Current Situation: Taking photos on the front lawn

So for a long time now, I've admired those bloggers with fancy cameras who take amazing pictures and post them on their blogs.  They look awesome! And mine don't.  Don't try and be nice, but they don't.  So, I recently decided to start trying to learn how to use my new phone (you, know because my kids lost my red point and shoot camera.... and they dropped the blue point and shoot we had and shattered the screen); so the phone it is!  

So imagine that you've just got home from dropping your middle child off at preschool and dropping off library books, when you realize your youngest is sleeping in the car.

It's 10:30am.

So you sit in the car for awhile, turning the key just enough so you can hear the radio, but the car is off so you don't waste gas and hurt the environment (or something). The windows are down, it's 75 degrees, because you live in Florida and it's only really cold for 2 days out of the year. You read a magazine. Search for coupons. Check Facebook for the 10th time that day. Anything on twitter? I'm still not 100% sure how Twitter works, so no go there. Instagram? Again...the beautiful photos!  Argh!!

So you decide that it's time to figure out how to take those great photos once and for all. You get out a white board for the base. a piece of white paper clipped to a magazine holder, and set it out on the front lawn.  You then proceed to artfully arrange a bunch of yarn balls and try to take their picture in the blazing sun while lying on the grass. You can't see the pictures you are taking in your camera screen because of the sunlight, so you blindly snap away, hoping at least one will turn out. Your neighbor across the street comes home. You ignore him, as you secretly hope he's ignoring you laying on your lawn in a skirt, snapping photos of yarn balls.

You realize you left the car windows open, so you go to close them and then you realize that you've left the key in the car, playing music for over an hour and now your car battery is dead. Ugh! And things were going so well too.

Ha!  So this was my day, a little ridiculous, right?  I mean, who takes a nap at 10:30am?  Poor little C's been getting up early with her sister to go to the bus stop (her idea, not mine) and she's getting over a cold, so that might explain the early morning nap. And while I'm thankful for naps, I kinda wish she's nap in her bed so I could get some work done inside the house, instead of hanging out in the car with her. 

The pictures of the dryer balls turned out pretty awesome though, if I do say so myself.  I guess the outdoor sunlight really does make a difference!  

I don't even want to show you my previous photos--scary!

Now, if someone would just buy these, it would totally make up for my laying in the yard and draining my car battery.  Thank goodness for having friends who are willing to come jump my car!  

If you're interested in buying them, check out my Facebook page here. 

Or not, that's ok too!  I've realized that I like writing and creating, so if no one ever buys anything, that's ok. But what am I going to do with all these dryer balls?!  That is the million dollar question...I already have a bunch more bouncing around in my laundry right. now. They are really fun to make, so I think I went a little overboard, ha! 

Thanks for reading! 

Until next time,

Keep creating!
Patricia

Happy New Year!

Hey all!!

After taking the month of December and half of November off (hello family time!), I'm back and ready to share with you some of the things I'm going to be working on / want to be working on this year.  Hey, it doesn't count if I don't write it down, right?

(Plus, I'd love to see what you're going to be working on too! Share in the comments!)

1. Organizing my older daughter G's room.  Right now, it's a mismatched room with red curtains, boxes that belong in storage, a way too small dresser, a crib (I tried to pass it off as a reading nook), and some extra little tables as a makeshift desk.  I would love to get the 2 baseball wallpaper borders gone, repaint the room some fun color, find a big girl horizontal dresser, and make a headboard for the bed.  A new fan might also be in order!  I have found so many good ideas on Pinterest, feel free to follow me and get inspired too!

I can't take any before photos now because she's sleeping, but she's still using this dresser for her clothes, and she'd need about 3 of these to hold all of her stuff now!  I'm thinking of passing this IKEA Rast dresser down to her littlest sister C. She'll love having her own space!

2. Organize my sewing / craft space. It's a hot mess right now. And I just want something organized so if I have 10 minutes, I can just sit down and pick up a project and work on it. But, I also want something opaque, so that when people come over, they can't see all my unfinished stuff, since my sewing space is in the corner of our bonus space in our house.  I organized (mostly) my craft closet, but need to get this done.

Before photo:

3. Finish up a bunch of sewing and craft projects that I've just been neglecting. There's the Little Mermaid lap quilt and a bunch of bibs that I have cut out but haven't sewn together. I have also wanted to make the girls aprons for the longest time, as well as a bunch of projects that I'm sure are just sitting at the bottom of the sewing pile on my table.

The lap quilt:


4. Sell something on Etsy!  I've been making felted wool dryer balls for awhile, and I would love to sell some!  It's a goal!  Come visit my Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TshirtsandTulle

5. Get another sewing machine. Ok, this seems a little weird, since I already have a sewing machine, an embroidery machine and a serger, but the sewing machine I am using right now is this adorable vintage Singer that only sews in straight lines.  I want something that does different stitches!  The other machine that I had was a 1980s machine that was gifted to me by a friend.  I ended up breaking both machines at the same time, right before Halloween.  The black vintage machine had a thread jam (fixable) and the 1980s Singer had a broken gear (fixable, but not worth it).  I am going to do some research and pick a new machine this year!

My awesome vintage Singer:



Well, that's it for right now, but I definitely want to get these things accomplished this year!  Can't wait to get started!  Thanks for reading, don't forget to follow along via email or Find us on Facebook!

~Patricia

Why I shouldn't take shortcuts

So today I was making some wool dryer balls and my thought process went something like this:

Every time I make them, I have to put them in the nylons and then the nylons always getting snagged and I have to rip them off the felted wool....maybe this time I'll just throw the balls in the washer without the nylons.

Great idea, right?

Wrong.

Here's what you get when you don't add the nylons:

A huge mess. A big semi-felted wooly mess.

So clearly it's taking me a little longer than I anticipated to make more of the dryer balls, but when I do, I'll be sure to put them up in my Etsy shop. If you'd like to take a chance and make some yourself, check out my previous post. So check back soon!

~Patricia