daughters of the american revolution (?)

God love my sweet father. Seriously. My dad's the best...for numerous reasons, but I'm only going to highlight one today.

My dad recently joined Ancestry.com. Who knew what a treasure he'd uncover!!! It's been so fascinating learning about my family. I mean, you can't know where you're going until you know where you've been...and I LOVE learning about my family's history.

Things I've learned so far (keep in mind...Dad has only traced his side of the family. He hasn't even started on my Mom's yet. So hopefully, there will be more surprises in store!):

• Dad traced us back to 1030 in England. WHAT???? That means, we were around during the Crusades.
• Because of this (and additional research Dad has done), we are deducting that we were some sort of nobility during our life in England. Why do we think this? Because we have traceable lineage. Peasants wouldn't have and didn't trace their families. And two, we have ancestors who are (blank) of (somewhere) (i.e. Elizabeth of Berkshire). We're nobles! (do you think this could get me an invite to the Royal Wedding next month??!?!)
• My parents met in the Army. My Granddaddy was a WWII vet. My Poppie served in the Navy in the Korean War. We are a military family...my ancestors too!
• My dad found service records from the War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War. In fact, one of my ancestors was a Colonel in the Revolutionary War and was given 6,000 acres of land in Virginia as a reward (we are also deducting that we were probably slave owners because of this fact.).
• My Poppie's great-grandpa was in the last gun duel ever in Tennessee....and lost. Again, not a proud moment...but it's history.
• I'm related to Jesse James, Dolly Madison and Thomas Jefferson (but who's not related to Thomas Jefferson).
• We came to America in the 1600's. I love this fact because I love the fact that my family were settlers. Very early settlers. We originated in Virginia and North Carolina.
• We also know that there were ship captains/owners in our family from England. I'm wondering if that's how we got to America...on one of our own ships.
  
  
  I cannot wait to find out what Dad learns about my Mom's side of the family! It's so exciting to know where we've come from.
  
  And because of my ancestors who served and fought in the Revolutionary War, I am looking into joining the Daughters of the American Revolution! How exciting is that!!!!

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BGB's red rose lamp

So, Sister had her sweet little babe a few weeks ago. BGB was three weeks early but she's super perfect and amazingly sweet. We just love her!! (more on her later)

Sooo, I have been LOVING all of these crafty girly projects. After just having Big Dub in the family, we were due for some girly-ness. One of my first projects for BGB (Baby Girl Brown, in case you were wondering) was to make her a lamp for her room. Sister decided just to use the same bedding she had from Big Dub, which is all primary colors. With Dub's room, she played up the blue....but with BGB's room, she's playing up the red to make it more girly. And she's also did some Little Red Riding Hood embroidery. It looks SUPER cute!!

Well, I saw this lamp from Pottery Barn Kids (below) a while ago and fell in love with it...but not with the $150 price tag (HELLLOOOOOOOO, mark up!!) So I wanted to create something like this for BGB's room....but spend a lot less.

So I took this old lamp I had gotten from Ikea...and that I have no use for.

(don't you just love my zebra print couch. me too!!!)

Then I went to Hob Lob and got 3 yards of red broadcloth...and got to work.

The final project was.......


TA DA!!!!

Don't you just love it!!?!?! Best part, it only cost me the fabric and a mini-can of white spray paint. I think $12 total! LOVE IT!

It looks so super cute in BGB's room. Totally girly. And I'm in love with all of the flowers!!

http://makingtheworldcuter.blogspot.com/

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every princess needs an earwarmer...right??

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you know that I love making things. More than that though, I love making pretty things for people to wear and giving them as gifts.

Since I am involved with the Indianapolis 500 Festival Princess Program, I decided that I wanted to make something for this fabulous 33 girls (and Queen Mother CoCo) to wear to some of their events. Yes, you read right...that means I would have to make 34 of whatever I decided to make.....and guess what? I gave myself two weeks to complete this project.

Well, since we live in Indiana...the weather in the Spring is ridiculously unpredictable. For example, it will by 47 degrees today and close to 70 on Thursday. The month of May is known for frigid temps at the beginning but will reach 80+ degrees by Memorial Day weekend.

