Todays project.

After the kids went to bed I got bored. So I went on Pinterest... and the next thing you know I am painting. Good grief.

Channelling my inner Chere.

My mom makes fantastic Cabbage Rolls. But only once, maybe twice a year. And my husband loves them, so I thought I should take a stab at it. It was a two day process (I prepped the cabbage on day one with a little technique my mom uses, boil & freeze) but totally worth the work. My house smelled like cabbage, which might be a turn off for some people, but it reminded me of my Grandma Hopaluk. Anyway, I'm happy I made them, but I think the Lazy Mans Cabbage Roll is the way to go for us for now, we'll leave the real Cabbage Rolls to my mom.

A Terrible Not Really Tutorial

Here's a link to what I wanted my Alphabet Bean Bags to look like:

http://pinterest.com/pin/40602834111929065/

Now keep those pretty little bean bags in mind... 

I have to first start out by saying that this was almost a PINSTROSITY for me. Almost.

I started hand cutting the fabric letters from a pile of scraps one night while scrapbooking with friends. My scrapbook mojo is MIA so I thought I could fall back on sewing, not so. The letters are uneven and even illegible sometimes. Irregardless, I carried on.

I backed each fabric Pinstrosity with Pellon (an iron-on fabric adhesive), believe it or not I had a roll of this sitting around my house (one benefit to being a hoarder!).

I ironed the letters onto 5" muslin squares. I also cut 26 fabric squares from scraps. I did this at about 11pm and let me tell you, about 5% of them were straight.  

This tiny little stack of fabric is all I had to show from about 8 hours of work (4 to cut the letters & squares, another 4 to back them & press them to set). By this time it was Day 2 and 112 pm once again. But Brian was deep into a marathon of the Good Guys (a cute little cop show starring Colin Hanks. I love Colin Hanks. He is like a cute little miniature version of his dad. It must be frustrating for him to look, sound like & have the same mannerisms as him... but I love it. Anyway, it's s cute show, starring an almost Tom Hanks.) so I decided to finish the project.

And just so you know, rice is deceiving. And a 13kg bag is much too much. You could grab a 2.5 kg bag for 26 bean bags. I don't really know what I was thinking, but if anyone wants to come over for Pad Thai, I will be serving it for dinner for the next 55 nights. 

I sewed the bags on three sides, scooped in the rice (about 1.5 cups each) and then sewed the fourth side. To save time a friend suggested I cut the edges with pinking shears rather than turn the bags inside out & try to hide the hole. She is clearly a genius. And also must have known I would be up at 12:30am sewing them shut. 

I finished at about 1am. That's not really late for me (I usually go to bed around 2. It's 12:30 right now & I'm nowhere near ready). Much like my mom I operate on about 5-6 hours of sleep... until August when I sleep for 10 hours a night while at the cabin & catch up for the year (total true. totally unhealthy.). I was happy to be done (the OCD part of me could finally rest) and although they were time consuming, they were actually pretty cheap. I used scraps (about $4 worth) and rice (another $4). I think the Pellon is fairly cheap too. 

My finished project. Not quite a Pinstrosity, but not nearly as cute as the picture I pinned. 

The kids love them. We have a couple different games we invented. Miles likes it when I yell out a letter & then we gets to throw it across the room aiming for a bucket. He knows about half the letters, I imagine he'll have nailed the other half very soon.

A One-Woman Pinterest Machine

I'm tackling Pinterest projects left, right & centre. I am going a bit stir crazy. This always happens to me in the first couple weeks of winter weather. It will wear off & I will be back to being a non-super hero mom. But for now, I am giving Martha a run for her money (well, unless I lose points for the neglected housework, sweatpant fashion statement & matted hair).

So happy with the way these Scrap Monsters turned out. Oh, except that molly hates hers, she threw it out of her bed & then later stuffed it under the crib. It's still there. Poor little unappreciated guy.