Birthday Party Invitations... Take Two

A girl can change her mind right? Isn't that our prerogative. Well, I decided I didn't LOVE the birthday invites I made last week. I liked them but that was it. Then, while at the thrift store the other day I ran across these beautiful country baskets, the kind you get when you pick your own peaches, (see the picture above) and suddenly I decided I wanted my flower party to have a country flair. All the baskets were $.50 each (What a Steal!!)

I went back to Michael's and found this green checked paper. It reminded me of a picnic blanket (for a picnic in the country of course). I punched holes in all four corners and wove this beautiful pink ribbon through the holes. The ribbon is from my sponsor Shop Thinking of U. I love their brightly colored ribbon! I used a mix of plain pink ribbon and pink polka dotted ribbon. (Remember, I love making each invite unique) The center is off-white card stock. I can confidently say that I LOVE these invites, and I feel much better :)

 Let me know what you think. 

Strawberry Shortcake Pillow Case Dress

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a great weekend! If you recall, I found some great fabric at the thrift store last week. Click here if you happened to have missed that post. One of the things I found was a Strawberry Shortcake Dress and I couldn't wait to make Lilly a pillow-case dress out of it.  Below is a picture of the sheet: 

First I determined the length and width I would need, I did this by measuring other dresses Lilly has and going off of that. Then I cut out two pieces, a front and a back.

 I folded the two pieces in half and cut the arm holes out. The picture above shows what this looks like.

Then I placed the two pieces front to front and hemmed up the sides. Make sure to stop at the arm holes so that you don't sew them together. Also, because the bottom is already finished you don't need to worry about that.

I learned that you will want to finish off your arm holes before hemming the top of the dress. As you can see in the above picture I didn't do this. I ended up needing to remove some of the stitches, so don't make the mistake I made. I finished my arm holes with some left over binding that I had, you could also choose to fold over the edges just like with the top of the dress. After you finish the arm holes you will want to fold down the top of each piece, pin it, and then sew it. (like in the above picture). Your ribbon will eventually go through this area so make sure you allow for enough room for that when you fold it over.

Now flip your dress right side out and thread your ribbon through the two tubes you just created. The ribbon you see in my pictures is from my sponsor Shop Thinking of U. Check out the Etsy site, they have some gorgeous ribbon and the green ribbon I had from them matched the green in the dress perfectly!

And you're done! This was such an easy project and only took me about 30 minutes and it turned out so cute! Let me know what you think!

Frugal Friday: Fabric for $.65 a yard!!

So Fabric can be expensive right? Well, not if you get creative about where you find it. Yesterday I stopped by the thrift store and took a peak in the linen's section. Here is what I found:

 This is a flat strawberry shortcake sheet. When I first spotted it I thought: Pillow Case Dress! Because I just love the contrasting section on the bottom. This piece of fabric is huge! I did in fact make a pillow case dress out of it yesterday afternoon and there is enough fabric to make 11 more!!! Total cost = $1.98

 This is a blue, king size, pillowcase. It was only $.45 and It has a suede like feel to it. The picture doesn't do it justice.

 I don't know what this was, maybe a small table cloth? It's a very pretty green and kind of has a linen feel to it. It was on sale for $.28 so I couldn't pass it up. It's large enough to make a shirt or skirt for Lilly

 These were two huge pillow cases. All in all, about 2.5 yards of material here. Total cost for both was $.99. I think the purple pattern is so pretty and just asking to be made into something adorable.

This was another huge sheet. More than 2.5 yards of fabric and an adorable polka dot pattern. I really want to make myself a dress out of this one. (or 3) It was only $1.98.

So, all in all I paid $6 for a little over 9 yards of fabric, which is about $.65 per yard! All of it is adorable and I can't wait to see what I can make with it.

Thinking outside the box allows you to come up with some creative ideas for a steal. Stay tuned Monday to see the adorable pillow case dress that I made from the Strawberry Shortcake sheet!

And have a great weekend!

Bonus Post- $1200 giveaway!

I just came across this giveaway and wanted to share it with you guys. It is for a $1000 Visa gift card and a $200 Sherwin-Williams Gift Card. Check out the blog below and enter to win! Also, take a look at how beautiful her tool-shed turned out by using chip-it!

Click here to see the blog and enter to win!

The ultimate BLT

So nothing says summertime like a BLT right? You really can't go wrong with a classic BLT but I wanted to mix it up a bit so I added a little something and it was AMAZING!

