Family pictures are one of my favorite things in the whole world. The luckiest part of it is that I have my own personal photographer that takes great pictures and can work magic like no one I know in Photoshop. She has been my photographer ever since my Senior year of High School. Here's a collage of all the photo shoots done by her.
I bet you're wondering who this talented woman is. Well, it's none other than Scary. I hope that she is my photographer for the rest of my life: not just because of the price (she never charges me), but because she knows exactly what I want and it doesn't have to be anything incredibly complicated and drawn out (She can get at least 300 pictures in 15 minutes). This year for my birthday she gave me the greatest gift at all, current snapshots of my family. Now I can fill empty frame hanging on my wall. I love them and I'm sure you will too. She caught the picture perfect shots and also the really candid moments.

Everyone except Samson is wearing something I made by hand. Although he came pretty close to getting a newsboy cap because the night before pictures as I was cutting his hair I kind of buzzed it. Luckily his hair likes to stick straight up so it was kind of hidden. Ty is wearing her Perpetually Prepared tunic and jeggings that I made this last season of PR&P. Heber is styling his Common Axis top and Newsboy cap from this spring. And I am wearing a dress I made this week from a Target sheet set. I want to blog about it later so stay tuned for more details to come. It's a morph of 3 patterns. The skirt is straight in the front and the back is a half a circle. This gives it spin-ability, but still modesty. Since they say a picture is worth a thousand words and I have a ton of really great pictures, I'm going to let my pictures speak for themselves (blooper pictures are at the end).
With Love,
Al 

Heber modeling his stylin' newsboy cap and common axis top.

I love 3/4 length sleeves.

Ty would call this a flying dress.

Walking the backyard catwalk.

I love the fullness in the back.

Don't forget to come back for next weeks line up of contributors.

October 8: Bethany from I Married Superman October 9: Jo from Shaffer Sisters October 10: April from Modern Homemade October 11: Al from Shaffer Sisters October 14: RaeAnna from Sewing Mama RaeAnna October 15: Jenn from A Jennuine Life October 16: Heather from Feathers Flight October 17: Olga from Kid Approved October 18: Rebecca from Rock the Stitch October 21: Scary from Shaffer Sisters October 22: Highlights from the Flickr Group

And  now for the best part, the blooper shots. Scary and I were rolling in laughter as we were going through these.

Awkward couple picture. Not to mention that  Ty was being a photo bomber and my eyes are closed.

Ty (in a grandma voice), "I lost all my teeth and can now only eat applesauce and mashed potatoes."

In a voice like my mom said to us many times (and still does). "Don't make that face you need to smile nice."

Me: I just love you so stinkin' much. Samson: I want to suck your blood.

So I had kissed Samson during the photo shoot and later Scary had us kiss our kids. My lip gloss went from me to Samson to Ty. This is me trying to get it off  and failing miserably.

Heber was not a fan of  mom and dad getting pictures without him. This is him yelling in his best tribal language, '"DOYKIE DONKIN BOO LA MA!" (translation: I WANT MY MOMMY!)

Today we are over at Winter Wonderings, Wanderings, & Whatnot joining in the Operation Zero series.
 Come see the simple, cute nautical style skirts (and directions) I made for the girls to wear to my grandpa's service to correspond to the Cracker "Jack" Sailor Suits.

