Pint Sized Fabric Bolts

{Drool worthy fabric storage solution}

I found myself an organizing project to do today ( as if i did't have enough already)..thanks to my sister-in-law finding this way to organize fabric over at the Little Green Bean blog.

Sadly, mine has been living in an under-bed storage container in our shoulda'-been-nursery turned guest room that rarely gets used as such, and is probably better suited as a craft room since I typically have to drag my projects out to the dining room table which doubles as my cutting/sewing/creating space.

I'd love to ditch the bed in the guest room and swap it for a pull out sofa ( so we can still have overnighters, and could be left for nursing babies if we ever get there) and get a nice L shaped desk with file cabinets on one end and an open book shelf with cubicles on the other end that could store cute buckets and boxes of goodies. In other words, if anyone is wondering what to buy me for my Birthday, the desk below from Pottery Barn would really put a smile on my face.

And, while I'm at it...one of these mid-century style Sleeper Sofas would look really swell in my dream craft room...So, while I should have been out enjoying our 90 degree weather, I found myself at the dollar tree purchasing 5 foam core boards ( Now that I think about it, I should have bought more)..for a grand total of $5. Michael's, Hobby Lobby and JoAnn's all sell foam core board as well, but a buck a board? AWESOME.

Each full size board was cut into 10 pint sized boards. I cut them with my ol man's pocket knife and my carpenter's square ( love that tool). Each board is 6" x10".

Here's the finished project.. It's all within eye sight and reach without having to move blankets and other random things from under the bed to see what I have to work with. I also re-purposed some photo boxes that I bought a while back into "Notions" and "Patterns" and "Ribbon", and stacked those at the end of my bolts as book ends of sorts.

This totally satisfied my OCD desires to organize my fabric better. Mission accomplished!

A tisket, a tasket, a cookie in a basket

My sister keeps posting things on facebook about the fantasticness ( I'm pretty sure I just made that word up), of Sugarbelle and all of her royal icing cookies. There is nothing this woman can't do. I'm convinced she is the BEST cookie decorator ever. Check her out at The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle.

Anyways, my sister, also a fantastic decorator of cakes and cookies, has been playing with royal icing lately and has some pretty awesome cookies and cupcake decorations to show for it. Guess those few years she spent as a cake decorator at Baskin-Robbins during High School paid off! She made some cookie pops for our aunt's mother's birthday, and I thought they looked pretty neat, so I tried my hand at making a cookie basket for my co-worker's birthday this week.

Although I made a dozen cookies, I only needed 4 to spell her name, which turned out to be a good thing, since my royal icing techniques leave something to be desired. I had my piping consistency too thick at first, and it was a pain in the butt to squeeze it back into my mixing bowl to thin down a bit.. To make the letters, I piped out the letters onto waxed paper, sprinkled them with disco dust, and let them dry. Once the royal icing of the cookie and of the letters were dry, I "glued" the letters to the cookies with a dab of royal icing.

I bought a cute little tin at the Dollar Tree, along with a cellophane basket bag. I used floral foam that I already owned, and grabbed tissue paper from my gift wrap bin. I used my can-do-anything-you-dream-of Silhouette cutting machine to make a tag out of a print I got from eighteen25's blog during their recent birthday week.

I presented it to the birthday girl today along with one of Bucky and Boo's make-up brush rolls and I am pretty sure she liked it.

Must Have: Makeup brush roll

With a vacation on the horizon, I set out to find myself a way to condense my makeup into a travel friendly size. I currently have a MAC train case stuffed to the gills & beyond at home, and like most women, don't wear 50% of the stuff in it, but can't bear to throw it out...So, I really only need to take some day use makeup and an easy night-time makeup..all the stuff in the middle can stay home

Anyways, I made a pattern last night for a makeup brush roll to fit all my brushes in for safe keeping while travelling. My first prototype ended up being a little bit to short for my foundation brush, so I made version 2.0 which is a little taller and an extra inch wider (So I can fit my lip gloss and mascara wands in it as well as brushes).

Here she is:

As you can see the Bucky and Boo watermark, these will most definitely be for sale in our etsy shop soon! Just in time for Mother's day!

Dialed in: Rob and Big Style

I've said it before, but here's proof that I'm not the only crafty one under our roof. My ol man got hold of my new car this weekend and made some tweaks to it, or, as Rob & Big would say "murder it out".

{car tarped & brake calipers begging to be painted red}

{Goodbye Chrome, hello black}

{ I shall call this car Darth--Feel the Force!}

He's got some plans for black wheels, but his truck is next in line for new wheels and tires. I'm just thankful to have a car that I can depend on once again! Doesn't hurt that he loves tweaking it to get it dialed in.

Thanks sunshine!

Scarred for life

I recently posted something on facebook about having had one of our nephews spend the night--and after multiple overnights that he chose to sleep on our floor--he finally tried the big guest bed out. My comment was something to the effect of " What is it with kids preferring to sleep on floors vs. comfy beds?" and of course, my mom and sister chimed in with comments about my childhood nights spent sleeping on their bedroom floor.

Yes, I was the kid that would not sleep in my own bed.

I didn't sleep in my parent's bed or my sister's bed either..I preferred to sleep on the floor in either one of their rooms. You see, my dad was gone A LOT. So, it was usually just my mom, sister and me at home.. I would often camp out on my mom's floor when dad was gone...and when he was home, I'd sleep on sis's floor..this continued through most of my childhood..I'd say I was 9 or 10 before I regularly slept in my own bed again.

Here my parent's had given me my very own room, and in fact, my dad made me a monstrocity of a bed with drawers under it...painted goldenrod yellow..definitely a color of the late 70s... It had floral decals that I remember watching my mom adhere...all for me. It was my big kid bed. And it was awesome. But, I rarely slept in it.

