SeaWorld San Antonio

After our fun filled Saturday of shopping, on Sunday we went to SeaWorld!  We saw a few very cool shows and Bennet got to play in the little mini fountains!  I feel like the pictures kind of speak for themselves, so without further ado...  

It's a Steal

This past weekend we were heading down to San Antonio for Stefan's ChumpCar race.  Basically he and his team of guys had to find a car for under $500, fix it up, and race it.  Stefan spent hours last week over there working on the car.  However, as we were heading down on Friday, Stefan got a call from one of his teammates who told him that the car wouldn't even start.  At that point we were already in Austin, already had a hotel, and Mareike and I had some serious shopping plans, we were going.  

About 45 min from San Antonio is San Marcos.  San Marcos has one of the top three outlet malls in the country.  We spent 9 hours there Saturday and STILL didn't go to all the stores.  There was a Pottery Barn outlet, a Restoration Hardware outlet, Columbia outlet, J Crew outlet, Tory Burch outlet, Kate Spade outlet, I could go on.. In my book, heaven is a little bit like that.. only everything is free and has better food.  Lets talk about some of the deals I got!  

Banana Republic
Original Price:  $50     My Price:  $25

J. Crew Sweater and Long Sleeve T Shirt
Sweater Original Price:  $60     My Price:  $20
T-Shirt Original Price:  $50     My Price:  $15

J.Crew Scarf
Original Price:  $40     My Price:  $15

I also got some tanks (for layering) from Gap for about $7 each and a great, black long sleeve athletic top for about $10.

I'm saving the best for last though.. and I'm bummed that I don't have a picture, BUT deal of the day.  $30 patterned shorts from NY&Co for $4.50!!!!!!  

#winning

WIMM + My First Tutorial

Today’s WIMM just consists of just one thing AND it is my first tutorial!  Since it is my first, please bear with me.  There are a few things that in hind sight I wish I had done (and I’ll point them out to you as we come to them)  Also, for the sake of full disclosure, I must admit that I haven’t exactly tried this new painted mat out yet.  Therefore this is more of a ‘How to Paint Chevron Stripes’ tutorial than it is a ‘How to Paint Your Yoga Mat and It Still be Functional’ tutorial.  Also, I painted my stripes over the original ugliness, but I took the pictures for the tutorial on the other (blank side) of the mat so you could see it better.  

Let’s get started shall we?

Here is my sad first attempt to personalize the mat.  

Fail.

First thing I did was measure the mat.  Mine was 24in wide and about 60 inches long.  I wanted my stripes to go horizontally so the first thing I did was draw my vertical lines.  These are the points where the tips of the zig zag will be.  I drew a line every 4 inches across the mat.  Make sure you use a marker or a sharpie.  I originally used a pen and it scored the mat.  It also didn't cover well so you can still kind of see a grid on the final project.  Oh well.. I'm not perfect.  

Anyways.. continue those lines down the whole mat.  Then measure 4.5 inches down the mat and continue that line across the whole mat.  

Then all you have to do is connect the lines!

Do that across the whole mat. And you will get this! (and then my Sharpie died...)

For the next line, measure 4.5 inches down from your last horizontal line and continue that line across the mat.

Then, on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th vertical lines (the 'up' lines), measure a 1/2 inch down from the top line and make a hash mark.   

Then connect your hash mark and the bottom line!

Do that across the mat and you will have your second line!

Continue that process down the mat, or canvas, or whatever you are drawing the stripes on.  

Once you have all your lines drawn, its time to break out the paint.  I just used acrylics because they are pretty flexible.  I tried to keep my coats pretty thin to avoid peeling later, but thick enough to cover and to get down in the ridges of my mat.  At this point its just coloring inside the lines!  

YOUR LINES DON'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT!  

Just do your best!  There are definitely spots that I had to go back and touch up but that's super easy!

Tada!

There you have it!  Easy chevron stripes on a yoga mat that may or may not still be functional.. We shall find out later this week!  It is isn't--eh, there is always the other side.  At least now that it is pretty when I get tired of yoga (which, lets face it, with my track record is probably going to be sooner rather than later...), I will have a cute new rug!  

Fail

Well.. my original plan for this blog was going to be my first tutorial!  I was going to show y'all how I personalized my yoga mat.  However, said yoga mat looks horrendous.  I used a new stamp that is a paisley pattern and I didn't quite use it in the most aesthetically pleasing way. Note to self:  use paisley stamp in a diagonal.. not vert and horizontal.  So, instead of looking cute, it looks like I think I'm a little princess who wants personalized stuff but is crap at it.  Therefore.. I will be redoing it and posting the tute tomorrow.  

Today you get this.

His version of peek-a-boo

...and you get a rambling list of things I am loving right now.  

I just discovered HauteLook.

