DIY: Fabric Banner

This next do-it-yourself project is very easy...easy to do and easy to figure out. But, just in case you need a little help, I've got a tutorial for you. Now, you've probably seen these fabric banners all over the web, and you can buy them from tons of different sellers on etsy.  Those range from $6 all the way up to $45. But why spend money on it when you can just make it yourself? And, if you're like me, you can do it for free.

First, you need to gather scraps of materials you like. I raided my mom's fabric cabinet, so my fabric was free of charge.

For this particular banner, I chose to do triangle flags. I used a thin piece of cardboard (think cereal box) to cut out a triangle stencil. This doesn't have to be perfect, it's just a guide.

Lay your stencil on top of one of your fabric scraps and cut around it.

I used pinking shears to cut mine out. These keep the fabric from unravelling so much, and give it a nice zig-zag edge.

Continue cutting out your fabric flags - they can all be the same fabric, or you can use lots of different ones like I did.

Now this is where some of the expensive banners on etsy take it to the next step. Some people cut out two triangles for every flag and sew them together as a front and back. They may even put cardboard in between the two to make them stiff. I just made my banner for a cookout, so I saved lots of time and skipped that step.

Once I had all my triangles cut out, I laid them out on the floor so I could decide the order I wanted them in.

Then, I carefully snipped a small hole in the top corners of the triangles to thread my twine through.

Some people use a cute ribbon and sew their flags on, but again, I decided to save time and just used jute twine I already had on hand.

I thread my flags with the twine in front, but you could always do it where the twine runs behind the flag.

Once you have all your flags strung on the twine, you're done! Just find a place to hang it.

I put mine on the mantle, but I still have more flags left over so I may do another mini one.

I love a good, easy project! Remember, if you try it yourself, you don't have to do triangles. You could do squares and rectangles like I did for the triple baby shower, or you could do circles.  Get crazy with it!

NB Diaries: Chapter 7

Based on your comments from last week's giveaway post, you guys really like New Boss.  Maybe you like her more than me. But you know what? These days, I'm not a huge NB fan. And this is why: she is ca-razy. And possibly bi-polar.

So we'll call this installment of The NB Diaries the catch-up chapter and I'll fill you in on what's been going on around here.  Sigh...I just don't even know where to start.

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Sir Coughs A Lot does not work in our department, but he does sit in a row of cubes right next to ours. He's actually 2 rows away from me, but practically right outside of NB's office door. He earned his nickname earlier this summer when he got a bit of a cough. Guys, this was not just any old cough. It was naaasty. And loud. And I was concerned his lung was laying on his desk after a few coughing fits.  When the cough reached its peak, Sir Coughs A Lot did take 3 days off work. He's been back for a while and there's still the occasional lingering cough, but nothing nearly as bad as it was.

Example of craziness number one: instead of moaning and groaning to herself like the rest of us about the ongoing coughing and rejoicing when he finally took the days off, NB actually crouched down below his cube wall and recorded the cough on her cell phone. Then she called Human Resources and proceeded to play the cough over the phone for them to hear. Yes. Yes, she did. She then asked what HR could do about the situation, to which they replied that she may politely offer him a cough drop if she'd like, but that no, they would not ask him to leave or quarantine him to a room like she suggested.

Since HR didn't come through for her, she actually called me into her office one day and told me she had a special project for me to work on. The project? Figure out a way to get Sir Coughs A Lot to stop coughing. My response? "Um, I'm not going to do your dirty work for you. It doesn't bother me that much."

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June 30 was the fiscal year-end for our company, which meant lots of work to be done by us accountants. And since my best friend coworker left (he's asked to be called Pi), we're shorthanded, and that means even more work to be done. And the way it works around here, we spend three weeks closing the books for the year and then our auditors show up the fourth week. You could call it stressful.

