Whales!

I signed up for a whale swap on swap-bot.com and decided to make a whale zipper bag. A lovely lady sent me a pattern for a bag she made, but I didn't really like it so I ended up creating my own pattern based on a Forever21 bag I have that says 'Make Waves Not Waste.' So I created a sample, liked how it turned out so I made some more bags.

Like all my zipper pouched these bags are fully lined and interfaced for extra support. The only downside to making these bags is cutting them out because I have to cut around so many curves and corners.

Anyway, the paisley whale was made by my husband and the other two were made by me. The white and blue flowered bag is the one I will be sending for my swap. Aren't they just adorable?!?





















Tutorial available here.

School, shoppin', and swappin'...and sale!

School started yesterday for me. I didn't realize how oddly my classes were scheduled until two days ago. I have costuming and make-up at 9:30, then an hour long break, then there is media programming, an hour break, and finally at 3:30 there is jazz dance. I didn't know what to do with all the open time...it wasn't enough to go to the thrift store like I wanted to, but to long to just hang out in the lab.

Costuming class is still up in the air for me. It is a intro class and we will be starting with hand sewing, then sewing a hook and eye, followed by machine sewing in a straight line, etc. I may die of boredom. The teacher is at about the same sewing level that I am and the costume advisor doesn't know how to sew...he is actually taking the sewing labs with us. It could be fun or it could be torture...who knows. Make-up will definitely be hard for me since I have never used it.

My media programming teacher wants the comm students to start referring to each other by Mr., Miss, or Mrs. and their surname. She also wants us to look "presentable" every time we are in the department. She said this is to gear us up for the real world of media and because with the new fine arts building about to be completed there will be some big-wigs coming in and out of the department at any random time. Will she was telling us all this I realized I didn't know the name of half the people in the class, having never had classes with them before. This could be a little hard...

Jazz! *that was said with jazz hands* I have no absolute idea what jazz dance even looks like...but by the middle of the semester everyone in the class must choreograph a jazz dance and one of them will be performed in the spring concert. I am not a dancer and know nothing about choreographing...but the class sounds like fun anyway.

Ok, enough about school. (Mom and Dad most of that was for ya'll). Somehow it happened that Jeremiah *cough* Mr. Edwards and I don't have classes on Fridays. Eventually these will be filled with senior project stuff, but for today it is going to be for shopping! I was told yesterday that a bead store opened in town! So I'm going to go check that out, and hit the 50 cent clothes on Fri and Sat thrift store, the Salvation Army, Stitch and Sew, the dollar tree, and Wal-Mart...woo hoo for cheap-o shopping! I hope I find some awesome stuff and a birthday present for Mr. Edwards. Since we share the same birth day (give or take 6 years) we are having a joint birthday shindig this weekend!

Onward to the swapping! I am currently in some swaps over on swap-bot. I will be sending out some packages in the next couple of days...and this time I remembered to take photos first!

Here are the photos from a ribbon and matching buttons swap, photo swap (3 partners) and a random button swap.

Don't forget about the sale happening over on generation gap!

Keep sendin' them cards and letters...

I'm betting no one except my dad will get my title reference...but that's ok :)

Yesterday I packaged, repackaged and sent out my whimsy jar for a swap I'm in. I filled a baby food jar full of all sorts of fun stuff- including but not limited to- buttons, beads, a leather ring made from an old airplane seat, ribbon, foam stickers, a hair clip, fabric, a necklace, an embossing stamp and more. I also sent a handmade card-made using this how-to, a little note, a business card, and a cute tag from an old book page. Everything was first put into a bubble envelope...but I was worried the jar would break. So before I sewed the envelope closed I went to the post office and asked Post Office Paul what he thought. He said it would be ok, but safer in a box...so he went into the back and found a small box that something had gotten mailed to the actual post office in yesterday and he repackaged everything for me! Another reason why I love the people at the post office :)

So anyway, here are some pictures...the map envelope is the one I ended up not using. The notecard was stamped using an eraser stamp that I carved! The beautiful atlas being used for a backdrop is one I purchased at a book sale for $1 on my way home last weekend...then I dropped it carrying it to my room this week and messed the spine up a little (I wanted to cry...but didn't).















Oh and there was a write up in the university paper this week about how I make and sell hats! The reporter came to me two weeks ago and said she wanted to interview me because I'm interesting!

**If this post is a little hard to understand it's because I'm really tired**

Catch up

You know you've been neglecting your blog when it's at the bottom of the recent sites list. I tend to post pictures on flickr and forget to update the blog. So...right now I'm in two swaps. A matchbox swap that just ended and a whimsy jar swap. Right now I just have pictures of the matchbox swap. We were supposed to decorate one matchbox and fill with goodies for our partner (risky since I'm not supposed to have matches or matchboxes in the dorms). I read on my partners profile on swap-bot that she likes mini sewing kits, so I ended up making her a mini sewing kit and a regular matchbox. Then I put them into a little bag I made from scrap fabric and into a recycled/recovered envelope with a little note (on a hand stamped notecard-I carved the stamp too) and a business card for my etsy shop.








































































I finally got around to taking some good photos of a set of 5 postcards I made a year ago. I used illustrations from Captain Horatio Hornblower in a Readers Digest book from the 1960s. (I had to resize the photos weird, so if you click on them they come up clearer.)




























































I've been working on some cards lately, but no photos yet.


