My beloved Nikon (which looks exactly like, but is not in fact, the one above) is BACK!!!!! And this puppy is most definitely qualifies as a T.T.I.L.
I was especially pleased that the lens repair was covered under warranty.
Look for much better pictures to come!
This little hole in one of my white camisoles has driven me bonkers for months now.
And it literally took me a minute to take these pictures, pin it, and sew it.
Will I ever learn how easy these fixes can be if I just pause and do them?!
Let's start with these. For Mother's Day my super-fab husband bought me the salt and pepper shakers that match our New Wave dishes.
I LOVE them!
And because I have them on the dining room table, I can now leave my other shakers on the stove within easy reach of any food I need to flavor.
But this caused another problem. The pepper mill was always dropping little black bits across the top of my white stove. Frustrating!
Thankfully -- I have a friend who is a ceramics wizard. Carrie made us this fabulous tray just for us.
The glaze is actually a lot more blue-green than it appears in these pictures and it works nicely with all the other blue in our kitchen and dining room.
Best of all, it works! No more continually cleaning up pepper for me! Thank you thank you thank you Carrie!
This week's Quick Fix Friday was performed with simple tape.
It's not much to report, but I finally taped up Rock's ripped books...
And restored them to read-ready status. So before you throw away your kids 'well-loved' stories, apply a little clear packing tape and give them a second chance!
Amazing how a little tape can take this and make it look like....
THIS! 
So I finally got the word from Simplicity and ASG regarding the Creativity Contest...
Oh well. I didn't get the big prize. But I'm okay with that. It was a major confidence boost to be selected as a finalist.
And I still LOVE this dress. I'm so glad I participated in this contest and can't wait to try again next year!
He really wanted more bowls to use in our kitchen. Specifically, he wanted glass bowls. We had all of three stainless silver bowls to use for kitchen mixing/prepping and it was just not enough. Although we found some glass bowls we liked at Crate and Barrel but they were a little pricey.
Enter BJ's. Oh how that store has enriched my life! We found the bowls pictured here, plus 6 others for only $19.99! AND, included in the box were (red!) plastic lids for 20 of the 26 bowls. Why they didn't include lids for all of the bowls, I do not know...
But man-o-man, I love these things! They make kitchen prep SO much easier and because they have such nice clean lines, I can use them as serving dishes too. They match everything. So, there you go. The first Thursday Thing I Love!
For Molly's third birthday, I made her the skirt above (and quickly took these two pictures of it at her birthday party in the park). I made it with two layers because of the inevitable see-through problem eyelet brings to the table.
Then I added this ribbon as trim. Bonus points to anyone who can tell me where it came from. And for the record, we also gave her a cute tank from Old Navy in the same light pink color on the ribbon but since I didn't make that, I didn't include it here.
Someone's pants were having a hard time staying 'zipped.' In actuality, there is no zipper on these pants, but for some reason, Old Navy wanted to give them an "XYZ PDQ"** feel.
When I purchased the pants I didn't think it would be a problem but when Rock wore them to church and no fewer than four individuals thought his zipper was down, I decided to do something about it.
After pinning the crotch seams together...
I carefully stitched directly over top of the stitches that were already there and closed up the problem seam.
Look closely and you can see my stitches. They go right up to the edge of the waistband -- so I can still unbutton it to squeeze the pants over Rock's diaper.
And here they are on the boy! I know, not such a great picture.
But someone was very upset with me for taking off his shorts and not putting on his galoshes. This made him a particularly poor model for the 'after' shot.
It was quite traumatic. But even without a good picture, you get the idea, right? They are much improved!
Rock's wardrobe is seriously lacking in the summer-appropriate-pajama-department. So I decided to sew him some pajama pants out of the same fabric that I used for his cousin Caleb's Christmas gift.
I used a pair of his pants to make the basic pattern and kept it simple with an elastic waistband. A sewing masterpiece they are not, but they will go a long way in keeping me from going into a what's-he-going-to-wear?-panic when bedtime rolls around.
He looks so old in this picture, doesn't he?
