New Blouse – New Display

I obtained a pattern for a peasant type blouse for Ella a while back and recently decided I couldn’t live without Anna Maria Horner’s Fortune Fabric from her Good Folks collection. And so the two met and became this:

Since I have a picture of Ella in her new top at the library, I’ll take this time to Brag on her! Ella is quite the reader for a 5 year old. She is the best reader in her Kindergarten class, according to her teacher. The other night she read a book to me and I was astonished at the big words she was able to decipher with ease. She is now reading Because of Winn-Dixie, a children's novel by Kate DiCamillo. Yes… a novel. I read her this book last year. I am thrilled! Literacy opens such a world to people and reading is something that I enjoy immensely. Since I’m already bragging, I will also add that she loves math. She will make up problems adding several numbers together and then solve them. She has a much better memory than I, for which I am thankful. She is already memorizing addition facts and complex bible verses. And I am totally not pushing her on this, it is all her. I am just here to encourage and provide resources to quench her thirst for knowledge.

Finally, at the solicited suggestion of a friend, I redid my potholder display so as to have a neutral background. I used ModPodge to adhere some very affordable burlap.

Before:

After:

I do think it makes a difference and I am quite please with the resulting look. Now I’m off to make even more potholders. Have a great Wednesday and remember to thank a Veteran!

Special Deliveries...

Our friends went camping in Door County of the weekend and, per our request, brought back a bowl from our favorite Door County potter Renee of Off the Wheel Pottery for us. Gail brought it over today when she dropped her son James off for me to babysit. We purchased a beautiful utensil holder from her last year. Not only talented, she's a real sweet woman too. She does a lot of these etchings (graffitto technique) in her folk style art.

Second delivery was from UPS and much awaited by both Jason and me. It is the photo book we made through "Blurb". (no I didn't just burp, that is the name of the company) This is the company that you will reach if you try to make a photo book through FLICKR. We were a bit underwhelmed by the photo book we made and purchased last year from WinkFlash, so we decided to try a new company. I almost went with Shutterfly. Not sure why I didn't, but as it turns out, I really like the result and I believe the cost was at least half as much. Here are some examples of the final product: (be sure to click on the pics to see the detail in the larger photos)

Front of book

First page

Notice how we incorporated some of Ella's drawings into the book. We just scanned them and added them in as if they were photos!

Back of book

It is just amazing that they can put photos of your choosing (YOUR photos) on the front and back covers of a hardbound book. Other book options are paperback with photos on the cover, and hardbound with a plain cover and photos on your dust cover. There are other sizes you can order as well. They have an AMAZING free software package that helps you put your book together with many layouts and background choices and text placement. Photos can easily and conveniently be uploaded from FLICKR or other photo hosting sites. Or you can upload right from your computer. I liked getting them right from FLICKR because they were all organized into our "Best Of" instead of having to go back and pick from ALL of them. And if you want, you can list your book for sale and make some money if anyone buys a copy. Great for photographers or writers... I highly recommend Blurb if you are looking to make a photo book. And I highly recommend making a photo book. It can be time consuming, but it is really worth it in the end.

Books, Book and New Dress for Ella

Today we met Jason at the Chicago Botanic Garden for lunch, so enjoy a couple of flower photos I took....

For some reason, I'm having trouble putting together a synopsis of our vacation. I think it is because reviewing it will make it more real that it is over! I've really had a hard time coming back to everyday normal life. So for now I will just say we had an excellent excellent vacation. As I said to Jason, it seemed like real summer. Northern Michigan is a beautiful, wonderful place to visit in the summer. If you are interested in looking at lots of pics go here or for the best of go here.

Recently I've finished 3 books.

*The Posionwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver was good but hard to enjoy. It was written through the voices of 5 people, a woman and her 4 daughters. Personally, I have trouble keeping track of who's who, but that's just me. After many chapters I finally caught on. Also the book goes at different paces. At first it seems slow and a bit uneventful, then it gets quicker and very event filled, finally it skips ahead in time very quickly not once, but many times. I stilled learned quite a bit from it, so I would say it was worth reading.

*Next I read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. This one I loved so much I don't want to give it away for someone to read, which is what I often like to do with books I've finished. It is set at the time of the Civil Rights Movement and is about a girl who runs away from an abusive father (actually more so to help a friend in trouble) and who had a mother who died when she was very young. Throughout, she struggles with whether her mother loved her and even if her father loves her. She finds a new family in an unusual but warm group of women/sisters and learns to mother herself.

*Finally I read The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Um, I couldn't put it down, and I'm a little embarrassed, it was a complete train wreck, kind of like a soap opera. What I liked about it the most was that it made me appreciate that we are not in a very high social class and what often comes with being in that class as far as priorities (which I believe are all out of whack). Apparently it was made into a movie and I didn't even know. Jason tells me he heard the movie was bad.