With that in mind, I decided to whip up my easiest creation....ear warmers with giant (emphasis on the word GIANT) flowers. Each ear warmer takes me about 45 minutes to crochet, so I had to get to work and pronto!!!

With the help of my friend Devin (who just happened to be visiting the weekend I needed to have these done....sorry D! I'm sure its not what you had in mind for fun...but I appreciate the help!), I was able to get all 34 of these earwarmers done just in the knick of time!!

I did 17 black with white flowers....

...and 17 white with black flowers. (FYI, the flowers were made out of broadcloth and my trusty hot-glue gun. And now I'm officially obsessed with these flowers. Just you wait...I have more projects that these are making an appearance on.)

The best part?? I have 33 gorgeous models walking around the state of Indiana in some of my creations! Love that!!

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once a princess...always a princess

In January of 2003, I was given one of the biggest honors of my life...I was selected to be an Indianapolis 500 Festival Princess! Being a born and bred Hoosier, the Indianapolis 500 race is such an Indy tradition. I was so thrilled to be a part of that experience, to represent the 500 Festival and all of its activities, and to wear the Princess tiara and sash with pride! Through this program, I met my my best friend Ambra, and many other fantastic girls!

Eight years later, I am still heavily involved with the 500 Festival's Princess Program. I serve on the Princess committee and participate in many (many) of their activities. Honestly, I never would have guessed this opportunity would have given me the priviledge of being a part of one of the greatest sisterhoods ever! Once a Princess, always a Princess..and every year, I meet more and more past-Princesses (not former--because you never lose the crown!). In fact, Cat Sadler from E! News is a former Princess.

So a few weeks ago, the newest class of Princesses met for their orientation. Not going to lie...the 2011 Princesses are fantastic! They are so sweet and gorgeous and fabulous! It's going to be such a fun year!

The 33 Princesses (one for each driver) with the Princess Coordinator Co (or Queen Mother CoCo as I affectionately call her!)

Every year, past Princesses are paired with a current Princess to serve as their mentor and help them through the many months of outreaches and tiara-wearing events. This year I have the BEST Princess!! Her name is Ali and she goes to Purdue (my alma mater!)! The best part, I used to work with Ali's mom and specifically requested to be paired with this amazing girl.

(this is right after Ali received her sash and tiara)

I seriously cannot wait for the month of May!!

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ruffled cardigan refashioned

Hello faithful readers!

Many many apologies for the tardiness in blog posts lately. There have been some exciting developments in the lives of the Hicks Girls lately...but more on that in a future post.

Mainly, I wanted to show you some of the projects I've been working on lately. First up...one of my new favorite things in my wardrobe! This refashioned ruffled cardigan!!

Sister just moved from Lafayette to Evansville, and in the process she made some major donatiosn to Goodwill. Being the sweet and wonderful sister that she is, she allowed me first stabs at most of it and I grabbed some "treasures". The American Eagle cardigan and silk-flowered cami below were two such treasures!

Now, I'm not a simple cardigan girl....so I decided to jazz this one up a bit!

I cut up the camisole and ruffled it some of the pieces. I also took the zipper from the side and the lace from the top/bottom to make some flowers. Then I cut up an old white t-shirt to use as the base ruffle....and TA DA!!!

The final product....and I'm totally in love with this!!

(excuse the lighting of this "artsy" selfie)
Seriously, is this ruffled cardigan not one of the cutest things you've seen!?!?!?!

Here's where I'll be linking up this week!

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Thursday, February 24, 2011

I :heart: freezer paper!!

Posted by kelby at 1:35 PM .

9 comments

Well Sister posted a blog last week about making Big Dub a Valentine's Day shirt using freezer paper...and her genuis is contagious. I went down to Evansville last weekend to hang out and we got crafty! (Honestly, we are crafty and creative on our own...but it's been a long time since Sister and I crafted together.)

Needless to say, we busted out the freezer paper for another round of fun-ness!! I have quite a few babies being born in my life in the next couple of months...so I hit up JoAnn's for some of these cute bibs and got to work!

Clearly, these are for a special little boy who will be here sometime in May.

I'm freaking in love with the mustache one...how funny is that??!?!?!

