How one trip to Hobby Lobby can completely change your plans

My friend Sara loves Hobby Lobby. I love Hobby Lobby too and if I lived as close as Sara does to HL I would surely be as addicted as she :) I went there last weekend to get some supplies for my crafting day with Amy. I needed textile medium and wonder under. I came out of there with all that plus stabilizer and a whole lot of ideas. This was only of course to compliment the wide array of fabrics I had purchased at Goodwill the day before. There are good things about living where I live. There are NO fabric stores. However, Sara also advocates going to Goodwill and cutting up clothes you like, VIOLA--fabric store!!

So then I tricked by friend Amy, who thought we were going to do freezer paper stenciling, into applique!

And boy did we applique...

These were easy and fun. I am not sure how they will wash, but I am hopeful. Hopefully there won't be a post about the shriveled puppy. That would be bad. But for now they are good!

How 1 idea leads to another and other staying home tales

So Monday with Amy got my crafting going. When she left we had somewhat mastered (I use this term very loosely) the craft of applique. But we did not have time to launch into the world of freezer paper stenciling. That is when a sick kid came into play and I was able in one day to learn a new skill and finish a task. AMAZING! Sam was home sick and we had a day completely unplanned. Little did he know that this was an amazing blessing to finish some crafting that probably would have never gotten finished otherwise.

Here is my loose tutorial of the freezer paper stenciling that is super easy, fun and addictive.

First you decide what you want to stencil. In this case a letter for a monogram. And you size it how you want it and print in on your printer. Then you place it under the freezer paper with the shiny side of the paper down. This is easy because you can see thru the paper.

Then you cut it out using an exacto knife and a cutting board or a cutting mat if you have one!
When you are finished you get a very scratched table and the letter that you cut out! You do not need this letter, you can throw it away. What you need is the hole left by this letter.
Then you take the stencil that you just made and you position it on your fabric that you want to stencil it on. Then you iron the freezer paper. I used a wool setting and no steam. Iron the edges down so the paint does not seep underneath. Then using fabric paint or any acrylic paint mixed with textile medium, you paint it. I did 2 coats of black and on another piece where I was painting white over brown I had to use 3-4 coats of paint.
Once the paint is dry you can peel away the freezer paper. This is the BIG reveal! The most exciting part!

As you will see I put my monogram on a double layer circle. After the stencil I wanted to attach it to black shirts for my girls. This is where stabilizer comes in... You cut some stabilizer a bit larger than the thing you want to attach to a knit shirt. It helps it to not gather or stretch as you sew. Pin in to the backside of the shirt. A sandwich. Thing on front,T-shirt front, stabilizer on back. Then you sew to attached the thing on the front and you turn the shirt inside out and it looks like this:
The white stuff is the stabilizer and it just tears away. I think you can leave it on too, but my kids think that is too itchy! So I just tore it off and now it looks like this:

I only sewed around the center circle and then I snipped the cotton/polka dot fabric so it will hopefully fray after a couple washed and look super cute! Here is the finished product:

Oh, and then I made cupcakes because I was home with a sick kid and bored.

Family Fitness Weekend

This weekend was BIG for us! Meaning that a lot of the things we had been working towards were coming to culmination all in one weekend! Claire was working towards becoming a 4th grader so she could go to Spring Storm and that was accomplished. She had a great time and we had to wake her up for school today which means her 2 nights of staying up until 11pm finally caught up to her.

Since January my kids have been training for a race that took place on Saturday in Forest Park. They read 26 books, ran 26 miles (one mile at a time) and did 26 good deeds all to run their last mile on Saturday on a race course with an announcer and a real finish line!

Here we are with Sam and Emma before the race

Here are all the CCS runners

At the start line

And they are off...

After my crazy organizational efforts on Saturday to get all these kids to race and find their parents I then began to think about the fact that I was running 13.1 miles on Sunday morning. It was actually good to have something else to think about. It was nice to have a distraction. Except that at 9:30 on Saturday night I was still trying to coordinate a ride for Sunday morning at 5:40 am! It all worked out and I raced and it was good. I have never done this half marathon in St. Louis before. I think I expected it to be worse than it was. I was not going to push myself that hard because I am running again in Nashville on the 30th and I want that to be a good race.

Anyway I did it in 2:09, not my best time, but not my worst, so I'll take it!

So today I am resting. I am picking up my kids from school. I am not staying after school to run with 25 crazy CCS kids. I am eating a lot. I am sore. I still love running. I love runners. I love race watchers. I love hills. Ok, not really, but I am trying to convince myself of this.

If you don't have any plans next Sunday?!

Just a little advertisement to my 8 followers...

Next weekend is the Go! St. Louis Half Marathon. This is a great little race in downtown STL and is growing in participation every year. It is holding it's own as far as races go because it is a challenging race. It offers a full marathon, half marathon and a marathon relay. I have not ran in this half before, but I have heard that it is KILLER!!!! That has been enough to scare me away. In fact, it scared me away to Nashville last year. I love the Nashville race. It is very fun and I will be running it again on April 30th with a Nashville native/transplant. However, I have concluded that a local race is always best. You know the area, you know what to expect, you generally will know other runners and if lucky will have some family and friends cheering for you along the race course.

As many of you know, I have had a back injury and have had to take 2 weeks off of my training. That has majorly bummed me out. It has been difficult to get back in the game and I have had to lower my expectations. It is hard to go from running nearly 11 miles in my training at a good pace to being flat on my back for almost 2 weeks alternating ice with stretching and chiropractic/physical therapy visits. I feel now that I am on the mend, but my training is still behind. I am going to run this race just to finish it. No time goals this time.

All this to say, "If you don't have any plans next Sunday?" Grab your cowbell and head towards the arch. You will not only be cheering me on, but many others I am sure you will know. It is a great way to support fitness in the St. Louis community and you can still be done in time to make it to your local church to worship our Lord and creator!

Here is a cope of the race course map. You will have to scroll to the sides to see the entire map. The half marathon will turn and finish back on Chestnut near Soldiers Memorial. It starts at 7am! See you there :)

Here are some other locals I know that are running and would also appreciate a shout out:

Melanie Maynor

MC Kirby

Laura Bush

Erica Savage