Week 1 Sew-A-Long

Well its November 1st and our first day of our Sew-A-long and I thought what better way to kick it off than to start sewing things up for my Sweet Princess. November 21st is her birthday and I am soooo behind on not only sewing for her party but also for all my Christmas presents.
So the guidelines for the sew-a-long this week.

November 1st -November 7th 2010

Sewing for Girls
FIRST OFF HAVE FUN SEWING, CRAFTING, EMBROIDERING

1. Pick a few patterns, or anything that you need to get done for your little princess in your life.
2. Next make sure you get your projects done by Friday each week.
3. Then link up to the Friday share-a-long and we will see what fun projects we have all be working on.
4. Make sure that you don't forget to GRAB THE BUTTON and link up and spread the word about our sew-a-long
5. On Friday during the Share-a-long make sure you comment on at 3 people behind linked behind you so that you can make friends in the process. Have fun enjoy and happy early holiday sewing to each of you.
   

   

Christmas Challenge and Giveaways

Well its November 1st and I'm kicking off the official start of the Holiday Season with a Sewing Challenge and Giveaways.

Sew I have been sitting here the past month trying to organize my craft room and get everything in order sew that I can get my craft on for the stack of holiday presents and projects that I need to get done. Sew who doesn't like a CHALLENGE, I would love to challenge all my followers to Follow along.

The Rules and Guidelines for the 6 week Sew-A-Long Challenge

1. Grab the Blog Button
2. Dust off your sewing machine, embroidery machine, glue gun, and craft supplies and get your craft on.
3. Each week will be a different theme, it will be posted on Sunday evening so that you can prepare for the upcoming week.
4. There will be a mclinky button on Monday to show off your weeks projects.
5. HAVE FUN

The guidelines and rules for the 12 giveaways of Christmas

So to make the sew-a-long fun an exciting I thought who doesn't like a great Giveaway and since we are trying to dust off our sewing rooms and get some pre-holiday projects done Why host an awesome Giveaway series as well. I have been trying to come up with a fun way to giveaway items for Christmas and since most of us are familiar with the 12 days of Christmas we here at Sew Happy Sew Crafty are going to take a our own spin off the traditional Christmas song and host the 12 giveaways of Christmas.

The first week Starts November 1st and runs thru to December 13th.

The guidelines and rules for each giveaway

1. The giveaways will run either Monday - Friday or Wednesday - Monday
2. You have to grab the blog button to participate
3. Each week there will be 2 giveaways, and each prize will go with The 12days of Christmas so I hope you enjoy sharing your pre-holiday sewing with SHSC.

DON'T FORGET HAVE FUN!!!!

Crystals Craft Spot Featured Me

I am sending a quick note to all of my blogging buddies out there if you get a free second. Stitch on over to Crystals Craft Spot She was so gracious as to right a feature on my wonderful blog. Thank you crystal for a wonderful spotlight. If you haven't had a chance to check out her blog take a quick minute put the remote down, maybe while kiddos are napping and stitch on over she has some awesome tutorials and great information out there for all your crafting needs.

Stressful Times = shut up and craft about it

So Its been a few weeks since I have been able to truly sit down and give my poor blog some love. School has started and life seems busier than normal I feel overwhelmed some days, stressed others but I thought I would share some of the things we have been up to here in the Bauer household. We have been baking (from scratch) something new for us trying to help out Monkeys tummy issues. We have been sewing, Scapbooking, crafting, getting our creative flare some love. I have had on many hats from mommy to wife to care taker and getting some things in order for monkey bugs medical which is a full time 365 day a week job most days, but being creative gets me to focus on something else. So this is what we have been doing. What have you been up to the last few weeks.

The goodbye gifts we made her Speech and Occupational Therapist C is starting school so she had to get new therapist as she no longer qualifies for Early Intervention. Such a bittersweet day. These are the collages that we put in them.

We Said goodbye to A wonderful Occupational Therapist she not only brought love and patience but she gave my little girl the strength to get thru the day. Goodbyes are never easy to do.

