Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Fancy, Don't Let Me Down!

My big gift this year from my great husband was......(drum rolllllllll).......A DRESS FORM!!!! YAY!!! I have been wanting one for a year! It came in two boxes, one large, one small, and I had no idea what was in them while they were under the tree. What a great surprise! Once we opened her up and put her together, I asked the boys (my super amazing step-sons, 9 and 10) to throw out name suggestions for her. I mean, she has to have a name, right?! There were many suggestions such as dressy and beatrice but the winner was FANCY! I thought it was hilarious that they thought of that and it immediately caught on.
Fancy
So, Fancy is a size 8 which is 2-3 sizes too small BUT I was told that for her to fit me and my shape, I need to put on a large T-shirt and bra, then have someone wrap me in duct tape from hips to above my boobs, then cut the shirt and duct tape up the back, so there is a Jill-shaped shell. Then we put this on Fancy, fill it in where necessary and there we have it! My body! YAY! The first thing I am going to attempt to make is a pencil skirt. This is a classic piece that is flattering for my body style plus it's great for work since I go to court regularly.

So the fabric below is what I bought to make curtains for the guest room. The colors in the room are grey, black, white and purple. I finished the curtains last night, they look great but we will see the final product once they are actually hung. (I really need to go buy a curtain rod!) But I ended up having about 1 yard x 94 inches of fabric left over which is A LOT! So I decided to pull a Sound Of Music and make some clothing from the curtain fabric! YAY for being thrifty! I am making my first pencil skirt out of this fabric and then we will see after that. I think a cropped, 3/4 sleeve jacket would look great as well.....



The pattern below is what I am using to make my pencil skirt. The jacket is out of date but I think with some tweaking I could make it pretty great! But a pencil skirt NEVER goes out of style! :)

I will post pics of the process once I start but I have to buy interfacing (whatever THAT is) first.

Thanks for reading!

-J.

Mantel

My husband and I built and stained a mantel for over our fireplace last year. It turned out very nice but we knew we needed to tweak it so it would hold our DVD player and whatnot. So, yesterday my husband took apart our original mantel and used those pieces as well as some new ones and remade and stained it. The finished product is below.

Entire view
Close up
Those embellishments are large metal tacks (for lack of a better word). I bought them at an amazing store in downtown Fort Worth that sells things from old houses and buildings such as hinges, doors, windows, knobs, tubs, etc. It was the MOST FANTASTIC store. Ever. There is a hidden shelf behind that front board (the one with the tacks) and that is where we put the cords for everything. I must admit that I think he did a great job! YAY for my awesome hubby!











































































































Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Signs, Signs and More Signs!!!

So, I bought a Silhouette SD a few months back (www.silhouetteamerica.com) (blog.silhouetteamerica.com) and have completely fallen in loooove! The Silhouette SD is a digital cutter which means that I can design something on my computer using their software (that comes with the cutter) and then plug the cutter into my computer via USB and cut the design/image on anything from vellum to cardstock to scrapbook paper to vinyl to iron on material and so much more! The possibilities are endless with this fantastic machine. I have made signs using vinyl (which I will show pictures of further down), name tags for Christmas gifts and office doorways at work and scrapbook pages. I am sooo in love!

My very first sign!

Katie May Chidester
Close up of Katie
Chevy



Harley

Alexis

Johnny

Belinda's Boudoir

Kaylie (the background is newspaper print scrapbook paper) (this on is my fav!)



Tom & Juanita (gold filigree)





New Blog?

Ok, peeps! I got tired of having a blog linked to an old, no-longer-in-use email address so I am dispatching with the old and creating a new and improved blog! YAY! Mayyybe I'll actually write regularly...Hmmm...we shall see...