Purses, Purses & More Purses

I was thinking that this Christmas I would make some homemade gifts for some of the family members and so I started thinking what could I make them that a)they would use, b) they would like and c) I could feasibly do it in the amount of time that I had (2 weeks). I was going to whip out some knitted convertible mittens, beanies or socks and then I woke up and remembered that I wasn't a magician and I needed to come up with a better idea! So I decided to do a few hand made gifts and get the rest the normal way via the store!! I found a fun sewing pattern for a purse so I set off to the fabric store and discovered an abundance of fabulous fabric to choose from. After some close calls pulling fabric off the shelves my mom and I hauled our choices up to the cutting counter. The poor employee wasn't quite prepared for our 8 different fabrics and various amounts that we needed for each and our numerous questions about sewing as she was trying to cut straight, apparently that is a difficult task to do. I jumped right into cutting, measuring, pinning and ironing the fabric and before I knew it I had my first purse!! I loved it, personally I think it is amazing but I am a bit biased!







I started on the second one, this time I thought I would go off the beaten pattern and made a few changes but lets just say I should learn from my prior mistakes and not do that till I was a bit more prepared and of course had more time!! So instead of smooth sailing like the first one I had some MAJOR isssues!!! Unfortunately I didn't get the second purse done in time for Christmas but I did learn how to make the changes and so next time around it will be perfect!!

Annie M. Design

I am hosting a fabulous Jewelry Party for Annie M Design. She is my cousin but luckily does not have any of my inadequacies in creativity she does amazing necklaces and bracelets. Some of you may have seen my cute pearl necklace with the tons of amazing charms on it, that is one of her designs. You can also go through her hundreds of decadent pendants and have a custom necklace or bracelet that will be all your own!! The party is this Thursday at 7:00 pm at my house so drop on by and take a look!!!

Nutcracker

Jesse and I got to attend the Nutcracker on Saturday evening with Kristen and Scott. I had never been to the Nutcracker so I was pretty excited but Jesse was far from excited and kept trying to get out of going. As you can guess I won out and he went and of course loved it just as much if not more than I did. He always resists my ideas but in the end loves them I think he just likes to make things difficult. Anyways, the dancers were great and let me just say they have amazing calves, thighs and butts!! (See Below) It made me want to go dancing around leaping in the air on my toes, yeah like that will ever occur but it is fun to think about being able to do!! So go and see the Nutcracker it is well worth it!!

Christmas Wish List Continued

Yes I have been asked for my Christmas list to be posted so this is really for those that have requested it not for anyone else, so you can just scroll past this to those cute dresses!!

180's ear muffs with headphones



Fun Decorative Hooks to hang my necklaces off of


This Great little Indoor Herb Garden Grower from Williams Sonoma

This Cute Earring Tree or something similar

A Relaxing Massage



A relaxing Pedicure to tame my wild feet


More to come....

Downtown Holiday Jacket and Pant GIVEAWAY!!!!

This is soo cute as well I hope I win!!!
Downtown Holiday Jacket and Pant GIVEAWAY!!!!

Darling Dress

This little dress is soo cute, it may be my next project. Okay so it might be a bit overzealous to do it but hey why not go big!!! Thanks Tiff for finding it!!

Thanksgiving Ginger Bread Houses

Whenever we have Thanksgiving at my family's house my sister and I are in charge of building and manning the gingerbread house decorating for the kids. This year I was on my own since my precious little sis is far, far away and unable to help me. So luckily I roped Sarah into helping me build ten of them a few days before Thanksgiving so as to give them time to fall apart if they were poorly constructed, which is usually the case when I build them but this year they held strong sans one. Pretty good track record if you ask me!! So we managed to get them all there and get the kids set up with their own houses, frosting glue, candies and supervisors for the little ones. It is always fun to see what the kids come up with and how their creativity goes wild!! I was the designated twizzler designer for all the houses and made wreaths, hearts, stars, flowers and even an attempt at a snowflake and a smoking chimney. Overall, a great time was had by all the little kiddies and they came away happy and on a sugar high, always a good thing with children!!
Setting Up

Having Too Much Fun

Cutest Cake Pans Ever

In my internet surfing I came upon Williams-Sonoma's really fun cake pans!! I want all of them too bad they cost soo much!!

