Tea Towel Tour

I finished another towel today. I did Bluesparkie's towel and her theme was fallen women and mushrooms. So this is what I came up with.

Also, I'm very happy to announce that a secret has been unveiled. Jenny of Sublime Stitching had begun the Tea Towel Tour in an attempt to received feedback on a new towel she was developing. Well the original disappeared during the tour and hasn't been found. So a few of us on Craftster.org got together to make her a replacement. Well, it is finally competed and it has been delivered to Jenny. So we are not keeping it a secret any longer. Here's a link to pictures of the towel being given to Jenny. Here's a picture of just the thing I embroidered.

SPRING

I

FOUND

SPRING!!!

Happy International Waffle Day!

Yep, that's right! It's International Waffle Day!
I unfortunately don't have a waffle iron, or even frozen waffles, so the boys and I are trudging in the freshly falling snow (yep, more snow) across the street to enjoy a waffle cone ice cream!

Easter

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend, and those who celebrate had a wonderful Easter. My boys were absolutely spoiled. We had 4 Easter celebrations to go to which unfortunately means that my family's really misses out. We had a little bunny search at 6 in the morning on Easter Sunday. I make my husband and children hop around the house looking for their things. It's quite entertaining, and they don't bug me while I finish getting ready for church.


I teased this in the last post, I made my nieces "Snuggle bunnies" for easter. I then also gave them 2 Smencils each. The boys are selling them for a fundraiser at school, and I thought they'd be fun. I gave Clover a hat instead of the Smencils as she's a bit young for writting. The girls all loved the bunnies and the Smencils. Clover especially loved the bunny, she definitely got the point of them being called "Snuggle bunnies". I wish I would have had my camera that day. She was just loving it up! Here they are all finished.


And because my niece Jo insists on getting her picture taken, and posing in this exact pose. I figured I'd induldge. So here's Jo after she suckered Grandpa into buying her every Easter accessory possible.

Spring?

I don't know about you, but this doesn't look like "Happy Spring" to me.

This is the view out the front of my house. We hardly had any snow left. Now we're supposed to get up to 9 inches!

The kids are excited because they think it will be much easier to find footprints and brightly colored eggs tomorrow and Sunday. I think they may be right.

I know I haven't been posting many projects, it's been busy, but don't worry, I'm taking advantage of the yucky weather. Can you tell what I'm making?

I'm hoping I'll have a chance to finish these, and start on an Easter skirt for me.

The boys and I were supposed to decorate eggs today. (Tim really dislikes this,) but they decided to go with Daddy to work (seriously the most boring place in the world to me, but they love it.) So we'll have to do that tonight. We have an early Easter breakfast in the morning, another Easter celebration at noontime. Then we have 2 more on Sunday. So it's a go-go-go weekend again for us. I hope you all have a wonderful Easter if you celebrate, and I certainly hope it looks more like spring for you than it does for me!

Liam's 9th Birthday Cake

I wasn't sure I was going to post this as it ended up being a bit of a disaster. The cake was delicious. A lovely chocolate cake with a cheesecake type center. And it even looked cute, until something fell on it. Right before singing and pictures and everything. I was bummed, but Liam I could tell was too. He was dreaming of a dragon cake. So I told him I'll make him another one sometime soon. Anyway, here's the cake in all it's broken glory!

We fixed it up a bit, and I guess it doesn't look horrible. But not what was intended. Oh well, like I said it was delicious, and another reason to make another cake in the near future!

Liam is 9!!

Ok, this is a bit late, his birthday was on Saturday, but we've been busy! So this is his birthday post!



LIAM IS 9!!


BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH was right!
28 hours of induced labor......... absolutely worth it!


Liam is the funniest, most creative, "expert at every-nothing"! He is a story teller. Thoughtful, sensitive, shy at times, bold at others, he is my "Lemur".






I think Liam has had more nicknames than anyone else I know.



When he was born he was far more portly than Levi had been, (which in all honesty isn't portly at all.) So we called him Bubba, boy if there was ever a name that didn't fit a child!


(Ok, maybe in this picture it does.)




He tells people that he's named after the Lemurs (kinda monkey-like creatures, total bull by the way!)

If you need to feel happy, here's the kid to talk to. He can make you smile with nothing but a look.





This man loves origami, yet doesn't care to follow the directions (no idea where he gets that from,) so my house is filled with random papers that are folded and "look" like stuff.



He certainly keeps us going!


Can't wait to see what the next year brings! Love you Liam!

Rainbows

My son's birthday is on Saturday, so we are pretty much obligated to bring a birthday snack to every event this week and next. I have been running out of things to bring. Most of them are healthy and fairly boring. Ants on a log (celery with peanut butter and raisins,) apples, oranges, carrots with hummus, etc... but you have to throw in a few fun ones once in awhile. So today for DI this is what he's bringing. It's rainbow finger jello. It takes way to long to make, but it is so easy you really don't do any thinking, so that way it sort of balances out.

There was a purple layer, but I let that one set up too long, so the blue jello didn't stick to it.

