Blog Award

My blog friend Kristin gave me an award! The rules are to tell the world 5 things about myself. Things that I like to do. Then I have to give the Award on to 10 more people who have a great blog (unfortunately, I doubt that any of the people whose blogs I read would do this for me, but I'll still list them...)





OK, so 5 things about me:





1. I love to cook, but I hate eggs. Have you ever read "Bread & Jam for Frances"? When she sings the songs about how gross eggs are I TOTALLY agree with her. This makes it tough to read the book to my 3 picky eaters and say things like "she should try them- I'm sure she'd like them!"





2. My Daddy is my hero. He is probably the most awesome guy I'll ever meet. Even with his many flaws (he's human after all) the good things make him my hero. Like today, when I'm making my lunch and he's sitting at the kitchen table with my son, patiently explaining the parts of the 1955 Ford Thunderbird model (a gift from Kitty- THANKS Kitty!). "You see, that's called a bumperette, and it was for in case you had an accident and...." "what's that? That's the shift. The car has four gears plus reverse." I'm in awe of the way that he explains things to my son, and how they "build" things together. Everyone should have a Grandpa Bruce!





3. My biggest dream vacation is to take my family to Sicily, and see the town that my grandparents came from.





4. If given the option, I'd do nothing but crafts all day long. Right now I can't stop thinking about Christmas gifts and what I should be making.





5. I have an irrational fear of death. I'm paranoid that I'll get cancer, or in a car accident. Seriously irrational amounts of fear. Basically, being a single mom means that I'm always worried about what would happen to my kids if something bad happens to me, and I'm totally and completly irrational about the things that I worry about.



Here's a list of my "Top 10" reads: (see the sidebar for the links)
Everyday Creativeness
French Knots
Rainy Day Kisses
Crazy Mom Quilts
V&Co
Pleasant Home
Tallgrass Prairie Studio
Bunny Tales
Everyday Crochet
PS I quilt
Freda's Hive

Let me know if you have any favorite blogs I'm missing out on!

more sewing projects

There are few words to convey my excitement over this project....

MY FIRST REAL QUILT!!!!

It's a baby quilt that I made for a good friend's daughter. After I made it I found out that it's the only handmade quilt she has... my kids each have 2, plus afghans for each. (All made by friends/family- I was too busy having the kids!) Anyway, I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out and I'm so pleased to know that it is special to her as well. The fabric is several years old, from Joann's that I got on clearance because I'd just had my second daughter and knew that I could "use it". 5 yrs. later I'm finally making something and it's not for my own kid :)

Next up, Daddy's father's day gift-

That's a chaise lounge in my parent's room, and it couldn't be more perfect there. I used charm squares from Cotton Blossoms. I'm in L-O-V-E with that line. I wanted to do a sepia photo of Daddy's boat, and iron it on in the middle. After several attempts where the iron-on image looked like junk, I just traced it and embroidered it instead. Perfect. Dad thinks so too!

Hopefully more crafty goodness next weekend. I have 3 tops cut out but not yet sewn together, and that is the priority for the next sewing day.

Hope you have a great day-

C.

Nine year olds...

OK, I know that she's a "tween" and all that, but really do we need the attitude at NINE? Today was the VBS final prayer service/"show", where both of my daughters were singing and showing off their knowledge of the Saints. Should've been sweet and wonderful, right? So then why was my oldest giving me the stink-eye in CHURCH???? I'm so not getting the mother of the year award!

(For anyone wondering, my offense was two-fold- first, I was there, second, I was WATCHING her.... how that makes me so horrible I will never know!)

Happy Friday!

Lisa

This is my kitchen window....



Every morning when I'm making the lunches I appreciate this little African Violet which was a gift from Lisa. The "watering can" -slash- shotglass next to it was the favor at her wedding 20 years ago. Lisa has been one of my best friends for my entire life, and I doubt that she knows how much I think about her every single day. She's been my shoulder to cry on, my confidante and my reading buddy. I convinced her to give Harry Potter a try, she convinced me to read Twilight... and then we both gave up doing housework for about a year in favor of just reading like maniacs. Hmm.. maybe we aren't that good for each other? Our kids are close in age, and they are all friends too. I can only hope that when they are older they will be as close as Lisa and I are. In a lot of ways, we are very different, and I appreciate having her for a second opinion. Lisa is great at making friends, and she always makes sure to include me and make me feel welcome. This is especially wonderful for me, because I have a really hard time making friends... so this post is for Lisa. To say a big public THANKS (even though you're the only one who actually reads my blog) and also for any one else who might be reading, I hope that you have a Lisa in your life too.

