DIY pillow case

Sara here. I've been doing a lot of planing about how I wan't my bedroom to look. It is one of the last rooms in our house that we haven't done anything to until now. We just painted to walls an apricot color and the trim a deep chocolate. It makes the wood paneling on the other walls more bearable since I haven't been convinced that painting them would make them look better. So I was surfing Pinterest one day when I came across these awesome pillow cases that would look great in my bedroom and just screamed "ME."

I've never made pillow cases before but they didn't look to hard so I deemed this my newest project and off I went.

I wanted to make pillow shams so they wouldn't be open on the side like the picture above, but I couldn't find a tutorial for them so I was stuck with a normal pillow case. But finding a tutorial for that was hard too. I finally found a simple one that didn't have a weird seem or flowers on them.

Of course I didn't make them with the flower garnish because I hate flowers, especially in my bedroom, but the pattern was perfect. 

So I went to the fabric store on my lunch break from work (Its a great thing I work only a block away) and picked up a green cotton fabric and a cream cotton fabric, a yard each.

I then cut the fabric into 71/2 inch by 36 inch strips.There were six of each and it used all my fabric so there was non left over. 

I sewed the strips together to make stripes. and then followed the pillow pattern above. If you would like to see it click here.

After I had sewn two striped pillow cases I then needed to write on them. I purchased a fabric marker and used stencils I already had laying around. I got the idea from here,

This is a really cool idea and was really easy to do. Make sure you set the marker by running a hot iron over it before you wash it, or the marker will wash out.

So here is my finished product.

I can't wait to finish the other one and see how they look with the rest of my bedding.

Have fun!

Happy birthday!!!

Happy birthday to my co writer and best friend Donella. I thought I would give you this awesome cake but since I can't make a cake that looks like the one above I also thought I would give you a picture of a cake that I could actually make, if we were able to eat it that is.

Since you can't go to Disney land this year for your big day, due to unforeseen events, I thought I would remind you all about last time we wen't to Disney land together. I Figured if you relived the memories, it would almost be like you were there... Sorta... Maybe... Ok not really, but here we go.

Our first day at Disney land. We were so excited, you can just see it in our faces. The very first ride we went on was space mountain and the look on our faces was priceless when we saw the picture after words. It looked something like this,

We really should have bought that photo, it was priceless.

We did lots of great things that day and then when we went back to the hotel your mom bought us pizza,

I found the nutritional facts for that stuffed crust cheese pizza that we managed to eat the entire thing, I'm surprised we survived.  

The next day we went on the Indiana Jones ride that was almost completely deserted even though we had fast pass tickets too, ironic I know. The guys that were working the ride were kinda cute and made some stupid comments about our animal backpacks. We went on the ride and screamed at everything just for the sake of screaming because there wasn't anyone around. We saw those guys later and they remembered us. Highlight of my day. 

We also bought these awesome head bands,

They looked great on your dad by the way.

So don't feel down that you're another year older and don't get to enter the magical kingdom. Its not the end of the world. Heck, I haven't been to Disney land since we were 16 and you don't see me complaining. I will though leave you with these words of wisdom to carry you through this new year.

Happy birthday!!!!

Chores, who's turn is it?

It's me again, Sara.

My husband and I got in a big fight the other night about who was doing their fair share of the chores around the house. He said that I didn't do anything unless he did something, and I told him that he never did anything and I ended up doing it all myself on my weekend. It got ugly quick and we knew we needed to find a solution since this wasn't the first time we've fought over the subject.

I did some research on our favorite webpage Pinterest to find out what other people were doing about this problem. I was amazed to find out that there wasn't a lot of solutions for adults out there.

I'm a little disappointed really. This isn't an isolated incident between me and my husband, there are a lot of other people out there experiencing this, so I wanted to share our solution so lets get down to the nitty gritty about chores.

Here it is folks, the chore chart. Its actually been working well in the short term. Only time will tell in the long term. So here is what we did.

• I split up the days between me and my husband. Since there are only two of us and seven days in a week that insured that we would get different chores every week.
• I assigned a chore to each day. Living room every Monday, Garbage on Tuesday, Laundry on Wednesday and so on and so forth.
• Then we agreed that every day that we didn't have a chore, we would make dinner. So on Monday when I was cleaning the living room my husband was making me dinner (Tacos, nom nom!)
• Last but not least, the dishes in our house are out of control. I don't know how it happens since there are only four of us and we aren't home during the day most days, but it does. We decided to do dishes every night after dinner together.

There are several good things about doing house work together. You get a chance to talk about your day, and talking, as we all know, is good for the relationship and you have an odd sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. Plus don't forget that you're not sitting in a trash heap that you call home.

I also found a few chore idea's for kids that would work for adults as well if you wanted to adapt them to your life style.

I wouldn't mind trying this one

This could get a little kinky :)

Any way that you work it out, make sure that both you and your other are on board, it wont work otherwise. So spend time talking, cooking and cleaning together, it makes a big difference.