Hey all! I am going to forgo the Wednesday Link Parties for now and try out something new that helps feature some of you cool and rad bloggers out there.

So each week, I will be featuring some of my favorite blog posts/projects/etc., right here that I found floating around in blog land.

It will be an homage to those that I feature and will be a great way for me to journal all those cool posts that I find each and every week.

Sound good? Ok!

First, I shall call my weekly finds the TRS Weekly Blog Shout-Out!

Like my picture? Oh, I crack me up! LOL!

So,Let’s get started.

This week I have found some cool cool stuff.

First, I want to give a shout-out to Rachael from LOTS. She took my Home State Wall Art post as inspiration and created a map of where she grew up– the UK! She also added some cute land markers using buttons, which I find absolutely adorable by the way. Great job, Rachael!

Speaking of inspiration and people named Rachel, check out my best friend’s Duct Tape Belt post over at Bubbly Nature Creations! This Rachel inspired me to via her Duct Tape post to make my Duck Tape Storage Boxes. And for that, I thank her with this shout-out!

And last, but not least, my final shout-out for this week goes to Tonia from The Gunny Sack for her Spinach & Penne Salad recipe. Oh my word, it looks so delish! I cannot wait to try this recipe and dig in! Thanks for sharing this recipe with us, Tonia!

Feel free to check out this week’s shout-out blogs and show them some love with a comment or by following them!

And, if you’ve been featured on my Weekly Blog Shout-Out, feel free to grab one of my buttons in the sidebar ———->.

If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, be sure to click on the social media buttons found in my blog header at the top of this page to follow me as well! These are all great ways to keep in touch with me.

Hope you all have a fabulous week!

We recently rearranged our office so I can  have a space for my sewing/crafting  projects. Once I got everything organized I realized that I did not have much storage for my supplies!

I certainly didn’t have the money to spend a ton on fancy storage, so I came up with something cheap and fun to store my supplies in. Plus, I saved some trash from going to the curb, so I say it’s a win/win situation for all!

May I introduce you to my cute Duck Tape Storage Boxes?

These were so fun to make, in fact, I would love to put Duck Tape on everything. The furniture, the dog, the baby…

Ok, so I kid. But it was a blast to make these storage boxes and oh so frugally cheap.

And if you know me, you know I love frugal things. Go me!

Let me show you how I made these. They were so simple, I am sure you won’t even need this tutorial to make them yourself. But being the detail-oriented and visual person I am, I had to share step-by-step how I made these, so hopefully they help you too.

So, let’s begin!

First, grab a cardboard box and cut the flaps off the top of the box. I just used a pair of scissors. Also, make sure the bottom is secured and that nothing will fall out.

Then, grab the Duck Tape of your preference and taste. I wanted to do a two-toned storage box to give it a little personality, so I picked up these two coordinating rolls in the office section at Walmart.

Make sure you have a pair of sharp scissors on hand as well.

Determine which side of the box will be considered the front and start your tape on the side of the “front” at the very bottom (If you’re not sure what I am talking about, check out where the blue tape is on the front of the boxes in the first picture of this post. That’s where you will begin and end each row).

Make sure you start your first row below the bottom of the box so you can fold the tape under. Feel free to cover the bottom if you would like, but I didn’t find it necessary.

Cover three sides of the box with the tape, smoothing as you go. There’s no need to cut the tape at the end of each side, keep the strip continuous until you finish each row. The tape will conform to each corner just fine.

When you’re ready to continue to the following rows, overlap each row just a little bit. This ensures there are no gaps and that no part of the box will show through.

When you reach your last row of tape at the top, make sure you have some tape sticking over the top of the box (This will be just like how you started the bottom row).

It’s all about the visual appeal, peeps.

Snip each “corner” of your tape with your scissors.

Then fold each piece down inside the box. Smooth out any wrinkles or air bubbles.

