3 for 1

Since I've been neglecting my poor blog lately you get a 3 for 1 post. Lucky you (I think). Saturday I ran my first 1/2 marathon! I've been training with a friend from church and we ran it together. I'm glad I had someone to run with because I don't think I would've stuck to the training schedule without a running partner. I was excited to finish (that was the farthest I've ever run) and we even finished near our ideal goal time.

I haven't decided yet whether to shell out the $13 for a print or $30 to download the picture (can you say rip-off??) so for now you get the tiny, poor quality, watermarked version. That's probably best though since I found out I'm not a very photogenic runner (this is the only one I wasn't embarrassed to put online even though my hair appears to be growing out the side of my head).

Other than that it was a lazy weekend for me. When we were driving home from church on Sunday we decided to stop at a garage sale. That turned out to be a great idea! There was a sewing table up front for only $20!

The outside could use a little TLC, so I'm thinking about painting the whole thing. (Thankfully those spots on the front aren't bubbles in the finish, just discolored so I'm hoping I won't have to do very much sanding) What I like most about it is the storage on the inside!

Check out all of those drawers! I'll have to find some way to cover the hole because I'm planning to get a new sewing machine and a new sewing machine won't fit in the hole. I'm looking for a little painting advice though. I have no idea where this guy will reside after we move (and move again) later this year. So should I go with a neutral color in case it winds up in our bedroom again or go with a fun color for an office/craft room? (I won't necessarily go with any of these colors, but I am liking the teal right now)

I plan on painting one of the fold-out sides with some leftover chalkboard paint so I can jot down measurements during a project! (Can you tell I'm excited about that part because I am!) I always end up using a tiny scrap of paper that gets lost sometime in the 3 weeks days it takes me to finish a project.

In other news I got some labels from Uprinting.com last week. I won a giveaway from Mrs. Yellow Ribbon (thank you!!) and got to make 250 free labels. I went with Christmas tags and it was fun getting to come up with a design. You pretty much start from scratch and can upload images and add text to the label.

(Umm no, they don't really say hubs & susan, but I want hubs to remain anonymous so you'll just have to trust that they look better in real life without my computer coverup job)

I love how they turned out! The tools they give you to work with are very basic, but if you already have a design created on your computer you can just upload the image and you're ready to go. We wrap our presents in brown paper every year and usually I stamp the to/from info on the package. I was excited to find a font that's kind of close to the stamps I used. Hellooo less stamping and more free time around Christmas!

So what have you guys been up to this week? And what color should I paint my new table? And what...just kidding, I only had two questions. : )

Birthday Recap

Well I've been desperately trying to catch up on dishes and more dishes housework, so I haven't done much crafting or sewing in the past week. I thought I'd give you the birthday recap I said I would. First of all, it was great. My family (especially Hubs) and friends made me feel so blessed and it was just an all around enjoyable day!

I opened some presents before we went to dinner. Hubs was smart and looked at my Pinterest boards for ideas. He saw a necklace, but unfortunately the link didn't work. So he looked on Etsy until he found the exact necklace! How great is he?? I was totally surprised and excited! I won't detail everything I got, but lets just say everybody must know me really well because I LOVED everything!

Note to self: must use flash in PF Changs. We got the waitress to take a picture, and silly me didn't check before we left to make sure it was a good one. It looks ok in black and white, but you should see the original orange version haha.

After PF Changs we walked around the outdoor shopping center and made a few stops. We hardly ever go into Macy's, but we were looking for a bathroom so we went in and I found a dress perfect for the Air Force ball this fall. On clearance. In my size. Happy Birthday to me!

Thanks to all of my family for making me feel so special and loved. And especially thanks to Hubs for taking me out and having a fun night even though he had a project due and ended up staying up late to finish.

Coming up sometime soonish on the blog:

• Post about the shirt that went horribly wrong and hopefully my solution to salvage it...I haven't exactly come up with the solution part yet
• I'm going to attempt to recover an old jewelry box with mod podge and fabric
• Possibly probably some baby item since I'm going to visit my niece in August

I hope everybody is having a good week so far!

Good Saturday!

I normally don't give you a run down of every little thing that goes on, but today I really scored so I wanted to share. First, I woke up and my motivation for running was zero. Thankfully I was running with someone so I couldn't bail. We did 6 miles and almost matched our race pace. Then Hubs and I went to breakfast with our usual crew and tried some new pancake flavors! (we order the same thing pretty much every time so this was branching out for us : ) Raisin walnut (which was surprisingly good) and raspberry white chocolate (which is basically like a dessert pancake...I may have a new favorite).

Don't worry, I'm getting to the really good part. Hubs had a softball scrimmage so I went looking for a new shoe holder. Trust me, it was a necessary purchase. Here was my sorry excuse for a shoe holder (that didn't even warrant a picture with my camera, hence the poor phone quality pic):

That thing was fairly functional at one point, but clearly it was not made to last. That picture makes it look like I have way too many shoes, but really they all just kept falling out so I had a pile of shoes building on the floor. I wasn't terribly optimistic about finding a good shoe holder because, lets face it, they're kind of hard to find. This is probably my second or third.