Check out my new watch!  Yea, that's a $75 watch that I got for $30!

These rain boots.  The ones I currently have are the $5 ones from Wal-Mart that I decorated.  I feel like the German winter might call for something a little more substantial.  I tried on the purple version at TJ Maxx yesterday and they are oh so comfy but I'm not a purple fan.  These are PERFECT but I can't seem to find them in my size.  =(

If only the world were really this safe.

New favorite book.

What I Made Monday

On Monday, I worked on the quilt a bit.  I am taking cutting the extra fabric at a slow pace so I doing get overwhelmed.  Before I left for Texas, I spent an ENTIRE DAY cutting out the pieces I already had only to figure out I really needed about double that.  Needless to say I was a bit discouraged and REALLY not looking forward to more cutting.  So I’m taking it slow.  But that’s not all I did that day…I also made dinner!  Here is my Spin Art Pasta!  I found the recipe on Pinterest a la.  I’ve made it with penne (as you can see) but I’ve also made it to put on orzo.  I’m pretty sure you could put that sauce on anything and it would be delicious! 

Tuesday, I got a little fabric cutting done during nap time. 

Wednesday, I finished a couple more rows for the quilt.  It’s really cool seeing the design begin to develop.  4 rows down… 15 more to go! 

On Thursday, I made Little Man a koozie (a la) for his MooTubes (aka GoGurt).  That boy loves some yogurt so  this week we tried them out to see if he could do it himself.  He can!  For the most part… I’m not saying we didn’t end up with yogurt everywhere, but he seems to get the concept. 

I’m kind of cheating for Friday.  Friday was a bit crazy.  I had my first yoga class, so I was out all morning.  When I got back Little Man had had like a 30 min nap and some yogurt so he definitely wasn’t going to nap/eat at our normal time.  We walked, we ate, we fell asleep at the table, we screamed for a solid 15 min when I put him in the crib (I’m telling you NO creativity can happen when a baby is screaming..), we gave in and got him up, we ate the rest of our lunch, we played, we played, we played…  The boy WOULD NOT go to sleep.

Worth it?  I think so... 

Therefore, no real creativity happened that day, BUT I did try a new braid that I have been wanting to try.  I was so excited for my class!  I seriously felt like it was the first day of school and of course I wanted to make a good impression!  So I rocked the braid.  It was a hit—I got compliments!!  =)

Saturday, Mareike and I visited the Hob Lob.  I was on the charm aisle getting something for Sunday’s project when I spotted a pretty pair of charms that were 50% off.  They didn’t really serve the purpose for the other project BUT they would make great earrings!  So for $1.25, I scooped them up!  I already had the earring things so for $1.25 and about a minute of work, I had a brand new pair of earrings!  

That afternoon while I was watching football/pinning I saw this tute for a rosette bracelet.  This is the kind of jewelry I'd see in a store and love but wouldn't buy because I couldn't convince myself that I'd actually wear it.  BUT I figured if I made it out of the scraps from my quilt it was basically free and then I could see if I would actually wear it or not!  It was also a great project to do while watching football!  I changed mine a bit from the tutorial.  I actually just forgot to put the felt on the bottom, but it seems fine without it.  I also added a snap closure because I knew that there was no way I was going to be able to tie a pretty bow with one hand. I had a bit of the yellow fab left over so I just tied a pretty bow and put it on the opposite side of the snap to hide the ugly stitches.

Sunday, I set to work on this tutorial from one of my new favorite DIY blog finds, Sweet Verbena!  I always have like 15 pens, pencils, highlighters, etc in my purse at any given time and while I try to keep them organized in the little pouches they tend to fall out.  This case was the perfect solution although it would also be fabulous for make up brushes, hiding those feminine items that are always floating around in the purse, etc.  So cute and relatively easy!  This was my first foray into actually 'quilting' something and it was super easy!   SO without further ado... here is my pencil case!

Yoga!

One word for today…sore!  It is the good kind of sore though—not the “I can’t move, I might die” kind of sore.  It’s just sore enough to let me know that I worked some new muscles!   I will definitely be going back.  Since I know that I will be going back, I went ahead a bought my own mat.  I’m not a germ-a-phobe or anything, but there is something about sharing mats that just screams staph infection to me.. just saying.  I went with the cheapest option at Academy which was this beaut for $10.  

Not too shabby.  It was this or a pukey pink color so I opted for this.  Of course its my plan to personalize it a bit but I haven’t decided what to do yet.  I’ve seen a few tutes about making rugs out of yoga mats but then it kind of seems to not serve the purpose of being a yoga mat anymore (the traction is kind of gone).