If you’re using a complementary tape for the front of your box like I did, I found it easiest to apply the Duck Tape from top to bottom instead of side to side. If you do it like this, make sure you leave extra tape for the top and bottom of the box.

Overlap each piece of tape on the front. I left a blue “border” on the sides of the front of my box to give it some extra pizzazz. Like it?

After I finished taping my boxes, I thought it would be cool to make labels for the front of my box, so I made labels using some of the blue tape.

Take a piece of Duck Tape and cut if off at your desired length. If you want a decorative-looking border, hold the end in your hand and snip out the design with your scissors. Or, if you have an X-acto knife, you can tape it to a cutting board and cut out a cute design that way. Don’t worry. The tape will come off the cutting board and adhere to your box if you do it this way.

I didn’t do any fancy stuff, I just did a simple snipping of the corners, taped it on on the box and labeled it with a Sharpie. Super Easy!

And you know what else I realized? You can just remove your Duck Tape label and replace it with another one if you want to swap out your supplies. Genius!

I really love how these turned out. They are simple and super, super cute. I can’t wait to use my Duck Tape for other upcoming projects.

I would love to see your Duck Tape projects. Share them in the comments below!

I am so thrilled to show you this week’s featured project, I can hardly contain myself! When I saw the following Scrap Map Tutorial from See Kate Sew, it was love at first sight. It’s just so unique and adorable that I couldn’t help but draw inspiration from it!

So, here’s my adaptation. You ready for it? Ok, here it comes!

Isn’t this just presh?

In my usual lazy girl fashion, this cute wall decor was super easy to make. It only took me about 15 minutes to whip this out from start to finish, and I want to show you how to make your very own!

Since I live in the wonderful state of Oklahoma, I decided to create my wall art using this fabulous mid-western state as inspiration. I found an outline of Oklahoma at free-printable-maps.com to use as a pattern for my fabric. You can head over to the website to print out one for your state too!

Once your print and cut out your state, gather the following supplies (along with your sewing machine) and go to work!

• An 8″x10″ picture frame
• Muslin (I purchased a yard from the store, but it was WAY more than I needed)
• Your choice of fabric for your state (I purchased a 1/2 yard of Oklahoma University-colored fabric and a fat quarter of Oklahoma State University-colored fabric. Again, this was way more than I needed)
• Heat ‘n Bond (the purple package, not the red)
• Thread of any color

Take your muslin, iron out any creases or wrinkles, and cut out an 8″x10″ piece. My frame had a piece of 8″x10″ matting in it, so I took that and traced the piece I needed with a pencil and cut it out with fabric scissors.

Once the muslin is cut , put it in your picture frame to make sure it fits.

Then, iron your state-inspired fabric and sit your state pattern on the fabric. Cut around the state in a rectangle, then take that piece of fabric and cut out the same size piece of your Heat ‘n Bond.

Turn your iron on to the wool setting with steam and let it heat up.

While you’re waiting, take the rough side of your Heat ‘n Bond piece and place that on the back or “wrong side” of your fabric.

Place a piece of cloth over your fabric and rest your iron on top of your that for 10-15 seconds to adhere your Heat ‘n Bond to your fabric.

Take your state pattern, pin it to your fused fabric and cut out your state’s shape.

I had some extra fused fabric left over so I made a few little extras for my wall art.

Pin your state and any extras to the center of your muslin and do a top stitch all the way around.

I like to drop my needle into the fabric where I am beginning before I put the foot down. That way I know exactly where I am starting.

See, so easy!

Next time I think I will fuse some Heat ‘n Bond to my muslin before I sew my state on. When I put it in the frame and put the back of the frame on, there were a lot of wrinkles in the muslin, as you can see in the above picture. I think having the Heat ‘n Bond fused to the muslin will give it an extra stiffness in the frame.

Overall, I think it turned out super adorable! I plan on giving one to my sister-in-law who is a diehard OSU fan and the other one to a close family friend who is a diehard OU fan. I sure hope they’ll like it!

