Random Things of the Last Two Weeks

Going backwards as that will be easier to remember.

I gave blood today. My second time ever and this time I dared to look at the needle, which was a little scary so I turned away as she was putting it into my arm. But I had a very good vein and filled my bag in a little over four minutes. Super fast.

Went home for Memorial Day weekend and lots of fun with family. Thanks again for the hospitality of my aunt and uncle who fed me and my mom two wonderful meals and a constant supply of ice cream bars and sandwiches.

So You Think You Can Dance started again for it's fifth season. Love this show. It's like American Idol but with dancing. So much better because the dances are different every week and are so cool to watch.

Went on a little trip to Hawaii for a few days to accompany my friend who had a work thing. No biggie. I didn't really tell anyone about this trip. Not intentionally, it just wasn't a big deal to me, not sure why. But I had lots of fun.

Well, there you go. That's my last two weeks.

Birthday Pillows

So ever since, my cousin Julie, bought her new couches for her new home, she has said she didn't like the throw pillows that came with them. I agreed. They were okay, but not very modern or exciting. But she has lived with them for several months now and I didn't know if she still wanted to or was going to ever replace them. Well, as you read several posts ago, the craft bug had hit me again and I was already thinking of what to make and that they should be gifts. Well, Julie's birthday was coming up soon and what better way to hone more sewing skills than make covers for her existing pillows but in a more pleasing fabric? So that's what I decided, the only problem being I had no idea what decorating direction Julie had in mind for her living room. So I asked her. In a just wondering kind of way. She told me things for her kitchen and bedroom and the living room was "red and black with accents of yellow" to go with a still unframed, unhung print she has of this. Awesome. If she thought about it then she could have figured it out, well that I was getting her something for her house but not what and I was okay with that. I enlisted help of a very talented designer, Loralee, to help me pick out fabric. You know how in this post I said my weight loss goal one reward was for Lor to help pick out a fabric for skirt, well I lied. It was for the fabric for the pillows. Even though I technically didn't reach my goal she helped anyway. I also told a few more fibs to get Loralee more information, like when I called Julie and asked her to take pictures of her couches and email them to me because my friend Carrie was thinking of buying a red couch and I wanted to show her what Julie's looked like. Total lie. So once I had the fabric and notions, I was ready to sew. I was always worried that she wouldn't like them, that they didn't go with what she had in mind or that the covers wouldn't fit. I made a guess at their size, hoping the covers would at least be too big so I could take them in on my next visit. It was a big risk, but I knew even if she didn't like them she would appreciate the thought. Here's what they look like.

There are three of the plain black and white and then the fourth has the felt snow mum attached.


There was a free download for the pattern for the Snow Mum flower by Amy Butler and I just loved it and really wanted to make it so I thought it would be perfect for Julie's pillow.

I could have just done the four but I wanted to give that accent of yellow too. I had never appliqued anything before and if you saw it in person you would see all the flaws, but it still looks nice.

I sent them to Julie last week and she probably got them sooner but she never checks her mail so I wished her happy birthday and told her she should be getting a package. So she got her present on her birthday and emailed me to tell me she loved them, which I am so happy. So here is her before:


And after:

Book of Notes

Oh, I had such a wonderful Mother's Day Weekend. On Saturday, I slept in until Mom woke me to tell me we needed to go to town in an hour. So I quickly got ready and we headed to the post office and then to see a matinee of 17 Again. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it. Pretty funny. And that Zac Efron is pretty cute, never really liked him before, but he's a pretty good actor. Then we bummed around town killing time until we met up with the family for dinner at the Canton City Buffet. Pretty much the whole crew was there, and we had a private room to ourselves thanks to Annie's connections with the owner and we got a group rate. I put everyone's meals on my card (gotta earn those sky miles) and then everyone paid me back. Then we all went back to Grandma's house to play games. Probably one of my favorite times playing the name game. I laughed a lot. The next day, slept in again. Then gave mom her gift. I told her she had to go into her room to open it though and when she was done she could come out. Here is what I made her. A book of notes telling her how much I love her and what a wonderful mother she is.


















Well, she came out crying and gave me a big hug and I totally teared up too. I'm so glad she liked it. I'm quite proud of it. I got the idea from the blog Oh Hello Friend and this post. She made a similar one for her boyfriend and I just loved the idea. Some of the pages are almost exactly alike, but it helped to get my creative juices flowing to do some of my own. I love all the pop-up elements, I was so excited to have those in there. I thought if I put in writing all the wonderful things I love about my mom and things I love to do with her she could refer back if she ever wonders how good of a mother she is. And she is one of the best. A real keeper. It was a lot of fun to do. Another craft to come next week but tomorrow I am off to Hawaii so no more posts until then.

Goals for the Weekend

Okay, this gonna be really quick because I gotta get on the road.

1. Mother's Day weekend at home with Mom where I will give her, in my opinion, an extremely awesome mother's day present. I'll post pictures of it on Monday.
2. Finish another really awesome craft/gift. Are you irritated by the suspense I create?
3. Possibly sunday night clean up my room. Craftiness is really messy.
4. Watch two of my netflix movies. I've been really bad with this so it has got to happen.

Okay. Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!

Busy Busy Busy

Well, I've been pretty busy at work lately but today our software is on the fritz making my job hard to do. But that's why I totally skipped weekend goals so I'll just fill you in on what I would have said and what I did.

See Wolverine: X-Men Origins at a matinee: Check. My friend Sarah came with me and I was glad she did because there were two actors from our favorite Austrailian TV show and it was fun to be able to turn to each other at the same time and be like "Did you see who that was?" Okay but back to the star, Hugh Jackman. Hot Hot Hot. I really liked the movie, but I'm not overly critical of good action flicks.

Make Weight Goal for first challenge: One pound off. Oh well. I'll definitely have to try harder for the next challenge. Although do you remember how I'm still not overly motivated. But I'll keep trying. 12 pounds to lose for the next one. If I do that, then that would be awesome so wish me luck.

Begin craft projects to give away: Check. I wish I could say what they are but I want the recipients to be a surprise so I'll tell you later, but it will be a few weeks. I'm really excited for them and hope they turn out how I imagine them.

Attend an entire block of church: Check. I know, shocker right? I had already decided that I would stay for Sunday school so I went into the virtually empty room and took a seat on the back row. As the room filled with more people, this guy I met a few weeks ago and bonded with over the new Watchmen movie (that's all we really talked about) sat next to me after I said hi. We chatted about the new wolverine movie (see already in a rut, this friendship is going no where) and then looked up scriptures on our handy dandy Apple devices (he had an Itouch whereas I have an Iphone). But I did get onto his movie night email list. He holds a weekly movie night which is totally my scene. I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it through Relief Society and had pretty much decided to go when one of my visiting teachers came in to the room and knowing how I feel sat next to me, moaning a little herself about wanting to go home, and somehow got me to stay. I should have gone home, but I'm glad I made it through. Hopefully it will make the next time easier, of course next sunday I'll be at my mom's house so going to church will be very iffy.

Other unexpected happenings:
Carrie came over and brought pizza (could be the reason for being off one pound, but hey I needed to be there for my friend). We went for a walk after to JoAnn's for fabric and spent a lot more time there than we expected. Looking at patterns is really fun. Then a guy from our ward called her up to go bowling, so the three of us hit Fat Cats and had a really good time, then we just talked at my house for another hour or so.