My To Do List

1. Field trip at the zoo in torrential downpour - check
2. walk into a wall in the middle of the night - check

The fat lip is particularly attractive with the runny nose from walking around for 2 hrs. in the rain. Wow, can you see the line of eligible bachelors knocking on my door?

EVEN BETTER....
Today is our church festival. So everyone gets to enjoy the fat lip with me. Every kid in school AND their parents!

Hope the weekend is better than the end of the week, and hope you have a great weekend too!

some photos

First, my sundress that I made... I think I look a little chubby in it, but it's very comfy. Pretty much backless though, so I had to wear a jacket for work. The dress is a simplicity pattern for a halter top that I made longer into a dress.

Next, the dish towels that I embellished for Jane's Birthday- the fabric is from Moda, called "Fresh". I love the tulips- just so springtime!

Last, the tote that I made for mom. I wish that I would've boxed the corners, but other than that I love it. The interior is a remnant from Joann's, and the exterior is a pair of dish towels I got for $1.25 from Target. I really love Target...

The gifts were a success- mom & Jane both seemed happy, so I'm really happy that I finished them.

Now I'm looking forward to a fun weekend with my sister, b-i-l and neice and nephew. We've got lots of good things planned... food, sun, fun, sailing... I just have to remember to bring the camera. I'm really bad about taking photos!

Hope your long weekend is as fun as mine :)

Woo Hoo!

I finished a bag for mom last night! I took some horrible photos, which I'll be posting later tonight. Note to self: finish projects earlier! Lighting at night is not that good for pictures!

Hopefully tonight I can finish Jane's gift. It's more than 1/2 way finished now, so things are looking good.

We've been reading a lot of "Magic Tree House" books lately, so I'm ending my post with a quote from one of my favorite characters, Teddy....

ONWARD!

Hope you have a great day!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Tomorrow is mom's birthday, and hopefully tonight I'll actually finish making her gift. This may be a night for coffee instead of sleep.... especially since my dear friend Jane has a birthday on Friday... wish me luck that I finish the gifts! If I do, photos will be posted tomorrow.

Missing them...

So, my kids are in Florida for spring break, and I'm stuck working... being a grown up sucks. I haven't done as much as I'd like to for the first two days without kids. The basement is still a disgrace, and the forecast is 80 degrees for Saturday. I feel my motivation for cleaning on Saturday going down the drain! On a positive note, I can wear my brand new MADE BY ME sundress on Saturday. That is what I did on Sunday, make a dress. Yesterday I cut out another dress and 2 pairs of pants, so maybe by the end of the week there will be a post with photos of the new spring wardrobe! I need to look good for all the hugs and kisses I plan on getting next week when they come home.

Twilight

I haven't written about how much I LOVE the Twilight Saga. It's like I'm a crazed teenager! Good to know that there are lots of ladies my age who feel the same way though. There's a few of them I'm lucky to call my friends, and we got together last month to visit and do a Twilight craft. Well, the visiting and 2 bottles of Champagne made the crafting not happen (I didn't mind a bit!) so I made pendants for the girls and they finally got delivered yesterday!

First, the box I gave them to L in:

I found the valentine via one of the blogs (sorry I can't remember which one) and pasted it onto a BonTon jewelry box.
As you can see, we are a group of 7 (my own is in my jewelry box, the ones in the picture are for my friends) Two of the girls are actually Jacob fans- I love them anyway, even if they are slightly misguided! The wolf girls got the wolf pendants and the rest say "team edward". This was a fun little project, and really easy to do in my "spare" time. They are just like the ones that I made for the girls dance teachers, only Twilight themed- so fun!

Hope you are having a great day-

Christine

Crafty Fun

So, what do you do when your birthday girl (my oldest turned NINE yesterday!) is home with a fever and it's her BIRTHDAY?? Well, if you're me, you go into the basement and try to find a fun, relaxing craft to keep her mind off of it.

Make your own candles! I bought this "Candle Magic" candle wax in approximately 1996 from Michael's. I have no idea if they are still selling this stuff. I had this cute mold to make star shaped candles, you just melt the wax and put the wick in the center and voila, a handmade candle. Except that they were hard to make and they looked like a 2 yr. old had done them and if you were paying attention at the beginning my oldest just turned nine, so I didn't have any 2 year olds to blame for the cruddy looking candles. So the wax sat in my basement. Then it moved to my next house, the storage space and finally my new house. I really want to use up some of the ridiculous quantity of craft supplies that I own, so this was a perfect project for yesterday! In case you can't tell from the photo, the jars are from baby food. We didn't have to melt the wax, because we put it into the glass jar, and it melts as you use it. Both of the girls loved making the candles, and we are going to burn them at dinner every night per their request. I love a good crafty project that makes everyone happy and isn't even all that messy!

Hope your day is full of fun too!