Try this out for yourself and let me know what you think!

And, don’t forget to link up your projects for a chance to be featured on Monday! Head over to my {What is it?} Wednesday post to do that and grab a button in the sidebar while you’re at it!

Have a GREAT weekend!

The other day, I showed you all how to make super easy ruffles using your sewing machine’s tension and stitch length.

Today, I want to show you a super cute way to use those awesome machine-made ruffles.

Make cute hair bows!

Yep, you can make your own ruffle hair bows. And it is SO SO easy. Trust me.

Your first step is to make your ruffles. You can find those instructions in my Machine-Made Ruffles post.

Once you have your ruffles made, take one and roll it up.

That’s right, just roll it up into a big circle. It will kind of look like a cinnamon roll. Yum.

Then, take a piece of ribbon or string and tie it around the middle of your cinnamon ro…. ruffle and tie it tightly.

Take a hair clip or bobby pin and straddle the string or ribbon. Then, clip it to some hair or a headband and you’re good to go!

See, it looks great on any person of any size.. A D O R A B L E!

Why don’t you give it a try for yourself? I would love to see your version of this type of hair bow. Please show me what you’ve come up with in the comment section below!

In one of my first posts, I mentioned that I had a love/hate relationship with making ruffles. I do. I really really do. When I discovered how to make ruffles the easy way on Pinterest, I was set. I knew I could handle making ruffles. No problem!

So I set out and this is what I came up with. I took some old maternity shirts, cut them up and went to town.

This is how I did it.

First, I set my machine properly to make the ruffles.

Wait.. I lie.

I looked at the machine’s manual online and figured out what dials I needed to adjust to properly make the ruffles. If you don’t have your manual on hand, head over to ManualsOnline.com and search for the make and model of your sewing machine. Chances are you can find the manual you need- no problem!

After I figured out what dials did what, I set my tension dial to the highest number and the stitch length to the widest stitch possible. Here’s a little diagram of my machine and what I did to get it ready.

Then, I fed my strips of fabric into the machine and away I went!

It should automatically ruffle just like this once you feed it through. Magic!

Here’s the first pass through. Doesn’t look pretty? Feel free to use thread that matches your fabric. I was too lazy to do that.

Once I got through with the first run, I took my rotary cutter, eyeballed how wide I wanted my ruffles, and ran the cutter right down the fabric. Then I took the excess fabric and ran it through the machine again to make another ruffle.

I would highly recommend you have a cutting mat underneath your rotary cutter when you do this. My poor craft table is all cut up now. Whoops!

You can also just make a bunch of ruffles all at once and cut in between the stitches after you’re done. I do not prefer this method because it gives me less freedom to make the ruffles as wide or as narrow as I wanted.

It just was weird to me. But it’s an option nonetheless.

Here’s my awesome pile of ruffles. Mama’s proud!

Now on to sewing them to something else.

If you want to sew them to another piece of fabric, just sew along the stitch made when you were ruffling.

Is ruffling even a word?

If you can’t get your stitches to line up, just sew your ruffle on to your fabric and seam rip out the “older” stitch. That should work just fine.

And there you have it. I actually made Big V and Little V’s dress and shirt that I sewed the ruffles onto. I was going to throw that into this tutorial but it was a complete and utter failure, so I decided to leave that out for now. Typical rookie flop.. LOL!

Did you notice the girls’ hair bows? I made those using the extra ruffles. Be looking for a tutorial on how to make those coming in the next day or two. I think they turned out super cute.

Let me know how your machine-ruffle-making goes. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Oh and I almost forgot- I want to give a HUGE shout-out to Rachel from Bubbly Nature Creations for linking up her Bunny baskets and Sarah from Hope in Every Season for linking up her yummy Lemon Muffin recipe last week! Much appreciated, ladies!. Thanks for participating in my little link party!

