Beautiful Creations

I've been wanting to take more nice photos of the kids. This is a start. A beautiful creation of God, entrusted to us. And what a joy.

I saw someone wearing a sweater with a zipper like this last year and couldn't find one anywhere (not that I go shopping that much for clothes) but I did find one this year and snatched it up for holiday parties. Also bought the shoes the same day. Red, cute, but comfortable!

Couldn't pass up this totally cute pincushion made by Megan of boutiquenutmegdesigns on Etsy. She made it all, including the butterfly pins. All of this was included! I don't even want to mess it up with regular pins now. Check out her blog and shop, I found them separately. She makes the cutest things and has some really nice tutorials.

A doll nightgown for Ella's dolls. It is a little large for this doll, but a little birdie told me she might be getting another larger doll for Christmas. I had this pattern all cut out and laying around for the longest time. Thanks to my friend Hannah and her Monday night "Craftnight" she recently instituted, I got this done! It was a funny story. I thought I'd lost the directions and started to attempt to put it together without them. Then suddenly they appeared out of no where. I think actually, I had set the sewing machine on them and when I moved it to work on the pieces, it was revealed. Glad this is done.

Almost forgot this sweet fabric "snowglobe" ornament I got from Crystal's shop. I think they are all sold out now, but she has plenty of other very cute items in her shop!



And perhaps I'll have Jason take a pick of my new necklace sometime soon.


Next up...

• Fix and finish Miles' pajamas (His head doesn't fit through the opening!)
• Make a chef's hat for Miles
• Make a masculine "dance" bag for Miles from an Amy Butler pattern I won from Crystal's giveaway many moons ago
  
• Do a custom order of headbands for a new client (10)
• When fabric arrives, make a handbag for brother in law's girlfriend
• Futz around trying to make some flower pins
• Make a reversible tissue box cover from an Amy Butler pattern I won from Crystal's giveaway many moons ago
  
• ??? Randomly find cool things I HAVE to make

I called my mom and offered to come over early on TG to help, so I feel a little better about that. Starting to figure out and purchase Christmas gifts. Maybe we will paint this weekend? We'll see what all we accomplish. Hopefully a little rest and relaxation too!

Happy TG

I am happy yet feeling a bit guilty that I/we are not doing Thanksgiving this year. There is so much going on around this time and I guess I'm just ready for a little break from it. My lovely mother is cooking and parents are hosting this year for our family and my husband's family. I had hoped to have our family help at a shelter this Thanksgiving, but I just never got around to figuring out the logistics of that. So maybe another day we can do that.

I have some projects (sewing and house cleaning) that need to get done tomorrow, so I may not be back to post until next week. Who knows. I did get some good mail, a new cute necklace and even broke down and bought myself a cute sweater and shoes today. Hope to post all pics at some point in the future.

For now I leave you with the above pic of our cute kids in their pilgrim outfits from preschool. Hope you have many blessing to be thankful for this year and in the future.

Busy Busy

I have been having fun creating simple crafts to donate for a fundraiser that will be held this Saturday. They had to be in tonight. So I guess I can stop being obsessed about it now. :-)

Here is a peak of some of the things I donated. I also gave them the two aprons, a handbag and a bunch of decorative pillows (that honestly have been sitting around in our storage area in a bag for a couple of years).

Tissue Cozies (Thanks Crystal for the tutorial).

Fabric Covered Magnets (Thanks Meg for the tutorial). I made some bigger ones too, but didn't take any pics of those.

Bag Tags (The fronts and backs are made of different fabrics - see next pick for them flipped over onto their fronts)

Now I need to FIX Miles' pajamas. I tried to get him to try on the top and it didn't fit over his head, despite the fact that I followed the directions to a T! So I need to figure out how to make it work. I'll be ripping stitches! I also have a show I'll be in Dec. 5 in my neighborhood, so I will probably feel as though I need to make more stuff for that. Though I think I'll feel like I need to make more complicated things. And I'm just not sure I have time for that.

I need to get the house in better order.

This weekend we are going to a Jason Mraz concert with our friends Nilsa and Dan. Should be fun. I hope I can take all that standing in a crowd, and being in a crowd. I'm not much of a crowd person... Should be fun! No really, it should be. We love this artist!!

