School.Is.Out…

Y’all. It’s SUMMER. I think I am in denial and feel like I’m just on Spring Break vacation. How did we get here? My kids finished school on May 22 and the next day we headed to the beach which we have never done before (left town right after school gets out). We are still here and are enjoying some family time for another week. Here are a few pics from this past week, plus some pics of some of our new AND old designs.

Maggie got to come to the beach with us, and she is loving beach life! A little salt air does us all good!

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One of her fave spots is looking out at the Gulf! Dogs aren’t allowed on the beach, but we may have taken her crab hunting one night (when it was dark and no one could see).

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This is my favorite of her spread eagle looking out over the pool.

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We celebrated Browder’s 12th (!!!!) birthday Monday and he requested a trip to Big Daddy’s ripoff Arcade. $100 will get you a couple of candy necklaces!! Just kidding. I think we really spent $20 for 25 minutes of entertainment and a bunch of useless tickets.

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Sissy and I made cupcakes.

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He’s 12 y’all! That’s almost 13…

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Tuesday night my mom came for a visit so we took her to one of our fave spots – Fisherman’s Corner. If you ever come to Perdido Key or Orange Beach, call and make a reservation. It’s a shack, but some of the best seafood you’ll ever eat!

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Now on to Applique Cafe stuff. First of all, we are having a SALE through June 3rd, which is…. I have no idea what day it is….

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Here are some new designs we’ve added over the past month or so sewn by Jilly’s Mom Made That. All of these designs are on our website of course and are ON SALE!

Crab 22 Elephant 42 Flower Patch 22 Saw Tooth Fish1 Umbrella and Rain Boots1 Vintage Golf Green1 Vintage String of Fish1

Here are some other AC designs that I’ve sewn recently. The shorts are from Old Navy and were a funny yellowish greenish color to match. I had ONE fabric so I went with it and some other coordinating thread colors. Love how it turned out!

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A dear friend of mine is having a baby this summer, so I did a couple of (Blanks Boutique) gowns for her! They zip up the side so they are super easy to applique!

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This is a Monkey Tails Blanks dress with our Popsicle Trio design! I love a good trio! 🙂

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Here are 3 other NEW designs we listed this week! I love the Vintage stitch designs (such as the Fireworks). They are SO easy and fast to stitch! I recommend using a cutaway stabilizer on the bottom AND solvy or water soluble on top for those designs.

popsicle trio 2 500 vintage fireworks 500 submarine 500

Happy Summer!

Bathroom Afters

Happy Spring Break people!

We are livin’ it up here at some exotic beach destination in Montgomery, Alabama for Spring Break. White sand Almost-green grass and crystal blue water soccer goals was our entertainment for today. We braved the sun clouds from 8:20 this morning until around 4:00 this afternoon, with excursions such as snorkeling and scuba diving 4 soccer matches in which we tied or lost all 4 games. We then refreshed ourselves with some strawberry daquiris and pina coladas milkshakes from the Tiki Bar Chick Fil A! It’s supposed to start raining at 8:00 tonight and rain ALL NIGHT LONG, which means even our plans tomorrow for watching more soccer for Spring Break may get cancelled! Good times….. JUST KIDDING!!! Well, not really kidding, but the kids and I are beach bound Monday so we hope to get some sun and sand in before the week is up.

In all seriousness, have you tried the FROSTED LEMONADE from Chick Fil A?? I used to be admittedly addicted to Starbucks Mocha Frappuccinos (with 1 pump of “gasoline” as my kids would scream from the backseat). Y’all…. FROSTED LEMONADE!! I have had FOUR, yes 4, of them since Tuesday! They are DELICIOUS, and $1.39 cheaper than Starbucks! I am not sure what I’m going to do on Sunday when they are closed…..

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As promised, here are a few “AFTER” bathroom pics from our recent bathroom renovation. Let me preface this by saying, if you dislike our new bathroom, don’t agree with the cabinet choices we made, don’t like the paint color (Benjamin Moore Manchester Tan btw…), think the vanity lights are awful…. please do not mistakenly email me thinking you emailed your BFF to tell her how you don’t like MY bathroom that you will never step foot in. True story… when we redid our kitchen, I had a girl email me to tell me she hated the chandelier over our table (which we had not replaced yet) and that she would have never chosen the island color. She hit reply to a blog post instead of FORWARD (to her BFF)!!!! lolololololololol…. I still laugh about that!

Before tiny plastic SHOWER and hubby’s vanity & AFTER bigger not-plastic-anymore shower and linen cabinet:

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Before my lovely *oak* vanity & AFTER his and hers double vanity:

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Before gigantic heart shaped space-wasting tub & AFTER normal human sized tub (plus the TV for me to watch HGTV and The Today Show when I’m getting ready every morning):

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Here are several more photos. Everything is so new and clean and simple and we love it!

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I no longer have to balance on one leg and shave my legs!! Hooray!!

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I got the little stool from TJ Maxx! Everything is still very much a blank slate, so I need a painting or something to bring in some color. Maybe a towel rack over the tub and some monogrammed towels? I wonder if I can find someone to monogram some for me…..

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We love the cabinets, which are from Bishop Cabinets of course (where Jeff really works)! If you recall, the tile is from Home Depot and is Castle Travertine. We went through literally hundreds of tiles to pick out each and every tile that is in our bathroom. It was a huge headache, but I have to say that now I appreciate each and every tile. When I’m showering, I look at all of them and remember all the work that put in to choosing them! Really! I do!

