Breakfast for Supper

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alexandrea nicole, Breakfast, supper, waffles

One of my most favorite meal themes is breakfast for supper. I love breakfast food! Pancakes, waffles, omelets, French toast, hashbrown casserole, you name it. The biggest reason that I enjoy eating it for supper is probably because that’s about the only time I indulge in these foods. Sure on an occasional lazy Saturday morning or Sunday brunch I’ll break out the breakfast food. but it doesn’t happen very often (try never!) on a week day morning.

This evening for supper Breakfast is what Jake and I enjoyed.  Waffles (for the first time ever in our new waffle maker) and scrambled eggs to be more exact. Yum!

It’s the little things in life that matter most!

x0x0

Alexandrea Nicole

Charity Giving to the Collage Center

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babies, charity, crisis pregnancy center, Crocheting, Donation, Grace Elizabeth's, granny square, Knitting, leftover yarn, mittens, mommy, patterns, Scarves, scraps, Sonya Kay, the fashionable finch

What does one do with all the leftover yarn from all the projects completed throughout the year. The girls and I decided to start making items to give away. We made hats, mittens, booties, scarves and even a granny square blanket. We gave some to friends and family and then realized our items would be perfect for the local crisis pregnancy center – “The Collage Center.” They could give our items to women and their babies. We were so excited to give them and look forward to making more items to give away. And this time it won’t be from the scraps. I have a few projects in mind and will share with you later.

Valentine’s Day Wreath

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alexandrea nicole, craft, decorating, DIY, heart, holiday, red, valentine's day, wreath

Valentine’s Day is 1 month away! I’ve noticed that wreaths are very popular these days and decided to jump on the band wagon. Here’s my version of a Valentine’s wreath. It even coordinates with the table runner in my post yesterday!

Here’s how I made it –

Supplies:

• 12″ Styrofoam wreath
• 2 skeins yarn ( I only ended up using 1)
• 8.5 x 12 sheet of felt
• miscellaneous ribbon ( I used whatever I found in my stash)
• puffy hearts ( I found these in the Target dollar aisle)
• glue gun
• scissors

Supplies

I started by tying the yarn around the wreath as tight as I could without making an indent in the styrofoam. I put a dot of hot glue on the knot and let they dry . This would hole the yarn in place. I wound the yarn tightly around the entire wreath – this was by far the most time consuming part!

I secured the tail of the yard right next to my original knot – and you guessed it – another dot of glue. My attached embellishments were attache atop this spot too. That way everything was concealed.

I made a felt heart and stuffed it with tissues – it’s just what I had on hand. I pinked the edges to finish them off.

Because I wanted my wreath to hand lower out of the way from the knocker and the peep-hole, I attached it to the wreath hook with coordinating ribbon tied in a bow.

I’m happy with my first wreath. It was so easy I just might do it again for another holiday or occasion!

x0x0

Alexandrea Nicle

Valentine’s Table Runner

Tags

alexandrea nicole, DIY, Holidays, Sewing, table runners, valentine's day

With all those Christmas decorations taken down, the apartment feels a bit empty. I want to jazz it up a bit for other holidays throughout the year. Here’s my latest project – A reversible table runner.

I chose vintage looking fabrics that I though coordinated well. And to help them stand out I made a scalloped edge (which I made a pattern for myself from graph paper – so proud!) in another coordinating fabric.

I think they are so cute!

Supplies:

• 1/3 yard Valentine’s fabric
• 1/3 yard Cowboy fabric
• 1/2 yard red polka dots fabric
• 1/2 yard red horsehoe fabric

I used the 1/3 yards of fabric as is – no cutting (unless of course they came off the bolt really crooked!) And cut 2 scalloped edge pieces from the 1/2 yard of  each of the coordinating fabrics. I attached the scallops to the 1/3 yards on both ends and then put rights sides together and stitched ’em up leave a 3″ hole to turn right side out. I top stitched around the whole thing.

Now I’ve got 2 new table runners out of one “sew-simple” project!

x0x0

Alexandrea Nicole

Scrap Happy

Tags

Arts, Christmas, Crafts, Digital, digital scrapbooking, Image Editing, Photoshop, scrapbooking, Sisters, Sonya Kay

Since I encouraged Alex to begin digital scrapbooking I thought I better get on the stick and try it out myself.  Thanks to some great online tutoring I have accomplished my first digital scrapbook page.  Ok, I cheated and used a layered template with all the elements already selected for me but it did take me a couple of hours to figure out how to pull them into photoshop elements and manipulate them.  I also wanted to resize the page size to 8.5 x 11 in order to print them more easily on my printer and use standard 3 ring notebooks (fancy ones of course).  The template was downloaded from Scrappers Guide.

Sonya

Related articles

• First Attempt (graceelizabeths.wordpress.com)

Sewing Machine

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alexandrea nicole, Janome, Sewing, sewing machine

I am the proud new owner of a JANOME sewing machine!