PS- for those worried about my daughter, seems that the fever was a "24 hour" thing. She's just fine today, enjoying the extra vacation day from school!

Twice in one week???

Mommy, this one is for you, but anyone else can feel free to read on!

A couple of weeks ago there was a baby shower for my cousin, and these are the gifts from Mom and me:


A laundry basket filled with goodies!

3 pc pajama set

baby hooded towels with matching washcloths

Blanket #1 (made by yours truly) - a safari theme, complete with hand embroidered onesie to match....

Blanket #2: a train theme with another coordinating onesie...

and a burp cloth that matches the safari stuff...


I really missed my mom and sister at the shower... family functions aren't the same without them! However, I had a great visit with my other cousins, and that was very good. Plus they gave me cake. Any day with cake is a good day!

Photos- finally

Well, you thought you'd never get to see the gifts I made for Christmas this year, but it only took me a month to put the photos up!

For my middle daughters teachers, a bag
and a scarf

For my oldest's teachers a scarf

and a bag

For my sister in law (and best bud) a scarf

with matching cup cozy (shown with a starbucks cardboard cozy so you'd know what it was! Otherwise it looks like a weird spider-ish thing)

for the dance teachers- these are glass pendants and a pair of earrings. Unfortunately they did not photograph well. But, you get the idea. All I can say is that they are cuter in person!

I've got to find some photos for another post of the pj's that I made for one niece and nephew and the sweater/skirt combo I made for the other niece, and the mailman bag that I made for my nephew. Maybe my sister and sister in law will help me out with those....

Until next time- have a great day!

Also, if you want a gift like one of these for your upcoming birthday, now is a good time to comment on this post and request one :)

Happy New Year!

OK, the month is practically half over and I'm just now getting around to my new year post. Sad! So far in 2009, being a single mom is kicking my butt. I've tried to be as upbeat as possible, but I have to say that the past couple weeks, I'm just failing miserably. Today was the 3rd time since Christmas that the girls almost missed the bus. I've been late to work nearly every day since Christmas break... and the list goes on. Forgotten things, general unrest. My goal is to get my life in order by the end of January. I've made some progress this weekend, and I'm planning on working for 1 hour a day to get ORGANIZED. Later this week I'll be sure to post the photos, but this is what I made for Christmas projects this year:

For the dance teachers - pendants
For Miss Wendy at the dance studio - earrings
For the teachers at school- 2 crochet scarves and 2 tote bags
For my sister in law- a crochet scarf and matching cup cozy
For my niece and nephew- matching pj's
For my other niece- a crocheted sweater, a sewn skirt and some store bought tights
For my nephew- a mailman bag
For my own kids - matching pj's

It was a lot of fun making all those goodies, and I'm looking forward to making lots more! I've decided that I'm going to spend one hour a day on my own projects, just selfish "me" time. For January it's all about organizing. Then for the rest of the year, I'm all about the crafting! Especially sewing in my kick butt sewing room- after just one hour this weekend, I'm seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, and I can picture how great it's going to be to have the huge sewing table cleared off and filled with actual sewing instead of boxes of junk. There's still 19 days in January- that's 19 HOURS of organizing. My house should be perfect after that!

Hope you are having a great day!

Blog break

OK, you've probably already noticed that I'm taking a blog break for the month of December. I just have too much to do, and really so should you. December is the most wonderful month of the year because you get to share joy and love with all of the important people in your life. Be an elf. Make cocoa. Even better- make cocoa with someone cute and small. Give handmade gifts to the grandparents & teachers. They'll appreciate them more than other stuff anyway. And find a way to squeeze in something for those in need. Today I made a gingerbread man for the United Way. It was a $2 donation, small & almost insignificant...except it was so significant because I did it for someone else. Even people like me, who are not in the best financial circumstances, can still do something for others.

OK, off my soapbox and back to the blog break.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Thankfulness

This week I'm especially thankful for:

- my children, and their good health
- my family- I had a wonderful party this weekend, and I had such fun being with them. My family is the best. So supportive and loving, and I couldn't be luckier there.
- my job- OK, it's not my dream job, but it's A job, and I'm thankful for the flexibility to work and still be home at almost the same time my kids hop off the bus.
- my sister in law- for letting me borrow Twilight & New Moon. By the way- I've finished New Moon already, so tell your friend with #3 to get moving on the reading :)
- my friend from Switzerland- my swap box arrived this weekend and I promise photos are coming soon but I totally made out! Wait till you see the lovely goodies that Kristin sent to me!

This time of year is so busy I sometimes forget to tell people how much I love them and how happy I am to have them be a part of my life- hopefully this post will remind me of my good fortune in the weeks to come!

Have a great day!

