Sunday, July 31, 2011

Mama Tried

Friday, I caught a wild hair and decided that since it was a cloudy day, it might be a good day for a little treasure hunt with the girls. So I did my research (to ensure a successful search), loaded the GPS and off we went (geocaching). Of course by the time we ran two little errands, the sun was shining. Then I realized I'd forgotten my cheat sheets. We forged ahead with our plans anyway. Once we got there, I accidentally erased not only the coordinates for the hunt but EVERYTHING ever saved on our GPS. I mean EVERYTHING. It asked me to start over with what country I wanted to map. The girls started getting cranky...and then it rained. We never found the treasures, but I did get these shots of the Cypress Preserve.









Thursday, July 28, 2011

Pillowcases


My latest creations...





Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Shower Invite

Just because I haven't posted, doesn't mean I haven't done anything...

sometimes I'm just preoccupied.


So out of the archives...Here's a shower invite I "recreated" this past Spring.



Currently, I'm preoccupied with yardwork (will it ever end?) and trying to learn to sew. I cranked out seven travel sized pillow cases to be gifted this year as Birthday presents. So far, it takes me about 20 minutes to make one. I've already figured out how to possibly shave another 5 minutes off of that time. Whoo hoo!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Miss Sue

Here's a picture of Miss Sue. It's kind of old - she's since grown into her ears a little more and she's "all legs" right now. This is one of her positions of choice. It cracks me up. Notice her faint heart shaped marking.



Monday, July 11, 2011

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Friday, July 8, 2011

Sew & Sew

This week - the girls and I spent some quality time with the sewing machine. I've kind of "sewed" things every now and then but not enough to keep from having to read the manual for threading, etc.


I bought some fabric and we've just been practicing - trying new stitches, piecing things together, trying to sew in a straight line, making up projects.







So far we've made big pillow cases, little pillow cases, sleeping bags for our American Girl & Barbie dolls... Still have quite a bit of room for improvement but it's a start.




Saturday, July 2, 2011

De - Landscaping

We've got TOO MUCH landscaping!!! Our whole lot is about an acre with quite a few trees. Lots of limbs and leaves to pick up in addition to the upkeep of mowing - so we've decided to simplify our terrain.

Our latest project (before)...

Asiatic Jasmine! - We started tackling part of this eye-sore yesterday evening. I hadn't done much with this spot other than edging it because it's so wide that I'd have to get "in" it to maintain it. The thought of standing in this mess kind of scared me. I was worried there'd be mice, rats or snakes. Grass shoots were sprouting up and leaves would get trapped in it in the Fall. Anyway, we decided yesterday that it just needed to go.




We had about three loads like this.




Ta da... The AFTER!!!




Now we've just got to watch this spot for a while to eradicate any new runners that pop up. Then we're going to plant some grass and add a fountain.


In other areas of the yard, we had knock-out roses planted around the trees and one large section that was filled with white azaleas and MORE Asiatic Jasmine. We decided that all of this needed to go as well. Too much pruning and once again it was just a trap for leaves. I posted an announcement on Facebook "come and get 'em". BAM! - The next day, I had a taker! A friend and her husband came by on his lunch break and dug out some plants. Then the following day, her neighbor sent some guys over to dig up some plants for her. Mission complete! I don't have any "before" pictures, it happened so fast. But I very well could have had at least 30 plants removed.


The dark spot around the grouping of trees was filled with knock-out roses.




This spot was filled with azaleas. - Which SOUNDS all pretty, but was really just a random mess. Maybe if they'd been more established and bigger, it would have worked but it was basically just a leaf catcher. The brighter green, are the remaining azaleas that have been taken over by the lovely ground cover. Once we get this area cleaned out...We're going to let all of these "dirt" spots fill in with grass. Less is more.