Goodbye Little Brother.

We are Jeremy Christopher's family. Chris has left behind a beautiful mother, 3 brothers and 4 sisters. He has 16 nieces and nephews. We will all miss him. He had a beautiful service with Jane Johnson and Russell Lynn speaking. Derek read the eulogy and we had 4 musical numbers. Which was fitting for Chris's artistic personality. We love you Chris.

Below is Aaron (big bro.) and Jane Johnson (close family friend).

Just wanted to share some pics of the viewing for Chris's friends who couldn't be there. When you walked up our brother Derek put Chris's "Hardley" out front for everyone to see. This is where people signed their names and wrote notes to Chris and the family.

We had some tables set up with pictures and props of things that Chris enjoyed doing.


The pallbearers from left to right are Mike Scoma (brother in law), Aaron Gaughan (big brother), Russell Lynn (brother in law), Austin Lynn (nephew), Griffin Gaughan (little brother), Derek Gaughan (little brother), Mike Husted (close friend), and Travis Hayes (close friend)
We wanted the pallbearers to wear blue. Chris had twinkling blue eyes; thus the blue shirts.

The funeral director Justin was amazing. He pulled a flower out of the arrangement on Chris's casket and gave one to mom and each of the sisters. He made this process more bearable.

My brother Chris

Jeremy Christopher Gaughan

Born March 21, 1979 in Corpus Christi, Texas to Pete and Dona Gaughan. Chris is one of eight children. Chris was an easy going happy baby. When Derek was born a couple years later they were instant buddies. Whether it was getting into mischief together or both cramming on a hot wheels together where you would see one of them you knew the other was not too far behind. Chris was a very artistic boy and loved nature. Chris had a talent for putting you at ease. He talked of traveling the world as he got older and boy did he. Through his travels he touched many lives he has friends in Italy, Austria, Australia, Chile, Spain, Germany, France, Mexico, Turkey, Finland and those are just the ones we know of. When our dad was sick and near the end of his life my brother Chris was by his bedside constantly. He even acquired the name "Klingon" because he was just always there. He had a nurturing and compassionate heart which is why it make sense that he felt strongly about being in the medical field. Chris worked at the hospital here in Olathe in the ER; which really was kinda funny to us because he was a little bit of a fainter and we couldn't believe he was going to go to work in an ER where there was blood and who knows what else that he would be facing. But I think it was his strong determination in wanting to be able to help others and to touch there lives in a positive way that helped to get him through the times that were hard for him. So many people who saw him in the ER have commented on how compassionate he was and his big smile. He was able to put them at ease in their time of need. Chris would have made a wonderful Doctor. Chris also enjoyed creating things. Whether it was a smoker he built with his brother Derek and friends or the planes that he liked to create with Griffin. Some of the things that he made absolutely amazed us. He truly had a gift. His life was short but I think he tried to get the most out of it. Chris was in a tragic car accident Thursday, September 24 in which his short life was ended. Chris you will be greatly missed. We love you and will rejoice the day we get to be reunited with you and dad!

Much Love, your big sis

This was a sudden death and Chris did not have life insurance the cost of a funeral is expensive and we are asking that in lieu of flowers donations be made to Security Savings Bank Jeremy Christopher Gaughan Memorial Fund acct. # is 8300332201. You can call the bank. Lori Keim (913)894-5400 or (913)752-5367.

Charity's in the play!

My sweet Charity tried out for Oliver this past Friday and got the call-back that night. She went in Saturday and that evening we found out that she would be an orphan and school girl in Trilogy's production of Oliver. We are super excited for her. She was so giddy it was just cracking Russell and I up! This is our first experience with this kind of thing so I hope it is going to be a good one. Here is a pic of her excitement the night she got the call-back.

Reusable shopping bag tutorial

As promised here is my shopping bag tutorial.

Turn this:

Into this:

and this:

Things you'll need:

• Reusable shopping bags (I used the ones from wally world)
• fabric to cover the logo printed on them
• scraps of fabric to applique
• lite wonder under
• carabiner (little metal clip)
• 3/4"- 1" elastic
• velcro

The first thing you will need to do is measure the width and height of the area you are going to cover with fabric. You will cut your fabric 1" bigger than the measurement for height and width.
Next you will want to cut out your applique. I cut out my letter on the wonder under first~just remember the design will be backwards. Then I cut it out and ironed it onto my fabric and cut out the fabric. It would be easier to just iron a chunk of wonder under to your fabric and then cut out the applique.

After you iron it in place and you will want to applique around it using a zigzag stitch. I use a tight stitch.

You will then iron under 1/2" on the top and bottom of the fabric and then on the sides.

I then placed it on my back to make sure that it covered the logo still. (after all that is why I am putting fabric on the bag~I refuse to buy their bag and then advertise for them because they have plastered their logo on my bag)

Now you will pin the fabric down making sure not to catch the back of the bag and stitch it in place.

Cut a 3" piece of elastic and cut 1 " pieces of velcro. Sew the rough side of velcro to one end of the elastic and sew the soft side to the back of the bag about 7" down and 3" from the side. You just want it to line up with where you are going to sew the elastic on the top. Sew the elastic to the top of the bag next to the handle with the velcro facing down. I sewed around the sides and then did an x in the middle for extra strength.

That is it for the sewing part.

Now to fold the bag. Put the handles on the front of the bag.

Fold the bag in half length wise.

Now fold the bag in half from bottom to top.

Fold it again from bottom to top and fasten Velcro.

Hook them onto your carabiner s/p and you are ready to roll. I love having them all on the carabiner because then I can hook it to the side of my shopping cart. So that when I am finished shopping I don't have a bunch of groceries on top of my bags.

Just let me know if you have any questions. :)

100 days until Christmas eve!!

Yes, it is true. I know some of you may think I am crazy, but I absolutely love the holidays. They bring such fond memories of years past. I am making it a goal this year to have everything made and finished by Thanksgiving. I am trying to have the majority of the gifts I give this year be handmade; so I will be posting a lot of the things I am working on over the next few weeks. :)

My piano bench makeover!!! and some other things.

I have been pretty busy this past week~hemming pants for friends, sewing baby gifts and a few extras, making handouts for my girls in yw, and lots of other crafty stuff. Oh, and I finished some Christmas gifts, I am seriously excited about that. I promised my husband I would not be finishing Christmas gifts the night before this year (I have a bad habit of doing that). He doesn't completely believe me. He said he thinks I will just add more at the last minute. :) Anyways, I am super excited about what I got to do tonight after the kiddos went to bed. My piano bench has been in dire need of a makeover. The fabric on the bench was never my fave. and it was time to go when my two little girls took marker to it yesterday. Just click on the picture to see how ugly it really is! YUCK!!

It was just the motivation I needed to get the job done. So off to wally world I went because I had seen the perfect fabric there for exactly this project.

So after an hour or so of work you have this beauty.

I am really happy with how it turned out!!:)

Oh and here are some pics of the onesie dresses I made last week. Feel free to let me know which one is your favorite and how much you think I could sell these for. I am thinking of listing on etsy or ebay; haven't decided yet. Tell me what you think.

This is the one I gave away.

Last thing ~here are the pics of the Christmas gifts I finished last week. They are revamped walmart bags. Trying to be a little greener. O.K. so this isn't a picture of a finished one but my computer ate half of the pictures I took of making these guys so that I could post a tutorial. I think you get the idea. I will be posting a tutorial on how to revamp your bags hopefully this week. They fold up so that you can hook all of them onto a caribeaner(?s/p). Pretty cool, I love them.