Obsessive Crafter's Dilemma

Cleaning

2012-02-10T23:09:00.001-07:00

I've been trying to clean the house lately. I guess you could call it spring cleaning. I went paperless a little over a year ago so I use rags instead. It saves money and space in the landfills by reusing rags.
I've recently changed my paper making screen, also my couching sheets have slowly shrunk in the wash. Since the sheets are muslin I thought they would make good cleaning rags. A single layer just doesn't quite cut it, so I've been folding them into quarters and then serging the edges all together. They so far are making great cleaning rags. I've also discovered that they are excellent for tiny noses. We've all at some point rubbed our poor little noses raw before, but my son really likes the muslin rags because they are softer on his little nose.
I know i've seen people use old t shirts for rags. I've crocheted old shirts into scrubbers and they worked really well but I haven't used them for plain rags. I may have to do that if spring cleaning lasts much longer. I'm beating the heck out of these rags, and my normal laundry isn't keeping up with my cleaning rags. I like to throw them in with normal laundry because there's always room for a couple rags so it doesn't feel like a waste.
I have to take one of my sewing machines to the shop this week. The tension is way out of whack and the bobbin is off. I've done everything I can do since I like do things myself but this is beyond my doing so sad as I am the baby must go in. I'll have it back soon and that makes me happy.
Well its been a busy week and next week will be busy with more cleaning. Until then have a great night and an even better tomorrow.

I love cheese

2012-01-28T23:15:00.001-07:00

No really, I love cheese. That braid us $90 worth of cheese and I want it. I can't afford it and this new healthier lifestyle says I shouldn't. None of that keeps me from ogling after the mile and a half walk to the grocery store. Think I could burn some of those calories off with that walk.

Well the walk was eventful. I take back all the horrible things I might have said about kindles. My phone has a kindle app so I got halfway through reading a book about living a "greener" lifestyle. Good news is I'm already there on some of it, in fact quite a bit of it. Got some ideas for more stuff I can do...and inspiration to actually do something with some of the stuff i've been holding onto. :-) Yeah for recycling.

Have a great night, and an even better tomorrow.

Lunch

2012-01-27T14:30:00.001-07:00

I've been trying to eat a little healthier. I know, but pasta? Well I LOVE pasta! Now, this a few months ago would have been just pasta and sprinkle cheese. You know I do rather quite enjoy asparagus. So I've been in my effort to eat healthier, eat more unprocessed real food. So lunch...instead of a big bowl of pasta noodles replace half to three quarters of it with some fresh roasted asparagus...yum.

So eating healthier. I'm not a health nut, nor am I going to become a health nut. I figure baby steps will be easiest and most successful in the long run. So I tried some broccoli because it was on sale for 77 cents a pound which is cheaper than even a can of vegetable and fresh certainly has more nutrient and less sodium. So I figure out how to cook it, and come to find out both of my kids LOVE broccoli. Then we try whatever vegetable is on sale the next week. My son likes asparagus, my daughter not so much. My daughter loves broccoli so much that if you aren't looking she will steal it off your plate. So there are things that my kids will eat and there are ways of preparing things that they wouldn't previously eat. It is trial and error but the trial part is quite enjoyable. Making a big mess with a head of cauliflower because you didn't know how to cut it is fun.

Well I'm going to enjoy my lunch with my kids, if they eat it all they can share in the blackberries later.

Have a great day and a better tomorrow.

My phone and my dogs

2012-01-26T17:30:00.001-07:00

So my phone has really made this whole blogging things much easier for me. Yay for upgrading phones. The voice recognition in this particular phone work vastly better than my previous. As in I actually love voice recognition now. I can talk into my phone to write my entire blog and it's recognizes is the words. New toys I think that's a pretty awesome feature. Heck just having the ability to do my blog from my phone is an awesome feature.

So. the house we live in right now has an upstairs and downstairs. My father and my brother lives upstairs my husband and my kids and myself was downstairs. The dogs stay upstairs with my father most of the time since my husband not too keen on the dogs. He does actually like them he just won't admit it. So everyday this is exactly what I see with my dogs waiting for me. I make several trips upstairs and the dog still wait every time. Keeping them upstairs to keep them from eating all of my craft supplies for that is a good thing.

Treats.

2012-01-22T16:41:00.001-07:00

My daughter was using my Cricut earlier to make Valentines decorations for the tree. Yes our tree stays up year round. Her birthday is the day after Christmas, so when she was two my father got her a tree for her birthday and said "see the rest of the world celebrates your birthday" I wasn't going to try to have a theological discussion with a two year old. So she decides when out goes up and when it comes down. The only rule she has to change decorations.

Anyway, since she had the Cricut out I decided to make some little treat cups. My son absolutely adores them. I keep them down where he can get to them and uses them for anything he can. I use the scraps in my recycled paper and the used cups when I can. A friend wanted to see so I thought well maybe someone out there in my blog land might too. :-)

Have a great night and an even better tomorrow.

Ouch that hurt

2012-01-18T22:01:00.001-07:00

I pulled something in my back. I didn't pull it at the gym running on the elliptical, I didn't pull it lifting weights, not plaYing with the kids, not moving piles of fabric around, all those things would be to easy. I pulled it putting an envelope in the mailbox. Of all things I was lifting maybe 6 ounces. It hurts bad enough that it affected my breathing for a few hours. I'm alright now but still decent amounts of sore.

I got the next month worth of lessons for my son today. I'm not following any curriculum "really" i'm following to what he does. I plan about a month out in advance, if he grasps concepts we move forward, if he doesn't we take a little more time. I found it this works really well for him. When I introduce new concepts they require very little explanation, because he already fully understood what came before.

Still having some issues with my daughter. Some days she is not very motivated, other days she's incredibly motivated. I guess thats a typical teenager. She does really well watching videos. For instance right now she is watching a series on the American Revolution, she has a good understanding and can explain to me what's going on. She is also doing very well on her test for it.

Okay onto the yarn. I've been working on here and there a granny square blanket using all the leftover bits from other projects. I think when this is done it will have every color under the sun. I gather up the bits in my tub here until I feel like crocheting a bit. This blanket is so ugly it's cute. So far it's only about two feet square. Anyone care to see it? I'll show ya in a few days because as we can see I'm almost ready to start crocheting again. :-)

Until next time, have a great night and an even better tomorrow.

It's new year

2012-01-16T12:13:00.001-07:00

It's been a long time. I've had a super busy end of 2011. We had a computer crash beyond my expertise and financial spot to repair. It's not a good thing when you turn the power on and it doesn't recognize the hard drive. My phone reached a point where the only way I could use it was to have it plugged in. what's the point of cell of you have to keep it plugged in?

We have another computer in the house but my husband uses it, the kids use it, and now I have to use it for Etsy and for Ebay, I also use it for homeschool. The computer is seeing a ton of use now and its on its last leg too. The plan is to replace the computer here in about a month.

We finally replaced my phone this past weekend. That's GREAT since its been pretty useless since October. We ended up with the hubby and I getting the same phone again. We both got the Samsung Stratosphere. Its a huge upgrade for me to have a smart phone. There is a definite learning curve to using it. The Droid system is a fun new toy to play with. It frightens me that using apps is faster and easier than doing things on the computer if that tells you how slow the computer is. :-)

Aside from electronics in the house other things are still in motion and happening. Both of the kids are still home doing homeschool. Its been almost a year since we began that journey. My daughter has some motivation issues so I am constantly on the search for new things. I found a good historical documentary mini series on the American Revolution that she seems to be getting in to. My son I think might be ADD. I haven't taken him in but he requires a lot of extra patience and direction. He is also VERY particular about the way things have to be done, anything outside of that is a meltdown. My husband has a hard time with it sometimes but I am rapidly learning patience.

One great outlet for both my son and myself is the gym. I've had a membership for years now. I got in on a really good deal. As long as on time my membership is $20 a year. Its good for all clubs nationwide (24 hour fitness) and I get the kids care in all of the ones that have it. The gym about 2 miles from my house has one and my son LOVES it. He makes a good personal trainer. How can I say no when he tells me he finished all his work and wants to go to the gym. :-) I am going to try to get my daughter a membership in a couple months so she can swim laps and train since put goal this year is to do a coupled 5K's.

There's so much more to talk about but I don't want to take to much time. I'll leave the talk about sewing and paper for tomorrow. There's A Lot to say. :-) so ill leave you with a small preview and until then have a GREAT day and a better tomorrow.

Hamburger Soup

2011-09-20T02:13:00.001-06:00

We have been getting together at a friends house for Football Sundays. Last week so really more than a week ago (the first week) it was requested that I make my hamburger soup. I figure enough people enjoy it and request it that maybe someone might like to try it. So I made it during the week and tried to remember to take pictures for you. :) I'm really bad at following recipes, I will be the first to admit it. I fully encourage you to cook this however "feels right" trust me I've altered enough times and I cook it differently depending on who will be eating it every time but some things are fairly consistent. Remember I ramble a bit, but I will try to stay on track for you. ;)

Ingredients:

1-2 lbs. hamburger, 1 medium onion, 2-3 cloves of garlic (I LOVE garlic and actually use more like 5-6 cloves), 2-3 celery sticks, 3-4 carrots, 3-4 potatoes, can of tomatoes, can of corn (if you have fresh corn USE IT or leftover corn on the cob maybe 1-2 whatever you have), can of green beans (fresh beans are wonderful if you have them), 1/2 tsp salt (I said I like garlic and I actually like using garlic salt), 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp oregano, 1/4 tsp basil, 5-6 beef boulion cubes and 5-6 cups of water.

Brown the ground beef in your soup pot (less clean up later is always a good thing) while the ground beef is browning chop your onion in "soup size pieces" and I recommend mincing the garlic pretty small but really it's up to you. Drain the ground beef because well that's just what you do unless you want your soup super greasy or if you used 93/7 ground beef you probably don't need to drain it. Return the ground beef back to your soup pot.

Toss the onion and garlic into the soup pot and cook it with the ground beef on mediumish (I cook almost everything on mediumish because that's pretty much how I was taught) I usually use 4 on my stove that goes to 9 I think. While that's cooking chop your celery and carrots into bite size pieces. Cut on the diagonal or for those sewers out there on the bias ;) you create more surface area and will get a more consistent cooking.

When the onion is about done dump the celery into your pot and give it a few good stirs. Let it kinda cook for maybe a minute or two while you are getting your can of tomatoes open, your boulion cubes opened and your water ready. Add your can of tomatoes just a regular can of diced tomatoes (that way they are in bite size pieces) I adore the heck out of using Western Family Petite Diced tomatoes with Sweet Onions but use whatever you have on hand or whatever you like best. Stir it around a bit and then add your water stir it around and add your boulion cubes. I say 5-6 cups of water and 5-6 boulion cubes depending on thick you want your soup, how brothy, really to taste experiment with it a little. Start with 5:5 1 boulion cup to cup of water.

Add about 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp oregano, 1/4 tsp basil. I LOVE basil and originally didn't use the basil in my soup and it was okay but one day decided to play with it a little and added some basil, it was like adding the missing link. Spices are a fine art and something that is going to be different for everyone.

Add your carrots. Stir everything around and taste your soup. If you think it needs something give it a little shake of seasoning. At this point I usually turn my temp to a 5 maybe a 6 beause I want to bring everything a boil

While this is cooking cut your potatoes into bite size pieces. When soup just barely comes to a boil taste it. Season a little if needed and add your potatoes. I think the carrots take longer to cook than the potatoes but play around with things depending on the textures you like in your soups.

You want your soup to boil but not a rolling boil more like a simmer boil. You still want to cook those potaoes and carrots but you don't want it so hot that you are reducing your liquid off by a lot if that makes sense. I don't often share recipes so pardon me if I'm a bit confusing here. Please ask questions.

Check your potatoes and carrots for doneness. Taste your brothy part and season as needed. If your potatoes and carrots are done or "almost done" you can add your corn and green beans (drain if your using cans obviously) and cook for another about 3 minutes.

Check everything again for doneness and flavor. Season if needed again. I find I often give a few sprinkles of basil during the cooking process and maybe a little salt depending on if I can taste my veggies or not. Turn your temp to low and give it a few more minutes then you should be ready to serve. We don't have a dining room and our kitchen is TINY so it's kind of a fend for your self in our house right now. Leaving it on low means it stays warm and the flavors keep blending while everyone files in to dish up a bowl.

I like my soup with LOTS of veggies and especially carrots. This one didn't end up with nearly enough carrots for my liking but I really LOVE carrots especially when they are cooked. They get all sweet and wonderful like. :) Seriously play around with this and find what you like. I said I've used corn on the cob, just cut the corn off the cob for the soup. I've used fresh from my garden green beans though I added them just before the potatoes were done and they turned out well that way. I wouldn't wait until the very end if you use fresh geen beans. If you use frozen veggies give yourself a little extra time for them to cook through. If you don't like oregano don't use it. Use some beef stock instead of water and boulion. Try a sweet onion, no onion, TONS of garlic (it's still yummy trust me I've tried like 8-9 before without complaint though someone complained when the garlic was first cooking). It's super easy to cook and super easy to alter to you and your family taste. Please do. It goes great with some fresh out of the oven biscuits or cornbread too. Enjoy.

Have a great day!

Saturday - Who doesn't like free stuff

2011-09-04T01:04:00.000-06:00

Sorry not giving anything away for free here but I wanted to share my shopping experience with you today because it was pretty awesome, at least I think so.

So I paid $33.47 though my receipt is slightly messed up and I wish I would have noticed while I was at the store. Anyway a good chunk of the products were actually free after price matching and coupons or they were super cheap. I'll give you the rundown if it doesn't make sense SAY SO and I'll explain. Lay's Chips were only pricematch (PM) at $1.88 (we had burgers for dinner tonight and it sounded like the right thing to get.) Pringles PM @ $1 with a $1 off 4 coupon (cpn) so $0.75 ea. Gillette Body Wash PM @ $1.99 w/ $2 cpn so actually I made a whole penny on each. Secret PM @ $1 w/ $1off 2 cpn so $0.50 each. Crest Complete PM @$1 with a $1 cpn so FREE. Toothbrushes PM@$1 with a $0.75cpn so $0.25 ea. Power Toothbrushes PM@$4.02 with a $3 off cpn so $1.02 each (that where my pennies got applied). Nivea Body Wash PM@$2.70 with a $2cpn so $0.70. Trident Gum PM@$0.50 with a $2off 3 cpn so really I made $1 off of 6 packs of gum. Soft Scrub PM@$2.50 with a $1.50 cpn so $1 each. Herbal Essences (MY guilty pleasure those are not for share in my house, they are all mine) PM@$1.89 with a $1 off 2 cpn so $1.39 each. Pretty awesome deals huh? I was happy with myself. My hubby shakes his head at me a little but kinda lets me do my thing. He doesn't understand why we need 5 + 5 toothbrushes and there are 4 of us. My thought is I don't run out, and have to pay $4 for a new one. :)

Had a QUICK trip to JoAnn's to pick up some fabric for my daughters pants and to renew my teacher discount. They extend the teacher discount to Homeschoolers which is AWESOME. 15% off all purchases why the heck not. :)

So tomorrow I'll share pictures of the mini vacation with you all and give you ALL the wonderful details. Until then have a GREAT night and an even BETTER tomorrow.

Feature Friday - IFrog Crafts

2011-09-02T23:47:00.001-06:00

It's late Friday...Friday almost got away from me and I wanted to make sure to get my feature Friday in before it was over. Today I've got to show some love to a lovely lady Karalee, the brainchild behind I Frog Crafts. First off this lovely lady has been incredibly supportive always kind things to say about my own crafts and just a joy to see posting around my Facebook and seeing pop through my circle occasionally.

I adore this style; the font, the rosy cheeks, the super cuteness, I've tried on many occasion to get there but my brain works differently I guess. I do adore looking at it still and my daughter thinks it's great. I don't know what to call the style except super cute so there ya go. This lovely Miss Liberty is too darn cute, and makes me forget my aversion to terra cotta (don't ask).

It's that time of year again. I hope I get pumpkins (that was off topic) I LOVE the holidays with Halloween and Christmas. I LOVE decorating. I would probably put this out on my fence just like that, but my garden is in my front yard for the neighbors to see. It doesn't matter where your garden is this little sign needs to be seen. It would be cute on gate, your door, somewhere it can be seen because it's just got character but I'm biased to the season. ;)

What can I say? This is too cute for words. Just ENJOY!

Okay we established my love Halloween and my love of Christmas but let's not forget the Holiday in between, Thanksgiving. Give thanks for such lovely creations such as this.

Go show I Frog Crafts some love at here Etsy Shop and don't forget to stop by her Facebook Page as well.

So the mini vacation was good. We went 100 miles west out to Wendover which is a town on the Utah Nevada state line out by the Salt Flats. Last week was Speed Week which when all the neato cars go out and set world records. We were kinda bummed that we missed it, but when we got out there my mommy almost ran over some people in the parking lot and got out to apologize and then asked what was with all the salt. The motorcycles were out there doing their time trials. AWESOME! So we went out and watch some of the Motorcycles until the winds kicked up and then came back to the hotel and I played in the pool with the kids.

Home school allows for guilt free vacations during the middle of the week. We did have an educational moment and went out to the Air Museum. It is an old Army Air Corp base actually where they did the training runs during WWII for the Atomic Bomb. One of the bombs was built out there too. I'm not saying that war is good but history is important and I didn't realize that we had that kind of history so close. The base was left to ruin for a number of years but the airstrip is still in use by the airport out there. They are in the middle of a HUGE restoration project though and it was pretty neat. While were inside we saw this plane come into the area where the private and military (non commercial) planes come park. It was a 1940's style all painted up neat plane. The pilots get out and come inside because the museum is also the pilots lounge and the check in point. My mom has no shame and will put herself into the middle of ANY conversation and she LOVES planes. She only had her X-country solo left to get her pilots license before she broke her leg and then she was out of work and thus out of money (flying is EXPENSIVE). She never went back but she still LOVES planes. Anyway she was chatting with the pilots and they are Navy trainers, they use that plane to watch training exercises for the navy planes because they get good visibility in that plane and they too LOVE that plane. They were on their way to San Diego and said we could go outside and look at the plane. The lady at the desk was like....no no no....we HAVE to get you an escort or the FAA and Homeland Security can shut us down. So she radioed some guy who came over and took us out to look at the plane. We didn't touch but she was PRETTY enough to look at and our escort was nice enough to take our picture.

How AWESOME is that?!?

I'll show you more pictures over the weekend sometime of the vacation but that plane and being in the right place at the right time and my mommy being who she is was just too perfect. Until then have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Blog Feature - Pieces of Trees

2011-08-29T23:27:00.000-06:00

Okay it was partially a long relatively uneventful weekend. I got a whole lot of nothing done and then I accomplished quite a bit. I don't really know any other way to describe it. I am leaving for a few days tomorrow so I figured I better get my next feature up before I leave and then I have one more I plan to do on Friday. I think is going to become feature Friday with rare occasions of a double feature show or something along those lines.