I am so excited for another season of Project Run and Play. It seems like I've hardly picked up any sewing projects since moving from Chicago to Idaho the end of May (3 weeks ago we moved from Idaho to Utah). I needed another PR&P Marathon. It's so refreshing and helps provide clothes for my kids wardrobe. This season besides making sure all the items are functional, I want to coordinate the outfits in one collection that can mix and match.  The colors in the perpetually prepared tunic (turquoise, red, orange, yellow, white, and grey) were my inspiration  for this season.
The theme for this week is a pattern remix of the free Oliver+S Popover Sundress (it's basically an A-line pillowcase dress with a small fold-over yoke). I did a MAJOR remix and came up with this tunic. I tried to keep the square look that comes from the ties on the dress in relation to the top of it. I wanted sleeves and instead of a dress, a tunic. I did a keyhole style enclosure in back.
This week as been a mostly uphill battle. I started out with a really good design, but for so many reasons things did not go as expected. Since the stripes on the top had no pattern, I had to fussy cut the front and back of the tunic. I also needed to fussy cut the sleeves and I had barely enough straps to get the sleeves. When this happened, I put the sleeve with right side to wrong side and had two identical sleeves instead of mirrored sleeves. To fix the problem I had to shorten my sleeve by 2 inches. For a while there I was envying Scary's happy accidents for this week until I had a few of my own.
After being stumped and downhearted, I stepped away from the project, but then the next night as I was struggling to put Ty to bed, I had the epiphany to make a pencil skirt to distract from the less than perfect top. The pattern was actually so simple to make. I made sure to include pockets with the contrast white and red flower fabric. Keep your eyes open because next Thursday I will be giving a full tutorial on drafting and making a little girls pencil skirt pattern.
The only thing this fancy skirt needed was a blazer and lucky for me I was needing to pattern test the Dreaming of Spring Blazer from House of Estrela by next week (and by getting creative I had barely enough fabric to make a blazer that matched the skirt).
To give options, I found a pair of jeggings  at the store so that Ty could wear her Top (and even blazer) with a pair of skinny jeans. Using scraps I made and sewed on a couple of puffy flowers to add detail to the bottom of the jeggings. The shoes were a thrift store find that we cleaned and painted the right color (more details to come in week 4 submission). And the bracelet was made from small strips leftover from the knit fabric that I braided long enough to go around her wrist 3 times.
The entire project was free and you can expect most of my project in the future with fit this standard. Samson is back in school and now we're at a university four times the cost of the previous school with housing six times the cost of our last real place (not counting Chicago or Mom & Dad's House) all while having no current income. Needless to say you will be seeing even more $0 projects from me. I made the top from a woman's shirt and the skirt/blazer from a woman's tee length skirt. I got the original shirt and skirt from a clothing exchange in my church. The white and red flowered cotton fabric was given to me from my friend's mom. I hope you enjoy a free project as much as I do.

You can find the Master Organizer Files at the bottom of the post. 
Yesterday, we shared the idea behind the Master Organizer, over on Get Your Crap Together. I decided to use the master organizer to help me plan my weeks because it seems like every day requires a little different schedule. Some days are full of family outings and others are good for getting lots of things done.
I needed a schedule that adapted to my schedule.
I opened up a word file on my computer changed the page size to 4 by 6 and then put each task that I need to accomplish frequently on a card. Some of them I allotted a time, like play out in the park or watch a kids show.  This is what the file looked like:
Once you assign a color of a task to a member of a family then you would print out that task card on that color. For example if my color was pink,  here is what a task card would look like.
This can serve to a visual representation to me and the members of my family of what needs to be done. But it is also flexible enough that if we need to move something to another day we simply move the task to another day divider.
For example, I was planning on cleaning my bathrooms on Monday but we had something come up so I would move that card to Tuesday. Often times things need to be done so many days per week but they really don't need to be done every Monday or the house will explode.
I also think this will help me prepare for family trips because I can move the task cards earlier in the week to avoid a vacation preparation rush. 
Another divider of on the system is Week 1-4. This is for bill paying and other monthly activities. My husband is paid every 2 weeks and not on a certain day of month (like 5th and the 20th). It is important for me to split bills between paydays. For example I would put a pay electricity and water card in week 3, pay rent and internet in week 1.
Now, I am going to own up to something... today with you I will be starting this system. I have tried other systems to get my family organized and hated the ridged nature of them because they didn't adapt. I hated them so much, that I might have shouted from the roof tops, "I WILL NEVER EVER BE SCHEDULED AGAIN!"
I have tried to go unscheduled for a number of months and I keep forgetting things, double booking and not getting things done that I need to. I have really thought through what would be rigid enough to get the important things done but flexible enough that I won't loose my mind. Lets see how this month goes, I would love to hear from you with any additions you might need or changes you made to the system yourself.
I am off to the store to get some blank 4 by 6 recipe cards and I am planning to change the color of my wooden recipe box to match.
With Love,
Scary

I am giving you this information in flexible ways so you can adapt this organizing system to what works best for you. Please remember that all files are for personal use and are property of Shaffer Sisters.

