Earring Organizer

I {used to} keep all of my earrings in a small drawer in my jewelry box. Recently, I made myself another pair of earrings and it was getting out of control in there. I finally dumped my earrings onto my dresser so I could see them all and find what I wanted. The time had come for a new earring organizer. Laura made a great one awhile back and I saved her blog post so I could copy her.

Here is my new earring organizer:

It cost me $1 out of pocket! I bought a frame at the dollar store, spray painted it white with paint I already had, convinced Laura to let me have an 8"x10" piece of the mesh she bought for her earring organizer, and used a piece of scrapbook paper I already had. I simply adhered the paper to the frame back and hot-glued the mesh onto the frame. I also found that I needed paper with a lot of contrast to look okay through the mesh, thus the black and white print.

It's now hanging in my closet, which I LOVE. Eric just put up more shelving and hung our mirror on the wall in our closet. I hung my earring organizer next to the mirror and it's so easy to pick out earrings when I get dressed! The stud and hoop earrings are still in the jewelry box. They don't work on the organizer, it's just for dangley earrings. Apparently "dangley" isn't a word, spell check doesn't like it, even if I spell it "dangly". Oh well, that's what they are.

Note about the earrings:
There are 10 pairs.
I made 7 of them.
Laura made one of them.
A fabulous lady from church taught Laura and me how to make earrings. She made one of the pairs.
Only one is store bought.
I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

Christmas Wreath II

Thanks for all of your input on whether or not to add a bow to my wreath. I decided to add a bow and I LOVE IT. What do you think?

Better yet, I found this wired ribbon at the dollar store. So the total cost of the wreath was only $6! I love it so much that I want to hang it up right now. I will wait until after Thanksgiving, which is just over a week away. My wreath will be okay in the hall closet until then.

Lauren is 11 months old!

I can't believe that Lauren will be a year old in less than a month!

Here she is at 11 months:

She still does the crinkly nose smile:

Lauren is starting to grow some hair, which we are all excited about. She now has 8 teeth and loves to chew on everything. She is a great eater, she eats pretty much anything we give her. Her favorites are cheerios, oatmeal, bananas, chicken nuggets, and bread. She still loves the stairs and makes a beeline for them as soon as she notices the gate is down. She cruises all over the furniture and is starting to walk behind her walking toy. She is so much fun and we all love her so much!

Christmas Wreath

Last night I made this Christmas wreath:

I simply took a wreath and hot-glued ornaments all over it. I'm pleased with how it turned out and it was quick and cheap to make. Plus, Eric even said, "That looks really good." He isn't one to dish out unasked for compliments on my crafty endeavors, so I was happy.

Price breakdown:
Wreath: $1 (regular price $10, 90% off after Christmas sale at JoAnn's last year)
Ornaments: $4 (4 packs of ornaments from the Target dollar spot)
TOTAL: $5--You can't beat that.

Now, a question for you, dear friends. Should I add ribbon? I could add a big bow at the top. Or I could wrap the ribbon around the wreath and have a bow at the top. If I do add ribbon, I think I would use a red, wide, wired ribbon. What do you think?????

Gathered clutch

I have been wanting to make this gathered clutch for awhile. I have been using a lame-o plastic make-up pouch (I'm guessing it's from the early 90s based on the pattern) to carry gum, chapstick, a pen, pain killers, etc. in my purse. This makes it easy for me to switch between purses. I don't have to look through all of the pockets to pull out what I might need. Or I can just grab the pouch, my wallet, phone, and keys and go. Hmmmm... that still sounds like a lot.

I finally decided that the lame-o plastic pouch would no longer do. I started it yesterday and finished it today. It was very easy... except I didn't get the side seams correct by the zipper covers and had to hand stitch a tiny area. I don't know what it is about me and the ends of zippers. I stink at them.

My photography skills are always lacking, but I couldn't wait until daylight to take pictures, so some of these are especially awful. Besides, there's not much daylight in the NW these days anyway, so I doubt it really would have made a difference.

The gathers didn't show up as well as I'd like, but you get the idea. Check out the tutorial for better pictures.

I love when I can find fabric lines that go together at JoAnn's. I refuse to pay the prices at the quilting stores, so I was happy to find these three fabrics.

If you look at the tutorial--
I didn't do the divider pocket or any of the card holders.
I used fusible fleece on the back and medium weight interfacing on the front. I just used what I had. I think it turned out well.

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year. Kaylin was so excited to dress up like Ariel. Kaylin was an octopus her first Halloween, so we still had the costume for Lauren. We told Kaylin that Lauren was Ursula, Kaylin thought that was awesome.

The Friday before Halloween was our church party. There was a trunk-or-treat, but I didn't take any pictures of that part. Kaylin was very outgoing and loved going from car to car to get candy.

Ursula and Ariel

Lauren didn't seem to mind the costume at all.

Eric came dressed as a bank manager. Well, he came straight from work since he was late.

The Ariel costume. I free-handed the skirt/tail and the "swim top" as Kaylin calls it.

Trick-or-treating at Grammy and Grandpa's

See? Lauren didn't mind the costume at all. This is the grandbabies favorite play place... Grammy's stash of holiday napkins.

Trick-or-treating at our neighbor friends'.

This was Monday night. As in November 1st. Yes, Denise is awesome and dressed up like Snow White just for Kaylin.