We made Cheesecake

Started School Bug started Special Ed Pre-k3 while Bubba started kindergarten

We made cream puffs as a yummo after school treat.

I made some custom dresses for a friend, The first one is turkeys with reverse to snowman and the other one is Virginia Tech Reversible to another Tech design.

The Hubster and I celebrated 10 years of wedded bliss.

And we got family pictures done. Well that's what we have been up to the last month, I look forward to catching up with my blogging friends. I have so many things I'm working on to get ready for fall, Christmas EEK its right around the corner, Halloween, so much sewing and crafts. I can not wait to share them with everyone.

CSN Review

I was contacted by CSN Store to review one of there products. If you have not been to CSN then you don't know what your missing, they have it all, with over 200+ stores to choose from it made it very difficult to decide what it was that I wanted to try, but also needed. I researched for a few weeks before I finally decided on...... Drum Role Please......

The DeLonghi Espresso Machine

For everyone that has followed my blog, close, friends and family all know that I have a few small addictions, One is to the fabric store, but what sewer doesn't have that addiction. The other would have to be that I'm a dye hard Starbucks junkie, I live and breathe Starbucks but my checkbook never likes the tally at the end of the week, and neither does the hubby. I decided that I would venture and get something that might not only work for our household but save us a bit of cash also. I found out thru a good friend of our families that Starbucks sells thier syrups and sauces, they will also ground the espresso beans by the half pound or pound. So I ventured out bought my syrup $6.95 the Carmel sauce $4.95 and the half pound of espresso $6.00 Grand total $17.90.

On to the review, I wasn't sure if I was going to like my homemade Carmel Machiattos or not but I figured I had this wonderful machine to try out why not give it a try. The machine itself has a few features that I love, the first one is that the tank is cast iron and the cover has a locking mechanism on it so that if the pressure and steam are built up in the machine, it will not allow you to open the cover which is a great feature if you have kiddos around.

Some Cons that I have found with the machine are, that the only way that you can steam the milk is if you are brewing the espresso so I make a double batch each time just in case I need two glasses but it isn't as much of a pain in the bottom as I thought it would be. It takes me about 5 minutes from start to finish to make a Venti Carmel Machiatto in the morning, and I am saving myself $5.50 so I figured at 7 days a week at one drink a day, That is roughly $38.50 a week, and you can get about 3 weeks worth of coffees out of a half pound bag and 6 weeks worth out of full pound bag so over a 3 week period that would be $115.50 and I paid $17.90 for my supplies in the end I think that our investment was worth it. I have learned to make it just like my good ole Starbucks, so no more detours to the drive thru just a pit stop to the kitchen before heading out to our daily schedules.

I would highly recommend this machine to anyone, it is very easy to use if you have never used an espresso machine before, you can not only make lattes, cappuccinos, but I get my Carmel machiattos as well. Look forward to my new morning tradition. If you get a free moment stitch on over to CSN stores and check out what wonderful products they have to offer.

Tuesday Tag-along

WOW !!!! Summer is almost over can you believe is the 24th already... School starts soon........

Can you Believe its Tuesday again and its that time to link up with some amazing bloggers. Come on over grab a seat and Stitch awhile, meet some new friends, chat about the new things in our life and just take a break from reality. Hope everyone is doing well and look forward to our blog hop this week. If you get a moment come join the fun with us Grab the link over at Twee Poppets. Happy Blogging Tuesday.

And the winner is

The winner of the Easy Lunch Box System is #2 Heather over at Raising Memories. Congrats Heather and I hope that you enjoy the easy lunch box system as much as we do.

This winner was selected using Random.org

Easy Lunch Boxes Giveaway

Its Back to School Time so what better way to celebrate than to get free stuff.

Kelly over at Easylunchboxes.com is offering one of my readers her wonderful lunch box system EasyLunchbox Compartmentalized BPA-Free Plastic Food Storage Containers and one of her Insulated Lunch Bags in your choice of color.

