I'm still at it!

I'm on a roll with the sewing, but I've promised myself I will put it away after one more outfit.  Okay two.  Two more outifts for the baby and I will clean up the dining room!  I wish I had a better place to do my sewing so the first thing you see when you walk in my house is not a big fat mess!  Anyway, things are still a mess, but I just had to share this latest outfit with you!

I know the weather is getting cooler out, so I made this outfit bigger so she can wear it next spring.  Oh, and remember the romper?  I decided to get it monogrammed.  How cute is this?

Well, I'd better get back to sewing.  I've got two outfits to make before Thursday!  Y'all know I'll be sharing them with you!

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Never Say Never

As you know, I've been sewing for my darling baby niece.  A while back, my sister, who does not sew, picked up some super cute fabric and a super cute romper pattern.  She mentioned to the ladies at the fabric store that she wanted a pattern that was simple enough for a beginning sewer. They assured her that this pattern was "easy breezy!" HA! Easy breezy in couturier school somewhere in Paris maybe!  This pattern covers almost every aspect of sewing except for french seams, zippers and inset lace.  It's got buttons and button holes, snaps, piping, trim, ruffles, elastic and it's reversible!  REVERSIBLE I say!! I was so intimidated by this pattern that I sat there and looked at it for month after I cut out the material.  Then one day I looked at that pattern and said, "I'm not scared of you!", and I started sewing.  The pattern did call for piping, but I did not have enough fabric left to make my own so I opted for rick rack instead.  I love how it turned out!  What do you think?

I'm in love with this rick rack trim!

My first time ever adding snaps to anything!  And look at that darling ruffle!  The elastic just goes around the sides so there's like a little flounce at the legs!

And look!  It's reversible too!  I must say, I have amazed myself!  I never thought I would be able to pull off an outfit like this in a million years.  It just goes to show, you should never say never!

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Sew Busy!

Along with getting out all my Fall decorations I've been busy sewing for my baby niece.  I'm trying to get these last few items made so I can turn my sewing room back into a dining room for the upcoming holidays.  Here is one little dress I've made for her.  Don't you just love this fabric?  It's called Tooty Fruity!

Then I made her this little pinafore top (that's the back shown) with coordinating pants, since the weather is getting cooler, she can wear a shirt under the top.  The fabric is also from the Tooty Fruity line.

I've also got her a reversible romper cut out of these fabrics as well.  My sister picked up these fabrics a while back and I think she got a yard a piece, which was enough to make more than one outfit each.  Oh,  and check out these darling fabrics I found at Hobby Lobby!  I think I'm becoming a hoarder!  I'd better get busy if I'm going to get my dining room back.

She's got to have something cute to wear for her first Halloween!  I love this trick or treat fabric, but I wish they sold a coordinating fabric to go with it.  I found this green damask print in another part of the store and since the color matches the green in the other print I got it.

I liked the green so much I went back today and got this fabric that actually coordinates with it.  I'm thinking of doing some ruffle leg pants and a long sleeve peasant top out of these.

I love this turquoise and white fabric, but I think I might wait until spring to make something with it.

Along with the sewing and decorating for Fall, I've got a couple other irons in the fire.  Check out this 1980s sofa table.  I love having my family photos on display, but I'm ready to do something different with this table.  First thing will be a coat of paint.

I still haven't decided what color the paint will be yet.  I've seen some gorgeous turquoise sofa tables around the blogosphere, but I might be too chicken for that.  We'll see.

 Remember the second "ugly chair"?  Well, she's fixin' to have a little change too! 

Stay tuned for the transformation.

Tomorrow I will be going out of town to sing in a September 11 memorial service.  I can't believe it's been ten years since that terrible day.  I was pregnant with my youngest and had kissed my husband good bye that morning as he left for the airport.  Luckily his plane landed safely and our story had a happy ending, unlike so many others.  I hope you'll join me in remembrance of those that were lost that day.

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Look What I Made

75 degrees! Time to decorate for Fall!

I'm a loving this brief little bit of Fall weather we are having today, but being from Georgia I know that it is just a tease.  We've got at least another month of really hot temps during the day, even though our mornings and evenings might be cooler (like down in the 70s). I do love Fall though and I especially love decorating for it.  I began my love of Fall decorating after my son was born on Halloween. I began collecting pumpkins of all shapes and sizes.  Some are jack-o-lanterns and some just regular pumpkins.  I start decorating in September and leave it up until Thanksgiving.  In the past couple of years I've started adding to my Thanksgiving collection as well and I'm on the lookout for a gorgeous turkey!

