Re-purposed shirt

The other day I was browsing Pinterest and found a tutorial for how to turn a long-sleeved shirt into a cute short-sleeved shirt. I have several shirts that have sleeves that are too short for my long arms, so I decided to give the tutorial a try.  

Start with a long-sleeved t-shirt.

Cut off the sleeves!

Cut the cuff off of the sleeve and cut the sleeve down the seam.

Starting at the "shoulder," scrunch up the sleeve.

When you are done making the bow, wrap the cuff around the middle to keep it together.

Sew the bow onto the top of the shirt!  I just did several random stitches until I felt like it was well attached!

That's it!  I also put some anti-fray stuff on the arm holes just in case.

Working on My 25 List

I am slowly starting to accomplish things on my 25 before 25 list, and also slowly starting to realize that some of the things on there are pretty unrealistic. If money were no object, maybe I would see New York City and the Atlantic Ocean in the next 13 months, but it is. My wonderful friend Kirsten is getting married in August and I would love to go to her wedding, which is in Portland. A trip to the East Coast might have to wait a little bit longer.

But onto the things I have already accomplished ...

I made a skirt. With a sewing machine. I amaze myself sometimes.  I used the easiest tutorial I could find, but I was still skeptical that the piece of fabric would look like a skirt when I was done.  A few tears were shed, but it is finished, it is cute, it fits, and it HAS POCKETS. I wore it on our date last night and I love it! I can't post any pictures because I'm currently using a netbook - so there's no photo storage, but I will try to get one on the blog soon.

I am slowly starting to make a wedding scrapbook.  I have all the supplies purchased.  I have done one page. (Hey, slow and steady wins the race, right?)

I am also slowly starting to get back to pre-wedding weight. I bought a "skinny" cookbook and so far I love the recipes in it. The hardest part is exercising. I have time to exercise, but I tend to get migraines really easily. Today Garrett and I went on a 30 minute/1 mile walk, and I had a migraine 1/2 way through it. Not sure how I'm going to lose weight burning 90 calories a day. I kind of feel like I'm out of ideas. I have tried the "Couch to 5k" program, but shooting pain going through my knees is not my idea of a fun time. Has anyone tried Yoga for Weight Loss? I have seen a couple videos, but can you really lose weight doing some weird stretches?

One last thing. Apparently people read this blog! AAHH. I found the "stats" page on blogger.  I have 12 followers and 30 posts, so I figured that when I looked under the "pageviews" stats that I would have around 350. HOW ABOUT 1,099?!!!  Who the heck is reading this thing?  Whoever you are, thank you!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Cook Yourself Thin Faster

Look at me go!  3 posts in 3 days.

If you read my "25 Before 25" list, you might have noticed that one of the things that I want to do is to cook through a cookbook.  Yes, I got this idea from the movie Julie and Julia.  I checked out Juila Child's cookbook and all the French food honestly scared me. I had no idea what most of it even was, not to mention where I would buy it.  I was also worried that if I was able to find the food, that it would be too expensive for our grocery budget.

So, last night I scoured the cookbook section at Half Price Books and found a cookbook called "Cook Yourself Thin Faster."  This brings me to the assumption that there is a "Cook Yourself Thin" cookbook out there somewhere, and that this one is the sequel.  Another one of the things on my 25 list is to get back to pre-wedding weight, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone by cooking through a healthy eating cookbook.

Starting this weekend I will start cooking through the "Cook Yourself Thin Faster" cookbook. I will be cheating slightly by not cooking every recipe in this cookbook.  I'm not going to spend money on ingredients for a meal that I know neither of us will like.  On the menu for the first week is Fish and Chips, White Pizza with Roasted Mushrooms, Pork with Apples, Fettuccine con Funghi, mini blueberry muffins for breakfast Saturday morning, and blueberry/pomegranate smoothies for breakfast throughout the week.

Wish us luck!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

This past weekend, we made our own laundry detergent.  I found the recipe online, and it claimed that it makes enough for over a year of laundry for only 12 dollars.  That's a deal I couldn't pass up!  The detergent smells good and cleans well. I miss the fruity scent of our old detergent, but that's something I'm willing to live without!

If you want to make a batch of detergent for yourself, here is the recipe:

1 4lb box of Borax
1 4lb box of  Arm & Hammer Baking Soda
1 4lb box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1 30oz top of OxyClean or Sun Oxygen cleaner
3 5oz bars of Fels Naptha soap
(All these ingredients are right next to each other in the laundry aisle at Wal-Mart.)

You will also need a large container to put it in.  I think it needs to be at least 3 gallons.  We ended up buying a 15 quart storage box because it was the cheapest thing we could find.

First you will need to grate the soap into your storage container. I just used a regular old cheese grater.
Dump all the other ingredients into the storage container. Pour slowly or else you will inhale baking soda - just a tip. Once all the ingredients are in the container, mix it up with your hands until it is well mixed.

You will need 1 Tablespoon of detergent for a regular sized load and 2 for a large load. The Sun Oxygen soap came with a Tablespoon sized scooper, so I just threw that in the box with the detergent.

And, since we are on the topic of being thrifty, I'll go ahead and post these pictures of how I made a magazine holder out of an empty Cheerios box.

The Crazy Month of December

This month was crazy busy for us.  We had something going on every weekend.  We started the month out with a girl's Secret Santa party.

For the party, I decided to do a hot chocolate bar, which was an idea I found on Pinterest (duh.) Target had different flavors of marshmallows, so I bought chocolate mint and gingerbread, as well as regular marshmallows and peppermints.  I found the little green pails at Hobby Lobby and the chalkboard stickers on Etsy.  After the party, I put the labels on my flour, sugar, brown sugar, and coffee canisters.