 

It seems the yoga community isn’t really into DIY personalization of their mats.. eh..  I shall figure it out.  I’m thinking about just using my acrylics and not covering the whole thing (leave some green) so that I still get some traction.  Acrylics are pretty flexible so it will roll up well—at least for a few weeks before it starts peeling off.  =)  I really want to either stamp a design or do a chevron pattern and then put a big monogram in the middle!  I’m thinking about using a navy for the pattern and then either a white or brown for the monogram.  Thoughts?

I'll Take One in Each Color

Yesterday was quite busy!  Bennet and I went down to the base so that I could get my visitors pass.  

I'm also really loving my To Do list in the background.. 

Now that I’m slightly more official I can go on base to take him to the doctor if need be, or I can go to the gym!  The gym on base is FREE and they have FREE classes!  Thank you U.S. Military!  I will be hitting up my first class tomorrow morning—YOGA!  We shall see how it goes! 

After our visit to the base, we were going to go to the park, BUT it started to rain.  What’s a girl to do?  We went to the mall instead.  Bennet is fascinated by people so anywhere there are people he is happy!  While at the mall, I got the best deal ever!  These shirts…

for

That's right!  So I bought it in every color they had my size!  Perfect with some skinny jeans and a cardigan!  I’m really excited about wearing that goldish/orange one with my burlap Toms!   I got 3 shirts and a water bottle for $7!

Daily Dose of Cute

I don't have much to write about today, but I do have some cute pictures!  Here is what we've been up to.. 

 

P.S. The thing around his neck isn't a fashion statement.. its a drool cloth.  Molars can be a pain!

What I Made Monday

I have a goal for this next year.  I want to create something every day.  This doesn’t mean that I finish whatever I’m working on, just that I work on it.  Realistically, with travelling I know that it probably won’t happen every day on the weekends, but I am going to try.  So, I am starting a new series on the blog.

Tuesday I worked on my quilt.  I was inspired by this quilt (and in turn this quilt) that I found on Pinterest which led me to the wonderful world that is Anna Maria Horner’s blog.  It is incredibly funny, real, and full of great sewing ideas!  I printed off the template but decided that I like the look of the horizontal zig zags more than the vertical, so I did a little bit of math and rotated the design.  I WISH I had the eye for combining all those colors, prints, stripes, and dots like she does, however, if this quilt is going in my room, you know it is going to be neutral.

Wednesday I broke down and joined Jones Design Company Monthly.  What can I say?  I’m a sucker for print goods!  I saw this idea on Pinterest and decided that that a dry erase calendar was exactly what I needed for my new desk area.  Little Man and I went to Kinkos and printed off the calendars.  Then, while we were at Wal-Mart getting Mr. Coffee, I picked up some frames for $2.50 each!

Thursday I realized I calculated the number of triangles I needed for each row wrong.  I thought I only needed 8 but alas I need 15.  This ordinarily wouldn’t be a problem, but I was working with scraps at this point, so it looked like I was going to have to make a trip to Hobby Lobby.  Darn!  (Where is that sarcasm font?)  I will say that this was a sad, sad day, because this was the day that I realized my gray and white stripy fabric was on its last leg. 

This has been my go to fabric since I bought it my Junior year of college for a Toga social.  It was a $1 a yard and I’m kicking myself for not buying the whole bolt!  While it will still made an appearance in the quilt, it will now be joined by some grayish/black and cream ticking (which I love as well, but we just don’t have the history).

the new fabrics are on the bottom

what I have so far.. 

Friday, I FINALLY finished this plaque.  Originally it was painted navy and yellow and said something about forget prince charming southern boys are better (or something like that).  I decided that I kind of hated the colors so I painted over it with gray and brown and then stamped a damask-ish design on it in off white.  And so it has sat, in that state, for over a year.  I’ve been pinning a bunch of quotes always having that plaque in the back of my mind.  There were a few that I loved very, very much so I just put them all in a hat and chose randomly.  Here were the top contenders:

“Every day may not be good, but there is something good in every day.”

‘Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”

“Make this moment count”

“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

And the winner:

“She took a leap and built her wings on the way down”

When I first saw this I was like, ‘Oh, so we are celebrating being unprepared?!’ but the more I thought about it the more I liked it.  It isn’t talking about being unprepared, it’s talking about taking chances even if you don’t feel like you’re ready.  There are some things that we are never ready for—like moving to another country, leaving your family.  Like it says in Ecclesiastes 11.4: ‘If you wait for the perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.’  It is also a good reminder that it is okay to figure things out as I go.  When I’m stressed or in a stressful situation, I have the tendency to try and regain a bit of control by over thinking and over planning.  No one wants life to be that rigid.  I sure don’t.  While it was hard for me at the time, study abroad really helped me chill out in terms of HAVING to have a plan all the time.  I’m hoping that this au pair experience has the same effect.

Saturday, I made myself some coasters.  They’re nothing epic, but they are nice neutrals that will work with my quilt once I get it finished.