"Someday Maybe" is Now

 “Someday Maybe” is Now

For Storing Art

I made this from scrap lumber from an old deck.

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Inside Art Studio

Outside Art Studio

(For ceramic work, I didn’t think my husband would appreciate me throwing clay inside the house)

Everyone has dreams that they think “Maybe someday” with a wistful mental tone; dreams that seem like such a far off thing that it doesn’t even seem like a possible reality.  So you start to think, “Those kinds of dreams are for other people; people who don’t have the responsibilities that I have and have time to get bored.” 

This is how I have felt about me doing art again. Always in the past it has been “Even if I had the supplies, where would I find the time to dedicate to that???”  So my day dreams of doing art go back into the “Maybe Someday” category.

At the beginning of the year I hit a point in my life where I needed things to change.  I felt like I was drowning and then like I had drowned.  I had to let everything go in my life go except for what really mattered to me.  My faith in my Heavenly Father, scripture study and my family is all I hung on to.  So far over the last six months I have been trying figure out what I need as a person.  I have been trying things I haven’t done in years, like drawing, cycling, and dancing. 

As I have been writing I have realized that a good amount of what has held me back from living my dreams is fear.  Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of opening myself up.  I am still scared.  I also know that some of the best things I have done in my life I was near terrified to try.  That is not to say that fear doesn’t have its place.  Being afraid of falling off a tall building is a good thing. That fear usually keeps most people from falling to their deaths.  There are times fear is a good thing.

One of my “Maybe someday” dreams is have my own art studio, a space where I can make a creative mess.  I have always imagined a big old barn so I could put the different types of art I create in different sections.  I don’t have a barn.  I may never have a barn, so why on earth should I stop myself from having what I would like because it doesn’t match my day dreams?  I shouldn’t, that’s crazy. So I have dedicated one section of wall in my house and the same wall on the outside of my house for my art studio.  Now one of my “someday maybes” is here.

DIY Sleep Mask

Pampering Stripes

Invitations come in and go out for birthday parties.  At the stages my children are at these parties are starting to have themes.  My oldest daughter got invited to a birthday party that was a spa theme. 

The benefit to the theme is it made planning a present fairly easy.  My oldest came up with an idea of making a sleep mask. I thought it was a great fit for her friend’s personality.  However, I was unsure what her mom would think.  I ran the idea by her mom who told me her daughter had been asking for one of those.  So we set to work.

Step #1

We seam ripped apart a dress my youngest daughter had been given for a birthday present that was too small for her when it was given to her.

Step #2

We made a paper pattern the shape of a sleep mask. Which we checked to see if it would fit on my oldest since she is about the same size as her friend.

Step #3

We pinned the pattern to the fabric and cut.  One side from the striped zebra print and one from the velvet fabric for against the face.

Step #4

My oldest picked some pink ribbon to add to the mask.

Step #5

We took some elastic and measured my oldest head since she is about the same size as her friend.

Step #6

We took some black ribbon and stitched the stretched elastic to fit the ribbon length.

Step #7

We gathered the ribbon then sewed the pink ribbon to one side of the mask, wrong sides together.

Step #8

We pinned the three pieces together.

Step #9

We hand sewed the three pieces together with a hidden seam.

 Materials

Dress that didn’t work to start                                0.00

Pink Ribbon left over from someone project     0.00

Elastic      from a crib sheet no longer in use           0.00

Black ribbon from a bow on a gift bag            0.00

Thread left over from another project                  0.00

____________________________

Total Cost                           0.00

DIY Child's Fabric Shoes

Moooom, I can’t find my Shoes.

                                      

At least once I day I hear one of my children tell me,

“MOOOM, I can’t find my shoes.”

When we get in from an outing or activity we have our kids put their shoes away.  Yet every week I end up baffled as where all their shoes have gone.  I have tried baskets and organizers. I am now currently throwing their shoes on a shelf in their closets until I get my latest idea built.

Sometimes our shoe battle ends up with some interesting results.  My youngest son who loves going to the store with my husband or I, (if it’s just him and a parent) will go get two shoes, that don’t match.  We try really hard not to laugh because he is trying so hard to do as requested and we forgot again to tell him that his shoes have to match.  Just yesterday he went to the store with one cowboy boot on foot and one sneaker on the other foot.