Pieces of Trees - Custom Woodworking

I should start off by saying that I LOVE woodworking. I'm LOUSY at it myself and really that's not fair but I do love woodworking. My father missed his calling in life and did not become a carpenter though he should have. The smell of sawdust makes me smile like most people smile and remember grandma's meatloaf or something. I used to repair pants for a guy that worked as a carpenter and he apologized up and down for hours about bringing me pants covered in sawdust once...I asked him to bring them to me that way because I liked the smell of sawdust. It was lovely.

So looking at woodwork is so much fun for me and so fascinating. This lovely gentleman Dennis has some really beautiful pieces in his Etsy shop Pieces of Trees that are a real bit of nostalgia for people like me and just plain gorgeous in their simplicity. Functional gorgeous handmade pieces of art if you ask me.

I love this so much I would probably be afraid to actually put chips and dip in it, though my mother SWEARS by using her wooden bowls. I sure as all heck wouldn't trust some of the people I know with this, it's too beautiful. I might do something absurd like hang it on the wall until mommy convinced me otherwise, then it would absolutely get used.

Tell me that's not a piece of awesome right there. Go ahead and try ;) Other than this is just awesome and I wish I only knew I can't say much more. I hope awesome is enough. Tell me what you think of it...really tell me what you think of this vase because I wish I could think of something more than awesome and beautiful.

So basically I LOVE woodworking, I have to give a huge big shout out to the man behind Pieces of Trees for making me have that moment of nostalgia drinking coffee on Sunday morning watching my father carefully measure and cut each board that would shortly become the bed in my room, the dinning room table, the patio bench, the drafting table in the living room. Those are fond memories. :) Also don't forget to visit his FacebookFanPage

I'm off to finish cutting the coupons from 8 newspapers. I get the paper delivered and if it's a good coupon week I'll buy an extra bundle because we have two major papers and they bundle them at the store so 2 for 1 basically but I grabbed 2 by accident so that's 5 coupon inserts (mine and 4 from the store). MOmmy brought me her coupon insert and also the two she took from the restaurant she works at. You know what that is a lot of coupons and after I sort them all maybe I'll do a coupon giveaway if anyone is interested. COMMENT if you want free coupons.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Updates from the Garden

2011-08-26T02:42:00.000-06:00

I figure it's been awhile since I shared the garden with you so it's time. :)

The Romas are really kinda out of control at the moment. I "have" to make tomato soup every couple of days just to keep them in check. MMMM tomato soup. :)

The kids planted tomatoes into little paper cups in the spring. They were those little kits you get for kids and it just said tomatoes. Glad I wasn't planning on making tomato soup, they are cherry tomatoes. Still yummy all the same but not nearly as yummy as my pear tomatoes.

My pear tomatoes are wonderful! This absolutely brought back my childhood memories of grandma's garden. If we wanted a snack we knew where the pear tomatoes were and we were welcome to eat them. I think Grandma had like 3 or 4 of these plants every year. I don't remember her's getting as big as mine got. The sucker got 5 ft tall before it started getting heavy and sagging over a bit. Seriously 5ft! Oh they are so sweet and delicious though...a handful get's tossed into the tomato soup. :)

Then there is my lonely bell pepper. His red orange and yellow cousins haven't showed up yet, but red is on it's way. Yellow and orange have had flowers and that's about it. We will see. I want roasted red pepper I'm sure I can figure out something to do with this guy in the meantime though. :)

That's about it today. Not much. I sat down and made some paper mache bowls that are in the process of drying before getting covered in comic book images. That should be FUN.

Have a GREAT night (can I still say that at 2am?) and an even better tomorrow.

Feature - Babycakes Design Studio

2011-08-23T20:17:00.000-06:00

Time for another feature! Today I have Babycakes Design Studio for you. Absolutely adorable printable invitations, favors, announcements, banners and more. Have done a little design work before it can be a time consuming process it can also be TONS of fun. I'm going with tons of fun on this one because her designs are too darn cute to be anything but. When my daughter was little pink and "cheeter" (she couldn't say Cheetah) was her favorite! This is so cute it even makes her say "aw, sometimes I wish my brother were a sister". I can't help her on that one and I'm not planning on giving her sister so she can have this but if you have a little girl why not? My son could always have a rockstar one. He certainly wanders the house like a rockstar.

She's got more than birthday stuff too. I know a cute sexy lingerie one for a bachelorette party. The cupcake toppers are super cute. I didn't understand cupcake toppers...because they just make the table look all cute and special while you wait...it's a super cute sign that tell you hey don't touch me until it is time without actually saying that.

The best part is you print it yourself. No need to wait for shipping times and worrying about it getting lost in the post. You can put all your special info on there. She even tells you where you can go to get it printed if you dont' have a printer or you want something really special...sometimes even I don't trust my printer. Swing by her Etsy shop Babycake Design Studio and don't forget to check her out on Facebook Babycakes Desing Studio because we all know we are on facebook and it's super easy to jump on the tractor leave the farm and go get some invitations on your way to meet with the head boss of your Vampire Mob. (If you don't get the reference chances are you don't really want to know).

On my own home front still editing photos. While we continued with school a bit through the summer, school is officially back in session. So our lessons are laid out on the calendar for my daughter and about a months worth of worksheets on top of computer programs installed for my son. My daughter is studying Japanese on her own a little here and there. I'm letting her take the reins on that but we are moving forward with everything else. We are currently using photography as mom's sneaky tool to get item pictures and also as a jumping point for learning about color theory, light, contrast, placement, stylization, etc etc.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow. :)

Feature - EarthyEcoMama

2011-08-22T21:08:00.000-06:00

I said I was going to try to do some features so here is the first of hopefully MANY to come. Kindred spirit here, well in a round about sort of way first of all the name is awesome Earthy Eco Mama. She's a mama to a teenager and a toddler...all sorta of emotional drama there I'm sure remember I've got a teenager and inspite of what he thinks he's still a little kid but sometimes he "uses his good manners like a big boy" or "eats his dinner like a big boy". So anyway mom to a teenager and a toddler, a creative spirit that tries to remember to as environmentally conscious as possible. I'm definitely down with that.

EarthyEcoMama makes some gorgeous jewelery. I think what I like most is you get the "chunky" look without being to chunky. I actually quiet like "chunky" jewelery but because I have small bones most chunky jewelery just looks horrible on me. I'm the same with my glasses. I have small features so "adult" glasses make me look like Harry Potter without all the awesome magic stuff and cool scar. ;) My glasses are "kids frames". I adore that she carries a variety of colors and styles at affordable prices as well. The one up above is just a beautiful color plain and simple but she also has much more in some other gorgeous shades as well. Let's take a look, shall we.

Lampwork Pink Glass Beaded Bracelet

Well I had intended to share more...but I am having issues getting pictures to load at the moment. I am so sorry. Go take a look for yourself gorgeous jewelery at affordable prices and I'm sure you can find a style and color that suits you. Oh and did I mention that she does CUSTOM ORDERS too. Custom jewelery...so you can have something that literally you're friends will have never seen before. That's awesome!

Earthy Eco Mama Jewelery on Etsy
dont forget to checkout Earthy Eco Mama on Facebook too. We are all on facebook so why not. I know I'm on there, how else do I keep tabs on my family and my daughters friends...yep I'm that mom, I'm "friends" with all my daughters friends on facebook. I think they sometimes forget that I'm her mom though...weird.

I don't have much else. I've been trying to teach my daughter to take pictures because I have a huge tote full of items that need pictures and need to get listed. She is getting better, but she is afraid to play with camera settings. I need to remind her that if you take 30 pictures and get 5 good ones it's a good day. She thinks every single picture has to be perfect. In this age of digital pictures though, why...just delete them when they aren't and move on to the next. :) Have a GREAT night! and an even better tomorrow

It's my birthday!

2011-08-21T19:33:00.000-06:00

yea for me. My brother got me some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, cream cheese brownies, and fancy coffee. I'm not sharing either. Yes I will be selfish for one moment. My husband keeps apologizing that he can't do anything but the finances just don't allow it. My sales have tanked on Etsy. I don't know if it's the change to the new relevancy thing or what it is. My "hearts" are up from last month but this month I've sold 10% of what I last month and we kinda sorta needed that money. The hubby did get a promotion at work but we won't start seeing that until Friday so in the meantime it's a sit and wait kind of game.

I've garnered somehow a new fan base via my FaceBook Fan Page which has partially been nice. I have a few new lovelies seeing commenting and "liking" my stuffs. It's been fun finding new pages too. In that I posed he question a few days ago about who had an Etsy page so that maybe I could do a feature or two or three. Hey it's material to talk about right. :) So starting tomorrow my goal is to feature 3 new Etsy shops a week. I've gathered enough new people that I should be able to get that for a bit. I love finding new shops and new inspirations. It makes me wish I could spend a bit more but well we are getting there slowly but surely right.

I'm going to eat my brownies and ice cream now. Maybe watch some more "Take Home Chef" on Netflix and play some more freecell. I would LOVE to play something else but computer is trying so hard to die a most horrible death to a point that I don't dare install anything that isn't "essential" to running the computer. I want a new computer, maybe Etsy sales will pick back up and I can afford one. ;) Before that I need to get 2 of the 3 sewing machines into the shop for servicing though. The embroidery machine is all sorts of wonky and beyond what I can repair and the serger...I just can't understand why it's still "chewing" fabric. I changed the blades and the problem still exists so its time for it to go in. At least I still have one that works. I don't need to cry too much yet. :)

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Tomato Soup

2011-08-11T20:47:00.000-06:00

I really wish I would have taken a picture but I didn't. So yesterday I made homemade tomato soup. I really just winged it. I do remember what I did and the majority of it came directly from my garden. I didn't used to like much less love tomato soup but sometime over the past few years I've developed a fond affection for it. My roma plant was getting droopy from the weight of half a dozen ripe tomatoes so I figured now was as good of a time as any. So here's the run down of what I did.
1.) Saute in about a tablespoon of butter a medium size onion and 1-2 cloves of garlic.
2.) Add 1 can of of stewed tomatoes...I didn't have quite enough I thought normal tomatoes so I supplemented a little. Add a bunch of tomatoes. I had about 7 smallish Romas though if you go by the size you get at the grocery store maybe about 5. I also used a handful of my pear tomatoes. I didn't bother peeling or anything just chop off the top where the stem was and maybe scoop out seeds. Cook that for about 5-10 minutes stir frequently.
3.) Add 2 cups of water (I read several recipes online that referred to using chicken stock or tomato juice but not having either I just used water). I also chopped up one celery stick and peeled a carrot. Bring that to a light boil and boil for oh about 20 minutes. Add a handful of fresh basil remove from heat and use a submersible hand blender thing and blend until smooth.
4.) Return to heat and return to a light boil. Add some more chopped up fresh basil or some dried. Boil for another 10-15 minutes.

This turned out delicious! I mean seriously delicious. I made a grilled cheese and had some grilled cheese with my homemade tomato soup and it was wonderful. I know that there are a million tomato soup recipes online but this is simply what I did and I was please with the results. I think I may use a little milk in when serving next time to cut a bit of the acidity because tomatoes are pretty acidic.

I would love to tell you about recent sewing projects but there are many. I think 2 of my 3 "active" machines need servicing. One is skipping stitches and bunching thread on the underside even after cleaning several times and changing the needle. I've been dealing with it for a bit but it's time before it gets worse and before I start Christmas projects. My serger I think just needs the blade changed but I figure it's also due for a tune up too and the whole get these things taken care of before Christmas season starts.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Yes it saves

2011-08-07T22:54:00.000-06:00

Yes it saves to clip coupons. I don't have a pantry room just a shelf in my basement living room. I wouldn't say I'm one of those crazy extreme couponers, which I've never even seen the show btw. I just really try to pay attention. So here is the lesson this table cost me $30. There is a missing box of Corn Pops because my mommy took me to the store and she loves Corn Pops. There is also a missing box of PopTarts because the hubby confiscated them when I got home so he can take them to work with him. What happened here? How did I do it. The quick rundown or as quick as I can make it. Price matching at walmart and coupons. Cereal advertised for $1.50 use a $5 off 5 boxes coupon and cereal is $0.50 a box. Fruit Snacks ad at $1.50, $1 off 2 coupon so $1) Crackers ad at $1.75 I had 2 $0.70 off 1 so $1.05 and two $1 off 3 coupons so $1.42. Pop tarts ad $1.75 with $1 off 3 coupon and cookies ad $1.75 with 2 $1 off 2 coupons so $1.25. I'd say I did alright. How am I EVER going to eat all that cereal. Well I have a bowl every day, my kids have a bowl every day and they also snack on cereal throughout the day, so really they have 2 every day. Cereal will keep if you don't open it, in fact the "sell by date" is this time next year. Trust me, we will eat the cereal. The "rule" in our house is 2 boxes open at a time, no more. You tell me when I am going to get cereal for $0.50 a box again. We don't have anywhere that doubles coupons in our area (that would be totally awesome). I can bribe people for rides since I don't have a car with food. Yes this works. They view it as a $3 payment for gas or whatever even though they know I didn't pay that much for it. I do lots of food bribes but it works for everyone involved. So that's what I had to share today. Oh and I stopped by Office Max and Office Depot to get some great deals on supplies too. This is the time of year. 1cent filler paper at office max and 1cent glue at Office depot. There were a few other things too but 1 cent is close enough to free for me. :)

Watermelon!

2011-08-05T23:30:00.000-06:00

This excites me greatly. I didn't think I was going to get any. I lost nearly every plant and seedling I put in the ground this year. I put some good seedling in and then it rained for 2 weeks. I put some seeds in and nothing...I put some plants in and they died. Then a couple of my seeds sprouted and died. The soil was WAY too hard and not very good at all. So today I'm out there poking around and I see this and a few others...WATERMELON. It's going to be late before I can eat it if it makes that far but I'm pretty excited none the less. :)

That's about it today. Nothing big or special, just trying to get a few things cleaned up and sorted through. I'm SLOW when it comes to cleaning. I take my sweet time playing freecell....I mean cleaning. ;) Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Slacker

2011-08-05T12:08:00.000-06:00

Yes I know I'm a slacker. I really need to come up with a schedule or a challenge or something. I tried blogging every single day last year and that lasted a couple of months. Maybe I should try that again. ;) So I got the paper up and listed in 18 Page Packs 14 Page Packs and 8 Page Packs Glad to finally have that up. People have been hearting them but no buyers yet. Sometimes I wonder about hearts. I LOVE getting them but I love selling stuff too. I heart a lot things because the picture is really neat, so before I even go look at the item. I can get a little heart crazy sometimes. :)

So we are getting back into a routine of a sorts. My daughter seems to be a little more motivated, which is GREAT. We went through this horrible phase of lack of motivation but she has been working a little better over the last few weeks which makes for a happy mama. We submitted our letter for home school to the district. This time my son was included. He would only be scheduled to start Kindergarten in the fall since his birthday is after the cut off but we are going to keep him home too. I've been getting pressure from my family to send my daughter back to public school. They think "I" need the break. I think I "need" them not to interfere and stop telling me that. :) It's mildly frustrating since they supported our decision to take our daughter out of school initially. Do I need a break sure I do but more than a break I need my daughter to get her work done, and get herself motivated. I made the decision to not take breaks for 18 years 13 1/2 years ago and again almost 6 years ago. I'll get there, I'll sneak a little sneaky break in there somewhere don't worry. :)

Garden is doing loverly. I've been eating my pear tomatoes for days now. I never get more than a handful because I keep eating anything that is almost ripe. They are just so yummy. I've got a handful of Romas though. I've nearly used up my onions, well that not entirely true. I used all my red onions and I still have about 9 regular onions left in the ground. Considering I started with like 30 something. They have been so good. I've used them quite a bit over the past few weeks in grilled veggie packets. Grilled veggie packets make me laugh a little though. I put carrots and potatoes in them. My husband really likes potatoes and I really like carrots. I did one with just carrots for myself last week, It was DELICIOUS. My daughter really likes potatoes and my son chows on the carrots though you couldn't get him to admit he likes it. Carrots are interesting with the kids too. My daughter will munch on carrot sticks but doesn't like cooked carrots so much my son really doesn't like carrots sticks but he will eat all his veggies at dinner if I give him cooked carrots. Kids are strange little miniature people sometimes.

Thats about it for today. I'm headed back to FB for some more silent tagging fun. Don't forget you can always come visit me over there mamacateyes on Etsy . Have GREAT day and a better tomorrow. :)

It's a rainbow full of fruit flavors.

2011-07-21T23:28:00.000-06:00

Of course I wouldn't actually eat of that. ;) I wanted to offer some rainbow packs of my recycled paper in my Etsy store so I've been slowly working on this for the past two weeks. I haven't sorted through the paper to pull out sheets that are too thick or too thin for my printer. I like to use my printer as a gauge because it's an inexpensive sorta cheapo printer. So if I can feed a sheet through my printer someone who buys my paper should be able to with their. This is a semi recent thing for me. A little bit more "quality control". I was leaving the fat sheets in the packs but I've discovered that the fat sheets work FANTASTIC for die cuts which means they work great for making recycled paper tags. The sheets that are inconsistent on the edges but the middles are fine will get pulled out and used for envelopes probably. Like these Almost Square Recycled Paper Envelopes. The leftover bits from the die cuts and envelopes get tossed back into the "paper box" and used again in more recycled paper, with other papers too. All the pieces get used.

I've been using my recycled paper for printing internet coupons. I made a BIG batch awhile back with all my leftover newspaper, catalogs, and ads awhile back and am working off that. The coupons I hand to the cashiers on my recycled paper always gets me strange looks. I should learn to carry business cards with me for those circumstances. I always have to explain to the cashier that it is recycled paper and that I made it...then usually they ask how and I have to give the quick less than 30 second explanation which is difficult because I TALK. Me giving a 30 second explanation is probably pretty comical.

So I am a bad blogger...I ask for your help and suggestions how to be better. I wonder if more response would remind me to come back and write a new blog, or what I need to do. I am not overly very good at self promotion. I'm really not. I guess I'm afraid I'll come across as one of those arrogant tooting my own horn types. I don't want to be that way. Don't know what it is but I WELCOME suggestions.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow. Oh and if you happen by my Etsy Shop use the coupon code TOODARNHOT2011 for 25% off. :)

Dress is done

2011-06-30T02:03:00.000-06:00

Her dress is done. I think it's worthy of the Vegas strip, but then I'm biased I guess. I had to bring it in a few inches in the bodice and then she wanted it about 4 1/2 inches shorter in the hemline. Red is a GREAT color for her. I told you she has that beautiful navajo / latina skin coloring. This was fun to do. She is excited to see something I've done and she loves her dress.