Why?

I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I remember WHY I decided that my room was not fit to sleep in.

You ready for this??

Mom took my sister and I to see a movie.

The movie was a classic. Most kids loved it. I did not.

She took us to see...

E.T.

Never in my life have I remembered being so scared of something. That little extra-terrestrial ( whom I assume most kids loved, I hear he was actually loveable..but I wouldn't know. I covered my eyes most of the movie) scared the bejezus out of me. The scene that forever changed my life was the one where the little girl ( Drew Barrymore) opens her closet with all her stuffed animals and E.T. is amongst them...

From that night on, I was scared of my closet. Especially when the doors were closed. I remember wanting my mom to keep my light on in my room and NOT close the closet door. One time I looked up on the top shelf where I swore I saw his pinkish brown ugly fingers...turned out it was just a pair of old ballet shoes...But seriously..E.T. is to blame for my fear of sleeping with closed closet doors which I finally got over sometime in my mid twenties.

My mom and sister joke that I should watch E.T. again as an adult..

It's been about 29 years since my first and only viewing of the movie, and I am finally able to sleep with closed closet doors..I don't think NZ would appreciate me asking if we could sleep with the lights on and closet doors open. Therefore, I will never, ever, ever, watch E.T. again.

Call me silly, tell me what a great movie it is..I don't care.

That's just one of those oddities that has stuck with me into adulthood, which got me thinking...am I the only one who maintains a fear of something I know is silly?

Score!

I admit, I am not really one to follow trends. I have always liked what I like, and worn what I felt most comfortable in, all the while, wishing I could pull of the current trends like other women do. There, my secret is out...I don't follow trends because I can't "see myself" pulling it off without looking stupid and out of place. The big belt trend..LOVE it. But do I own any? NOPE. Why not? because it's not "me".

And then I ran across a trend that I absolutely adore. And probably, just for the fact that I like this trend, it's probably already been and gone and is soooo last year, but I just learned about it, and I'm going with it..so deal with it! They're called body-con dresses. A lot of celebs like Kim Kardashian and Posh Spice have been seen out in them, and even my favorite Jersey Shore guidettes wear them. The most common body-con dresses are "bandage dresses"
With a vacation on the horizon, and the desire to rock a cute little number, I scoured the internet for dresses that I liked. I found a ton of stripper websites, which was definitely NOT what I was looking for when I googled "sexy dresses"..but I also stumbled upon my new favorite dress website called Hot Miami Styles.

They have tons of really awesome dresses, ranging from sweet to saucy, and everything in between. I poured over their body-con bandage dresses and fell in love with the one in the photo above. I've never had much luck with internet ordering clothing, so I bookmarked it just in case I decided to try my luck ordering something that most likely would not look as good on me as it does in the photo.

Well, during one of my lunchtime jaunts to the mall (our local mall is about 2 minutes from my office), I ran into teenybopper heaven ( aka. Forever21) and just perused their inventory of dresses. Most of them would look hideous on me, and the whole 80's crop top floral thing that's big right now, is not high on my list of likes. As I was ready to get myself out of there before someone I knew saw me ( I can just imagine, " uhm, did you see Brie? I saw her, and she was like, uh..walking out of Forever21....Doesn't she know she's in her 30's?"), I spotted it.

The dress.

Just like the one from Hot Miami Styles. Only different colors. I liked these colors better. I found my size. I grabbed it and thought to myself,

"Quick, I have 30 minutes left on lunch, let me sneak into a dressing room to see how terrible it looks on me so I can un-bookmark it on my PC and start shopping in more age appropriate stores for a 'safe' dress."

I pulled it on.

OMG. Like a glove.

...and out I walked with the dress I had been drooling over, without having to do any internet ordering or returns ( not to mention for $14 cheaper!) , and I so.can.not.wait.to.wear.it in Costa Rica.

SCORE!

PB cup chocolate cookies

I've recently discovered our local Sprouts market, and their amazing bulk bins. I LOVE bulk bins, and haven't seen them anywhere other than Winn-co when I live in Oregon. They've got everything from brown rice, to granola, to wasabi peas and chocolate covered everything...including morsel size peanut butter cups for baking.

Of course, I had to buy some...

and make these....

Chocolate cookies with mini peanut butter cups.

Recipe makes 1 dozen HUGE cookies.

1 stick butter

2TBSP peanut butter

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 c sugar

3/4 c brown sugar

1/4 c. cocoa powder

1 1/4 c. flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 1/2 c. mini peanut butter morsels

preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

Cream sugars and butter together. Add egg. Add vanilla.

Mix flour, cocoa powder, salt, powder and soda together.

Slowly incorporate into wet ingredients with mixer on low.

Add peanut butter cups and mix by hand until well dispersed into dough. Dough will be sticky.

*tip, lightly spray an icecream scoop with nonstick spray and scoop dough out onto parchment paper. Cookies will spread so I tend to get 6 to a sheet rather than a dozen.

Bake 15-20 minutes, remove from heat and let cool on cookie sheet.

I took my sister Stephanie of Sweet Creations there yesterday to pick up some Sabrett's hot dogs for her New York born husband..She was thrilled to find them here in California so that they no longer have to smuggle hot dogs back from their New York trips.. My sis also picked up some mini peanut butter cup morsels to put in her homemade ice cream. How dreamy is that going to be?

Good thing she had to get home, because I got this grand ol idea to smush her PB cup ice cream between two of my chocolate pb cup cookies..how awesome would that be? Saved myself a few hundred calories by coming up with that idea after she was well on her way back home...otherwise, the two of us + our ideas+ sweet teeth+ impulsivity= ice cream sandwiches for supper.