pinspiration: floor cushion.

crafternoon (noun): a mid-day spent crafting.*

my friend amanda & i had a crafternoon this week and it was a perfect time to bust out another pinspiration project!

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{the original tutorial link: floor cushion}

i didn’t take pictures during the process to create my own tutorial because i thought the original tutorial was really well done. we didn’t have a compass on hand, so we used a piece of string tied to a pencil which resulted in non-perfect circles that were closer to 15 inches in diameter than the original 17 inches. oh well!

this is the first time i sewed piping onto anything & it was much easier than i expected! {sidenote: i apologize for the blurry first picture. the lighting is terrible since we have grey & rainy.}

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have you been crafting in the afternoon lately (that would be referred to as crafternooning)?

M

*i thought i was so smart thinking up this term, but alas, it has already been coined. formally. see here.

happy birthday mom!

today is my mom’s birthday & i wanted to wish the best mom on the planet a wonderful & fabulous birthday!

mom – thanks for everything. i couldn’t ask for a better mom {& aaron couldn’t ask for a better mom-in-law!} & i don’t know what i would do without your love & support.

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{pictures were taken at our wedding.}

sending lots of birthday wishes your way!

M

my weekend in pictures.

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{friday was sunny so i felt obligated to get the car washed.}

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{sharing a giant piece of carrot cake.}

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{lots of elevator buttons. there was also a 13th floor – so unusual!}

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{aaron jumping into a foam pit at skyzone for ben & sarah’s birthday party.}

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{lunch at dot’s delicatessen.}

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{an angry bird launch at the space needle.}

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{spending time at the butterfly exhibit at the pacific science center while waiting for the hunger games.

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{wigs were the dress code for birthday drinks with ben & sarah: i was a blonde & aaron was a republican!}

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{family sunday stroll in the sun!}

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{sadie, the urban hunting dog, on point.}

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{tasty lunch at the ridgeback café. we had the best crepe ever!}

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{sadie enjoyed the it’s-warm-enough-to-have-the-windows-down weather.}

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{sadie waiting at the office for aaron.}

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{grabbed a pint from molly moon’s after dinner.}

it is finally starting to feel like spring which makes weekends just that much more enjoyable! how was your weekend?

M

whoa, i know that guy!

aaron has been in his new position at work for some time now, & he is set to leave on his first business trip next week. to las vegas. where the weather will be in the low 70s. and sadie & i will be in seattle. where the weather will be in the low 50s. i digress.

any-hoo. aaron sent me a link over IM this morning & i didn’t really know what to expect. i opened the web page & saw that it was a list of people. a list of people that were going to be speakers at the conference next week. i scrolled & scrolled while racking my brain to see if any name looked familiar. then one did…

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{picture taken by erin marcum.}

yep, aaron is going to be speaking at this conference! wahoo! i am so, so proud. congratulations husband!

M

pinspiration: sewing machine pin cushion.

i have a few sewing projects on my mind, but have yet to find a pin cushion. i realize that something like a pin cushion is really a practical thing, but i have been holding out for a pin cushion that i really like.

i am clumsy & drop boxes of pins all the time resulting in pins all over the floor & occasionally in stepping on pins – ouch! after this happened to me for the millionth time this afternoon, i knew that i had to do something about my pin cushion situation.

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{story of my life.}

enter pinterest & the genius ideas that i pinned months ago…

Sewing Machine Pin Cushion 6

{see original pinterest link: sewing machine pin cushion}

supplies:

  • scrap fabric
  • ribbon
  • hand needle
  • thread
  • sewing machine {you could do this by hand, but it would be ironic to make this by hand for a sewing machine}
  • scissors

i already had fabric scraps & ribbon, so it was just a matter of sewing a few simple seams. my pin cushion is a bit squarer due to the shape of my machine’s arm & the ribbon length is only one time around the arm for each side.

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i will still be on the quest to find the perfect pin cushion, but for now, this one will do!

do you have a habit of dropping pins all over? do you use a pin cushion?

M

my weekend in pictures.

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{friday lunch date with a friend!}

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{wore green pants & a charm bracelet for luck on st. paddy’s day.}

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{got our bubble tea fix while shopping in the international district.}

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{the space needle from the pacific science center.}

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{date night: popcorn & a slush puppy to see the lorax in 3d at the IMAX.}

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{yep, more bubble tea. our first attempt at making it.}

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{a new cooking light = the week’s meals planned & shopping list finished on sunday!}

i think everyone else in the country is experiencing summer-like temperatures while we continue to freeze in the pacific northwest. c’mon spring weather!

how was your weekend?