I taught this lovely young woman how to quilt several years ago and she loved being around a making the quilt. She wants me to bring my machine over so we can make more. :) I think we will have to tie the quilts too because that is part of what she remembers most. 4 of use sitting around the quilt frame tying it off. When we all did that I absolutely found this new understanding for quilting circles. It's a bunch of friends getting together and chatting while accomplishing something beautiful and wonderful. Why not do that while drinking coffee...sounds good to me. I convinced her to save her daughters clothes so little does she know we are going to make a memory quilt for her mama (my dear sweet friend) for Christmas. I know her mama will appreciate that so MUCH more than anything anyone could buy for her. She is that kind of person.

The veggie beef soup I made at her husbands party last weekend has officially been requested. I told mama how to make it as I was making it, but it has been requested that "I" specifically make it. I was told that papa doesn't usually like soup but he really liked it. We are getting together Friday night so my husband and papa can watch wrestling together while we sit in their lovely backyard and enjoy the hopefully wonderful weather. I might have to make it Friday. It is yummy, but I LOVE soup. I tried telling them that I make a mean potato soup but they want this one again. I figure when it cools down a bit they may appreciate my potato soup a little more. It is so wonderful on a cold day, warms the insides right up.

I still haven't gotten around to making my bias tape. I tried the "tube" method and that was way to much cutting with my scissors. I know some people swear by it but I don't want to stand (or sit) there with my scissors for that long. I went back to piecing strips together but somehow measured them all wrong for tape maker so the strip was coming out weird. I guess I'll get there sometime over the next week if I get bored enough. We will see. :)

It's a late night and for once I'm actually tired before 3am so I think I should take advantage of it. Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Fitting the Dress

2011-06-26T13:51:00.000-06:00

Okay I finished the dress for my friends daughter in a night. But I didn't want to post anything anywhere until she saw the dress. Went over there yesterday and she tried it on. I have to bring it in by almost three inches. I patterns some days. At least I don't have to let it out. I've got the dress back at home and am in process of adjusting the back panels on the bodice. I decided the back panels were going to be easiest to adjust at the side seams and it will still make for a flattering fit. She looked beautiful! I was right about the color and her skin...red is a good color for her. She asked if I could make it a bit shorter. It hangs to her knees and she wants about 4-5 inches taken off the hemline. I was going to hand tack the side seams so I told her no on the hemline because I hate hemlines and hand tacking. I ended up deciding as things got hectic at her house yesterday deciding to ultimately bring the dress back home and do it with my machine. So she is getting about 4 inches off the hemline.

So things getting hectic at her house? Her husband turns 21 this week and they decided to celebrate yesterday. I think I was there to be a sane sober adult, though my friends daughter was pretty good herself. I think they had about 20 people there and my daughter became the designated baby sitter. She was good, she only had my son (her little brother), my friends grand-daughter who thinks my daughter is the neatest thing ever and one other little boy. I guess I became the designated cook. I cooked my Hamburger veggie soup for my friend because she said she wanted to try it the last time I cooked it and the next thing I knew it was almost gone and half a dozen people were asking "did you make the soup?" "OMG that was so good". It is a good soup, I LOVE it. I wish I would have known everyone was going to eat I would have done a double batch. Guess I know next time huh? We had brought a piece of the Lemon cake my daughter made over for my friend to try. She said she had never tried lemon cake. My friend, her daughter (the one with the dress) and her grand-daughter all loved it. I think my daughter is going to have to make the cake for the next birthday. :) Guess this mama is going to have to start teaching her the cake decorating that mama learned while working in a bakery. :) All in all it was a good day.

Today I'm working on that dress, still trying to get myself to the bias binding, clipping my coupons from the Sunday paper and whatever else falls on my plate. It's kinda busy but not at the same time. I'll get a picture of the dress being worn once I'm done adjusting it. :)

Have a GREAT day!

You must do a lot of sewing stuff

2011-06-23T19:44:00.000-06:00

Me: Fabric cut...onto the dress. At some point today maybe tomorrow I might just make a bunch of bias tape cause I can and I've got a lot in my mental que that is going to call for it.

Friend: You must do a lot of sewing stuff. You should blog about it, so that goofballs like me have a better idea of what you're actually doing.

Oh yeah that's right. I do have a blog. So I've recently reconnected with some old friends. They no longer live where it was a real fear of visiting and a drive by happening so I can feel comfortable visiting again. One of their daughters has a daughter now. Man I feel OLD, I remember when she was 8 and she still calls me Aunt Jana, that warms my heart. This excited me GREATLY because that means I have a little girl to sew for again. :) My daughter thinks she is adorable and she just adores my daughter so it works. That's one of the cute little dresses I made for her just to get a testing for size. It worked out GREAT and I'm onto more now. She was all confused when I was measuring her for sizing. "tickle tickle".

Her mom (my friends daughter) is going to Las Vegas next weekend and said she wanted to find 2 dresses but hubby said she could get one. Heck honey, you can have two. TRUST ME. So the statement I made earlier fabric cut now onto the dress that's where that came from. I'll take pictures as I go so you can see. I'm going with a similar style to my daughters 6th Grade Graduation Dress going a little shorter so about 2-3 inches above the knee, not nearly as full and without the jacket, which means it has 1 1/2 inch wide straps and I'm going with RED she has gorgeous skin coloring since mama (my friend) is Navajo/ Hispanic and has gorgeous skin coloring too. It's a really pretty dress. She doesn't know what's it's going to look like. I told her I was going to make a "moo moo" (wink wink) and I wanted a picture of her on the Vegas Strip wearing my "moo moo". I probably should make a moo moo just as a gag, and use the moo moo to wrap this red dress in. I better get a picture of my dress, my little niece (yea I get to still her that :D), on the Vegas strip. It will all look HOT together. :)

So poke me! Remind me! Say hey whatever so I remember to write about stuff. I'll give updates on the dress as I make it. I might even share some of that bias tape with you...I'm sorta dreading it but I'd rather do it. Trying to find a good tutorial that doesn't involve a million strips or cutting that tube which means a million open and close of my scissors. No luck. Usually I do a million strips but I think I may try the tube this time.   Who knows.

Have a GREAT day and a better tomorrow. :)

More in the garden

2011-05-26T15:52:00.000-06:00

Rain, rain and more rain. I thought the saying was "April showers bring May flowers" but we've gotten tons of rain in the month of May so far. The rain may have drown out my melon plants or they may make it. If they don't I'll likely put some more onion and carrots in the ground because I have the space and use a lot of each.

All things considered the garden is doing reasonably well I would guess. My peas are sprouting up. It's like as soon as they hit "normal" dirt they said "hooray" and started really growing. Yesterday I stapled some string to the fence to give them a grid to grow up. The way it played out in my head is better to train them to go up the grid now while they are small. We will see. I haven't actually had a garden since I was too little to really remember much about it.

When I was little we moved a lot so having a garden wasn't much of an option. There was one house we lived in that we had a garden. Dad grew sunflowers taller than himself and cucumbers that were as big as his arm. How the cucumbers got that big I'm not exactly sure. I'm guess fertilizers and TLC but I don't actually know and Dad's memory isn't the best of what he did.

Grandma always had a garden. Her garden always kinda did it's own thing. She was really good at keeping clear of weeds. Pulling weeds was Grandma's therapy. She didn't fight with Grandpa, she didn't drink, she didn't smoke, she pulled weeds. Three things I remember most are the raspberries, the pear tomatoes, and the chives. I LOVED raspberries and Grandma made a mean preserve late in the summer that was delicious enough i didn't need syrup for waffles. Pear tomatoes were natures snack food. Hungry? Go grab a handful of those little treats. Chives cracked me up. We would make potato salad and I couldn't figure out why Grandma always some of that particular grass in the salad. Now normal grass was unacceptable but that grass made the salad taste good. Must have been magic or something was my thought then. Silly me.

I've got peas growing because my carnivore of a husband cooks a wicked pea for me. I love them right off the vine or on my plate with a nice juicy steak that the hubby cooked. :) I've got strawberries but I'm not expecting much out of that. They were sorta an afterthought of hey I can make milkshakes. I had to plant a pear tomato because whether my kids like it or not they are going to learn to love natures snack. Neither of them likes tomatoes. Which is really ironic considering the amount of Ketchup they go through. My daughters logic is there is enough Vinegar and Sugar in the ketchup to cancel out the tomato. I use quite a bit of onions and peppers in my cooking so I have 4 different variety of bell peppers and two different onions. Sweet onions and red onions growing. I have pumpkin because well I have kids and they can't have a garden without a pumpkin. When the fruits start to grow we are going to try scaring them with their names. Can't hurt to try is my theory right now. I'm trying for some cantaloupe, honeydew, and watermelon. My daughter loves watermelon and likes cantaloupe, and my son adores honeydew. I don't expect much from them but here's to hoping.

Keeping the kids motivated with learning has been a real challenge. My son some days will pout his way through activities to such a point that I really just don't want to be in the same room. My daughter thinks it is her responsibility to interject with him and try to tell him what to do. Fight ensues and usually last most of the day. My daughter is motivated much either except to boss around her brother. I finally took the Playstation away and after a couple weeks of nothing things seem to be moving again. Probably helped that I took the TV away too. I think they bored themselves into learning.

Not much on the craft front. I have been making paper still. I've been going through it though too. I use the recycled paper to print worksheets for the kids. I've also moved to printing my shipping labels on recycled paper instead of normal paper. It works. baby steps to a greener life. I've been trying to burn through the home dec fabric that I got. Making tote bags but I decided to assembly line it and there is a lot. I've got about 40-50 totes right now in process. I'll take a picture for next time of things to come. I think I need to change the blade on my serger. Not sure but it's all funny so maybe soonish.

Until next time, have a GREAT day!

Getting the Garden Started

2011-05-15T20:46:00.000-06:00

I spent the Saturday before Mother's Day digging and planting a few plants in the garden. We got 2 days of light rain. Then I waited a couple more days and got a few transplants into the garden. I have 4 raised beds in the front along the side of our house and my father has one in the backyard. My father put tomatoes a pepper plant and a couple cucumbers in his raised bed. I dived my 4 up. I've got Sugar Snap Peas, carrots, strawberries, rosemary, and a cucumber plant in one. C antelope and Honeydew in another one. I don't plan on the honeydew lasting I don't know if it will grow this far north but I really don't know and if it does grow GREAT because my son loves Honeydew. The next one is my rainbow because I have Red Orange Yellow and Green peppers along with a Roma tomato, and Pear tomato, basil, oregano, parsley and onion. The last one is watermelon, Pumpkin and radishes. I don't know what's going to last and whats going to make it. It is has been YEARS since I've had a garden so we will see. I'm hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

I really did quite a bit of research about companion planting and tried to go that route. I did that for the benefit of the plants and because I am trying to go without pesticides, and fertilizers, so I guess I'm trying to go an organic route or as close to it as I can. Companion planting seemed like an easy logical step to take on that path and why wouldn't I. My father can't seem to understand WHY I want to attempt to go that route. I had to tell him for 20 minutes not to put anything on my garden. I think he may because he is old and "always right". He tried telling me about pesticides not getting into the food and thus back into your body but a couple days later when I made a joke about going "#1" on the compost he tried telling me the plants would absorb it. I think he just likes to argue.

Yesterday was eventful. I spent most of the day attacking stupid goathead weed. They are evil and they MUST be annihilated. My daughter wasn't overly happy with me enlisting her to pull weeds in the front flower bed but I need to make room because I've got plans for some herbs to go in there and the weeds were making me crazy. It's been a busy week. Today was the most uneventful day possible. I wanted to do something but opted to sit and watch episodes of "The Office" on Netflix instead. I'll keep you up to date on the garden. :)

Utah HMQS

2011-05-11T02:11:00.000-06:00

Friday (yes I'm a few days behind myself) I went with my mommy, and baby girl (yes I still call her mommy and I still call my teenager baby girl...actually baby doll but that's beside the point) to the Home Machine Quilting Show in Sandy Utah. I LOVE going to the quilt show. I wish it didn't cost as much as it does but I'm cheap and I love it none the less. Wandering around and gawking at all the pretties. This was one my favorite quilts in the show. Obviously it one of the judges in a category too. I wish I would have written the information down, so if ANYONE knows this quilt and the maker I would love to credit their GORGEOUS work.

The big trend I noticed was those little jewels. Really? So now I need a bedazzler? Um NO. I don't get it. Most of the quilts still looked very nice and it was very tastefully done and added to the charm of the quilt but there were so many of them incorporating those little gems that I can call it a trend. That is one trend bandwagon I'm not for jumping onto. Black light thread however, I'm down for jumping onto that bandwagon. Mommy is down for me jumping into the redwork, but maybe using a different color but same style. My daughter bless her little heart, says she wants to make a blanket. She has had ZERO interest in sewing really. hmph...well who am I to stop her.

I want a long arm machine! I want one so bad. I played on a few and it was just wonderful. It was funny I couldn't figure out how one of them worked and my daughter had to tell me. The youth have the technology down, not that I'm technologically handicapped, but it's something else for them. The ONE thing I do know I want is that stitch regulator thingie that speeds up or slows down as you move the machine for "even" stitching. That was AWESOME. My daughter asks me where I think I'd put this machine anyway and I told her no one except the dog sits on the Love Seat anyway so goodbye love seat. She tried telling me something about other people in the house and maybe I should consult them. I told her that I would discuss it with them as I handed them each their own new quilt that I quilted on my new machine and they would love it and I was the queen and it didn't matter what they said or I wouldn't cook ANYTHING until they all thanked me. The long arm machine isn't going to happen anytime soon so I'm not really worried but I want one so bad.

Have a GREAT night and even better tomorrow.

Power is ODD

2011-05-06T00:52:00.000-06:00

So the power on our street is the weirdest thing. I guess it's not really the weirdest thing, our old house was slightly weirder but it is still strange none the less. We had a power outage that was only half of the house. I'm not entirely sure how that works but what was weirder was what was and wasn't working. The lights and the outlets we use in the kitchen were out but the fridge and stove were still working. The coffee pot however did not work :( The kids room, my father's bedroom, and both bathrooms were completely out no power no lights no nothing. My brother's room was divided in half one half on, one half off. The basement living room had outlet power but no lights. So weird. What and how it happened I don't know. I do know my son talks in his sleep A LOT.

Okay so power aside I've been cutting tons of my paper down to size for notebooks. I should have those showing up in the Etsy store within a week depending on how lazy I am with the camera. I just want to create things. My hands got dried out to no man's land so my daughter has been helping pull sheets of paper, bless her. My son think the blender is womd or something he runs for the farthest part of the house currently if I turn it on. I've also been trying to work through all those home dec samples. Tote bags...shopping bags, basically bags. It's a bit odd but I think I am going to make a few soft cover notebooks with some of them, not sure and have to play around with a few styles before I actually decide though. I still have 150+ home dec samples so I've got plenty to work with.

Oh believe it or not I've never played with paper mache until this week. My son HATES getting his fingers dirty so he has zero interest and my daughter thinks the end result is NEAT but she is having a bit of a lazy week herself. I want to lift her up ans kick her butt. I'm thinking of covering the things I'm making in comic book images. I still have thousands of comics left over from the shop we owned and I feel no shame at this point in cutting them because I've tried selling them and it' just isn't working so basically they are of more value all cut up. That is such a weird concept to me but hey it works.

I know not much today but I too have had a bit of a lazy few days. Have a GREAT day.

Grandma Peggy

2011-04-30T02:25:00.000-06:00

That's my Grandma Peggy. Why we called her Peggy when her name was Cora I don't have the slightest idea, I know my father told me a couple of times but I think even in his age the story becomes lost. That is the wonderful woman I named my daughter after. What brought up my grandma? Because that picture looks like me. Every day I say something on Facebook and one of my cousins makes comment about how I remind them so much of Grandma. When I was young I was always told how much like my mother I look, but the older I get the more like my grandma I look.

This dental surgery last week gave me a better understanding of her. When I was little I used to think it was the funniest thing ever to watch her put on lipstick when she didn't have her teeth in. She would get so flustered, you could see it but she always did it anyway because she loved me and knew it made me laugh. I wanted my son to see my mouth. I wanted him to see that mommy had owies so he would be gentle when he gave me kisses and I wanted him to see so hopefully it would give him incentive to brush his teeth and take care of them. He is pretty good about brushing and flossing but I wanted him to see, because seeing is believing. I was good about brushing too, but I had poor density that just caused them to rot. My poor daughter has the same thing and thankfully my son has been blessed with wonderful teeth thus far. So anyway my son looks at me and says he needs to brush or he will look like this and then he does the sucked in lip face. I had this twinge of something like oh he's making fun of me...but then he smiled and said that's why he brushes his teeth and kisses gentle. He didn't mean anything mean by the face, he was actually trying to be nice and the face was kinda cute. I had an AH HA moment...that's why Grandma did it with the lipstick. As a child I wasn't trying to be mean I was sharing a moment with grandma and I'm sure she had a twinge too...but she loved me.

2 of my 5 sewing machines are Grandma's. They both need to be fixed the 1950's singer needs electrical work and the cast iron treadle needs a belt and the timing worked on. I sew all sorts of stuff and every time I mention it someone in my family says something about how I remind them of Grandma. I remember Grandma sewing but not enough to make that association but I was also 8 when she died so... Grandma's secret ingredient in her pot roast....coffee...how AWESOME is that. Coffee is awesome period...see my family making the association again because grandma was a coffee drinker. I see the physical resemblance the older I get and everything else...you know what I am HONORED to be compared to such a WONDERFUL woman.

It's late and I'm tired now. I'm working my way through Home Dec samples...I'll take a picture tomorrow. Until then have a GREAT DAY!

Thrift Store for the Win

2011-04-29T02:24:00.000-06:00

Thrift stores for the win! I know, I know that sounds like an odd statement but sometimes you can find real gems in the rough. When I did costuming for a local theater the costume designer had the magical power to walk into any given thrift store and find gorgeous wedding gowns for $10. I remember I was with her when we found the 15ft train dress. That dress was actually $30 but she talked them down because it had a blood stain on the train. I don't have the slightest idea how a wedding dress got a blood stain on the train and I don't want to know. I told the designer that I was uncomfortable cutting the dress. She laughed at me and said I wouldn't need to (I lopped off many dresses for her mind you) but she would get the stain out. Sure enough stain came out. Who KNOWS how long it had been there but that woman got it out, wanna know how? MILK. I laughed but I swear it works. She could find wedding gowns for $10. $10 and a box of dye and voila! COSTUME. Yea less work especially when the director liked to double cast everything because it meant more butts in seats which meant more $$$ for the theater which ended up back in the communities hands but that's beside the point.

