Gotta Go Back, Back, Back to School Again

Congratulations!
Today is your day. 

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!
-Dr. Seuss

{Mae Chevrette}

Oh the thinks you can think

think and wonder and dream

far and wide as you dare.

When your thinks have run dry

in the blink of an eye

there's another world there.

If you open your mind

oh the thinks you will find lining up to get loose!

oh the think you can think!

 

Today is a very big day!  It's the start of my big summer adventure!  Craft Academy starts today!!  I am so excited!!! 

I can't wait to meet some new friends and learn all kinds of fun new projects.  I have never taken a class like this before so I have no idea what to expect.  I think that's part of the excitement!  I'm going into it with no expectation except to have a great time!

I decided that I would write posts for the blog throughout the class to share this great experience with all of my wonderful bloggy friends.  I'll post pictures of my finished projects, too.  I can't wait!!  Can you tell I'm excited?  It's not obvious or anything, right?  ;-) 

So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Modecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!




Do you have any big summer adventures planned?

I had to have some sort of Dr. Seuss and Schoolhouse Rock references if I was going to write a post about taking a class!  :-)

Nifty at Fifty

This is my 50th blog post!!!

{weheartit}

I can't believe I made it this far.  I wanted to do something big like a giveaway for my 50th post but I don't think I'm quite ready to do that yet.  I don't want to rush into anything.  So, I'm planning to have my first giveaway later this summer.  I decided I would wait a little while so I could go big for the first one.  :-)

Then I thought I would set some goals like I did for my one month blogiversary, but I have only actually finished one of the goals on that list.  I find that as I get more into crafting and blogging my goals change a lot, so I'm just going to go with the flow and see what happens.  I seem to work better that way.

Well, I didn't really come up with anything extra special for my 50th blog post.  I did get to do some fun bloggy stuff this weekend so I thought I would share that with you as my celebration for post number 50.

On Saturday morning my mom and I headed to San Marcos on a mission for Happy Mail goodies.  We went to Paper Bear first.  I love that store!  I guess you would call it a gift shop.  I don't think you can put a title on a store like Paper Bear.  If you live in the area you have to see it.  They have everything!  It's wall to wall awesome!  Sadly, when I got there I learned that the shop went from three huge rooms to one.  It made me sad to see that, but I still had a great time.  I used to live close to the shop in college so I could just walk down and wander around for fun anytime I wanted.  Brings back some great memories.

I took a bunch of pictures but they will never do this store justice.  It would take a whole day to show you everything they have there.

Here's a partial view from the front of the store just to give you an idea of the wall to wall amazingness.

Follow the yellow brick road.

They have so much great stuff that they had to hang some of it from the ceilings!

I just thought this was cute!

They have some really silly stuff, too.

I discovered Ugly Dolls yesterday!  They are so adorable!

And, of course, some owls for Velma!

I took one other picture of a stuffed owl but it didn't come out.  You were spared one owl, Velma!  :-)

I wish I could have taken more pictures but I think the people at the shop thought I was crazy!  I will share the goodies that I bought at Paper Bear as soon as I send it to my Happy Mail partner.  I have to keep it a secret for now.

Next we went to Texas Roadhouse and I ate food that is terrible for me.  I enjoyed every bite of it!

After that we went to Centerpoint Station.  I didn't buy anything there because I don't think there is anything in that place that I can afford.  They have a lot of great stuff. 

I did find this really cute necklace that I showed you yesterday.  I will be going back for it!

These are some of the pictures I took of this really cute store.

Sign!  Sign!  Everywhere a sign!

Look at all the purses!!

They have the rooms set up like real rooms.

Lots of cool antiques...

If I had $1500 this would be mine!

I have a lot more pictures but I think this post is getting a little long so I'll save them for another time.  :-)

After our outing we headed across the street to B&B Quilting for our Beginning quilting class reunion to share our quilts in their various stages.  It was really cool to see all the quilts.

This is my mom's quilt.  PRETTY!!!

This is mine.

The pictures aren't that great because they room wasn't well lit.  I'll post pictures when we finally get them quilted...some day!

After that we went to Sonic and I got a yummy FREE chocolate milk shake!  It was delicious!

Today was a pretty regular Sunday.  I went to church at The Well and then met my friend Nicole for lunch.  She is one of my oldest friends...not because she's old, but because she's been my friend the longest!  :-)  It was so great to spend some time with her.  We don't see each other nearly enough.

That's it!  That was my bloggy/crafty weekend!  Sorry it was so long.  I did a lot!  :-) 
Thanks for sticking around for 50 posts!  I hope you stick around for 50 more.  I have some fun stuff planned in the coming months.  Hopefully I will have time to get to all of them.

I'll end my 50th post with a Sally O'Malley video.  SHE'S 50!!!

(Sorry I couldn't find it without a commercial)

Craft Adventure

Today I went craft supply shopping with Velma and her daughter.  It was really fun!  We met at Starbucks (we needed some fuel to get ready for our big adventure!).  Then we headed over to The Knitting Nest to see what kind of knitting supplies they had.  They just moved to their new location a couple of days ago so they weren't completely unpacked, but it was still pretty great!

The little bird houses were really cute for the decorations.

The lady at the store said they used easter egg dye to dye this yarn!

They had shelves and shelves of amazing yarn!  So pretty!

They had a few projects to sell, too.  I love these colors together!

After The Knitting Nest we went to Hobby Lobby to pick up a couple of things.  I got some yellow buttons there.  Velma is going to knit something for me to send to my Happy Mail partner!

After Hobby Lobby we went to Stitch Lab!  I was so excited to go because they were the only people I could find in Austin that sold wool felt.  That place was amazing!  I wish I could just live there.  So cute!

