bowl covers!

I've had a few bowl cover orders lately!  Thought y'all might like to see :)  

brain dump.

So, there's some random stuff that I've been meaning to post but nothing long enough for it's on individual post!  How about a brain dump?

• On yesterday's post, BonBon was the only commenter to guess the correct babe!  It was Tate!  In fact, when I started to type this out, I looked back again at the other pictures I took in the same setting and it was in fact, Tate.

• I had a few comments on the Bowl Cover post asking if I would be making any to sell.  I am happy to make these to sell if anyone is interested.  Just shoot me an email (jenny.s.conklin [at] gmail [dot] com).  I think it would cost too much to ship the bowl so if you would like to buy your own bowl and let me know what color the bowl is, I can send you some fabric options!  I would also need to know the diameter of the bowl.  I would be willing to make them with a monogram or name for $18.  

• My grandma is in the hospital.  And has been for 40 days.  Please pray for her.  She has had quite a time.  Thankfully, the doctor was semi-encouraging yesterday after a hard few days.  Please pray for healing and for wisdom for the doctors.  And for rest for family who are staying with her.  40 days is a long time, y'all.  And the road to recovery is going to be long.

• My mom bought a statue of brothers (we're calling them twins :)) for her back deck and we had to get of picture of the twins with it.  So funny.  And random.

Okay, I think that's all for this random Thursday.  

Have a good one y'all!

wedding gift.

My childhood friend, Ellis, and his beautiful bride, Sarah, were married this weekend.  The wedding was absolutely gorgeous and lots of fun.  I thought I'd post a picture of the wedding gift I made for them.

As NC State grads and huge football fans, they spend lots of weekends tailgating.  In fact, I think they even had a tailgating shower before a football game last year where they received lots of fun NC State gear :)  Such an awesome idea!  

Well, you know how you fight and fight with saran-wrap to get it to stick to a bowl?  

And then you take it off when it's time to eat but if there are any leftovers in the bowl, good luck, because you've already wadded up the saran-wrap and thrown it away.

I decided to make them a bowl cover!  I thought it might be a good addition to their tailgating supplies!  Or even good for grilling out - to keep the bugs away from the baked beans until the rest of the food is ready.  And of course, a little embroidery never hurts :)

To go along with the bowl cover, I monogrammed some kitchen towels.  I feel like there's something fun about special kitchen towels.  I always love having fun ones and thought they may like to have a few with their monogram :)

I found the tutorial for the bowl cover on Finding My Feet!

burpcloth lollipops.

Okay, so What I Wore Wednesday never happened last night.

I know you were all anxiously awaiting that post.  Ha!

Actually, we spent last night watching the movie 127 Hours.

It was amazing! 

It's about the guy that was mountain biking by himself and while walking through one area, a rock fell on his arm and trapped him for 127 hours!  He almost died but ended up cutting his own arm off to get free.

It's a true story! 

You should watch it.

But, be warned, the language is bad.  And the arm being cut off is pretty gruesome.

Okay, now that we've talked about a man cutting his own arm off, let's move on to burpcloth lollipops.

How's that for transition?

My friend, Kate, also ordered these.

I embellished some organic, Gerber cloth diapers and made them burp cloths!

Here are some pictures of the burpcloths:

Then, I made the burpcloths into lollipops!

The lollipop "stick" is actually a baby spoon :)

Cute, and useful!

A friend told me that burpcloths were one of her favorite gifts when her daughter was born.  She said she used so many of them every day!  So this has become my choice of baby gift for any shower I go to!

I'd love to make you some!  If you're interested in placing an order, let me know :)

onesies.

How did Monday and Tuesday get by without me blogging?

It was a busy weekend and I think I'm just now starting to recover.

Hopefully I'll post my What I Wore Wednesday post later tonight!

I am starting to make onesies to sell and I thought I would share a few that I have made so far.

This first post will show the ones I made for my friend, Kate.  Both of her sister-in-laws are pregnant so she placed an order for a few.

Here they are:

An Elephant

A Giraffe

[this is the real color of the giraffe.  the first picture makes the fabric look darker than it is.]

Easter Eggs:

A Turtle:

[forgot the upclose picture of the turtle!]

I had so much fun with these!  There are a few more I've done since then, I'll hopefully post those soon!

Happy Wenesday!

I made another skirt like this one for my college roommate.