I hope all of you who are on Spring Break have a great week wherever you are! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Applique Cafe fans… all designs are 50% off through TUESDAY! Woop!

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THE Mighty Hoop

First and foremost, the master bath-de-Gulledge is D-O-N-E!! I know I got behind in my renovation posting and will try to catch up soon. It’s DONE and we have moved back in, but it needs some decorating before I post my final AFTERS. Here is a little peek at the before/after of the tub/vanity area. Again, nothing has been hung (tv, decor, artwork, etc.) so it’s a bit of a blank canvas right now. We are enjoying it immensely but had a bit of a crazy week last week so I haven’t had a chance to add some color yet! I’m pretty sure HGTV will be calling me soon…..IMG_9267-vert

Totally random, but I noticed a blog comment today that had to do with SCISSORS so I thought I would add that in here! For all these year I have preached about the Gingher 4″ curved embroidery scissors. They sell them at Joann and probably most sewing stores. Well…. maybe it’s my old age and poor eyesight lately, but I’ve started using the 5.5″ double curved scissors (Ginghers also) and I.LOVE.THEM! I think what happened was that my 4″ got dull after years of use so I got a new pair. They are sharp, but a little tighter and don’t trim as easy. It may be that they are not broken in yet? Anywho… I started using the bigger ones and now I like those better! Not sure what it is about the extra curve and 1.5″?? The big scissors below I use for cutting fabric and my big pieces of stabilizer. The blue handle ones are Brother scissors I think (they came w/ my machine in the little tool box). I use those for trimming the stabilizer around the applique (back) when I’m done, and also for when I am trimming inside of a design. They aren’t super sharp, so I pierce the fabric with them at an angle and then cut with my Ginghers.

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I haven’t been doing much work lately b/c of the craziness going on at Casa de Gulledge ~ renovations, travel soccer management and family stuff (my dad was in the hospital for several days last week and goes home tomorrow from the therapy rehab facility). I have a friend in ATL who asked me to do a few baby gift items for her and told me the colors were navy blue light blue, gray and white. I REALLY like those colors together after sewing a few things! It has also been raining here in Montgomery for like the past month, so these pics were taken inside and don’t do the items justice! LOVE the colors! 🙂 Anchors and whales were the theme also.

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Now on to the title of my post…. MIGHTY {magnetic} HOOPS! I recently got the 7.25″ x 7.25″ and finally got around to trying it out! It is SO EASY to use and I’ve taken a few pics along the way for this post!! First of all, they are magnetic and REALLY STRONG, hence the warnings….. I haven’t gotten pinched yet but I can see how it can easily happen! They are STRONG. I like the size of the 7.25″ x 7.25″ also b/c I typically stitch 5×7 designs and it gives me a little extra room for initials or a name. There is also a pacemaker warning on it…..

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Here is the bottom frame. All you have to do is get it in place and the magnets do the rest!

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I did my burp cloths using the MIGHTY HOOP and it was super easy! Burps can be thick and hard to hoop. With the MH, no wrinkling or hoop burn! As you can see, I got the burp cloth on top of the bottom of the hoop. You just have to make sure it’s straight.

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Just hold the top of the hoop frame over it, and BAM it snaps in place. Very easy!

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They go on the machine just like Fast Frames. You just have to make sure you check your boundaries to make sure the needle is not going to hit anything. Unlike Fast Frames – no sticky stabilizer is needed!

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You may notice that Bentley is in navy blue down below. When I did the baby gifts the first go-around, I had navy and gray in my head (which looks great together also by the way…). If anyone knows of a baby boy named Bentley, I have a bib and burp cloth available…..

The MIGHTY HOOP also works great on bibs!

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I also used the MIGHTY HOOP on a Market Tote. I typically use Sticky Stabilizer and Fast Frames, but the MH was easy and worked great and I didn’t have to peel “sticky” off of anything!

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This is Monogram Wizard Plus “MC Center” H (I made it wider than usual) plus some motif ends which are also done in Monogram Wizard Plus!

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I got my Mighty Hoop from Sewingmachine.com (search: mighty hoop) and you can find demo videos on Youtube HERE! They also have some videos at Sewingmachine.com under Product Demonstration Videos – click HERE. They sell a variety of sizes sort of like the Durkees. Anyway, I look forward to using them more as I get time to do more work!

Did anyone get to go to the Everything Embroidery Market last weekend in Chattanooga? I was so sad to have missed it! I realized several weeks ago that with the renovation and our soccer schedule that I was not going to be able to wiggle my nose and appear there for the weekend. On top of all that with my dad being in the hospital, I would not have made it anyway. I have seen tons of pictures and have heard nothing but great reviews, so I hope you all had fun and that they will do it again!

Have a great weekend! OH… I will work on the ORGANIZATION post ASAP with the feedback I got from my last post! I got some GREAT Tips!! One idea I had was to go ahead and get your next project ready while your machine is sewing. DON’T jump on Facebook because you will get sucked in to “15 Ways To Bond With Your Daughter” and then next thing you know 45 minutes has passed and you’ve done 1 burp cloth. Go ahead and iron the stabilizer on the bib you plan to work on next. Go ahead and iron the applique fabric and iron Heat N Bond Lite on it so it’ll be READY! If you have extra hoops, you could go ahead and hoop it! I would get a lot more done if I could discipline myself to think ahead and actually do stuff while my machine is sewing! photo (22)

One more time…. have a GREAT weekend! We have been out of town for soccer tournaments the past 2 weekends, so we are looking forward to being HOME. 🙂