If you guys have been keeping tabs on this little ole' blog then you know that we've been tiling our backsplash in the evenings. After the kids go to bed. Not the best way to do it, but its the time we had. I wanted to share with you guys today what I learned about tiling with this adventure.

Now this is not the first time I've tiled.  It's the 2nd time. It makes all the difference in the world. Ok. I'm lying it doesn't. This time round was definitely harder than the last time we tiled. Maybe it was because we were working with natural stone. Or it was on a wall rather than lying flat. Or it could be a combination of both things. Either way we learned a lot and I am going to share what we learned with you!

These lessons are in no particular order other than how I thought of them, so one is not more important than another.

Pier 1 ain't got nothing on me! If you guys 'like' my facebook page, then you'll know that I received a Pier 1 catalog a few weeks ago and in it was quite a surprise. Look and see for yourself :)
 Do you see what I'm talking about? Oh wait...no you don't because I haven't shown you the funny part yet. Well then here it is!

UPDATE

I've now added the pictures I forgot to put in originally! Also when I came downstairs this morning, this is what I found.

Yep....that's Harrison and a mess of torn toilet paper. Thank goodness his bink was there, otherwise he might have been eating said mess.  :)

Ok so that may sound a little weird, and even one of my tweets yesterday was odd....mostly because I misspelled dyeing. My husband was quite bereft when I stated that dying was on the list of things to do. Ooops. :) I'm happy to share this dyeing adventure though!

I did some research after my mishap, but what I want to accomplish was a gradated color effect for the pillow case. Here's the official term for that dyeing technique:

Ombré - rhymes with the Spanish word hombre, but is actually a French word meaning "shade" or "shadow". (Ombre without the fancy "é" is a very old card game!)

It was my first time actually dyeing anything (tie dye does not count, because I have never successfully done that)....and I must say that it was fun and thank goodness for bleach. :) So on to the show!

This is what we're creating, sans the flap on the bag.

 So Mom has provided the base tutorial for her car.Go tote! It has two pockets and is deep enough to cram a ton of stuff into it. The flap however is not included. I will have to get after her for that. ;-) I will also apologize because there are no pictures to go along with this tutorial yet, but I hope that you all will get the gist of what we're trying to explain! I have finished pictures of Devlin's Tote to act as your guide.

I'm sure all of us have seen something in a store and said, "I can make that, and for a lot cheaper than that." I had that moment in Target about a week ago, and I said then I was going to make that pillow. Well, I didn't forget about that pillow, but I did forget how it was sewn together. So back to Target we go.

How do you deduce how a pillow has been sewn together at a store with no intention of buying it? You unzip it, remove the innards, turn it inside-out and hold it up to the light while your mother takes pictures {because you let your phone completely die}.

I'm chipping away at my to do list. The duvet is 98.9% done. It would have been completed, but someone was missing some Velcro. I'll need to talk to Stephen about keeping Velcro stocked. ;-)

This would be the afternoon sun streaming through my windows.

There's the duvet eating my work space. Can't wait until that Velcro gets put on.

So, I've  been sitting here staring at my blogger screen for about 5 minutes trying to decide on what I want to post. I've also been writing out this paragraph in my head, because I couldn't reach my keyboard. My laptop was sitting on the ottoman in front of me, and I was staring at a blank blogger new post page. Why?

Because, Harrison was eating, and I figured that while he was eating, in between kisses on the head, I could maybe try and decide what to write. It didn't work. I am still torn between two directions.

So the bedroom revamp is in full swing, but I managed to get this pillow done this weekend. I have never been so happy for my algebra lessons before, because when I was an 7th grader I was never going to use it in real life. Hah! Sometimes we are so naive in our youth. I was also surprised that the math was a welcome break to all the cleaning and painting.

We've all seen these pillows in the stores, and while I will probably not be making a lot of them, they are nice looking though. I also made this one as a slip cover, so that you can easily change it out for the seasons. So on to the show!

I have been sewing up a storm this week, and today was no different. I am attempting to get ahead of my workload for the bedroom makeover, which probably would have been a better plan had I started earlier. Oh well, but at least this gives me a good segway. Enter two new pillows. This time they are braided and gathered. :)  I had some 14" pillow forms lying around. Now they are sitting pretty on my bed.

The instructions are the same as the original braided pillow, but the measurements are different as the pillow is 2" smaller than the original pattern. This is also going to make 2 pillows instead of 1. So on to the show!

Ok, so I'm lying. I don't have any clue as to how to achieve a pillow with pig tails, and make it look good, but I do have a little something to share with you about how to create a 'braided' pillow. :) First off, I made the pillow in 2 hours - start to finish, during Harrison's nap, so this is definitely a project for all you ADD crafters. :)

I already have an alternate to this pattern in the works....imagine ruffled/pleated sections! I am getting ahead of myself (again) so let me start at the beginning.

**The collage pictures are not working for me, and a couple of readers. So I've replaced the pictures with the individual pictures.**

Sometimes I make things more complicated than they have to be, and then genius strikes and saves me a lot of effort! I love when that happens. Well, I love when it happens early in the process. ;-)

So I love that all these letters and typography stuff is popular now, what's even cooler is that Devlin wants to move out the Red Sox stuff in his room {his father is heartbroken}, but Dev has told me he wants an ABC room! Yay....because I love the possibilities that this brings, so today in about 3 hours I whipped up a really cute pillow!

Also please let me know if you like the collage effect. I'm trying it out and don't know if I like it or not. I look forward to hearing from you!

Photo frame collages are uber popular right now, and as such they are everywhere. Target has several photo frame collages that I love, but I don't love the $25 price tags. Not to mention they look really, really easy to make so I decided that I would try my hand at making one for my sewing room.

I wanted to incorporate the vintage scissor art that I made a few days ago, and a few weeks ago Shanty 2 Chic posted this tutorial on making your own dry erase board, and I knew I could expand on it. :) Do you see where my ideas start to mesh together? So off to A.C. Moore I go.

So you know the old adage - Measure twice, cut once? Well, it's true for a lot of things, including sewing, and I did get new measurements on myself before I cut  out my suit last week. They were not that different from my measurements before, so I figured no big deal. I'd cut out the jacket per the pattern's instructions and then adjust the skirt as needed (hip width and length). No biggie.

Well, yesterday I had the suit 90% done and deciced to do a test fit and it didn't fit that great around the bust....what?!?! So I had my mom re-measure me and sure enough my bust measurement was differen than what I'd taken.. Hrm. I check the jacket ease and there was 5", so why was it barely fitting? Then mom asks when I stopped breastfeeding H. DOH! I stopped on Sunday. Mom goes - well that's it then. Don't do anything to the jacket until you've dried up or at least until you've shrunk back down to a normal size. My mom is a genius. So luckily there is still 3 weeks before the baptism which is hopefully enough time to return to normal, but if not I have 2 alternatives....scrap the belt and wear a cami underneath the jacket and just leave it open or make a blouse that matches and pair a cute mauve belt with it...I've done some thinking about this. Luckily, like I said, I have some time so hopefully I can go with plan A, but at least there is a B and C in the wings.