Master Organizing File (which includes Day Dividers, Week Dividers, Task Seperator and 4 by 6 blank Task Sheets, but does not include examples of tasks)
Example of Tasks (PDF/Word)
Day Dividers
Week Dividers
4 by 6 Task Sheets (recipe cards)

Buying Fabric Online
Thought I haven't bought a ton of fabric online but between Al and I we have gotten some pretty great deals. Both of us have had great success with ordering fabric through Amazon retailers. I bought a few yards of a few different types of apparel fabric from Fabric.com through Amazon. One of those was the ruffled material that I used to make our skirts for Nae and Bubba's wedding.
Al has bought charm packs, layer cakes and yards of cotton gauze. Both of us have been very satisfied with our purchases.
My favorite part about this is that I can put things in the cart, think about it, take it out and put it back in and I don't annoy my husband or bother my kids sleep schedule.
I love the great deals that Fabric.com has on their knits!
My Sewing Challenge
I love the blog sewinginnomansland.com. I love the rules that she had for her sewing projects when her family was in Timor, as her husband worked for the Foreign Service. She had 15 yards of fabric of cute fabric from the US and after she was done with that she had to deal with the fabric that she could purchase in Timor.
I am so lucky to have so much fabric at my finger tips, but often times my purchasing fabric detracts from completing projects. So I have issued myself a personal challenge.
Rules:
1. No BUYING FABRIC for One Year (Last fabric purchase was June 14, 2012 for the crib sheet)
2. Notions purchases are allowed but only for the projects that are currently on my workstation (because even though I might have a years supply of fabric I know I have no where near a years supply of notions).
3. I will accept donations of fabric, bedding or old clothing from family and friends that would be giving away said items.
Potential exceptions:  Christmas/Birthday presents for the kids. I am hoping not to have to break this for Christmas or Birthday but before I made this goal I hadn't purchased fabric for these events. But I really will try my best not to break it.
Update: I have failed but I am doing an excellent job not over doing it.

What I hope to gain from this:
1. Creativity.
2. Focus: each time I go to the fabric store I find myself planning ahead for ten
3. Perspective: not all people are as lucky as me to have two fabric stores within 5 minutes and 2 more within 30 minutes.
4. Save Enough money to go to LA and visit the fashion district and by fabric $2/yard and $2.50/pound.

Joann's/Hancock
Joann's/Hancock both have great deals on fabric and patterns, usually their best deals are around 3 day holidays. You can speed your shopping time by looking through their online fabric selection before going to the store. If they have deals on patterns I think it is easier to look on the pattern manufactures website before going to the store. I usually have a list with all the numbers written down.
When I plan a project, I usually go to either retailers website and see if they are running a deal on the fabric that I need. If they aren't I usually just wait a couple of weeks and it is sure to be 25%-50% cheaper.
Often times Joann's has a 50% off one regular item.
Joann's clearance fabric is called Red tag area, sometimes they do an additional 50% off the fabric.
Hancock clearance fabric is called Spot the Bolt, once in a while they do 50%, 60%, 70% off the regular price fabric.
I have had great success with Joann's Remnant fabric section, that is where I found the fabric for the Cuddle Soft blanket with Satin Ruffles. The great thing about the Remnant section is that they give you 50% off the current price, so if there was a 20% off sale for that type of fabric then you would get that in addition to 50% discount on remnant fabric. If you are getting fabric cut at Joann's and there is less than a yard left on the bolt after yours fabric cut they will ask you if you are interested in remnant fabric, in which they will give you the 50% discount on the current price.
Both retailers offer mail flyers and e-mail flyers to help you be aware of current prices.
And unless I have Slim Jim as back up I don't take Ryder into the store. One time I made the mistake of going into Hancock alone with the kids and it involved Ryder being a dead sprint with a shopping cart, me running after him shouting, "No!....Ryder!.....STOP!" The lady from Hannock that was cutting my fabric got him stopped by putting up both her arms straight out and saying firmly, "STOP!" he stopped immediately but it was within inches of hitting her and running into half the bolts in the store.

Thanks Jo for the great advice on marriage (Marriage: The Theory of the Laundry Basket) for looking for the best intentions in our spouses behavior, because we are all human and usually we are short on time and long on mistakes (I know that I am grateful for a husband that realizes all I do and that I might not have had time to do it all).