It takes me a few days to get all my decorations in place, but I've gotten a good start on my mantel, so I thought I'd share that with you today.

I pulled everything for the mantel out of the boxes and put them on my card table.

See that little scarecrow peeking out from the foliage?  I painted him well over a decade ago and he is still one of my favorite crafty creations.

I love these wheat sheath candle holders.  I purchased them from Cracker Barrel about 5 years ago.  The pine straw pumpkins came from the dollar aisle at Target a few years back.

The lemon tree was painted by my grandmother back in 1972.  It lived in my mother's kitchen for many, many years.  The church birdhouse was made by the grandfather of one of my students about 13 years ago.  I can't help but think of that child as being 3 years old still, but now she is old enough to drive!

Here is my mantel  so far.  I still feel like it needs a little more height in the middle, so I may bring in a vase with some fall leaves in it.  I'll probably add a real pumpkin or two in the mix as well.

Here is a sneak peek at my front door.  I got the garland last year on sale at Michael's and I made the wreath from a grapevine form and a silk leaf garland.  I think it needs a little freshening up though, so I might change that out all together.  I'm going to get some mums soon, so stand by for the complete reveal!

I hope y'all are enjoying this taste of Fall weather as much as I am.  Stay tuned for lots more to come!

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Do I feel a nip in the air?

There are a few things that signal fall for me... the purchasing of a scarecrow,  the making of my taco soup, and COLLEGE FOOTBALL!  I bought my scarecrow at Hobby Lobby yesterday.  Oddly enough, I was standing in the check-out line behind a man dressed like a mime.  I'd have taken his picture, but I thought that would have been rude.  Now if he'd been trapped in an invisible box I might have risked taking the picture and running, but that didn't appear to be the case.  Anyway, here's my newest scarecrow!  I'll buy another one to go in my yard as well, but this little guy will stand by my front door, unless I decide to place him on the hearth of my fireplace.  We'll see.  My boys are getting down my boxes and boxes of fall decorations from the attic as I am typing this, so the transformation of my house from summer to fall is about to begin.  Now if only the weather will cooporate. 

As for the making of the Taco Soup, it is still too hot for that.  But I did make this recipe from a fellow blogger over at Plain Chicken.  Check her out y'all - she has the most wonderful recipes.  Anyway it reminds me a bit of Taco Soup, as it has rotel tomatoes, black beans, and ground beef in it.  I decided to make this last night because I knew that I had all the ingredients in my pantry - or so I thought.  I know that I had a can of Rotel in my pantry, I would have bet on it, but when I went to get it, no tomatoes!  So back to the store I went  to get  ONE CAN OF TOMATOES!  If you are like me, there is no physical way to get out of Walmart without spending atleast $40!  So there I am, in the check out line again, but this time I'm standing behind an eighty-if-he-was-a-day old man wearing shorty shorts and a belly shirt!  I wanted to take his picture too, but I thought better of it.  To distract myself  I was checking out the purchases in my buggy.  Sometimes I just get tickled at the odd assortment of things that I pick up when I run in for just one thing!  I call it "Shopping for McGuiver".  I wonder what McGuiver could have made out of a huge bag of dog food, a can of Rotel tomatoes and a bra?

Now if you are from the South, you've probably got a football game on today.  Let me just say I didn't think I would survive the Auburn game today!  That was one exciting game!  Glad you pulled it off boys!  War Eagle Y'all!  Tonight we'll be watching the Georgia Bulldogs play, as we are a "House Divided!"  If you been reading my blog for the past month since I started it you know that my oldest son Seth is attending The University of Georgia.  You may not know that I am a huge Auburn fan!  So huge that I even have Football Day in my preschool class during Letter F week and we have War Eagle practice!   I can't tell you how many phone calls I got from my Georgia Fan Parents during the Georgia Auburn game last year when their children were shouting War Eagle at the TV!  Hee hee - mission accomplished Miss Wren! :)

Okay, I'm off to decorate my house for fall even though it is 93 degrees today.  Good news is that a "cold" front is coming through because of the tropical storm in the gulf and it will be a high of 81 on Monday!  That's practically fall in Georgia and I will be ready for it!

