Blog Hop and a Giveaway!

How do you keep your home clean and holiday ready during this chaotic season?  What is your biggest holiday cleaning challenge?

For me, keeping my home has always been a challenge.  I've been married 2 years, with no kids yet, and it's still a challenge.  My husband works full-time, and I am a full-time college student.  My program keeps me running from 8:30am to 7:00pm some nights.  I used to have piles and piles of laundry, dirty dishes, and clutter everywhere.  Now I don't.  I try to do simple things such as keep my kitchen sink clean, keep the bathroom counters wiped off, and put things away as I go.  I also try to do a load of laundry a day (mon-fri), and that helps tremendously.  (If you want more info on where I learned these tricks, go here.)

I think the biggest holiday cleaning challenge is keeping floors clean.  Snow and salt gets tracked in, and it just gets gross! :)

I am  participating in Infarrantly Creative and Tatertots and Jello’s Blog Hop for a chance to win a Mint Cleaner. It is the revolutionary machine that cleans your hard floor surfaces for you.

Click here to join the blog hop and a chance to win!

The Mint Cleaner is  available at the following places:

Amazon
The Mint Cleaner

HSN

Bed, Bath & Beyond

Holiday Crayons

Love this and have to share!  Here's a quick and easy way to make holiday crayons for your kiddos or as a gift for others.  Sew Totally Smitten shows you how here!  I will have to add this to my list for SURE!

Fabulous Giveaways!!!

Hi everybody!  I just had to let you know that TONS of people are giving away silhouette's this week.  It's about the coolest crafting tool on the block!  Stop reading the post, and go enter!
HowDoesShe

Make It and Love It

Homemade by Jill

Infarrantly Creative

We Are That Family

Grosgrain Fabulous

Thrifty Decor Chick

Tatertots and Jello

No Biggie
Shanty2Chic

The Idea Room

Moms Review 4 You

Just a Girl

First Quilt Ever---Completed!!!

Wahoo!  I am finished with my first quilt ever.  I had an enjoyable time getting this project done.  It took me several months longer than planned, but just in time for my church youth group’s quilt show!  Here are the pictures of it all done.  I’m very happy with it. (And I apologize for the guest appearance of my favorite office chair!)  I quilted it using free motion, and attached the binding by hand (which might have almost been my favorite part of the whole quilt)!  Want to make your own quilt like this?  Care at Obsessively Stitching shows every single step here.  Now it’s off to the sewing machine to start finish some Christmas gifts! :)

  

Change a Lace Tee to a Banded Tee Tutorial

This is my latest project.  I added a quick tutorial with it, but I have to say that I would change a couple things the third time around!  My tutorial only includes adding the band to the bottom of the t-shirt.  If you Google appliqué, you will find more than enough tutorials on that subject!  I simply sewed buttons on top of the flowers at the end as well.

You’ll need:  A shirt to add the band onto, and a shirt to cut up.  (I used the lace tee because the lace was getting really gross, but the shirt was still in great condition!)

First, cut the lace off the bottom of the tee.  If you’re not using a lace tee, just cut off the stitching for the hem at the bottom of the shirt.

Then cut the bottom of your shirt you’ll be using for the band.  I cut 5 inches off the bottom.  If you want to make the shirt longer, or shorter, just figure out the length and multiply by 2.  We will be folding this piece in half to make the band.

Then fold your banded piece in half.  As you can see, the band is a little smaller around than the shirt.  If you were really picky, you could cut the band and add a bit on one side or both to make it the correct width.  I didn’t do this, and ended up with a few puckers, but I was totally okay with this.  You choose.  It just depends on how much of a perfectionist you are I guess! :)

Then pin your band to the bottom of your shirt, with the raw edges of the band being pinned to the raw bottom of the shirt.  One thing to make sewing easier would be to do a basting stitch to sew the band closed.  Also make sure that the hem of the “banded shirt.” is facing you.  This way it will be inside of the shirt when you wear it instead of being visible to everyone you know!  :) 

(This pic just shows the finished edge before the band is folded down like you'd wear it.  I hope that makes sense!)

Then with your zig-zag stitch or other knit stitch (mine’s #6 on my Bernina), sew the band to the shirt.  The zig-zag stitch (or any other stretch stitch) will help the shirt stretch instead of being stiff.

  

There’s different views so you can get an idea of the appliqué I used, and see the band.  Love this shirt because the band keeps the shirt down a lot better than the lace ever did! Wahoo!