Pinterest Night #2: Shout out to the Hobby Lobby Lady

Lianne called into Pinterest night sick this week. But I didn’t let it stop me. While I continued to work on my sewing skills this week and mastered the art of sewing straight in multiple stitches I figured I would have Lianne spending some time practicing as well. I would supervise and drink wine. So that we had something to show of Pinterest night, I thought we would also chalkboard paint something. When I bought the chalkboard a few days ago, Travis got excited and wanted to try it. We grabed a napkin holder that we never used and went to work. I was a little nervous- after the second coat it looked like this:

It did have some cracks in it, which Trav and I think was a result of leaving it outside over night- and we’ve had some chilly nights (lows of 40 inscase you were curious what us Arizonans think is a chilly January night).I chalked it up- following directions of rubbing the chalk into it and wiping it clean before writing on it:

And then labeled in “Mail”(I desperately need a “clutter on the kitchen table solution.”. It didn’t turn out great, but I still have hopes for the pot I will do next week with Lianne.

Anyway, tonight, I made use of my Pinterst night with my first trip to Hobby Lobby for some fabric! Hobby Lobby… amazing. While I probably could have spent hours in there entertained, I was on a mission. And I knew going into it that picking out fabric for me, would take some time. I didn’t hesitate to ask from help. This poor hobby lobby worker, must have been thinking “oh boy, here is another pinterest band wagen-er without a crafty bone in her body.”Honestly, matching things was hard enough for me, but then trying to figure out measurements. I even asked the lady, how to cut a straight line! The lady was great though and told me to come back and tell her how it turns out. Thank You Hobby Lady, I will!

 While I think I finally picked out something pretty- I hesitated because I thought Travis was going to think it was too feminine. I took home some samples of the printed fabric and enough of the solid to make one of the small pillows.

My couch is masculine, but I think pretty pillows would tie the couch to the pretty canvas over head. What do you think? Does this go… at all? Can you picture it- or am I as uncoordinated as I think I could be? 

Projecting Projects: Not Sew Successful

Wednesday night was Travis’s first night back in school. And while the boy’s away, the girl will play. I had Lianne over for a first, of what I hope will be a regular crafts night. Our night was fun, but barely successful. As Lianne said “Pinterest Night #1: Not Sew Successful”. Our project for the night was simply to get my new sewing machine up and running and practice a few stitches. 2 blondes, 3 hours and 3 glasses of wine later, we had not figured out how to thread the sewing machine.

Now, I know what you are thinking, ‘how hard can it be to following the directions?’ My answer to you, is: “apparently pretty hard.” When you have two girls with the attention spans of 5 years old and no crafting background, you add the wine and chit chat (and other miscellaneous distractions), I suppose it is not all that surprising that nothing got done.

Note the string coming out of the glass!

We weren’t able to follow the directions (written or via youtube) and somehow we ended up with a spool of white thread in the red wine! We decided about half way through we should have been filming it : "Setting up a sewing machine for dummies". I am glad we didnt, because nothing was accomplished. But we did have fun and look forward to chalk paint next week!!

No I did not give up on the sewing machine. I am determined to get it (or me?) operable before Li comes back next week. But I do think that maybe Li and I are safer pursuing things that don’t involve power operated needles on our wine nights J. We’ll come back to the sewing.

And now introducing...

First things first, a little about me and my intentions for this blog. When I was a little girl I always wanted to be a writer… or a lawyer. As an adult (26 years old with two college degrees, married with a home and two bulldogs) I am neither. But both writing and the law still intrigue me and so this blog is my first attempt at pursuing my childhood dreams (better late than never!)

I am a procrastinator and I am definitely the type of person who starts a project and never finishes it. Interestingly enough, my husband is too. And so, our home is filled with “hobbies” that we’ve only slightly pursued (a harmonica, crochet, scrapbook, fishing, and miscellaneous home improvement tools to name a few). Our weights go up and down due to the “healthy life style” we can only half commit to. This time last year, I was running a half marathon. Now, I’ve got 6 boxes of chocolate on my desk  Seriously:

)

and have not done anything I can honestly classify as "excersise" since October 4 (3 days before my wedding)

About the only thing that Travis and I have been able to commit to 100% (besides each other… of course!) is our bulldogs and traveling. So, you will see a lot of that on the blogs to follow. But I do hope to fill my blogs with some other things I hope people will find interesting or relate to. At the very least, these blogs may be an opportunity for my friends to hold me accountable for all the projects that I swear I will do.

2011 was an amazing year for me, I did some traveling, got married and learned some cool “grown up things” like budgeting, couponing, and cooking- I look forward to sharing my new grown up life with you.

“Life is not about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.”