Back to School

I started teaching preschool over a decade ago and have loved every minute of it.  Every year I love my class so much that I think the new class cannot possibly measure up and I'll just have to do my best to be nice to them!  Turns out I love my new class every bit as much.  This year I have a class with personality to spare!  It's going to be the most fun year ever.  There is no way next year's class can come close, but I'll try to be nice! :)

Other than the kids, one thing I love is decorating my classroom.  I guess that just goes along with how I like to decorate my house too.  The hubs asked me once, "do you have to decorate for every occassion?"  After a bit of thought, I replied with a deep and meaningful answer, "well, duh!"

Here are a collection of bulletin boards and decorations I have done over the years.

This was my first bulletin board.  Aren't those the worst paint splatters ever?  I've come a long way since "Our Colorful Class"

I like using the students art work as much as possible.

For the corn cobs I had the class put yellow fingerprints all around a toilet paper tube.  Easy Breezy!

I made these cute hats out of construction paper, added curling ribbon for confetti and on a later bulletin board I added those party horns that you get at parties where the paper unrolls when you blow it.

This was super easy too.  I just sponged the bricks on white paper using a kitchen sponge and red paint.  I then added my class' names onto Santa's list.  I think a cut out of Santa or an Elf holding the list would have been cute, but I couldn't find one anywhere when I needed it!

These penguins were a fun winter craft made using nothing but ovals.

"Our School is Cool"

Since Owls are all the rage now, I think I will be recreating this idea in my classroom this year.  The owl is just a coloring sheet owl that I let them color then glue torn construction paper for feathers.

Summer bulletin board using simple shapes the students glued together.

I did the corn on this stalk a little differently - I just cut out a yellow cob shape and green husks and the kids glued popcorn kernels to the cob with a little bit of raffia at the top for the corn silk.  I love my giant scarecrow!

Another cute bulletin board using a classroom craft.  The bunnies are made using a paper plate cut in half.  Half the plate is used for the body and the other half I use to cut out the ears.  The kids cover the body with cottonballs, glue on a wiggly eye and then color the inside of the ears pink.  This is one of my favorites because I can use it for several months.

In this classroom I didn't have cubbies where I could put their papers so I hung their work on this board using push pins.

I had so much fun making this board.  I found some cute animal pictures, blew them up using an overhead projector and traced them onto colored posterboard.

All the preschools I've worked at have been run by a local church and the classrooms are also used as sunday school classes year round, so I always leave a bulletin board up for the summer.  This summer I did a cute board with apples on it reading "Take a Bite out of Summer."  I was so lazy liked the idea so much, that I kept it for my beginning of the school year board and just changed the wording to read "Take a Bite Out of Preschool."

I re-did my tree this year too.  The bottom had gotten kind of ragged and there was no way to fix it without taking the whole tree down.  I like my old tree better, but this one will do.  They turn out differently every time.  I think I might go add some apple to this one until October when I add fall leaves to it.  I put snowflakes on it in the winter and flowers in the spring, so it's a tree for all seasons.

Tomorrow begins the second week of school for me.  I can't wait to see my sweet class!

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Time to Make the Cookies

The teachers I work with came over the other day to decorate cookies and to have a pre-planning meeting.  We start school next week with open house on Tuesday.  I always like to have a little something for the kids to walk away with at open house, so I make my yummy sugar cookies.  The other teachers liked the idea of the cookies, so I invited them to my house to decorate cookies for their classes too. 

I got my sugar cookie recipe many years ago from a little old lady named Miss Jo.  She shared her recipe with me so I will share it with you!

1 cup margarine (2 sticks)                                     1 egg
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar                                   1 tsp vanilla

Cream the margarine, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth.

2 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour

1tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Cream of Tartar

Add the rest of the ingredients (add the flour 1/2 cup at the time, unless you like having flour slung all over your kitchen!).  Mix until well blended.  Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for two hours or overnight.  Roll dough to desired thickness and cut into shapes.  Bake on an ungreased baking sheet at 375 degrees for 7-10 min.

After the cookies have cooled completely I ice them with my easy breezy icing.

One box confectioners sugar

Water

I add the water a tablespoon at a time until I get it to the consistancy of pancake batter.   It's more trial and error with the icing.  If it's too thin it will run off the cookie.  Too thick and it won't spread and level out evenly.

I make a big apple shaped cookie for my class but other teachers that have themes for their classroom make cookies to go along with that, like fish, or puppies or monkeys.  I like the apples for back to school.  I make the cookies ahead of time so all we have to do is ice them.  When they are dry I put them in clear treat bags tied with ribbon.

Tomorrow is the big day!  I hope the kids like their cookies and their new teacher!

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