So anyway I ran a bunch of errands the other day. Had to go pick up some wool for a felted project for a dear sweet lady in Australia. International LOVE for the WIN! I also picked up some muslin for drying paper. The kids and I went to my mom's work for lunch. Tomato Basil soup for the WIN. (gosh everything is for the WIN today huh.) Then Mom asked if I could wait around until she got off so she could take her car to the shop to get a new muffler. While we were waiting for the shop to get done with her car we went to the thrift store and got a bunch of books. Books for $0.50 - $2 makes homeschooling MUCH easier. I found this box in the "collectibles" cabinets. You have to get an employee to open up those cabinets. the box is labeled $25 and it caught my eye. So I take a quick peak in and score! I'll get it. Tons of sewing stuff. Now I don't NEED sewing stuff but it was so good I just couldn't resist. Please excuse my poor pictures the light down here is horrid at 2 in the morning...but I remember to write in my blog at 2 in the morning. Take a peek in my thrift store box.

That little brown spool holder thing is FULL of thread. It's only gods knows how old but it's good for hand sewing and small things. :)

RIBBON! I want to make a little taggie blankie for someone now. I don't know but looks are deceiving because that is actually way more than it looks because it got rolled tightly not all loose around a big spool, a little ironing and its a party.

Embroidery floss...well I have tons of that but bonus. One of those wire bendy things, well that's kinda odd but awesome I wanted to play with one but didn't want to buy one.

ZIPPERS! This is why I bought that box. There are about 25 of each color White, Black, Red, and Brown that's like 100 zippers and I only paid $25 so that's an AWESOME deal!

Holy rusted metal Batman! That's a TON of buttons.

So this box was great. There were a bunch of pins, notions, lace trims, bindings, snaps, more zippers actually and a couple more bags of buttons. Thrift store for the WIN. Now I need to figure out what to do with all of it. I can't very well make 100 pairs of pants ;) maybe zippered pouches. I'll play with that idea over the next few days. My daughter needs a new purse anyway. :)

I'm doing GREAT. My mouth is healing nicely. With the swelling coming down the stitches are itching like CRAZY and I'm still on soft foods but I made the most AWESOME meatloaf today so it was good.

HAVE A GREAT DAY

Another Treasury...furniture inspired

2011-04-24T15:41:00.000-06:00

I wish I could tell you what brought it on but there wasn't really any one thing. More like a culmination of events that led to me looking at reclaimed and recycled furniture. It is truly beautiful. I remember as a child we moved to Texas and my father was the warehouse manager for a produce warehouse. Well they had pallets and lots of them. Dad to help save on costs would repair the pallets and when they were out of repair range he brought them home and built some beautiful benches out of them. I know our cousin ended up with a few of them and I WISH I knew a little then what I know now because if that was the case I would want the park bench back. It was HUGE! Not really but when you are 12-13 years old and your father builds a bench entirely out of pallet cast offs that looks like a giant Adirondack chair that can you your father and your brother can all sit and snuggle on comfortably that is pretty special. I'd love to have that bench today but it was left behind in one of many moves.

'Furniture any owner would love' by mamacateyes

I would love to refurnish my house with all of this.

Folding 2-Seat Bench artavironi $720.00	Seeing Stars Rustic Ben... TRUECONNECTION $225.00	Cowboy Up with this Old... Rusticcreek $155.00
Raised Window Box on Wh... realwoodworks1 $248.00	Sofa / Entry Table with... natureinspired... $540.00	Wooden box with four dr... treesurgeon $289.00
Farmhouse Country Primi... 3vintagehearts $125.00	Unique Barn Wood Peice CountryHomesby... $350.00	Farm Table Heart Pine RelicFarmTable... $1500.00
Arm and Hammer Shipping... MrsRekamepip $130.00	Reclaimed Doug Fir coff... SustainableStu... $975.00	Reclaimed wood and salv... RecycledBrookl... $550.00
upcycled bar stools raymondbarbero... $200.00	Modern rustic Reclaimed... UrbanWoodGoods $295.00	Living Simply space sav... WineBeds $259.00
PacificDrift Platform B... ModernDrift $2300.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

I feel GREAT

2011-04-24T03:28:00.000-06:00

Considering I just had MAJOR dental surgery done what 36 hours ago I feel GREAT. Not considering the surgery part I feel GREAT. It is truly amazing how one little thing can change your outlook to such a degree that you are ready to take on the world. It was a GREAT day today. The weather wasn't GREAT but it certainly wasn't bad and was definitely good enough to get the dogs out for a short hike.

My daughter has our two dogs here getting ready to hike down the gully. That's our Golden Doodle Paige and our Aussie shep/ Blue Healer Mix Cosmo and my daughter of course. All in all the hike down and around was probably a bit under 2 miles but there wasn't rain and there hasn't been for 2 days ish so I figured now was as good a time as any to head out.

My daughter was a real trooper and kept a close watch on me today. I tell you what I am so glad she knows about the fictional characters now because shopping for "Easter" was much easier with he input. ;) Then we went home dropped dogs off and got my son and went out for lunch. I still can't "chew" so soup it was for me, guess it's a good thing I LOVE soup. I had hoped they would have their tomato basil today but no I did have a nice potato bacon chowder type thing that was reasonably yummy and a slice of raspberry cream pie. I couldn't really get into the crust but when the raspberry cream part is that good who cares about crust. ;)

I started doing die cuts with the different recycled paper that I have stacked up. I have been cutting tags too and hope get them "stamped" up. I figure I have enough super cute stamps someone is bound to enjoy something and I am really digging on these recycled paper tags anyway...there is a neat charm to them.

I need to get back to stuffing Easter Eggs and hiding them....Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow. Wish, and hope that my super healing powers continue and hopefully I can soon chew some food. Tomorrow is going to be hard not eating the usual Easter Ham dinner. I guess mashed potatoes will be good. ;)

MAJOR Dental Surgery

2011-04-23T04:11:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was spent making everything ready for today. I had MAJOR dental surgery done. This picture was take about 8 hours after surgery so as we can see I was doing really well, and no it wasn't the drugs talking there. I've actually only taken 1 pain pill so far.

Back story on my dental work. I've always had bad teeth. I could brush and floss all I wanted and still my teeth crumbled. My brother on the other hand is 30 years old and didn't get his first cavity until he was 17 and has enough cavities that he can count them on 1 hand (lucky boy). About 11 years ago I had 10 teeth pulled (4 of them were my wisdom teeth) with the intention of getting a partial upper denture. Insurance ended and I never got the partial. When I finally had insurance again my teeth had naturally gotten worse. I had a few more teeth pulled with again the plan to get a partial. That insurance ended too. By the time I had insurance again I had concluded that I was going to just go all out and get dentures, but I knew my cost even with insurance was going to be quite a bit so we saved. I've had teeth pulled and lived in pain for weeks on end until nerve ending actually died off. I realize that was not good but it's done and over. Come to find out about my half my family has major issues with their teeth. So over the past month I've been in and out of the dentist prepping for today. They pulled 9 teeth. 7 on the top and 2 on the bottom and placed a full upper denture and a partial lower denture.

For the first time in my life that I can remember I don't have a 1/8 of an inch gap between my two front teeth. :) For the first time in years I can smile with confidence. I quit smiling because my teeth were ugly and I was VERY self conscious about the condition of my teeth. I've always been mildly self conscious about the gap. In a few weeks I will be able to eat with confidence again. Over the past 2 years I've been terrified to eat hard or chewy things for fear of breaking another tooth.

So while this whole thing is actually slightly embarrassing, I'm more confident with it all now because of the end result. Lesson learned, find out what steps can be done to prevent these things. My daughter has a similar bone density as me and her teeth are horrid and she brushes. She had some dental work done a couple of insurance's ago and they actually put a cap or artificial enamel essentially on her teeth. Next time she was in she didn't have problems with those teeth and the hope is she won't. The hope is that if and when that "enamel" breaks down they essentially re-coat her tooth. My son, good strong teeth his teeth are very tight together though (he got that from his daddy) so we have to pay close attention to flossing. Through my horrible experiences we have sought out steps to keep it from happening to my kids, so we learned. :)

That's about it. Today was consumed by surgery, and then my daughter trying to convince me to rest. bless her heart she took good care of her mama today. She timed medicines and ice packs and made me lay down to rest. She was the real trooper, because oh my goodness the poor thing nearly fainted when she watched me change my gauze. Thanks baby doll!

Have a GREAT night! and an even better tomorrow!

All you need is love

2011-04-20T23:11:00.000-06:00

I adore that song and it's all I sing when I look at these. I've playing around with the rather large stocks of recycled paper that I've developed and started cutting out tags and shapes with them. I think the tags a cute. I've got plenty of stamps and embossing plates so why not. I tried it and LOVED the end result. There is this strange charm to the recycled paper tags and the die cuts I've been slowly offering. This week sometime I'll probably even make some colored ones. Oh big step...not really but I wanted a dramatic moment and it was dramatic in my head.

All that sunshine lead to more rainy weather today and our forecast is 20-80% for the next 10 days. So basically wait 10 minutes and the weather will change. I'm glad I filled the memory card with pictures yesterday. It's certainly keeping me busy. I've been editing pictures all day. My son has happily been doing his thing and occasionally inserting himself into conversations at the most awkward point possible. We need to work on recognizing those cues when it's okay to insert yourself into the conversation. It's just really hard to tell a 5 year old wait when he crawling into your lap saying "Mom needs a hug, and I LOVE kiss-hugs." Okay maybe you had to be there. He was pretty sweet and precious. My daughter well today was a day of very little retention. I think she read the same history page 4 times...and I'm not sure if she retained any of it. She kept trying to sneak off to play with her brother or the dogs. Kid I have FUN stuff planned if you can just get through this chapter. :)

More paper tomorrow...I might even break out the sewing machine tomorrow. The sewing machine has been sitting lonely for about a week now and I think that's all either of us can take.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Such lovely weather we are having

2011-04-19T22:42:00.000-06:00

It was wonderful today. We have been getting the "wait five minutes and the weather will change" lately but it was back to being really nice today, like it was most of the week last week.

Last week the weather was so nice the kids decided to paint birdhouses outside. Sitting down in the driveway as the sun shifted over the house it got really bright and they moved under the carport to keep from getting sun blinded.

My daughter always takes her time and chooses her colors very carefully and thoughtfully. She moves at what I call a turtles pace. She hates when I call her turtle...of course the turtle wins the race though right?

My son just goes to town. His paintings are typically a large thought out mess of color. He can tell me what everything is which is good because I haven't learned how to interpret his paintings yet. He is giving me the thumbs up I think because I'm taking his picture and he is a "HAM".

After that nice weather it rained some more and then it was sunny for a few days and yesterday more rain. Today the sun came out again. Which was GREAT because I needed to get pictures of a bunch of items and didn't want to break out the light box. :)

So we are outside and my son says "mom can I pick those flowers" pointing to the tulips that are starting to bloom. I told him no but he could pick all the yellow flowers he found on the grass. He wanted me to take a picture of his "pretty yummy smelly flowers". Thanks for pulling the weeds little man. See how sneaky I am. :)

So not a whole lot going on today. I'm into the heel turn on sock #2 of this pair I'm currently knitting. I may cut up some of my recycled paper tonight and do some nifty die cuts but I haven't decided yet. I have a feeling though that this whole week is going to be nervous anticipation for surgery on Friday. Don't worry it's not bad, but I'm still nervous.

It's almost springtime

2011-04-19T12:11:00.000-06:00

'It's Almost Springtime....almost' by mamacateyes

It's almost there. So close that we took a big a leap and my daughter put flowers in the ground crossing fingers so hopefully her flowers last like the rest of these from the she team members.

Sweet Pea . Pink and Gr... beadstylin $13.00	Hat for Infant, Baby, o... thirdeyeartisa... $18.00	4 Pink Window Stars - N... harvestmoonbyh... $54.00
10 Daisy Chunky Crayons... veryverdant $10.00	Hand Embroidered Wool F... missygaye $8.00	The Strength of Faith, ... kitandcaboodle... $57.00
Wristlet Brown with Tro... NaturallyComfy $10.00	Chocolate Pink Stacked ... puddintoes $14.00	Spring Has Sprung Easte... adorableblessi... $5.00
Polka Dot and Flowers N... Terrbear37 $10.50	Two Irises Stained Glas... PurpleBears $240.00	Flower Applique - Red (... flutterbuggcre... $3.00
Medium Hot/Cold Therapy... LittleMonkeyPo... $5.00	Wool Felt Poppy Brooch chimera $20.00	Crocheted Mini Flower B... sugaryarn $2.50
Flowering Bush Set for ... theenchantedcu... $12.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

In honor of Spring and the School at Home Etsians Team (She Team) that I joined on Etsy I actually made a treasury who would have thought.? I don't do it often so be kind.

I've been having a heck of time with both kids. Home school is daily challenge but one which I don't regret. I had hoped that my daughter would be a little more self motivated but she isn't...she has to be guided every step of the way. My son on the other hand I don't know if I can call it self motivated, but he very much so likes to have information put in front him and then left to his own devices. He want to "figure it out". It's been interesting with the both of them to say the very least. I wonder if I should have a different blog for home school...maybe I should keep up here first ;)

I've still been making paper like a mad woman...in fact it hasn't left our laundry room for months now. I've enlisted the help of my daughter because while I was enjoying it my hands from being wet all the time were getting banged up and cracking. So if I start feeling dry she will pull the paper out while I make the pulp and otherwise it's all me.

I have major dental surgery coming this Friday...I am scared witless but oh so excited. I'll save my long complicated story for another day though. Until then may you all have a great day and a better tomorrow. Happy creating!

More Recycled Paper...and Yet More Paper

2011-03-01T00:43:00.003-07:00

I just keep making more paper. I don't know that I could call it an addiction though I have been doing it nearly every day for quite some time now. It's been quite nice to have the "laundry room" to myself which is the only space really that I could set up the paper making station. I have the tub with the "slurry" on top of the washing machine and the blender along with a few other things on top of the dryer. I make my sheets of paper and transfer them to cloths on the dryer and then hang the cloths on a hanger and the hanger on the shower rod. Our laundry room is a bathroom that was an obvious moment of "you what this house needs....another bathroom" brilliant ideas. Oh the joys of rental property. The shower isn't properly sealed off so it leaks out the sides but the drain works just fine so it works out great for hanging my cloths with paper to dry. They are out of the way so prying little hands (not myself of course *winks*) can't play with them.

With the recent move to homeschooling we have been making a huge effort to get organized which means...*dun dun dun*....SPRING CLEANING. This is much to the dismay of my daughter. Do you know how much "stuff" a 13 year old girl can accumulate under her bed in just a few short months. I keep looking and thinking the recycle box is 10 feet away and the "garbage can" maybe 20 feet at the most. We have had the "but this is recyclable" discussion more times than I can count on my digits over the past month. I think I finally have her in the routine of things. I moved the "paper" recyclable box to the bottom shelf in our hallway bookshelf which makes it not only accessible to her but to her little brother as well. We brought another garbage can downstairs and set it up by the stairs which is where I store most of my (empty but going to use for shipping at some point) boxes. By doing that it puts the garbage and the recycle separate from each other and far easier to distinguish what goes where. I don't find pizza crust in my recycle bin anymore and I don't find empty soda bottles in the garbage. So far so good, we will see how it continues.

We have been working really hard in this cleaning process to teach my son some responsibility and why we do things the way we do them. Yep he's 5, and probably should already have a bunch of this info and really does but it has been GREAT way to bond with him. He is the "my bestest helper in the whole world". Getting him to "help" is far easier than getting him to "do". He is taking care of things and my daughter is doing far better taking care of things by having a willing "helper". It was cause for great frustration there for a bit and and yelling matches in the other room that ended with me standing in the door sending children to sit on their beds and recite "breathe in rainbows...breathe out rainbows." (I'll get to that silly statement in a minute.) Getting my daughter to realize that telling her brother to pick up the garbage was ineffective, but asking him to help her by picking up the garbage was incredibly effective and even more effective when they counted it, or sorted it, or some other kind of perceived game. The arguing has been slowly decreasing leading to more quality time with each other and more alone time to contemplate life's possibilities.

Okay rainbows. I don't know where I picked it up but years and I mean years pre-children years ago I must have picked it up somewhere. I started saying "breathe in rainbows....breathe out rainbows" instead of "deep breathe in....deep breathe out". The theory was it was silly and the whole deep breathes is calming thing but if say rainbows and literally visualize those rainbows it's silly and absurd and the chance of you smiling at the silliness are even greater. Whatever was bothering you or stressing you, for that split smile second was gone. Try it. Breathe in Rainbows...Breathe out Rainbows.

A Weekend of Paper

2011-02-14T22:03:00.003-07:00

Lots of paper making this weekend and then taking pictures trying to capture the right color. I am not sure I will ever be entirely happy with the pictures I take I sometimes feel like I'm not hitting the "real" colors. I adore this picture despite the fact that I "can't" take a picture.

I look forward to warmer days and the thought that maybe just maybe I can take my paper making outside in the sunshine and warm air. My basement bathroom / laundry room is terribly cold and cramped and I want to stretch out. While I adore the process I need some space...maybe a small case of cabin fever. I found in the community ed catalog today a paper making class. I doubt that I would learn much but I contemplate the idea just to get out of the house I think and maybe I'll get lucky and learn something new, or maybe I find out that I know way more than I thought and I accomplished making a singular sheet of paper for $18.

I've been playing with my screen a bit more. I removed the top "frame" or mold I guess it's called maybe it's the deckle, maybe I should look it up first next time. Huh? Anyway I've been playing pulling the screen through the slurry without that additional frame. I still get the pulp only on the screen. I've been getting a slightly thinner but more consistent texture to the paper. It leads to a more flexible paper. I'm trying a couple of batches to see how I like them at the typical thickness. So far I'm really liking the process, the final product etc. Like seriously liking it.

Today has been a long day. Homeschooling is everything I expected it to be with the exception of interference from my father who said he wouldn't interfere. I had to listen to his lecture on why "HE" feels that learning Latin is useless. This coming from the man who claims to be a "history buff". Isn't Latin essentially the history of language? Then he caught my daughter on her own and gave her the run down about how boring and useless Latin really is. Really?!? Aside from that she learned about the Human Heart today, more into the geology of the Great Basin, a bit about the history and geology of the Mediterranean, a bit of Latin despite is "boring" nature and worked some more math. She's working on her book report illustrations right now. We had a good long walk with the dogs this morning, when instead of going around the block we walked up to the bakery to get some bread and bagels. Usually our dogs get 1/2 a mile in the morning and 1 1/2 in the afternoon. So today they got just shy of 2 this morning. The walk was nice but again I look forward to warmer weather.

