Eating In Austin

One of my favorite things about visiting Austin is the good food! Pretty much everywhere I've been to has been fantastic! Here's some of the places I went to this time around.
 This place was a little outdoor taco stand, old-school style.



And of course, we had to get some fro-yo after! We went to Yogurt Planet, one of my favorites!



 On Sunday, right before we left I had to come to this place, Rio's Brazilian Cafe. My friend Meg has been raving about it and we just blow it off everytime we go to Austin. So, I gave it a shot and what a suprise! I didn't really know what to expect since it's Brazilian and all.



I got this salad with a roasted apple, stuffed with goat cheese, and sprinkled with candied walnuts. Yum! Seriously one of the best salads I've ever had. And I'm not really a salad kind of girl, they just don't fill me up! Also, I don't think I've ever had goat cheese before but I really enjoyed it. I think I have an unhealthy obsession with cheese... oh, what's a girl to do!

Brandon, Eliza, and I all started school today! I'll post a little more about that later! I've still got one more class to attend, I have a nice little break in between.

Feather Dreamcatcher

So, I went to Austin this weekend to (mostly) visit my brother and sister! I'm so proud of them, my sister got into University of Texas and my brother is attending Texas State (they're twins, by the way). My sister asked me to make curtains for her dorm and I, kind of on whim decided to make her a dreamcatcher! I was inspired by Lune Vintage on this one. I love her blog and this project I just HAD to do! I never would have thought of this, it's pretty freaking genius. So anyways here is what I used:


An embroidery hoop, a doily, needle, some yarn, some jewelry jump rings, and some jewelry wire.

My hoop was just small enought to fit my doily so I didn't need to pin the doily to the hoop. Refer to Lune's tutorial to see how to do this. So now, I layed out the doily inside the hoop. Thread your needle (don't cut thread) and pull out about 2 feet from the roll.


Start threading through the outer holes of the doily and wrap around edge of embroidery hoop.

When you've used up all the string, make a guess-timate  and cut the string enought that it will finish the wrapping.  

Together the two end pieces and make a bow if wanted.


After, I  coiled wire, hot glues a feather inside, and put a bead on a wire.

 
I used this website to learn how to use the jewelry stuff, (also how to open jump rings was helpful). Then attacth a bead to the middle and some feathers to the bottom.


So cute, right?! I love my sister, she makes me proud! Here's her portion of her dorm:


I love the colors she chose and she stole my coral yarn (luckily, right after I made this!) and used it, unknowning of my diy dreamcatcher! It worked out perfectly (:

 Her bedspread and cute matching (but not too much!) pillow.   Oh, and here are the curtains I made. They've got two tiers of a pretty turquoise jersey material And then there's Brandon... stealing my favorite denim button up. Atleast he pulls it off... right?

Mail sorter

I meant to share this a while ago but... forgot. I made this cute little mail sorter to hang on the wall and sort our mail! I got my inspiration from here: http://sewlovesew.blogspot.com/2008/07/mail-sorter.html and kind of improvised my own. Here's a step by step in pictures:
 Cut two pieces of fabric the dimensions of your choosing using a hanger to kind of get an idea for the width and use some sample mail to get an idea of height.
 Cut some pieces for the pockets, they need to be the width of the base pieces (above). I chose to do three different pieces.   If you used more than one, sew them together.
 Then sew a hem along the top,
 This is also optional but I used some fabric scraps to put on top.

And then I stitched our initials on the pieces in the middle.

 If you used extra pieces in the middle, this is the time to sew them to the pockets.
 Layer the pieces: front base piece(facing up), pocket(facing up), back base piece(facing down)
 Lay the hanger down and pin all the pieces together, pin along one side of the hanger to the top.

Sew along pins and flip inside out. Slip hanger in now. 

Cut off excess fabric, fold in seam, pin, and sew shut. Make sure it'll hang evenly before you sew it shut! 

Ta da! Mail Sorter! I'm off to gather school supplies, not really looking forward to starting school but who is? This weekend we're taking our last getaway to Austin. My brother and sister when off to college last weekend so I'm going to visit them and enjoy my last, relaxing, kid-free, weekend. Brandon and I are both taking a bunch of classes so it's going to be a tough semester! Luckily, for my birthday, my mother offered to pay for mother's day out so that's going to help a lot! And Eliza can make some friends her own age, so it's a win-win! Well it's Thursday, my favorite day! I'm gonna eat some wiiiiings tonight!

 

A Little Pampering

When you have kids, sometimes it feels like you never have time for yourself! Between work, school, and my family, I hardly have time to even shower! But last night after everyone went to sleep, I took the time to pamper myself a bit! I cut my hair (to spice things up a bit!), painted my toes, and sat on the couch watching tv until bedtime. Oh, and worked out, gotta keep in shape!

   And I'm still not so sure why I decided to chop off half of my hair, but it's interesting. I guess I wanted to challenge myself... like I don't already! But it's fun to think of what I can do with it? It's about to get real creative up in here!   Yay, red toes and Jersey Shore! Also, here was Eliza's homemade present from her daddy! I was going to make it but got caught up with the quilt. So I handed over the designs to Brandon, and let him do whatever he wanted. I'm not going to lie, I was a little skeptical when he was near finishing because it didn't exactly turn out as planned. I'm a little bit of a control freak so I just had to take a deep breath and trust him. And hey, it turned out pretty darn cute! I'm so proud (:   the little gadgets are for her to tinker with   

G-town

Here are some pictures from my weekend in Galveston. It was suprisingly pretty but the water was... warm to say the least. But we enjoyed it and Eliza, of course, had a blast. Our friend has a beach house right on the water and invited a group of friends to stay. Good times!

Eliza Quilt

I just realized that I never shared with you guys the quilt I made for Eliza's Birthday! I'm really proud of it, it turned out so much better than I ever imagined! I saw this quilt and modeled mine after it. And used this awesome circle applique tutorial.





 I managed to use fabric I already had for everything but the white parts and the binding. Yay for saving money (and using up part of my stash)!

Here's what the blocks consisted of, plus a few more strips at the bottom.

I handstitched all the flowers and the actual quilting. It didn't take near as long as I thought and was way more fun than the last one! I didn't really do "blocks" last time which may have been part of the problem. It's easier to do it in pieces and kept me from getting too bored with it. A lot of this fabric was part of my vintage stash and then the rest was just fabric I had laying around or from clothes I upcycled.

I'm off to Galveston for the next couple of days! Hope you guys are enjoying the last bit of summer!