As for "real" life...I'm writing papers, reading plays, drawing floor plans, and about to start costuming for Cinderella. I will be auditioning for it as well...but I'm not sure how well that's going to go :/ Anyway, that's about it for now...and Mary Ann rocks :)

Buttons!

As mentioned before I signed up for my first couple of swaps a few weeks ago and today I received my first package! It was from a fellow Okie who sent me these lovely buttons. I love the yellow one with the blue/purple rings and the gold lion head :)

Here are the buttons I sent her. I had a hard time finding one's I though she would like. For some reason the thrift stores didn't have any buttons while the time the swap was going on. My swap partner likes purple so I tried to include some pretty purple buttons :)

But there were lots of buttons at the Wise Old Crazy Owl Thrift Store today (I think the store name gets longer each time I type it). I got ten cards of buttons for $.10 each. BTW the book used for the background is one I got for $.25 at the Salvation Army a couple of weeks ago.

With the new additions to my button collection, it has grown out of it's cute square jar so I started another jar...which I bought today for $.25. The cool thing about the Tyler candle jar is that it was made in the town where my sister lives...Tyler.

Stay tuned for my next post. It will be my 200th blog post and in celebration of that and of my blogiversary (Oct. 7th) I will be hosting a giveaway!

Swaps!

I mentioned months ago that I want to do some swaps...and I just signed up for my first two!

The first one I found is a button swap (I actually found it a day late, but the host Mandy is cool enough to let me in anyway). The swap is to send at least 20 buttons to your assigned swap partner and then you will get at least 20 in return. They can be old or new, big or blue...ok, I made that up...but really, it's for any type of buttons.

The second swap is one off of swap-bot. The swap is to send 5 handmade envelopes to your swap partner. I made mine tonight from pages out of a 1974 Sports Encyclopedia that I got at the thrift store last month for $.50. I plan on including a few extra envelopes because it's fun to make them :)

I'm really excited to get my assigned partners so I can start a-swappin' :)



(Anyone else notice that my writing skills are getting worse?? That's pretty sad, but I'm going to assume it's because I'm using them so much on my schoolwork...like I said, assume it.)

Life Update...

My life update:

Today is the one and a half year anniversary for me and my boyfriend! It's been the best year and a half of my life. At times it doesn't seem like it's been that long, but other times it seems like it's been forever. :)

I recently won another craft givaway. This one is from Junk Drawer and it is an amazing package of old papers! I can't wait until I get it in the mail and see what awesome things I can create with it.

The musical I was in ended yesterday. Three of the four performances were sold out and the other one was a full house. We got a standing ovation and got to do a curtain call on the final performance and that made the whole thing perfect! The whole experiance was great. I made lots of news friends and had tons of fun.

Only two more days of school before I get to go home for Thanksgiving break! That means I get to hang out with my friends from high school, relax, and hopfully get lots of crafting done. I started a mini scrapbook last night about the musical that will include a program that was singed by all 40 cast members and stage hands.

The only bad thing about Thanksgiving break coming up so soon is that I have homework, tests, and projects to do before hand. In fact I'm putting off writing two papers in order to write this blog...opps.

Since I'm putting off doing other productive things, I might as well share a photo (I hate making posts without pictures). This was taken on Friday when I stepped outside my dorm to go eat dinner. Pretty huh?!?














Well I guess that's all that's new in my life right now. Oh...I'm really wanting to get involved with some sort of swap. So if you know of a good one going on right now please let me know.

In response to the comment from usHHfan: Yes, the Captain Horatio Hornblower postcards are for sell, but I was unsure how to get ahold of you. Please get me an email address so we can be in contact.

Current read: Anne of Avonlea

Hey ya'll

Ok...so here goes my first post. I've never blogged before but I found some bloggers on here that I really like and I wanted to join them. Those are My house is cuter then yours and A very mary design. I'm going to mainly be posting thrift store finds, sewing projects, crafting projects, and just things like that. Like I said I'm new to this whole thing so if there's anyone out there who can help me with the technicallities of posting and all that then please help.

I noticed on the bloggers posts that I mentianed earlier that they participated in swaps. They were assigned someone and then would mail them different things. It seemed really neat and fun and I would love to get involved in something like that.

Last week I ventured out to the local Salvation Army where I found some neat things. I picked up a copy of Singing in the Rain and four records- a Boots Randolph one and three Lawrence Welk records. The movie was marked 50 cents and the records were $1 each. I was going to see if I could strike a deal for the records and get them for cheaper. Come to find out the records were 80% off and the movie was 20% off! So I got all 5 items for under $2!

Anyway, that's about all I have for now. If anyone is reading this then I hope you enjoyed it. So long for now.