Day 54 - Mask Makin' Mama

Give this mama 30 minutes and she can pop out five face masks for her daughter who started back to work today.

For those interested in knowing which pattern I used, I went with my No Pleat Face Mask and added a nose wire like I did in the Pleated Face Mask with Nose Wire video.

Day 53 - On This Day

On this day last year I was on a cruise ship. The year before I was packing for a cruise. Heck, even on Mother's Day in 2014 I was on a cruise ship.

So today when no kids can hang out with their moms unless they are already quarantined together, I might as well pretend I’m on a cruise ship. Alcoholic drink in hand and flip flops off.

Happy Mother's Day to us all.

Day 52 - Saturday Smorgasbord

Today was a smorgasbord of a day. Not food wise, but to-do list wise. I jumped from one random task to another.

In the order of completion, today I:

• Unpacked the suitcase. When we came home from our February cruises we washed our clothes and proceeded to repack some of them. We even replenished our toiletry kit. We thought we would be heading right back out onto ships for several more weeks of warm weather cruises. That clearly didn't happen, and for some reason I just haven't been able to bring myself to unpack everything again. As we now have warm weather here some of the things in the suitcase were needed, and since there is no travel in the near future for us, it was time to empty it completely. Sad.
• Cleared my sewing workspace of the fabric headache quilt. I've made some great progress on it, but I need to set it aside for a few days before I finish all the iron-on applique. Ugh.
• Pulled multiple fabrics out of my baskets and texted photos back and forth to kiddo. Her store reopens on Monday and she needed some more face masks. She's been using the no-pleat one I made and likes it so much she wants more of the same style instead of using the store-provided masks. We now have five fabric choices, approved by her.
• Cut up the box from my new lounge chair and put it into the recycling bin. The box was huge and the cardboard sturdy. It was a tough job.
• Soaked up a generous amount of Vitamin D in said lounger.
• Did a load of laundry and hung it on the clothesline outside.
• Shaved both our heads again. Just like I did a couple weeks back, we went behind the shed and I used the clippers to cut our hair super short. No more waiting three months between haircuts in this house anymore.
• Showered to remove loose hair.
• Did another load of laundry to wash the hair out of the clothes and hung them on the clothesline, too.
• Had another pizza picnic, this time from Domino's. And this time Ed even let us use the card table instead of having to share our tiny picnic ant TV tray.
• Worked on figuring out some kind of flower decoration to go on the kitty cat wreath I made our daughter earlier this year. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing with the flowers but I'm kind of liking the direction I'm heading with my practice pieces. 

A random but productive Saturday.

Day 51 - Chair Hog

If you’re a cruiser, you most likely know what a chair hog is.  For those who don’t, a chair hog is one of those people on a ship who scope out a lounge chair in the morning. Not only do they find the best one, they proceed to put things on the chair to hold it until later in the day. Sometimes they even pick out three or even five chairs to hold. You’ll see a flip flop going onto one chair and the matching flip flop onto another chair. A beach bag will go onto another lounge chair, a book on another, and a hat on another. And then the person disappears for hours and hours. I spend a lot of time at the pool when we’re on a ship so I get first-hand views of their work. I’m definitely not a fan of chair hogs.

But I am going to become a chair hog. At home, that is. With my new lounge chair in my backyard, I will be leaving my stuff and coming and going as I please. Now if I could just train someone to come around to take my drink order...

Day 50 - A New Evening Treat

We’ve survived the longest month ever, March. We’ve survived the second longest month ever, April. Now we’re onto May. Woo hoo! Warmer weather, flowers and trees a bloomin', birds chirping, and ice cream cones at night.

Ice cream cones? Yup. If you remember, in April I spiced things up by making these mystery treat bags for us to share every evening. Well, now we’re doing ice cream evenings.

Pre-pandemic if we wanted an ice cream cone we’d drive a couple blocks down to Burger King for their dollar vanilla cones. Once the stay at home orders began our ice cream cone trips ended. Since we never ever keep ice cream in our freezer we figured we’d just have to give it up.

Not so fast.

For the first time ever we have three different ice creams in our freezer and ice cream cones in our cabinet. (Thank you grocery pick up!) Instead of choosing a random treat bag during those between dinner and bedtime munchies cravings we will have an ice cream cone.

A fun way to spice up our evenings. (Yeah, we're kinda boring people.)

Day 49 - A Tree Transformation

As today was a stormy day and I had plenty of catching up to do on the fabric headache quilt, I wasn't much interested in going outside to take a picture of a tree. But you-know-who loves his tree and loves that the color isn't quite yet green and wanted a picture of it. So today's picture, taken through my sewing room window, is for my husband the tree man.

At least it looks better than it did 41 days ago.

How to Sew Face Mask Ear Savers - Tutorial Tuesday

If you are getting annoyed by the elastic on your face mask bugging your ears, I might have a solution for you. Today's Tutorial Tuesday uses one piece of fabric and a couple buttons to help relieve the ear irritation.

For this project you will need:

• 5" x 8" piece of fabric
• 2 buttons measuring 3/4" or larger
• Iron
• Sewing machine
• Hand needle
• Matching thread
• Rotary cutter
• Cutting ruler
• Cutting mat
• Scissors

Just like all my mask measurements, since we all have different head and face sizes be sure to check the size and fit out before making a ton of them!

Disclosure: Deb's Days is a participant in affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to affiliated sites. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Your purchase helps support my work in bringing you new sewing and crafting content.

Looking for a different mask? I have several other tutorials to choose from:

Looking for other travel accessories ideas? Check out these projects!

Otherwise you watch the how-to tutorial for the face mask ear savers right here:

Need a mask? Check out my face mask tutorials here. If you are planning on using an ear saver with them, be sure to add and additional inch or two of elastic to these patterns or the mask might wind up being tighter than you'd like.

As usual, stay safe out there!