Guest Post - For the Love of Pinterest

Hello everyone! My name is Ariel, and I write For the Love of Pinterest. I want to thank Rebecca for giving me the opportunity to be a guest blogger today :] 

Today, I'm going to show you how I made a key chain  [that I found on pinterest!] After attempting this tutorial once, and failing...I changed some of the steps, which made it look more professional...well at least I think so. 

Anyways, let's get to it!

What you'll need:

-2 pieces of matching fabric

-fusible interfacing [I grabbed lightweight interfacing on accident...but try to get a medium weight]

-a swivel ring [I got mine here]

-4 inch piece of 7/8" ribbon

First, cut your two fabric pieces to 2 3/4x11

and cut your interfacing to 1x10 3/4 [you need two of these]

Iron the interfacing in the middle of your two pieces of fabric [on the wrong sides]

Pin your fabric together with right sides facing.

Sew along the side about 1/8" away from your interfacing.

Repeat along the other side.

Turn right side out.

Pull your fabric through your swivel ring, and sew the edges together...go over it several time [I did six]

Cut the extra fabric off.

Now get your piece of ribbon ready.

I cheated and glued the ribbon on...because I wanted to [I used a little bit of 3M Super 77]

Wrap the ribbon around the key chain, starting on the inside of the front, and ending by folding it back around the other side. Make you you place it over the ugly seam.

And you're done :]

I hope you enjoyed my guest post today :] This lovely key chain is getting sent to Rebecca as a thank you for letting me do this, so hopefully she can test it out and let you know how durable it is :] Anyways, for more tutorials come over to For the Love of Pinterest!

Thanks for reading,

<3 Ariel

3/28/12

So we actually got productive yesterday and put up our bedroom wallpaper. Its only been about 347 years since I first said we were going to put it up, but life got in the way.

If you want to check out where we got our temporary wallpaper go check it out here. For new customers, you can get $5 off your first order with the coupon code NEWCUSTOMER.

As you walk in, this is what you see!

The whole wall is done!

Rosie laying on Daddy's pillows.

The two most amazing pups in the world!

The only things left to do right now include making our headboard, having our bed arrive (TOMORROW!!) and getting some art on the wall to break up all the color. I absolutely love this wallpaper, but since the walls in this apartments are not square in any sense of the word, there are some imperfections. Luckily they will be covered by nightstands, a headboard, and some art. As long as I can't see them on an everyday basis I will be fine.

Well the rest of today will be filled with final loads of laundry and making sure that there is plenty of room for all 6 crates worth of moving boxes. Hopefully I will be able to get some decent pictures to show you guys just how much stuff we actually have compared to the bare minimum amount of stuff we are living with now. Like real plates and cups, an actual dining room table and chairs, and an actual bed for us and the pups instead of an air mattress for us and travel carriers for them. I will keep you all updated on the unpacking process and I will be hosting my beautiful friend Ariel hopefully in the next couple of days so keep an eye out for that.

So until next time - Toodles!

3/27/12

I know. I know. It has been quite a while since I have posted anything, but things have been getting more and more hectic as the days go on. This past weekend was spent visiting with my In Laws, who are amazing by the way, in Pennsylvania and attended a fantastic craft fair. The weekend before that was spent with my Grandparents, also fantastic people, at their camp site. We had a blast during both of our trips and can't wait for our own guests!

So here is the actual update. On our way up to Pennsylvania this past Friday, I received a call that our Household Goods had arrived! It has been a very long 4 weeks and 5 days of living with just the basics of everything and not having any of our real belongings. I cannot wait to have my vacuum back! Well, since we didn't get back until yesterday afternoon, I scheduled the movers to come on Thursday so as to not interrupt the goings-on of our apartment complex (maintenance workers, lawn care schedules, etc) as well as to give me time to clean and FINALLY install our bedroom wallpaper. (We had to order another roll..I had only ordered half of what I actually need)

Hopefully, if things don't get to out of hand today, I will finally be able to get it all up. I still have to order some for the living and dining room. I am finally posting pictures of what we are living with right now. Its a mess, but don't judge. Like I said, we won't have any of the rest of our things fully unpacked until the weekend.