You know what? I love this guy!

Slim Jim with our sundaes from Ghirardelli  Ice Cream Shop in Las Vegas (Anniversary Trip)

Not because he has managed to keep his good looks (bonus) but because he is a romantic. He asks me on dates (no big deal you say?). Not just once and a while but all the time! With Slim Jim's work and school schedule it seems like weekly we have to re-evaluate what night and what time we are going to have our date night. I think that if it was up to my scattered brain we would probably only have date night once every month or one every other month. But lucky for me Slim Jim realizes the importance of date night and when he gets his work schedule for the week and looks over his school schedule he usually says something like, on a busy week: "We need to go on a date this night" or on a less busy week: "Would you prefer to go on a date on ________, __________ or ________ night." I then talk to my favorite babysitter, Al, and find a time that works for her.
What I usually contribute to date night is the activity. About a year and a half ago I caught the couponing bug, I went hard core at it for a while but then I found my coupon niche and left behind getting a boat load of cereal or yogurt. The only couponing I do hardcore now is local deal saving. I follow of the Facebook pages of many of our favorite local restaurants and other businesses. I also sign up for all of the text message deals that I can. In our city a group of local businesses have deals every day, the business rotates through the week. These are usually really good deals and it is fun to have variety. Here are example of a few of our dates from the last couple of weeks:
Pizza Pie Cafe - Receipt Day: found out about the deal via Facebook - Buy any item at full price on receipt day and get the same items you ordered for free by taking in your receipt any time in the month of February (Buy one get, one free later). We got a pizza bomb for each of us and then we watched Borne Identity while the kids napped.
5 Buck Pizza - Saturday Deal: found out about the deal via Text Message - $7 for Large Pizza and two fountain drinks. We did a family date for this one which Ryder really enjoyed because pizza is his favorite deal.
Great Scott's - Movie and a Drink: found out about the deal via Facebook - Buy new 90 cent fountain drink and get a free movie rental. Slim Jim and I went to dinner at Wendy's with a gift card his grandma had given us for Christmas. We then rented two new releases and had a 44 oz drink for $2, nothing like putting the home theater to use while the kids are sleeping.
Nielsen's Frozen Custard - Date Night Special: Monday-Thursday all day they have various $5 dollar deals that makes for a nice weekday date. During Ryder's nap we got two hamburgers, two frozen custards, two drinks, two fries and we paid our baby sister (Al) in a chicken finger meal deal (chicken fingers, fries, a small custard and a drink).

Classic move- I learned the tight squeeze move from mom.

I think the biggest thing I have learned in my 4.5 years of marriage is that date night doesn't always have to be on a Friday or Saturday night (it actually will save you money a lot of times and you might get to enjoy a more quiet location if you go on a weekday or during the middle of the day). It isn't about when you go just that you do. It seems like every date we go on helps Slim Jim and I recharge our marriage batteries.

(Rainforest Cafe Las Vegas- Anniversary Trip) After Several Failed attempts of a self portrait this is the one we got and I love that Slim Jim is making this face because he is showing his great sense of humor. That sense of humor is what I fell in love with and what I continue to enjoy with every date night.

Minky (Minkee) is usually out of price range ($20/yrd-$25/yrd) for our little family, since my husband is the only provider and he goes to school full time and works part time. Even though it is out of our price range that never kept me from wishing that we could afford it, especially since lately Rhett has been going through a stage where he loves soft things.
One day a few months ago I got an e-mail from our neighborhood craft store saying that they would run a 5 hour sale of $10/yrd. I decided at this point, that one of the presents that would be under our tree would be a travel minky travel quilt for each one of the kids. This was my first experience sewing on Minky and I would be lying if I said sewing on Minky was super easy.

