much neater once it's all done.  That way you don't have one line from hemming it and one line from sewing it to the apron.

to make the bow

You'll need the two rectangles you cut earlier for the bow.  From there, lay out one of your rectangles back side up and fold the top edge down so it's almost even with the other edge, leaving just 1/4 in. of space and pin it.  Fold the bottom edge over the top edge and re-pin.  Now you should have a long rectangle with none of the backside of the material showing.  Sew down the area you just pinned and trim off any extra edge that may be left.

Repeat this step with the other rectangle that you will be using for the bow.

Grab your apron and lay it out.  Pin the left side (longer rectangle) of your bow onto your sash.  It should start where the edge of your apron is and end about 4 inches past the middle of your sash.  Take the other part of your bow (shorter rectangle) and pin it to the righthand side of your sash.  Again, starting at the edge of your apron and going until it meets the other portion of the bow. Sew it all down.

Tie a nice little bow in it and throw on your new apron!

So that wasn't so bad was it? It kinda looks like a lot all written out but I swear they're easy and pretty quick.  The whole thing took me about 3 hours. And the best part? Now you can buy a bunch of different fabrics and make one for each season!  They would make awesome housewarming or bride-to-be gifts too!