See??  CUTE!!!

I saw a picture of this in an article I read about Stitch Lab.  One of my goals in going today was to get a picture of it for my 365 project.  I'm happy to say that I met that goal!

Look at the cute artwork on the walls!

Those are patterns!!!  Such a great idea!  I love the wall color, too!  I think I'm going to have to paint my craft room this color...when I finally get around to working on it.

These curtains are fantastic!  This picture doesn't do them justice.  The lighting wasn't great in that room.  Another idea for my craft room, perhaps?

Look at all the pretties!!

I was already planning to make a felt monster before I saw these, but now I can't wait to start!

This is the felt I bought!  Isn't is lovely?  I got felt for three projects I have planned for the next few weeks.  I've been going a little felt crazy lately.  I realized when I got home that I forgot felt for one part of a project, but I think I will just use the cheaper felt they sell at Hobby Lobby.  It will work okay for what I need it for anyway.  I guess I will just have to make another trip to Stitch Lab if it doesn't work.  ;-)

This store is amazing!  I loved all of the fabric!  I hope to take a class there at some point. They have lots of great ideas for things to make with felt (and we all know how much I love felt!). 

After that I rested for a little while and watched Juno.  I love that movie!  I needed a little break after all the fun!  Then I headed back out on a mission for some turquoise double fold bias tape for a project I am going to work on  this week.  I went to Joann Fabrics and they only had it in single fold bias tape.  I thought I could make it work so I went ahead and bought it.  I got to my car and opened it up to make sure before I left.  Sadly, it wouldn't have worked.  Luckily the lady was super sweet and let me return it.

 

So, I drove to Hancock Fabrics.  They were sold out of turquoise double fold bias tape, too!!  Grr..argh!!  There was another lady looking at the bias tape and I made a comment about her beautiful fabric (I totally geek out over fabric!).  She had the last package of Mediterranean double bias tape in her hand.  It's basically dark turquiose.  After we talked for a minute about our projects she said that she thought her project might work better with a different color anyway and gave me the mediterranean bias tape.  I insisted that she should take it and I would just order it.  She wouldn't take no for an answer!  Crafty people are so sweet!  That made my day!  Now I have everything I need for the craft I'm going to make for my Happy Mail partner!

 

I had a really great Saturday!  It was busy and I am exhausted, but I enjoyed every bit of it.  I was so busy running around doing all this wonderful stuff that I ran out of time to work on any projects, but that's okay.  I will start tomorrow.  I'll keep you posted on how it all comes out.

How was your Saturday?  Did you do anything fun?

I love this scene so much!  I had to share it!  :-)

Bubble Tea

{Bitstop}

A couple of weeks ago I "met" Christine (aka MiniMak) from MiniMak Makings.  She gave me a Beautiful Blogger award and has been so supportive ever since.  Her blog is really great.  She is very talented and I always feel inspired when I read her blog.  You should check it out. 

In her Beautiful Blogger award post she mentioned that she loved bubble tea.  I didn't really know what bubble tea was so I asked...and then she did the sweetest thing ever and wrote a blog about it just for me!  I had to see what it was all about, so I decided I would go try bubble tea for myself and write a blog about it.

This one's for you, Christine! :-)

{Kaboodle, Cafe Press, We Heart It, FanPop}

What is bubble tea?  I really have no idea (except for Christine's blog) so I decided to do some searching online to see if I could figure it out. 

This is what I found...

Bubble tea is a sweet drink that usually has a tea base and a flavoring in either powder or syrup form.  Some are fruit based and some are milk based.  Small tapioca (or boba) pearls sit at the bottom of the drink. 

I found a recipe for how to make bubble tea, but it seems like it's really time consuming so it's probably easier to go buy it.  :o) 

{Cafe Press}

When I finished helping some of my friends at The Well sort through donations for Caritas today I set out on my adventure to try bubble tea.  I looked up places online to see where I could go to try it.  Most of them seemed to be close to the UT campus so I drove to a place in north Austin to avoid having to drive on campus.  I really dislike driving anywhere downtown.  One way streets and lack of parking does not equal a happy Marci.  I went to a place called Short N' Sweet Cafe.  It was pretty cute inside and it was in a shopping center called Chinatown Center.  I had no idea that was there.  It was kind of cool!

I went in with absolutely no idea what I was doing so I just went up to the cash register and asked if they had taro bubble tea.  Then he asked me if I wanted the milk base or smoothie.  WHAT???  I told him I had no idea what that meant because I had never tried this before and let him pick for me.  He picked the milk base.  Okay.  Sounds good to me!

I gave him my debit card to pay and he said there was a $10 limit on credit cards.  NOOO!!!  I could not go home without trying bubble tea after I drove that far to try it!  Luckily there was a bank in the same parking lot so I could use the atm and get cash.  I did not want $10 worth of bubble tea and I don't know where anything is in north Austin!

I finally got my bubble tea and it was time to taste it.

It looks kind of cool

It has to have that huge straw for the tapioca pearls at the bottom

I thought it tasted pretty good.  I enjoyed the taro flavor.  It was very, very, very sweet.  I had to take a minute between sips because of the sweetness and I wasn't able to finish the whole thing because it was so sweet.  :o)

If I ever try it again I will probably not get the tapioca pearls at the bottom.  They didn't really have a flavor but it was a little weird to take a sip of my drink and then have to chew something.  The texture was strange, too. 

I may try a different flavor if I ever have bubble tea again.  The fruit flavors seem like they could be yummy.  I probably won't make any special trips to North Austin to have it again but if I ever come across it somewhere I may be brave and try a new flavor. 

Overall I think this was a fun little adventure!  Thanks for telling me about it Christine!  :o)