Insta-Friday. The Day I Found Charm City Charming.

As a friend of mine's sister once said, standing at the edge of the harbor, "Don't you just feel like you're living in a movie?" Well, yesterday, I did. Unheard for February weather. Sunny and warm. Visit from my sister that I don't get to see often enough. Baltimore showed us her best and most charming side. Like everyone, she has her moments. "Charm City." I get it.

Linked to: Life Rearranged, InstaFriday.

Presidents, Failures, Cleaning and Instagram Projects

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Happy President's Day! I was watching CBS Sunday Morning yesterday and was confused at first. Is it just me, or are there sure a lot of stories about presidents this morning? Then it occurred to me. Duh, it's President's Day weekend. Not a morning person.

I had a project all ready to post today. But it failed on me twice. Yes, twice. What I would have thought as a simple craft went horribly wrong. It involved what I would have hoped to be my spring/summer tote. The perfect one found at Hobby Lobby. Nice and big. With pockets! I searched many, many hours for the perfect artwork on-line to turn into a heat transfer to decorate it. Everything was going fine until the actual transfer part. It went really poorly twice. On two separate bags. (Luckily, they were only $4.99 a piece.) Sad. I'm using the really bad one for storage in my closet. I'm still trying to decide if the 2nd one could pass for looking "distressed." Not the look I was going for. So, no fun project to post today. I do have one more transfer left. All printed, cut out and ready to go. I am considering buying a plain white tshirt to apply it to. But have a major bad taste in my mouth about the whole idea now. Perhaps another day.

What else have I been doing on during this super-sized weekend? I have been cleaning and organizing. Not exactly fun, but very fulfilling. I have a major sense of accomplishment. I have two visitors coming this week. (Yay!) And there is nothing like the threat of visitors to make you clean up your act. And your bedroom for that matter. You see, I have a dirty little secret. My kitchen and bathroom-I manage to keep clean. The rest of the place, it's hard. I read a lot (books and magazines) and work on projects (aka crafts) a lot. I also have a lot of clothing and not enough storage. Not complaining, by any means, but this can lead to a whole lot of clutter. I am happy to report, that it has significantly been reduced! I also made a huge trip to goodwill this weekend. Does anything feel better than a good purge?

Since I am still sad about not having a project to share, I thought I would share something I learned. Because that I what I love most about blogs and blogging, all of the cool stuff you can learn. I love Instagram. If you aren't familiar, Instagram is an app that you can use to turn regular, everyday pictures that you take with your iphone to turn into something really beautiful or interesting. It has all of these cool filters that you can apply to your pictures. And then you can share your pictures, through facebook, through Instagram, etc. I love it! Here's the new stuff I learned. You can use your instagram pictures and make them into stuff! I just read about this on eighteen25. They wrote a great post about it here. I had no idea that you could print instagram pics, turn them into postcards, magnets, iphone cases. Check it out! (I can't figure out why part of my text is centered. Sorry! I am a terrible blogger. And blogger can be temperamental.) (P.P.S. Now that I did fix the text centered issue (I actually rewrote a little bit of the html!) I now am having issues with the text spacing. So I give. Clearly I have a lot to learn.)

Insta-Friday! Hometown Edition.

I don't participate in Insta-Friday as often as I'd like. Unfortunately, I'm usually shackled to my desk on Fridays. But my workload lightened ever so slightly today. Just enough to have time to go out to lunch! I headed with friend to the north side of the harbor (by water taxi) and we ended up in the Fell's Point neighborhood. We came upon The Agora Market, in the lobby of The Inn at the Black Olive. Such a fun really restaurant! Super friendly staff, very healthy, fresh food. I'm definitely going back. I forgot to take a picture of my lunch... a lamb gyro. They even baked the pita right there! Delicious! We ate lunch at the counter, there was this huge tray of black walnuts. Also at the counter was this huge amaryllis bloom. I got a nice close shot.

There is a huge statue of Frederick Douglass's head right on the dock near the water taxi stop. Here's a little history for you. It happens to be the sight of the first black owned shipyard in the US. One final shot before I boarded the water taxi and headed back to work. A shot of the industrial side of Baltimore. It is alive and well.

I've linked up to: Life Rearranged. Insta-Fridays.

Valentine's Day T-Shirts for Boys??