Until tomorrow have a great night and an even better tomorrow. :)

It's a mixed bag

2011-02-11T22:52:00.003-07:00

Today was a mixed bag. What is that supposed to mean anyway? Oh well whatever it means I'm sure that was today. I finished those socks, finally, I don't know why that pair took so long but it totally did. I meant to move onto the half finished sweater but kinda kept going and cast on another pair of socks. Silly me! Guess that definitely makes me a sock knitter now. Coming from the girl who couldn't get through a pair of socks to save her life a year ago, even a few months ago that's pretty darn good if you ask me. :) Yea! Go me. Those are going to be the socks my daughter said would be hers after seeing the yarn. I figure since I'm going toe up, which I find TONS easier BTW, that I'll just go until I run out of yarn.

Had a lovely discussion recently with a lady on Etsy who lives right here my valley along the wasatch front and also makes recycled paper. I jokingly mentioned that I HAD to do all the laundry in the house because my paper was set up on the washer dryer and everyone knows better than to touch ANY of my crafty stuff. So I figured I would take a picture and share. Our basement bathroom has the washer dryer, I think the "bathroom" part was an afterthought someone put into the house later. The shower wasn't sealed off properly so you can't really use it because water will leak out the sides. It drains just fine though. Bonus I can hand my spongey rags over the shower bar to dry and they can drip all over the shower floor...who cares, I don't have to clean up a wet floor. I hang several sheets of wet of paper over a hanger and then hang the hanger over the curtain rod and there it means they can hang there and usually I don't get dripping water but "IF" I do most of it ends up in the shower stall so again less mess for me. See my new blender there...:) I asked for a new blender for Christmas and got it. It wasn't that my old blender didn't work I just wanted a quieter one...it is quieter but man oh man it works so much better. It's not in the way there what is in the way is the bin with paper pulp...we have a top loading washing machine so I have to move it to put a load in, take a load out etc...hence the reason I do ALL the laundry in the house...hey I don't mind so much, small price to pay for easy craft space I guess. :)

My daughter took a liking to watching a documentary on how the Hawaiian Islands were formed, plants, fish, animals, how they were discovered. It was great to see her give the "huh I didn't know that look" at the TV and then get all excited to tell her Uncle when he got home from work. That's what I wanted homeschooling to do, bring that excitement back. So far so good and hopefully things keep getting better. It's the weekend now so we get to sleep in tomorrow and stay up way to late for our own good tonight. :) Tomorrow will be a good day.

tomorrow will be a good day

2011-02-10T23:46:00.001-07:00

We have gotten into the habit of saying that every night at bedtime during what I call "the goodnights" I have my kids say tomorrow will be a good day. I don't know really how effective it is but I figure it's kinda like the whole looking at yourself in the mirror and saying you are beautiful. My hope is that they go to bed thinking of all the ways to make tomorrow a brighter better day. Just the random thought.

Socks still aren't done...I'm into the cuff now though so that's progress. I'm having lighting and camera issues well more like dead battery issues. Little girls think my batteries are for their CD players. Little girl was misinformed and has since been corrected. :)

Today was a bit of I don't feel like anything got done and looking around it doesn't really look like it either. I made a notebook 8x11 that's a lot of string to work with and pulling all the string carefully through tiny holes so as not to tangle it takes a bit of time...more than I had originally anticipated. So I guess technically I did get quite a bit done with the notebook, almost done with the neverending socks, and helping the kids.

My son is working on his handwriting and recognizing little letters...he can spot the capitals and tell them all to me but some of the little ones confuse him. We are up through writing the letter "j" which thankfully includes all the letters in his name at least what we call him. We call him by a shorter easier to say name. I don't have to use the middle name trick I just say his full first name and he knows it's for real. I got very sneaky with him tonight in getting him to help clean up. "Go get me 3 Red things" then we count and either throw away or put away...It helped a little and I figure every little bit helps.

I'm not sure my daughter has the desire to ask questions sometimes...tomorrow will be a better day. She accepts things as they are told to her...I could tell her the sky was hot pink and she would accept it. I'm trying to figure out a way to get her to ask those questions. My son questions and negotiates EVERYTHING. And when that fails he uses the "but you love me" tactic, sneaky little kid. It's a joy...and I look forward to a better tomorrow so I think we leave today at that.

Homeschooling

2011-02-09T09:59:00.003-07:00

So we made the official decision to home school both of our kids and left my daughter with the decision to complete the school year in home or in school. I gave information and told her to think very seriously about it before making a decision. Her conclusion was she wouldn't have that wasted time in between classes, at the beginning of every class and at the end of every class so it would be more efficient to finish at home. She came to me logic and reason as to why she should finish at home and with her concern of seeing her "school" friends and making new friends. I told her we would be making frequent trips to the library which is literally right next door to the middle school so we could make some of those trips close to the end of the school day that way we could get some library stuff done and then she could see her friends. We are going to take many volunteer opportunities that we can actually do. I say actually do because a lot of places won't allow her to volunteer due to her age even if I'm with her. Contacted a few homeschooling groups and even found one for parents and kids ages 12-14 well she is 13 so we contacted them too. They do get togethers and occasionally group "field trips". She isn't overly pleased with still getting up in the mornings, but we are sleeping in a bit past what she was doing before. Before I had to get her up at 620 every morning but now we get up at 745 -800 and then go walk the dogs first thing so we can use that time talk about the things we need accomplish and get done that day.

Today we are cleaning her room, or at least starting the process. She has "stuff" stashed everywhere. At some point I need to figure out to make stuffie net for above her bed that should help tremendously get things picked up. We need to resort the bookshelf so that her brothers books are on the bottom where he can find them and her books are up higher where he can't get to them. The joys of a 5 year old and a 13 year old. She has to finish or continue working on her government assignment from grandpa, and find out the one from me. Watching an episode of "Bones" the 5th and the 1st amendment got brought up so she has to find and describe them to me...the hope is that it leads to other ones as well but we will see, math is being worked on right now, She should breeze through her dog "report" really quick because that's what interests her the most. We are starting into geology because she is supposed to do "earth sciences" in the 7th grade. Grandma LOVED taking geology in college and has a few mini field trips planned for her already. Both of us are starting the process of learning to read and understand Latin. Why Latin? well it is the root of how many languages? It should make learning them later much easier because there is an existing foundation.

My son is exceeding my expectations. Deciding to sit down and get started with him he is finally ready to absorb and do. Previously he has responded negatively to most "teaching" methods but he is showing a desire to learn and write his letters and numbers though I still can't "sing" the ABC's without a crying fit. He is thinking ahead and independently. We worked on writing to the number 10 and then he just kept going. Well okay, I wasn't going to stop him. He wrote the word yes without being shown how to write "Y" or "S". he just said I'm going to write "yes" and I let him do his thing and sure enough when stood back it said "yes" Again I wasn't going to stop him.

I hope to finish the pair of socks I have cast on today. My mom bought some yarn for me to make her socks and somehow I ended up with the same yarn. Well I had my gauge off a bit so they are bigger than I would have liked for my mom but my feet are bigger than hers and they are acceptable for me so this paid will be mine and the next hers. Less stitches next time...less stitches next time. I had to remind myself there. I started the daunting task about a week and a half ago of knitting a sweater for my daughter and I'd like to keep working on it. I've never done a sweater so this is new but my daughter is forgiving in that department sometimes. I also need to finish up her next patchwork skirt. She adores them so anytime she wears through the knees in her pants if the pants still fit in the waistband I'll just turn them into a skirt.

It's a fun busy jam packed full day. Wish me luck.

Knitting has owned my soul

2011-02-05T00:35:00.002-07:00

I have been knitting. Well knitting and severely neglecting my blog. I'm a bad blogger let's face it I guess I can only get better which I hop to do and actually think I may NEED to do shortly. More on that later. Let's stick with knitting right now. I've tried socks many time before and gotten so incredibly frustrated with all those DPN's and the length of time required. I finally discovered a Magic Loop method of knitting using my circular needles instead of those DPN's and forced myself through a pair of socks. I bought a few sock yarns that went clearance when I was still working at the craft store so why not. Well I put that first pair of socks on and I tell you what there was something SO gratifying in wearing real socks that I made that I haven't been able to stop knitting socks since. I've made several pairs and then I got extra ambitious and ordered some spiffy special wool yarn online and I'm going to make myself a pair of rainbow knee highs...heck yea I'm going to rock those knee highs. I LOVE knee highs. all of a sudden everyone wants socks...my daughter wants socks with the two greens on the left of the picture, my mom went so far as to buy yarn, hand it to me and demand socks. I love my mommy so socks she will get. I have a few friends asking for socks...we all wear them so why not? It keeps me busy.

Okay why do I NEED to blog? I need to reach out and find people. I have been considering homeschooling for a number of years now and have finally reached that point of actually moving things forward and doing real research instead of just letting the thought run through my mind and assuming I couldn't do it. I've been doing tons of research and I'm pretty sure that next school year both my kids are staying home. My son is due to start Kindergarten and he responds very poorly to "traditional" teaching methods. Kids HATES songs, he knows his letters but man I can't sing the alphabet to him without it turning into a screaming fit of fury. My daughter on a number of occasions has been hindered by "the system". I don't fully blame the system, I am a responsible party too and it is my responsibility as her parent to notice those short comings and take care of them and make sure she is educated. I've reached the point where I just became tired of relying on a system that I feel is failing and has failed my child personally. I am by no means advocating people start taking their kids out of school and I feel it does a GREAT deal for a GREAT many kids however even since I was a child I've watched educators and good educators at that have their hands and feet cut off and their ability to teach a gifted child taken away. I'm not just the proud mama, I honestly have a gifted child. In second grade she read on a 7th grade reading level. I dare anyone to tell me that's not gifted. One of the biggest things I've been able to gather in my research of homeschooling is networking so what better way than using my blog.

So if anyone reads this and you home school your kids you know where I am and what I'm talking about. Ideas comments thoughts suggestions???? Okay so there we are tonight...hopefully I can share these adventures and my findings with you. I won't forget the crafting...I can't forget the crafting, I'm already looking for ways of sneaking "learning" into my crafts...I can make my daughter do the math on quilts, the science of paper making, there's a ton of things right here at my fingertips to combine a need for education and my love and obsession for crafting.

Christmas Garland

2010-12-16T18:06:00.003-07:00

I didn't get the camera up to take pictures of the garland like I said I would until today. So before I get to the garland I wanted to let you know our family has never been into elaborate fancy schmancy trees. Our trees have usually been really kid friendly trees with the small exception of my mother being one of those crazy "I burnt down the tree" statistics. We have used Popcorn for garland, fruit loops, apple jacks, cornpops, and a variety of other spiffy food items. I figured with the dogs that putting food on the tree might not be the best of ideas. We have done the paper chains before. One of my favorite decorations is making little origami boxes and putting them over the lights so they glow. Mind you the origami is how mom burnt a tree down you can't leave the tree on for too long unattended with the old lights because they get hot and hot and paper doesn't mix too well. the trees now have these spiffy LED lights that don't get hot probably because of people just like my mom but hey it works, still don't leave it on unattended for too long.

So several months ago I finally figured out to make those cute little origami wishing stars and made a bunch of them not knowing what I was going to do with them they sat in a jar. Shortly after the stars my daughter and I made a bunch of paper beads and again not knowing what we were going to do with them they sat in a bucket. Until the tree got set up and then I had a light bulb moment and thoughts the stars would look really cute with the origami on the lights but I didn't have nearly enough stars and I wanted to break it up a little so the paper beads came into play. So I watched a movie with my daughter one night and strung the beads and stars together to make a garland. We hung the garland on the tree and two days later my father asks where we got the garland? My daughter responds with "we MADE it!" He thought we bought it somewhere and that it looked really good with the origami. Haha nope we made it and my daughter was so proud of the fact that we made it. It did turn out lovely. Now I just have to figure out how to get presents under the tree and keep the dogs from eating said presents because if it's on the floor it's a "toy" and for "chewing on". Well see how that goes.

Thinking of calling up my my friend that I used to work with and seeing if she wants to get together and hang out and maybe do a fabric swap. Then we both get a little something "new" without actually doing anything. I know things are tight for her and they are for me but sometimes new fabric makes me feel GREAT so a fabric swap sounds like a GREAT idea.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Every time

2010-12-14T21:08:00.003-07:00

Every time I make one I swear I will never do it again. It's not that they are difficult just time consuming but oh how my daughter LOVES them. My daughter is HARD on her jeans and I mean really hard, she blow a knee out on a pair of jeans in like a week. Usually I do a layer of fabric but I found a picture of a patchwork skirt and showed it to my daughter...she LOVED it. We call these fluffy skirts, what they really are I don't know but each layer down gets bigger and "fluffier". They are really super easy and the patchwork was actually even easier they are just time consuming because it's gather after gather after gather.

We have been prepping for Christmas. Tree is all decorated and I've gotten so many compliments on our garland...I will take a picture and share with you tomorrow. I'm finally in PJ time. That's my yearly tradition with the kids 2 pairs of PJ's each year, one pair they get Christmas Eve to wear and the other is somewhere in the mix of Christmas gifts. It's just a thing. My daughter only wants pants this year though because "I have enough Tshirts I can just wear those". GREAT! Sleeves are evil anyway. >:| My brother has requested PJ pants again but this year he wants flannel instead of fleece and my Dad same thing...guess it's a good thing I have LOTS of flannel. Maybe they all want flannel PJ pants because they want the fabric gone? As soon as I clear some space here I get to bring more out of the storage unit. I found 15-20 bolts at the unit today I forgot about. I figure I don't need to go shopping for a bit...If I need some "retail therapy" Ill just go to the storage unit...It's like shopping without a credit card and the bill. ;)

have a great night! and an even better tomorrow.

Christmas Shopping at the mall

2010-12-04T22:21:00.002-07:00

That was CRAZY. My father gave my daughter $40 to go Christmas shopping and she wanted to go to the mall...that was insane. Of course this is coming from the person who adores Black Friday. So many people. Why is it that people get so grumpy? The pressure? I say no pressure you do what you can and the people around understand that or they aren't worth the time to worry about it in the first place. Today is just short and sweet. I'm tired and beat now after trying to make my way through Christmas shopping mall crowds. Going to finish watching Goblet of Fire with my daughter and undo everything I did yesterday with her hat. :)

Have a great night and an even better tomorrow.

Slacker

2010-12-03T22:00:00.003-07:00

I'll admit it I'm a total slacker. Calling myself that isn't exactly being fair I've done a whole heck of a lot since my last post. Tried my hand at some fair isle knitting. After staring at pictures of old 80's sweaters for hours and trying to decipher diagrams on how to accomplish fair isle I found a wonderful website with a great video tutorial on how to fair isle knit The Philosopher's Wool Company. I will fully admit that I don't recognize the lady's accent but it makes wish I lived in an old farmhouse in back rural country with a fireplace and did nothing but sit and knit all day. That would be nice, but I would also still require my long arm free motion quilting machine. ;)

I completely rearranged my "craft space" or also known as our living room. With one light and only 2 outlets in the room I understand why I originally set it up the way I did however I blocked my own light when I sat at my sewing table. So I turned my sewing table and in the process decided my thread rack needed to move about 6 feet. A fully loaded thread rack is pretty heavy and even heavier if you are trying to move it by yourself across 6 feet of carpet just in case you were wondering. The shelves and the "cutting" table also got moved. It's funny how much more light it feels like I have when in all actuality it's the same amount.

Black Friday was wonderful as always. I can't for the life of me understand why stores went earlier and earlier this year so early that it wasn't Black Friday at all it was in fact still Thanksgiving. I was able to get my daughters tree, the kids some great gifts, myself some things I needed, and my husband, well let's just say he isn't allowed to go next year. My mom gave up early and I was left to my own devices about 7am, came home dropped things off and went back out until about 930 when I came home and finally slept.

I'm spending a lot of time sewing and knitting. Getting ready for gift giving. I'm trying to finish up any UFO's that I have lying around before digging into the gift part, trying is the key word there. I rediscovered my local library so I keep getting books that sidetrack me with new project ideas. On the plus note I seriously have borrowed blogging for dummies so maybe I'll learn something and actually keep up with it. Wish me luck. The one thing I've gathered so far is interaction so my question to you, if you're still here is what do YOU want to see?

Have a great night and an even better tomorrow.

100th Post!

2010-10-21T22:42:00.002-06:00

What a nerd. Haha I love her. I should have taken a picture of the original shirt but I failed so I figured I better take a picture of the progression. Spent the bulk of Tuesday night ripping seams apart to slip a pattern off one of her favorite shirts so I could make a new one. This is what I had before I attached the sleeves and then proceeded to make pattern adjustments. I really like the color on her. The picture isn't the best but the color really makes her cheeks and lips pop out. Yes she has those naturally super rosy cheeks and gorgeous lips. My daughter is a beauty.

So this is I guess my 100th post. I feel like I should have something epic here but I don't really, so lets take a tour down memory lane.

Why I support Small Business was my first post. Looking back nothing changed from that moment I still promote supporting small business. I want to quote myself "There is a sense of community, a sense of doing something good, of supporting each other when you buy small business and support your local business. Those are you neighbors, friends, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, neices, nephews and we all need to pull together before we loose each other. At the end of the day it's all we are left with, those emotional bonds we have with each other." Take that with you, if there is one thing to take with you the next time you go shopping take that.

The next day I made Crayons. Remember When??? I told you how you can take all those broken crayons and make your own.

Then I made Fairy wings here.

My daughter donated her hair to Locks of Love

I made a spiffy bowl out of comic advertisements and showed you how.

I went ghost hunting for my "Mom's Birthday"

I shared how I make some of my baskets in my Basket Tutorial which by the way I ADORE making baskets and hopefully I can get ambition enough to redo that tutorial...my pictures were HORRID.

I took on more than I could chew and in the process shared with you How It All Began going back to my grandma...and going back to one my most loved items on my DeviantArt account which is a wonderful place that I have met so many wonderful artists and artisans.

I ran a contest to rename my blog because my old name was pretty horrible...and then I had a winner.

For a week or two I made clothes for my daughter going back to school with my crowning achievement being my adventures in zipperland. I know it was silly but that was a BIG deal to me.

I shared a bit of the big beautiful city that I call home and some of my other favorite cities.

I shared a bit of my family and our previous Halloweens in my process of "Getting Ready for Halloween"

I've share my creative workspace...(that makes me giggle), my family, my work, my quitting my job, going back far enough to when I owned my own business, the closing of the business, I've come a long way and today I find a bit of comfort in the world. Sure everything is stressful, my husband has been working 12 hours days the past two weeks and my kids are well they are kids. I caught something the other day on Facebook, I wish I could tell who said it but I can't. There are people who complain that the roses have thorns and there are people who are thankful the thorns have roses....Be thankful for the roses. Smile. Smell the flowers. Stop and hug your family and friends. Thanks for coming along on my crazy journey...here's to hoping it only gets more exciting from here.

