Easter Dress

I made my first dress for Lula to wear for Easter.  I used this pattern.  Even though I had never made a dress before, it was really easy.  I had to have a little help with the zipper and bias tape, but other than that-no complaints! 

I used this fabric from the Anna Maria Horner's Good Folks line.  I love how it turned out!

Here is the model hersself!

You should definitely try this pattern if it's your first time making a dress. Super easy and cute!

More Fabric Cards

I made a new card the other day for my mom's birthday (Lolly is her grandma name if you are curious). 

 

I decided it would be cute to make letters this time around.  See my previous post of instructions on how to make a fabric card. This one is pretty much the same except you are cutting your fabric into letters and sewing them on.

Mega Swagbucks

I know I have mentioned in an earlier post about using Swagbucks.com instead of Google to do your searches. You can earn gift cards and it's totally legit! I just found out that Fridays are Mega Swabucks day which means you will get more bucks awarded and more often! I'm on my way to earning some money at Amazon.com!

Maternity Skirt

I was so excited to find this maternity skirt tutorial last week!  It looked so easy and I loved the fact that you don't need a pattern.  On our fabric shopping trip, my mom and I bought this cute Momo Wonderland fabric, and thought it would be perfect for a skirt.  I pretty much followed the tutorial exactly, except I did use an a-line skirt I already had as a template, but just made this one bigger.  I also like to wear my maternity clothes under my belly, so I did not make this skirt longer in the front like the tutorial suggests doing.  I also did make the waist a little too big, but I figure it will fit better once I'm really showing.  I have never made a skirt for myself before and I was still able to finish it in an evening!

Hooray for Headbands

I've made a ton of headbands using this free pattern from Heather Bailey.  However, I recently made two for a new baby friend and decided to change it up a bit.  I eliminated the ties and added felt embellishments! It's such an easy and cute baby gift! It literally takes 10 minutes to make one-anyone can do it!

Here is a picture of the other one I made. (Isn't that tree fabric the cutest??)

Kitchen Towel Pillow

I found this adorable kitchen towel and thought it would look great as a pillow in my living room! It was a super simple project that was very cheap!

Since the towel is an odd size, I made my own under pillow using muslin.  Then, I just folded the towel in half, stitched up two sides and put snapson the remaining side. I wanted to do this so that I could easily remove the outside of the pillow to wash. 

I sewed buttons over the snaps to make it look a little more finished.

The finished product! I think it looks great on my favorite vintage chair (yes that is the original upholstery from the 1960's).

Couponing

Lately I have been trying to be better at using coupons. I was a major "couponer" for a little while, but as life got busy, I got out of the habit. If you utilize coupons correctly, it can save you tons of money. It can be a little overwhelming at first, though. Here are some websites that I have found helpful:

www.moneysavingmom.com 

www.dealseekingmom.com 

www.afullcup.com

www.hotcouponworld.com 

I also have some tips on using coupons if you are interested:

Tip #1: You might be wondering "why go to the trouble of cutting coupons, if you can just buy the store brand for cheaper than a name brand even with a coupon"? Well, coupons are usually only a good deal if you combine them with a sale. So, you have to do a little research by looking up the deals of the week at your grocery store, Target, Walmart, etc and then find coupons that match up with those items that are on sale. The websites above usually match everything up for you, which saves lots of work!

Tip #2: Where do you find great coupons? My first resource is the newspaper. Buy a newspaper every Sunday, or even two. I buy one and my mom also gives me the coupons out of her newspaper, so I have two of every coupon. This is great when there are buy one, get one free deals. You can use coupons on items that are "free" at stores. 

Tip #3: Print coupons off online. www.coupons.com is a great place to start. Also, the websites I listed above will have online resources for coupons.

Tip #4: This is the most exciting one. Combine manufacturer coupons with store coupons. For instance: Target has coupons online that you can print off. You can also use a manufacturer coupons in addition to a target coupon. And then, if that item is on sale, you are in even more luck! So, if Target has a coupon for $.50 off bread, you have a manufacturer coupon for $.75 off bread and then that bread is on sale at Target for $1.50....you are getting some really really cheap bread. 

Tip #5: Shop at CVS. Again, the websites above can explain the beauty of CVS much better than I can, but if you take advantage of their extra care bucks program, you can get many items for free...or even more than free. It's pretty amazing, but it does take time and research.

Tip #6: Make a coupon binder. This helped me out tremendously while couponing. I have neglected my binder the past few months, but I am in the process of building it back up. For a little video tutorial on how to make your own coupon notebook, watch this . This is NOT ME by the way. I just found it on youtube. 

Tip #7: Don't buy something just because you have a coupon for it. I noticed that I started buying stuff that I never usually eat just because it was really cheap with a coupon. In doing this, I was filling our fridge and pantry with junky food that is not good. It's not worth eating poorly even if it's cheap. Even though the poptarts might be free with coupons, it's still not a smart idea to buy a ton of them and eat them. 

Tip #8: This might sound like it contradicts tip #7, but when cutting coupons, cut out almost all of them, even if it's something you have never eaten or used before.  A good rule of thumb is, if it was free, would you use/eat it? If so, cut out the coupon! There have been many times where a facial wash is on sale or even free at CVS with coupons, but I never clipped the coupons because I thought I'd never buy it. Now, like I said earlier, don't go buying tons of junky food just because it's free. :)

Hopefully those tips helped! I am excited to go grocery shopping next week to see how much I will save with coupons!