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 Package of Bacon (8 slices)
• Iceberg Lettuce (enough for 4 sandwiches)
• 1 Tomato, sliced
• 8 Sliced of bread (you're choice, I used honey wheat)
• 1 TB of basil
• 1 TB of sugar
• 2 TB of oil
• Mayo if you like it

1.  Toast your bread, slice your tomato and shred up your lettuce.
2. Cook your bacon ( I used Smithfield* Twice as Thick Bacon and it was so so good. I had a coupon and so I got it for half off, I don't think I'm ever going to use any other bacon. Ever. ) Also, cook it on the stove people...Bacon is not allowed to be cooked in the microwave.
3. Combine the last three ingredients and brush the sauce onto each slice of toasted bread, then put on a layer of Mayo if you desire and then load up your other three ingredients. 
4. Eat.
5. Enjoy

I loved the sauce! The sugar added just a hint of sweetness and made the sandwich even more amazing. 

I served my sandwiches with chips. Not the heathliest option I know but lets be honest, you're eating bacon, you've already failed. But I did use honey wheat bread right? That's something...

Total cost for this meal (including the chips) is $1.50 a person. Not bad right?

*You should only use Smithfield bacon. Why you ask? Smithfield bacon comes from a small town in Virginia that specializes in all things bacon/pig related. I grew up there and I'll explain:

• When entering the town you'll see a water tower...on that water tower is a picture of a ham, hanging. I'm explaining this to you now so that you are not confused and accidentally think it's a poorly constructed map of Smithfield (I thought this for 4 years until someone explained it to me)
• The High School mascot is the Packers (as in the Smithfield packing plant)
• The number one business is the Smithfield packing plant, most people work here and on a weekly basis you can get a nice whiff of pig, floating in the air.
• A few years back, the town made the Guinness Book of World Records for making the largest Ham biscuit. I was there. It was in fact very big. Now, as you enter the city limits you will see this sign: Welcome to Smithfield, home of the world's largest ham biscuit.

So,  never buy any other bacon, it really is the best :)

Now go out there and eat some BLTs!!

Fitted Dress

(Yes, those are my legs. No, I'm not wearing pure white tights)

So Sunday morning we went to load the car seat into my car. When my husband closed the door to the backseat, the passenger window completely shattered into a million pieces! So. Weird. There was a storm the previous night and we're thinking that perhaps an acorn or rock hit the window....but it resulted in me spending all of yesterday home from work, waiting for the glass repair guy to show up at my house. He did provide a helpful time window...somewhere between 12-5.

Anyways...how did I spend my day of waiting? Sewing of course! I decided I wanted to tackle a fitted dress for myself. I had this fabric (notice that it matches the dress I made for Lilly yesterday...just a different color) that I got from my sponsor Raspberry Creek Fabrics (you can find the specific fabric I used here.

Now, this isn't so much of a tutorial because I really just worked on it throughout the day and continued to touch things up and change things throughout the day. It did take me the whole day to finish this one but that doesn't really account for breakfast, lunch, dinner, ironing, laundry, cleaning the house, feeding and changing the little girl and my two hour visit with my dad :)

I started with 1 yard of fabric which I folded in half and cut into two pieces. I then fold that over in half and cut out the neck and arms.

Then I pinned the two pieces together and did my best at trying to figure out where I needed to take it in by looking in a mirror. I installed the zipper in the back and finished off with some grey binding. I just love the way the yellow and gray go together.

I had a little material left over to make the ruffle down the center. In a perfect world I would prefer that the ruffle go all the way to the bottom but I didn't have that much material. I really like the way it came out but it isn't perfect. I'm looking forward to perfecting the pattern and making it into a real tutorial. Practice makes perfect and I am enjoying learning more each day.

Let me know what you think, Is there anything you would add or change? I love hearing feedback!

Hi. I'm Lindsey and I squint.

This post was featured on the following site:

http://www.adornedfromabove.com/

Layered Smocked Dress

 So I wanted to give smocking another try and came up with an idea for a dress that had two layers as well as some smocking on the top. This fabric is from my sponsor Raspberry Creek Fabrics and is the Riley Blake fabric which can be found here. Check out their Etsy shop to see what other great products they offer.

To begin I cut out four pieces of material.

• Two pieces that are 7 inches by 21 inches
• Two pieces that are 22 inches by 11 inches

 The other materials you'll need are:

• Elastic Thread
• Regular thread
• Scissors
• Your sewing machine

 The pieces that are 7 x 21 are going to be the top pieces, the pieces that are smocked. I began by folding over the top by about 1/2 an inch and sewing it, to finish the edge. You should also do this to the bottom of each piece. You'll do this with regular thread in your bobbin and when you're done you need to take the regular thread out and hand feed the elastic thread into your bobbin. Because you'll need both bobbin threads throughout this project, I suggest just having two bobbins at all times so that you can simply switch your bobbin rather than continuously threading and un-threading.