Friday Fill In

I saw this on my friend Kristin's blog, and thought I'd do the "Friday Fill In" http://fridayfillins.blogspot.com/ so here goes:

1. The last band I saw live was _____________.
Don't laugh too loudly, but I think it was "The Wiggles". We took our oldest to the show about 4 years ago... and I think that was more recent than "KISS" (the Psychocircus tour) which is the last big concert that I went to...

2. What I look forward to most on Thanksgiving is _________.
Playing "pin the feather on the turkey" with my little ones. My oldest made the feathers and turkey a couple years ago, and it's become a tradition. A goofy one that I look forward to!

3. My Christmas/holiday shopping is __________.
Going way too slowly- because I'm planning on a fairly handmade holiday, and haven't had nearly enough time for handmaking anything!

4. Thoughts of _____________ fill my head.
Sewing and crochet projects... the handmade holidays again!

5. I wish I could wear ______________.
I have to agree with Kristin on this one, I wish that I could pull off pretty dresses. Sometimes I wear dresses to work, but generally I don't. I love the look of long floral dresses that are floaty and pretty, but really they don't fit into my lifestyle at all!

6. Bagpipes ________.
? Bagpipes aren't exactly in my daily life, I've got nothing here.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to _____, tomorrow my plans include _____ and Sunday, I want to _____!

Tonight I'm going to go to Twilight with my sister-in-law, tomorrow it's laundry, cleaning and crafting, with a little birthday cake thrown in for good measure, and Sunday I want to relax, but instead I'm taking my kids to church. This is something that I do every week, even though it is not like I actually get to pray or even think about the Lord. Instead I say "Shhh!!", and try to get them not to argue about whose turn it is to sit on my lap, and please don't kick the pew in front of us, and oh yea, could we get that chuck of breakfast out of your hair?... I'm like the sideshow at mass!

That's it for my Friday fill ins. Hope you have a great weekend!

Five today!

SO, today is the big day for my middle baby! I finished sewing up her new pants last night, and then I went all super mom and added a headband to match (from the Little Birdie Secrets tutorial) She was quite pleased. This morning we had the ultimate breakfast- Pillsbury's Cinnamon Buns- with lots of gooey frosting. Then she opened Aunt B's card- it was so cute and even better than last month's card for my son. Of course my oldest said "I can't wait until my birthday to see what kind of card Aunt B. makes for me!" (get working on that big sister!) More posts with pictures of the pants/headband ensemble coming tomorrow :)

Have a great day!

Weekend Update

Well, I didn't quite make it to the level of most of the blogs that I read- I did however work on a bunch of really cute craft projects this weekend! No photos yet- I'm so lame- but I worked on the baby quilt for Stephanie & Gerry's baby (she came 9 weeks early, so I was completely unprepared!). The quilt is coming along though and it's going to be adorable! I have 2 of the 3 strips pieced, and I need to just sew them to the middle strip and then the top will be finished. This could realistically be done tonight! I also made a pair of pants for my middle daughter. She is turning 5 this week and she wants to wear them on her birthday, so I'll get photos then. I also started the tote bag for my oldest's teacher's Christmas gift, and continued work on the "Mrs. D Scarf" that I designed for the Kindergarten teacher. Whoo, that's alot of crafting!!

After reading a lot of blogs, I've got to come up with some cute blog names for my babies. I don't want to put their real names in this- it seems quite unsafe even with only about 3 readers of my blog. So, friends, any good ideas? The 3 people who might read this know my kids pretty well, so I bet you can come up with cute names for them... I'll also work on it.

More posts soon- have a GREAT day!

Just some random thoughts

I've been lurking around blog-land for awhile now, and I can only say that I'm feeling a little, well, lacking. I mean, there are all of these amazing women out there who not only DO the crafts projects that they are dreaming about, but they photograph them and write up tutorials too. So, today I was feeling a little bit depressed because I just dream of doing all these projects, but my "finished object" pile is much much smaller than my UFO pile.

So, instead of focusing on what I'm not doing, I'm taking a minute to write about the things that I am doing, and to remember that they are the important things. Today baby boy told me he loves me 16 times before I went to work. The first words he said to me- "I LOVE you Mommy", and 15 more times before I dropped him off for the day. Oldest daughter went to school with a smile, and she didn't complain once all morning. Middle daughter gave me the world's best hug when she woke up, and snuggled up in my lap for a full 3 min. before running around like a normal kid :) They may not be the best dressed, or have the most expensive toys, but they are loved and they are happy, what more could I ask for? And who knows, maybe this weekend I'll actually finish unpacking their toys, and all the other stuff that is sitting in the basement... maybe I'll even do a little sewing which is what I'm dying to do... but instead of making the teacher's christmas gifts I'm thinking that it's time to make those girls a little present- and their baby brother too!