Bandana Tablecloth

When Bonnie, Ashley, and I started planning this year's Independence Day celebration, we created a Pinterest board (duh) to capture ideas as we found them.

"Johnsontown" is a long story I can't type right now ;)

One of the things we pinned was a tablecloth made from bandanas!  While I didn't think it was realistic or necessary to make multiples, it was too fun to ignore for the party, so we decided to create one for a special table and use the more user-friendly plastic tablecloths for the rest of the tables.

I ran out to Joann Fabrics to get my supplies - it's a short list:  12 bandanas (4 each of red, white, and blue).  Assuming you have any color thread at home that's all you need.

It doesn't even have to be matching thread since there is no edging or exposed stitches - did anyone notice I used light purple thread?  NOPE.

Are my corners perfect?  NOPE.

I pre-washed the bandanas with a Shout Color Catcher (or 3) just to get any color bleeding out of the way before I sewed the pieces together.  The bandanas faded inconsistently, which pissed me off a little, but I'm sure no one but me would notice shit like that when they look at this thing.  The separation of colors makes it less noticeable, too.

As far as pattern, I think this is called diagonal rows?  Seems logical ;)  I started with the bottom row with red, white, blue in that order and then the next one was staggered so the red was in the middle.  The third row, the red was on the right side, and top row is the same as the bottom.

Since I just made one, we decided to use it for our games table at the party!  It covered a 6 ft. folding table (3x5 bandanas may have been a better fit than 3x4, but it works) with plenty of overhang on the front.  We covered it with hula hoops, beach balls, bubbles, bocce, glowsticks, and croquet!

Six degrees of Bill Paxton

Alternate Title:  "This is why we still love Chris Hargrave"

You may remember this post, where Chris Hargrave educated us on the very successful acting career of Bill Paxton, after I dared to challenge Paxton's abilities in the critically acclaimed mini-series, Hatfields & McCoys.

Fast forward to last weekend, when Dave and I were watching Pretty in Pink, and I expressed *again* my dissatisfaction with the fact that *SPOILER ALERT* Andie chooses Blane over Duckie at the end.  The silver lining of Andie's choice is that shortly after his rejection, Duckie gains the attention of Kristy Swanson.  Dave said "is that who that is?"  Um, yeah, haven't you seen this movie 37 times?  You never realized that's Kristy Swanson?  I threw out some "OMG!"'s and "YOU PROBABLY THOUGHT IT WAS AMY SMART, AGAIN, EH?!"'s to scold him.  

Seriously, he thinks every blonde actress in any movie or tv show is Amy Smart.  It's really annoying.

Anyway, as any wife does, I went to Facebook to rant about Dave's movie knowledge shortcomings:

The next day at work, Chris Hargrave threw some knowledge our way in the form of Six Degrees of Bill Paxton.

Enjoy.

It all goes back to Bill Paxton with you, doesn't it Chris?!

House of Cards

I like to make things.  Creating something out of a piece or paper or some ribbon keeps me sane when I have things racing through my head.  I do my best work when I have a big assignment or project to do, to clear the big stuff out and just allow myself to focus on that task.

Unfortunately, this habit has amassed a large collection of stuff.

I've been working on purging craft tools I'll never use again (or never used in the first place), as well as organizing the tools I am keeping so that anyone who stays in the guest/craft room isn't overwhelmed by the stuff while they're trying to fall asleep!

In the desk, which I'm replacing with a plain table to open up the room a little, you can see 2 cabinets that are holding 3-drawer plastic organizers.  Each of those drawers was packed to the gills with crap, so I need to purge a lot of said crap and find a new place for the rest.

Using the inside of the closet door for storage helped a TON, and these Ikea storage boxes have helped too.  When I want to work on something, I just open the closet and the possibilities are endless...sort of.

     

All that to say I organized my cards!

It doesn't look that bad in this photo (or does it?) but it was a huge pile of cards I made and bought but haven't had the occasion to send yet.  When they were being stored in the plastic drawer, they were organized pretty much like this, so when I needed one it pissed me off to have to dig through the whole pile to find the card that was inevitably at the very bottom.

So I organized them into categories:

• Birthday
• Baby
• Friendship
• Love
• Prayer
• Thanks
• Holiday
• Sympathy
• Blank Inside

I pulled some cardstock from my stash in a fun color, and used some scalloped scissors and some math to create tabs to separate the cards by category:

Now, when I need a card, I can just reach for one!  No sifting through a pile!   Wahoo!

As soon as July is over I'm going to make over this room!  So excited!  I have everything I need except a gallon of paint (Richmond Bisque by Benjamin Moore) and an empty frame to turn into a bulletin board!

Craft Room by barthokr on Polyvore

Bandana Dress

Alternate post title: "The cutest effing thing on Earth"

One night I was trolling Pinterest while not doing homework (is anyone surprised?) and stumbled upon this bandana dress:

source

After I about died from the cuteness I decided I want to make one for each of my three favorite little girls - Agnes, Charlotte, and Ellie-belly.

It's as easy as sewing two bandanas together, leaving about 6 inches for the arm holes, and making a pocket at the top for the ribbon straps.  Once you have your ribbon in there you can adjust the neck to any size you need, so the dress can grow with your little girl!

I'm not writing up a tutorial because the blog where I found this did an excellent job of posting step by step instructions.  All you need to do one dress is:

• 2 bandanas
• matching thread
• ribbon that complements the bandana color
• safety pin for threading ribbon through the neckline

Joann Fabrics has an entire wall of bandanas in just about every color you can imagine.  They also have themed ones for sports teams and holidays, so this is very versatile.  I got ribbon that has hot pink, light purple, and light pink hearts so I could use the same ribbon for all three girls so they match, and then got bandanas in each of those colors for the dresses.

Happy Sewing!