Christmas Wish List

Since I am making everyone else start pondering what they would like for Christmas I thought I might do a little online shopping myself to gather my "Wish List". Wearing boots makes winter more enjoyable so I am always dreaming of new boots to add to my small collection (three pairs). Oh the joy of the internet so you can dream right at your desk!!! These are some of them:

Amish Friendship Bread ...........the Real Story

I had never heard of Amish Friendship Bread till Andrea dropped by with a bag of starter, directions and a few muffins to try. As she was explaining about Amish Friendship bread she was saying that a friend of hers loves it and couldn't find the recipe anywhere and eventually had to purchase the starter becuase supposedly "only the Amish know how to make it". Then I was talking with my mom about it and she was saying that some starters were really old like hundreds of years old. I of course just went along with these assumptions, until last night when I discovered that Amish Friendship bread is ALL over the internet!!! I found at least ten sites that not only tell you how to make the starter but the detailed and labor intensive (okay not really labor intensive but it sounds good) 10 day instructions that you can print off. So all my fantasies about this ancient Amish secret have been dashed and crushed and I am not sure how I will go on. I will make more Amish Friendship bread and next I am doing a sourdough starter, which interestingly enough I discovered that Amish Friendship Bread starter is a Sourdough starter sans the milk. I have discovered a lot about starters last night through my accomplise Google. Thanks Google for making me a bit smarter last night you always come through. Oh and here is a funny article about Amish Friendship Bread.

P.S. If anyone would like a Amish Friendship Bread starter I will have about 7 to give away, the bread is yummy to eat an excellent treat just let me know.

We've Expanded

I have finally found a kitchen table and chairs for a good price and that fits in our tiny little kitchen area and that will fit more than 2.5 people comfortably!! So now we can invite people over to eat or play games without cramming them on the tiny table!!! We got the whole set for a mere $135 and will be refinishing it eventually. So be looking for your invite!!

Does Anyone Know....

of a drycleaner that picks up and delivers in the Orem area??

Neighbor Kids

(Disclaimer: This is just a google search picture not the real children)
I would like to just share a great story about my neighbor's little girls. I had a few hula hoops left over from our garage sale that I thought they might enjoy playing with so I told them to come over so I could give them a surprise. Since little kids are always very reliable when they are going to get something they came over one evening to pick up their surprise. I gave them the hula hoops and then asked them if they knew how to hula hoop and both assured me they did and that they could even jump rope with! They then gave me a wonderfully humerous demonstration of their jumping and hulaing skills and instructions on how to properly hula hoop. Luckily I have many great neighborhood kids that always put a smile on my face and brighten my day with their funny sayings and amazing talents!! Thanks for having fun children that I get to enjoy!!!

Holiday Shopping

As the Holiday Season comes close I am starting to plan on what I am getting everyone and how much everything will cost so we can budget it in. I get soo overwhelmed with christmas shopping becuase I hate trying to figure out what someone wants and when I do finally decide on something then I am worried someone else will get them the same thing or that they hate it and return it. Thus, I try to avoid purchasing gifts for anyone and leave it to the last minute. This year I am working on it being a bit different but we will see how it pans out. So far I have Jesse bought for (becuase he picked out part of it) and that is all!! I have to come up with something cool for my sister and her husband that will hold up on the way to Thailand with our's and Thailand's amazing postal service, all of my immediate in-laws (which the lovely Jesse is absolutely no help whatsoever), my parents (which as most kids feel with parents that they have everything and what they don't you can't afford and they always say "whatever you give will be wonderful") and a few friends (not as hard here becuase most will just give me a straight answer). So yes I am feeling the anxiety building up slowly and starting to push it back as far away as I can but hopefully I will get my act together and start the present shopping!!

The Grocery Store

Last night I ran over to the grocery store to pick up some items to make this Amish Friendship bread. As I was perusing the aisles and chatting on the phone with Celina a thought came to me that the whole grocery store should be alphabetized by product. This may seem strange but hear me out, think of a movie store things are sorted alphabetically within their food groups. If all the frozen items were sorted this way it would make finding those obscure items on your grocery list a lot easier to find! For example, the produce section would all be sorted starting with A and down to Z if there were any Z products. I would like to see a store done in this fashion becuase I would spend a lot less time there!