I'm actually having a hard time giving it up :)

Worker Man said he liked this one better.  I might just have to get some more of this material :)

creative spotlight.

Like I mentioned last week, my college roommate, Kate, is getting married.


She is amazing.  She planned my entire wedding.  I mean from start to finish.  She will probably be a famous wedding planner some day.  That all the big stars want.  For real.  She is that good.


So of course, you know her wedding is going to be amazing.


Just to give you an idea of how good she is, she got engaged last July.  
She had everything planned,
down to our hair appointments,
by the end of August.


I am not kidding.




She is also DIYing a ton of her wedding.  


One of her fabulous ideas was having a craft day.


She had all of her bridesmaids come and craft everything from flowers to table decorations to frames to favors to the candy jars being used for the candy table.  [Sidenote: Have you been to a wedding with a candy table?  The coolest thing ever].


So, on that day we all got together at her parent's house.
Her mom, who is an amazing cook [and was like my local mom while I was in college], made lunch for all of us and we sat around and crafted for like seven hours.


Can I just say, I was in heaven.
That is my thing, yall.  
Seriously, I love it - so crafting with a bunch of my favorite people for a full day was so.much.fun.


While we were there Kate showed us a little project that her mom whipped up.
It was such a good idea [yes, it runs in the family :)] that I told her she had to have a spotlight on the ol' blog.


She found some tea towels in the dollar spot at Target and decided to use a few of them to make a table runner.


Here's Vanna, err...I mean Kate, showing it off.

Isn't that the best idea ever?


Super easy, cheap and the cutest table runner ever!


Here's an up close shot:

And then of course, I had to get the crafter, herself:

Now run along and get your dollar spot tea towels! 

But one condition - I want to see pictures! 

It would make me super happy!

skirt.

I came across some cute fabric in the clearance aisle at JoAnns a few weekends ago.

I decided to make a skirt :)

I just googled a tutorial and found this one and this one.  I used those as a starting point and tweaked along the way.  

Here's what I ended up with:

And, in action:

Whatcha think?

swoon.

look what came...

...in the snail mail today!

I love snail mail.

Especially when I open a package with all these pretties in it!

I think I scared the mailman at work.

[I practically attacked him.]

I'm swooning. 

sweatshop.

I don't think I've mentioned this but my friend, Ashley, and I are going to have a booth at a festival.

We decided back in July to apply for the festival and talked about all the things we were going to make.  So, we applied and just waited to see if we were going to be approved.  And, come to find out, in August, we got approved! [Ahem....I think they approve anyone that can spell their name correctly and will send money for the booth rent].  But, anyway...we got approved in August.  YAY!  And then, we needed to start working on our inventory.  So, I planned, and thought, and planned some more.

But never did anything.

Fast forward to two weeks before the festival.

And I had nothing done.

FMIL started to get super anxious for me and gave me a quick little "you have 14 days to build an inventory" reality check.

So, I present to you....

the sweatshop.

I spent three nights at my parent's house this week.  My mom and I sprawled out in the middle of the living room floor.  Matching fabric, and cutting, and ironing and sewing. 

And, I am proud to say - we got a ton of stuff started. 
We spent a lot of time doing all the prep work.

So, this weekend, back at the inlaws house, I will set up my portable sweatshop and sew. 
All.weekend.long.

What are your weekend plans?

choices!

Okay Winners!  Here are your choices.

I have multiples of each so just send me an email letting me know which one you would like and your address!

[grahamcrakasblog AT gmail DOT com]

Oh, and p.s. - I have some exciting news to share :)

Come back Monday!

And no, aunts and friends from home - I'm not preggers.

decisions, decisions.

Ummm....wow.

Yall's suggestions were fabulous!

Seriously, I don't even know how to choose - they were all so, so good.

Soo, I've decided to giveaway four keychains!

To my top three favorite names and an additional keychain for the person who submitted the most ideas.

And, the winners are:

• Kate [idea:  Moxie]
• Joy [idea:  Accidental Perfection]
• Sidney Lee [idea:  Jimmy's]
• Nanny [submitted 8 ideas!]

I have no idea how I'm going to choose!

Thanks for all the help - y'all are amazing :)


Winners:  Stay tuned for tomorrow - I've made more keychains since last week so I'll be posting a picture of all the keychains you can choose from!

giveaway - with a catch.

Okay...so have any of you heard of this place called Etsy?!?

If you answer is no to this question, we need to talk. 