I started the smocking process by having the right side of my foot line up with the hem that I had just stitched at the top. I made sure my sewing machine was set to the longest stitch and I went slowly. It's very important to hold the material as taught as you can during this. When you get to the end of a row begin another one. Each time, keep the right side of your foot lined up with the previous stitch that you just did so that each row is similarly spaced and even. I made eight rows on each of the two pieces of fabric, 16 rows total. Here is a finished 8-row piece.

Here's a tip I learned: If you run out of elastic thread while sewing one of the rows you should overlap it well when you start back up (After re-threading your bobbin). You don't want a gap anywhere in your rows. I learned that a full bobbin of elastic thread could get me about 4-5 rows.

When I was done with my rows I realized that I had used more fabric than I needed to. Because I wasn't sure how much I would need once I had smocked it I estimated and wound up not needing as much. I simply cut off the edges that I didn't need and then flipped the two pieces inside out and sewed them together.

For the bottom two pieces (the 22x11 pieces) I flipped them inside out, sewed them together, and hemmed the bottom until I had a tube (22 inches wide and 11 inches long) I then attached it to the inside of the smocked piece by attaching the sides first and then pleating and pinning every few inches on the inside. I attached it right under where the smocking ended. Then I sewed the two together. (Other than the 16 lines of smocking, you'll be using regular thread for the rest of this project) Below is what the inside of the dress should look like after sewing the two sections together.

Finally I attached the ribbon (four pieces) and I was done!

Remember, once the dress is washed (really, just once it gets wet) you'll be able to really see how great the smocking comes out. I hope this helps and inspires you to make some of your own projects!

Also, Farm Fresh is still doing triple coupons until Tuesday so don't pass up the opportunity for some great savings! See the Coupons.Com link at the bottom of the page to find some great coupons.

And Have a Great Monday!

Farm Fresh Triple Coupons!

You guys get a bonus post today! Just found out that Farm Fresh stores are tripling all coupons up to $.99 and doubling all coupons that are $1.00. This deal is only from 6:00 AM Sunday morning through Tuesday so don't miss out. I think I'm going to plan on being there bright and early Sunday morning, so as to not miss any good products.

Here is the link to Farm Fresh's website in case you want to view their weekly add or read about their coupon policy.

Below is a link to a ton of coupons that are on the web right now. Just click and print...oh and save!

Vintage Skirt Creation- For under $1

So on Wednesday I had a twenty minute window before picking up Lilly where I had just enough time to run into the thrift store. I made a B-Line for the $.99 rack and found this dress.

Pros: I love'd the blue pockets and I can't resists polka dots
Cons: Its ugly. It's six sizes to big, it had shoulder pads!? It would have been super awesome if this were 1984.

I thought, for $.99 it's worth a shot, maybe I can turn it into something awesome (read: awesome in 2012, not to be confused with awesome in 1984)

So I brought it home and cut the top off

(Don't you just love those pockets?!)

Then I flipped it inside out, folded the top down 1/2 inch and sewed it so that it was finished around the top. There was already a zipper but I had to cut it it half when I cut the dress. I removed the remaining portion of the zipper and installed my own (I found a pack of 15 zippers at the thrift store a while back for $1.98 and there was one that matched the blue in the dress perfectly!)

This was my first time installing a zipper and so it was nice for it to already be partially done for me. I just sewed the zipper in where the old zipper was (although I needed to go down a little bit further)

Aren't the colors a perfect match!

At this point the skirt was still about an inch too big for my waist. I simply make one pleat in the center of the front of the skirt and sewed it up, then it fit like a glove. 

I LOVE the way it turned out, I think it's gone from an 80's disaster to vintage retro. And all for under $1!!

Coupon Thursday's: Clean your body and your house

If you're like me it's preposterous to go to the grocery store without your coupons right? Well I've been thinking that Thursday's will be devoted to coupons. The plan is that I will scour the internet along with the weekly adds from various stores and see what kind of deals can be found. I will try to highlight a few great product deals in each post. At the bottom of each post you will find a link where you can go and instantly print out the specific coupons for the products I highlight. My end goal is to find you guys some good deals each week in order to make your shopping experience cheaper and easier. Let me know what you think!

