Painting an Old Mirror in the Frame

Ever since we painted our living room wall blue I knew I wanted to hang a large yellow mirror on it. However large yellow mirrors are not something you come across often and I didn't want to break the bank.

I was fortunate to not have to wait very long before finding a large mirror at a garage sale for pretty cheap. It wasn't yellow but that was easy to remedy. It had the original price tag still on it for $99.99. It had some scuffs in the paint (which I didn't mind since I'm painting it) so the people were only asking $8. SCORE!

This is how it started out.

The back was completely sealed and I didn't want to rip a beautiful paper backing off to paint the frame. So I improvised.

 I cut out pieces of cardboard the size I needed to cover the mirror. I left around an inch of mirror showing on each side though so I could take it to the mirror.

This is what my mirror looked like after I taped it. Just make sure that while doing this you tape only on the mirror and the cardboard and not onto the frame. You want to get the tape as close to the edge of your mirror as possible. It might even be a good idea to see if your mirror shifts at all in the frame. If it does then use this to your advantage and push it as far as you can away from you and then tape it down on the side closest you. Be sure to turn your mirror as you tape each side. You don't want to lean on your mirror to tape the opposite side and hear that awful crack sound.

Once you feel secure with your taping you can begin painting. I used spray paint. :-)

I let the first coat dry over night and then added another coating. You may need to re-tape some spots before you do. As you can see my tape was peeling up but I was able to just stick it right back down again.

Now if after your second coat your paint looks like it's starting to crack and bubble then don't panic. Mine did this for some reason and I thought I had seriously messed up somehow. I just left it to dry another night and when I came back in the morning it had all flattened back down and looked fine.

This is my finished mirror. I think it's even prettier in person. Although it does need a good wash (yikes look at those streaks!). You maybe able to see in this picture that a little bit of paint did seep through to the mirror. Despite my best efforts I kind of figured this may happen. I'm happy to report though that the paint that got on the glass scrapes of very easily. A little scrap with a razor blade would be the most you should need. Or you could do like I did and just use your nails. ;-) 

The Small Fry Skinny Jeans (Galaxy style)

I got the chance last week to participate in a sew-a-long and I jumped at it. I'm so thrilled I did. It took me a while to try sewing pants but thanks to Dana from made I got the extra push to do it. They were great and I learned a lot. I even drafted my own shorts pattern afterward. However it's been a while and I was ready to move onto the next step. Lucky for me Laura over at craftstorming.com came through. I learned so much from this project. I'm really glad I committed to participating because honestly if I would have seen the whole tutorial first then I may have thought it looked like to much work and passed on it. Breaking it down into days and knowing there were other people working on it at the same time was encouraging though. Plus this pattern was a piece of cake using Laura's clear pictures and easy to follow tutorial.

This was a lot of fun and if you've made pants but you've never done an adjustable waist or a faux fly before then you need to try it. This is the perfect project to learn with. I think I'll make a few more pairs and now that I know how to do those two things I will probably draft a couple more patterns soon.

I did have a couple problems along the way. However everything was due to my own error and easily remedied. The biggest change I made was that my pair are fully lined in bright orange. I should have taken pics of this however I was to anxious to try them on my little man. Why did I line them you ask? Well the fabric I chose ended up being much much thinner then I realized. However it ended up being a happy accident. Other then the obvious beautiful pop of color it adds to the inside and how lovely it matches the orange thread I top stitched with it also will make them a little warmer for the fall and winter months which are quickly approaching.

Oh and what does Fox think of them?

SUCCESS! Oh and they fit perfectly! My little man wears 2t to 3t but 3t are way long on him. I would say overall these fit him like a 3t everywhere but length. So if you have a tall thin child then I would try testing it in the smaller size your child normally wears and lengthening them. Then again they do have an adjustable waist so you could always go up a size and button them tighter. However they may not look as much like skinny jeans if you do that.

