Arts in the Heart is Almost Here

It has been entirely too long since I’ve posted, but summer and early fall are my crazy time. I have been so swamped and sewing like a mad woman getting ready for Arts in the Heart. You can read more about last year’s festival here. 

Here is a preview of some of the things I have been working on. Almost everything is recycled!

Experimenting with Neck Ties and Bow Ties

Wow! It’s been over 2 weeks since I’ve blogged. I’m terribly sorry. Between traveling for work, taking care of a sick dog and a sick husband I’ve been busy. I haven’t even had time to sew. One of the last projects I was able to work on is my experiment below.
 
I created it using six coordinating men’s neck ties. They will be available for sale in my shop soon. No two will be exactly the same, and each one will come with some sort of belt or sash for the waist, or you can swap it out for your favorite belt.
Oh…and before I forget, by request, I have started making and selling men’s bow ties! In traditional Jen Ell’s Revenge fashion they aren’t the typical prints and patterns that you will find in the store, and many of them are recycled out of other clothing or fabric scraps. To make them extra fun, all of them a reversible, so you get two for the price of one!

You can purchase one for yourself or a loved one here.

Pinterest Fail – Cauliflower Crust Pizza

I’m trying to be sensible about carbs, so I figured I would give this cauliflower crust pizza a try. Doesn’t it look yummy?

Source: eat-drink-smile.com via Mary on Pinterest

Unfortunately, mine turned out looking a bit like this:

It completely fell apart when I tried to get it off the pan because the center of it was not done at all. It still strongly resembled a cauliflower mash versus an actual pizza crust.
Here’s a slight disclaimer: the pin I linked to above is not the recipe I used. I couldn’t find the recipe I used, which is probably a good thing. There seemed to be a few details left out.
Now I’ll share what I may or may not have done wrong so that you won’t make my same mistakes:

• I was completed unprepared. I thought I had tomato sauce, pepperoni and mozzarella. Wrong! I didn’t have any of that, so I improvised.
• For the cheese I used a combination of co jack and parmesan in the crust and co jack on top. Different cheeses have different levels of oil and cook differently, so this could have caused a problem.
• I didn’t measure anything, unless I am baking I generally don’t. all sorts  of things could have been wrong here.
• My oven is possessed. Sometimes it cooks way too fast, and others way too slow. The crust was turning a golden brown color, and I didn’t want it to burn, so I figured we were getting to a done point, unfortunately no.
• The recipe I used didn’t tell you how big to make it, or how thin to spread it. I like thick crusts, unfortunately I think combined with not measuring, and potentially having too many ingredients led to a  soggy, not done crust.
• The lack of pepperoni and tomato sauce was really no biggie. I used bacon and ham. Everything is good with bacon, right? I even made my very own tomato sauce with diced tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper. The sauce was sooo good. I will probably do that from now on. It only took about 10-15 minutes. I’ll give you a recipe for that later when I have a good picture of it to show off!

Soooo, in the end I ate it. It tasted great. The edges that we done were pizza like, but the center was gooey. I will try i again. Hopefully I will have better luck next time.

Labels: recipe, pinterest

DIY – Make Your Own Undies

I have made a lot of things in my life, but undies are truly a new adventure for me. I’ve been meaning to make them for a while now, but just never did. Now, after losing weight some of my existing undies are getting a bit baggy, not to mention I’ve been wearing things more fitted and high waisted. Regular bikini undies or thongs can leave some unsightly panty lines, so I needed something that comes up higher and helps alleviate the dreaded panty lines. Once I made the first pair I couldn’t stop. I also wondered why on earth had I not done this before, because in all honesty, they are quite easy.
Materials:
Old undies to cut up and use for a pattern
Sewing machine
Scissors
Stretchy fabric
Picot Elastic or Fold Over Elastic
Instructions:

Cut all of the elastic edges off your old undies and cut them apart at the seams. Once you get done you will be left with a perfect pattern. I didn’t take a picture of mine. Suffice it to say that they were quite sad looking, but they fit great, hence the reason why I had not thrown them away. Pin them down on your pretty new fabric and cut out one front, one back and one crotch piece*. For mine I chose to use a polyester knit for the main part of the undies and a cotton knit for the crotch. I used the poly because I didn’t want my clothing to cling to it.
* You should have two layers of fabric in the crotch area. I left one layer (the outer (pretty) layer) attached to the front piece and cut off the inner layer, which is what I cut out of the cotton. If you look at the image you can see that the front pieces are longer and will go between the legs and attach to the back piece.

My first step was to sew the front, back and crotch piece together. You’ll line up the crotch seams with the front and back right sides together, and then put the crotch piece behind the back piece. Stitch straight across this crotch seam. Please excuse the threads, I screwed this step up the first time.

Next, you’ll lay them out with the front and back spread out right sides down. Flip the crotch piece so that it covers where you just sewed the three layers together, line it up to the back piece, pin and sew down with a zig zag or stretch stitch.

Attach the elastic to the leg seams. This is where the fold over elastic(FOE)cot elastic comes in. If you’re not familiar with FOE here’s a little video with instructions for sewing with FOE. Be sure you get both layers when you are sewing through the crotch area.

Line up the side seams with right sides facing and sew them up. If your fabric has 4-way stretch then use a stretch stitch or zig zag, otherwise a straight stitch is fine. You can also use a serger, but since they were for me I didn’t bother.

Add elastic to the top. You can use the FOE, picot elastic, or be like me and use some pretty stretch lace.

If you’re like me, you can’t stop at just one pair.