Here's something you may not know about me. I am an excellent researcher. It's really not that hard, now that we have the internet. But it does take a little tenacity. This usually leads me to finding anything I could ever want shopping on line. It may take a while, but I can usually stumble upon it. Although, I have a stumper for you. Where can you find a Valentine's Day t-shirt for a 5 year old boy? You see, I typically send my nephew and nieces presents, especially if there is a holiday, such as Valentine's Day. I purchased the nieces little themed t-shirts at the GAP outlet last night (even found two of the same, in the same size! They are twins and you wouldn't believe how difficult it can be to find two of the same items of clothing in an actual brick and mortar store.) My nephew is 5 years old and wears a youth size small. Apparently, when you get out of the toddler sizes and you are a boy, then you don't get to be cute any more. Sad. He's still so little. There are no Valentine's themed shirts readily available over size 5T. And while he is very into fairness (and who isn't) I knew I had to remedy the problem. Good thing I can be crafty! I went shopping this afternoon, not sure what I was going to do, feeling a little desperate. My initial thought was to buy a t-shirt with a simple design (say a dog) and applique a heart somewhere on it. I headed to Target and found something I thought would work, but didn't love it. I headed to Joann's, hoping to find some inspiration. Wandering up and down the aisles, I came across the t-shirt iron on decor area. Then I spotted the Iron On Transfer printer paper. That along with a plain white t and I could design him his own holiday themed shirt. I created the design using Picnik, which is free and easy to use. But I won't go on too much about it, since it has been purchased by Google and will only be available through April. Use it while you can. To create artwork without a photo (it's intended for photo editing), go to the create a collage tab. From there you can add text and clip art. Don't forget to flip it to a reverse image before you print. I then printed the design on the iron on transfer paper. And now my nephew won't be sad for being left out of holiday themed tshirts! If interested, the artwork I created can be found below. You should be able to copy and paste it onto your desktop and print it from there. If that doesn't work, feel free to leave me a comment and I'll be happy to email it to you!

Doodle Mugs

I went overboard when I bought mugs for the monogram mug project. I really only needed one mug and I bought...four. When you're shopping at a thrift store and items are less than $1, it's easy to do. But those leftover plain white mugs were mocking me, just waiting have something done with them. While I am good at quite a few things, drawing is not one of them! Never has been. But then I came across this tutorial from an unlikely place, the Ladies' Home Journal website. I was nervous about the free hand drawing, but knew that the paint could be removed before it was heat set in the oven (I used a simple paint pen from the craft store). So, inspired by the tutorial, I tried a few free hand drawings on cardboard before I put pen to mug. I love the way they turned out! Although, I do have one little problem. Since Christmas, my mug population has risen quickly. I received 4 for Christmas, not counting the monogram mug I made myself. And I have very limited cabinet space. It may be time to thin the herd. And time to find a home for these two little puppies.

Layering Helps.

It's cold. In my office too. We are housed in an old P&G plant. Converted to friendly office spaces, of course, but not built originally for office space. With lots of windows, that don't insulate us much from the cold. So here's how my little hand manages to stay warm while hard at work. Fingerless gloves. The rest of me wears lots of layers. I recently made this infinity scarf just from some knit fabric purchased at Joann's (sooo cool for them, not their usual inventory angle). It's a layered burn out knit. I followed the basic instructions found here on Maya Made. This is an incredibly simple and quick project. Can also be made from wovens. And keeping me warm!

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation...

Whew! The holidays are over. And it's 2012!! (Who doesn't like a new beginning??) I always enjoy the holidays. And I'm always happy when they are over. (Isn't everyone, or is that just me?) It's winter now. Ugh. Cold. I don't like the winter. I'm a summer girl. I write this from my couch, wearing new flannel pjs (major bargain, 75% off at Old Navy this weekend!!), a sweater "coat" and house slippers, beneath two fuzzy blankets and sipping hot tea. Drafty, in here. (So that no one feels too sorry for me, my bedroom is nice and toasty. It's just the striking yet poorly insulated 8 foot windows in my living room that are the culprit.) At least it's only for a few months, right?

I just returned from visiting my sister and the three most adorable children that ever set foot on this earth. I know you'd like to see some pictures of them, right? I regret that I didn't dig out my real camera. These grainy, slightly out of focus pictures were all taken with my iPhone. Some turned out well, some are grainy and out of focus. But the memories are there. That's what counts, right? So, here they are, along with a short recap of how we spent our Christmas vacation.

We left cookies for Santa.

We bundled up. (This takes a while with three children.)

We gave lots of hugs.

We discussed Walter, at great length. (The real Walter is Nana's pug. Who Brooke is slightly obsessed with. The idea of Walter at least. Any dog she sees, she points to and says, "It's a Walter!" She also likes to incorporate his name in song. For instance, "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Walter. Every where you go, Walter." Adorable and hysterical.)

We spent time together.

We made many poor attempts at taking posed pictures of three children.

We dressed up.

And played.

And rested.

And opened many, many, MANY presents.