Thrifty Finds...

Old meets new, our new carpet finally came and was installed. The new one is on left and the old one is on the right. I am so glad the carpet is done, J. and I spent the whole day moving stuff back in, I've spent the last two weeks living out of my office with a king bed in it, we only had less than a foot path to get to the door. I can actually sleep in my own bed in my own bedroom tonight! Oh and I should show you the bedroom color. I thrifted this mirror which was in great shape when I got it for 10 bucks. For the vision for my room I wanted it stained or painted black which is what J. is doing below, with his guitar stain, sure am glad he had that!


In the process of all of this remodeling A. said goodbye to her crib and toddler bed in hopes of one day having a princess bed. Stay tuned....BTW the pillow case in the picture came with the thrifted sheet set, I thought it would make a good princess bed start! Oh and my mom, grandma, made both of those blankets on the bed.

OMG 2

I joined Polka Dot Creations "The Summer Skirt Sheet Swap". Click HERE to see what I am talking about. I was SO excited to pull into the Goodwill to find my sheet that I inadvertently hit the curb. Everyone has done this before right, ya just put it in reverse and it is all ok. Well this was a large curb at an angle, kinda on a hill and the front of my car is low. SOoooooooo, we won't worry about it now we will go in to Goodwill, A. and I and look for the thrifted sheet - but no luck, nothing I liked good enough to give to other people and keep for myself. So go back outside, then look at car, uh, uh-oh car has large metal piece hanging down from front end. So go directly to Nissan even tho. I don't have an appointment. Explain what happened, without laughing. Great now I need to say this outloud with four grown men behind the counter - I hit a curb, all the men behind the counter are probably thinking women drivers - geesh, I tell ya. Fast forward, my car is fixed thirty bucks later, no more underneath damage thank god, and I managed to get to the Salvation Army in Irondequoit and found a fabulous sheet to swap! Upon closer ispection there are a ton of scrapes on the front end of the car, oh well it is just a car.

This is the thrifed sheet I found.

OMG

Oh My Goodness that is, DH surprised me with a gift in the mail!!!!!!!!!!! It isn't my birthday, or mothers day - yet. I was so happy I cried! It is professional light box, portable, handy, comes with a case, two Tungsten lights, special heat resistant material (now I don't have to worry about mine catching on fire!) Wahoo, I threw away the two light boxes I had made, I took down the light I had all strapped up and returned that lamp to the living room, it is happy to be back! Stay tuned for better pics on the way....

mmmm mmmmm good....

Thanks to my MIL, I now get the Taste of Home Magazine. I love getting something fun in the mail for a change. I decided to make the Asparagus Frittata. My DH was looking at me like I had four heads. Wellllllllll guess who liked it AND asked for seconds.....OK so he didn't eat the spears on top, I had those for him, I LOVE asparagus, but little did he know that there was chopped up asparagus in the Fritatta as well. He didn't realize that until I told him. I had tons of fun making this. The only thing I am not used to is that you actually put the frying pan in the oven after it has been on the stove top - hmmm, not sure if mine are made for that but tried it and it worked. I will definitely make this one again, it was not hard, however it does have three distinct stages, one, boil asparagus, in frying pan sautee onion, garlic, asparagus etc, add egg let set, then to oven to set the rest of the way.

I showed this to a neighbor whom happened to stop by and she said I should take a picture of it because it was pretty - hehe! For you Taste of Home {r} fans, I also made the Lasagna Roll Ups on the same page and they came out great. I also made scones for the first time in my life and they were so easy. I am loving this magazine, so fun!

A few other notes of interest for those of you whom have been following my blog:

• the guy on trial for murder was convicted. It took the jury only 90 minutes and the trial was only three days. He is facing 25 years to life in prison.
• Today I taught a Polymer Clay Class at JoAnns, this coming Wednesday I am teaching a lariat style necklace, Jewelry Two class, for any of you locals whom are interested in learning Jewelry making feel free to join us Wed. night at JoAnns. Also in June I will be teaching two kid camp classes.

Cheapy Crafty Fun

This is a cheap, cheap, cheap fun crafty project we did. Ashley is working on painting a pot for Nana's birthday present and mother's day for both grandmothers. If you have acrylic paints handy and a few cheapo paint brushes you can do this, so easy and so fun!!!! We used a metallic green and blue.

Check out my new pics on flickr too, I finally uploaded something different, weren't you getting sick of my same old slide show? I was! There is a technical reason for it, I was having trouble uploading via flickr uploader one that I had downloaded. So tonight I downloaded one that a guy wrote called jUploadr and it is stupendous, easy, accurate fast etc. etc.