Now once everything is delivered, unpacked, and clean I will post a new post with the final results. We are going to try to get to IKEA on Wednesday to pick up some more furniture before the movers arrive (i.e. a linen cabinet, a sideboard, and my desk). I have been eyeing a certain pull-out sofa for almost a year and I thought it would fit in our second bedroom AKA Median Room/Guest Room/Office/Craft Room, but the measurements on the IKEA website just don't match up to the size we looked at in the store so I need to double and triple check the dimensions in person before we buy it and drive it all the way back home. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

Oh, one more thing. My dear friend, Ariel from For the Love of Pinterest will be making a special guest appearance this week so make sure to stop by and check it out!

Until next time - Toodles!

P.S. The new Doctor Who trailer came out yesterday so you HAVE to go check it out here! It looks AMAZING! I hate that we have to wait another 6 months though. I am dying inside with anticipation!

Laundry Day

Okay, my Google+ account decided to log out instead of uploading all the photos from putting our furniture together and with all the suitcases and boxes and I ended up deleting them. I promise though, there will be pictures up soon. We are installing our bedroom Tempaper today. It is beyond gorgeous and will finally give me a sense of putting down roots. Pictures will follow. 

So for now I am just going to start with a little project I am tackling with some incentive from Ariel over at For the Love of Pinterest and Jillee over at "One Good Thing" By Jillee. I have been dying to make my own all-homemade-to-save-us-money laundry system. So here we go...

Laundry Stain Pre-Treater

Ingredients:

2/3 cups Dawn Dishwashing Liquid

2/3 cups Ammonia

6 Tablespoons Baking Soda

2 cups Warm Water

Step 1: Mix all ingredients in a bowl or measuring cup.

Step 2: Pour into a spray bottle. I bought mine at the Dollar Tree.. I found the recipe on Jillee's Blog here.

Laundry Detergent

This is a newer recipe that Jillee posted and I have yet to try it, but hopefully I will get through the rest of our store bought bottle so I can use what I made.

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons Borax

3 Tablespoons Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

2 Tablespoons Dawn Dishwashing Liquid

4 Cups Boiling Water

Step 1: Mix the Borax, Washing Soda, and Dawn in a separate container while the water comes to a boil.

Step 2: Add all ingredients into your designated gallon container. *Be careful not to burn yourself like I did!*

Step 3: Let mixture cool.

Step 4: Fill the remainder of the container with cool water. Its okay if the suds overflow the container. Just don't lose the liquid itself.

To Use: Put in about 1/2 cup per load of laundry.

Laundry Freshener

I took the advice of Jillee again and am currently obsessed with the Downy Unstopables. My absolutely favorite scent is Lush. I even tried to match our laundry detergent scent to help keep our laundry smelling amazing longer.

Dryer Sheets

I actually got this idea from Ariel over at For the Love of Pinterest. I love this idea and I can't wait to try it!

Ingredients:

Your favorite fabric softener (I love this Snuggle Exhilaration White Lavender & Sandalwood)

Water

Container with a screw on lid (I love to drop things so plastic made more sense than glass)

Hand towels/t-shirts or whatever you have

Step 1: Cut up your towels/shirts into dryer sheets sized pieces

Step 2: Make a mixture of 1 part Softener to 2 parts water

Step 3: Shove the pieces down into your container and shake to get everything covered. 

To use: Just pull one out, wring it out a little, and throw it in the dryer. When you are done with the load, just throw it back in the container to be used again.

P.S. - Since we have a stacked washer/dryer in our new place, I made about twice as many dryer sheets as I normally would since we are doing twice as many loads of laundry.

I know this took FOREVER to post this, but I hope it helped at least 1 person out. It is going to save us so much money instead of using store bought products. I am also glad to be getting rid of so many chemicals from our house.