Mint green and The Adventure Orange

Over the weekend Matt and I went out exploring around the Quad Cities. We ran a couple errands and then headed down to the East Village of Davenport to check out Mint Green and The Adventure Orange. It is a funky, eclectic little store with fashion, accessories and gifts. They even had baby clothes!

I'm all about unicorns right now. 

I loved the hats!

I have a big head but this yellow hat fit nicely so I had to have it. There was so much more I would have liked to get if I had more money. A dress, a couple pieces of their jewelry, a sticker or two...you get the point :)

Mystery machine

Another project I worked on a while back but never posted is of this little golf cart my work friends and I got to turn into a Scooby Doo Mystery Machine. The city wanted a mystery machine to drive in the holiday kick-off parade since the giant balloon they had to carry in the parade was of Scooby Doo. Jean, Glenn and I were up for the challenge. 

Done!

It was time consuming and difficult at times but I had a lot of fun. Jean and Glenn are two of my favorite local artists so I learned a thing or two from them in the process. It was the first time I ever worked on a project like this. I would definitely do something like it again if the opportunity ever arises!

Painting a Princess Party Beanbag Toss

I had some posts I started a long time ago but never posted. This one is of a bean bag toss I painted for the children museum's princess birthday parties. It took forever to finish but I had a ton of fun doing it and absolutely love how it turned out.

Here are a few progress photos. When I first started I only had a vague idea of what I wanted so as the painting progressed the colors changed.

Done!

The Mineral and Crystal Museum

I started this post way back at the end of September after my birthday but never finished. It has some sweet pictures though so better late than never! For my 27th birthday I told everyone I wanted to go on a spirit quest and the destination would undoubtedly be The House on the Rock in Wisconsin. Woohoo Wisconsin!

Like all good spirit quests though, this one had some unexpected stops along the way.On the last stretch of road to House on the Rock we passed The Mineral and Crystal Museum. We had recently started collecting rocks again when my husband brought his childhood collection back home from his parents' house. It ended up being the perfect addition to my birthday vacation.

In fact, one of my birthday presents from Matt this year was this beautiful piece of celestite.

The Mineral and Crystal Museum was awesome. It definitely solidified my new interest in geology. Here are a few pictures from our visit-

House on the Rock was amazing as well. It is absolutely one of a kind and I took a lot of pictures there too, but THAT is for another blog post ;) Thanks for reading!

Necklace refashion

       A hematite necklace I got from the $1.00 bin at Fred & Ethel's in Rock Island.

                              Here is my refashion of it...

                                                     Yay! It is rad.

And here is my dog, Dinah, getting a puppy head massage. She's a creep but I love that little fur goblin <3 nbsp="" p="">

                                       Thanks for stoppin' by... :)

                                          

Jewelry and July

After that last shirt refashion I decided it was time to do something else besides sewing for my next project. I went with beading and made this really beautiful mint, pink and green necklace. The owl pendant used to be on a ring.

I love how it turned out! I think the shape of the draping that the double strands make is so cool. It actually looks even better when you put it on.

Besides the jewelry making I've been out celebrating Fourth of July. My husband and I rode bikes and met up with my parents and friends on the other side of the Mississippi. 

We rode our bikes over the Arsenal Bridge and as we were riding across a train was crossing too. We raced the train over the river and across the bridge into Illinois. It was quite exciting...And loud. 

 Matt took this picture of me while we were out riding and I really like how it turned out. I have a tendency to be overly critical, cynical, and what have you when it comes to photos of myself so its kind of cool to see a snapshot I genuinely like.

 Plus my bike is in the photo and I adore my bike. <3 <3 

 It was dark out during our ride but we still got a few fun photos anyway.

Matt was channeling his inner Abraham Lincoln for Fourth of July spirit. My insane and awesome (insanely awesome?) sense of style is rubbing off on him....excellent. Mwah haha.

We were quite a sight to be seen out riding our bikes that evening.

We painted our bathroom yesterday and I have a couple of spray paint projects and another necklace I'm working on too. That's pretty much it though. I'll post more results when I get some of these new projects finished up! Thanks for reading :)

Leopard print, button up, collared shirt refashion

While I had some time off work I tried my hand at another freestyle sewing project. This time I refashioned an old blouse my mom gave me because it was torn at some of the seams.

The first thing I did was mend the seams and in my opinion, everything about this fabric is fabulous. It's sheer, lightweight, LEOPARD PRINT.  However when I tried the shirt on the fit was just so so. It was calling to me for a refashion.

I cut off the collar of the shirt and the strips of buttons and button holes down the front of it all in one long strip. To use in a future refashion project perhaps?

I hemmed the front of the blouse and using 3 layered fabrics from an old dress of mine I fashioned a new mandarin style collar. I lightly traced a pattern for the collar using scrap pieces of poster board and another blouse I had with a mandarin collar. I made a cuff around the sleeves which I decided to shorten as well. 

Afterall, it's finally summer. And it's lumpin' hot out. 

I know. There's a lot of leopard print going on. It's pretty tacky but I've decided that's okay! It's tacky in the most gawdy, wish I was in Vegas, watching Wayne Newton, eating buffet and gambling my savings kinda way. 

Or perhaps Queen of the trailer park- smoking a cig, a can of Busch Lite close by, my hair is large, my makeup fierce. And I'm grilling up hotdogs in the yard for the 3rd time that week...

I don't smoke cigs but I do eat A LOT of hotdogs. Especially this time of year. 

Hotdogs are awesome....

Hotdogs lumpin' rule.

 Anyway, where was I?..Oh yeah! And the witness to mine and Matt's wedding was an Elvis in a shiny gold suit jacket. Who may have been botoxed...???

No matter. 

Point is I think this shirt and I are going to get along just fine :)