well, we are one week into the new year, and it has been a good one! school started back up, which was exciting and hectic. i bought my new calendar, which i have already been filling up. it took me many years to find the perfect calendar, but i am happy to say i have consistently used the same type for the past three years. i love the jumbo ones that can lay flat with the month at a glance and the large spaces for each day. i write down everything it. everything from what's for dinner to what i am teaching. i love having everything in one place. i know myself too well that if i had more than one thing to keep up with, i would lose something - if not my mind.
currently, we are in the lovely process of moving, so tyler spends most of his days making package material out of shredded papers. pretty creative and "green", i think.
with packing comes pruning. i already have three boxes filled with stuff to sell at our next yard sale or give to goodwill. it amazes me how much stuff two people can accumulate in such little time. during this process, i found some old jeans that i decided to make into shorts! here are the before and after:
it was really easy. all i did was try on the jeans and mark with a sharpie where i wanted to cut them. now i wanted to cut them a little long so that i could cuff them. after marking the jeans, i folded the jeans and began to cut. fabric scissors work the best, because jeans are so thick. now, i just need to sew the cuff in place, and ta-da! i've gained new shorts.
now with the gaining of new shorts came a loss. this week i also washed my gloves because they were disgusting and had been all over the place lately. i set them out on our balcony to dry and the next day this is all that was left:
one lonely glove. i searched below, but nothing. i am hoping that a little birdie snatched it up to keep their nest warm. sad day, because this was my only pair. sorry left hand, but you are just going to be cold this week.
in other craft news, chane' and i made these cute little photo frames on saturday. chane' got the idea from this
blog. luckily my friend is a power tool woman and know how to use a saw. it was a really fun and easy project. i will post pictures of the final project another day. i still have to find the perfect picture for it :)
two words: wood. glue.
i will back soon with more thoughts on the near year. dinner beckons.
the day has finally arrived! my dear friend chane', over at what the hart likes has been featured on the long adored no big dill blog!!! go to this post to see chane's etsy shop items on the dill blog. then, buy a cookbook and enter to win one of chane's adorable dish towels. and if you don't win, you can just go to her etsy shop :)
last week our small group got together and got our craft on to help out a wonderful organization called sole hope. our friends, the stevens, were actually in a small group with the woman who started sole hope, back when they lived in asheville, north carolina. sole hope is a non-profit organization out of asheville that brings hope to widows and orphans in africa, by providing them shoes and teaching the women the trade of shoe making. shoes sound so simple and unimportant, but a lot of diseases enter the body through the feet. watch this video if you want to know more of sole hope's inspiration. the video is very graphic, but important, in order to realize the impact companies like sole hope and tom's shoes can have.
we traced the shoe design on donated fabric samples, cut them out, and bagged them according to size. very simple and very fun! here is an action shot of the process:
such a wonderful experience to be a part of. with each pattern we cut out, some woman in africa is now going to assemble the pieces and create a pair of shoes that will protect someone from getting foot infections. so exciting! thank you stevens for introducing us to this wonderful organization!
exciting news! i ordered a stamp of my photography business logo and it arrived this weekend! i am currently working on creating little cd sleeves out of paper to package my customer's disks. i am in desperate need of a singer, though! i sewed this one by hand, which was not efficient nor did it produce the look i am going for. i am loving the stamp so much, though. all i want to do is stamp everything! it would make a great tramp stamp. too far? okay, moving on.
besides seeing the civil wars in concert {which we can't stop talking about!}, we also ventured to angels antiques to do some perusing during the afternoon thunderstorms. we discovered that we both had this interest of antiques and historical pieces when we were dating and it has been so much fun to begin decorating our home with things that we have found together. we even created a long list of antiques that we want to purchase one day. one of those is an old underwood typewriter that still works. we are what i like to call "pre-shopping" for the future, so one day when we have our own place to display things and are not living in transition and have a little more mulah saved up, we will be ready to buy! 
at church this sunday the mwangaza children choir from africa renewal ministries in uganda came and performed a concert. they were amazing and so precious! cornerstone church has partnered with a church in buluba, uganda over the past few years to build a water well, a church, and to help sponsor children to go to school. it was so moving to see the children in person and to hear them sing!
all you need is a hot glue gun, some buttons, and some bobbie pins!
just slide on the button all the way to the end and add a blob of hot glue to hold the button in place. i know, so technical!
ta-da! the finish product. cost about $1.50 and took about 5 minutes. my kind of craft!
we also did some crafts and made a flag banner and a little birdie banner! so cute, so cute.
after a few failed attempts at drawing the perfect little birdie, i luckily found this template from a fellow blogger:
one lonely glove. i searched below, but nothing. i am hoping that a little birdie snatched it up to keep their nest warm. sad day, because this was my only pair. sorry left hand, but you are just going to be cold this week.
