Casanova from Project Runway season 8

My husband had today off from work so I went into the city with my daughter.  She works at Rockefeller Center. We went to Kinokuniya.  Its an Asian bookstore.  I think mostly Japanese, but I'm not 100% sure.  I went there to buy a pattern book called Pattern Magic by Tomoko Nakamichi, but instead I bought Patternmaking in practice by Lucia Mors.
I then went to MOOD.  Yes the same one the show on Project Runway.  When I stepped out of the elevator there was Casanova.  He was one of the contestants from season 8.   The first thing I did was call my daughter but she did not pick up the phone.  So I sent her a text.  I could not remember his name so I had her there trying to remember who he was.  When I finally did get to speak to her I remembered his name.  I did not go up to him or anything, no one else there made a big deal so I sure didn't want to.  Hopefully next time I go, she can come with me and some other contestant from PR will be there.

Whats for dinner #5

We are all feeling a bit sick around here, so I figured I'd post a nice soup dish.
Homemade Chicken Noodles.  The Pioneer Woman has great recipes.

Be Prepared always

When we heard about the hurricane that was coming our way, I did not panic.  A few years ago our Pastor had asked everyone to start storing food away since in times of crisis people panic and food is gone quick.  Well that is exactly what happened.  Complete chaos.  We were prepared because we took the advice of our pastor.  Every time I went food shopping I would buy to store in my basement.  Sometimes I would just shop for our basement.  We have saved enough not only for ourselves but in the event that people need to stay in our house.  I did not only buy food but toiletries, batteries, candles, flashlights, everything.  All of our important papers are in one bag ready to grab and go.

It was pure insanity, we went to the supermarket on Friday to buy milk and some snacks.  The shelves were already beginning to become empty.  The workers could not fill the shelves fast enough.  I heard of people being online for 45 minutes to pay for their groceries, others were on for longer.  One friend said she saw a line go out side of the store.  Another friend saw a lady take a can of tuna out of someone else's shopping cart.  Another friend was in Walmart at 1 in the morning, where she saw people fighting over the last case of water and then she had to wait online for 45 minutes, at 1 in the morning, can you imagine.

All this to say please be prepared, you never know when a calamity will strike.  Some things I am going to add are life vests.  Also we have a water cooler, I would throw out the empty bottles but I am going to keep them.  They are good to fill up with water in case the water gets shut off or if it needs to be boiled.  I can use the water in the bottles instead to use for things like rinsing hands, washing dishes, flushing toilets etc... potable water.  I also learned that you can add 1/8 teaspoon plain bleach to one gallon of rain water.  This is a great way to sanitize with out having to boil it.
A picture is worth  one thousand words.  Here are some pictures of the bread shelves at our local supermarket.

To think that there are still people who have no electricity, or their houses are flooded.
Again ALWAYS BE PREPARED.

Dress for Miss-B

My daughter wanted a dress, so I had her go through all my patterns and this is the one she picked.

Its Simplicity (Built by Wendy) 3835.  She wants the blue dress but just a little shorter.  I took her to the fabric store and she picked out a snake print fabric in black.  Its really nice.  I started working on the dress today.  I had previously traced out the pattern.  I am basically done, just have to redo the sleeves.  They were to tight and I cut out the wrong ones.  She wanted the ones that are on the blue dress but I cut out the ones that were on the black print dress.  So I guess that's good.  Besides that all I have to do is sew in the zipper and hem it.  I basted the zipper in.  I am learning that it is better to baste your garment and then sew, then to sew and have to use the seam ripper.  I literally have around 3 seam rippers.  I keep misplacing them.   Also by basting first I am able to try it on her with out pocking her with tons of pins.  It may seem time consuming but think of how much time you save without having to rip out the seams and resew everything.
I will post picks once its done.

Cool find #5

IKEA Kitchen cabinets in your bedroom.  I never would have thought of this,  I love it though.  Saw this over at IKEA Hackers.

The other dress

Sorry for the bad picture, but I could not find a picture of the dress online.  This dress is from Burda Style magazine 8/2011.  Its dress #116.  The cowl part of the dress is too droopy, so I have to take it apart and take some in.  I am also leaving out the pockets.  I will post a picture as soon as I am done.

Whats for Dinner #4

Todays recipe is not  a whole meal but more of a side dish.  Better yet its something you can eat everyday.

BREAD.

This recipe is so easy to make.  The best part is that you can store it in the frig and have fresh baked bread daily.

They also have other great recipes in their book.

