Sewing Cooking Washing Dishes, The Fun Stuff

Well yesterday I never got to the Etsy listings and only made it til midnight but I did get some sewing done.

But first I made dinner, this doesn't look great but it was yummy. It made a lot of dirty dishes though.

Skillet Salisbury Steak, Mashed potatoes (cooked the potatoes in the Instant Pot, I think it would have taken the same amount of time on the stove), left over corn from Father's Day BBQ and some green stuff. I used ground turkey instead of ground beef. No one cares but Jessica and she wasn't here to eat it anyways ;)

I got the straps done on these (I did 2 of these bags)

Just one of these

and I did 2 of these too. 

I have a bunch cut to size just needing to get sewn together so that will be a bit faster tonight.

I was so tired this morning. I almost called in to work because Lucy was holding me hostage.

I stole this picture from Trevor. Doesn't Rusty look so happy? That's Tiny Tina with him. She tried to run out the front door when I was bringing the dogs in today after work. ACK! That would be scary. We have so many stray cats outside she'd be knocked up and beat up in no time. We were figuring out how old they are and we think they are about 12 weeks now I guess I can make them an appointment to get spayed soon.

I signed up for some events yesterday. This one should be nice, I love Sutter Creek. Hopefully it won't rain or have gale force winds. 

Updated my running events for my FB page.

Just finished dinner for tonight. It was clean out the fridge night. Cooked up all the veggies I hadn't got around to and made a salad and then CASSEROLE. Everyone's favorite meal (ok maybe just mine). 

Off to wash my plate and then get some sewing done!

Sewing Sewing Sewing

I've been trying to be a bit more organized lately. You know, do things like cook dinner and stuff. It's usually just me and Trevor here and then Scott gets here at like 7:30 so it's easy to just want to pick up something if I'm out running errands or something.  But I've actually cooked like 2x in the last few days haha.

I've been doing a lot of flipping selling things on Etsy (mostly patterns and sewing/crafting related things). I've been trying to list 5 things a day this week. Listing is the hard part, shopping is the fun part ;)

Also trying to blog every day but sometimes I forget.

And I've been trying to sew for my craft shows. This Sunday I have the "Graffiti-Con" which is a car show outside and comics inside. I only signed up for this because the booths are INSIDE. After this I'm not doing any shows until MAYBE September but definitely October (signed up for 2 so far in October), It's just too freaking hot. Also this will give me time to build up more inventory for MORE FUN STUFF haha.

OMG today I got 3 black trash bags of scrap fabric from someone on Marketplace. I knew who she was and what kind of fabric she sews with because she sells aprons at the craft shows I do. She didn't remember me which I was a bit sad about but she's older too ;)

Lately I've been working on these drawstring backpacks. As usual I cut out a ton and now I hate them lol. I always go through my fabric and try to pull out things for projects and end up doing this to myself. After about 5 of them I decided to go full on assembly line. Last night I finished sewing them all so now I just need to do the straps. I make the straps out of bias tape, I usually sew 2 lengths together or if it's a double up one I'll just sew it on both sides. It's a bit time consuming but most of the bias tape I got for next to nothing here and there (somehow I have a huge box of it..) so making these I don't have a lot of money in them. People seem to really like them too, so that's good.

Several this round are from linens I'm re-purposing. Hopefully they do ok!

Me being over zealous

Couple that I got done before I went assembly line

Ok off to make dinner and list 5 things on Etsy then do bags. I'll be in bed at like 2 am ;)

Graffiti Night Car Show Cruise

June 7th was the annual Graffiti Night Car Show Cruise in Downtown Modesto. I don't know why I like going to this so much but it is a MUST on my annual things to do haha. This year I got my friend Cassi to go with me and Melissa and Eric met us down there. You basically just pull up some curb (or if you are more classy you come early and bring chairs) and watch the cars go by. For anyone that doesn't know American Graffiti was set in Downtown Modesto and so this is a celebration of it.

Usually they hold all the cars down at the main corner but this year they were all parked along the route before it started.

I only saw one Galaxie (maybe some day ours will move out of the garage)

Usually we leave before it's finished but we actually stayed for the whole thing this year. Afterwards Cassi and I went to Outback Steakhouse. I haven't been there in years! My steak and food were really good but it is expensive. Ok for every once in awhile (and no peanuts on the floor!)

Anniversary Dinner

Last Thursday was our 26th Wedding Anniversary! It's a miracle.

To celebrate we did what we do best, went out to eat haha. We tried a new restaurant that people have been raving about, it's called Anna's Asian Palace. What's funny is that it is in the same place that our old favorite Chinese food place was in. It brought back a lot of memories.

One thing was the same, the fish tank! Probably not the same fish though lol.  Might have to take all the kids since they have Chinese food along with the sushi. My kids won't eat fish, thanks Nemo.