The costume is done

2010-10-21T00:56:00.003-06:00

My daughter decided to be a cutesy pirate for Halloween this year, partly because pirates are awesome, mom thinks pirates are awesome, I figured it would be safe for Jr. High, not "too little kid" and not "too grown up". I wanted to revisit the costume I made for her 5 years ago. I spent many many hours agonizing over those darn sleeves. They have a flounce at the bottom and that means a circle. Circle hems are EVIL I tell you. It's panne so pressing is a joke and it's stretchy so rolling is a joke. The hems curled and I ripped them out and did em again and they curled. I gave up and serged off the darn hem and went over the serge with the lace. Hey it worked out. It's cute and she adores it! I think she adores wearing my boots the most because they are "tall" boots. They add an extra 3 inches. She feels all tall and super human good for kicking some booty.

I spent the bulk of today, reformatting a computer and ripping seams apart from one of my daughters favorite shirts. It's too small...and it was reaching the borderline you can't wear this in public anymore point. So I decided to rip it apart and attempt to slip a pattern out of it. I got the pattern drawn up and the pieces cut out. Ill start sewing tomorrow. I'd take some pictures tonight but my goal this week is to be in bed before 2am every night...not enough time for pictures tonight. If it works out and it's not too bad I may get ambitious and make a couple more for her. She likes the kind of hippie/ bohemian style that it is with a bit of sparkle flair and it's not like I don't enough fabric to make SEVERAL. So cross your fingers for me and wish me luck.

Have a great night and an even better tomorrow.

Oh and cutting a 5 year olds hair outside when it's breezy isn't the easiest thing in the world to do. I'm just sayin.

A whole heck of A LOT

2010-10-18T00:44:00.006-06:00

This week is packed full of stuff...random in nature and all tied into one. :) So if this goes everywhere and you get lost I apologize now but that is sorta how the last few days went anyway. :)

Let's start with the really big one that really has been eating at me for some time now, and finally broke. I quit my job. Yep I know, I quit working at the fabric and craft store. I can't handle inmate running the asylum and was feeling under appreciated. There were other things that were going on but we really don't need to get into them. It was nothing personal really, just needed to happen to make myself and my family happy. I figure this way it means I can actually celebrate my FAVORITE holiday of the year. BLACK FRIDAY. Yes I think it's a holiday and I LOVE it. My mommy goes with me every year and we drink coffee, watch people and just go crazy, mostly we watch people because they ARE CRAZY and we do a little crazy ourselves. One year we had plans and separated right as we entered the building to meet up in a different department. We met up and she had this Duvet thing in her cart. "mom what are you doing with that" mom says "I don't know but everyone else was grabbing one so I did too." Silly lady.

The contest quilt that I ran for the renaming of my blog finally got to it's new home. Tara loves her new quilt. I can't get the pictures off my computer that you sent me dear. :( So hopefully sometime over the next week or so we can make our computers actually talk to each other and work so everyone can see the gorgeousness that is that quilt!

I finally hit 100 Fans at my Facebook Page and was going to give away a notebook when I did. The winner of the notebook I believe her shop on Etsy is Serendipity Beaded Creations. We will have to see which notebook she gets and I will be sure to share with you all. :) That was a big milestone for me to hit just a little over an hour ago so I'm pretty happy. It was a GREAT day today.

My daughter was out of school for fall recess Thursday and Friday. We have been having a grand old time making paper beads and watching Ghost Adventurers which we affectionately call the "DUDE" show, since they yell "DUDE" pretty constantly. I spent a lot of that time stressing and generally making myself ill over what to do with work. Actually worked Friday night because the manager whom I ADORE asked me too and left just in tears. That made letting go on Saturday mush easier. This same manager is in her last week this week and we can now talk outside of work which I think we are both pretty excited about.

Today I took the kiddos to the Children's Museum downtown. We wanted to give daddy a day to himself since he worked about 16 hours of overtime last week. We had a good time...and I brought pictures to share. :)

My Son can fly a helicopter with his feet and apparently half asleep.

My daughter can stop to share a bag of chips with her little brother. :)

My son can put a hard hat on and build buildings!

My daughter can make silly weather and news reports with the Green Screen. :)

It was great to share the time with the kids and not go to work and miss them while I was gone. We played and had a a good time. Daddy took a nap and played some Disgaea and enjoyed a little decompression. I'm 50% done with another quilt. I've got a few lined up that are real simple but should be a lot of fun, soft and cuddles, flannel and fleece! Because they are simple, they are going to be affordable so *hint hint* nudge nudge Christmas is coming up so be on the lookout for one you like or just hit me up about it.

Have a great night (what's left of it) and an EVEN better tomorrow.

It's not too late

2010-10-13T22:06:00.003-06:00

It's never too late for Halloween. Well maybe there comes a point when it's too late for this year but with my LOVE of Halloween I view it as getting ready for next year.

I finally finished my daughters costume. I plan to take pictures tomorrow (hopefully) to share. She is in love with it. We couldn't figure out what shoes she should wear so I am loaning her my knee high boots. They add about 3 inches in height to a person, so she feels all tall. they have a big fat chunky heel so I'm not overly worried about the heel factor. I did warn her that her feet may want to fall off before the night is over, so the plan is to take some other shoes along in a bag with us. We still haven't figured out when we are celebrating or when everyone else is trick or treating this year, with Halloween being on a Sunday. Sunday's are so unpredictable in Utah. Guess we will get there eventually, play it by ear and see what happens. My son is still anti dressing up and I still need to make a costume for him. He did love watching his sister get all dressed up and twirl around in her skirt.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Birthday

2010-10-12T20:05:00.001-06:00

Last Thursday was my son's 5th birthday. His favorite is sketti so that's what we had. We discovered that he really doesn't like cake. He literally took one finger touched the frosting licked his finer and that was it. Well okay then, left more for us. The following day we celebrated by going to the arcade. He LOVES going to the arcade so that's what we did. Pretty much just the family and his friend. We live in a duplex and the neighbor next door has a little boy who just adores my son, the feeling is mutual. They are buddies, so we invited them to join us at the arcade. Good times. He got what he wanted, a Blue PS3 controller. We don't know why, but that's what he said. I think mostly because as much as he loves playing games, he loves other people playing with him too.

The weekend was packed full of stuff too. I got called into work Saturday night because it was that busy. When the line to get your fabric cut is over 20 people deep that's pretty bad. All things considered we rocked it and did a good job with what we could. Sunday I was actually scheduled but it was a repeat of the day before. BUSY BUSY BUSY. Last night was my graveyard for the week. So here I am today. Still editing photos and still sewing away like a fiend.

The contest quilt got sent out last week and hopefully it arrives soon.

Have a great night and an even better tomorrow.

More Halloween Fun

2010-10-06T20:23:00.003-06:00

Okay so I got two more Halloween totes listed today in my Etsy shop. Only 5 more totes to go. I have come to the realization that 14 megapixels takes significantly longer to load than 8. I think the previous camera was 8 and the new camera is 14...wowsers. I haven't gotten daring enough to take pictures at a lower setting which I know will work but working with the larger file is kind of handy just takes longer to work with.

I had to do some MAJOR repair on a quilt of my Dad's today. I've done minor repairs on this quilt before but he finally flat out wore through some of the fabric. I had a brief moment OMG did I make a bad quilt? Then I had to remind myself that no I made such a GREAT quilt that he literally sleeps with it ALL the freaking time, the dogs crawl all over it, it get's drug all over the house when he sick. This quilt takes a beating and he loves it. I am such a hoarder too, I still have left over fabric that I used in the original construction of the quilt so I just patched it up and said "let me know when it needs more work". Hopefully it doesn't anything for a bit. I checked and reinforced a bunch of seams. Note to people, anyone, whatever; take care when using your handmade quilts...they are wonderful and you love them but they can as with anything wear out. On that notion, I totally don't mind doing repair work on quilt I've ever made. If you loved enough to wear it out like that let me know and I'll repair it...though sometimes my repairs are pretty funny looking. The first set of repairs I did on my Dad's quilt, I was mad at him that day so I used HOT PINK thread to repair this beautiful blue and green quilt. It made me giggle.

Tomorrow is my son's 5th Birthday! He say's he wants a BLUE PS3 controller for his birthday. That way he can have the 2 player back. He loves playing games and he loves even more when we can play games with him. We are going to celebrate Friday night by going to the nickle arcade. That's our thing, that's what we do for birthday's we go to the arcade. I've gone every year since my daughters 5th birthday and we have gone every year for my son with the exception of his first birthday. I'll have to share pictures from the event when we get there.

Have a great night and an even better tomorrow.

Are you ready for Halloween?

2010-10-04T18:47:00.002-06:00

Okay it's a little early but it is time to start planning. Make sure you get the right costume in time for all the pre-Halloween parties, get the kids ready with make up and trick or treat bags. I should over the next of couple of days have some trick or treat bags ready to go in my Etsy shop but for now I just have the one. It's HUGE. It sure beats using an old pillowcase and could probably hold just as much.

Am I a little late getting stuff listed, sure probably but see yesterday's post about a dead camera. Now comes the editing pictures down for size. Picture editing is probably my least favorite part of the process. It is what it is and a necessary part of the job though I guess. :) I'd keep going tonight but tonight is my graveyard shift so it will have to wait until tomorrow. In fact most everything will that's where I'm headed right now.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Dead Camera

2010-10-04T01:13:00.002-06:00

So I know this little girl who "says" she wants to help her mom out. I know this mom who has half a dozen "Halloween" themed tote bags that need pictures so mom can try sell them. Camera worked when little girl walked away...didn't when she returned. What happened we don't know. A new camera had to be purchased.

I am REALLY happy with the new camera. It's just a simple point and shoot, but that's all I need really. It understands color FAR better than the last camera. It also has some neat, fun features. Fisheye Lens. Our Golden Doodle LOVES the camera. She posed for me to test out the fisheye lens. Look at that face, how could anyone say no to that face? I tried getting a picture of my other dog (he's an Aussie Shepherd / Blue Healer Mix) but he is terrified of the camera. Hey at least I got this absolutely wonderful and adorable picture of my Paige girl.

It's been a long week to say the least. I am currently debating over a lot of things. One of the managers gave notice at work...I adore this woman with a bloody screaming passion, she makes work fun. She's a tough woman, she keeps you moving and on your toes, but she is GREAT to work with and for. It is likely I will also be losing another dear coworker who has become a good friend to me. The people that make my job, not just a job, but FUN are leaving me. There are circumstances around both which bother me and I have a dilema which may or may not unfold.

What I do know is I need to get back onto the blog train. I need to find a way to truly make doing what I love to do work for me. I'm not sure how to get there yet. I've had some people look and say "but you are successful". Sure, but I would like to be able to make enough to actually play with and maybe buy more stuff. ;) I really want to share the love I have for what I do. I want to enjoy doing it. I want a lot tonight, I know, like I said it's been a long week and I have a lot on mind. With the goings on at work, and watching a program tonight I want to belive that I can do better for myself, for my family and for my friends, just by being myself. We'll see. I do have a positive outlook, I know it is acheiveable, I just don't know how to get there.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

What Happened?

2010-09-26T21:32:00.003-06:00

I was doing so good everyday for awhile. Well life happens sometimes. I figure for someone who never kept journals, I'm not doing so bad. Right? Heck I haven't even hardly posted on Facebook this week to my personal account...that's quite a bit. So Wednesday I took my son downtown for the circus parade. He LOVES elephants so this was NEAT for him. He really wanted to see the giraffe's he loves Giraffe's more than elephants but no luck there. Oh well, I guess that means I'll have to go to the zoo this week before my membership runs out. :(

The Hubby and I had a date night last night. WOW. 2 date nights in less than a year...woah. I know who would have thought. We found out that a couple of the bars in town were playing the UFC 119 PPV. Why pay $40 when I can just go to the bar pay $5 and get dinner and watch the fights and be without the children for a few hours. I love my babies, don't get me wrong but sometimes some grown up time is a nice change of pace and a little sanity. It was fun to meet some people and chat about the UFC and the fighters. Who did we think were going to win the fights and why. You are probably asking yourself but but I never would have thought. I know huh? Dirty dark secret, I LOVE watching MMA, and my even dirtier darker secret, I love watching what I affectionately call Redneck Wrestling. Wrestling is my soap opera with some decent enough eye candy thrown in there. MMA is just, it really takes some talent and A LOT of HARD WORK and dedication to get to that level and I respect that, I love watching the jujitsu guys....it amazes me the things they can do. It's fun and well they are too bad on the eyes either, except when they get big giant gaping cuts, that's not so easy on the eyes. I don't know how my hubby handles it, he almost passed out night when my daughter tried to hand him the bloody tooth she ripped out of her mouth to get some money for the tooth fairy. Long story. How he watches some of these fights and doesn't vomit is beyond me...but we had fun. I am reminded that you know I really don't like alcohol so much anymore but I really enjoy greasy pit bar food...even if my stomach hates me later for it. :)

Finished the contest QUILT! I'm taking pictures tomorrow I hope, but I'm not going to post them. I want it to be a surprise. I'll post pictures after it is received. I've been sewing like a mad fiend all week just haven't put myself outside to get good pictures of anything yet. Seriously I really hope to do it tomorrow. I can't put it off much longer or Halloween will be over.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow

Happy kids make for happy moms

2010-09-19T22:39:00.002-06:00

Decided today after work to head on downtown to the Children's Museum. Thank goodness for season passes. Had fun but things were really really slow so the kids wanted to head out early. We got food and then down to the other end of the plaza to play in the fountain and watch the water show. You can't watch the water show but the kids certainly had fun playing in the fountain. My daughter thinks it's great fun, and my son just likes to watch. They stopped playing for a minute to pose for a photo for mom.

I did pick up the fabric today. I know what am I doing getting more fabric. Well I needed black and it was on Sale so I got some. Only 5 yards of some which won't go very far at all but it will get me far enough with Halloween fabric to last me until I grow utterly tired of Halloween, fabric that is.

I adore Halloween. So here is the thought for you. My mommy had this conversation with a nice lady at the grocery store the other day. Halloween is what Christmas should be. I mean seriously, the neighbor kids show up and you give them a little treat, some stranger shows up and you give the stranger a little treat. There is no thought about it, you just give, it's just a little something and you give it freely without thinking and without expecting anything in return. Mill that one over for a few days.

After the whole downtown excursion, I got in touch with mom and we went to go check out a fire. Poor people. Here is our local news for the story. It's pretty scary out that way so if you pray, pray for these people, light a candle, keep them in your deep thoughts. It was heart wrenching for my daughter to see horse trailer after trailer hauling the horses out of the area, and even more heart wrenching to watch the empty trailers come back, because you know they went up to save more horses but couldn't get in because the fire was too close. It moved hellishly FAST due to high winds and the winds are supposed to continue tonight. Luckily I'm about 20 minutes out from there but the whole valley is just filled with smoke giving my allergies FITS again.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Crayons...Color You World

2010-09-18T22:01:00.005-06:00

You know I really hate having to type things twice...I guess I finished my blog and then it was gone...literally. So here we go again.

I really am burning through that Halloween fabric. I've made at least half a dozen totes over the past two days. I've gone through so much that I need more fabric. I thought the goal was to get rid of fabric. o.O Actually I just need more plain black fabric. See it isn't actually Halloween fabric, it's a basic essential fabric for any

slightly obsessed crafter. o.O

So I had this piece of fabric that wasn't quite big enough to make a decent tote with so I decided to go with the idea of the crayon roll. Sometimes I'm really glad my daughter is such a forgiving guinnea pig for my craft projects. I learned quite a bit. Sometimes flying by the seat of your pants with no pattern can be quite fun. um now lets start with color choices...when your gut says dont', you really ought to listen. I'm still not overly fond of that orange with

that Halloween fabric. While 3/4 inch will technically fit the crayons it's super tight and I won't guarantee that little fingers like my son's could get a crayon back in there. Next time I'll try an inch.

One last thing...it's been on my mind for awhile and was only brought back up while marking lines for the stitching. So I really really don't like the markers...they just...well I don't like them. I do like my chalk pencil thingy...It's a quilting marking pencil where I can change the color of chalk. What I don't really like sometimes is the thickness of the chalk. Often I will use a pencil for marking the back of quilt squares...it doesn't offset my measurements with the thickness and when every single one of yours seams are 1/4 inch...a little is A LOT. I want chalk in thinner pieces like pencil lead but still chalk. I dont' know if that is even possible but that's what I want. If anyone knows of this...tell me...I'll add it to my wish list.

That's all I have today. Sewing and then going to dinner with the family. Man my son has issues with guarding his food. His world ended when Grandpa thought it would be funny to steal his dinner roll. Full blown alligator tears...guess it's a good thing I hadn't eaten mine. That made things better and then my daughter gave him a krispee treat and wow, the sun rises and sets with her even more so now. It was a good time. :)

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Unloading some Halloween Fabric

2010-09-17T21:22:00.004-06:00

I'm trying to unload some of my Halloween fabric. I figure now is as good a time as any to do just that. I've making Halloween totes. I was able to get all of 4 different kinds of "Halloweeen" fabric gone. I have a bunch more to work my way through but I figure I have the rest of tonight. I may make some crayon rolls or something other than totes with it too. I might end up holding onto to some of it. My goal is to greatly reduce the amount of it that I have though. Who would have thought I would EVER talk about reducing my stash. If you told me I was going to say that I would have told you that you were flat out CRAZY. I'm not the crazy one for having all the fabric in the first place. :D

Still working on the contest quilt. I got sidetracked last night by Halloween fabric. All I have left is about half the binding and just hand sewing it to the back side. Remember yesterday? Well I don't. Just kidding, I talked about how happy I was with the quilting. My camera totally hates me because that is about the best picture it would take of the quilting tonight. I really need to take it out into the daylight, to get a better picture. See it's beautiful and wonderful and soft and that's the back side. The front side is actually a pretty sparkle thread so it has the sparkle like snowflakes do. I'm pretty happy with it. :)

have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Time for Fall Colds

2010-09-16T23:52:00.005-06:00

They made their way through the house. It's fall all the kids go back to school and start sharing their plagues with each other. Both my daughter and I have had FITS of allergies bad this year, my son's allergies at least haven't been as bad as they could have been. Usually he gets them and he doesn't realize fully to blow his nose so he sniffles until it fills his poor belly and makes him sick. At least I've convinced him that he doesn't need to sleep with every blanket I've ever made for him, which overheats him and he gets sick. So I think my daughter brought something home but wasn't super sick herself. The older my dad gets the less likely his body is to fight the sickness off, so he got sick, then my husband got sick then I worked a BUNCH of hours and was out of it. I feel tons better now though!

It's a good thing I feel tons better. My sewing machine was starting to feel pretty lonely. I don't like to sew when my head is all filled with gunky wonderfulness. I have never sewn a finger and I don't intend to EVER sew a finger (knock on wood, at least my sewing table is wood ;) There it is. A bit of the creative workspace. Did I share this photo awhile back? Probably and forgot but I missed it. I even sat down and tried sewing but man my head was somewhere else entirely.