Cool Find #4

I really like this find.  You could use any wall space that you may have.  The materials are cheap also. Found it over at pinterest

Basically you buy PVC pipe, cut them, stick them to the wall then put in your shoes.
You can even cover the pipes with fabric or contact paper. 

Feeling better

I am feeling so much better today.  I don't know what hit me the last 2 days but I felt really sick.  To the point where I could do nothing but lay in bed, it was horrible.  Today I was able to wake up, pray and do my exercise.  I feel good.  I went to my local fabric store and bought some fabric to make my Coffee Date Dress.  My daughter( Miss-B) also bought some fabric.  Its a snake skin print, for a dress she wants.  Since  I haven't been feeling well I have not done any sewing.  This means that I need to get 2 dresses done by Sunday. My dress and my dd dress.  Hopefully I will be able to get it done.  Fabrics are already in the wash.
Fabric for my daughters dress.

 

Fabric for my dress

cool find #3

I've been so busy I totally forgot that today is Friday.  Now we don't have cable so I watch Project Runway over at lifetime.com  So after this post I will be going to watch PR.

  On to my cool find.  This one I found at Ikea Hackers.  WE love shopping at Ikea.  My oldest daughter Miss-N is going into her second semester of college, so we decided to give her the basement.  I had wanted to give it to the boys since there are 3 of them sharing a room, but decided to give it to miss-N seeing that she is 18, working and going to school.  Sorry for rambling back to the cool find.

We plan on making this for her bed.  It's made out of 2 expedit bookcases and a bed slate.  They used a full size bed, but we are going to use a twin size bed.  After measuring her bed and using the measurements from IKEA, it might be possible for us to go with out the slate.  We haven't decided yet,  I guess we will see once we have the bookcases on hand. It helps with storage or even clothing, you can use that space for almost anything.  Its a great idea.  Check out the site.  Tons of ideas as to how to use IKEA furniture in different ways.
Even if you just shopping at their clearance section.

Potty training

Well the time has come/came to potty train my last child.  She is a hard one I must say.  The other children were fine and got it right away.  Miss-J on the other hand only gets the pee-pee part.  We are going on over a month of training and she still goes #2 on herself.  I thought that  doing  #2 would have been easy, it was for the other kids.  They had no problem figuring out that they had to go, but miss-J just cant seem to get it.  So this is the first time I have ever used training pants.  The 7 other children did not use them.  They got the potty training thing I tell you.  I guess miss-J knows somehow that she is the last one and seems to think that she can stay in her pull-ups.

Whats for dinner #2

For this weeks recipe we have Broccoli Chicken Stir-Fry.

You can get the recipe here

A dress for me..

I've been thinking lately that I should sew more for myself.  Most of the sewing I do are for my 2 little girls. I've sewn some for my oldest daughter, not much for the one in the middle and barely for my 3 boys.  I also need to sew more for my other kids besides the 3 girls.  B-girl(girl#2) is extremely picky, even with RTW clothes.  She is realizing that with sewing your own clothes you can pick out whatever fabric you want.
On to my dress.  I plan on making The Coffee Date Dress

You can get the Pattern for free over at Burdastyle.com.  You might have to be a member though, but membership is free.  This is a great site, lots of patterns.  They even publish some of the patterns from the magazine Burda.  The patterns are not that expensive.  The only draw back is that you have to print out the pattern pieces and tape it together .  This does not bother me at all, I don't mind.  For some patterns they also give you the option to print at copy-shops.

I hope to finish the dress by the end of the week.  Lets see how much I get done.

Cool find #2

Since today is Friday here is my cool find.  
How cool is this.  My girls would love to have this play kitchen.  I plan on making this for them once I find  one of these old tv units.  This one is my favorite, since it has the frig attached to it.
Here a some pictures of some more play kitchens.

How cool is this.  My girls would love to have this play kitchen.  I plan on making this for them once I find my one of these old tv units.  This one is my favorite one, since it has the frig attached to it.
Here a some pictures of some more play kitchens.

Till next Friday.....

Whats for dinner #1

I figure I may not be the only one who needs help with what to cook for dinner.  You can add them to your menu list.  If you try any of these recipes out please let me know.

For our first recipe I am posting one I tried.  Its called
Shrimp Pasta in a foil package.

I made this for dinner and my husband loved it.   By cooking it in the foil the pasta soaked up the taste of the shrimp.  It came out really good and was fairly quick to make.  It is a keeper in my house and going into my recipe book.