Just a little bit of WHIMSY ;-)

No...you're not seeing double. Sara & I went to an antique store last week and I bought this second M.E. teapot. When they were ringing it up Sara said, "Don't you have one just like that at home?" I replied, "yes", but that I was planning on changing this one up a bit. She just shrugged her shoulders and said, "Hmm." Note: I paid (around) $38.00 for the first one at a very nice boutique several years ago. This second one only cost me $8.00. However, there is a little chip in the base, but that didn't bother me because I was planning on painting over it anyway. SO...let the fun begin! I chose red nail polish for the new flower color. And black enamel paint for the new polk-dots and base color. NOTE: The nail polish worked so much better. I ended up having to paint clear nail polish over the black.
For the big polka-dots I used a pencil eraser.

Bye-bye pink.

And I used the ball of a sewing pin for the little polka-dots.

Cute little cousins now. : )
One last photo with the flash so you can see how bright the red really is.
DO try this at home. : )

Tutorial for placemat purses

I took this picture to show a variety of handles & the clearance stickers on the placemats. The blue one has a $2.00 tag on it and the orange plaid ones (there's 4) were marked down to $2.99. All of the handles except one came from old purses I purchased from Goodwill. I try to never pay more than $2.99. Then, I just take the handles off to use for new creations.

Step 1. Put your trim on first. You can decide how high or low you want it.
Step 2. Cut ribbon for handles and sew together to make a loop.

Step 3. Pin the handles for placement and sew in place.
Step 4. I always use pinking shears on the ribbon to keep it from fraying. You could also use Fray Check.
Step 5. Mark your side seams (depending on how skinny or wide you want it). For the corners, this time I'm using a 3" triangle.

Step 6. Again, I use pinking shears on the seam allowance.
Step. 7 I always cut a notch out of the corner to get rid of some of the bulk before I turn it right side out.
Following all of the steps above for this cute plaid one.
Only this time I am marking 2" side seams and using a 2" triangle for corners. I want this one to be a bit smaller. I will be cutting off quite a bit from the seam allowance before turning right side out. One more option on these bags is to make a "boxed bottom". That just means you will sew it exactly like the bottom of a brown paper bag. What happens is that the bag will be shorter, and will be free standing when set down. If you have any questions, just ask me in your comments and I will get back to you.
This one, I added denim to the top, a real pocket off an old pair of jeans, and some trim. The handle loops are actually belt loops.

If you look on the inside of a tote bag that you already own, you will see how they sew it to give it the boxed bottom, which allows the bag to stand on its own.
Have fun and good luck!! : )
M.L.
***If you'd like to see more tutorials, you can click on [Projects (of the crafty sort)] on my sidebar under 'Labels'.

Wednesdays With My Mom

My beautiful, beautiful parents! While my parents were engaged, they decided to buy a nice camera so they'd have it for their wedding day, honeymoon and documenting their new life together. They both got very involved in this new hobby. They played around with all the settings and lighting, etc. This picture below was an experiment...they were facing a mirror.
Below is the cutie who performed at the clubhouse today. He was adorable in every way. He had a beautiful voice as well. He was singing 'Somewhere My Love' here.
Keeping beat to the polka. : )
Ooh...one of my favorite cuties at the community--Marge. She never hesitates to get up all by herself to dance when a polka is being played. She informed my mom and me that she used to be a dancer.

Mom in her beautiful new shirt that my sister took her shopping for. My Mom loves to shop at Coldwater Creek. Thanks June!
Tonight while getting some shopping done at Walmart, my mom said, "This is so fun." How cute is that??? : )

Why is there a WEIRD story behind everything I do???

If I didn't know better, I might start to wonder if maybe I'm weird???..................Naa.................... Okay, so here's how it all happened. Saturday, we went to the City dump to unload a truck bed full of landscaping debris. All of a sudden I look to the right of where I'm tossing our stuff and I see the most beautiful dead branches ever! The girl in my head says, "Hmm, those would be perfect for one of those dead Halloween trees I see everyone else making in blogland."
So I'm hoping and praying that no one will notice the crazy lady (that's me) taking stuff from the City dump when it's really meant for dumping...not taking. Before I could finish my prayer a man and his wife start backing up their truck right next to ours to get rid of some old wooden thing. I knew without a doubt I'd been caught in the act. So they slowly get out of their truck and look me over, not knowing what to say. Finally, the wife says..."Um, you're taking that stuff back home with you?" I then had to explain to her that anybody who's anybody in blogland has to make a dead Halloween tree. Thank heavens she laughed. The husband was still eyeing me over suspiciously.
So here are the treasures. Aren't they lovely? First I whittled the end of one branch so I could stick it in the PCV pipe (the trunk of my tree).

Next, it's off to the backyard to spray paint.I'm not sure why I took this picture cuz it just looks like someone's putting a clarinet together. This is me painting the duct tape. I also drilled holes in each branch so that I could use wire to secure them in place.
And there you have it. The sordid tale of the scary Halloween tree.

Sometime this week I will be doing a tutorial on cute place mat purses. It's okay to crack up because that's just what I did the first time my cute friend, Cathy, told me about them. However, I had to take it all back once I saw them. Very inexpensive and amazingly CUTE! : )

Wednesdays With My Mom

Mom was really young in these photos. These are before she met my dad. What a Fashionista!!! (Is that even a word?)
So the entertainment down at the clubhouse today was this singin' cowboy. What a great show. He sang a little bit of everything.

Ooooh, what's this I see... a little favoritism?
Looks like my mom's still "got it goin' on" : ) HOW CUTE!!

My favorite part of our day together was when we were at the grocery store and I asked her, "Hey Mom... want to stroll over to the magazine aisle and skim through a few just for fun? She was all for it, so we ended up looking through the latest issue of Speigel. I wish you could have been there. Fashion and landscaping have always been my mother's greatest loves. It was so interesting to hear all her comments and observations on all the beautiful new Fall fashions we saw. A good day indeed!