Wash, Dry and Repeat

I feel like I am in the never ending cycle. I think I got a little spoiled being out of work for two and a half weeks. I get up and go to work, come home, get ready for the next day, go to sleep and start over the next day. I had extremely high expectations for myself last night and it just didn't happen! So tonight I tried to make up for it. 

Remember the cute metal tag necklaces that I blew my Hobby Lobby gift cards for? Well, I ended up making one for a co-worker for her birthday and she loved it. I was a little frustrated when I first made my necklace. You spend all this time punching out each individual letter and then I thought I had ruined it when I put the dye in the letters. You squirt just a tiny bit of alcohol ink and then wipe off the excess really quickly. As you can see in the picture below....when you rub off the excess, it also discolored the rest of the metal. Well.....not really! In just a couple of hours, the metal will be back to it's old tarnished self. I just love these! 

This is right after I punched the letters and stained them.

This is what it looks like once I put them all together. 

Crazy good find! I had mine on a regular brass looking chain. When I went to pick up the chain for my friend, I saw the leather necklaces. I had to have one too, of course! This changed the whole look of the necklace and I like it even more! 

Leather necklace <3 

On our Saturday date night, I swindled my hubby into dropping by Hobby Lobby for this one fabric that I had to have. Needless to say, they didn't have the fabric I needed....but they had several that I wanted! I ended up buying a black and white striped jersey knit. You would think I would've learned my lesson about that stupid jersey knit after the scarves I tried. I have made 100 scarves from scratch, I swear......but that stinking jersey has to be the most annoying fabric I have ever worked with. I still haven't finished the scarves and they may never get finished (sorry Laurin). 

Side note.....I dream about things that I have to get done. I make lists in my sleep. Weird....I know. Productive sleep----that's what I call it! 

So I bought that material (jersey-black/white) on Saturday. Sunday night I had a dream about a skirt I wanted to make with it. On Monday, I had planned to come right home and get to that. Then I remembered how much I dislike that stuff. So....I begged my mom to come help me. When she came over tonight, I begged her to create what I drew for her on paper. She totally did it! Of course, I had to cut it out and throw in a helping hand occasionally. (And I had to monogram a scarf and blanket in return :) This is what we came up with! 

This is my idea of measuring how big around it should be. Kinda looks like a beach towel at this point!

This is the strips I cut...they would later be the ruffles on the bottom. There is 4 strips that are 1 and 1/2 yard long. 

After cutting everything out, Mom closed the skirt to make it look like a tube. Then she put a wide band of elastic in the top of it. I told her to not bother hemming anything, because the unfinished edge on jersey just rolls and it looks cute by itself. That may be the ONE and ONLY good thing about this fabric! Mom then gathered the 4 long strips to make the ruffles for the bottom. 

This is my cutie skirt that I want to wear tomorrow! 

She used two of the mile long strips to complete the bottom row of ruffles and then two more for the top row of ruffles. The ruffles aren't even turned under or anything. She just laid them on the fabric and sewed right over them. It gives it a little more character and turned out super cute! I plan to wear it tomorrow with my awesome black Frye boots, a black tank top and my denim jacket. I just hope it looks as cute on as I envision it! 

While my mom, was slaving away on my cute skirt.....I was working on Etsy orders. Sometimes you get this uneasy feeling when creating things for others. Someone placed an order and they give you all of the specifics....what color shirt, fabric for the pocket, and font color. When I started putting this together, I had this ughhhh feeling. I must say, as bad as I thought this shirt would be, it turned out really cute. 

These cutie patootie shirts are headed for Virginia tomorrow! Every time I make another one of these, I tell myself that I need one of them! I have made a ton of these and I still don't have one for myself. I may have to do something about that! 

It is now officially 45 minutes past my school night bedtime. Today has been one heck of a crazy, productive day. It is report card time at work. I printed comments today, folded and stuffed all those envelopes, got all of my awards ready to go. Tomorrow is awards day. Two quarters down, two more to go. I can do this! 

I want to say thank you to everyone reading my blog. You guys are awesome! In two short months, this project has came a long way. I have my goal in mind...and I will get there! I have 7 new followers in just a couple days. I know I can reach my 25 by the end of the month. I can't wait to create one of these cute shirts for one of my fabulous readers!