Bittersweet Mothers Day

May I be honest, friends?  I don't say much about my personal life on this blog.  There's a good reason for it.  Mostly, I want to keep my private life private.  It's for the special few who earn the right to know about my deepest hurts, fears, and desires because I know they will take special care of those things.  But I've been thinking a lot over the past few months about whether or not to share this one really important thing with all of you. I've decided to share because it's an opportunity for me to process how I feel at this time and because I hope it will bless somebody.

This Mothers Day is hard for me.  You see, this was supposed to be my very first Mothers Day as a mother.  I had the privilege of growing a baby inside of me for just a few weeks last summer.  The day I found out I was pregnant was literally the most joyous day of my life.  I can't ever remember feeling so happy.  It had been four years that my husband and I had been hoping for a baby, and all our heartache was over.  Everyone around us was completely ecstatic, too.  They all knew what a struggle we'd been through.  For the next few weeks we totally embraced parenthood.  We prayed and made plans and talked about names.  We just knew this was our promised child.

Well, things didn't turn out as we'd hoped and after just 8 weeks of pregnancy, we learned that the pregnancy was ectopic (tubal) and was not going to survive.  Needless to say, we were absolutely devastated.  I won't go over every detail.  Just know that it's the details of that time that bring the most pain.

Many days after were extremely difficult.  It was probably more than four or five months before I could go even a day without thinking about it.  There have been some days that were especially hard.

Christmas was tough for many reasons last year, but not the least of which was the fact that I'd expected to be very pregnant at that point.
 My due date came and went.  No baby.
Now Mothers Day is here and I'm incredibly aware that I am surrounded by mothers.  Good mothers too.  Mothers who I love and whose children I love.  But it's all bittersweet.

I don't know why my baby died.  I don't know why, of all my married friends, I'm the last one left without a child here on earth.  But here's what I do know:

- I do have a baby and he is waiting for me in Heaven.  I so look forward to meeting him.

- I am a mother.  Even before I was pregnant, God had created a mother's heart in me.  I was created to nurture life, and I believe I do that in many areas of my day-to-day.

- I will have children here on earth.  Through intimate moments with God, miraculous dreams of those close to me, and God's Word, I've become absolutely certain God will bless us with children.
- I have an beautiful mother who I'm so, so thankful for.  Today, more than my sorrow, I am joyful because I have her.

Thank you for allowing me to share and thank you for taking care with my heart.  I look forward to the day I can write here to announce the arrival of a precious, new baby.

Flower Power

It's a really lame title, but titles are tough.

So I got this beautiful dress a couple of weeks ago for $3.00 at a thrift store.  It was actually during the same trip where I had foil on my head.

It's a little bit Blossom.  Imagine me wearing a denim hat with a big, fake daisy on the front.  Pretty sweet, right?

I started by removing the sleeves.

Then I hemmed the raw edge and took in the sides a little bit.  That actually didn't create as much shaped as I thought so I created a couple of darts in the front, as well.

After I was done with all the bodice work, I cut almost a foot off the bottom.  I was tired at this point, and because this fabric doesn't fray, I just left the edge raw.  I may hem it later so it doesn't start to curl up, but for now it's fine.

Now the dress is way fun!  It makes me do lots of dance-y poses.

In the last picture I was falling forward, but I think it's a good shot of the dress, so I decided to let you see.

I also get really excited when I can wear those mint colored shoes. 

I wore my new dress on Saturday for a little BBQ with friends.  It was perfect for the 100 degree weather we had that day, which came after the previous weekend when it was in the 50s and hailing.  So strange.

Almost forgot!

My blog was featured over at Green Issues by Agy.  

Check it out!

Potato Sack Pillow

You all know burlap is kind of a big deal right now.  People are putting burlap on everything.  Which is totally cool with me; I like burlap.  It's so earthy and full of texture.  

While I was shopping at my favorite produce stand a few weeks ago, I spotted some burlap up on a shelf.  It turned out there was a pile of potato sacks for sale.  Score!  Cheap burlap with added print and color.

I bought one sack for $2.99.  When I got home a threw my burlap on the floor of my craft room/sewing room/ office and totally forgot about it.  Then one day a naked pillow form was staring me in the face, begging to be covered.  So, I obliged.

I folded the potato sack in half before I started stitching.  That way the pillow cover is double-layered and you can't see any of the white pillow form.  

I didn't use the sewing machine at all.  I pushed the pillow down into the bottom corner of the potato sack so that half the stitching was already done.  Then I cut around the excess material, folded over the edges, and used hemp to stitch it all together.

You can see in the back it's a little ragged.  I already know of a couple of things I'd like to do differently next time, but this one turned out nicely, in my opinion.

It's a perfect compliment to my favorite chair.