A little about Kelly, she is a mom of 3 who envisioned healthy lunches for her daughters that were not only simple, but healthy with little to no extra packaging or ingredients. She developed Easylunchboxes.com with her ability to do things efficiently while on a shoestring budget. " The EasyLunchbox system makes it simple to organize, and quickly pack healthy lunches without wasting money, time, paper or plastic."

Easy lunch boxes also participates in the go green campaign to eliminate 1 million pounds of waste by being 1 of 15,000 families to pledge to pack a waste-free lunch.

HOW TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY

This giveaway is offered to US & Canadian residents only.
Please do not enter this giveaway if have won or received free product from
EasyLunchboxes within the past 3 months.

Mandatory Entry: Go to easylunchboxes.com and have a look around then come back and let me know something that you learned about this lunch box system that I did not already mention. Also make sure that you include the color of the lunch bag that you would like if you win.

Please make sure you include your email address if you are not already a friend via google friend. This will make it easier to contact you if you are the winner.

NOTE: If you skip the mandatory entry, none of your entries will count for the giveaway.

Extra Entries (please leave separate comment for each entry)

* Follow Me (or tell me you already do) (1 entry)
* Like easy lunch boxes On Facebook. (3 entries)
* Follow Me and easy lunch boxes on Twitter and Tweet This....(2 entries)
* Blog About This Awesome Giveaway (4 entries)

Giveaway closes August 13th@ 11:00 pm (EST) Winner will be picked August 14th by Random.org and notified by email, a post will follow. Winner will have 48 hours to reply to my email otherwise a new winner will be picked.

Disclaimer: I was contacted via email by a easylunchboxes.com and received the above mentioned product to review. Any and all opinions are mine and are unbiased

Easy Lunch Boxes Review

Easy Lunch Boxes is an economical way to head back to school this year. As Moms we are always looking for an easy way to not only provide the healthiest options for our children, but to make our life simpler. I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with Kelly at Easylunchboxes.com.

I have to say when I first spoke with Kelly I wasn't sure if the easy lunch box system was going to work for our family, hubby works outside in the heat and the kiddos and I are always on the run, between school events and various other activities. I have to say when I received our package not only was I excited but my little Red was happy she thought she got a new purse in the mail. Thank you Kelly for the wonderful purple lunch box for Bug she absolutely loved it. Hubby wasn't sure at first he looked at the system as just Tupperware, but were we ever wrong. I LOVE OUR EASY LUNCH BOX SYSTEM.

I woke up normal time, we were running behind but in 10 minutes I was able to through together a alphabet themed healthy lunch for the kiddos and faux sushi style lunch for me, hubby even got in on the action and loved his healthy lunch. I loved how the system makes it so easy to not only eat healthy but the compartments are roomy enough to fit a sandwich, 2 to 3 snacks and then you can fit up to 3 of the containers in the lunch bag with ease.

I have to say that at first I was a sceptic but now I'm in love with the easy lunch box system. I love that I no longer have to fish for those unwanted plastic baggies I can just grab our containers and fill them up with lunch or a healthy snack. The lunch bag is roomy enough to fit 2 lunch box systems comfortably with other snacks a drink and a ice pack.

If you get a free moment stitch on over to Easylunchboxes.com and check out this wonderful lunch box system.

Upholstered Headboards

Well its time for one of those fun teaser posts from CSN. I want to start by talking about upholstered headboards - think elegance and luxury. When I go on vacation or to a hotel I just love the look and feel of the rooms and the atmosphere, the way the rooms are put together the feel of the elegant furniture and most of all the comfort and style.

Most of us think comfort and not luxury when shopping for a bed, but why not have both. CSN has a wide variety of different styles that will fit anyone's budget.

Have you been to bedroomfurniture.com lately (this is just one of over 200+ stores that CSN has to offer). They have a huge selection of upholstered headboards.

How beautiful are these two headboard I think Luxury, glamours, I think of something I would see in a magazine.

If your in the market for a new headboard or maybe your redoing your room head on over to CSN and check out one of there fabulous stores and maybe you can find everything you need in one spot. Happy shopping !