A Productive Morning!

With my morning coffee, I also take in a good dose of http://www.oneprettything.com/ and usually some creative blogs to go along with it. Really gets the blood (and ideas) pumping! This morning I found http://www.samstermommy.blogspot.com/ where a fellow crafty mom (who takes MUCH better pics than I) has put up her thought and goings-on for all to enjoy. The reason I was there: this necklace and this necklace. These tutorials only fueled the project I had in mind when I saw an ADORABLE very similar necklace at Peebles.* I still plan to make a few more--I REALLY REALLY love the black ribbon and black beads, but it'll take more than my sewing stash to produce that (but hopefully no more than a trip to the Salvation Army, or maybe Ben Franklin's). Here, out of my coffee can of old/broken jewelry and my bag o' ribbons salvaged from gifts/worn out clothing/other packages/etc: my "new" necklace. I have no idea where the ribbon came from--if I had to guess, I'd say it adorned a baby gift--and the beads were the handles of a gift bag. Cost: a few inches of real estate in my sewing room for a few years. Now, on to produce an outfit to wear it with!


Also a product of my morning: place mats for Rhyl. She has taken to eating with a napkin or wash cloth under her dish, and she's wild about princesses, so I decided to combine with two. She got to pick out the fabric (hate to admit--at WalMart), which was fun because she's always looking over the little kids' fabric while I'm perusing the other stuff, and this time she got to have some! Princesses and crowns + three bleached-out, stained-up dish towels that were headed for the rag bin = 6 quilted place mats the perfect size for a 2 y/o. These really have made it easier for me to get her to sit down and eat. For the first few days, anyway. We'll have to see how long that lasts! I realized too late that I should have used a brighter contrasting bobbin thread (for the back), but I'll just have to keep that in mind for next time. I'm sure I'll be putting together Spiderman or Thomas the Tank Engine mats for Gus in the next year or so. (Funny--I use place mats for other projects, but make place mats when I need some for their original use. Did anybody else catch that?? lol) Cost: $2.50 for fabric at WM.


*Conversation with Peebles Guy at check-out counter regarding necklace:
Me: Oh, I just love that!
PG: Would you like to try it on?
Me: No, that's okay. I shouldn't even be here in the first place, and I don't need a necklace.
PG: Sounds like a shop-a-holic to me!
Me: No, no, nothing like that. Just some Christmas shopping. But it's so pretty!
PG: I was just kidding. Are you sure you don't want it?
Me: Yes, I'm sure. (pause) How much is it?
PG: $16.
Me: Hey, that's actually not bad.
PG: You can get it!
Me: No, see, I make things, and I just can't pay $16 for something I can make with a ribbon and a few beads.
PG: Aw, but you don't want to make it--you want to buy it!
Me: No, I want to make it. Thanks anyway. It is very pretty. (As if a compliment on the necklace would make him feel better about my not buying it.) Oh, I gave you the wrong card!! .....