I've been hoarding that vintage galaxy print for something special but I never thought of using them on pants until I started raiding my stash for this project. I think they look like some sort of cool combination of "Star Wars" meets "Back To The Future". What do you think? Do you like how they came out? What do they make you think of? 

Homemade Pedialyte

Over this past week three out of our four babies have been sick. It's been a nasty little virus. Our kids normally don't get sick very often and when they do they are fortunate enough to not be sick for very long. This however was particularly mean.

My poor baby. She's still bright eyed and beautiful even when she's sick though.

Their pediatrician gave us a paper with a great recipe for homemade pedialyte though. According to her it is "the perfect combination of salt, water, and sugar to make your stomach turn over". That sounds like vomit but that is not what she was meaning. She meant that it helped readjust the lining of your stomach so you wouldn't lose liquids and become dehydrated.

So I bet you want the recipe, don't you? I thought so.

Recipe:

sugar - 8 teaspoons
salt - 1/2 teaspoon
filtered water - 5 cups

and it says you can use kool-aid to flavor it.

Also on the list was foods to avoid and foods they should eat.

AVOID LIST:

Juice, Soda, Gatoraid (These used to be good when sick but they aren't now that they are sweetened with corn syrup. Corn syrup is what they used to give babies to make them poop. It won't help with diarrhea.)

Fried anything, Red anything, Fast food, Most fruits and vegetables, Any other drinks with corn syrup.

SAFE FOODS: 

Start with Bananas, Cooked Carrots or Sweet Potatoes.

Then move onto Rice, Noodles (with no sauce), Plain bread or toast, Saltine or oyster crackers, Mashed potatoes.

When tummy is better able to handle food you can move onto Lean chicken meat, Scrambled eggs, Yogurt (as plain as possible WITH live cultures but no "junk food yogurts like go-gurt").


It's also important to note that you do not introduce a new food at this time. So if your child has never eaten something like sweet potatoes for example then that would not be a good option.

This worked for us but of course I am not a medical professional so don't take my word for it. When in doubt call your own doctor. These are just the guidelines that our great pediatrician gave us.

Of course I've got to share a well picture too. ;-)

Taco Lasagna or Tacozagna

Lol, ok I don't think this is a new idea but I felt like I was inventing something new when I made it. I really winged it here on this but it came out great. Everyone loved it. I had my doubts while making it but even I liked it.

I started off by browning some hamburger in one of my big pots. I tossed a diced onion in there pretty early on too.

After that's all browned you want to add your taco seasoning. You could use a packet but I don't believe in those so I mixed my own spices.

Here is the combo and ratio I used for 1 lb of hamburger:

1 Tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon oregano (or Italian herb blend)
1 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 to 1 teaspoon black pepper (depending on how much you like pepper)

Dump that in with your ground beef and you're well on your way. Next I added some red kidney beans and some great northern beans. These might seem odd for something taco in nature but trust me here. It works! If things are a bit dry at this point you can add a little oil. We always have olive oil so that is what I used. Besides we are blending Mexican and Italian here so it's ok, right?

It should look something like this at this point.

Now the fun part!

Spread some oil in the bottom of your pan. Now make a layer of tortillas over that. Next I added some of my funky concoction and spread it around. Then sprinkle some Mexican cheese on top. Add more tortillas and repeat until you run out of room. I added a layer of salsa to one of the layers too but I only had enough for one layer so all the other layers were just this mixture and then covered in cheese. Make sure when you get to the end you dump any juices left in the pot right over the top. Then give it a "healthy" coating of cheese. Then I topped it all off with some chopped up green onions.

Now bake in the oven uncovered for 15 - 20min at 400 degrees. This cuts and serves remarkably well. I was surprised. It also reheats well which I didn't expect. I thought for sure it would be soggy and yucky the next day but it wasn't. Hooray!!!

