Time to Go Frou Frou

After the comment in the Washington Island vacation post about my boys being too darn cute, I became very worried about more people thinking that my girl is a boy. We've already had a few occurrences this year. It was pretty much the norm for the first 2 years. So I am determines to totally copy this dreamy girls dress from Heather Bailey's blog, her daughter's grandma made it. I have a Simplicity pattern (I have no idea what this original pattern is, or if it is an original) that I got for 99 cents at Hobby Lobby. I am in the process of ordering the fabrics from Ebay.

Only good will come from this project.

On another note, I really do worry about the slow progress of Ella's hair growth. She also has super thin nails. I worry that she is malnourished. She eats well, and I feed the kids very healthy, but there is a possibility she might have a disease where she doesn't absorb the nutrients of the food she eats. She has stomach issues all the time. I just found out about this disease from another mom today and plan to go to a gastroenterologist for her, me and Miles. We all seem to have digestive problems and some of the other symptoms. My doctor always told me I had irritable bowel syndrome. Who knows, it is worth looking into and I'm tired of doctors brushing it off. I do NOT want my children to go through what I have gone through all my life and have learned to "put up with". It can be as painful as labor. Now I know that! My mom has trouble, my grandma had trouble. See a pattern? Anyone know anything about celiac disease?

Ahhh

Another tote done for Etsy. This one took a lot of work. Hopefully I've ironed out the kinks for the next one I make like it because I think it's darn sweet. I did something new and used fusible interfacing on the fabric used for the shell. Definitely makes a difference and give the fabric more integrity. I also did some hand sewing on it including a slip stitch around the perimeter (I will avoid that next time) and tacking the straps to a ruffle to make the ruffle stand up.

I also made a ballet tote for Ella Wed. But that only took an hour and a half. Didn't turn out quite like I wanted, but it will do.

No photos yet. I'm too tired and the lighting is no good right now at night. Soon though!

I am happy to report that I am doing a better job this week of balancing everything with the sewing and whatnot. Of course in the next couple of weeks pre-school starts up and other classes including two dance classes I teach and one I take. I hope it is not too overwhelming!

Goodnight!

My Earrings

Oh I also forgot to post a pic of my new earrings which I'm wearing today and love. Can't find these kind just anywhere. The flower tiles are ceramic tiles. Also got these from Renee the potter in Egg Harbor, WI.

A 2 Year Old Boy's Prayer

DEAR DOG- THANKOO FOOD. Amen

Renee the Potter

I forgot to give you the website of the potter from which we bought the crock (see below). She doesn't sell on the web, but I still think it is fun to look!

http://www.offthewheelpottery.com/2.html

Not only did we like a lot of her work, she was a super nice lady too!

My Work Cut Out for Me

Here are all of the ziploc bags of fabric I precut for totes.

Yeah I know, bad pun with the title there. Or maybe clever? But anyway, the fabric is all cut out and ready to be sewn for 8 tote bags! One is for Ella. The other bag I made for her ballet shoes is way too big for her and I will be listing it on Etsy.

The Clock and the Crock

As promised, here are the two beloved purchases from Door County:


I just adore the crock, every time I go into the kitchen I actually make a point of looking at it. It makes me smile. :-)

Getting Back in the Groove

Today I'm trying to figure out how I did it all, before vacation. It hasn't been bad. I ran a few errands, fed the kids, played with them and put them down for a nap. Then I decided to pace myself. Today would be cutting day. I'd cut fabric for tons of bags. Well, I forgot that I have to design each bag before figuring out how much to cut. So I only got two cut, but I have a lot more designs in mind for the other fabric. The designs take a while, which I guess is good because that is the artistic part of it.

I plan to cut as many more as I can tomorrow and then when all is cut, I will start to sew. Soon I'll have more in my shop. (Let's not forget the photographing and listing steps though!) Which reminds me I need to start up promoting again.

I'm getting my hair done tonight and thought I'd give a few cards to my stylist to pass out to all the ladies that work there.

I promise pics of our new pottery piece soon. Oh and we finally found a nice clock for our living room (on our trip up to vacation) at a fraction of the price of similar looking ones at Ballard Design. Yay!

Back from Washington Island

We are back from our week long stay at Washington Island of Door County, Wisconsin. Well, it was overcast the whole time and 70 degrees. I was sick for several days. But we made the best of it and were actually sad to leave. Some highlights were:

* Staying in the simple but cute cabin with no TV, no phone, no internet (we brought a radio and listening to public radio).

* Albatross, the cute little walk up/eat outside restaurant where we got our ice cream.

* The ostrich (and other exotic animal) farm.

* Playing at play parks and story night at the red barn.

* The ferry ride.

* Eating at Al Johnson's Swedish restaurant on the way up and back. The place with grass and goats on the roof!

* Finding a great potter in Egg Harbor.

















