Special Coupon

The Stacy Bag

A new addition to the Crafty Mama bag line up.

The Stacy Bag.

Named for my new friend, Stacy Thomas. Who is VERY pregnant. And somehow still manages too ooze happiness, femininity, and beauty.

I started this bag last week and didn't know who I was going to name this new design after. Then I had Bunco with Stacy and other fun friends last night. Something about her is so sweet and warm. She's fun and happy and just what a group of friends needs. Kinda like how this bag design needs those shabby flowers.

Here's my Etsy description of this bag..."The Stacy Bag is a medium size boxy tote with ultra feminine, shabby chic, frayed-edge flowers. Great as a small diaper bag/tote or larger purse."

I liked the flowers so much (and the girls woke up so early!) that this morning, I appliqued a bouquet onto my plain gray Lands End t-shirt. Thanks for the inspiration, Stacy:)

Made by Mom

Belle from Beauty and the Beast
I'm not even going to tell you how many fabric rose tutorials I looked at and tried out. This was the best I could do and I actually like the fabric flower so much, I'm incorporating it into a new bag style.

Can't a girl catch a break?

Remember how I broke a molar on my birthday last month and was totally freaking out about having it removed? Well, a full month later, I notice that part of it suddenly isn't healing properly and there's something white and hard poking out of my gums. Crafty Papa apparently watched some kind of info. video while I was having the surgery and he told me he thought it was a piece of bone sticking out. Say what?! I tried to pull it out with tweezers but that hurt so I had to go back in today. Pops was right! It was a bone shard that had worked its way up and was irritating my gums. So, the doctor had to yank that puppy out and now I'm stuck with another bloody hole in my mouth. Breaking the tooth and having it removed was bad enough, can't the universe cut me some slack and let me go without bone shards?

We're still working on unpacking the last few boxes at the new house and found out that we have two roommates...a pair of skunks! There's no other way to say it, this seriously sucks. We noticed our friends the very first night we slept here. We both woke up in the middle of the night and heard scratching and rustling around loud enough that it sounded like the house was being broken into. Crafty Papa did some investigating and determined it was an animal under the house. After two and a half weeks here, we've been woken up every single night with the exception of one. They get under the bathtub and go crazy. Steve said they were actually scratching the tub the other night while the girls were in it!

During his detective work, Crafty Papa figured out that the animal wasn't a racoon or possum like we thought, but a pair of skunks. And trust me, you can smell them! We're working with the landord to keep them out but figuring out when they leave isn't easy and means Steve is up until the wee hours of the morning, waiting to hear them. Seriously, I've had to go back to renting and squeeze all of our crap into a smaller house...isn't that enough without a pair of nasty critters living underneath me?

Enough with the bitching. I have been sewing and have a few things to list tomorrow. Life has been super busy and I'm having problems balancing everything. I'll be back with new stuff and a better attitude.

Missing: Motivation

I was so excited to get my new sewing space all set up at the beginning of the week and then I seemed to be totally lacking motivation. Maybe I'm still getting use to my new setup. Or maybe it's because it's been so damn hot and humid and none of the homes here have air conditioning. Maybe I need to draw up a few new patterns. Whatever it is, I need to get crack-a-lackin. I have two last minute trick or treat bags to finish up and I suddenly realized that I never finished Bella's Belle costume for Halloween. Yikes!

I did manage to get two new bags listed this week and have added a few more to the "sale" section in my shop.

Two Down, Four Two Go

I think I've mostly finished two rooms in our new house, the (only) bathroom and play/craft/dining room.

To create our new bathroom, I spent $42...$28 for a new shower curtain to block off the shower and laundry area, $6 for soap dispenser and toothbrush holders, $6 for new hand towels, and $3 at a yard sale for the set of three carved plaques on the wall. I used outdoor decor from our old backyard and behind the door is a shelf with hooks for towels. I've ordered vinyl to cut something with my Cricut to put above the curtain but I'm not sure what yet.

In the play/craft/dining room, I spent $14 on paint for the toy bookcases and that's it! Everything else is stuff we already had. I used the Amy Butler fabric canvases that were in the livingroom in our old house. Fabric from my stash for the window "mistreatments" (do you all read the Nester too?). Rug from our old play area and shelves from my former scrapbooking area. I know the room is packed with stuff and is just a weird multi-purpose kind of space but I really like the blue/green/brown color combo and think we're using the space in the best way we can. Oh, and I know the wall above the toy shelves is empty. I plan to fill it with a bunch of letter "G"s but I have to collect them first:)

Any Faux Finishers in the House?

We have three short bookcases that we use for the girls' toy storage in the playroom. We got an awesome deal from an unfinished wood place that had lost its lease and was literally going out of business the day after we were there. We bought the shelves because they were the perfect size and we planned to stain them a dark cherry finish to match the rest of our furniture. That was almost two years ago.

So, here I sit looking at those unfinished shelves. I've decided to paint them a sort of aqua/turquoise/smokey blue/tealish color and really want to do a color wash so they look kind of shabby and worn (um, that's partly because they're starting out shabby and worn and I don't want to put in the effort to perfect them). Can I color wash with just paint and water? Like mix the two and rub on with a cloth? Or do I have to use a glaze? I don't want them to look heavily painted, thus the reason for not rolling or brushing the paint on. I just want some color and brightness. Am I on the right track? Or should I sponge paint? I kid, I kid. My sister and I had a dresser that we sponge painted the hell of growing up. I can't even remember how many different combinations we had. I know that when I went away to college, it was white with red sponge paint. Klassy.

Also, I declared a spending freeze this week. I notified Crafty Pops on Monday that I thought we should try not to spend any money at all Monday-Friday this week. And here I am on Wednesday, going out to buy paint. I'm selling some stuff on Craigslist and I have some cash so he'll never have to know I'm cheating. At least that's how I'm rationalizing it this morning.