This is a great way to use up your stash, scraps and even old tees. The crotch pieces on all of these came from t-shirt sleeves that were cut up and turned in to tanks and summery tops like this:

The polka dot fabric is something that I ordered, but when it came in it was quite thin and flimsy so I never really used it. The burgundy that is peeking out is some random fabric that I found in a scrap bin. It has a weird texture, but it holds it’s shape and clothing doesn’t cling to it, so it was perfect for undies.
If anything is unclear feel free to ask questions. I can’t wait to make some more, so if you need more pics or explanation I will be glad to give it.

Labels: diy, tutorial

Too Much Sun?

I’m sure we’ve all done it…. forgot to put on sunscreen, thought we didn’t need it, etc. I was guilty of it this weekend. I should have taken a picture, but you’ll just have to trust me. My forehead and cheeks were quite lobstery. I hadn’t reached blister territory, but I was still at the “that looks like it hurts” stage. I had remembered seeing some home remedies for sunburn on Pinterest, so I decided to look. One involved using black tea soaked cloths. I read further down in the comments and found that others had tried this method using green tea, and regular ole Liption iced tea bags. Apparently, the trick here is to brew the tea strong.

In my case I just needed to apply the tea to my face, so I just plopped three tea bags into a regular sized coffee cup and zapped it in the microwave for a minute and then let it steep for about 30 minutes. After it had steeped I put it in the freezer for about an hour to get it good and cold. Then for the next 2 hours I soaked a wash rag in the tea and just let it sit on my face. When the rag would cool down I put it back in the tea, and then back on my face. If you need to do this on large area just up the amount of water to a couple of cups and double the tea bags. You might also want to do it sitting in the bathtub or on a chair that won’t stain.  I would also recommend using old or dark colored wash rags, you don’t want to stain the good ones.

Once I finished with that the heat and stinging has dramatically decreased, but the skin felt quite tight. I had read about people putting Greek yogurt on burns to help sooth them, and as an added bonus they didn’t peel. I figured it was worth a shot since I had some in the fridge. I didn’t measure, I just spread it on my face like a facial mask and let it sit while I watched TV. It dried within a few minutes, but I just let it sit for about an hour. Then I washed it off and did it all over again.
I’m still not sure whether or not I am going to peel because the skin on my forehead is super dry, but when I woke up the next morning there was no heat, no pain and no redness. Now, I am no way advocated intentionally getting burned, but if you accidentally do it like me, then there is hope!

Labels: health and beauty, diy

Pride Weekend

This weekend I rushed in from a week out of town here:

for the 3rd Annual Augusta Pride Festival, which is hosted by Augusta Pride, Inc. Here’s a little blurb from their website:

Augusta Pride, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to creating and promoting pro-GLBT events for Augusta and the surrounding CSRA. Our goal is to bring the community closer together for the twin purposes of celebrating diversity and helping to educate our community about the very real and persistent threat of HIV/AIDS.

 

The festival started with a parade in Downtown Augusta, and ended in the Augusta Commons. Here are some highlights from the parade.

 

Miss Augusta Pride Sasha Green

  Paliament Resort & Filling Station Bus

My husband is the bartender at The Filling Station, and I fill in there as well. It’s a great little bar to hang out with friends in.

Melissa Gray riding in my Leopard-mobile with my hubby driving. Melissa used to live with us,  so I was more than happy to let her use my car for the parade. She is wearing a Jen Ell’s Revenge custom creation.

 

Here’s a shot of her feathered bum.

Here’s a full body shot. The bottoms are her own, and the corset top with the feathered bum are my creation.

After the parade the festival kicked off with Patio Furniture as the Master of Ceremonies. She is truly HILARIOUS.

For the third year in a row I had my booth set up. It’s quite scaled down compared to my Arts in the Heart booth, which is twice this size. Recognize the shirt and shorts? They came from the Fringed Beaded Tank Tutorial, and the Two Tone Ombre Shorts tutorial.

I even had on a handmade tube top under the tank that I made out of a mis-printed tee.

Ashlyn came and helped me set-up. She was truly a life saver since Paulie is injured right now, and he had to be over at the parade line up during set-up time. If it wasn’t for her I would have been all by my lonesome.

Oh, and an awesome highlight for me…. my ad was on the first page of the pride guide!

Slight Delay!

I was just attempting to write a new blog post and the laptop decided otherwise. I'm am now running scans and diagnostics to try and get it running right again.

DIY – Fringe Beaded Tank

Neon colors and the 80’s are popping up everywhere for summer, so I decided to give some of my old pride tees a makeover. You can do it too!

I started with this tee:

Then I followed this simple tutorial to chop into a tank:

Source: rabbitfoodformybunnyteeth.com via Jen on Pinterest

It’s super easy. You just cut off the sleeves, cut off the neckline, cut off the original hem and use the hem to wrap around the back to make it a racer back.
Then I cut the bottom into fringe:

I folded my tee in half to make the cutting go quicker. I like to keep my cuts at about a 1/2 inch or less. Any wider and it get too think to fit through the bead hole.
Next, I started pulling the fringe so it would curl up, and sliding beads on. Once I had all the beads I wanted on then I tied a knot about 1/2 inch from the bottom.

When you’re done you should have something similar to this:
  
I also did a tee with fringe sleeves. We’ll discuss that one later. I forgot to take a pic.
The tanks will be available at Augusta Pride on June 23rd for $25. If you would like one before then to wear at the festival you can shoot me an email or contact me through Facebook or Etsy. Any tanks left over after the festival will go in my Etsy Shop.

Labels: diy