Daddy’s Girl! (Deployment Project #179)

We are ready….so ready!!  That phone call cannot come soon enough!

I’ve been talking with the kids about Daddy coming home, I love to listen to their excitement and their expectations.  Charise was quite worried the other day.  She was worried that Daddy would not be able to find her in the crowd.  I’m not quite sure what she is imagining in her mind, but this was a big concern of hers.  I thought I could ease her worries by making her a little outfit that will definitely stand out in the crowd!

There is no doubt in my mind that Daddy would be able to find us no matter what we are wearing, but Charise feels so much better.  Glad she knows what she is going to wear - - I still have no clue what I am wearing!!  

Every morning this Daddy’s girl runs downstairs and takes another link off our countdown chain and then announces to all of us how many days we have left (tomorrow is her last day to report any numbers to us!!)

Don’t you love those corker bows on her little piggies?  Daddy just melts when she wears her hair in piggies - - and she knows it, so she requested that she wear her hair in piggies to pick up Daddy!  I had my new blogger friend, Heather, make us a set of red, white, and blue corkers!!  She sells them on her site and they are fantastic!  Great quality, great price and she is so fun to work with!!!  You should go and check out her site!!

OK - - now, I’m off to finish that bedroom!  Just to let you know how crazy I am right now, I decided to re-upholster a loveseat for at the end of our bed.  I decided at 7:30PM that it was the wrong color and I wanted to change it, so I got the kids to help me rip the fabric off and by 9:00 we were finished with the entire re-upholstery job!  Don’t worry - - when I finish it all I will share pictures!

Now, I gotta go and work!

UPDATE!!!!  He's home and we are gone on vacation as a family!!!!  The reunion was wonderful and Charise looked so cute at the airport waiting for her daddy!

I'm linking up to the CSI project today - - but unfortunately, the button will not work for me - -- at all!!!  -- like I said, we are on vacation and I am using someone elses computer - - it is not cooperating!!

ok - -- off to enjoy my hubby!!!!

My version (Deployment Project #147)

I have had this picture in my “files” for over a year now - - I absolutely love this shirt.  I have no idea where I found it - - somewhere on the big world wide web!    I decided it was time to see if I could come up with my own version.

I started by buying two identical long sleeve cotton shirts on clearance for $1.99 each from Target.

Next, I cut out round petal shapes (I did a trial run with some extra jersey fabric I had on hand, just to make sure everything would work as planned, it works out well since you will be able to see the added pieces easily in the pictures.)  Once I knew that my process worked, I did cut all these pieces from the second shirt I bought.  This way I knew that my cotton fabric was going to match perfectly.

 

After I cut the petal pieces, I ran them through my sewing machine.   Sewing a straight line down the center of the petal so that I could “ruffle” them.

Next, I ripped various sized strips of fabric.  Ranging in size from 1” – 2 1/2” wide.

 

I ran these through my sewing machine also.

 

Then I pulled the bobbin thread and “ruffled the long strips.

 

Now it was time to get artistic!  I started pinning my ruffled pieces onto my shirt.  Starting at the shoulder and adding pieces until it had the look that I wanted.

 

   

After I was satisfied that it was going to work, I cut apart my second shirt and did the entire process with the grey fabric.

Since I bought the shirts on clearance, they were long sleeved.  A good thing for giving me lots of fabric to work with, but it is summer now, and it is HOT and HUMID here.  I am not a patient person (meaning, I did not want to wait until fall to be able to wear my new shirt!)  So I put the shirt back on my twin, then put one of my favorite tanks over the top.  I marked the armholes for the tank and cut my black shirt along those lines.

 

Next, I cut a couple more strips 1” wide.  I folded them in half and attached those around the arm holes.  I just left the rough side to the edge since I wanted it to continue having the raggedy edge.

 

What do you think?  I’m quite pleased with the finished product!!

 

Quick and Easy Dress to Skirt (Deployment Project #135)

Today, I’m sharing a super easy project I did last week.  And when I say super easy, I mean super easy and super fast!!!  I actually did this in about 5 min. (including taking pictures) last week in the morning before we left for a day out on the town!!