Cute Miles Singing

Weekend Fun

Ella and Miles went to a Royal Princess Tea Party this Saturday. Ella got to dress up in her Halloween costume again. I'm all for getting as much use out of a Halloween costume as possible!

Some of the Princesses at tea.


Ella at the table.


After makeup and "manicure."


On Sunday, we headed out to the Field Museum of Natural History.

In front of the museum.


In front of Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex.


More Sue.


Miles demonstrating his new bad habit in front of Sue.


Fishy.


Goofing around with dad on Friday night.

...and Now I Can

Still haven't found the charger, but we have a point and shoot camera that I used to take some pics of the projects listed in my last post, and then some...

The Headbands

The Crate Covers

Three new aprons from a pattern from the shop at You Can Make This.

This is a child's version for Ella.

Now I'm FINALLY working on Miles' pajamas for his Christmas gift. I really should be finishing up some things for a fundraiser boutique for the weekend. Hopefully I'll have enough time to finish up some bag tags before Thursday. If you see anything (besides the crate covers and small apron) you'd like to buy to help "Teen Mother Choices" of Gurnee, let me know and I can get it to you before the boutique and forward the profits to the organization.

I have some cute family fun pics from the weekend that I hope to post on our family blog and here as well, when I get some more time!

I Wish I Could

Show you photos of my completed projects from yesterday, but the battery on our camera needs recharging. And the recharger and spare battery? MIA! And this time it wasn't me who lost them. At least I don't think so.

SO just imagine a row of completed headbands and two more milk crate covers on their crates.

Up for the weekend... A Royal Princess Tea Party for Ella to attend.

Sneak Peak Into Sewing Projects and An Afternoon with Good Friends

Here are just a couple... I have more fabric cut up and another project complete with two sets of fabric I just bought as well... AHHHH!

Milk Crate Covers (Cut and ready to Sew)

Tubes all sewn, just need to put the headbands all together.

This afternoon we met up with some very good friends at our local Burger King. I hadn't seen Tania in a while. They just adopted a sweet little boy a few months ago. Julia had a little boy a few months ago too. Tania is also in queue with a publisher to get another book of poetry published! I'll let you know when it is out. Though it may be a while. So exciting!

Kristi, Tania, Julia, Hannah

Sewing To Dos

- sew Miles' soccer pajamas (this design on the fabric makes me cringe, but he REALLY wanted it), my mom found a pattern for pajamas from her stash, so pattern was FREE!
- cut out fabric to make another "Home for the Holidays" pillow teacher's gift (I found out Ella has a teacher's aide)
- cut out more canvas fabric to make 2 more milk crate covers (the pretty fabric for the bottom is in the mail, courtesy of the Fabric Shoppe)
- cut out fabric for a bunch of headbands and luggage tags to whip up for a craft fair for the organization I volunteer for (Teen Mother Choice) and also make up some more booklets (that's not sewing but still along the same lines as far as free time goes)

Well, those are my short term goals! We'll see how much I can get done this week. Doll nightgown seems to have taken a back burner.

The weekend was nice. The temperatures dropped (which is not nice), but Saturday I got to go out with Ella to get some things at Target. She badly needed more socks and I have been looking for and FOUND two little baskets to fit perfectly under our bench in the hallway for the kids to put their winter garb into.


I want them to become responsible for putting away their own stuff and that would be impossible with where I put their stuff now (up high in the closet). They already have their own hooks for their coats and backpacks.


I also found a shelf for the basement which Jason can set his photo prints on. I found PERFECT sized boxes for the teacher's gifts at the Card Outlet. Then on the way home we stopped by the local quilt shop, which is changing hands and changing names. I talked to the new owner and gave her feedback on what fabrics I would buy if she carried them. Yay! I hope she gets some good stuff. She is already trying to phase out the civil war prints and Thimbleberries. On a sad note, I found out that a great aunt passed away from cancer in Missouri and my parents are now out there for the funeral. Sunday we went to a new church for the 3rd Sunday and I went to a really nice baby shower for a friend who is having TWIN girls! I didn't know anyone but the hostess and the mom to be. But that is ok. I pitched in and helped where I could. Another sad, but not as sad as it could have been thing for Sunday. A friend woke up with one side of her face paralyzed. The good news is that it wasn't a stroke. It was Bells Palsy, which is caused by a virus and her face could be like this for 24 hours to 2 months...

Hopefully I'll be back soon to show you some sewing results! And when I get the time, I plan to work on the pillow tutorial.

