Manicures at home!!!

I found this tutorial on how to make nail polish hearts on pinterest, the best website in the history of websites. I am officially addicted, by the by.

Anywho, back on topic. I LOVE nail designs, but am too poor to get a professional manicure to get those pretty flowers, so I thought I would try this. It didn't look too hard. It wasn't hard at all, actually.

My version. :)

Cute, huh?

If you like to paint your nails, and are tired of the humdrum sameness of a single color with no flair, I think this heart is a great thing to try!

Yippee!!!

My Aunt and Uncle bought me this wonderful new Janome sewing machine!! No more handmade projects! YAY!!!

Just look at all those stitch designs! AND, it has 3, count 'em, 3 button holes!

I love this thing. LOVE.

Working as a team

I'm not sure if I already told y'all this, so I'm gonna say it again. I am part of 4-H. If you don't know what that is, you'll have to google it, because I can't explain it.

ANYWHO. One of the activities one does in 4-H is something called "team invention". Basically, you and two of your closest 4-H pals get together to form a group. Then, said team is given a non-descript paper bag full of random stuff, a rectangle piece of cardboard, and a 45 minute timeline. Once you and your teammates area given the above supplies, an adult gives you one last thing. A theme, and guidelines. In this case, the only guidelines are to create something according to your theme, and you must use what is in the bag, and ONLY what's in the bag.

For this challenge, the theme was "Michigan Traditions". {the 4-H group I belong to is in Monroe}

So, for the first few of the 45 minutes allotted to us, my teammates{yup, you guessed it! Enter the infamous Zakk and Adam} brainstormed, and, after discarding several ideas, including a secret military base and something else I'd rather not mention, we decided on making a farm. For those of you who live in or have been to Michigan, you will know that Michigan is big farm country.

Exactly 40 minutes later, the three of us stepped back to admire our handy-work. So, enough chit-chat. Let's get to some pictures!!!

An overview of the whole thing

A close-up of Zakk's totally awesome Tractor/trailer, including hay bails.

My Grain silo, slightly less awesome.
You can't really see it, but inside the barn, there are two horses, in their own stalls. One eating hay, and the other peaking his head out from behind the wall. SWEET!!! That was totally Adam's idea. bravo, my friend.

Part of the requirement was that our project needed our team number and the name of each team member

Apparently, we named the farm "Grim Reaper Farms". Yeah. Zakk named the farm.

Well, now all that's left to do is wait to find out what the judges think of our farm. All I can say is, I'm really glad we decided not to make the Monroe county fair{which hosts the 4-H activities}, because when I was looking around at other projects, I noticed several dozen county fairs, and about three other farms, none as awesome as ours, if I do say so myself. :)

See you later, peeps! Wish us luck!

~Erin ♥

I needed a little inspiration

I am preparing to start a new sewing project {see here}, and I felt I needed a little inspiration to keep me motivated. As it turns out, I was so inspired, I thought I'd share it with all of you!







Inspired yet?

A hat

So, Christmas Carol is only a few short days away! Six days, to be exact.{Let's pause while the author goes off by herself and happy dances to "Party in the USA"}

O.K. I'm back. Anywho, so the hat that the theatre provided for me was, well, atrocious. To put it lightly. It had a purple sparkly pointsetta, for crying out loud!!!!! So, knowing me, the only thing to do was to make my own!!!! And, to my utter surprise, it WORKED!!!!{Can I get a woot, woot?!....Andybody?...........Bueler?} But, back on track.........I took TONS of pictures, and decided to make a picture tutorial as a way to show my hat, AND, you'll get to make one, too!! How SWEET is that?!?!?!

You ready to get started? Well, O.K. then! {If you don't care about making an 1840's bonnet, and just want to see the finished product, scroll down to the end. But why would you want to do that?}

Supplies:
Straw Hat
Ribbon{At least enough to tie around your neck}
Hot glue gun
~optional~
Trim
Fabric

This is the pretty trim I used

We are attempting to achieve this general design.

Step 1: Draw the desired shape onto the outside of your hat. Then cut.
{tip: put the hat on your head, figure out where your ears are with it on, and start your line from there}

Step 2: Now, determine how big you want your brim to be, and then cut it down to size. {My brim is slightly smaller than I would probably have made it otherwise, but, because I'll be on stage, I don't want it to shadow my face.}

Your hat should look something like this, if you have followed the steps up until now.

Step 3: optional Cover your hat with some kind of fabric. I used red velvet, but it really doesn't matter what kind you use. Hot glue your fabric in place.

Step 4: Optional Hot glue trim around the head part of your hat, or wherever you want it. {Another good place is on the edge.}

Step 5: Optional Make 8 little bows out of your ribbon, leaving enough for the fastening ribbon around your neck. Hot glue six of them around the inside rim of your hat.
Now, if you want your hat to look like mine, you're going to need roughly 3 yards of ribbon{length varies on amount of bows/size of hat}

Step 6: Optional Take the last two little bows, and hot glue them in the outside corners of your hat. {They should hid the ends of your trim, if you put any on}

Step 7: Take your remaining ribbon and cut it into two even strips. Then, hot glue the ends so that they won't fray. Sew them to the edge of your bonnet, or hot glue them, if you don't sew.

And voila! You have a SUPER cute 1840's bonnet!!!!!! And you made it all yourself!!!!

Experiment with different shapes of straw hats, or styles of bonnets, and send me the pictures, or links to your blog posts about them! I would simply LOVE to see your creativity!!!

Happy Saturday!

~Erin