puppy on the way and Daddy's Birthday

 I mentioned in my last post that Brad told me if I got a job here in Atlanta he would get me a puppy. What more motivation does a girl need? Well, I'll be posting pictures of a new puppy soon because ...

I GOT A JOB!!

Stay tuned for cute puppy news.

Also, today is my daddy's birthday. He's 39 (at least that what he tells everyone). It's funny, because I remember when he used to tell everyone he was 29. Then all of a sudden he jumped 10 years in age. I guess 29 just wasn't all that believable anymore.

Happy Birthday

to the first love of my life!

On a side note, I made a super cute curtain for our bathroom doorway. There was no door or partition of any kind between the bedroom and the bathroom, so when the bathroom light came on it lit up the bedroom as well. I decided to fix that problem. My sweet mother-in-law Susie and one of her good friends took me fabric shopping all day last Saturday, and I finally found something that I liked that went well with the colors in our room. Check it out: 

I think it looks pretty good if I do say so myself. The only problem is that there's no air vent in that bathroom/closet area at all, so it tends to get pretty hot. During the day we tie this curtain back with a ribbon like so:

Here's a close-up of what the fabric looks like:

love, Brad & Courtney

Tapping Into My Creative Side

I recently saw a super cute beach towel swim suit cover-up online and decided to make it. I figured (a) I have a brand new, wonderfully working sewing machine and (b) I don't have a job yet so I have all day today to get it done. It's so easy to make and is so practical too. My amateur tutorial follows:

Start off with a beach towel (about 60"x30"). I got this one at Target for $6.

Next you'll need to measure around your bust and hips to see where to hem the towel. I did this by simply wrapping the towel loosely around myself, pinning it, then making sure I could get it off. You'll only need to hem one edge. Your bottom and top edge are already hemmed, thanks to the nature of your fabric being a towel. 

Cut the excess fabric off (making sure to leave enough room to hem the edge). The hemmed edge in this picture was just the end of the towel, so I hemmed my new edge to match this one.

 Now you're going to do some shirring. Don't get intimidated. It's super easy. But first you'll need some elastic thread. I got mine at JoAnn's (found in the elastic section). I shirred 10 rows that were pretty spread apart and used 3 packages of the elastic thread, so just keep in mind how many rows you want to shir and plan accordingly. If you're not sure how to shir or even what it is click HERE. This fabulous tutorial on shirring and elastic thread is how I learned the skill. In order to shir your towel you'll need to turn it right side out since the elastic thread is placed only in the bobbin. Here's a quick look at what my shirring looked like:

Next you need some straps. I had a lot of towel left over after measuring and cutting it to my size, so I just used that to make the straps. I kind of just eyeballed how long they would need to be by looking at the straps on one of my tank-tops. The beauty of this is that you can make this dress however you want and in a way that will fit you best.

Next you'll need to hem your straps and sew them onto your dress. You also could attach the straps before the shirring if that would work better for you. After the straps are on you only have two more step! Turn the dress inside out and steam the shirring (aka the elastic thread) with your iron. This will make the elastic bunch up quite a lot, but the fabric will still stretch back to it's original size when you put it on. Here's the top of the dress after the steaming:

Finally, your last step is to admire yourself in your awesome new swim suit cover-up! Good job on making something so incredibly cute!

love, Brad & Courtney

finally using my Christmas present

With the help of Sara, Steve, and Brad I made my first skirt!! (yes, it took 4 of us to figure it out.) Sara is seamstress extraordinaire and helped the most, but it definitely wouldn't have gotten done without Steve and Brad. So, finally, one month later, I actually got to use my sewing machine that Brad got me for Christmas! I'm so excited to be learning such an invaluable skill like sewing (and especially using patterns), and I'm so grateful for my fabulous friends who are so willing to help me pursue my goals!

 

After the skirt-making extravaganza we celebrated its completedness by going to see Avatar.

 

We saw it in 3D which was definitely a new experience for all of us. I would recommend saving the extra 2 bucks and just seeing it the normal way. There were parts that were really cool in 3D, but it took a long time for our eyes to adjust and it wasn't what we expected it to be (we thought it would be like 3D movies at amusement parks when things jump out of the screen at you ... it wasn't like that). But overall, it was awesome! I would definitely go see it again. Just this past weekend it officially became the highest grossing movie EVER, surpassing Titanic's 9 year winning streak. And I'm proud to say that I contributed to that, even if it was only 22 dollars.