Apps I Like

Since I am so revoluationary and have had an iphone for about five months (sarcasm) I thought I would write about my favorite apps for you to know about.

1. Instagram: This app allows me to follow my friends and see what they are doing, and also to follow famous people. It also allows me to post pictures of what I am doing. Charlie calls instragam "an app where you make pictures look worse." I happen to like some of the filters and really enjoy this app. My user name there is sewdoggonecute. 

1. Vine: I had heard about this app a while ago but it didn't seem interesting, then a friend showed it to me and I was hooked. I follow some friends, family members, and some artsy popular people. Most of my videos are not artsy at all and are primarily of my dogs. If you like that my user name is Lauren QT. 
2. Mailbox: this app has revolutionized my entire life. Not really, but it's cool. Both of my e-mail addresses are connected to this app so I only have to check one place. I also can easily store e-mails in different categories. It forces me to respond to e-mails since it always tells you how many e-mails you have in your inbox. I like to have zero, so I respond and archive or delete e-mails. ( I said e-mail 5 times just now). 
3. Beautiful Mess: This app can be used to edit photos, adding text, borders and phrases. It's pretty cool. I mostly use it to make pictures of Blaze and Penny look like they are talking. (In case you weren't aware I am obsessed with these two dogs.)

1. Timer Cam Pro: This app lets me set the iphone down somewhere and then it will take my picture in 10 seconds. Like on a real camera, but on the iphone. It eliminates the arm stretched out photo. 
2. Pandora: obviously, I like to listen to music. My brother even got me found me a cord so I can play the music in my car!
3. NHPR: so I can listen to "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" anytime I want. 
4. Heads Up: this is a game. All of the kids I work with love it. It's really fun.
5. Snapchat: You can send a picture to a friend and it only last for 5 seconds (or however many seconds you set it for). My friend told me this is strictly for sending naked pictures of yourself, since the receiver cannot save the picture, but I don't do that. Again, I mostly send pictures to my friends of Blaze and Penny. 
6. Swackett: Even though I am mad because I thought of this idea 8 years ago but never did anything about it I still like this app. It tells you the temperature where you are and what to wear. I always struggle with changing seasons because when it has been 28 degrees all winter I forget what it feels like when it's 55 degrees so I like for an app to tell me. It also tells you what not to forget that day (umbrella, sunscreen, etc.) 

Apps I think are dumb:

1. Candy Crush: I spent three months beating that game, without paying for extra lives or begging my friends for extra lives on facebook. Then when I finally beat level 35 it said I had to pay extra to continue playing anyways! I instantly deleted the app and have been bad mouthing it ever since. Don't waste your time people! 

What's your favorite app? Happy last day of June. Can you believe it's already almost July? 

Lauren 

Survey Says....?

It seems that every 5 months I have to decide if I am going to cut my hair "short" or continue to let it grow "long". I had super long hair once long (har har) ago. It was nice but gave me a headache. Now I let it grow to the bottom of my shoulder blades then chop it off once a year to about my collar bone (super drastic moves on my part, I know). Now that summer has rolled around I am trying to decide if I should let it keep growing, or cut it short.

Please take my survey to tell me what you think about this hair conundrum.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Thanks, you're the greatest!
Lauren

Recently

Hi Peeps! We are back from our Maine vacation. I (purposely) forgot my computer at home and took a break from blogging. I apologize if you were anxious about my whereabouts and doing-abouts. Here's a catch up. Recently I have:

• Hosted a party, cut down two trees, at said party, and laughed a lot. 
• Driven around the great state of Maine.
• Gone to a party, played corn hole, and lost terribly, went down a homemade slip and slide, got really muddy, and hurt my arm. Laughed so hard I couldn't tell the next morning if my abs hurt from laughing or if I had internal bleeding. 
• Been to Alewives Fabric, and still have money in my bank account. Miraculous! 
• Almost ran out of fuel in my mom's new diesel car. Bought an ice cream as a reward for not running out of fuel, and nearly gaged as I bit into it and a pungent cow poop smell wafted into my nostrils at the exact same time. 
• Saw a mailbox outside of a cemetery. Laughed a bit too much about that sight. So much so that I don't have a picture. 
• Held a brand new baby. 
• Played cribbage three times. Lost to Charlie three times. Still haven't hit him over the head with the cribbage board. I consider that a win. 
• Hung out with some very good friends. Realized how much I miss those very good friends. Was glad we are still able to fall back into being together like we'd just seen each other yesterday. Laughed some more
• Went swimming with my 10 year old, soon to be 11 year old, cousin. 
• Went for a boat ride in the rain.
• Hung out with the puppies.
• Dog faced myself. I am not sure that's a real thing, but it should be. (see last picture.)

Summer is off to a good start. The weather has not been fabulous but I suppose I can't complain.

I'll be back soon with some sewing projects!

Lauren

I Made A GIF!

I'm so proud of myself. I've told my brother (and anyone who will listen) that one of my goals in life is to "go viral." I'm  still waiting for my fake infomercial to go viral.