So I'm almost done with the contest quilt. :D Just finishing up the binding. The quilting turned out BEAUTIFUL. It far exceeded my expectations. I hope I can get my camera to actually capture the quilting tomorrow in good light because I am pretty gosh darn proud of it, and on my little bit home sewing machine no less. You will have to tune in tomorrow. I promise I'll be around. No more absence.

On that note I let my daughter start a blog, under my account so mom has the supreme veto power. MunchkinCora If you have young un's that want to share with other young un's or you want to remember what it's really like being a teenager show her some love. For some strange reason she is pretty excited about the whole blogging thing. I think it's absolutely adorable. Remember though be nice, she is my perfectly angsty tween.

have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.
oh and take some vitamin C...tis the season you know.

Quilt Top

2010-09-06T19:17:00.003-06:00

Quilt top all pieced together. Now I just need to quilt it down. I'm done for the moment though, and by moment I mean today. I don't think I'm going to get anything else done on it today. I am extremely happy with how it came together. My daughter says it looks very "wintery" which is good cause that was the aim. She thinks I should use some sparkle thread in places to quilt it down. I think my daughter has the eye just not the touch...maybe someday she will develop the touch.

I remember I was always very hands on but I never really "wanted" to sew. Why when I could just find what I needed. I did drama in high school, and a few school plays. Heck I even won an award at Regionals for drama two different years, once for One Act and once for of all things Pantomime...no I was not in a box. Costumes were always made by someone else. It was a very surreal experience for me when I went to the theater to help with the costuming. I had always been on the stage not behind the scenes making the stage and the actors on it look pretty. While I sometimes only occasionally miss my drama queen days I love sewing far more than I ever enjoyed acting. I had nudged myself into the right place just the wrong position and then finally I found the right position.

Same situation with art. I always wanted to draw, and paint, and all that fun stuff. I wanted to make fantastical dragons and such. Friends always said oh you're good, but it wasn't good enough. I knew it wasn't good enough then fabric came into play. Right place, right position. I learned and grew faster with this than any other type of art before and I was good at it. When people said this is wonderful, I actually believed them because I deep down thought it was wonderful. I still have my moments of just crank it out and be done, and I feel like it's mediocre at best, but for once, my mediocre is better than most at their best. I am by no means the best the quilter or seamstress in the world. Oh heavens no. I am actually quite good, talented, and I feel like I work reasonably quick at it, when I'm not easily distracted. ;)

I found my place. Now I just need to find the place to put all my stuff. Unfortunately my place requires a lot of space. Someday I'm going to be rich, have a guest, strike that, have a CRAFT house, filled with crafts, sewing machines, fabric, paper, glue, and wonderful goodness. Someday I will have my long arm free motion quilting machine with an adjustable king size frame too. When people say "go to your happy place" that is my happy place, surrounded by trees and maybe a little stream or something. That's my happy place. :)

Have a great night and an even better tomorrow.

No more numbering

2010-09-05T20:50:00.003-06:00

I decided after missing 2 days, I'll explain in a moment that maybe I should stop numbering my days. I was going to try something grand and blog every single day for a year or something but I've missed a couple. Experiment fail. :) It's been fun none the less and I'm still going to try to keep it going. Now what happened. Well my husband decided we have netflix and he wanted to watch 24. We didn't watch it when it was on TV. Don't spoil it, even if you are well meaning and think it's harmless don't say anything. Our new phrase is "damn 24" we watch and 4 hours later we force ourselves to turn the "damn 24" off. It's silly yes I know and I got so lost in 24 land it was the next day and I was falling asleep.

I'm still working on the contest quilt! It's in a fun stage now. I'm almost ready to start putting the block together into the quilt top. I love this stage of the quilt making process. I laid a bunch of the blocks out to see how they were going to look and they are going to look magnificent! Very wonderful. I'm super excited.

I took a short break from quilting to try something out. Now I would like to consider myself an accomplished seamstress and quilter, how it is that I have never ever in my life made a pillowcase is beyond me. I'll be honest I killed my pillowcase when we moved in April and since then I'm slowly killing my pillows without a pillowcase. So I got the measurements of a pillowcase and made one. Wow that was super easy. I have enough fabric lying around that I don't see a need to EVER buy another pillowcase ever again. My daughter had to "test" it out to make sure it was good enough. I love my quality control. Now my pillows are flat pancakes so that there is actually two of my flat pancakes because I really need to buy a new pillow but I haven't gotten around to it. Long gone are the days of a new pillow every month. That's what I did when I was younger, but well the kids don't let me do that so much anymore. I wouldn't trade it though.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 40 - Piecing the Quilt

2010-09-02T21:56:00.002-06:00

That's what I've been doing all day. I was able to get my pieces cut last night and get started with piecing the blocks. I only got through the triangles but triangles take me a bit sometimes. I was able to watch some Mindfreak while sewing, and pressing and sewing and pressing. Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike pressing. Pressing is an unfortunate evil and necessary though all too often, much like pinning. I dislike pinning as well.

This morning I finished my triangles and more pressing. Then trimming those darn triangles. I had nearly forgotten how long it takes to trim those triangles but it also a necessary evil. I decided to keep working on the other quilt I had going while working on this. It was the darn triangles I was avoiding with the other quilt. I finished sewing pressing those today and am in the process of trimming them.

In between trimming triangles I'm starting to get the blocks put together. It's nice to just sit at the machine again. While I adore making clothes for my ever loving daughter quilting is just calming and relaxing. It's a nice break from all the clothes before I get into costumes for Halloween. Though I stare at the fabric every day and the pattern every day that way when I'm ready I should have everything set in my head before I make the first cut. :)

Today was a good day. Tomorrow I have a lot to get done and it's all falling into the afternoon so I plan on relaxing with the machine early morning and then race to get everything I need in the afternoon. Go go go.

have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 39 - Let's Get Started

2010-09-01T19:19:00.003-06:00

So I ran a contest to rename my blog last month with the winner getting a FREE QUILT. Yep a free quilt. I adore my new name it fits me a bit more see the recent obsession with paper. Well it's really time to get cranking on this quilt. The winner of the contest was the wursters or also known as Autumngeshia1106 on DeviantArt she gets a custom quilt in the same style as my Spun Sugar Quilt, only in the colors of her choosing. Well she likes winter and chose some winter colors of white, gray, and blue. I'm going with a light blue which I think will lend better to the overall effect later on. It's time to get cutting out all those little squares. :) I'm going to head off and do just that right now, but figured I better get in my daily blog before I lost all track of time which happens often enough when I get to quilting. Hopefully I'll have more updates tomorrow. I figure if I need a break maybe I'll make some cute little Halloween totes, or some more little snack packs.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 38 - Put the Paper Down.

2010-08-31T21:47:00.003-06:00

But I can't, I just can't do it. So I'm cruising along playing my stupid Facebook games this morning and checking up on all my friends and there is this GREAT picture from Etsy. Which leads me into getting lost in blog land. I'm a bad blogger, that's what I've decided. I really need to figure this thing out a little better. That being said I cam across a tutorial for Lucky Wishing Stars from Folding Trees. Now I've tried doing these cute little paper stars before but it turned out just horrible...I don't mean it was okay but I "called" it horrible, I mean it was actually horrible. I ripped paper everywhere and it was a hot mess. This tutorial was GREAT and super easy to follow, so easy to follow in fact that when my daughter got home from school and I put a handful of them in her hand, she wanted me to show her. Well I was able to turn around and teach her! Really I promise I meant to put the paper away today but I didn't quite get there.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 37 - More Work

2010-08-30T21:09:00.003-06:00

Kinda dominated my day. I woke up at 4am after going to bed just after midnight to go to work. At about 8am I received a phone call. It seems that my attempt to defend the company I work for is against the rules. Um....okay. I got home and laid down on the bed, and my son just curled up next to me and played games. My daughter was home from school before I woke up. I really have to learn to go to bed before midnight on Sunday nights. I did get 12 hours of work done in 7 though, so basically I'm a rock star.

Still cleaning up my paper mess everywhere...wow I didn't realize how much I had gotten out and how many little pieces I had started. Almost there. I can see the table top now, well I could until I decided I need to sort some old gaming cards so I can get rid of them via Ebay. I should have the cards sorted through before the night is over...I hope.

sorry no pretty pictures today.

have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 36 - Work

2010-08-29T21:29:00.002-06:00

Is it work when you have so much fun? Had a GREAT day at work today. Got to work with my two favorite managers. One is our merchandising manager and I get the privileged of doing a lot of her "pet projects". I guess because I work and get things done quickly. The other manager is just one of the dearest sweetest ladies it has been my pleasure to work with and for. I had actually applied for the management position, but when they gave it to her I was excited for her.

I'm still playing in paper, trying to slowly get my piles cleaned up. I really made a mess of things. I have piles of ufo's (unfinished objects) virtually everywhere. Since my craft space is really so limited I do need to get those cleaned up and finished before I can move on. I found a stack of about 8 journals that I need to get sewn together. Geez. Maybe I should be more organized. I figure I have my fabric colorized that is about as organized as I'm going to get...maybe. Well see. I hope to get some pictures of the items and get them listed in the next few days. I hate editing photos but it is what it is. Maybe I'll be super ambitious tomorrow. :) In the meantime I have to be up in 6 hours for work...so I should quit watching season 1 of 24 and go to bed.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 35 - Imagination

2010-08-28T22:05:00.004-06:00

Today I watched pure imagination at it's finest. We have a membership to our local children's museum and decided today was as good a day as any to take them both down to play. My son is in his own little world there, my daughter has almost outgrown much of it but she still has fun too.

They drove a car to town together.

I guess they had to stop to get gas.

My son thought that was the right time to go to market.

Before running off to fly the helicopter

So that he could operate the crane and build a city of his own.

In the meantime my daughter and I wandered across the street to the Planetarium so she could walk on the moon.

And then examine the rocks on the surface of Mars.

It was a good day. I'm plum tired now though. This whole being without a car means we have to walk 3/4 mile to catch a bus to get anywhere and then coming home the same to get home, not to mention whatever else other walking is going on. It was fun and worth the walk. I hope my son actually gets some sleep tonight. :)

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 34 - Getting Ready for Halloween

2010-08-27T22:28:00.003-06:00

So I am getting ready for Halloween now. The kids are going to be pirates. I think I may make myself a pirate too because well pirates are AWESOME. In the getting ready process I am reminded of years past so let's take a journey if you will. Just up there, that it last year. My daughter was a gypsy and my son was a dog. My son actually ended up getting sick and didn't get to go trick or treating at all last year and my daughter went for the first time without me. It was mildly tragic for me. :( Not this year dag nabbit.

Two years ago my daughter wanted to be a "dark faerie" so that's what I made. My son well he was really really unclear on the whole trick or treating concept. Wait I talk to strangers and they give me candy. This is AWESOME. The whole concept is rather quite scary when you think about it that way. Anyway my daughters costume was this black with blue sparkles fabric and it was all flowey and stuff. I was going to make her this kinda punkish tutu but it looked cute that way, so we left it at that. My son, mom was given the Tigger costume two years earlier actually but he wanted nothing to do with putting the costume on.

This is the year my son was born. Man I had A LOT of time on my hands. I was pregnant and miserable, then early October my son was born so I was awake 24 hours a day. I sewed a lot and costumed a whole bunch of us. The two little girls, I did their entire costume. That's actually the same style I'm going for this year with my daughter. Both of the women I'm on the right, I did both of our wench shirts. The Pirate Captain in the middle well you can't see his shirt but it was a nightmare of ruffles and frillies and I HATED it but he loved me for it. Oh and I did his vest. the costumes turned out GREAT that year and we turned heads as a "band of pirates" so I think I'm going for that effect this year. :) It will be fun.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 33 - That's my Boy

2010-08-26T21:45:00.002-06:00

yep that's my boy! Since reducing my hours at work I am spending more time with my son. He is such a character but then I think most 4 year olds are characters. This picture was taken just over a year ago but it's one of my most favorite pictures of my son. The picture is irony really it is. He looks so sad and yet his hand says #1 Fun. He is actually having a great time but he went through a brief phase where his sister convinced him that when mom was trying to take his picture he needed to look "serious". Why children? I just adore it, and I adore my little man. He tells me how I should play Little Big Planet and we are both very excited to LBP2 to come out. He is my little crafty helper to. I swear that kid could be in a dead sleep but if I so much as turn my die cutting machine on he is right there in my bubble wanting to "help". He pushes the start button for me really good. When I sew specifically quilting he wants to hand the little squares to me. When I say to him where should we go he usually 1 of 3 responses 1.) Gamer Games (his code word for the nickel arcade a couple blocks from our house) 2.) The Ball Place (Childrens Museum Downtown) 3.) The JoAnn's. The first time he told me he wanted to go to "The JoAnn's" I squealed with delight, yep that's definitely my child when they WANT to go to the craft and fabric store. He knows the difference between them too, he knows which one mom works at and prefers to go to that one.

So today I snuggled and watched some cartoons with my son, then finished up some cards while he ate, watched him play some LBP before being convince that I needed to be player 2. After I had my fill of LBP I went back to cards and turned the Cricut on....zoom in the bubble "can I help?" how do I say no? I don't. Helped my daughter with her homework, cooked dinner, watched my son play some more LBP then well puttered about. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I should cover my husband up since he fell asleep at 630 or just let him be. ????

On the agenda tomorrow, more cards. Get the paper cleaned up and put away. I need more craft space, maybe someday when I'm rich I'll have a craft house instead of a guest house. Keep moving with the green quilt, get pieces cut for the contest quilt and probably make some Halloween Totes. We'll see, I doubt I will accomplish all of that but I'm certainly going to try. :)

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 32 - Paper for Halloween

2010-08-25T20:39:00.003-06:00

Oh gosh I know, it's still August why am I talking about Halloween. I'm talking about Halloween now because last year I learned the valuable lesson if you don't prepare then you will be rushing last minute. We have been putting out our Halloween decorations at work and getting the Halloween seasonal isle set. This makes for a SUPER excited me because it means we are entering my favorite time of year. Halloween to Christmas. LOVES. Today I've been making little cards and gift tags. I got out my embossing powder and my "new" heat tool since I melted the last one, in a glorious "OOOPS!" moment. Those air vents on the sides, kinda important, you will just have trust me on that one.

I figure tomorrow I won't play with the embossing so much. Maybe tomorrow I'll work into die cuts and other fun stuff. Maybe even super tiny mini envelopes. I LOVE those. I almost have all the fabric picked out for the contest quilt. I need to dig out a few more pieces that I "know" I have in the bottom of a tote somewhere. At least in the bottom of a tote means it's physically at my house and not the storage unit. :) I don't want to make the trek over to the storage unit today or tomorrow maybe even the next for that matter. Bleh.

Hey note to self, when cleaning the vacuum filter remember the fact that you left it outside on the ledge BEFORE the dog decides she has a NEW TOY. I'm just saying.

have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow

Day 31 - This Is Home

2010-08-24T20:29:00.003-06:00

This is home! This is Salt Lake City at night from one of my favorite spots in the city. A lot of people ask, "why Salt Lake?" "What's in Salt Lake?". So the next time anyone asks themself any of those questions remember this picture. This is why. Salt Lake is beautiful city, quiet and busy all at the same time. I love it here, there are times I hate it here but for the MOST part I love it here and it will always have a piece of my heart.

My next mostest (yes I know that's not "officially a word) city would have to be San Diego. I adore the beejeebuz out of San Diego. There is so much to do and see there. Maybe I am biased as the first time I was there I didn't see it through "tourist" eyes. I had a close personal friend a "local" show me both the tourist side and the "local" side. There are enough "quiet" spots in San Diego to escape from the city life and no where compares to Balboa Park, well no where that I've ever been.

Need I say anything else about Balboa Park? Really? How can you say no to a sight like this. My friend lived one block away so I spent a great deal of time there. Museums galore, Arboretums, the Zoo, it's such a WONDERFUL Place.

Slat Lake has it's share of quiet places too. This is really in the Salt Lake Valley out on the west side. This was one of those days it had been raining and as we found out yesterday I love the rain and the fresh start it provides. The sun peeked through and the horses came out to graze in the pasture, I had to remember this in more way than just in head.

So there you go, my home, and my next favorite spot, I hope to find more spots too. Maybe I'll dig out pictures of Yellowstone which I also ADORE.

Have a great night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 30 - What happened to 29

2010-08-23T20:10:00.002-06:00

What happened to day 29? I went to work, I came home from work and fell asleep. I slept A LOT which tells me I probably needed the sleep. I'm searching for amazing pictures to share, Maybe I'll have a day every week. Picture of the Week or something. That would be fun. As a mediocre I know gesture of good faith to my readers I wanted to share this rainbow I got when I was in Colorado, in July. It was beautiful and I was utterly shocked I was actually able to capture it. I love rainbows. They mean the rain has come and washed away all the gunk in the air, leaving us with a clean slate to start the day. :)

I have decided my daughter is clothed finally for school. Packed away my monster cutting mat into the "scary room" (the room under the stairs). That mat is too big and bulky to have on the table in the living room. My little quilting cutting mat is just right for what I'll be be doing now. I Have one quilt top that I think I would like to get the top finished and then get into my contest winners quilt. She picked blue, grey, and white. I'm imagining sparkley snowflakes which should be good because said she loves winter.

So I don't know exactly what "burning man" is. I'm not sure I want to know but man let me tell you, the people buying stuff for this "burning man" are the neatest "characters". They really are characters with these super fantastical plans and ideas. Maybe I should find out, sounds like something I would have done before I had my daughter. I had one guy the other day buy spuer silky red fur to "cover his bike with" and I kind of snickered not mean like but it was cute, and he did the "Z" snap and told me at least he wouldn't lose it. It was funny. I meet some real characters sometimes at work.

Well I have a Dr. appointment early in the morning, and I want to get some sewing in before bed. So until tomorrow.
Have a GREAT NIGHT and and even better tomorrow.

Day 28 - Birthday Sanity

2010-08-21T23:45:00.002-06:00

So today was my birthday. It's still my birthday for a few more minutes. Last night my mom took me up to the mountains for my birthday for a stargazer event thing. It was fun. Hanging out with my mom usually is a full force riot though. I ADORE that woman, and she is my best friend in the whole wide world. Don't know what I'd do without her.

This morning started off on a sour note and then my friend Amy came and got me and we pretty much wandered around "window shopping". It's funny how the valley here is laid out in my head by location of craft stores. I went to a quilt shop and didn't spend a dime. That is a GOOD day or a BAD day depending on how you look at it. Today I see it as a good day. Then we wandered some some local homegrown shops which was fun, and then craft store hopping. Found some fabulous double sided paper clearance at one craft store. Don't know what I'm going to do with it yet but I will figure something out, all I know is I got it all. Went to another one and behaved myself. Thought about getting some stuff but decided that I could go to my work and use my employee discount instead. Got to my work, and forgot what I was looking for so I went for other stuff. All in all it was a good day.