Sewing Project 2

I finished two aprons and then a knitting needle holder for my intro sewing projects and have found my next project to undertake. It all started with my mom being worried that Charlie will be cold in the winter if he is outside while I am at work. So I googled dog coats and found some but it was a minimum of $40 to get a nice warm water resistant coat for Charlie. I found a free pattern on the internet and am going to try it out. If it is ugly then it doesn't really matter it is only going to be seen by the dog and he doesn't care one bit what it like!

P.S. Celina you know you will be heavily involved in this endeavor so get lots of rest and eat up so you will not be nutrient deprived!!!

Annie M. Design

If anyone is interested in attending my cousin's amazing jewelry boutique show it is going to be held Thursday November 13th and Saturday November 15th. I have a great necklace from her and love pretty much everything she makes!! Check out her blog for more information.

Spiderlicious

I finished it!!! I was looking online at different spider cakes and how to make them for a Halloween party and found a few to take ideas from. So yes instead of purchasing the spider cake from Macey's for a mere $13 I slaved over making it by hand!! I figure I should use my skills that I learned in cake decorating class a few years back. Of course while I was getting ready to dye my frosting the colors that I wanted to use were all congealed and it would not melt in the microwave so I moved to the next option, go with the colors that were left! All in all it was a lot of fun to make and I think it turned out pretty darn good!!

8 Favorites Tag

8 Favorite TV Shows:
1. Without a Trace
2. Cold Case
3. The Office
4. Gossip Girl
5. America's Next Top Model
6. American Idol
7. So you think you can dance
8. John & Kate Plus Eight

8 Things I did yesterday:
1. Woke up with a splitting headache
2. Scanned some documents
3. Took Charlie out
4. Went to work
5. Played with my Niece Miranda
6. Went to dinner with my mom, sister and niece at Noodles
7. Went to Braxton's Birthday party to have yummy cake
8. Fell asleep on the couch watching TV with Jesse

8 Things I Look Forward to:
1. Eating candy
2. Being in the sunshine
3. When I don't have to go into work (not anytime soon)
4. Fitting into my skinny jeans
5. Having savings again
6. Finishing our basement
7. Going to Thailand
8. A day off

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1. Happy Sumo
2. Market Street Grill
3. Thai anything
4. Bombay House
5. Kneaders
6. Smokehouse
7. Pizzaria 712
8. Foundry Grill

8 Things on My Wish List:
1. Travel around the world
2. Complete a triathalon
3. Sell all my junk
4. Jesse graduate college
5. To love the gym again
6. Have my Brother's family move to Utah
7. Own a jet to visit everyone more often
8. Have lots of savings

4th Folder and Post 4th Picture:


Although I would think that it would be the 8th folder with the 8th picture since it is an 8 favorites tag so I am doing that too:


I think this is just the updated version of chain letters!! Ha ha ha how technology changes perceptions of things.

8 People to Tag:
1. Celina
2. Kayla
3. Amanda
4. Andrea
5. Danni
6. Sarah Peterson
7. Sarah Teare
8. Amber

Witchapalooza

Saturday night a group of friends went out to experience the festivities of Witchapalooza. We all dressed up as witches of course and enjoyed a dinner and musical show!! It was a lot of fun and definitely got me in the mood for Halloween!!

Jogging With Charlie

This morning I woke up and decided I would run to work again with Charlie. I figured I was really motivated so I should just do it. Well I used to put charlie in the baby jogger when he was smaller since he couldn't run that far. Well I haven't run to work in quite a while and so I wasn't sure if I was up to packing it and Charlie into it. I pulled it out of the garage and loaded it with my work clothes, purse, Charlies things and we started off. I thought that I would let Charlie run with me until he got tired, yeah lets just say that was a interesting event. Between trying not to run Charlie over, Charlie chasing my pant legs while I was running and avoiding the various obstacles on the side walk it was a tiring trip. Although, Charlie did make it almost all of the 4.7 miles with only a short stint in the jogger. So next time I think I am eliminating the jogger all together. The best part though was watching people's faces when they would look into the jogger to see the baby but only to see a blanket or Charlie sitting in there.

Then .......Now

I was going through my pictures and saw these baby pictures of Jesse and thought it would be fun to see how he grew into the sexy beast he is today!!! Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!