Mega Swap

I read about this on Craft Blog today.  Doesn't this look like the most fun thing ever?  And a great reason to clean out your closets! If only I lived in New York.  I doubt Waco will be getting on board any time soon...

I'm not dead!

I just wanted to stop in for a quick update! I haven't died. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I haven't given up on crafting.  I just have a husband who is nearing the end of the semester in library school and has a lot of work to do, and he has to use the computer during the times I would likely spend blogging.  He's done after this week and I've got tons of pictures saved up, so hopefully the blog will overflow with crafty goodness in the near future! 

Now, since I know all of you are dying to know what I've been up to, here is one of the inspiring things I've worked on recently.

This is a piece of cardboard cut to a specific angle that Stephen uses to set up microphones.  It took us an hour to make this.  This is not a joke. So much for my math degree!

Easter Eggs! (not the hidden secret kind, the literal kind)

While I'm still in holiday mode, check out the Easter eggs I dyed this year!

I used green, blue, and purple neon food coloring, and these things came out BRIGHT!

Happy Belated Easter!

Holiday Goodness

I've got bunches of photos saved in a "Craft photos to use" folder on the computer but some of them are horribly out of date now.  I just want to get them out of there so I don't have to look at them anymore, but I can't bring myself to just delete them without sharing them on the blog.  That's why you're getting a Christmas post in the middle of April.  Here's some of my Christmas decorations/activities!

Here is my scraggly artificial Christmas tree.  I think I got it at Target for about $20, maybe $30.  It's actually not a bad tree, but it does lose a few branches every year.  I made myself a tree skirt this year!  It's actually just a big piece of red felt I had leftover from a poodle skirt I made 3 years ago bunched up at the bottom of the tree.  I have red felt out the wazoo here at the Bolech household.

My tree cleans up pretty nice don't you think?  All my Christmas ornament sets are red - I think red was big the year I started buying my own ornaments.  I kind of wish I'd gone with a little more variety when I bought them, but I have more ornaments than I'll ever need now, so I'll stick with red.

This is my favorite ornament of the year. It's the "Our first Christmas together" ornament.  AWWWWWWWWW!  Stephen did not wear a white suit at our wedding.

My mom and I made some Christmas candies this year with Wilton's candy melts.  They are actually really yummy and pretty fun to make, although I made way more than I could eat.  I finally threw away the leftovers a few weeks ago. Here's some photos of us making candy!

Candy melts melting away on the hot plate.

Homemade fillings: coconut, orange creme, raspberry creme and peanut butter. Yum!

Mom filling up some plastic candy molds

Some candies awaiting their filling

And just for the heck of it, here's a picture of the Jack-O-Lantern I carved at Halloween!

Too bad I didn't remember to take a picture before it rotted...

Happy holidays everyone!!

Backpack Purse: Trying to recreate the one that got away

Once upon a time I had an awesome purse.  It was made of some cute red white and blue fabric that kind of looked like patchwork.  It was that backpack style you see a lot these days, but most of the ones you see are made of ugly nylon and whoever is wearing it got it for free somewhere.  Mine had leather straps that were made of skinnier leather straps bound together.  It was lined with some other cute fabric too. I got that thing at Old Navy for five dollars on clearance. I used to look at this purse and think about its simple construction and how I could probably make something similar, but why would I need to since I already had this awesome thing premade?  I'm glad I did that wondering now, because at some point in my life I must have decided I didn't need this purse anymore and put it in some giveaway or squirrel away box, and now I have no idea where it is. I kept wanting that purse for things like hiking and any other activity where I needed a purse but wanted my hands free for something else, so I looked and looked and looked but never found the purse.  Then my honeymoon was coming up.  I knew we'd be out and about every single day on this trip so I knew it was time.  Time to re-create my most favorite backpack purse.

I found some fabric that I just LOVED at Jo-anns one day.  I knew exactly what I wanted to make out of it when I saw it, so I bought myself a yard of it.  I also bought some grommets, and some covered buttons, and some cotton yarn.

I did write down a "pattern" for this purse, so I could make it again if I needed to, but it's really just a bunch of drawings of rectangles and vague lists of what order to do things in.  If you know how to sew a little bit you could probably figure it out on your own, but if you're as desperate for a backpack purse as I was, I'll be happy to help you along using my quasi-pattern-thing.

Here are some pictures!!

I didn't take many pictures of making the purse, in fact, I didn't get any except for when I snuck up on Stephen and put it on his head.

This hat isn't very comfortable...

Now behold!  The completed bag!

I braided the straps with several strands of cotton yarn and strung them through the top drawstring and knotted them through the grommets I hammered into the bottom corners.

The purse also features a separate drawstring to tie the top closed, just in case anyone was determined to rob me they'd have an extra tie to undo.

Partway through taking these after pictures Stephen brought me some beets from the farm!

Yum!!!

The purse also has a secret pocket inside of it, except now it's not a secret anymore.

And here are some action shots of me and my purse on our honeymoon!

Me and my purse taking in the view in Puerto Rico

Me and my purse having a banana daiquiri in St. Thomas

My purse holding all our important stuff when we snorkeled in Barbados

And me and my purse at the Brimstone Hill fortress in St. Kitts.

My purse and I are very happy now.  I think I may have to switch out the straps some day, but it is my favorite bag for vacations!  I hope you all have a purse that you know and love, and if you accidentally don't love it for a little while, I hope that you know how to make your own copy!