The little pork pieces reminded us when we all used to go to Chinese food with my Grandma Marilyn, Aunts and Uncles. Before she died we did stuff with everyone. I miss those days. We used to go to On Lock Sam's in scary downtown Stockton and they had the pork with sesame seeds and then a little bowl that was half ketchup and half hot mustard. As a kid I learned quick just how hot that mustard was lol. You'd dab the pork in the KETCHUP and then into the sesame seeds and they'd stick.

I've never had dumpling soup before, it was really good.

I can't remember what rolls we got now, Scott's sleeping or I'd ask him. They were both good though.

It's a good thing we have "Confidence" haha

After dinner we went to our little bar where Scott forgot I existed while he watched baseball and talked to his friend. I sat outside and talked to my friends lol. Great old married folks we are.

May's Random Pictures

I'm almost caught up on posting! Here are some random pictures from May.

They used these bandages on Scott's leg ulcers while he was in the hospital. I looked them up to see if I could buy some. The cheapest I could find was $3 A PIECE and he had 5 on at one time. Changed daily. Yeah that's not in the budget...

Buster helping

Lunch time thrift store SCORE! I got over 80 uncut patterns. The guy ringing me up gave me about 20 for free and the rest were .25 each. In that batch I sold one for $35 and one for $15 already. Woohoo

Driving out of the club one day. 

Lucy

This was a big project. I always pick up vintage sheets and interesting linens to resell or use myself in crafting. I had been going through my boxes looking for some fabric stuff and realized I had A LOT and it was time to go through them again. This took me several days to get listed on a Facebook group to sell and then I ended up taking 4 trash bags back to the thrift store to donate. I did make a couple hundred dollars though :)

My friend Carolyn turned 50! She was going out to dinner with her family and her husband had us show up and surprise her. The only picture I got lol

Buster spends 98% of his day sleeping on the kitchen chairs.

My mom invited me and my kids over for pizza and to break in her fire pit. That was a nice night. 

May Sewing & Craft Fairs

 May was the big Lodi Street Fair! My mom went with me for the day so that I would be able to run to the bathroom and get lunch. This fair is so big! This was my first time doing the May one, they do May and October. I got the same spot as in October. Wouldn't you know it, it was windy again! I was glad I had a "windy day set up". While I was setting up I heard a lot of glass breaking in other booths when the wind would gust.

You can see everything blowing here. The guy next to me eventually tied that white tarp back since it was kind of loose wand whipping into my space. I had offered to use safety pins to hold it together since his velcro was dead and he just tied it back. He was a really nice guy and sold these cool plant hangers. 

I was wishing I had had more time to make more "variety" of items. Mug cozies don't do as well in the spring. BUT I did have a couple return buyers that were actually looking for me, so how cool was that?

You can see more of the sunglasses cases I had made up here, they seem to sell really well for me

I hung up the wine totes with wine bottles in them but it started to bend my tent frame so I took the bottles out. It still worked well to hang them and I didn't have to worry about them getting blown off the table like they always do when it is windy.

I have the sign up for October but haven't sent it in yet. I was debating about it since it is expensive and I didn't do the best at this one BUT I think my stuff sells better in the fall/winter so I will do it.

Here is my friend's daughter Abbi wearing a skirt I made to a Mother's Day tea at her preschool. Remember when I was making all the skirts? She finally grew into it.

Lots of tissue packs from my blue scrap bin. I sold most of these already. I buy packs of tissues from the dollar store so they are only about .12 to make. People love them and I have sold a few as "doll pillows" lol

More keychains!

The day before Mother's Day I did a booth at the Modesto Mall again. I thought it would be great since my stuff makes good gifts but I didn't sell a lot. I did better towards the end of the day. It was like people had bought a "big" gift and now were looking for something little to go with it if that makes sense. Also maybe people were less likely to buy stuff just because if they were on a mission for a mom present. 

The mall requires black table cloths. Last time I borrowed some but I decided to buy my own. I think they look really nice! I actually just bought one more this morning and I'm going to buy one more big folding table (but you can only have 2 at the mall)

I ended up moving all the keychains to the front straight table after a bit, I think it was a better display but I didn't take another picture of it.

The mall is SUCH a long day. I went to get a Starbucks at one point because I was getting so tired sitting there. I got kind of the evil eye when I got back from the gal that was coordinating it but I was like man if it took me 20 minutes and I lost a $8 sale it's ok! You need to be able to get up and stretch a bit in a twelve hour day.

Next up was the St. Stanislaus Spring Fling. This was at a school which is connected to a HUGE Catholic Church. It was totally under advertised and I'd say MAYBE 20 people came that weren't vendors. Another long day. The people next to me actually packed up a couple hours early. I still amazingly made a small profit though.

I am only signed up for one more event in June and then I am not doing any more until the Fall.