Hooray for Pencil Pouches

I saw these adorable little pouches on someone's page and I can't for the life of me find the bookmark. I know I saved it- I even commented on the post. So if this is your idea I stole, please tell me so I can give you credit. There is a similar one on Skip to My Lou, also. Anyway, I really REALLY wanted a reason to make them because they are so cute(!) so I was excited when I saw that my son needed one for preschool! Then I needed to make one for a little girl who's pants I was hemming (always try to do a little extra something...) and for a friend of mine who is having a tough time right now. Anyway, here they are:
Complete with new little side CNYI tags I made today :)

My son's dinosaur pouch:

I asked him which dinosaur he liked best from the fabric (secretly hoping he wouldn't pick green, since it was the same color as the lining, and of course he chose green.)
My friend's:
With a bible verse I found on Skip to My Lou when I was looking for the pouch tutorial I lost.
And the one for the little girl: Okay, so this is before I had to redo the entire thing because there is an "h" in her name. I'm not completely dumb- I figured an "h" was normal, but they usually call her "Vanna" without an h so I figured it was H-less. I figured wrong. But it's fixed now.
Till next time...

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Lounge chair covers

My mom had some old lounge chairs that were in good condition but looking a little rough, so she wanted to make some covers for them.
They are comfy but not looking so great, since they've spent much of their lives in the cellar...
So she bought 4 of these 3.00 towels from Walmart
I turned the top down about 14 inches because she wanted to be able to add a pillow, and this made a little pocket for the pillow.
Then I measured the chair and decided how far the sides needed to come over, so in this case the chair was 20 in across and the towel was 30 in, so I divided the 10 remaining inches by 2 and the sides needed to fold in 5 inches each side. This allowed the cover to slip overtop the chair.
I unfolded the top part to fold the sides in, and marked a sewing line 14 inches down (where the pocket would fold. This is sort of hard to explain...
Fold along the line and flip inside out (very hard to explain...)
It will look like this... a finished pocket that will slip over the chair.
Then I sewed along the bottom of the part that will hold the pillow, leaving an opening in the middle to stuff a little travel pillow in.
The opening:
Then I calculated how much of the towel I would need to cut off in order to attach the other towel. I didn't want stripes in the middle of the chair. This will depend on the length of your chair, but in this case was one inch above the stripes on the top towel and even with the stripe on the bottom half towel.
Cut

This is the bottom half of the cover (am I the only one who has a really hard time taking photos of myself doing something? Since I'm right handed and the camera button is on the right side it's really tough...)

Then pin right sides together (so the seam is in the back of the cover) and sew

Then drape over your lounge chair and you're ready to relax!

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A coat of paint...

I have had blankets shoved under my end table to the point that the poor thing was literally popping open. I knew I needed an alternative (since I HAVE to have the blankets- I'm cold blooded!) and my mom had this great basket:
It was chippy but I figured that'd be fine for my purposes and maybe even give it some more character. So I did nothing to prep the surface (as is normal!) :)

Then I coated it with Krylon Leather Brown Gloss. (One coat looks a little stripey)

It still has the chippy character. I am not sure I actually like it, but don't people work really hard for that finish?

After 2 coats it looked pretty good. I think it looks fine next to my couch, but I hope we won't be needing the blankets anytime soon. I don't look forward to winter...

I'm always pretty excited about what some Krylon can do! :)

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Photo Scavenger Hunt

Alrighty, here are my photo entries. No one laugh, please. I'm not a professional (or even close) and I took all but 2 of these this morning... I sort of got a late start. I don't have photoshop, so my editing skills are limited... But nonetheless it was a great time! I love taking pictures!
Here they are...

1. Shadow/Silhouette
2. Motion Blur

3. Magazine

4. Ten

5. Glass

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Success!

I planned a family movie night and invited about 50 friends, relatives and neighbors and it turned out GREAT! We actually had about 40 people come and I think everyone really enjoyed it.

Here is the invitation I sent out:

We set up in the very back yard by hanging a piece of drywall on the back fence.

We used my parents projector (thanks, Aunt Bon for a great Christmas present!)
Here is a picture of the movie projected on it:

Aunt Tracy and Deb brought TONS of popcorn and cute little bags for it to go in:
Seriously- I mean a TON of popcorn. There were 2 bags this size! And it was delicious!
Love the popcorn bags!
Crystal showed up with glow bracelets for all the kids. They LOVED them! That was really a great touch! I should have thought about that! Maybe she needs a blog! :)

I made a movie poster and hung it on the front door just for fun:

Here is a "during" shot, but it is just the kids in one section. Most of the adults were behind the camera and there were more people to the right. So it was a good turn out! Hard to get good pictures in the dark though!

I wish I could post all the pictures of the kids playing and watching the movie. It was a great time- I'm so glad we did it. I think we'll start planning our next one! :)

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Photo Fun

I found a few photo contests and I am going to give them a try! One is a weekly photo scavanger hunt at Ramblings and Photos and the other is a month long photo hunt. I love taking pictures even though I am certainly an amateur! It will still be fun. Stay tuned for my pictures!

(and for a super fun end of the summer bash idea and photos!)

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