 Here is Vanessa texting her husband on her iPhone using her new gloves that allow you to text without taking off your gloves.  She was pretty excited!

 Lauren got a Mario poster as one of her gifts.

The weekend after the Secret Santa party we had a Lord of the Rings marathon at my in-law's house.  The marathon has been a Keck family tradition for several years. I got to attend my first marathon only a couple months after Garrett and I had started dating. After I spent 14 hours in the Keck's living room, they knew I must be "the one!" I have no pictures to document the event, but it is pretty hard core.  This year we bought my father-in-law the movies on BluRay and a BluRay player so we got to watch the movies in top viewing quality. We started Fellowship of The Ring at 8:40am and finished Return of the King around 10:30pm. 

The next weekend was Christmas!  We started the celebrations at Garrett's grandparent's house were we had a Dirty Santa exchange with the extended family. The next day we went over to my in-laws house.  Check out the tree with the presents!

The day after Christmas was the most exciting part of the month for me!  My friend Brady from high school came to visit for 4 days. We actually weren't extremely close in high school until the end but we have been really good about keeping in touch ever since I moved to Oklahoma. He came down here for my wedding and now he is friends with my good friend Devin. Here is a picture of the 4 of us at Tapwerks in Bricktown. Having him here was a great way to finish off this crazy month!  Happy New Year everyone!

Festival of Lights!

Two weekends ago, I talked Garrett into driving me down to the Festival of Lights in Chickasha. I was having a rough week and Christmas lights always make me so happy!  Plus, it was pretty much the only lights display I hadn't already dragged Garrett to. Poor boy. Good thing I got major points for his Christmas present.
The drive was a little longer than I expected, but it was TOTALLY worth it.
The battery in our camera was dead (of course) so all these are phone pictures.  Hopefully they aren't too terrible.  Here are my favorite pictures!

This one was taken from the car window...

 This tree was freaking ginormous! It was awesome!

This church was at the exit of the park where the Festival was. I just thought it was cool. :)

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!  I have the next week off work so be looking for more posts.  I still have to put up our girls Christmas party and I will be working on some of my 25 before 25 list during my break!

25 by 25 List

As promised, here is my "25 by 25" list.  It was actually really hard to think of 25 things that I could potentially do on my own.  I wanted to put things like "buy a house" but that is something that is kind of out of my control.  Let's just say that I'm not exactly the breadwinner of the family.

1. Successfully make French Toast.
The very first meal I made when Garrett and I got back from our honeymoon was French Toast.  It was completely terrible.  Burned on the outside but still gooey and raw egg-y on the inside. It was so disgusting. Of course, I was convinced that it was a sign I was going to be a terrible wife and not be able to feed my husband, so I have banned it from the house.  But, I really like French toast, so I want to learn how to make it!

2. See the Atlantic Ocean.
Somehow I have managed to visit Flordia twice, and I still haven't seen the Atlantic.

3. Grow a vegetable garden.
Granted, it will have to be one of those super small vegetable gardens that you grow in a wooden box or something, considering we don't have a yard, but I want to successfully grow something.  Garrett and I don't have the best track record of keeping things alive.  Our first fish, Hobbes, only lived 30 minutes. :/

4. Learn how to change a tire/jump a car.
Let's just say that if I ever get a flat while I'm on the highway, I'm totally screwed.

5. Go to an NFL game.  Preferably The Bears, but I'm not picky.

6. Open an Etsy shop.

7. Read through the entire Bible.

8. Cook all the way through a cookbook.  Even the weird recipes that have ingredients that I have never heard of.

9. Eat a weird food.  I'm probably the most predictable person in the world when it comes to food.  I get the same thing at Braums every single time.  The same soup at Panera. (If they are out of potato, I go somewhere else for lunch.) The same drink at Starbucks.  This "weird" food doesn't have to be snail butts or something like that, just something that I wouldn't normally eat.

10. Get back down to pre-engagement weight. 

11. Finally make a album/scrapbook of our wedding.

12. Watch a sunrise.  And not because I had to get up at the butt crack of dawn for work.

13. Clean out/organize the house.  For two people, we sure do have a lot of crap.  I blame the wedding.

14. Run a marathon.

15. Spend a night sleeping outside.

16. Don't buy new clothes for 6 months. (Something tells me that this will be Garrett's favorite.)

17. Make a theme cake.  Not just a regular old chocolate cake. A pirate ship cake, or something like that. 

18. Sew something.  I recently got my grandma's old sewing machine from my aunt.  My mother-in-law got it up and running, and now I'm itching to make some pajama pants.

19. Read the Naria books.  I've only listened to them on tape, and that was on family road trips when I was a teenager.  I hid my headphones under the hood of my hoodie and pretended to be asleep.  I was not big on family togetherness.

20. Travel to a state I have never been.  Preferably Massachusetts or New York. *cough cough* (I think my husband reads this ...)

21. Find somewhere to volunteer.  Church, Feed the Children, Christian Services, etc.

22. Get my husband to actually shave without having to nag him about it every day of my life. 
(This could potentially take my entire life.  If I can accomplish this in the next 14 months, I'm throwing a party.)

23. Start couponing.  Get that grocery budget cut down a little bit.

24. Start teaching piano to at least one person.

25. Go back to Colorado and climb a mountain.

I turn 25 in 2 days short of 14 months. Better get crackin!