Lauren

Summer Bucket List

Today starts my summer vacation! Hurray. It's okay to be jealous of me. I purposely picked this career path based on 1. my love of working with children and 2. my love of summer vacation. Now that summer is finally here I have made a bucket list of things I'd love to do on my 63 days off. Here goes: 

1. See fireworks.
2. Go to a wedding (or 2).
3. Swim in a waterfall.
4. Run in 6 different places.
5. Eat donuts. Maybe even run to eat donuts.
6. Get ice cream by the lake.
7. Wear dresses and fancy shoes.
8. Go on a fancy date.
9. Have sleepovers in the basement when it's too hot.
10. Play cribbage so much that I don't have to count on my fingers.
11. Explore the woods, every inch of it, on our property.
12. Catch fireflies.
13. Make Watch things grow.
14. Hike a 4,000 foot mountain.
15. Make a new friend.
16. Paint a picture.
17. Read a book in one day.
18. Swim in the Atlantic Ocean.
19. Take the perfect family picture of all four of us. 
20. Enjoy every one of my 63 days off.

What's on your summer bucket list? I have a summer scrapbook that I bought and am planning to document these goals in it. We'll see how that goes.

Lauren

Summer Purse V 3.0

I've made different versions of this exact purse for three summers now, and have made five total purses from this pattern. Due to that, I'll keep this post picture short and word shorter.

 

Found the fabrics at Joann's and they worked well. Wanted to go with piping (as usual) but couldn't find the right color so I went with ric rac instead, which was probably a good thing.

Pink snap closure was obviously a must. I love the aqua blue/green chevrons with the pink thread. Wanted to add some cardboard to the bottom to stiffen it up, but I forgot. Maybe next summer. Also, I did not have enough of one fabric to do the lining so the lining is both fabrics. I made the bottom tote-bag-ish, but should have made it shorter in width and longer in length to be more like the one I made for Lorelei for Christmas. Oh well.

Now that it's done I think it gives off an "Old Grandma from Florida going to bingo" vibe. I still like it though. Mostly because I practically am an old grandma, minus being old and a grandma. I always tell Charlie I can't wait to be old so I can have long grey hair in a bun and friends with the same hobbies as me. Whenever I have a bad day at work and swear I'l never have kids I remind myself that you need to have kids to have grandkids. Sorry, I said I would keep this short. Anyways, since I was going all Grandma to begin with I made a little bag for my cataract glasses to go in.

Just kidding! It's for my SPF 45 sunscreen that I carry at all times.

That's all. Can't wait to tote these totes to the beach filled with books and other beach essentials.

Lauren

National Running Day

Today is National Running Day! Hurray. It's also *Penny's Birthday, and my friend Lorelei's Birthday. What better way to celebrate than by wearing some new running shorts and hitting the trails with my two whippersnappers. 

Hopefully I can facetime with Lorelei later. If not, Happy Birthday my friend! I'm so glad that the 5 months of the year that we're different ages is over, and so excited to see what 27 holds for you!

Happy National Running Day!
Lauren

*We didn't actually know when Penny's birthday was so we just made it up and decided Lorelei could share a birthday with Penny. That way I never forget either of their birthdays. I think we'll make up a birthday for Blaze too. Perhaps July 12th; my brother's birthday.*

Movie

I found a cool app online yesterday. It's called iSupr8. I like the old movie feel. The video is just random clips I took cut down to about 4 seconds and strung together in no particular order. Just a typical afternoon into evening for us. I have been sewing but that didn't seem interesting enough to film, then again unless you're as obsessed with my dogs and plants as I am then the whole video is nothing special. Just thought it was fun. I was thinking about adding music but I liked the birds singing, and leaves rustling too much to cover them over with a song. Please excuse the nail gun noise from our neighbors thought.

Lauren

Scrapbook Progress

I've been trying to do a better job, as previously mentioned, of scrapbooking more of our daily lives and  working on albums more in the moment as opposed to 2 years from the event. The book I'm working on is a random size that seems to be working well thus far. I have been punching holes into the pages I make and keeping everything together using rings.

I actually made these pages a few weeks ago but kept forgetting to blog about them. There are more pages, these are just the ones about our trip to NYC at the beginning of May.

The first page is the envelope that our invitation came in. On the back are some of my favorite pictures from the trip. I experimented with Ribbet.com to print out these pictures at about 2 inches square.

The next pages are in a clear page protector. Don't tell my Mom but I sewed through the plastic with my machine to keep the business cards in the right spot. This allowed me to write on the back of the cards. 

My favorite thing is that the top part of the Purl SOHO business card stick out at the top of the whole book and says "Create Your World." 

                

The next pages are the invitation to the wedding and four pictures from the wedding that I really liked. 

Not may fancy techniques used. It's been hard to cut down the amount of pictures I can use due to the size of the book. I have to pick my absolute favorites, which is good.  

I still want to do more of our everyday life. The starting is the hardest part, once I get going it's very easy and fun.

Thanks for reading!

Lauren