NB has taken the normal amount of stress and bumped it up a notch or two. She worried so much over the auditors coming that she was losing sleep and couldn't form coherent sentences. And then she decided to take her stress out on us. She wasted no time in bringing all 4 females in my group to tears, each at different times. She called me rude and my manager a liar. She asked my coworker to figure out a way to laugh quieter. And she began a meeting with this introduction: "Sit down, shut up. Don't say anything. And when I'm done, you can just leave."

Needless to say, that didn't go over well.

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One day, my supervisor, manager, and I were all sitting in NB's office discussing some issues we were having with one of our systems. I was giving a status update on where we were in terms of correcting a lot of issues that were out of our hands.  I told them about the conference call I'd had that morning and what IT was in the process of working on. Progress was being made, but we all agreed that it was way too close to crunch time and that we needed this resolved soon.  NB suggested that we contact someone higher up in IT to make sure it's on their radar and to have them pressure their team into getting everything done.

NB: Do any of you know Head of IT? Manager: Well, we know who he is. Me: I've been in a meeting with him before. He's pretty nice. NB: And he's really cute too, isn't he???!! Us: silence

NB: Okay, I guess I can just give him a call and see if we can meet with him to discuss this, it's just that... NB: uncontrollable giggling NB: ...I had to call him one day last week about something and I didn't know how to answer his questions and it just made me look stupid! NB: more giggling

As she giggled, the three of us looked at each other, totally confused about what was going on. Why was she blushing?

So she picked up the phone to give Head of IT a call, and y'all, it was like a 12-year-old school girl on the phone with her first crush for the first time ever. She could not complete a sentence. She repeated herself over and over. Her face was bright red and she kept spinning her chair and fidgeting. The giggling was so awkward it made us embarrassed for her.

She hung up the phone with a sigh and then turned and looked at us. I'd be willing to bet all three of us were wide-eyed, mouths agape. What in the world had just happened?

She totally forgot to set up a meeting with him, the whole purpose of the phone call.  And that's when we realized that NB had a crush on the Head of IT.

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We're a few weeks into our audit now, and so far, things have gone pretty smoothly. Thankfully, that means NB is starting to loosen up and isn't so tense every minute of the day. Yesterday she caught me at the filing cabinets and was in the mood to chit-chat. We discussed the condo she just bought and how they were getting ready to move (don't worry, we'll still be neighbors; they're just downsizing).  I asked if she'd be having a huge yard sale or something to get rid of things and yadda, yadda, yadda. Before I knew it, we were talking about their current living situation.

They live in a four bedroom house. One room is upstairs, but they don't go up there. One room is her husband's music collection where he stores his thousands of cds. The ones that are organized are alphabetized, but there are hundreds that he's pulled out to listen to and are just laying around in piles. There's a guest bedroom downstairs and then the last room is their master. Kiki, her oldest cat, is in poor health, and because of that, she gets to have private time in the guest room by herself. NB sleeps in the guest room with Kiki because Kiki needs attention. That's why NB sometimes comes to work in a bad mood - because Kiki wakes her up all night long and so she has to pet her and doesn't get any sleep.

In the master bedroom is a king bed and two cats get to sleep on it. Just the two cats.

Me: Wait, so no people sleep in your master bedroom? NB: Non-human persons sleep in there. Me: Right. So, like I said, no people sleep in the king-size bed in your master bedroom. NB: No, no people. Me: So where does your husband sleep? NB: On the couch with Lilly. Me: Lilly? NB: She's the fourth cat. Me: You make your husband sleep on the couch with a cat? NB: He loves it. It's important to him that she's happy, just like it's important to me that Kiki gets the attention she needs during her last days.

The new condo just has two bedrooms. The second bedroom will be set up as a guest room for Kiki, and two cats will still sleep in the master bedroom.  Her husband and Lilly will sleep on the couch in the den, where all the thousands of cds are stored.  And the Prince paraphernalia that she collects? It will all fit in a box that can slide under the master bed. Well, all of it except the two life-size cardboard cutouts.

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My team at work consists of all salaried accountants. We work hard and when there's lots to do, we work even harder.  A lot of days, especially during year-end close and audit season, we eat our lunch at our desk and continue working. To reward ourselves for working hard all week, we have Friday Fundays where we all go eat lunch together and get out of the office for an hour.

