Friday, June 8, 2012

Yard work!

Last year we tackled the inside with all the painting.  This year we are taking on the yard!  Dad started us off by power washing my deck.  I can not believe what a difference it makes.  Here's a sneak peak, but look for more posts when the deck is complete.  (No stain yet, just power washed! Amazing, right?)

So while Dad was working on the deck in back, Mom and I decided to take on the front yard.  To start the morning right, Mom decided we could just pull this small dead tree out of the ground with our bare hands...  Surprisingly, after a little see-saw action, we got it out of the ground, roots and all!  I didn't remember the before picture, but here is the hole, ready for the new tree next week!
Then we started on the front flower bed.  So far it has looked like a random group of weeds.  This is what it looked like last summer.

Then last August before my belated "open house" party, I cleared out all the weeds and grass and arranged a few flower baskets so that it wasn't an eye sore.
But by this time almost a year later it was looking pretty rough again...

After some hardcore weeding, some deadheading on the rosebush and THIRTEEN! bags of mulch, my front yard is finally starting to look like it's on purpose!

Stay tuned for the new tree for the front yard next week!

Friday, June 1, 2012

Sew Difficult!

My mom bought me my first sewing machine recently and I couldn't wait to get started on a project.  I found this cute little squared make-up bag to try out on Pinterest.

This lead me to a great tutorial on the blog, Say Yes to Hoboken, which I followed exactly to make my own make up bag.

I started by gathering my materials...

Then I started in on setting the machine up...which was "fun"!


Finally got that stupid bobbin to thread!!

Don't be too overly impressed by my amazing sewing ability!  I know it looks awful, but once it was finished you could hardly see this mess I made!


Getting close! Halfway done and things really got easier from this point!



All done with my very first project!

Final product!  Not the best item every made, but not bad for my first sewing project ever!