Linking up to:

Hey all! I hope you all had a fabulous Easter weekend. We had a great time with family celebrating the resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ! I just wanted to show you all some highlights of the weekend. Enjoy!

Friday: Big V was anxiously waiting to color her Easter eggs! She did a great job.

Not sure what she was looking at, but she looks like a deer in headlights! LOL!

Little V happily watched the others color their eggs. I just love this picture!

Saturday: We participated in our church’s Easter egg hunt right before the rain came in!

Even though big V skipped over 20 egg before picking up one, she had a great time nonetheless!

Here’s Big V and Little V with the Easter Bunny. So cute!

Sunday: We had a great church service, followed by a yummy Easter lunch with family and friends. Here’s Big V showing off her cute Easter attire!

Here’s Little V sporting her ADORABLE Easter dress. Can you tell I am a product of the late 80′s/early 90′s? I love the neon colors and so happy to see them coming back in style!

And here’s Little V talking to her cousin. She had a lot to say!

And here’s the entire family. We had a fabulous Easter and hope you did too!

I have some sad, sad, SAD news. My sewing machine BROKE! *Insert dramatic pause here*

I was working on my {What is it?} Wednesday post, when all the sudden, the thread got bound up in the bottom of the machine as i was sewing. *TEAR*

So I took my machine apart to see what happened. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could be Super Sewing Woman and fix it.

But no. I have no clue what’s wrong with it! Even my engineer-minded husband couldn’t figure out what was going on. Wah.

So….I thought since I had my machine in pieces anyway,  I would go ahead and make light of the situation by creating a post about cleaning your sewing machine since clearly, mine needed it.

Well, here it is. Here’s how I cleaned my sewing machine.

First, would you take a look at that?? My machine is growing fur!

I’m guessing that when thread runs through the eye of the needle and out of the bobbin, it rubs off little fibers and sticks to the inner-workings of the machine.

And, I can only guess a regular cleaning of your machine is a good thing and can only help keep it in tip top shape.
Almost like keeping the oil in your car changed. Yea.

So, I thought, I’ll use some of the hot air in my lungs and blow some of the fuzz out, since we all know I have a lot of hot air to go around.
It’s ok, I admit I’m a bit of a talker. Ok. Maybe a lot of a talker.

ANYway… Even though blowing on it helped a little bit, there was still a small cat living in my machine. So I took a piece of scrap fabric and gave some of the parts a good dusting.

Then I stole a pipe cleaner from my daughter’s craft stash (she’ll forgive me later), folded it in half
and used it to clean out the hard-to-reach places. That really seemed to help.

See, here’s little Fluffy..she’s come out to play. Ew.

What are the ways you clean your sewing machine? I didn’t want to use any chemicals in fear that I’d ruin the machine completely, so I am happy with my cleaning solution.

Oh and Pink Beauty is going to the Sewing Machine Hospital tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll get her back in tip top shape soon so I can finish my featured tutorial for you all.

Have a great Friday!

Hello, and welcome to a BRAND-SPANKIN’-NEW series called {What is it?} Wednesday!

Each and every week I will show you a snippet, a taste, a teaser of the big project I’ve been working on that current week. I would love for you to stop by each week and take a stab at guessing what my project is and then link up your projects too!

Then, on Monday, I will choose some of those links and feature them on my blog!

Sounds fun, right? I thought so too.

So, to kick off my new series, here is this week’s teaser for you to ponder:

These are some of my old maternity shirts. Since I think we are pretty much done having children, I thought I’d use them for this week’s featured project. What do you think I’ll be making with these?

I’ll let you in on a little secret: This project involves a sewing technique that I have a love/hate relationship with (If you look through some of my previous posts and read, you’ll discover what that is).

So, link up your recent projects below, grab my {What is it?} Wednesday button in the sidebar, and let me know in the comments below what you think I’m sewing up this week!

I’ll reveal my project on Friday and then come back on Monday, when you may just be my featured blog of the week!

Happy Crafting!