After seam ripping several times I figured out what works best (at least for me):
1st: Double check to make sure your two fabrics are exactly the same size (because it is hard to cut Minky sometimes the people cutting the fabric haven't cut it exactly straight or even with each other).
2nd: Line up the right sides of your fabrics together and stretch out each one of the corners so that the fabric is as tight as possible.
3rd: Pin the sides opposite to the salvage edge together with a 1" inch inseam (because these should be exactly the same width. You will want to put a pin every 1/8-1/4" so that your fabric doesn't slip. It may seem like a little much but it is easier to over pin than seam rip.
4th: Once your sides opposite of the salvage edge are put together then you will pin together the salvage edge sides, leaving a 1 1/2 inch hole in the middle of one of the edges for you to flip your blanket right side out.
5th: Sew the salvage edges together making sure to leave the 1 1/2 inch hole for you to pull your fabric through.
6th: Clip your corners on your blanket and then turn the fabric right side out.
7th:  Pin your hole on your blanket shut and then sew around the outside of the blanket using a 1/2" seam.
8th: Enjoy a nice comfortable blanket. Slim Jim took advantage of the fact that I had this blanket out for picture taking one night. The next morning he said something like this, "Man that Minky blanket is pretty nice for watching TV with. It is really comfortable." I guess he didn't mind the girly colors too much, it has had me thinking about making one for a throw for the couch.....maybe next Minky sale.
Total cost of this project: $25 + tax
Retail cost for a Minky blanket: $125 + $17.95 (Shipping & Handling)

Even though this project cost a lot more than most of my projects usually do it is nice to save over a $100 dollars! Very budget friendly project.

I am so pleased with how this blanket turned out. The best part of this quilt it was made with scrap material from her blessing/christening gown and cut fabric that I found in the remnant fabric bin at JoAnne's. The story behind this quilt is that I had gone into JoAnne's to grab some printed canvas/outdoor upholstery fabric to make a diaper bag out of (that project will be posted soon). I walked by the remnant bin and found 1 1/3 yards (just short of 48 by 60, standard crib quilt is 45 by 60) of The Cuddle Soft in Remnant bin. At 50% of the current price I couldn't pass it up.
I did not take pictures as I went since I was making it up as I went, but encase you would like to make a similar one I have written down the process in the greatest detail as I can think but if you have any questions just leave a comment on this post and I will try to answer it. 
When I unwrapped it I was so pleased to find that it was nice and soft on both sides, so instead of applying a back to it I decided to put my ruffling foot to use and ruffle up some satin. I cut my satin in 3 inch strips and then sew the strips together (I think I did 8, because I knew I would loose length in the ruffling process and wasn't sure how much I would end up needing). I then ruffled my strips so that there would be a pleat every 6 stitches with a depth of 4.
I then folded the Cuddle Soft fabric horizontally and vertically so all of the outside corners would be lined up. I then pinned them so they would stay in place while I cut. I then I place a large plate over the top of the corners and traced the rounded shape. I then removed the plate and cut all of the layers at one time (this gave me a nice rounded edge to work with.
After that I then lined up and pinned the raw edge my ruffled satin  to the raw edge of my cuddle soft, with the satin laying on top of the right side of the Cuddle soft. I then stitched the satin on with a 1/2 inch stitch. When that was all attached I wanted to be able to cover my raw edges on the backside. So I cut (6) 1 1/2 inch strips of satin and sewed them all together. I then pinned and sewed the raw edge of the satin strips to the raw edge of the ruffles and the cuddle soft, with a 1/2 inch inseam. I then ironed the satin down and folded the satin edge around the ruffle/cuddle soft inseam (at this point you should have no raw edges showing). I pinned it so that it would stay down and in place. Then I lined the satin edge with the left side of my presser foot (most pressure feet have a right and left line that you can follow, it is half way between where the needle comes down and the edge of the presser foot) and had my thread come down in the middle. I then kept my hand tightly stretched across the fabric so I wouldn't have any puckers. DONE!
The Cuddle Soft Blanket will be so nice and comfortable to wrap our sweet baby girl in and the fluffiness of the cuddle soft fabric and the smooth silkiness of the satin ruffles make a complementary contrast. The white ruffles also help anchor the bright colors of the bright hearts. One of my favorite parts is that it is totally budget friendly.
Fabric Regular price: $17.32
My Cost for Cuddle Soft Fabric: $5.13 (50% of the current price, which the fabric was on sale for $7.79/yrd instead of the $13/yrd)
My Cost for Satin Ruffles:  Less than $1 because I made my own binding and the fabric I used I got for a $1/yrd.
Total Cost of Blanket: $6