I couldn't leave BGB out of the mix! She'll be here in about a month and she has to be the best dressed babe in Evansville! :)

I do really love the Rock N Roll one too!

And now I'm on a freezer paper high. What else can I stencil and paint???

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Saturday, February 12, 2011

Valentine's Project: Freezer Paper Stenciling

Posted by burgess at 12:43 AM .

1 comments

 
So, I (Burgess) have kind-of had a lot going on...I'm 5 weeks out from Baby #2, and just moved 4.5 hours south of Lafayette to Evansville, IN. We've been in our new house almost three weeks, and I have desperately been in need of some kind of creative outlet! And what better time to dive into some new projects than for Valentine's Day?!? I've had some ideas for Valentine's gifts for Big W for a while now, and I am thrilled to be unpacked just enough to find my supplies, and I'm just acquainted enough with my new town to find the Joann's store and the Hobby Lobby. So, I'll be blogging about these projects over the next few days.


First up, I've been wanting to do some freezer paper stenciling for a while now. I've been following Dana's blog over at MADE for some time, and I LOVE her projects. But I am only just now getting a chance to actually try some of them. She has a great tutorial for freezer paper stenciling here. I pretty much just followed this tutorial, but I will show you my steps too. Big W loves Charlie Brown holiday TV specials, so when I was trying to think of something to stencil for Valentine's Day, I kept coming back to Snoopy. I found a great basic image just by Googling "Snoopy, Valentine." So, first I just copied the image to my clipboard on the computer and resized it to a size appropriate for the t-shirt using Adobe Photoshop. I printed this image (the one on the left), and then traced it onto another piece of paper using a Sharpie (the one on the right), just to have clear, dark lines to follow.

One difference between my image and those that Dana used on MADE is that I attempted one that would require TWO paint colors (black and red). It just adds an extra step to the process, which you'll see later.


Next, using basic freezer paper that I bought at the grocery store, I placed the freezer paper slick side down onto the Sharpie image and traced again using the Sharpie, on the "dull" side of the freezer paper. I really "thickened up" the black lines because those are the ones I later cut out so that they would be painted black on a white t-shirt.

Next, is the tedious step of cutting out the parts that you want painted on the shirt. This was tedious for me because of the image I chose. Below, you can see that I used an Exacto knife to cut out the parts that I wanted to paint black. I forgot to take a picture of this, but in some cases you'll completely cut out pieces that you actually want to remain the color of the shirt. For instance, below, you can see that I cut out that entire top arm of Snoopy's. But I kept that piece so that I could put it back in the image when I ironed it to the shirt. (You'll see what I mean when I paint the image on the t-shirt.)

Once you're done with all the cutting, it's time to iron the image onto your clothing. Place the image shiny side down onto your clothing and just iron it on (I used a pretty hot setting)! Take care to make sure the image sticks well in all the little nooks and corners so that no paint seeps onto other parts when you're painting.

Now you're ready to paint! As Dana recommends, I found Tulip brand fabric paint in a matte finish. And I used a wide paint brush.

I started with the black paint and painted over all of the cut-out areas.

You can then let it set for a few hours to dry, or, if you're antsy to see the end result like I was, you can use a hair dryer to speed up the drying process. Then you simply peel the paper off of the t-shirt. Voila!

Here's my extra step…since I wanted the heart Snoopy's holding to be red, I did another freezer paper stencil of the image, just cutting out the heart. I just outlined the rest of Snoopy so that I could have a reference when lining up the image over the one already painted on the t-shirt.

Again, just iron the freezer paper to the t-shirt, shiny side down. Then I painted the heart red.

Repeat the ansty-ness and dry with a hair dryer, if you want. Then peel the paper off.

How stinking cute is that?!? I now let the t-shirt dry for a good 4 or 5 hours, and then, per Dana's suggestion (because the paint bottle didn't say anything about this), I ironed the image to seal in the paint.

Here's the final close-up…

I plan on giving this to Big W in his Valentine's treat bag on Monday so that he can wear it to his preschool Valentine exchange on Tuesday. I'll try to remember to take a picture and post it next week. I'm so excited to see him in it, and this was such a fun project I may never buy another Batman, Superman or Disney t-shirt again when I can just do this myself!

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