Since losing a hard drive this summer (and my sister losing hers last month), I’m pretty obsessed with online backup services.

I also love funny or conversation-inspiring t-shirts, so when I heard about Mozy‘s hilarious Back The F:\ Up t-shirt promotion, I put the brain to work on getting me one of those shirts.

As it turns out, the Mozy folks liked my preggo belly-painting idea, and fortunately I have the nicest sister in the world (though she insists that I’ll need to share the t-shirt with her), so behold: the branded belly.

We used the projector to make it easier to outline the logo (though it did result in some skewing, which actually looks pretty cool) and then Leanna painted it all in with face paint (more typically used for sporting events, but whatever).

I think she did a great job (and truly, I should probably just give her the shirt since all I really contributed was the painting surface)!

A few weeks ago, I came across the Stocking Advent Calendar instructions on BurdaStyle.com and decided to make some of my own.

If you know me, you can probably guess at the difficulty I had in actually creating 24 little stockings (24!) and finishing the project, but shockingly, I did finish it. (Knitters talk about the “2nd sock syndrome”… try the 23rd sock!)

I pretty much followed the instructions from BurdaStyle.com, with a few exceptions:

• I used a different pattern for the stockings [download the pattern (but ignore the instructions on it!)]—it’s rough but I liked the shape better. If you use it, know that I added a ½” seam allowance. If you’re better at sewing than me, you could reduce this and eliminate the seam allowance trimming step.
• I cut out the numbers and applied them applique-style (new to me, and I really like the effect, though I might recommend starting out with a smaller project for the first attempt!). If you’re interested, here’s the pattern for two styles of numbers, ready to print backwards for tracing.
• I used different ribbon for the bows than for the top edge.

I’ve uploaded photos of the whole process to Flickr, so if you’re interested in seeing it pretty much step-by-step, start there. If you have questions, ask them in the photo comments or leave a comment on this post and I’ll do my best to clarify.

As a side-note, this was my first project on my new sewing machine and I love it.