Teachers' Gifts

Crafters, looking for ideas for a small gift for the holidays?

Another project DONE! My mom forwarded me an email from the site YouCanMakeThis and I scrolled down a ways to find THE project I was going to make for the teachers at my children's preschool for a holiday gift! I had purchased some holiday fabric at the quilt store not knowing quite what I was going to do with it. But now it has found its purpose, well at least one of its purposes! (There is more left).

Lucky for me, my generous mom has an embroidery machine and she agreed to do up some of the front panel for me. She has also made up some for herself and has started working on some of these (with different fabric for the border and back) as gifts for some friends.

The colors I chose are not the traditional Christmas red and green, but I really like these. The sample shown on the website has cool jingle bell trim at the bottom, but I couldn't find anything like that. So I went to the home dec trim section of the fabric area at Hobby Lobby and found these little dangly things that I thought looked like ornaments. I love how they turned out.

This is a FREE pattern that you can find HERE. You just need to register with the site to get the free pattern directions and if you want to get the file for the machine embroidery you can get that too. Or you can do it by hand, the pattern for that is included in the instructions. Such a simple fun gift to make! Here is the sample you'll find on their site.

Pajamas (number 1 of 2 - apparently)

I saw this fabric at Joann's and it just pops out at me whenever I am standing in the back of the store by the flannels waiting for a kid or kids to go to the potty. So when it went on sale for $2.50 a yard, I bought it. After I found a pajama pattern from McCall's (M5744) which were all on sale for $0.99 each. And so, I have completed the pajamas for Ella's birthday present. She's seen the fabric, even tried on the almost complete product to size for waist and hems.



But I'm putting it in the storage area now. Back there where I keep the rest of the gifts I buy. Hoping she won't ask about it again. It won't be a total surprise. But I know it means lot to her that her mama made it. Which brings me to my second point. When Miles saw Ella trying these on, he exclaimed that he wanted me to make some for him in soccer ball fabric. Which warmed my heart. And so now I need to find a pattern and another good sale on the flannel. These are really quite easy to make. And I'm happy to do it for my own children regardless.

Next up, doll nightgown...

Oh, and Crystal, if you are reading this, this is the fabric of what scraps I sent you along with some other fabric if you haven't received it yet... :-)

Back to Life

Last week was a trying one, but I believe we are all stronger for it. It started with Jason being sick Monday, then Ella and I down on Wednesday. Miles went down late Wednesday and had it worse than any of us. It was a stomach bug that, for most of us lasted about 24 hours. But for Miles, by Friday he was lethargic, dehydrated and not real motivated to drink. He hadn't eaten for 2 days. He basically missed all of Halloween. Late Halloween night Jason could see how worried I was and offered to call the doctor to ask about him. This led to a trip to acute care where I was sure they'd give him an IV. But they didn't. They gave him an anti nausea drug and it did the trick. And all the next day I was thanking God to have my silly little guy back. We did manage to have fun watching Ella have fun on Halloween. She was a great trick or treater and candy passer outer.

Last week was also to be my first full week of teaching dance classes. But alas, I had to miss the Wednesday class. I will also start getting paid with a higher rate, which should help out with finances. I hope. It was to be the first week of the kids swimming classes for the new session. They'll have to catch up this week.

We DID get our kitten spade, get a new furnace (ah peace of mind!), take Jason's dad out for a milestone birthday dinner, get things done around the house. The last two were on the weekend when we were all better. The bathrooms upstairs are sanitized and cleaned up, with the exception of the blinds, need to find an easier way to clean those. I'm trying to get the entire house clean and organized, but it seems to be a losing battle! I did TONS of laundry too, which seems to grow exponentially on the day I think I should be done.

This week I have so much gratitude for my husband. He stayed home to watch our son while Ella and I were sick and in bed. He brought me a pastry Saturday morning when he came home from a breakfast date with a friend. He cleaned the kitchen, garage and put up shelves in the basement closet. I'm sure I'm missing something, but wanted to give a shout out to him.



During my down times (before bed) I am reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. It is quite a page turner and I'm already half way through. Other recent reads were Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden and Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See.

Mini Wallet Winner

The winner is... Aldara!

Sorry it took so long to get around to picking a winner. We've had a crazy week/weekend with illnesses including my son in the ER. We are all good now and glad to have each other healthy again.