Life is Beautiful

Motherhood, Sewing, Family

graduation+babyshower

~ Etc.

my friend carol’s graduation
my newest obsession: fishtail braids
baby shower for rachel
gift favors i made for the guests.
to make the gift favors:
i downloaded the free templates here(there’s girl ones too!),
bought the baby applesauce jars at wal mart,
emptied,washed & dried them,
painted the lids with acrylic paint,
hot glued the templates onto the jars,
filled the jars with homemade hot fudge, recipe here
and tied it with a ribbon.
and with the applesauce i made applesauce cake, recipe here.

J.Crew lace stripe tissue tee

~ SEWING

to read my 3 reasons to start sewing, read here.
i’m a part the knock-off series over at kojodesigns for this tutorial for today. 
inspiration: J.Crew lace stripe tissue tee $58
in my closet I found this shirt from my last DIY
you’ll need: matching thread, 1.5-2 yards of lace(jo ann’s), pins or liquid stitch
1. lay the lace on the shirt to know the width and cut the lace in four pieces.
2. try the shirt on.  it always looks different when it’s worn than lying flat on a flat surface.
(for ex.: you sew the stripes on straight across only to try it on and find out it’s not due to your body stretching certain parts) 
then using pins or liquid stitch, put the lace in 4 horizontal stripes.
3. take the shirt off and sew it across.
after:
i saved over $55!

cream flower cardigan/shirt DIY

~ DIY DREAM HOUSE

i had this shirt in my closet.  it’s a very cute shirt but for some reason i’ve only worn it once, and i don’t know why!  so to make sure it gets better use, i took out the flowers and added it to other clothes.  plus, i needed a cream shirt for another DIY i’m doing. 😉
i cut out 4 flowers and added it to my plain black cardigan

and since we all know i don’t like to waste any scraps of fabric, i added the left over 2 flowers onto my girl’s white t-shirt.
she wasn’t quiet ready to take pictures
and she didn’t want to pose for the camera so i had to bribe her with chocolate.
and all of the sudden, BAM, she starts posing like crazy!
oh, the power of negotiation!
and i know i went overboard on posting pictures of my little girl
 but she’s just so cute. 

J.Crew girls’ petal necklace tee DIY

~ SEWING

my blog was ranked in the top 150 creative/DIY/inspiration/design blog list!
it was created based on visitors/pageviews/google ranking/blog subscribers
and i’m so surprised mine made it on the list.  thank you so much!

Inspiration: J.Crew girls’ petal necklace tee 32.50
bought this shirt on sale for $1
and using a grey silk top that i made this and this with,
i still had left over fabric to cut out 16 petals.
then i made the neckline of the shirt wider and then hand-sewed the petals
along the neckline.  i also added a white and grey rosette flowers on the side.
the after:
this project only cost me one dollar(well, + plus tax to be exact ;).
  I saved over $30!

p.s: this shirt is for my daughter, not for me.  I showed this to one of my
 friends who asked me if it was for me.  haha i’m not that small, a size 4T!

What you’ll need:
  • A plain top
  • Matching thread
  • Scissors
  • silk fabric 
  • tulle
Estimated time: 1 hour
Budget: $1
Skill level: beginner

jay is the MAN

~ Etc.

this week i want to showcase how talented my husband is. one of his favorite hobbies is to purchase old homes and renovate it himself.  he learned it from his talented dad who built his first home by reading a book when he was just in his early 20’s. yes you read that right, by reading a book on how to build a house! talk about a genius, right? and the house still stands strong today and someone else lives in it now. so jay helped his dad build their 3 houses in Hawaii when he was growing up so he can do pretty much anything; plumbing, electrical, you name it, he can do it.

so this is our house #1.  we used to live in this townehome until last fall and as you’ll see from the pictures it was really outdated.  to see a more detailed video of the before see here.

the backyard before:
 the kitchen before:
i helped a little too haha. but i was 4 months prego so i couldn’t help out much.
the after:
just omit the mess of the kitchen in the pics below. 😉
the wall by the entry door was shortened a lot so it’s more open
and look how little miss A was with her two teeth on top and bottom!
she was excited for the renovation too.
and jay’s friends/cousins/family came to help in the process too.  thanks guy!
we’ve now moved into another house because jay was getting the renovation itch again but my dad retired recently so my parents moved back to their house here from Korea(YAY!!!) a few weeks ago and jay graciously offered to renovate their whole house before he gets to ours. so i’ll have to post pictures of my parents’ home too when they’re all done!
the backyard before:
the after:

the fireplace before:
the after:
then he broke down the huge wall upstairs
and built a new wall/doorway facing the other way
so the bedroom would be connected to the bathroom(which it wasn’t before)
the bathroom before(after we painted the stripes):
the after:

(and the closet you see with the clothes hanging used to be the hallway.
but now it’s being used as the walk-in closet.)

i wish i could find more pictures of the before/after of this house,
especially the bathroom on the main floor, bummer.
but as you can see, he is amazing.  i’m so proud of him!