I keep promising fabulous pictures but haven't been home long enough to provide you those fabulous pictures over the past few days. I'm getting there but I needed a break and I wanted to celebrate with a whole lot of nothing. So now I'm going to eat the marble cake my brother got me and sleep. I just wanted to share my beautiful mommy with you all because without her I'm not entirely sure what I would do with myself.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 27 - Stargazers

2010-08-21T00:06:00.003-06:00

I know I promised an amazing Blog today. Well yesterday technically, but since right now it is currently my birthday mom took me to the ski resort to do a little stargazer thing where bunches of people had their telescopes and stuff. I rode to the top of that mountain up to 11,000 ft elevation and looked at the stars with my mom and with my daughter. Now I am going to bed to get some sleep.

Have a GREAT morning and rest of today!
Happy Birthday to MOI!

Day 26 - Kidnapped...sorta

2010-08-20T01:16:00.002-06:00

Mom came and kidnapped me and the kids for dinner and time was "lost" Sorry for missing todays post. I finished the "suit" for my daughter. I don't like the jacket to the cute purple mint houndstooth is just the skirt. It's super cute. I did a cute dress/ shirt today. Not a dress up shirt but a shirt that is almost a dress. My daughter adores it. I have to bring the body in a bit to be a bit more fitted. But it's CUTE. I've got fabric lined up for a couple more. She thinks they are GREAT. Comfy like a t-shirt but a little dressier. No pictures today due to "lost" time. tomorrow I'll just have to WOW you with pictures because Pictures are AWESOME.

Have a great night (it's not tomorrow until the sun comes up) and an even better tomorrow.

Day 25 - The Face of the Crafter

2010-08-18T19:41:00.003-06:00

You have come along for the ride, which from the past month has been VERY apparent that it is a roller coaster. Well who the heck is on the ride with you? Me of course. That's me. There usually aren't very many pictures of me mostly because I'm usually the one with the camera, but I have a lovely daughter who is incredibly entertained with me this week and she thought you needed to see me, doing what I do. It only took about 20 minutes from what I'm told for her to catch a picture of me without pins in my mouth. I likely looked like some crazed creature, I still do but that is beside the point right now. My hair is horrible because walking home from the store in the rain, I opted to let the kids use the umbrella. I was soaked, the kids were wet but it was fun all the same. My son insisted on stomping every puddle along the way, but what else is a 4 year old little boy supposed to do? My daughter insisted that SHE NEEDED to carry the umbrella which was probably best otherwise my son would have and she would have to crawl home. That wouldn't be fun.

Still working on clothes. Finally got into this cute little skirt and jacket outfit. The skirt is done and exceeded my expectations of adorableness. the jacket is in the works, I'm doing the lining right now but needed a break to share with you all. As I work through her clothes I'm discovering that the one singular difference from "little girls" clothes to "big girls" clothes other than the amount of fabric is darts. I am getting LOTS of practice with darts which seem rather pointless sometimes but they do make the finished product look so nice sometimes. If this jacket turns out then I will probably do another one in some great mint and lilac houndstooth that I have. I figured I would use the less cute fabric first, though I think it's going to be better for Jr. High than the other, but my daughter certainly marches to the beat of her own drum so whatever works for her.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 24 - Avoidance

2010-08-17T20:12:00.004-06:00

So today as I was trying to avoid anymore drama in the house I decided to just get out of the house. My car died a most horrible death about a month ago. You know it's bad when the mechanic says "don't give me your money". I have had a car for 15 years and being without a car has been really trying, but I'm slowly getting used to it a bit. So I decided to attempt to take the kids on the bus up to the zoo. Now my husband doesn't drive, never has so he takes the buss all the time. The kids are used to it. My son apparently LOVES the bus. He is remotely familiar with the bus routes too. He was jumping up and down all excited when the bus got there. Silly boy. Of course I was excited to get out of the sun. we had to walk just shy of a mile because live deep into residential.

Unfortunately only one bus goes past our zoo here and it's times are really weird and really random. About half a dozen buses go about half a mile away from the zoo so after transferring buses and walking about half a mile we got to the zoo. Yeah for season passes and not having to pay! The animals were all reasonably active but I think it was feeding time for a bunch of them. We got to see the Golden Lion Tamarins getting fed and they are so freaking adorable. They had fed the elephants shortly before we got there but they were still out and putting about at the hay. See our baby in the background. Our zoo here, Hogle Zoo had a baby born just over a year ago. Little baby ZURI. My son thinks Zuri is just the cutest thing. He also has to make a B-Line for the Giraffe's which are always one of his favorites.

So in my avoidance of dealing with drama today it was a GREAT day inspite of all the walking and the scorching sun. Now it's time to get to making this cute little suit looking outfit for my daughter. Well I hope it's cute, she picked it out of patterns so I'm guessing she thinks it's cute.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 23 - Good and Bad

2010-08-16T19:54:00.002-06:00

Today was one of those days. Arguing in the house between everyone, and the end result is I'm the bad guy for being in the middle. I'm the go between for everyone. For whatever reason no one talks to each to other they talk through me. So today I got nothing that is worth sharing. Sorry bout that. Hopefully tomorrow is full of less drama and more creating, but today I haven't even touched my sewing machine, a ball of yarn, or a ream of paper if that tells you anything. I didn't cook except for fighting my way into the microwave to get a tiny tidbit for lunch. So I can't even share that. Today I am villified in my house, so I'm going to go crawl in my evil scary cave and tomorrow I'll come out and share with you my evil plans to take over the world.

Have a great night, and please a better a tomorrow.

Day 22 - Clothes and Notebooks

2010-08-15T21:55:00.002-06:00

I've been sewing like a mad woman getting my daughter ready for school. She has enough pants now. I'm working my way into skirts and then some more shirts. I pulled some fabric out of the storage unit today after work. Yes I have a storage unit with fabric in it. I brought the fabric in and first words are "You DID NOT go shopping? after work did you?" No I went to the storage unit. "More fabric?" Yes more fabric. I have a problem, I'll admit it.

In between doing all the sewing of clothes I have been sewing of notebooks. I found at some point last year various really poorly written and displayed tutorials on Coptic Stitch binding when I was doing some research on bookbinding with "recycled" materials. Very carefully I started teaching myself how to do a Coptic Stitch which after you get it becomes incredibly rhythmical and almost easy. I made tons of notebooks, and I've been trying to burn through some mat board a friend gave me in making some more notebooks. They are relatively small, but my daughter says they are better when they are small for journals and "personal" notebooks because they are easily transportable. Why is it that a 12 year old is the voice of reason sometimes. They are certainly cute, but I am probably biased a bit. Both of those notebooks are for sale in my Etsy shop. I was really pleased with how they turned out. I've been playing with covering the board in various printed papers to give it a little more style and pattern. Sometimes I just get tired of looking at olive green mat board or whatever the color is. Sometimes I am able to get from my friend some really gorgeous mat board though in lovely suede textures and marbled leather look textures. Those I just can't cover with paper, the mat board is too wonderful on it's own.

Had a GREAT day at work. Talked with a sweet lady about my obsession of not throwing things away and using scraps. "I will find a use for it all". She said I was far braver than she was. She also said she had been holding onto her scraps of fabric though she wasn't sure why and she now knew why. I guess she wants to "donate" them to me. I can't pass scraps up. I just can't do it. Heck I've been holding onto all the scraps from sewing my daughters clothes to make stuff with. I've got "real" plans as in I know exactly what I'm going to do with all those scraps too. You'll see eventually.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 21 - Movies and Clothes

2010-08-14T21:57:00.003-06:00

So today I had a date finally with my husband, it's only been about 2 years in the making. Yes 2 years. We went and saw The Expendables. I won't give you any spoilers I'll just tell you probably something you already gathered or heard about it, it is TESTOSTERONE. I was nicknaming it the manliest man movie ever. I enjoyed it. I sure as all heck enjoyed it much better than the last thing I saw Jason Statham and Jet Li in together. It had exactly what I expected it to have. I had hoped for a little more Bruce Willis cause he just cracks me up, but I got more Jason Statham than I thought I would get so you won't hear ANY complaining from me, that man is dead sexy.

So coming home, and starting back into my daughters clothes. I really liked this pattern and did another skirt with pleats the other night but this time I did a cutesy little flounce thing. The hemline is a little wonky and I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to fix it yet, but I figure I'll wash it first and then go from there. I'd love to take a better picture for you all except I'm out of batteries so I'm left with cell phone which as we can see isn't the best. I was able to capture a portion of my quilting fabric in the background though so that should be a bit entertaining for you. Yes it's color sorted, it has to be. ;)

headed into work tomorrow, what ideas will I come home with? It's always a good guess what kind of projects people will be working on and then the ideas I come home with. I'll have to let you know. I announced the winner of the contest yesterday. Didn't get enough entries to send it to a vote, which I won't complain about anyway since I'm really happy with the new name. What do you think about the new name?

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 20 - And the Winner Is!!!

2010-08-13T22:28:00.002-06:00

I didn't get nearly as many entries as I had hoped to. I doubt VERY much that I am likely to get enough entries between now and midnight to warrant a vote, and besides I never figured out how to do a poll on blogger. I am an impatient little cookie. I am the person who stands there pushing the elevator button because it makes it "get there faster". I am the person in my car who yells "today grandma" even though I drive like a grandma. :) Just ask my husband I am sure he would be happy tell everyone all about my impatience so I figure that I will just announce the winner of the quilt now. Yes dear you still get the quilt. Autumngeisha1106 on DeviantArt is the winner. Kinda funny really that a fellow crafter and quilter wins the quilt! Dear you just need to let me know whatever way you want to let me know the colors that you want. I'll give you until September 1 to decide. I will post regular updates on the quilt and it's various stages of progress through here so everyone can enjoy your reward. :)

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow everyone. That's all I have today.

Day 19 - Photography

2010-08-12T21:38:00.004-06:00

I think this is my least favorite part. I used to LOVE taking pictures but not so much any more. I have some issues with my camera. It's old, I liked the one I had before this one better but the screen was well PURPLE. Yes entirely purple. I couldn't take pictures and "hope for the best" they turned out kinda green and purple. I took about 200 pictures one day and some of them pretty interesting but not worth it. My daughter naturally acquired this camera from a regular to our store when we had it. She "loaned" it to me. She gets to "borrow" her grandpa's camera that is FAR better when she wants so it works out. This camera has issues with color. It really doesn't understand colors. Remember kindergarten when little kids painted a rainbow and then there was one little kids having a hey day and just making a big brown mess not make something "pretty" but just to be a little a brat and make the teacher cry, that's my camera. I am only so good at fixing things in Photoshop. I also have a few theories take 50 pictures be happy if you get 3-4 good ones. I don't like doing a lot of post edit work in PS because I feel like that it is "misleading" in a strange kind of way. I want a camera that will take pictures the way "I" see things so I can share that with everyone else. On that note, my little light tent box thing there was one of my most used X-Mas gifts a couple years ago. I ADORE it!

Tomorrow is the LAST day to enter to win a free quilt. Go find day 8 of my blog for fine details!

Have a GREAT tonight and an even better tomorrow.

Day 18 - Final Days to Enter the Contest

2010-08-11T19:02:00.003-06:00

We are in the final days for you to enter to win a free custom quilt. This loverly quilt "Spun Sugar" featured in my Etsy Shop will be replicated in the colors of your choosing if you win the contest. Complete details on the contest can be found at Day 8 - Contest Details but in a nutshell the details are as follows. You must follow me either here at my blog, twitter, my facebook fan page, or on DeviantArt. You make a suggestion as to what I should rename my blog to with a tagline for the blog. Suggestions MUST be in on or before August 13th. Today is August 11th so you don't have much time. ;) If I get 10 or more suggestions I will leave the decision up to a vote. Voting will take place until August 20th. On August 21st I will announce the winner. Winner will get a reproduction of that lovely "Spun Sugar" quilt only they get to choose the colors. For example you want blue green and purple, red white and blue, black grey and white. The colors will be your decision. I will have the quilt done before the end of September and ship it to you, unless you live locally and I can deliver it in person!

Some suggestions that I have already received are
Mama's Quilting Stitching love into fabric.
Obsessive Crafter's Dilemma when it starts with a passion passed from genarations and a question of 'can i?' it always goes just shy of too far.
Craft Lake City
A Mother's Crafts When you need something to do, something that is yours, and find you take it farther than you ever thought possible

I would LOVE to get more suggestions and I know that there have been several people state an interest in winning and helping out here well your time is running out. NOW is the time to make that suggestion people. Hurry before time runs out.

Some things to keep in mind or ideas to fall off of.
I craft A LOT in fact I work PT at a craft store. I am a bit obsessed about it, and have enough supplies that chances are I could open my own craft store. I am a bit OCD about crafting sometimes. I am what I like to call Short Attention Span Theater. I sometimes make to many projects for myself so that when my attention runs out I have another project to fall back on. I MULTITASK. I'm a mom and I love most minutes of being a mom, my kids are a priority even above the random crafting. I am also what I like to call a Jack of all Master of none, though many people argue that with me.

Get those suggestions in! Just leave a comment right here what your suggestion is. If I don't get many more I am going to be forced to make a very tough decision all by myself instead letting you all vote on the winner.

Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow!

Day 17 - Back to School

2010-08-10T21:58:00.002-06:00

So today was full of running around and getting my daughter registered for 7th grade. She is all registered, she has her locker and class assignments. We went to her locker which of course has a trick to it and then went to all her classes and then did the round of classes in order in relationship to her locker. I am scared for her it's a big step and the nervousness kicked in today full force for her. I think wandering the school made it reality. I am glad I had the opportunity to wander the school with her and to meet a good portion of the non teaching faculty, which are equally important people. I knew the office staff at her elementary school quite well. Teachers change every year and now every class but the other people for the most stay the same and they are equally as important to the well being of a child in the school.

I have come to the decision that while I love my job at the craft store, I will be cutting my hours. I want to be there for my daughter when she has all the emotional moments of Jr. High. It's going to be rough, it's going to be a tough go of things financially but emotionally and my hubby agrees it's what is best for our family. I am by no means quitting, we all feel I still need that outlet that is away from the house to go to so I am just cutting my hours. It should be good.

There is still time to enter into the contest. Only a couple of more days. Tomorrow I will post some of the suggestions so you know what has been put out there and can come up with something yourself. Have a GREAT night and an even better tomorrow.

Day 16 - What does Mom need?

2010-08-09T21:34:00.000-06:00

That's what I say to my son when I get home. "What does mom need?" He give me a big huge hug and then kisses. I got nothing today. It was a long long day. Work then trying to figure out why we never received a letter from the school about my daughters registration that is tomorrow and why I was never told about a new immunization that she needs to register. So tomorrow morning I get to attempt to get her into the Dr's office and get said shot then attempt to get over to the school and register her. I am TERRIFIED of Jr High at this point. I knew the office staff at her Elementary school. I worked really hard to keep her in the same school all throughout elementary, Kindergarten through 6th grade. Now she goes to 7th grade and Jr. High so a new school, and the new office staff is miserable, I don't like them. I don't like being told I don't have something that I clearly have, because they messed up and posted it online. I don't like being told I was told about something when I was not. I don't like being told I was sent a letter which never got to me, because someone failed to enter in my new address. It's my fault someone else didn't do their paperwork. I don't like Jr. High. It's been a rough tear filled day. So may you all have a good night and may tomorrow be better for everyone.

Day 15 - Because Pants Are Important

2010-08-08T21:30:00.002-06:00

Today's title is brought to you by my uncreative nature. It just sounds wrong on so many levels. Well went to work on some black pants for my daughter. I had a hard time finding the motivation to work through them today. It was a very long and mildly emotional day. I pushed through and finished them enough that she didn't mind for once modeling for me. More adventures in zipperland too. They have front and side pockets. My daughter thinks side pockets are "fabulous". Sometimes I wonder why patterns do the things they do. There are things that are methods that are far easier and far more effective and I hated those side pockets. pressing and pinning and just phooey. The pants are supposed to be a bit "high water" I am guess this is some fad that I was unaware of because in looking at a bunch of my patterns a lot of them were high water. Kinda lame, but she digs it. I am going to work on some "normal length" ones next, well actually some capri's and then normal length. I hope to have em done fairly quick. I would like to move into some shirts and skirts soon.

I don't have much else today, it was a long emotional day on the home front. I didn't get my first cup of coffee until about 4 in the afternoon, which is entirely way to late for me and everyone around me. I REQUIRE coffee. Contest is still in full swing.

Have great night and for love of everything sacred have an even better tomorrow. :)

Obsessive Crafter's Dilemma

Cleaning

I love cheese

Lunch

My phone and my dogs

Treats.

Ouch that hurt

It's new year

Hamburger Soup

Saturday - Who doesn't like free stuff

Feature Friday - IFrog Crafts

Blog Feature - Pieces of Trees

Updates from the Garden

Feature - Babycakes Design Studio

Feature - EarthyEcoMama

It's my birthday!

Tomato Soup

Yes it saves

Watermelon!

Slacker

It's a rainbow full of fruit flavors.

Dress is done

Fitting the Dress

You must do a lot of sewing stuff

More in the garden

Getting the Garden Started

Utah HMQS

Power is ODD

Grandma Peggy

Thrift Store for the Win

Another Treasury...furniture inspired

'Furniture any owner would love' by mamacateyes

I would love to refurnish my house with all of this.

I feel GREAT

MAJOR Dental Surgery

All you need is love

Such lovely weather we are having

It's almost springtime

'It's Almost Springtime....almost' by mamacateyes

It's almost there. So close that we took a big a leap and my daughter put flowers in the ground *crossing fingers* so hopefully her flowers last like the rest of these from the she team members.

More Recycled Paper...and Yet More Paper

A Weekend of Paper

It's a mixed bag

tomorrow will be a good day

Homeschooling

Knitting has owned my soul

Christmas Garland

Every time

Christmas Shopping at the mall

Slacker

100th Post!

The costume is done

A whole heck of A LOT

It's not too late

Birthday

More Halloween Fun

Are you ready for Halloween?

Dead Camera

What Happened?

Happy kids make for happy moms

Crayons...Color You World

Unloading some Halloween Fabric

Time for Fall Colds

Quilt Top

No more numbering

Day 40 - Piecing the Quilt

Day 39 - Let's Get Started

Day 38 - Put the Paper Down.

Day 37 - More Work

Day 36 - Work

Day 35 - Imagination

Day 34 - Getting Ready for Halloween

Day 33 - That's my Boy

Day 32 - Paper for Halloween

Day 31 - This Is Home

Day 30 - What happened to 29

Day 28 - Birthday Sanity

Day 27 - Stargazers

Day 26 - Kidnapped...sorta

Day 25 - The Face of the Crafter

It's almost there. So close that we took a big a leap and my daughter put flowers in the ground crossing fingers so hopefully her flowers last like the rest of these from the she team members.