So, if you like burlap and/or you like contests, check out these two sites where you can buy or win some burlap.

http://www.adventuresindressmaking.com/2012/04/burlap-fabric-contest-giveaway.html

burlapfabric.com 

Another blue muu muu

I got this dress yesterday at a thrift store half-price sale (one of my favorite things).  It cost $3.  It also cost me a little dignity.  I was getting my hair done at the salon next door and it just so happens that my hair dresser is one of my closest friends.  Somehow she convinced me to go to the thrift store while my color was processing.  This means I was walking around with foil in my hair and a plastic bag over my head.  Oh yeah, and a towel around my shoulders. I'm going to go ahead and say the strange looks I received were worth what I got with this little number.  Look at the pretty colors!

No, I did not gain 50 lbs. since the last time you saw me.  The dress just managed to have that super poofy effect that many muu muus were designed for.  I'm pretty sure the creator of muu muus didn't want anyone to know that the wearer bears any sort of female figure.

The colors drew me in but the details sold me.  

To give this dress the shape it needed I had to make a few more adjustments than I expected.  I actually started with some serious pleats on the back of the dress.  You know, to get rid of some of that poof we were talking about.

I took in the sides quite a bit and took off a few inches of length.  I hemmed to skirt up to just below the detail at the bottom.  

This dress really just wouldn't work without a belt so I brought out an oldie but goodie.  If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you know this belt well.  It just goes with everything!

Now that it's warming up, I can actually work on more of these cute little dresses.  Dresses really are my favorite.

You might notice in the pictures that the sleeves are gone.  I didn't remove them.  I just tucked them under.  That way I have options.

Boy do I love the detail on this dress.

Thanks for stopping by friends.  I hope you all are enjoying warmer weather as well!

Natural Things

Over the last couple of months I put a lot of thought and effort into living a more natural lifestyle.  I have lots and lots of reasons, not the least of which is that I want to be as healthy as possible.  In addition to fashion and home decor, I'll be posting some of the wonderful things I've done lately to make those changes.  I've made my own laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent.  I've "washed" my hair with baking soda and conditioned with apple cider vinegar.  I've made my own granola bars and other yummy, natural snacks.  I've gone almost full hippy, it seems!  I'm definitely still shaving my armpits though and you won't catch me smelling like patchouli any time soon.

Today I'd like to share with you this fabulous, natural body scrub I made last week.  

I found the recipe through Pinterest, which lead me to this blog. I'm using her picture here because mine is in my shower and is almost gone :).

Using 1 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of olive oil, 2 tsp. of lemon zest, and 1 tsp. of honey, I mixed it all together in a bowl and put the mixture in a jar.  Then I apply it gently to my skin during my shower and rinse it off.  This body scrub has lasted me about 1 week, so far, and still has about 2 showers left.

I'm not kidding, this is the softest my skin has ever been.  This may sound silly but I feel more beautiful.  I feel like I'm glowing after a shower!  Forget all that expensive beauty store nonsense.  This stuff is legit and I'm sure it's better for your skin. It also smells fantastic!

More to come soon.

Wall Art

My house has big walls.  I'm serious.  Really big walls.  We have high ceilings and long walls and I have a really hard time decorating because of it.  Now, I don't mean to complain.  I love our house and I'm thrilled that we live here.  It's just been tough over the past two years to get started on any given wall because I either have to hang one giant piece, or a bunch of little ones.

After picking up an awesome frame at The Goodwill for $6.00 I was inspired to create the following piece to help fill some wall space.

It's tough for you all to see the size of the piece in this picture because you have no frame of reference.  I'll just tell you, this is one of our small walls, and thank goodness, my new art almost fills the space.

The design was actually inspired by my Ikea coasters.

The frame came with a cardboard print in it, which I wasn't terribly fond of.  I used the cardboard and stretched brown burlap around it, securing the burlap with staples.  Then I cut pieces of fabric and glued them to the burlap.  I used a rotary cutter for the tree, which helped to keep the lines straight, and I used fabric glue to glue the pieces of fabric to the burlap.

I got the burlap in the remnants bin at JoAnn for less than $2.00 and all the fabric I used were scraps from previous projects.  This means I spent less than $8.00 for the entire piece.

Beside saving money, another thing that is so awesome about creating my own wall art, is that I can use whatever colors I want to accent the room.  This piece is hanging in my living room, which is mostly decorated in browns, oranges, and greens.  

I'm thrilled about how it turned out and have had numerous compliments.  So much fun.

So, if you like burlap and/or you like contests, check out these two sites where you can buy or win some burlap.

http://www.adventuresindressmaking.com/2012/04/burlap-fabric-contest-giveaway.html

burlapfabric.com