JANOME DC5100

I’ve upgraded tremendously from the cheap sewing machine I have been sewing on for the past few years. I used some of my graduation money to reward myself. I think this new machine will make all the difference on my sewing projects! It has so many different features that were not available to me on my previous machine. I’ve been setting up a sewing corner in the living room and look forward to sharing a few sewing projects with you in the future!

x0x0

Alexandrea Nicole

DIY Keepsake Ornament

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alexandrea nicole, Christmas, christmas decorations, digital scrapbooking, DIY, ornament, photo ornament, scrapbooking

I literally just finished this project and couldn’t wait to show it off! For Christmas, Jake and I received an empty photo ornament in our stocking from Jake’s mom with specific instructions to put a wedding picture in it. I took down Christmas decorations from our apartment yesterday, but was waiting to put a picture in the ornament before storing it all away to be forgotten until next year. Check it out! (Click on a photo for a larger view)

Sorry for the crappy lighting – it gets dark so early here, and there is not a great place to take photos in the apartment. I used my newly acquired digital scrapbooking skills to put this baby together with some romantic papers and elements. Then I added some paper punches inside the ornament to mimic snow and for a little whimsy. I love the way it turned out!

x0x0

Alexandrea Nicole

First Attempt

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alexandrea nicole, digital scrapbooking, layouts, scrapbooking

Hey There!

I have something exciting to share…I’ve completed my first digital scrapbooking page! I have spent a couple of days accumulating scrapbook goodies and reading up on how to use my Photoshop to put my layouts together. I’m proud to reveal my first page – it’s nothing fancy, but it sure beats the old way.

Is there something that you’ve been itching to try? Take a chance and do it! Best of luck…

x0x0

Alexandrea Nicole

A Fresh Start

Tags

alexandrea nicole, New Year

Here’s to a new year and a new start!

The end of last year was full of changes for me. The biggest being my graduation from UNL. The real world is approaching ever so quickly. I will be entering the field of education within a few weeks. I have a long term substitute teaching position lined up for a good portion of this semester. (It’s funny how when you are in school – and your profession revolves around the school calendar that you measure the year in semesters and it begins in August and ends in May!) Having spent all of Christmas break away from our apartment I’m spending my time off putting things back to normal and crossing some projects off my list!

As mom already shared – blogging wasn’t really a top priority for last year. We popped in and out. However, one of my goals for this year is to have a more regular presence on here – so ya’ll can keep up with what’s going on here in Lincoln. Here’s some other goals I have for the year:

1. Take more pictures! As I was thumbing through pictures on my computer I realized that the last pictures I’ve really taken were those of Jake and I on our honeymoon. I used to take a ton of pictures in high school. My days there are practically lived out in my iPhoto. Pictures spark memories…and although I still have a good memory now it might not always be that way. Jake and my first Christmas as husband and wife has come and past…and gone undocumented. So this year I’m going to dig out my camera and snap away.
2. Start Digital Scrapbooking Here’s yet another reason I need pictures…I might be a little late to jump on this bandwagon, but digital scrapbooking seems a lot less time consuming and a lot more cheap that actually using paper. I have started collecting freebies off the internet and hope to start experimenting with wedding photos. I think this will be a fun way to share with friends and family…all I need to do is print another copy.
3. Blog Did I already mention this? I have a lot to share and a lot of ideas…they just never seem to make it here. All those posts when I say to check back for more detail and they NEVER appear…that’s probably an unfinished project waiting to be finished. Or life got too busy and I never followed through with my post – so Blog more.

 

x0x0

Alexandrea Nicole

Happy New Year

Tags

accessories, Clothing, craft, Crochet, Crocheting, Holidays, Knitting, New Year, Scarf, Scarves, Shopping, Sonya Kay, Yarn, yarn craft

From all of us at Grace Elizabeth’s I would like to say “Happy New Year!”  A new year always gives me the sense that I can start over, start fresh and enjoy looking to the future and all the good things to come.

On a recent trip to the quilting store (an hour away) Alex and I were discussing how we really have dropped the ball on posting to our blog.  Life seems to get busy.  We had a wedding (Alex), we moved into a new permanent home and a temporary home (I would not recommend maintaining two households) and had a collage graduation (Alex).  During the holidays I spent some time reading  some  blogs I enjoy following.  The more I read the more I began to feel a little lazy.  Where do all you young moms get the time to craft, blog, cloth your children with the most darling creations, make delectable meals and desserts and oh yes, sleep.  Ok – you have motivated me.  Projects are swarming in my mind and I am not getting much sleep.  It’s time to take action.  I’ve started a few projects and I hope to start blogging about the finished projects soon.  Until then, I was busy for a couple of weeks making scarves for the ladies at my husbands work place.   It was a last minute thought and I now have had my fill of making scarves for awhile.  I made a total of 9 scarves (I kept a couple for myself).

Happy New Beginnings!

Sonya