Mardi Gras 2013!

The Ole' Blog has been pretty quiet this week. Mainly because we've been recovering and unpacking from Mardi Gras!! Here are some pictures from our trip (the ones I can show you anyway!)


I was super excited that our whole family came down for the festivities this year! Here I am with my sisters. We're showing off our Mardi Gras party cups my middle sister made for us.

The Hubs rode on a float this year so we made signs for him. His parade got delayed so it get to where we were until 11PM.

Taking a break while waiting for the parade

The next day things were a little more crazy:

Our first beads of the day

Some parade sights:

Lots of Beads!

Our crazy friends

Bead Tree!

Coveted Endymion Kelly Clarkson Cup!

Con-Man and Sawyer came out with us on Sunday and caught the day parades. Someone let him sit in their ladder so he could catch lots of beads.

And no good Mardi Gras would be complete without this:

We had a ton of fun and we're hoping to make it back for next year. Have a great weekend everyone!

A New Orleans Weekend

Like I mentioned the other day we spent the week in New Orleans for the Hubs Pediatric Conference. It is my favorite city for many reasons! If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram (follow me!- rfalcon12) you've seen some of these pics.

We were pretty overloaded on the ride over there with two kids and a dog in the back of the Murano.

You can't really see it but that's Tiger Stadium in the background. We're driving over the Mississippi River Bridge going into Baton Rouge.

Coming through in a Clutch

I was planning on using my new welder but some other projects took precedence. First, my sister's wedding was this past weekend! I was the Matron of Honor so I naturally had to get a bridesmaid dress. We had to have the dress hemmed and at the suggestion of my mom I asked them to save the leftover fabric for me; thinking I could turn it into a purse to match the dress. I thought this would be a quick project to get my creative juices flowing.

There was quite a bit of leftover grey silk fabric but not quite enough for the type of purse I had in mind. I remembered some leftover fabric I had from some chairs I had reupholstered and thought I could use that as the lining. So my purse could be sophisticated on the outside and funky on the inside. ;) Once I had gathered all my fabric I measured my wallet to get an approximate size for the purse. It was about 4" x 7" so I needed my fabric to be 5" x 8" wide for the seams and for any little mistakes I might make along the way.

Since the leftover fabric was odd cut out shapes (long thin strips about 5" tall) I had to cut and sew 3 together to get the size I needed for the outer portion. The above picture is after I has sewn the 3 together.

For the lining I cut one solid piece from my leftover upholstery fabric. I added a credit card pocket for convenience. I simply traced one of my credit cards, cut the fabric piece out, and centered it on the lining.

Then I sewed the silk and lining pieces together. It was looking a bit flimsy so I slipped some lightweight cardboard from the back of a spiral notebook in between them before I sewed it closed. I had to cut 3 pieces to size- one for the front, one for the back, and one for the flap.

Before I put the cardboard in the purse I had glued some magnets to the cardboard to act as a closer.

To finish it off I used a pin I had for decoration. It fit perfectly with the theme of the wedding which was in New Orleans. The purse matched my dress perfectly and I think I will use it again! It only took 2 nights after work to finish it up (most of that time was spent trying to remember how to use my sewing machine!). Now I'm tempted to hit up thrift stores and Marshalls to get old dresses and cut them up for this purpose!

It matched the bridesmaid dresses perfectly!

You could even do this with an old bridesmaid or prom dress you have laying around. Maybe you could use the fabric to make pillow covers or a clutch like this.

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