The second Book in the title refers to Facebook. I joined after Jason had been on for a while and was connecting with lots of old friends. I haven't kept in touch with a ton of old friends but through Facebook I have reconnected with some. Most recently, kind of by fluke, I found my college roomate. She has a new last name and I could barely see the tiny avatar type picture by her name: Katy "Different Last Name than her Maiden Name". I found her in a search of the college class I graduated from. So I sent her a message asking if her maiden name was that of my roomate's. Amazingly it was her! So I heard back from her this morning and she seemed happy to have connected. We were roomates for FOUR years, so we had some rough patches at times and senior year was probably the hardest. But we had a lot of good times in there too. And I've been looking for her off and on through the years.

Are you on Facebook? Have you met any long lost friends?

I made a VERY simple dress for Ella out of some fabric I LOVE. I wanted it to be straight and simple but when it was done I was a little worried it looked kinda Mu mu-ish. Jason tended to agree. BUT then when I was at the local Farmer's Market today with the kids a woman asked me if it was a particular designer (Zutano) and I was just beaming as I told her that I made it myself and she said it was beautiful. Well it was probably because of the fabric, but still. Maybe the style isn't too bad. She's just a little girl!

Love her cute catalog model poses!

One other thing... I have always wanted to plan a baby shower. I have cut ideas out of magazines, really cute ideas. I almost had the chance once, but then didn't. So now my mom is going to throw a shower for the kids of one of her friends down the street. She has asked for my help and I hope that I can be involved in some of the ideas. I just saw an idea for homemade invitations on a blog today and sent the URL to her to see what she thinks. I love them because they involve fabric, buttons and sewing on paper and the mother of the expectant couple is a seamstress. For a peak, go here and here. I may be sharing more of the ideas with you on the blog over time.

Oh and another thing. I picked up some artwork I had framed today and LOVE the outcome. I have had the most luck taking my art to JoAnn Superstore to get framed. Not so much at Michaels. I've also learned to think about what I'm looking for before I taking the art into the framing department. So yeah, I'll post a pic later.

New Item to Go into Shop

I think these are so cute. I consulted with a fellow Etsy friend, I did a some Etsy research and decided I'm going to try selling them there.




These are pincushions, but could also be used as decorative accents or little decorator doll pillows. Any other ideas for uses?


In other news I sold a bulk order of Creative Little Notebooks in the shop! I'm so excited! They will be off to England this morning!

More Booklets - Great Mother's Day Gift!

Looking for a Mother's Day gift? Come check out my store...

I have had a ton of my Creative Little Booklets sitting around waiting to get into my shop for quite some time now. I was going to list them each one day at a time. By doing so, my item du jour will stay near the top of a search. But finally I just said "Forget it!" I listed a bunch from the Amy Butler Paper line. Take a look n my shop!

Here is a sneak peak...

The Red Tent - Anita Diamant

I am currently reading the above book The Red Tent. I am basically going through a list of the book club I belong to (but can't attend because of my standing volunteer event "Lifeskills Workshop for Teen Mother Choices" on Thursdays) of books that were read and discussed before I joined the group. It seems that the majority of the books I've read from the list so far have been historical fiction (which I LOVE). This one is included in that category.

I am almost halfway into the book and I am LOVING it! It is written through the voice of Dinah, a woman only briefly mentioned in Genesis (of the Bible). She is the daughter of Jacob, who is the son of Issac and Rebecca and brother of Esau. It is fiction but really paints a beautiful and clear picture of the times,trials and lives of the characters from the time. It really focuses on the women and their relationships and how they fit into the culture. They really have interesting and overall strong relationships and support each other, especially through pregnancies and births. Through Dinah's "voice", I feel her pain, her joys and her fears. The writing is almost poetic and just lovely to read.

It looks as though since writing this book Diamant has written two other novels, most of her other books are non-fiction and are about modern Jewish life and Jewish traditions. I am glad, at least in this novel as I know it so far, that she ventured into fiction!

The book I read before this (last week) was Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. At first I was a bit taken aback by some of the more mature material in the book, but overall it turned out to be a amazing tale of adventure, trials, animal rights and a sweet love story. I would recommend it as well.

I have also noticed that any book by Jodi Picoult is popular as none are left on the shelf at the library. I'm going to have to put one on hold if I want to read it. I am currently interested in three...

The Pact
My Sister's Keeper and
Change of Heart

I love to be reading more regularly again (as of last week). I took a time out when I was all anxious about Miles' potty training, but now that that is under control, I feel free to read again.

It's better than TV.