NB doesn't like this. She panics when we're gone. She's terrified that something major will happen on a Friday between the hour of 12 and 1 and then what would she do?! So, now we have to ask permission to go to lunch. And not just on Fridays, everyday. And if we haven't gotten all the work done that she wants us to get done, then we can get something from the vending machines because "that's what they're there for."

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Today, two of these signs appeared on the walls.

I'm pretty sure I know who hung them up.

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That should get you caught up. I'll try write another chapter soon.

DIY: Pom-Pom Toothpicks

Doc and I are hosting a party in a couple of weeks and I have several do-it-yourself projects I'm working on to prepare for it. I'm going to share tutorials for some of these projects in case any of you are planning a party anytime soon.  These are all easy and cheap and anyone can do them! If you know me at all, you know I like to pick a theme and go all out with it. When you walk in our house, I want you to really be able to tell what the color scheme is.  For this party, aqua and red are the colors of choice. 

For this tutorial, we're going to make pom-pom toothpicks. Actually, I did pom-pom skewers, but they're basically the same thing just different sizes.

Supplies needed: tissue paper scissors toothpicks/skewers tape

First, I cut a strip of tissue paper.  The width of your strip depends on how big you want your pom-pom to be. This one was about, oh, 2-ish inches wide.

Then, I folded the strip in half long ways.

Now, you obviously won't need your tissue paper to be that long for each pom-pom, so you can cut it down into smaller pieces. I made mine roughly 4 inches long.

The next step is the only kinda tedious part. You want to fringe your folded strip of tissue paper. I chose to cut from the folded side, because I liked the look of the fringe being folded over. You could easily do the two raw edges if you'd prefer. Cut slits in your paper as close or as far apart as you'd like, but don't cut all the way through. Leave about a quarter of an inch uncut along the opposite edge.

Once you've got the entire strip fringed,  you're ready to grab your toothpicks or skewers. This is what I used.

Tear a small piece of tape and use it to tape one end of the uncut edge to the tip of your skewer.

And now it's time for the fun part - just roll it up!

When you get it completely rolled up, you'll need to secure the loose end with another small piece of tape.

And for the very last step, just pull down some of the fringe so they fan out and make a pom-pom.

And you're done! Easy, right?

Here are two of my completed ones:

The one on the left started with a strip of tissue paper that was pretty long but not very wide. The pom-pom on it is very thick, but not very big. The one on the right had a shorter strip of tissue paper, but it was wider and made longer fringe. I like the one on the right better, I think.

Once you get set up and in the rhythm, these don't take too much time at all. I sat on the couch and made mine two different nights while watching tv.

I think if you used toothpicks they would look really cute stuck in a piece of sausage and cheese. Or maybe a stack of grapes or marshmallows or something like that. I'll show you how I plan on using mine later, so stick around.

New School Year

Today's the first day of school for our kiddos. Summer is officially over. Boo. Here's a grainy iPhone pic of them dressed and ready to go!

As you can see from the picture, they'll be in fourth and fifth grades this year. They're growing up fast!

Also from the pic you can see the new shoes they picked out, alternating fingernail polish and silly bands on Anna, and a new Justin Bieber-esque hairdo for Wyatt.

Here's wishing them a great new school year!

Giveaway Winner

It's time to announce the winner of the wooden test tube vase giveaway! I'm sure many of you have been losing sleep over this, so I'll try not to stall too much.

Since Doc left me for Pittsburg tonight, I had to enlist the help of my sweet momma. First, we cut up slips of paper numbered 1 to 11.

Then we folded the slips of paper up and put them in a small bowl.

She mixed them around before drawing one out.

And the winner is...

...comment number 5, written by Mary Elizabeth!

Congrats, Mary Elizabeth! I'll be delivering the vase to you soon.

And thank you, everyone, for participating! I enjoyed reading everyone's comments and feedback. I hope to have another giveaway soon so keep checking back!