I found this Liberty of London dress on the clearance rack at Target for $4.  I absolutely love the print of the fabric, but the shape and cut of the dress was doing absolutely nothing for me.

So, I made it into a skirt!  In a very simple, almost primitive manner!  First thing I did was cut the top halter of the dress off.

Two separate pieces - - I just threw the top part away, it wasn’t really a big enough scrap to do anything with - - although, now I’m thinking I should have saved it and made a fabric flower to embellish the shirt I wear with the skirt.   Oh well, too late now!! 

Next, I made a simple folded over top hem and sewed my elastic directly on top of the hem, stretching the elastic  as I went, which made the skirt ruffle up perfectly when I was done.

Quick, Easy and Fabulously cute!!!

  

“Dear Jesus, Please make the time go by quickly.” Breaking 100 in the Deployement Project #’s!!

Along with their other requests and praises, my kids pray this every night before they go to bed.  They want the time until Daddy comes back home to go quickly.  I couldn’t agree more, but I do have to say that I believe God is answering their prayers!  I tell you what, the time is flying - - and that is a good thing, but I’m not sure if I can keep up!!  I did not even realize that my last post was two weeks ago!  Yikes!!

Thank goodness you all are patient, kind and loving readers!!  It is not for a lack of projects for me to post about, that is for sure!!  I have been sooooooooooo busy with projects, I feel like I have about a 100 to post (ok, maybe not 100 that might be an exaggeration) but actually finding the time to post seems to be the problem!!  Of course, tonight I am taking a project break while I  sit here writing a  post and  watching the Survivor Finale at the same time!!  Multi-tasking at it’s best.

So, here’s a Deployment Project Update:  (sorry, I didn’t take pictures of it all - - it’s that whole time management thing!!)

Since I last posted, I have made 14 pillows

 

Embroidered 4 more sheets

My mantra for now!  Keep calm and carry on!

Sewed 3 dresses and 1 shirt

Painted 2 more Station Signs

Re-upholstered 2 couch cushions

Sewed 3 camera straps

and Re-upholstered this sweet bench.

 

And - - through all of that I have taught school ( we are almost finished for the year - - wooohooooo!!!), kept the house fairly well maintained,  made it to they gym (although not as much as I would have like to!)  mowed the lawn (until the mower died, then I just gave up on that one!), chauffeured the kids back and forth to swimming, fencing, art lessons, guitar lessons,Awana,  and birthday parties, had my Mom and Dad visit for a long weekend to celebrate my birthday and Mother’s Day, had a great friend come this weekend and give me some “Design Intervention,”  picked up some sweet deals on craigslist (can’t wait to share those with you!) - - oh, and I even fed the kids a few well-rounded healthy meals! 

Whew!  See why there hasn’t been any posts lately?  That takes my Deployment count to 111!!!

I could sit and beat myself up about not posting as often as I would like, but I had a sweet new blogger friend, Linda, remind me in an email this week, “Looking forward to your next blog, but remember that your kids come first and your blog groupies understand that so we wait patiently.”    Thanks Linda!

Hopefully there will be more posts, more often, but I can’t promise that.   I can promise you that I do have some fabulous projects that I am currently working on and eventually I will post about them!! 

Amy Butler Sun Surf Halter (Deployment Project #77)

Just a simple project to share with you today.   If you are a new or beginning sewer - - this is the perfect beginner project for you!!  I love Amy Butler patterns - - to me, they are the easiest patterns and directions to follow!!

 

This sweet little top is only 4 pieces of fabric and super simple.  But it looks so cute on my little model!!

We went to Mount Vernon last week for a field trip and I couldn’t resist getting some pictures of her with the Potomac in the background!!

 

On a side note - - if you are a beginning sewer and would love a step by step how to - - join up with Grosgrain for her Frock by Friday as she helps us make a compete dress by Friday.  Jump over there to find the link to the free pattern and make a dress along with her!!