But thanks to the good people at Real Simple, I found a winner (and no, Real Simple did not sponsor this post I just reeeally like this product). Seriously, I love the new shoe holder.

It has 18 shoe pockets (I easily fit any pair I had in a pocket), 2 boot pockets and 8 elastic-y pockets on the side for flats or flip flops! I stuck a Real Simple magazine (kind of fitting since the organizer is from Real Simple, but really that's the only magazine I subscribe to...did you hear that Real Simple? Yeah, I'll be waiting for a call about your sponsorship) in each of my boots and now they're standing up nicely instead of being crushed under the shoe pile.

Doesn't the whole area look way better? (Don't focus on anything but the shoe organizer, I know the closet could use some work.) You might have noticed there's a pair of shoes still out. Let me assure you, they could've fit. They're my "need to do something dirty/outside" shoes, and were found too dirty unworthy for my brand spankin' new awesome shoe holder.

Sorry, enough with the shoe holder, I know. But really, if you need one head to Bed Bath and Beyond and pick one up, it was only $20, even less with the 20% off coupon. Onto the real deal of the day! On my way to BBB I saw a sign for a yard sale, but didn't stop. The sign was still up on the way back and now had a 1/2 price piece of paper taped to it. So I couldn't pass that up, and it turned out to be literally around the corner from our house.

I pulled up and what did I spot right away? A whole table full of fabric! Since everything was half price now it was $1 per yard. Can't beat that! It's a good thing I had no cash on me : ) I did have $2.50 in change, and I used it!

Over 2 1/2 yards of fabric for $2.50. Yay! And it doesn't smell funny or look old (that can be a serious problem at yard sales). It seems like pretty good quality and I could tell from her selection of books she quilts a lot.

I briefly thought about going with one color scheme (there were lots of reds and pinks that would've gone together), but since I never have anything planned ahead of time I just took what appealed to me the most. Hopefully I can think of something fun and summery to do with the green seersucker fabric! So that's my Saturday (or at least the first 2/3 of it)! Off to a pretty good start for the weekend : ) What's happening with you this weekend?

Upgrade

Yesterday I finally got a proper cutting mat. You may have noticed from my not-so-straight cutting lines that I don't have an ideal setup for cutting things.

We don't have any large flat surfaces that aren't wood and wood isn't exactly the best surface to cut on (unless it's a cutting board I suppose, but that's beside the point). I stole a "cutting board" from the kitchen and was using that when I cut out patterns or used an exacto knife. And by cutting board I mean a thin piece of plastic that passes for a cutting board only at the Dollar Store. It was only about 12"x15" so that didn't give me a ton of room to work with. That and since it was super cheap every little cut and scratch was there for good.

Beverly's was having a sale on cutting mats AND I had a 40% off coupon so I decided to at least check them out while I was there. Then I proceeded to stand there staring at the cutting mats for at least 5 minutes like a crazy person trying to decide what size to get. I only hope I wasn't talking to myself out loud!

I went with an 18"x24" mat, although the 24"x36" was oh so tempting. I really don't have room anywhere for something that size, so I convinced myself to go with the smaller one. Now I just have to wait until next week for my other 40% off coupon and I'll be getting a rotary cutter. Wooo! ...wow, I'm becoming lame.

And just so this post doesn't feel so picture-less I'll leave you with a few pictures of our bonsai tree that's currently blooming. I was trying out some different settings on our camera.

I'm so happy I haven't killed it. We've had it over a year and it's still alive, perhaps I can upgrade from a totally brown bordering on black thumb to a brownish thumb. : )

Quick Tip

I just wanted to share a little something I found out about this week. Beverly's is the only craft store in my area (comparable to Michael's or Joann's I think). Ok, after typing Michael's I remembered we do have one of those, but they don't sell fabric. Anyway I went to their website the other day to look for something and saw "Deal of the Day."

What's Deal of the Day? Oh, just a little thing where they sell certain fabrics for only $2.97 per yard. They feature 3 fabrics a day, and the sale is only good for 24 hours (hence the day part of the title). $2.97!?! And they feature some really cute prints. You still have to pay for shipping, which makes it a little more expensive, but still below what a normal sale price would be.

The deal has been on their main website whenever I look. Here's a link to their blog as well, which points out the deal of the day. As excited as I am about sharing this news, I cannot be held responsible for the massive amounts of fabric you may purchase because of this sale ; )

In other news, I've been working on a clutch for a charity auction and I'll be excited to share it next week (or whenever I finish, but hopefully next week). The project requires me tackle a few things I've never done before and so far so good! Oh, and I didn't have a pattern so I had to kind of make one up...yeah, that was a lot of work (what was I thinking???). Hope everybody is having a great weekend!