Summer in a Pitcher: Sun Tea

We are in another stretch of near-90 degree days.  Depending on where you are, that might not sound like much... but to us that's pretty HOT.  What to do? Brew some sun tea!

Put cold water and tea bags in a glass container.  I just use regular, old Lipton tea.  Lipton sells these really great family-sized tea bags that brew in 4 cups of water.  In my giant-sized mason jar I had 12 cups of water and 3 family-sized Lipton bags.

Set it in a sunny spot.  

After 15 minutes it looks like this.

 After one hour on an 86-degree afternoon it looks like this.

Add ice, lots of sugar and take a sip of summer.  Yum!

Off the Wall Letter Decor

Man, it has been a long time since I've used my Home Decor tag on a post! Without realizing it, I've been on a major sewing kick - sewing fun things for myself and the little kiddies in my life.  I think I started transforming our living room a few months back... I wonder what happened to that project?!  Crafting/Decorating/Sewing ADD. Whatever you want to call it.

Even though I haven't been doing a ton of decorating projects, I'm still thinking about it.  One of my first posts ever was about some decorative letters I made to spell out my son's name for his bedroom...  and ever since then I've been thinking even more about words and letters and the roll they play in decor. In fact, words play a significant roll in my life in general.  I've always loved Bible verses, quotes, inspirational words, or monograms, you name it.

One of my husband's aunts had a wall of "M"s - her first and last initial were both M... just like mine!  I started collecting "M"s when we got married.  I have three wood or metal letters that you can hang on the wall or lean on a shelf, and then I have a mish-mash off monogrammed napkins, mugs and other items like that.  I thought it would be fun to do a little roundup of some more off-the-wall ways to bring language into your decor, so here you go!

A cheeky message placed somewhere unexpected:

 Photo Courtesy of Coastal Living

Random letters adorning your kitchen cabinetry:

Photo Courtesy of Coastal Living

Vinyl letters applied to a thrifted plate display:

 Photo Courtesy of Country Living

This one might be my favorite! A sweet message spelled out across your pillows:

 Photo Courtesy of Country Living

A fancy monogram on a child's bedroom wall:

 Photo Courtesy of MyHomeIdeas.com

Words in art:

 Photo Courtesy of Southern Living

The "Sweet Dreamer" PJ Pants

Um, you know what one of my most favorite parts of my new blog design is???  BIGGER PICTURES! Boo-yah. If you are in a reader and haven't seen my makeover... come on over and check it out!

So I made these cute pants on a day that my sweet two year old son had been not so sweet... we were on day three of 90+ degree weather (not something we see a lot of in Oregon) and we live in a 100 year old home with poor insulation and no air conditioning (not something every Oregon home has).  The house doesn't get real cool at night, so with each additional day of high temps, the temperature starts to really creep up inside the house.

We were all a little cranky and tired of not being able to escape the heat.  So, as I was creating the pattern for these pants and coming up with a name, the "Sweet Dreamer" concept actually caused me to crack up in laughter in my sweaty delirium.

A few frustrating days aside, isn't it so great how you can have the toughest day with your kiddo, but you can go peek in on them while they are sleeping and all the hard feelings are just washed away?  They always look so angelic.  So I guess he is a sweet boy after all :).

In fact, his antics during our "PJ Pant Photo Shoot" were cracking me up. This is him pretending to be asleep:

These PJ Pants are a loose-fitting pant with contrasting, but coordinating, rounded pockets on the booty. My second pair went together in under an hour!  I successfully made a pattern for these, but they are currently only in 3T size.  I'm working on expanding it for more sizes (with some cute options for girls!), so look for that soon!