We have another child who can never find shoes, unless they are his futbal boots.  Which is really not a big deal to me, he loves them and they certainly fit well. He spends the week unable to find any other matches, in the mean time I am looking for his church shoes all week.  By the end of the week I have found both of them.

I am not sure what sinister mastermind is behind it but for one month straight our oldest son could not find even his cleats on Sunday morning before church, despite laying them out the night before.  In the morning somehow they were not there. So I ended up squeezing my son into shoes he had outgrown.  After three weeks of looking I found one shoe.  We had already bought him new shoes which he couldn’t find either.

I was thus left with a problem.  My son needed to have shoes but we couldn’t keep buying him shoes. We have a budget which is sufficient but it has no room for waste.  So I thought, “Well, people used to make their own shoes, maybe I can find instructions on how to do that.”  I ran into lots of cute patterns for girls. I also found instructions for those who have professional tools, which I don’t have.  I did find someone who showed how to pull the pattern from an existing shoe to make a pattern using masking tape.  She did it with a High heel shoe that had these cute pleats at the toe.  While I couldn’t use her pattern, or follow her instructions, the concept could be applied to the one shoe of his that still remained.

So I pulled out one of my favorite tapes, duct tape (I think the uses for duct tape are endless).

Step #1

I covered one section of the shoe with duct tape. Not where the seams on the shoe were.   I would need professional tools to put the seams where the person who made the one shoe had. 

Step #2

I covered the toe and front section of the shoe.

Step #3

 

I pulled the duct tape off and stuck it to a piece of scrap paper.  Then I added a ¼ inch seam around the edge.

 I ran into problems with the toe lying flat so I cut slits where I thought I would be able to add seams that would create shape.

Step #4

I traced the bottom of his shoe and added a ¼ inch seam allowance. 

Step #5

I put the fabric wrong sides together, pinned the patterns to it and cut it for the outside fabric and lining. 

Step #6

The soles of the shoes.

Some people who made their own shoes used rope on the bottoms of their shoes.  i didn't have that so i used left over lanyard that I had kept from when my sister used to make key chains when she was in high school(back in 2005).  I used a four strand braid then stitched it to the bottoms of the shoes before i put the insides and outsides together. 

Step #7

I slide the linings inside the shoe outsides and stitched the two pieces together. 

Step #8

I tried on a bit of scrap fabric a button hole( for the laces) and the material just ripped clean.  Then I noticed that the material didn’t fray. So I decided to punch holes where the holes normally go with my snap tool.

Step #9

I laced the shoes with spare shoe laces. 

Step #10

He tried them on and said,

"Wow, these are really comfortable."

My response was,"Do you like them?"

His response was"Yeah, they are really comfortable."

Materials

Black pleather-left over from a family members project                      0.00

Thread-left over from a family member project                                              0.00

White pleather- left over from someones unfinished/unwanted project 0.00

Lanyard- left over from sisters unfinished/unwanted project                          0.00

Shoes laces- saved from done shoes                                                       0.00

Total Cost

                                                               0.00

Am I within my budget? Oh yeah, fist pump.

Adding more stuffing to Cycling Shorts

Cycling Shorts

The first time I folded my husband’s bike shorts I laughed out loud.  Many thoughts and questions came into my mind.  Why was there so much padding where the bottom goes? Why that padding is necessary since the seat already has padding built in?  Are cyclist’s bottoms so delicate that they can’t handle riding without a mini pillow in their shorts?

As I laughed out loud my husband came over to see what was so funny about our laundry.  I then proceeded to ask him my questions about his cycling shorts with some gentle* teasing included.  My teasing including nicknaming his cycling shorts “butt shorts”. 

In answer to my questions he explained the ruff rubbing the saddle has on a bottom and the pain and discomfort it causes.

For over the last decade I have always called my husband’s cycling shorts butt shorts. It has come up every time they come through the wash or when he is getting dressed to ride. My gentle husband has always silently shaken his head at my teasing.

