How To Take Out A Diaper Allowance

Here's a tutorial about how to take out a diaper allowance. Remember to add some wearing ease to your measurements. 1-2" for close fitting, 3-4" for standard fitting, 4-6" for loose fitting, and 6" or more for oversized.

Another Fav

Ok. Here is another one of my favorite resources. Reconstructing History is a great resource for actual historic clothing. Their patterns represent the working class which seems so hard to find accurate patterns and ideas for. Awesome site with pics and a great blog about how to put it all together. I love Kass' ideas and attention to detail.

Gidets and Gadgets...

I just added a new Gadget to my Blog. Now you can see some of my favorite sites to visit and find inspiration. Threadbangers is my first because they have such great ideas and projects. Many do not need a ton of experience and they try to use readily available materials. They show alot of my favorite "Frankensteining" techniques.:)Their You Tube videos are great too. Maybe someday I'll have a production team too!!! With special effects.....hmmm.....:)Brandie

Tutti Frutti Produce Bags

Here is a video showing you how to sew up the lastest craze in Going Green, mesh produce bags. They are so handy. You can take them to the store with you and use them instead of the plastic ones. Then, when you get home you can use them to store your produce in the fridge or on the counter. Your fruits and veggies keep better because they can breathe. If they do happen to get dirty just throw them in the washer and air dry. Voile!! Ready for the next trip. These bags are so easy to make. You could also get creative and think up new uses. How about filling with bulbs for a gardener? Attach some new gloves for a cute gift. Baby Shower? Kitchen? Don't forget about all the great colors that netting comes in. Send me pics of your great design ideas.

Keep Me Where?

Here is a short little clip about storing patterns. This is just the way I happen to do it, but if you have any good ideas, please share!!!

Ahoy Matey!!!

Here are pictures of my son Ricky's room. It took about four days to paint with the help of my oldest daughter, Dara. We started out with a base coat of light blue on 2 1/2 of the four walls. This color doubled as the water in the reef and the sky. We also used this color for ceiling. Then we used a semi-gloss tan color for the base of the walls for the Captian's Cabin. Next, we used a natural sea sponge (an old bath scrubber works too, just make sure it is not a plastic, otherwise it will just drip paint everywhere.) to randomly rub streaks of a shade darker brown over the tan. Wet the sponge first with water and then dip lightly into your paint. Next, dab off the excess on newspaper or a plastic paint tray. You can also thin the paint slighty with water. This helps the paint work in easier so you don't get splotches of color instead of washes of color. The point here is too make it look like the varying colors of wood.
The rest of the painting was done with the inexpensive bottles of acrylic paints you can find at any craft store. We used black to make the lines on the cabin walls. Alot of inspration came from pictures on the internet. This project was not hard at all. If you feel like you can't draw free hand, use a projector to cast your image on the wall, and then trace lightly with a pencil. Argggg......

Fun In The Sun

Ok, We just got back from our week in the sun at Navajo Lake, NM. Our friend Jan makes up the cutest bags for each of us and fills them with all sorts of goodies, including lots of personal care items. It's always great because I get to try alot of different products that I probably wouldn't buy for myself. The best thing this year was the Neutrogena(c) Sport sunblock lotion. I have tried every sunscreen know to man since my youngest is fair skinned. After going through two spray cans of SPF 50 the first two days and watching her getting redder and redder, I finally dug around in my goodie bag and found this awesome product. It lasts along time, goes on smooth and is water and sweat proof. Brenna didn't even turn pink. This is my new fav for sunblocks and will definitely become a staple in our house for the summer. I will give this a rating of FIVE THIMBLES.