One on one.

It is a big deal.

And if you haven't heard of it...you are missing out.

Well, I have decided that I want to start an Etsy shop of my very own.

I decided this months ago.

But I keep getting hung up on one thing.

One big thing.

A name.

So, I thought I'd bring it to you guys.

I need a name for my Etsy shop!

I want something creative. 

Something short.

Like one or two words.

It can be anything. 

Seriously, the sky is the limit.

And, to offer a little incentive, I am giving away one of these keychains.

Winner can choose which one you'd like.

The name I like most will be the winner :)

So think hard!

I may not necessarily choose that name for the shop but I need something to get the creative juices flowing.  

So, throw out as many names as you can come up with.  No limit on the number of names you can offer :)

Ready, set, go!

*Giveaway will close next Wednesday - I want all of you to have ample time to come up with something fabulous!*

mary jo's.

worker man and i went to mary jo's one saturday when we were in charlotte.

and can i just tell you...it is like heaven.

tons of fabrics - and patterns - and interfacing - and buttons - and rickrack - and little old ladies with mary jo's vests waiting to cut your fabric.

just the looks of this makes me swoon.

i can't wait to get started!

weekender bag.

for mother's day, i made my mom this bag.



i found the pattern online here.

and good news, there is a sew along going on now - and it's not too late, you have plenty of time to join in and get caught up.

frock!

look what i wore yesterday!

here's the front.
i promise i ironed it.

although you wouldn't think so looking at this picture.

and the back.

i'm so happy with it.
even if it did cost me $40.


have a great tuesday!

frock update.

seriously?

leave it to me to make an "idiot-proof sew along" dramatic.


so far this frock has been quite the challenge.

yesterday i went to get my fabric [yes, nothing like waiting until the last minute].  and realized when i got to joanns that i didn't have my pattern with me to see how much fabric i needed.  so i called my mother-in-law to look it up online.


well, in order for her to access the pattern, she had to create a username, put in her information, and fill out the word verification.  she went through the entire process three times before she finally found a username that would work.  so, when she finally got all of it acceptably entered, they sent her an e-mail for verification.  she had to log into her email and click on the link so she could get into the site and download the pattern.  so she goes back to yahoo, and the server won't allow her to sign into her e-mail account!


so alll of that, just to find out she can't even get to the pattern.


i called worker man and he was already home.  so he found the copy i printed and told me the amount in about 5 seconds.  after fmil went through all of that for like 10 minutes.


during all of this i narrowed my fabric choice down to two choices.
a navy, linen-like fabric and an auqa color with a white pattern all over.
after going round and round i finally decided on the navy.


so, i got up to the counter and the lady cut the amount that i needed and handed me the tag to take to the register...


....and i almost croaked.




the fabric that i had looked at beside the navy was like $7.99/yard and 50% off.
so i assumed that this fabric was the same.




except really, it was $14.99 per yard.

and not 50% off.

and 2.5 yards.


guhhhh.




so rather than telling them i had made a mistake, i just went ahead and paid for it!!


sheeesh.
i'm such a whimp.




so now, my cute little frock that could have cost like $10 total.
now costs $40.


that's like major coupon work - to make up for that ridiculous mistake.


plus, i called my mom looking for some kind of positive in all of this and she tells me that "you get what you pay for - so it'll probably be better that you got a nicer material".


and then she proceeds to say "well, except it's linen.  so you'll probably shrink it the first time you wash it."


so much for a positive!

frock.

i saw this upcoming "sew along" and i have decided to join!


i have been wanting to make clothes for awhile now but i've yet to take the jump.




sooo, i will be picking out my fabric for my frock this week.




any suggestions?
color, designer, ideas??






i'll keep you updated on the progress :)

and the winner is...

True Random Number Generator

 

Min:   1

Max:   24

Result:   10

Powered by RANDOM.ORG

 

 

Megan Lynn 

"My mom says I'm a winner so I think I should get it!!!! :)   AND I check your blog every single day. And you love me. What is there to think about? :)"

 

 

I'll get your towel to you asap!

 

 

This was way fun!! 

 

Can't wait till the next giveaway!

giveaway!

sooo, there were some good suggestions on the giveaway - and one of you was thinking the same thing I was thinking...






how about a spring kitchen towel?!?

here's the deal.

just leave a comment  - i'll announce the winner at 8:00 am wednesday morning!