I am back to blogging and crafting!!! (Plus a glimpse of my house mid-crafting...)

I am FINALLY back to the crafting/blogging world!


For those of you that didn't hear where I went or why I was gone- I had to leave spur of the moment and unplanned due to my little brother passing away. 


I am so grateful to you guys for sticking around, even though I took a month off to be with my family. Lucky for me, I have a fabulous friend named Rach that took over the reins of my blog and lined up some great guest posts from my favorite bloggers to keep things moving with my blog. So thank you to everyone that helped guest post! You guys are the best!!


And a HUGE thank you to you guys.... I got so many wonderful emails, comments, etc- that really helped me and made me feel ok about taking this big leave. Thanks so much for your support and understanding! I love you all and am so grateful to get to know you a little bit through this blog! You guys are the best!!


I pulled back into town last night so I have a month worth of everything to catch back up on, but I just wanted to let you all know that I am back on board with blogging and crafting and have some fun projects and tutorials up my sleeves- headed your way soon!! Thanks for hanging around!!


In the mean time, I am going to share a little bit of behind the blog scenes... WHAT MY HOUSE LOOKS LIKE WHEN I AM MID-CRAFTING... brace yourselves! ha ha


(this is a guest post I wrote for My Hand Crafted Home)


Have you ever felt worthless after spending hours(or even minutes) looking at blogs because in blogland everyones house is perfectly kept, kids are perfectly dressed, projects are always completed, pictures have perfect lighting, and meals are artfully prepared and served on color coordinating dishes, etc?

Then you aren't alone! I have spent many a night feeling like I am not as orderly, crafty, talented, etc as other bloggers out there!

But I have a newsflash for you... blogging is an optical illusion. You see what bloggers want you to see. The picture of the perfect chocolate cake doesn't show the kitchen in the other room that was torn apart making it! The picture of an intricate quilt doesn't show the number of seams that were ripped out while making it. The picture of a perfectly fitted pencil skirt doesn't show the safety pin in the back holding the skirt shut cuz the button popped off while taking pictures! Get what I mean? 

Pretty much 100% of the time that I blog, I am sitting in my pajamas with a house in need of some sort of attention! (to my defense, I mainly blog at night so pajamas are fitting- but that is no excuse for my house! ha ha)

Of course we want everyone to see the "perfect side" not the side that has let the laundry pile up and go unfolded for weeks while working on sewing projects. {Of course that has never happened to me- just giving an example- wink wink}

So today I thought I would let you in on a little bit of the behind the scenes in my neck of the woods. Brace yourselves... it isn't pretty!

I live in an apartment and have limited space. I don't have a cute  craft room {that will be the day}- so my dining room doubles as a sewing/laundry room. Here is what is was looking like last night amid-sewing...

Across the room lies a space full of disorder!! (un pictured in the corner is a sink full of dirty dishes and an empty pizza box cuz mommy didn't have time to make dinner! ha)

I guess what I am trying to say is that blogging is awesome in a lot of ways- but just keep in mind that what you see isn't always the whole picture! :)

Rockin' the Pendant Banner

My favorite room in my whole house is my little girls room.

I love being in there because it is so bright and sunny and happy.

When we moved in I was planning on putting up curtains in their room, but over the past year I have gone back and forth between what I wanted to do... I had finally decided that I didn't want to put up curtains because I didn't want to loose any of that yummy light and brightness, but every time I passed by their room it just looked unfinished to me. 

So I decided to use a pendant banner as faux curtains.

I loved pendant banners! I had been racking my brain as to where I could use one in my house so I am so glad that I finally came up with a place for one!

I used paper and then I stitched with my sewing machine around the edges and across the top to create a casing for the paper rope(from World Market) to go through. I love the way it turned out. When you get up close you can see the light coming through the paper where I stitched. 

I am sure somewhere the curtain police are shuddering- but we're kickin' it new school in our house and we are totally rockin' the pendant banner!

I am linking up here