High Rise Tomato

Hello all! We were away for a few days (I will be posting photos soon) but I am back to share some photos of our tomato plants. Even though they are still just small I am so proud of them! Aren has been doing a great job of keeping them growing. I can't wait until we have our own place and can grow a big garden.

These are a Zebra Tomato - you can see the stripey look they have. Hopefully they will soon be ripe and ready to eat!

Keep enjoying your summer! I am so happy that I have four weeks off.... now I just need to get outside and enjoy it more. Some of my next posts may be short, as I hope to be out of doors as much as possible this summer. Until next time,

I'm Being Featured - Twice!!

Hello everyone. As you may know, I just returned home last night and upon checking my computer was met with wonderful news! I have been featured not once, but twice this week.

Over at Totally Tutorials you can find my Matryoshka potholders and (super excited about this!) my Men's Shirt to Skirt project is being featured at Cut Out+Keep. What an honour, I am excited beyond words - so much so that I actually took a picture of my project on the home page at CO+K.

I trust everyone is having a wonderful time out in this gorgeous weather. I can't wait to get out on the road and go on our trip! Those of you who read my blog often may have seen my sister's comment about auto-posting. I do plan on doing some of this over the next few weeks as I will not have internet access/my computer.

Thanks to all of you readers who have helped my blog get to where it is - what an amazing feeling! I hope that what I have shared and will share with you inspires you all to get in touch with your creative side in whatever way you know best.

Ciao,

Beauty in Lead

Hello dear readers! Today is all about drawing, pencil drawing.

The picture you see below was drawn a number of years ago. However, I came to a standstill one night as I realized that although the drawing is not "finished" per say, I like the way it looks in it's "unfinished" state. So the question remains- is it finished or unfinished?

I have not decided yet.

Maybe someday I will take out those pencils and continue drawing this lovely picture but for now I am content to view it as is. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this subject so please comment away.

Here you have a clear view of the magazine photo I was drawing from and the drawing.

Up close and personal.

A second, clearer (perhaps?) view.

I apologize for my lack of correspondence is the last few days, but as I mentioned last week, this was a very hectic time for me.

Enjoy today!

And The Winner Is.......

So the moment you have all been waiting for:

The winner of the GIVEAWAY is:

Frenchieliza!

(Elizabeth)

CONGRATULATIONS!

(winner was chosen via random.org)

Thank you to everyone who entered and thank you to Cynthia at The Sewing Dork for giving these bags away! Elizabeth - Cynthia will be contacting you by email in the next little while.

I am hoping to have more giveaways in the future so stay tuned folks.

For now check out my new tutorial.

Ciao!

Siblings

As some of you may know, this summer I am going on a trip.

Aren and I will be joining my sister Priscilla and her husband Kurtis on a camping/hunting/fishing/berry&mushroom picking holiday to the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of B.C. It is going to be a lot of fun. Since I am going on the trip with one of my siblings I decided today that I wanted to do a random post about siblings.

I hope that all of you are blessed with having siblings with whom you can share your life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really the sentimental type, but I do appreciate my siblings.

You see siblings are different than friends. Mostly because you get to choose who you want to be friends with and you don't have a choice about your brothers or sisters.

Also because they have to like you no matter what. Mom said so.

Sometimes (most of the time I hope) things will be wonderful. Life will be rosy and you will be able to sip champagne together in front of your castle without a care in the world.

Best Friends.

Other times you will fight like cats and dogs (or knights and pirates?) and be at odds with one another.

I will warn you not to get in between an argument that involves family members however. They will turn on you in an instant, now having a common enemy to unite them.

But of course all fights must end and eventually peace will be restored. That is the great thing about siblings, eventually they decide that they don't really hate you.

What are my favourite things about siblings?

They take trips with you. Priscilla and myself in Vietnam with friends.

Priscilla and myself in Cambodia.

Priscilla and myself taking a ferry in Thailand.

You will always look good in a group. The Gang- Zachary, Eliza, Priscilla, Lydia.

They will be weird with you in public. Eliza and myself - The King lives on!

You can look "cool" together.

Siblings help you pick wedding dresses.

Siblings will laugh at you when your Mum beats you in arm wrestling. (She beat all of them first)

There will always be one sibling who is crazier than you. Or at least as crazy as you.

Siblings cheer for the same sports teams. Or at least mine do....

They dress up with you ....

They wait for you.....

And most important - they still like you after all these years.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Remember: Today is the LAST day to enter the GIVEAWAY.

The winner will be posted tomorrow.

Have a lovely evening folks!

How To Turn A Men's Shirt Into A Chic Skirt

How can this become ........

This???

Read on to find out!

You may or may not recognize this skirt from another post HERE where I was wearing it as a part of another outfit. Well now I am going to show you how I made this skirt. I am missing a few photos from the in between stages but I am sure you will be able to follow along just fine.

Of course first you will want to find an old men's shirt, I got mine at a garage sale for $1. Wash the shirt before you begin to sew as with any garage sale or thrift shop find.

Next I held the shirt up against my waist (true waist) and made a little mark on the button placket to make sure the length would be just right.  Once I had the shirt laid flat on the floor (or table if you want) I measured up in the middle and then on the sides to ensure an even length and then squared off a line. I then cut through both layers of the shirt. You may need to remove a front pocket from your shirt before doing this (I did).

You will need to cut off the cuffs on the arms so that you can use these for the waistband.  I cut off the entire arm and then the cuff. Measure your cuff width. Then measure it's length. You will need to measure your waist then subtract the measurements (lengths) of the two cuffs. The remaining number will be the length of strip you will need to cut to finish the waistband.

So for example: Cuff width = 2.5 inches, Cuff length = 9 inches, Waist (true waist) = 28 inches

Cuff  9+9 = 18     28 - 18 = 10 inches

You will need to cut a strip 10 inches by 5 inches (2 times the width of the cuff) plus whatever seam allowance you would like to add. I added a very minimal seam allowance as I was serging the seams together. You could also cut off the portion of the cuff you want to use and use extra fabric for the rest - your choice.

 I apologize for the lack of photos for these steps as I got too caught up in sewing!!

Now you need to sew the cuffs to the extra strip. We make the strip double the width of the cuff as it will be folded over so the top edge of your waistband does not have any raw edges.

Once you have finished making the waistband into one piece you will need to sew the waistband to the skirt portion. The skirt portion will probably have to be gathered in to the waistband. Make sure the ends of your waistband are properly aligned before you start sewing. Trim any stray threads.

Now the reason that we used the cuffs for the waistband is so that you have a ready made button hole. You may have to change the placement of the button on the other side so that it fits properly. This can be done once you are trying the skirt on. You will notice in the following pictures that I added extra buttons all the way down the skirt in order to give it a more uniform appearance and keep it from looking so much like a men's dress shirt. I also stitched closed the bottom of the button placket so that it would not flap open awkwardly. This was done by top stitching over the edge of the placket (it is almost imperceptible).

Try on your skirt and make any adjustments necessary. A brand new skirt! Voila!

I really hope that this tutorial has been helpful and perhaps the next time I have a spare men's shirt I will try to add some photos of the waistband creation. I would love to see your versions!

The rest of my outfit is as follows:

Clockhouse black tank top, Talula sweater, H&M socks, Nine West shoes, Thrift Store Bag (Daniela is the brand), Forever XI headband, Aldo necklace and assorted rings and bracelets.

I apologize if I am not able to post anything new tomorrow as this week is going to be a busy one for us out at work, I will try my best though.

Until next time.....