Chit, Chat

Last night was my MOPS meeting and we did the placemat purses, how fun!!! People are so funny when you put them around a sewing machine and they haven't had any previous experience. It is really not that hard, I think all of the ladies were happy with their purses! I plan on making more I have left overs and I want to sell some in the Etsy shop. There are three new items in the Etsy shop too, my mom's Mary Jane Baby Booties and her thumbless mittens and one of my polymer clay necklaces too, so be sure to check it out and remember that Mother's Day is coming up too!

I am thinking about going to my Alumni weekend at my college. Now get this they have housing for cheap in the dorms - that will be interesting with DH and DD. They even provide the linens for you - hmmmm, maybe I'll bring my own. Now why don't I stay in a hotel you ask, well were are talking about Potsdam, New York here folks and that doesn't leave a lot of options and I am sure the Clarkson Inn is booked up by now, plus it would be WAY out of my price range anyway! I did get to stay there for work tho. that was pretty nice!!!

Murder....

Did the title grab your attention? Well my jury duty/ day in the court room was for a murder case/domestic violence/three young children now without a mommy/crime of passion/ and extreme emotional disturbance those were some of the things I heard about yesterday. I happened to know the case since I heard about it in the news last year and I remembered it. That would of dismissed me but I wasn't called into the juror box. Instead I had to sit and listen all day while 44 other jurors were questioned in two groups and wait in case I was needed. There were probably about 75 of us total. I never got called, thank god, however I may have been dismissed sooner in the afternoon had they known I knew about the case. I remembered the case becasue this guy brutally killed his girlfriend while a 7. 3 and 2 year old were home and they think the 7 year old may have witnessed some of it, plus the seven year old went running to the neighbors house to get help with blood all over her. Pray for these jurors over the next few days. Here is the link to the news story if you are interested http://www.rnews.com/story_2004.cfm?story_type=2&rnews_story_type=18&id=52217
Pray for the grandmother that is now raising the three children too. ;-(

Jury Duty...

Remember this post, well my time has come. I had to call in Fri night and well lets just say I didn't get as lucky as DH, I have to report bright and early tomorrow morning. My number is A 638 and A1-A640 have to report. 640 and up have to report in the afternoon, so I would have had to have gone in no matter what. Very early tomorrow morning I will be on my way to downtown Rochester and trying to find a parking spot at the Civic Center. Don't you just envy me now? hehe :-) Well the one good part is I get to bring DH laptop and they do have internet access, so no telling what I will post tomorrow!!!

Builders White.....

We are the second owners of our home and our master bedroom is still in "Builders White" So it is time to paint, here are some choices I put up. I was originally thinking that I wanted the far right colors but now I am leaning to a middle of the three, I can never bring myself to go totally dark for some reason. The one on the top, DH picked and that is my least favorite.
We had a very tall and somewhat large armoire DH disassembled it before I could get a before pic. I have a great crafty idea to re-purpose the armoire as a sewing table/area in my office. I saw this done in a magazine recently.
A view into our bedroom, not very attractive and no art on the wall, well barely.
The two dressers I have had since I was sixteen years old and they went with me to all of my apartments, once we get out of the carpet debt, I'd like to get something new.
Another corner and my dresser, with post it notes and a fan on it, isn't that attractive~ ok, the post it notes may be a little over the top for some of you but it helped me organize my clothes!

Placemat purses...

As promised a picture of two of the placemat purses I made as examples for my MOPS meeting. This is a great beginner sewing project since it is SEW easy - he he! The placemats I bought at WalMart for 1.50!

Little of Home Decorating...

Today I have interesting things going on. One I have been working on a new line of beads in the Judy Picarello style, same as my blog header pic but different colors. I worked hard on the color mixing and I am loving how the colors are coming out. I'll post a pic. soon.

Secondly, ya know the Hawaiian punch episode I mentioned on the white rug? Well that has led to my DH insisting that we buy new carpet. So we did today and I am proud of myself, while watching two children I picked out a new carpet color/type in less than a half an hour. Now this is leading to us wanting to finish the hallway paint job that is now two years in the making and our bedroom which has been on the plan, so what to do, well call my dear ole Dad that's what, so he is coming over to help us get all this painting done, Thurs. PM - Well that means - YIKES I only have a day or two to pick a paint color for the bedroom! Luckily I had been thinking about this for a while now and already have swatches, that I promptly put up when we got home. Plus I am eyeing what another blogger did with her room and loving it.

Lastly I made a second sale on Etsy! Yahoo, I shipped two packages out today.