An utter failer

If you sew or do any craft for that matter than you probably know what it feels like when you have a stubborn project that just refuses to come together correctly. Aren't they frustrating? Don't they make you want to just scream? Or is that just me?

Well I just "finished" one of those projects. I don't normally name my dresses but this dress seems to beg for a name. All I can think of is "the failure dress". That doesn't seem very original though.

It might not look terrible in this picture but just wait.

Let me begin by telling you how this dress fought me in every step of it's creation.

I started out by drafting my own pattern. This normally goes quite well for me. I've got the process down pretty well so I don't think that is where I messed up here. I wanted to create an enclosed, lined bodice with sleeves and I think that is where the trouble started. I've never done this before and I winged it rather than researching it. First I started by adding a straight stitch to the sleeves so I could gather them and set them in. Then I realized I did this on the wrong side of the sleeve. My gathering stitch was on the hem instead of the shoulder. So I just went with it. I figured "that sucks but no big deal. Now they just look like flutter sleeves.". So onward I pressed. I sewed the neck pieces and the sleeves into the arms and left the two back parts open since I was planning to add a zipper. This would have worked fine except that when I went to flip it I realized I had one sleeve pattern up and one sleeve pattern down. I was annoyed and often at this point I would start a new project and stuff this in a bag or a box somewhere too patronize me the next time I stumbled across the failed garment. This time however for some reason I pressed through and unpicked the seam. This was no easy feat as the dress was the exact same color white as the dress and I think the exact same composition and the fabric is very soft.

Ugg, can you see where this is going?

Ok so, I get all of that unpicked and get it restitched. Then I stitch my skirt to my bodice. Let me tell you if you do it this way then stitch it to the INSIDE piece not the outside bodice first. I made that mistake. So then when I went back to stitch the back to it closed I was top stitching from the inside of the dress. BIG MISTAKE! I realized it was a problem as soon as I realized I would have to stitch from the inside. However I thought maybe I could just be careful and it would be ok. Somehow I managed to get all sorts of horrible bubbles and lumps and puckers and clumps sewn all out of wack. It was worse then I could ever have imagined. I would have had to unpick it regardless of if it was inside or outside but if it were inside then my picks wouldn't have shown up front and center on the dress. There was so over hang between the outside bodice and the lining because of the clumping so I trimmed this off. 

I was mad at this point and I'd already invested so much of my time with the whole sleeve thing that I wanted to just finish it. I couldn't leave it now!

So I picked and restitched. Somehow my stitches ended up short. I'm not sure if that is the right term or not but essentially all of the stitches pulled the fabric up together in spots. There was nothing I could do to fix this despite how I tried. So I just stitched over it and figured I could put a cute little bow over it in that spot and no one would ever know.

So onward I pressed......

The bottom ruffle was just annoying because this fabric frays like crazy! Trying to ruffle just shredded this stuff. So when I got done with my not so even ruffle I surged it. Still thinking that this dress might be wearable when I got done........

At this point all that was left to do was add the zipper. So I tried something new. I hate sewing the sides together and then sewing the zipper in and then picking all those stitches. I'd had my fill of picking on this dress already. So I thought maybe I could get away with stitching about an inch over where the zipper would be and then the rest of the way down where I would need an actual seam. This might have worked if executed better but I managed to flip my fabric around oddly and stitch it in like an invisible zipper on one side and made it look top stitched on the other. This wasn't to big a deal. I just top stitched the other side. The real problem here is that somehow the waist where the back bodice meets the skirt is nearly an inch higher on one side then it is on the other. I have no idea how this happened. Maybe where I trimmed the over hang due to the clumping issue? I dunno.

Blah!

Ok so if you made it this far then please share with me any insight you have or any project failure vents you might have of your own.