We won't mention the mouse that took up residence on our car... that Jason just told me about today! I sure hope that thing is gone!

Finally I will post photos later of the cute utensil crock we bought at from the potter we found that we loved!

Family and Another Sale!

I'm sure people will get sick of hearing about when I sell something, but this was kind of a big one for me. I loved how the owl tote turned out (see post below) and was so anxious for it to find a good home. Well, tonight it did. I put a bit of a high price on it, but I really felt I priced it right. It is so sturdy and the fabrics are great, it is large and will be very functional, a ton of pockets. I'm glad I didn't back down and sell it and myself short. It SOLD TONIGHT! It hadn't even been listed 2 days.

So in even BETTER news, I went to dinner with my cousins Devin and Katie. I probably won't see either in a long time. Katie will soon be going back home to Austin and Devin will be going to a boat in Washington (state). He is so excited to go there. I will try to look at it as a good reason to visit that part of the country someday soon.

I hope my dear cousins know that they are loved... by me! I will miss them and am thankful for this blessing of being in close proximity for the summer and able to see them even for too short a time.

Miscelaneous

For anyone interested, the owl bag is now in my etsy shop!

I have also listed this headband:


Before I forget, here is the approximate color scheme I would like to do for my son's room.



I would like to use the exact green here on three walls, a dark beige/khaki color on an accent wall (the color in this photo is way to dark and grey for my taste in the real life swatch) and the blue to repaint his bookcase for starters. A little nervous that the dark colors will "shrink" the room, but I just have to try it. I am so anxious as well to get his crib taken down, but I think that will have to wait until after vacation.

Speaking of which, we will be on vacation for a while so I probably won't be posting for a bit.

Miss me!

Hooray!

First of all, darn it, I forgot to show in a photo that the owl bag has pockets on the outside (the panel is pockets not just a panel)!

But most importantly, I sold 3 headbands and 1 tote today!

YAY, just when I was getting worried and frustrated.

I am also actively looking into other promotion opportunities. I found out today that I could list my "business" in a "Community Connections" guide through the local YMCA. I am also going to email the company that runs the music program my kids have gone to since birth. They have a news letter and I believe they will list businesses and services for free. Well... it's a start!

Third Tote

Here it is!

Newest Totes

Here are two of the three new totes I've made recently:




I'm about to take photos of the third so I will post as soon as I can!

I plan to make some headbands today. Three in my store sold today!

Camping Weekend

Jason took Friday off in all hopes of taking the family on their first (not my first) camping trip. Friday morning Ella woke up feeling quite ill to her stomach. She was laying around, falling asleep and had a fever, but by midmorning she was running around feeling well and wanting to go camping! So we debated and decided to give it a try. We just went to a very close campsite Chain o Lakes State Park, so we could bail if things didn't go well.

In a nutshell, it was pretty hot and muggy and felt kinda yucky and dirty and sweaty. We both got some reading done. We found out the kids COULD sleep in sleeping bags in a tent. We saw some cicadas who had recently hatched from their old skins. Jason cooked. We made smores.

But the exciting highlights were: We witnessed our camp neighbors get busted for alcohol. Not allowed at state parks! We were awakened on the second night by rain (we were sleeping without the fly because no rain was predicted) and quickly got the fly on as we heard a nearby tree crash down. We were awakened again at about 2 am when some park employees started up their chain saws to get the downed tree out of the way of our neighbor's "driveway". I must pause to say that after I heard that tree crash, which just added to the drama of the winds and us trying half asleep to quickly put the fly on, I was ready to get out of there. I could not sleep again until the storms stopped scared to death the whole time that a tree would fall on our tent and all the possible implications of that. But we are ok. We are all cleaned up (though still ridden with mosquito bites) and all of our gear is close to being put away and organized. I think. Back to civilization and not feeling like a sweaty dirty pig!

And... tonight I somehow was able to persuade Miles to sleep in the big boy bed! It was so sweet. When I sang "You are My Sunshine" to him, he'd lean up and kissed me on the "you make me happy" part. Makes up for all those times I ask for a kiss and he says "no!" We have great kids.

Case of the Missing Fabric

! ! ! !

I was about to sit down to work on my daughter's ballet tote/my promotional tool. Next up was to sew the lining and interlining together. Um, where'd the fabric go? The interlining is there, but I can't find the lining. I even had the pocket pinned to it.

Either a little elf took off with it, or my early Alzheimer's is at work again. I tell you, after having kids, my memory has never been the same, and it wasn't quite there to begin with.

Well, when something is missing, it doesn't sit well with me. So I'll TRY to chill out and instead work on organizing this desk!

Oh, P.S. I made my first yo yo today. Easy to do, and turned out cute. I sewed a little button on the center too.

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Follow up.