I haven't forgotten the purse pic. post. Also on my tutorial I realize it wasn't perfect but I tried and it is difficult to upload to blogger all the pics etc. in the order I wanted them, so that is why I had to do it in different posts, hope you didn't mind too much, Also I found a toggle clasp with two holes which will be perfect for the watch since it has two strings on each end. Got a deal at JoAnn's yesterday, they accidentally left a FIMO 50 percent off sign in front of the FIMO and it turns out that that was an old sign. I really thought is was on sale but it wasn't but they gave it to me since is was a sign error.

PS Someone from Kuala Lumpur looked at my blog - how cool is that!

Tutorial Part 3

You end with a teeny tiny crimp bead photo above, below then add your closure finding, in this case I used a closed jump ring ( a jump ring that has been soldered closed here - you don't want an open jump ring here because it could come off).
Loop the wire back through the crimp bead and a few seed beads.
Pull tight.
Crimp and cut off excess wire.
Follow the tutorial again for the other side! Use the other end of your closure finding. OK now did I make it look easy? He he, well if you must know I restrung both sides twice and I am still not happy with it, I am going to restring it again - why you ask? because I want a magnetic closure instead of a lobster claw clasp and closed jump ring because I can't get it on my wrist by myself and it is a bit loose on my wrist and the watch part falls down, so I want to get it a bit more snug. I am almost there - trial and error you know, that is what crafting is all about!!!

Tutorial Part 2

Both strands then go through the next big bead.
Put six seed beads on each strand between each big bead, and keep going you will probably want three or four big beads depending on the size of your wrist.
Every time you go through a big bead it is both strands of wire through the big beads and then six seed beads on each strand. I sometimes had to straighten out my strands and make sure they didn't twist to make sure they looked how I wanted them to.


Stay tuned to next post for the finishing part.

Beaded Watch Tutorial

OK here it goes, my first tutorial....How to make a beaded watch! Why did this become my first tutorial, well I was in DESPERATE need of a watch and didn't want to pay 50 bucks or more for one, since I knew I was capable of making one. I had picked up this book in the NEW section of the Webster Public Library. I have also recently seen it at JoAnns too.

The picture of the three watches is the section of the book on watch making.

This picture of the watch was the one I liked the best and wanted to use as a starting point. I didn't buy the exact beads because I had some beads I knew I wanted to use. In the picture she uses copper beads.
You need a bead board, Beadalon Stringing Wire, Seed Beads, and a watch face, you can buy all of this at JoAnn Fabrics, as a matter of fact, very soon they are going to have all of their jewelry supplies at 40 percent off for a few weeks.
It comes with a sticker on the back, don't forget to take it off.
My watch face is blue which I really liked. Cut approx. 8 inch wire, I always use more and string through the end of the watch to form an upside down U as seen in the picture above.
String on seed beads about four on each side. Stay tuned to my next post to see the rest.

Happy Saturday...

How was your week? Here in Rochester NY the weather is starting to become more spring like and we were able to get outside a few times, when my daughter was feeling well. I'll spare you the gory details and just say she had the stomach bug and we may need to get a new carpet because Hawaiian Punch doesn't mix too well with a white carpet, ok I guess that might of gotten a little gory, how much can you handle? :-) I haven't posted as much as I wanted since I was taking care of her. BUT I did manage to get some photos of me making a watch!!!! And I am going to post my first tutorial of how to do it, I hope ya all like it. I am also going to post a picture of the placemat purses that I am going to have my MOPS club make, I haven't taken that photo yet but I will, they are sooooo fun to make and really neat once they are done, wait till you see em you won't believe your eyes :-)

Happy Dance...

I made my first sale on Etsy - WAHOO!!! Happy Dance Time! The lucky lady will also receive a free set of one of my salt and pepper shakers covered with Polymer Clay. And, get this, she collects salt and pepper shakers too - neat huh? I guess it was just meant to be. Do you want to know what she bought? Actually what she bought two of? Well in that case you need to go to my Etsy shop at http://www.laurasgiftboutique.etsy.com and click on sold items to see the picture of what I sold. And someone else is interested in the same item, so I will be re posting it in the shop soon! Thanks Colleen, and she has a shop on Etsy too, you can visit her shop at http://www.missys.etsy.com

Etsy and Random

I am close to making my first Etsy sale and I am having a hard time communicating because it is done through Etsy, Colleen if you read this, I want you to know that I have responded to all of your emails through the conversations page, I don't know if you are also getting them in your home email but I hope so. This is the only problem with trying to learn everything on your own without help.

Random thoughts about today....