Bees

You know as a child I never really cared much for bees. I remember selling candy door to door for school and coming up to a big purple house with lavender bushes in front. Each bush loaded with small bumble bees flying about crazily and bumping into my legs as they buzzed by clumsily. It wracked my nerves and I was sure I was going to get stung. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I was actually relieved no one came to the door so that I didn't need to stand there any extra time and I wouldn't have to come back to deliver candy to them after they ordered. I was not a fan of stinging insects and certainly not ones that could fly too. My fear came from ignorance though, like fear so often does.

Now as an adult I have come to love bees. Both honey bees and bumble bees. I was thrilled when we moved into our house and I discovered our back yard was filled with happy buzzing wild honey bees and bumble bees. I've run through our yard barefoot on many occasion and only once have I gotten stung. Mind you it was my fault for not watching where I was stepping. The kids have not been stung yet, despite the fact that they catch both honey and bumble bees on a daily basis. Yes, you read that right. My 5yr old started it and I was thoroughly amazed the first time she brought me a bee in the empty bubble bottle with a walnut covering the top to keep it from flying off. She is my little entomologist in the making so I was surprised she was able to capture it without getting stung but not so surprised by the idea of her trying. I was even more surprised when my 4 and 2 yr olds began catching them the same way without getting stung. How many 2yr old kids run around catching bees and don't get stung?

Now you might think the bees would get angry and want to retaliate after this. However these bees are so docile that the kids just remove the walnut while still holding the container and the bees just gracefully fly out, up, and away. It's pretty cool actually. I decided to give their technique a try. All the while I was half expecting that I would get stung doing it. Isn't that how it would work? Well I'm happy to say I did NOT get stung and it was actually surprisingly easy and not scary. When you're watching someone else it looks more risky than it actually is. I feel a lot better about them doing it now that I've tried it myself.

Even if they did get stung it wouldn't be the end of the world though. Everyone has to get stung at some point right? Just one more of life's experiences that we wouldn't be completely whole without. Besides bee stings are NOTHING compared to wasp stings. Did you know bee stings actually contain around 40 different healing properties? A lot of people use bee stings as an alternative treatment for a whole host of different common ailments. It's called apitherapy. You can read about it some here. So maybe we should start saying thanks when we get stung, lol. Okay maybe not but maybe at least not getting to bent out of shape about it anyway. Unless you're allergic that is. ;-)

Bees are so important that we haven't actually done a lesson plan on them yet. I want to make a really good one and maybe a week long thing on them. Although I don't know a week might be a little too much for my kid's attention spans at these ages. Keep an eye on my blog though and you'll see a lesson plan on bees soon. :-)

Birthday Mushroom Dresses

July is such a busy month for us. Half of our family of 6 has birthdays in this month alone within two weeks. So I feel a bit burnt out and frazzled to say the least.

I did manage to make our two birthday girls matching birthday dresses though. I'm pretty impressed with myself actually. I managed to get two dresses. One a size 4t and one a size 12-18m out of just one yard of my main fabric. I did use a different fabric to line the bodices and I decided to add a little ruffle of a different fabric to bring out the red and white polka-dot mushroom caps on some of the mushrooms. The main fabric is pink and covered in mushrooms. I don't like eating mushrooms very much but I love them decorating things. They make everything seem so magical and woodland-y. Okay so woodland-y isn't a real word but at least it makes more sense in the real word then braggadocious which was recently added to the dictionary. I'm glad I've never heard someone use that word before, lol. The sad thing is that isn't even the most absurd new addition. I can't even guess at the meaning of some of them so I'm going to play it safe and not post those on here. Who knows what I may accidentally say if I do.

Anyway without further ado here are lovely woodland-y dresses, and even more lovely birthday girls.

 Nom nom nom, sticks taste good!

 Of course I know you want to know what the back looks like too.

So these dresses are from my go to pattern that I use for everything. I have pictures taken to post a tutorial for it but it's going to take some time to put together. If you would like the tutorial just leave me some comments about it and I'm sure that will light the proverbial fire under my tushie too get it done a bit faster. ;-)