Well, that didn't take long, the fabric was stuck to the inside of my fabric sewing machine cover!! Which, I hate to admit is right where I put it. I laid the fabric over the machine and put the cover on to keep the cat from sitting on it. I just didn't find it the first couple of looks because it was stuck. Well so much for organizing the desk... back to the tote! :-)

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Also forgot to mention that I had a leak in my oversized liquid Tide container on the top of my shelves in the laundry closet. That was not. fun. to. clean.

I'm also struggling trying to find paint colors for my son's room.

Fun Things in the Mail

First of all, I received my winnings from the Dog Days of Summer Bloggy giveaway over at Megan's blog SortaCrunchy. Megan has been so sweet getting my order put together and communicating with me throughout. Please look at my sweet gift. It was a real pick-me-up!




Additionally, I received my notebook/journal order today. I got littlebitfunky's (AKA Crystal) permission a while back to post her photos here, so I will do so now. She also sent a very pretty greeting card along with my order and a sample of chocolate! scented soap from another Etsian.

Please visit Crystal's shop. It is full of great items! Just follow the link above for littlebitfunky!

New Totes of August

Here is the "Daisy's Got the Blues" large tote to go into my Etsy store.






Here is the Bird tote I made for myself. I love it! It is made from the "Bird Seed" fabric from Alexander Henry. I'm wondering if I should just list it? Any thoughts?

Organizing and Purging

It has needed to be done for quite some time now and I usually sort of enjoy doing it, once I get into it and before I get too tired of it. So today I did it. I stepped away from sewing (ok I did work a bit on our "Ravinia tablecloth" - but not a whole lot) and from trying to work on promoting my Etsy shop on the computer and focused on cleaning out and organizing. I started with the kitchen which isn't terribly unorganized, it was just messy. I used my new wood cleaner on the wood floor in our entryway (first time I've actually used a product on it that was meant for wood). Then I tackled the kids' rooms. Miles was the toughest because he has so many clothes he has outgrown very recently. I tried to quickly make decisions on things to get rid of besides clothes and think I did a pretty good job. I think I have at least 4 tall kitchen size bags of stuff in the garage ready for pick-up next Monday. I haven't done my clothes yet, but I go through them so regularly I bet there's not much to toss. Then the basement storage area... let's not go there (which I haven't yet). But in my defense I have done a lot of cleaning and organizing in there in the past and I'm sure I will get to it soon.

I think I got most of my organizing skill from Oprah or something, but a great book that I'd like to recommend is "Simplify your life, Get Organized and Stay That Way!" by Marcia Ramsland. It has many great tips and each chapter ends with personal reflection and a simple prayer.

In other news I have completed two totes but have not photographed them nor listed them on Etsy yet. Between my organizing adventure and our paddle boat floating to the other side of the pond because of all the rain raising the water level past where it was docked, I just didn't get to the photography. Plus it was pretty dreary most of the day. I started another tote for Ella for her to carry her dance things in. It is about halfway finished. It will be big for her. But I hope it will bring in inquiries about where I got it!

I have been trying to get Miles to sleep in his "Big Boy Bed", but no success so far. I look at it as progress made though. I talk about it during the day and he says he wants to sleep in it. Tonight he got up into it and lay there a while for me to read and sing to him, he even stayed there without crying when I left and turned the light off, but as I was reading "Horton Hears a Who" to Ella, he started crying. I got up and moved him to his crib. I had actually taken the rail off of the crib and put on the toddler bed rail, so that was a bit different to him too and took a while (several rounds of "You are My Sunshine" and lots of warm smiles) to get him to be "ok" there. He has been such a good sleeper for his whole life I just want to ease him into this transition. But it would be nice if he transitioned BEFORE vacation so we don't have to take up a fourth of the back of the CRV with the Pack-n-Play...

Other Etsians

I've just added some of my favorite Etsy items, from other artists, at the bottom of the blog. Look below!!

I'm Honored!

I was reading through my favorite blogs on my Netvibes and found on Sonya's blog Mo Mhile Gra, that she had bestowed a Creative Blogger award on me as well as four other bloggers! I am just tickled! In turn, I will now list some of the blogs I love because of their creativeness. She already listed Rhoda at Southern Hospitality, so I will pick someone else in her place.

Linda at Restyled Home.

Karen at Ms. Kwitty's Cottage.

"isew" at iSew.biz.

Sarah at the Misadventures of Sarah and Jack.


Angela at AMK Stitches.

Oh I could list so many more, but I think these are my top 5 (6 including Rhoda) at this point in time!

Don't Miss Out on my Pillow Clearance!!!

Visit my Etsy shop for greatly reduced prices on my pillows. I want them out of here!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5212769§ion_id=5144109

I have more that are not listed.

Here are some of them and many of these I have multiples of in case you need two or maybe even three. There is also a baby blanket and matching pillow (see last photo).

If interested, please leave a comment or convo me on etsy and I will let you know that GREAT price I can give you!