Sewing! Keychains! Pinterest! Oh my!

Yes- it's THAT exciting.

This past week was my Spring Break, and Nate & I traveled to good ol' Dallas to visit my family. During our stay, we visited my grandparents. My grandma taught me how to sew when I was about 7 or 8. I spent allllllllllll summer that year sewing clothes for myself, my dolls, and making accessories too! It was so fun!

Fast forward 16 years (gross! that makes me sound so old!) and I want to sew.... but my machine that I currently inherited from my grandma went wonky. As in, I didn't know how to get it started... so I blamed it on the machine :) It all had to do with that bobbin. Hmph. BUT cue Spring Break 2011 and our visit to my grandparents' and all is right with said machine, my sewing hands, and now Nate's sewing hands (yes-he got a lesson too!)

Thanks to Pinterest, yet again (I'm telling you- get it!), and The Idea Room, I found this lovely gem that I wanted to try. My friend, Sam, and I have been meaning to make these, but neither of us had access to a sewing machine... until now. Keep in mind that this was my first sewing attempt in 16 years. Also, I scrounged around my house to find materials, so I didn't follow TIR's steps exactly... but, you pretty much get the gist. Enjoy!

I have this fabric because I made Chloe a bandana out of it about a year ago. On TIR's link, she uses two fabrics (which I totally would have done if I had two fabrics that matched). I just stuck with one.

It also says to burn the ends so the fabric on your ribbon doesn't fray... didn't do that either, simply because I'm lazy... but I kind of like the frayed look. We will see if I like it in a month or so. I went through my tote bag collection and found the clip...clasp... thangy :)

You can obviously see my beginner stitching, but... again, there's a first for everything :)

Go to The Idea Room and check out how you can make your own version!

Happy Easter Hostess Gift

Happy Easter!- yes, I know it's a week late :) I would've shared this project earlier, but then a)it wouldn't have been a surprise, and b)I've been on SPRING BREAK all week and I have enjoyed my time off.

Back to the blog, though!

Thanks to lovely Pinterest and Tip Junkie,  I found the CUTEST hostess gift for Easter: a jar of lovely ingredients to make Bunny Brownies!

I made two: one for our lovely Easter lunch hostess (church members who have taken us "in" as their own children since both Nate parents' and my parents' live four hours away), and one for my mom (since we were visiting my parents Easter night-Friday for my Spring Break).

It's so easy! You are really supposed to use the "Peep" Easter themed marshmallows (see links above), but our town sold out of them... at every store... Yep, I pretty much made the rounds... So, I used mini-marshmallows instead and called them "Bunny Tails" :)

Layer your ingredients (chocolate candies-preferably in themed colors, marshmallows, and crushed graham crackers). I attached the steps to make the brownies onto a card, and added a cute holiday-esque closing from me and Nate :)

On Tip Junkie, they even give you the printables for the labels. Thank you!

It is obviously too late for this year's Easter... but next year- do it! :)