A little bit into our marriage my husband bought me my own bicycle and pair of butt shorts.  I felt very funny and awkward the first time I put the shorts on.  Walking around in them was even more awkward which of course made me laugh. I felt ridiculous.

Over the next several years my bike and butt shorts collected dust as I was having children and unable to ride while pregnant.  Finally in the last two months I have gotten back on a bike.  I put back on my awkward butt shorts.  My legs felt like jello, then jello jigglers, then on to really sore as I continued to ride on the bike trainer. 

One night after the kids were in bed I was trying to get ready to cycle and I couldn’t find my butt shorts anywhere.  I knew my energy level was dropping fast so I asked my husband if I could use his pair.

“Sure” was his response.

I put them on and thought these are more comfortable than mine until I started to cycle.  In less than three minutes I commented to my husband about how much it hurt. 

“How do you cycle like this?” I asked.

“I am usually sore for a while.” He responded.

“Why haven’t you said anything? You need new shorts.”

“Because there have always been more important ways to spend our money. And those shorts never had much padding to start with.”

 

            His Shorts                    My Shorts

              Before

I felt really bad for all the teasing I had given my husband over the years.  It was the equivalent of the teasing I had received over the last ten years for throwing a pillow at his nose.  Except this was worse.   His teasing was justified.  The padding in cycling shorts is necessary to not be raw and tender all the time. I then offered to let him use my shorts, which he said no thank you too (they are too small for him).

I had to find a way to fix this, the teasing and the lack of padding in his shorts.  The next day I found my shorts and started to analyze the construction of the padding.  The shape, size, and the materials it had to be made out of so that I could replicate it for him.

I asked my husband if he would be alright with me trying to add padding into his shorts.  He said “Sure.”  I told him what I had realized.  The padding in the shorts was made out the same or similar material to the padding found in a bra and nearly the same shape but the shape as a pad a girl wears when on her period.  I told him I should have been calling them pad shorts (not in teasing but show my inaccuracies) 

He then says” I think I prefer you calling them butt shorts.”

I thought this will definitely be more comfortable for him.  I was really excited for him to cycle again.  After he had cycled again the next day I asked how they were and he said he was bruised and raw.  I was in complete shock.  I had imitated the shape in my shorts as exactly as I could manage.  Why hadn’t it worked? Now it was worse.  He showed me where the source of the problem lay.  In my desire to add a lot of padding I had overlapped some parts of the padding which was exactly where he was bruised. 

That night I took the overlapping padding out.  

2^nd Attempt

Overlapping padding removed

The next time he rode I was not excite, I was nervous.  I didn’t want him to be worse off from my efforts to help him.  I got up my courage and asked him “how was the ride?”  He responded “Mucho mejor bella dama .I love you”

My response was “I love you too. But what does the Spanish mean?”

“The Spanish means "much better beautiful lady"

I was dancing in my seat when I go this message back. Yeah!  And I am currently trying to only call them cycling shorts.

Materials

4 bra padding cups- from bras from family that has worn out   0.00

Thread- left over from another project                                                  0.00     

Paper – used for tracing the shape of the padding in his shorts                0.00

Total Cost                                            0.00

Gryffindor

“GRYFFINDOR!”

“GRYFFINDOR!” It’s what lots of kids all over the world dream about hearing.  My kids love to pretend that they are going to Hogwarts when they turn eleven.  I have heard large groups of kids(twenty-two) at my kids birthday party discuss with great seriousness and enthusiasm which House they would like to be sorted into at Hogwarts.  After our sorting each child proudly talked about the superiority of their House.  One girl had wanted to be in the strangest house, so when she was put into Slytherin she was ecstatic.   Which House a person would be in if Hogwarts was real is even a topic I have heard many adults discuss.  It is just fun to imagine what it would have been like to attend school there.

After the help my friend gave me at my kid’s birthday party my husband and I wanted some way to show our gratitude for her help.  Having previously discussed with her which house she would have wanted to be in I thought it might be Slytherin since that was her daydream as a kid. Then I thought about the Gryffindor gear that she wears.  So we asked her husband to get a definitive answer from her which House she would want to be in without letting her know what he was doing.  The answer came back about two weeks later, Gryffindor.