• I got hit in the face with a free weight today at the YMCA, yup it hurt bad, yup it was an accident, yup it wasn't my free weight it was held by another lady, yup it still hurts 4 hours later, yup I've had ice on it, yup I took ibuprofren, yup the lady felt horrible about it
• My car needs gas
• My husband had a special night out, went to a guitar concert, he doesn't know I got hurt yet because I didn't want to ruin his special night out
• Recently found out I need to have carpal tunnel surgery in BOTH hands and scheduled the first hand this summer - Calling ALL friends, will need help due to the fact that I can't use my dominant hand for two weeks
• Went to the Lake today, reminisced about my wedding pictures there
• Went to Applebees for lunch A. and I met Daddy there, Applebees is one of the hardest restaurants for me to eat at, I found more food at the Outback Steak House than Applebees. If you read their menu everything has meat even the salads and even the tomato soup had a beef broth - ew.
• Very excited to show my MOPS friends the next craft, I am SUPER DUPER excited about it, thanks to nikki at WhiMSy LOVE again!
• Saw my parents twice today, once to visit and once to have my mom check my face out - she is a nurse.
• A. was with me all day today.
• My favorite TV show is Extreme Home Makeover
• The Bachelor made some good choices tonight!
• I have to go to work tomorrow and PT
• I have a headache, hmmmm I wonder why.... :-)

Bottles of Hope

I covered the black and white bottles with a cane that our guild did, it was a Guild cane and everyone contributed a piece of cane that was then made into a large cane, then reduced and then sliced and everyone was given a piece to take home, I reduced mine even further.

These are interesting as the heat/air in the oven caused the lids to crack so that is now the top, I think they still came out neat.
I love the lid on this one!
For the longest time I have been wanting to post about Bottles of Hope (I was waiting till I could get a good picture of some of the ones I have done) Bottles of Hope is a program that our guild (WNYPCG) takes part in. We cover glass bottles and each bottle gets a small message inside. Then the bottles are taken to local hospitals where people get treated for cancer. They are given a bottle during their cancer treatment. We have also passed them out at the Breast Cancer walk two years ago.

Blog Header....

OK I know that picture above is too big and I will work on making it smaller, just need to figure out how to do so. I can't believe that I took that picture!!!!! My light box work and struggles are finally paying off!!! I also uploaded new pics on Etsy, I took some of the old pics and deleted them entirely and put some of the better ones up. I also added new work to the shop at http://laurasgiftboutique.etsy.com I put the same picture above on my Etsy shop as well (I love the pic and I love the work and I love the fact that I actually took that pic - wahoo)

A great day...

Today while at PT I happened to pick up the newspaper and I thought I died and gone to heaven when I read that we will be getting a Hobby Lobby!!!!!! Right in the same plaza where I do my grocery shopping - I first experienced a Hobby Lobby in Atlanta when we were visiting my in laws and then again in Kentucky visiting my in laws. We are getting the first one in the North East - wahooooooooo! (OK now I really need to beef up my Etsy sales so I can go shopping at the Hobby Lobby!!!)

In celebration of my 100th post I am offering a giveaway to the first person that purchases something from my Etsy shop, I will include a free salt and pepper set covered in Polymer Clay that you can then keep for yourself or give as a gift! This will be one of the sets from my stash (not the blue one with hearts because that one is up for sale). However, you could buy the blue set and you would be getting a buy one get one free deal. I will also offer free shipping for the salt and pepper that I am including. I will not charge you extra shipping to ship the freebe. I will also be adding more stuff to the Etsy shop soon. My Etsy shop address is http://www.laurasgiftboutique.etsy.com/ Have fun and I can't wait to see whom the lucky winner is, I will EVEN profile the winner on my blog if they would like.

Museum salt and pepper

Looky, Looky, My salt and pepper shaker made it into the Museum of Fine Art!!!!!! OK really it is an April fool a few days late, I just had to! :-) This was done at dumpr.net again! :-)

All for sale on ETSY...

As you know I have been playing around with my digital camera and I have made two light boxes in the effort to take better pictures of my artwork and it is finally coming together, thanks to DH helping. It is ALL about the lighting folks and your camera settings. All of the above are for sale on ETSY... I haven't even uploaded these pictures to Etsy yet as I wanted to share with you first, Don't you feel special!? (You should!!! :-) I also noticed that this is my 99th or 98th post, SO I think it just MIGHT be time for another GIVEAWAY, don't you think maybe so????? I think I need to have a giveaway in conjunction with my Etsy shop too. So let me sleep on it and stay tuned for the 100th post, it will be in the info. on that post. I am sooooo excited! Also if you are a local reader of my blog and you are interested in buying something from my Etsy store, I wouldn't charge you shipping, especially if I see you frequently, ie book club, you live on my street etc. Hint, hint. Please consider me for all of your gift giving needs!!!! :-) Stay tuned because I have LOTS that needs to be uploaded to Etsy and lots of goodies coming your way!