What I'm Thankful For

So ModCloth is one of my favorite websites :-) and I was on there website the other day and saw a contest that If I post what I'm thankful for that there is a chance to win a $100 gift card for mentioning them in your post and putting this link : Thank-a-Thon contest
I thought it sounded like a pretty cool idea and I have a lot of things I'm thankful for :-)

There are so many things I could talk about that I'm thankful for... My family, my dog and my snake, having a house to live in, living in America... So many things, but I think I'll focus on my family.

My family is really awesome. I love them so much. Sometimes I get mad at them and sometimes I can't handle being around my little brothers all the time but on the whole, I really love them.
I have a relatively large family, I have my parents, one sister, three brothers, four grandparents, eight first cousins, numerous 2nd and 3rd cousins, lots of aunts and uncles and great aunts and great uncles, a brother-in-law a niece and a nephew. *Phew* Try saying that in one breath.....







Here's the most recent picture pf my immediate family.
Haha, as you can see we're not really the go into a photo studio, wear matching shirts, and have a photo shoot type family...
Behind the couch from the left- Me, Nathaniel (my brother)
On the couch from left- Adam (my brother in law) and he's holding Gage (my nephew), Then Heather (my sister) who is holding Rory (my niece), then my mom and Noah (my brother)
On the floor from the left- Samuel (my little brother) and my Dad

One of my most favorite things that we do as a family is have family picnics. We usually have them at my grandparents house in their back yard (because they have a large backyard). They live in Western Pennsylvania out by Pittsburgh. Most of my relatives live out there so that's why we have most of our picnics out there.
They are so much fun! We all get together and everyone brings food. In my family we have all kinds. Crazy people, older people, babies, single guys, single girls, married guys and girls... So when we all get together it is a fun time and a half. There's lots of jokes and laughing. We all sit around and gossip, or talk about old times... Another of my favorite things we do together is going camping :-) We go to a place called Clear Creek State Park. It's so fun, we all rent out cabins next to each other and spend the week with each other, goofing off, lighting fires, going for hikes, swimming... all sorts of things, it's so fun....




So anyway, I am majorly thankful for my family!! I love them and don't know what I'd do without them :-)




I love them





Talk to ya'll next time :-)






~Courtney



P.S. Now I'll probably be on a roll with talking about my family! Be looking for my next post about our family Thanksgivings or something of the sort :-)

Grandma's Christmas Present

So Christmas is getting closer! I'm almost done with all my Christnmas gifts for this year. I have all the ones i"m buying done, but a few people I'm cooking for and I'm doing that the week before Christmas so it's fresh :-)

I thought I'd share3 with you what I made for my grandma (we call her Maw-maw). Well, last January my great Grandma passed away from a blood clot :'(. It was really hard on everyone because we all loved her, but it was especially hard on my grandma (it was her mother) because she was very close and it was a very, very unexpected death. Just after she passed, Maw-maw asked me if I wanted any of her clothes (since I sew a lot and like to make things out of old clothes). I found the cutest shirt and took it. I soon realized that it would make a wonderful present for Maw-maw... Just done up a bit.
I decided to make a pillow case for a throw pillow for her.




Here's what it looks like:





The Front^






The Back^





The Still Fully Functional Pocket^




Just a random angle :-)^






So it started out as just a regular button up shirt, I made the ruffle out of the sleeves of the shirt and sewed it on. The buttons are also still fully functional so Maw-maw (who is very obsessed with clean :-) ) can un-button the cover and wash anytime she wants.
I was also thinking about adding a picture of my great grandma that would be printed on fabric-paper and sewed on the back.

Anyway, that's all for now :-)








~Courtney

Halloween Costumes

This year I made my youngest brother into an alien/bug and I made my other younger brother a strait jacket. First, here's the strait jacket-

Front^

Back^ I actually made this last year for him but her wore it again this year. I used this tutorial- Strait Jacket Tutorial from ThreadBanger
I changed it a little bit because I didn't have enough money for all those belts. Instead I made thick straps with fabric, painted them brown, and then secured them with D-rings.


Next my youngest brother's costume-

Him acting 'scary' ^

From the back, his wings/exoskeleton^

From the front^

And him acting goofy, again from the front^

I used and XXL green shirt from the thrift store and added green spray painted bubble wrap for a chest plate type thing, then I took some old pants of his and hot glued green spray painted bubble wrap all over them so they were completely covered for alien-like legs. Next I took a big piece of cardboard and tore off a little of the first layer so that it had a nice texture to it, then painted it green and added a little bubble wrap and yellow paint for details. His antennae are just green pipe cleaners with a little green bubble wrap tied to the end that I attached to a headband. And for the arms, I just two tentacle shaped bubble wrap pieces, painted them green and hot glued them together and he just wore them like gloves.

When I took him out trick-or-treating and people asked what he was, he always said he was 'A Bug Eyed Death Alien from Mars.' that always gave people a good laugh :-)
Also people would say he had the most creative costume they'd seen all night and 5 or 6 people actually gave him extra candy because of it. It made me feel really awesome.

Anyway that's all for now =)





~Courtney