#1:  Suave Body Wash: 

• Coupon: $.75 off a bottle of Suave Body Wash
•  Store: Harris Teeter is selling Suave Body Wash for $2.29 a bottle when you use your VIC card. Once you double your $.75 coupon (Harris Teeter allows you to double coupons up to $.99 every day) you'll only need to pay $.79! (This is a 66% savings!)

#2: Comet Bathroom Spray:  

• Coupon: $.75 off any one bottle of Comet Bathroom Spray
• Store: Harris Teeter has Comet Bathroom Spray on sale this week for $2.39 when you use your VIC card. (Originally $2.69). Because Harris Teeter doubles coupons up to $.99 every day you can take $1.50 off this price and only pay $.89! (This is a 67% savings!)

#3: Aleve: 

• Coupons: $2.00 off any Aleve product.
• Store: Farm Fresh has Aleve on sale buy two get one free, plus you should be able to use your $2.00 coupon!  Depending on which type of Aleve you get, the savings may vary, but if you're in the market for Aleve now's the time to buy!

 #4: Nature Made Vitamins:  

• The Link below has a number of Nature Made Coupons: for fish oil, vitamin D, and vitamin B. The coupons vary between $1.00 off and $2.00 off 
• Farm Fresh currently has buy one get one free on all nature made vitamins. I think the price for a bottle of Vitamin D is about $4.65. By doubling the dollar coupon (Farm Fresh accepts double coupons on Wednesday's) you SHOULD be able to get two bottles for $2.65! (This is a 72% savings!)

So, click on the link below and find the coupons I mentioned above as well as hundreds of great other ones...and let me know what you thought about today's post!

Cheap Eats: Dinner for under $1 a serving

So last Wednesday I mentioned that you could purchase a Betty Crocker Complete meal  and have a cheap, easy meal: (See Link Below to get one of these from Amazon)



But I got to thinking and thought, "I'm sure you could make that for even less." Basically the box contains biscuit mix (where you just add water) and a can of soup.

I found this quick and yummy biscuit recipe here . I split the recipe in half and it was the perfect amount. You will most likely have most of these items laying around in your pantry already which is great. Also, I love the hint of sugar in these biscuits, it added just enough sweetness to them.

I bought a can of Campbells Chunky Soup (see Amazon link below for a 12 pack)



 Walmart has this soup for $1.88 but after doing a google search I noticed that there are occasionally coupons available for $1.00 off two cans. While Walmart doesn't double coupons, Farm Fresh and other stores do. If you clipped one of those coupons your soup would be free! I know I'll definitely be on the lookout for those coupons in the future.

So I just placed the soup on the bottom of a square 9x9 baking dish and then I divided my biscuits into 8 spoonfulls which I placed on top. And that's it! Very Easy. Sick it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 and it should be golden brown and yummy.

Total Cost if you have DO have coupons: $0.25 per person (This meal makes 3 servings)
Total Cost if you have no coupons: $0.88 per person

Below is a before and after picture

Chick-Fil-A Cow Costume

So here in the south we have this wonderful establishment known as Chick-Fil-A. Every Year they have "Cow Appreciation Day" which means that if you come in dressed as a cow you get a free meal. Also, you can submit your photos online and possibly win other prizes.

So, I set to work making Lilly a cow costume. I bought 1/2 yard of faux white fur material and 1/4 yard of faux black fur material. (Faux fur material = fur EVERYWHERE, so be prepared) I also used some pink ribbon. (I wanted everyone to know that my little calf was a girl)

I began by cutting out two identical "base" pieces that would be the front and back. Since this is a costume, and she's only going to be wearing it once I didn't bother with finishing the edges which made this project a lot easier. Also, these base pieces would be a great beginning to any costume. (Can't you see them in a red material with black dots for a ladybug?!) I'm sure come Halloween time I'll break out this pattern again, only enlarge it a little.

I flipped the two pieces front to front and sewed up the sides and at the bottom, not sewing the arm holes, leg holes or neck together.

Then I flipped them inside out and cut out some "spots" from the black material. I put four on the front and four on the back.

Then I added the pink ribbon to tie the two pieces together over her shoulders.

I already had the hat and just attached some more black spots to it using double sided tape (it was actually a hello kitty hat so I used the spots to cover up the pink whiskers) I sewed two more pieces of ribbon onto the hat because Lilly hates hats and would have ripped this one off before you could say 'moo'.

So here is the finished product. It didn't take long at all, and it was a fun experience, we'll have to do it again next year. Have any of you been to Cow Appreciation Day?