M

pinspiration: faux calligraphy.

it really isn’t a secret that i love pinterest. the problem is that i pin & pin & pin but that’s it. i attempted to change the pinning into doing at the end of last year with my a pinterest christmas series of diy projects. it was so fun to actually do something with all of those pins! so, i decided that even if it isn’t a regular occurrence, i should really do more of the diy projects that i pin on my boards aptly titled: my ever-growing to do list. so here it goes with my first pinspiration project!

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{faux calligraphy (i prefer faux to fake).}

see original tutorial here: how to create fake calligraphy.

i used my very favorite fine sharpie pen and my moleskine journal (that holds my to-do lists, doodles & notes). the tutorial is really straight-forward & the trick is really to remember how to write in cursive. i wrote my  letters in pencil first & then traced over the letter with the pen before i added the thick marks on the downward strokes.

practice makes perfect, but here is a sample of my first attempts.

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{lower case letters}

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{upper case letters}

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faux calligraphy definitely isn’t as elegant as real calligraphy but it is still fun. i have a few projects up my sleeve that i am hoping to use this form of lettering, so i better get practicing!

{sidenote: this pinspiration project (which i hope to be the first of many) is pretty much exactly what sherry is doing over at young house love with the pinterest challenge. i may add my pinspiration projects to the challenge at some point, but it seems like a little too much for me; over three hundred projects pinned – eeps!}

what do you think of faux calligraphy? are you just a pinner or are you a do-er too?

M

a visit to new england: maine, connecticut, rhode island & massachusetts.

we headed out east from manchester for maine. though we wanted to drive further along the coast, we didn’t have enough time. we stopped in kittery for some lobster (duh!) lunch at warren’s & even sent some fresh lobster home! we drove a bit further into maine to york to see the nubble lighthouse. maine was lovely.

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on our last day, we headed south from manchester towards connecticut. we didn’t spend much time there, but did have a delicious lunch. we stayed pretty far north so we would have a straight shot over to rhode island.

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rhode island was our next stop & it was the one i was looking most forward to. it is probably because it is the smallest of all of the states (i think being small means you really like small things), but there is something about rhode island that has always charmed me. i literally squealed when we crossed over the state line from connecticut & then made aaron pull the car over so i could get a picture with the state sign. we drove to brown university so that we could stop and take in rhode island. plus, my great uncle attended brown & lived in providence for some time, so it seemed like we needed to see it. the school is right in the city near RISD & as we drove thru it, i couldn’t help but fall in love with providence!

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our last stop in new england (on our way back to boston for our flight) was in milton, massachusetts. milton is a very small suburb of boston & it is where my grandmother & great uncle grew up. they both attended milton high school & i was chatting on the phone with my grandmother as i was standing in front of her alma mater – that was kind of fun!

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well, that wraps up our trip to new england! it isn’t a place that i daydreamed about visiting (i like to save my daydreams for sandy beach locales!), but it was such a fun trip & it made my thirty before thirty list.

have you made it to new england? what places are on your travel list?

M

a visit to new england: new hampshire & vermont.

from boston, we rented a car & drove north to new hampshire. we stayed in manchester, NH for the remainder of the week, sort of a jumping off point for the rest of our time in new england. manchester is a really cute little town with an amazing number of restaurants right on elm street in downtown. while it may have been nice to stay in other places, like say a bed & breakfast, it was so nice to have to unpack & repack only once! we celebrated my birthday & valentine’s day with a five-course dinner (which we split) at XO on Elm – it was delish! we also had to try the highly recommended dancing lion.

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after settling into new hampshire, we took a short day trip up to vermont. it still amazes me that you can get to another state in just two short hours (that doesn’t happen where we live!). our first stop was in waterbury to visit the one & only ben & jerry’s factory. it was amazing! we got a tour of the factory & got to sample a never-been-released coffee cake ice cream.

we also drove just a little bit further into vermont to visit the von trapp family lodge. you probably only know of one von trapp family. are you quietly singing “doe a deer a female deer”? if you are, you are right on! the von trapp family was made famous from the movie the sound of music which was loosely based on their lives in austria during ww II. apparently waterbury, vermont looks much like the “mountains” of austria (i put mountains in quotes because any one who has actually seen a mountain cannot actually say that anything in new england is actually a mountain). originally the von trapp family just had a lodge but today it is quite the winter resort.

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have you ever ventured into vermont?

M