My friends over at Clever Nesting have been making vintage pillowcase aprons following this tutorial from Glitter, Vinyl and Thread.  It looked fun and I really need another apron, just ask my husband (HA HA HA).  

I used a pillow case that I bought today at the thrift store for 50 cents.  It’s really fun.  I’m collecting the names of ladies that have shared that they want to start sewing and I’m thinking of showing them how to make this apron.  It’s a great place to begin if you’re new to sewing and really, the investment is minimal if anything at all.  

Sorry for all the lo-fi pics lately.  I’m only using my webcam to take pictures.  I’m hoping to have the Canon back from the hospital in a week or so.  I can’t wait!

Here’s the jumper I made the other day.  It really looks adorable on my little boy, doesn’t it?  This one is size 4T.

FYI- I purchased the pattern HERE.  It’s a great pattern ranging from size 0 to 4T with lots of great instructions and pictures.

Here is the latest thing that gets me extra-super-giddy.  My new windowboxes!  I found these planters underneath some big ugly bushes on the side of our house last week.  They were filled with roots and dirt and the roots were actually digging through the holes in the boxes into the ground.  They were so discolored they had green and brown splotches all over them.

So I pulled them out, cleaned them up, primed and painted then filled with beautiful wave petunias.  What do you think?  I think they are perfectly romantic.  

The hardest part was figuring out how to install them.  I’m super cheap, so I didn’t want to spend money.  I basically tied a rope around the box and tied the rope around nails I hammered inside the window.  The windowsill is supporting the weight of the boxes, the rope just keeps it from tipping over onto my lovely children.

Weeeeeeee!  (I told you I was giddy)

This Sunday afternoon, I’ll be playing music for the 2009 Lilyfest at Lansford Canal State Park in Catawba, SC.  Lilyfest celebrates the peak bloom of the rare Rocky Shoals Spider Lily.  Live music will be along the waterside from 12:00 until 5:00, but I will be playing from 1:15 until 2:00.  A fun event for the whole family.  

A good friend of mine put together a simple website for me.  Check it out!

www.ellielaveer.com

Here are the photos of a purse I made a couple of weeks ago from a FREE pattern.   Switching out the winter purse for the fun spring one is always a delight.  This was my first bag that I made following a pattern.  Again, for someone who doesn’t know a ton about sewing, following a pattern is so much easier because you don’t have to try to wrap your brain around how to get it to work— especially a lined bag.  However, I’m sure that after I follow a few more patterns I could easily make one without a pattern.

Mistakes were made and fortunately a big one was able to be covered up by a button.  But it was fun and is very usable although not terribly large (it should have been bigger than it turned out but like I said….mistakes).  

Do you see the beautiful roses?  They are part of a collection of flowers I got to take home from the Women’s conference at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte.  I was the music leader this weekend and it was SO much fun.  I hope I am invited to lead music for many more conferences.  It’s always so great to be under the teaching of wonderful teachers and in the company of such great Christian women.  

I wish they could stay like this forever.  They smell so wonderful.

Cheers.

I found this oil painting at the Habitat ReStore Thrift shop this morning.  I thought it needed someone to love it as I believe it was once quite loved.

Check out the back of the painting.  

I thought I would share these photos from the past week.  On Saturday, we went to a craft fair exhibit.  The vendors were actually spread out all over a baseball field.  I couldn’t resist these handmade wooden cars for the boys.  Deacon and Owen immediately placed them on the ground to roll them around.  They’ve been playing with them quite often all week.  Deacon is actually napping with his as I type this.

And here we are at the Winthrop Baseball game.

And here’s a freebie for you.  I had a gig with a friend, Hannah Miller on Saturday night.  It was a venue in downtown Charlotte and people could actually bring their dogs into the place.  Here we are with the largest dog I’ve ever seen.

Tonight I’ll be playing again at the Sylvia Theater in York.  It is such a lovely venue to play at.  It is a turn of the century movie theatre turned concert venue– but still a movie theater.  When they have concerts, they just raise up the screen and there’s the stage.  Tonight’s show will be filmed and televised on a local channel.  I’m pretty sure they will pass on the videos to me so that I can throw them up on my myspace page.

I’m really excited to play a new song that I’ve written on piano.  It’s a really sweet lullaby that is so fun to play and sing.  I’ve been practicing it all morning so that I don’t mess it up.  I hope it will be a nice way to close out my portion of the night.  The show will end with a grand finale of all three songwriters playing a cover song together.  Not sure what we’ll play yet.  

I’ve been meeting more local musicians here in Rock Hill and am excited to start to work my way into the local community here.  There’s a songwriter group that meets this Monday night.  I think I just may throw the guitar in the car and make an appearance.  

Finally, in the spirit of songwriting and music, I’d like to give away my album to a lucky reader.  All you have to do is comment on THIS post.  I’ll announce the RANDOMLY CHOSEN winner on Wednesday, April 8th.  You can hear samples of the songs on my MySpace page.  (I just added more songs to my profile).

Cheers.

I’m very happy with the color that I chose for the bedroom.  It is from Glidden (ICI) paints and the color is called Fossil Gray.  It is perfect.  After painting 6 rooms in this house, this is the first color that actually turned out exactly the way I wanted it to.  

I was about to run to the store on Tuesday to buy curtain rods, but as I was walking through our yard with a friend, we discovered all sorts of Bamboo growing near the edge of our property.  So I’m going to saw some off and make curtain rods with bamboo.  Won’t that be neat?  I’m trying to figure out what else to do with all this bamboo.  

I would like to make some fabric art like this with our monogram on it and hang it above the bed.  I would also like to a nice summery bedspread to use and fold this quilt up at the bottom of the bed.  This quilt is quite special to us as it was hand stitched with over 4500 pieces by Andy’s Grandmother.  It was a wedding gift from her.  Isn’t it lovely? I really do love the feeling of sleeping under a nice soft and thin cotton quilt.