Tackle It on Tuesday: Car Seat Blanket

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I like to work on projects, of all types. I love that we have access to so many resources that can be made into beautiful items to display, use, and/or share with others.

Last week, I started on this car seat blanket with the yarn I purchased at my favorite yarn shop up in the foothills. The pattern was free with a purchase, and I thought this yarn would be perfect for this project. The blanket will measure 14 inches wide and 20 inches long when complete. I have about 8 inches still to knit before the blanket is complete. 

We had our yard sale over the weekend, which means I was able to clear out more boxes from the craft room. I know this room still needs a lot of decluttering, but I am really happy with the progress being made in here!

One reason I am happy that progress is being in the craft room...there is actually room in there to work on projects! God continues to bless me with opportunities to earn money for my next trip with Compassion!

This time, I will be making some curtains for a friend. Her family just purchased a cute little trailer. She is working on adding a glamping factor, and she asked me to make the curtains for her! 

So this week, I really didn't finish any projects, but I have made good progress on a couple of projects. I would love to know what projects you are tackling this week. Share them with me in the comments below.

Tackle It on Tuesday: Photo Wall

This past week, I have still been working on my craft room, collecting up items for our upcoming yard sale, and moving things around in the craft room to make more room to actually get craft projects finished. Phew! Maybe after the yard sale is over, I can share another photo of what the room looks like, but right now, there are still many boxes filled with items for the yard sale.

One project I did finish last week was updating my photo wall. Here is the before picture:

I have been wanting to rearrange the photos on this wall for some time now, but finding those prints last week was just the thing I needed to drive me to work on this project.

First thing I did was to mat and frame the new prints. Then I took down the photos I wanted to rearrange. After that, I cut out paper the size of each photo that would be going back up on the wall and jotted a quick note on the paper so I knew which photo would be going where.

Then with my daughter's help, we arranged the papers up on the wall to get an idea of what the wall would look like with the photos in those spots. Once we had an arrangement we both liked, it was time to put the photos back up on the wall.

Ta da! Now I can enjoy all these memories as I walk by this wall every day!

So what project will I be tackling this week?

My husband and I were up in the foothills this week, and they just happen to have a wonderful yarn shop there. I couldn't resist purchasing some yarn for a new project.

The yarn is nice and chunky, so I have made a bit of progress, even with knitting only a few rows. We will see how far I get by next week!

What project will you be working on this week?

Tackle It on Tuesday: Too many socks

So last week, I was almost embarressed to show you my overflowing sock drawer

The drawer was so full, I couldn't even close it all the way! Yikes! 

This is a project that doesn't really take too much time, it is just a matter of making time to do it.

First, I pulled everything out of the drawer and made one pile of socks to discard. My husband likes to use socks in the garage for rags, so rather than throw these away, I was able to give him a full bag of 'new' rags.

When I looked at my 'keep' pile of socks, I knew there were more socks there than I really needed to keep. My daughter took all of the colored short socks. Then I looked at the colored socks and realized I only needed one of each color. I added those to the growing garage sale box out in our garage.

Ah! I believe I can actually close my sock drawer now, and this didn't take much time at all.

What I am planning on tackling next?

Taking a bit of time off!! Yes, there won't be many posts here on the blog over the next three weeks. We have some travel plans, then family coming to visit from out of state, and a week of VBS (Vacation Bible School) at our church.

I will still be posting on Instagram if you want to follow me there.

In the meantime though, you can see what some of my blogging friends are up to:

Jill at Compassion Family always has some wonderful Compassion tips to share. But did you know she also has a blog where she shares some of her amazing photography?

Hannah at Because of Shamim has been sharing about missionaries in letters to her Compassion kids.

Aly at One Day Lighter is a new blogging friend of mine, I love how simple her blog is and the Truth she is sharing.

Have a great couple of weeks, and be sure to get out and enjoy summer!

Tackle It on Tuesday: Change of Plans

Just so you know, I am a blog-on-the-fly kind of a blogger. I don't have weeks worth of drafts prepped and ready to publish, I am lucky if I can put together 2-3 posts a week. So on some weeks, when I think I have the perfect post put together in my brain, life happens and my perfect post takes a different turn.

You see, last week, after I wrote my last Tackle It on Tuesday post, I was all ready to share with you how I would be tackling a pile of Food Network magazines I have been wanting to go through.

The magazine subscription was a birthday gift from my sister a couple of years ago. I have been wanting to go through them and 'pin' some of the recipes onto one of my Pinterest boards. But then yesterday, I listened to this podcast with the title, Freedom From Stuff.

The podcast really made me think about how I handle some of the 'stuff' in my home. Which brought me back to this pile of magazines. While I enjoy looking for new recipes to try with my family, there are other things I could be doing with my time. And if you look close enough, you can see that those magazines have been taking up space in my home for a while. Time for them to find a new home!

So speaking of stuff, there are things that need out attention every now and then. During the podcast, Joshua and Tsh had mentioned that as much as we try to simplify things in our home, there is always 'stuff' coming into our homes.

And right now, I have a sock drawer overflowing with socks. In a perfect and completely organized world, as soon as I purchase new socks, I would take the time to go through my sock drawer and give the 'old' socks to my husband for the garage. But, because I don't take the time to do this, I end up with a drawer full of socks that I can barely close because it is overflowing with socks! Yikes!

Rather than beat myself up for this happening (which is what a lot of us do), I plan to take a bit of time one day this week and clean up this sock drawer (and probably the underwear drawer too, but I probably won't be showing you pictures of that drawer!)

Do you have an area of your home or a task you have been meaning to tackle for some time? Plan a bit of time this week to tackle it. Let's encourage each other to tackle these tasks, so we have more time to enjoy our family and friends. Ready? Let's go!

Tackle It on Tuesday: Denim Star Garland with Tutorial

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This week, I tackled another fun creative project (Pinterest inspired!) using some scrap pieces of denim, burlap, fabric, buttons, and jute. I tried to take pictures along the way so if you want to try making this at home, you can follow along and make one of these for your own home.

The supplies you will need for this project: denim, fabric, burlap, quilt batting, jute, buttons, embroidery floss, star stencil, scissors, needle, and a disappearing ink pen.

I found a star stencil in my scrapbook supplies and used that to cut a star template out of cardboard for tracing around on the denim. My template was about 4 inches across. The garland has seven stars across and I doubled them up, so be sure to cut out 14 stars from the denim.

Your embellishments for the star are going to be a bit of burlap, a fabric heart, and a button. 

Layer your embellishments on one of the denim stars. Then with some embroidery floss, sew through all layers (denim, burlap, fabric, and button) to attach the button to the denim. You will repeat this step seven times, once for each star that will be along your garland.

Once you have attached all of the embellishments to the stars, you will start attaching the stars to the jute. Take one plain denim back, one quilt batting star (I cut these just a bit smaller than the template, the jute (which you have cut to about six feet or so), and the top denim star. Fold the cut jute in half to find the middle. This will be your starting point for sandwiching the star pieces to the jute.

Pin the star pieces in place, take some embroidery thread, and begin stitching around the outside edges of the star with a running stitch. Once you have finished with the first star, place the next star where you think it will look best (mine are about 3 inches apart).

After you have attached each star to the jute, you will now have a festive garland to decorate your mantle or food table for a summer party or wherever you decide to display it! You can get really creative with this project using a variety of shapes and materials. If you give it a try, be sure to let me know in the comments with a link to your finished project!

My project for this upcoming week? Going through some old Food Network magazines. Next week, I will let you know what I do with them.