I scream you scream

Carvel and Coldstone are both giving away free ice cream today! The weather is pretty cool here in Austin, but who can pass up free ice cream?

Squeaver

S: I sat down the other day to make a needle felted squirrel, and ended up with a beaver. We'll call him Squeaver. I had sketched out plans for a squirrel but as I started felting the head I began to have doubts.

"What does this look like to you, Zach?"

"A groundhog...or a beaver."

"Or a squirrel?"

"No, not at all, that's a beaver."

Sigh. but no worries...slight change in plans but all he needed was a tail to become a full fledged beaver. He also got a little vest, buttoned on with a button that I made from polymer clay. I decided to start making some of my own buttons for my needle felts since they are so expensive to buy. I think the first batch turned out pretty well.

Z: In the days of yore, Sarah would have taken the Squeaver to market and she would have sat in the hot sun all day eating watermelon and fanning her pretty sweaty face hoping that someone would walk along and fancy her homemade needle felted craft. Yawn. We live in the digital age people! This is what happened: Sarah made a digital post to sell her non-digital Squeaver on Etsy and within 30 seconds someone had digitally purchased it. I believe that's a digital record. Sarah, in her humility, was not going to reveal this to our blog readers, but I'm here to verify that she made the fastest sale of a needle felted Squeaver ever.

S: I also searched the yard for acorn tops to use for these felted ones. They look pretty cute resting in a leaf-shaped dish that I have.

Table Runners

S: My latest project was to make a table runner for for the dining room table...which turned in to three table runners. What can I say, I'm addicted to making things.

For the fall, I made two burlap table runners with ruffled ends. (two different lengths to use when the table leaves are in.) I added brown velvet ribbon to the ruffles on the shorter table runner.

I made both burlap table runners for less than $5 each. If you can sew a straight line you can make one of these!

I also made a Christmas table runner with some red and white fabric I had leftover from another project.

Spinelli the spider

S: Meet Spinelli. He's a cute little needle felted spider I made for my etsy shop! Zach gets the credit for the pun-ny name.

Front loaded with mildew

S: I'm ashamed to share this post....but I'll do it...to keep all you front load washing machine owners informed.

We had heard that front loaders were infamous for mold, so we use Affresh tablets every month or so to clean our washing machine. The other day I was doing the laundry and pulled out the tray to add my laundry detergent. I bent over to pick something up and noticed mildew around the bottom edge of the tray. Zach undid some of the screws and pulled the tray out.

It was horrible.

The part that we couldn't see from the outside was COVERED in black mildew. Looking in further we could see more of the gross black mess. Zach ended up having to take apart the rest of the washing machine so we could clean all the mildew.

I felt pretty dumb when I dug the manual out of the filing cabinet and found the maintenance guide simply outlined on two pages. This probably would have prevented all the dismantling, scrubbing, soaking, and bleaching.

Have a seat and a bowl of soup

S: I went into Crate & Barrel the other day to pick up some soup bowls, my first non-gift purchase from that store. It's not that I don't like what they have to offer, and I certainly appreciate how wonderfully organized the store is. It's just that I know I can almost certainly find similar items elsewhere, for less. But back to what brought me to the store...the soup bowls. Oven-to-table soup bowls to be exact. Surprisingly, Crate & Barrel wins out on this one, offering them for less than Target or even Walmart.

While there, I saw this chair:

Image: Crate & Barrel

I got this one for free when my grandma moved:

Crate and Barrel loses this round.

So even though the soup bowls were a great deal, I don't foresee many more trips to this store, unless I find $1,099 underneath the chair cushion.

Making a house a home

S: Earlier this year we remodeled our master bathroom. With all it's newness, it took a while for it to feel like ours...I've felt that with a lot of the rooms we've remodeled. So I'm usually thinking of ways to improve our space and make it feel more like home. I've been eyeing the work of cori D for a while, and recently purchased two of her prints. I'm pretty much in love with these and I really like how they look in our bathroom.



Thanks to Hobby Lobby's generous 50% off sales, I was able to get two frames for the price of one. They didn't have any white frames in the size I needed so I spray painted them. I ended up having to go to three different stores to get acid free mats cut. Apparently acid free mat board is a special order item....luckily the last store I tried sold me some leftover board. Looking back, I was pretty uncordial to the Michael's employee at the custom framing department when he informed me that they don't cut mat boards while you wait...not even regular mat board. I would have to order a precut board that would take a week to arrive. I have a problem with outsourced mat board cutting.
However, I did find two candle holders that I really liked, and ended up putting one in our bathroom. I had two 50% off coupons but could only use one at a time, so Zach got in the check out line in front of me and we ignored each other until we had successfully purchased both candle holders for $25.

I have a few special items grouped around it. The green daisy-and-button pressed glass canister was my grandmothers, and stores our cotton balls. Next to that is a sweet little wind up clock that also belonged to her. Much to Zach's dismay, it still works, and the ticking keeps him up at night unless I stick it in a drawer. I got the other canister from a resale shop, different design but same color, colonial green. So this is my happy little corner of the bathroom that keeps me on time, reminds me of my grandma, and gives a warm glow.