Here's the recipe if you're interested-


Rainbow Jello
For each layer you need;
one 6oz box or 2- 3oz boxes of flavored Jello/other brands gelatin
just under 1 cup of water or juice
1/4 cup cream

In a microwave safe measuring cup (like a pyrex) microwave 1 cup juice/water for 1 minute. Mix in 1st layer's jello, I used grape. Mix and mix until all granules are dissolved. Stir gently for another minute or so. Add 1/4 cup of cream. Mix gently. Put in a 9X13 inch glass pan. Place in refrigerator.
Immediately microwave second layer's water/juice. Repeat with second color jello (blue raspberry for me). Mix well, wait a minute or so and then mix in cream. See if jello has set in fridge, you want it to be tacky, but not wet (Mine set up too long so that's why you don't see any purple on my jello) Pour this layer on last layer.
Repeat with subsequent layers
Lime
Lemon (which I couldn't find, and didn't want to use pineapple, so I got this melon flavor which is light green, and I added yellow food coloring)
Orange
Strawberry

Let the whole thing set up for 4 hours or so, cut into squares. Dip bottom of pan in warm water for a second if you need help removing from pan.

Taste the rainbow.... ok I know that's skittles, but I couldn't help myself.

Lunchbox Swap!

I am participating in Oh Fransson's Lunchbox Swap, and I'm so excited! I have been wanting to make lunchboxes/bags for so long, and this is the perfect excuse to make a cute one before I have to make ones for my boys (not generally as cute and girly.) The flickr group is here. She made some amazing lunch bags for a pillowcase challenge, which is what I believe sparked to whole thing (shown on the button.) I can't wait!

Deepest Appologies

If you remember a month or so back I made a carved stamp for my niece's birthday. I never claimed the image was mine, I actually found the image on another blog. On that blog they were offering the image up for free use. I thought it was cute, simple and looked very much like my niece. I have since found out that whomever had that blog (which I have been unable to relocate,) had taken the image from Magda at Craft Pudding. She very politely informed me that it was against her copyright to take and post her image. I informed her of how I obtained the image and apologized. I wanted to add the apology to my blog so others knew of what happened. When I see things up for free use, I usually have no problems using them, but now I will think twice, and maybe do a bit more searching before I use these images. I also wanted to thank Magda on her very polite and wonderful way that she informed me of my error. If it had been my images being used I could see me getting very upset and publicly (possibly) calling that person out, in the heat of anger. She didn't do that. She sent me a private message informing me and politely asking me to take down my images, which I have done. I never felt demeaned or embarrassed. This is the sign of a wonderful person in my book, who took the time to think of me and my feelings before acting. I would urge you to all go to Craft Pudding's Etsy shop and if you find something you like there (very cute stamps) know that you are getting something from a very professional person. And I even found she's from my state too!

Thank you Magda and again I'm sorry.

Tea Towel Tour Again

I realized, there will probably be a lot of these posts for awhile. This is Sew~Amy's towel from the craftster.org swap. She wanted an underwater/sewing notions theme.

Here is the whole towel so far, sew~amy did the one on the right, mine is in the middle, and UrsulaDiamond is on the left.

Here's mine a bit closer. The chest is full of sewing notions.

Tea Towel Tour

I finished UrsulaDiamonds heart for the tea towel tour. I read while stalking her that she likes Kewpie dolls, so I did a stitching Kewpie doll. It turned out kind of cute.



Here's the heart in it's entirety that she sent me. You can see the diamond that she stitched on the bottom.

DI Weekend

Well, I've been a little MIA since we had our DI regionals this weekend. We had practice everyday last week, and I got a touch overwhelmed. Absolutely no crafting on my part really, only supervising.


When it was all said and done, Liam's team had some major issues, however still ended up taking 1st! We didn't think they had a shot after all of the problems they encountered, but it was a really hard challenge, so not many teams signed up, and the ones that did all had difficulties. Also they kicked some butt (as I've been told) on their Instant Challenge. So they are going to State in April. I will now be co-managing their team to help out their main coach.

Here's half of Liam's team with their trophy. I am so proud of them, mine is the second from the left.

Lore's team did amazing. (I coach this one) It was their first year for all of them. They kicked butt as far as acting is concerned. No one knew that they missed a very large portion of their skit. The covered so well. Their costumes and etc... was all quite amazing too. The 2 biggest problems that they had were that part that they skipped was REALLY important. Like, all of their points were pretty much in that area. And they didn't understand the Instant Challenge at all. It wasn't explained very well, and the person doing the explaining had a TERRIBLE cold and was near impossible to understand. Also they couldn't retell the kids the challenge, but they left them the paper, which is fine for the 5th graders they are against, but doesn't help the 1st graders who really can't read that well that were on my team. Oh well, it was great experience and they learned a lot to take with them next year. They ended up taking 6th out of 6. But they were the only first year team, and they were really against mainly 5th graders who have been in it for years. I'm super proud, and I need to get a party planned for them soon!




Here's a (bad) picture of Lore in the Jester costume he made. He recycled tshirts to make it. He designed and cut and sewed the hat, collar, waist thing. And he made the sceptre which is a doll head (he cut off of an old doll) glued onto a bamboo stick. Made a hat and collar for. He's in 1st grade did I mention. I'm so proud of him!


Then we had my niece's Dedication at church the next morning, so it's been very busy. Hopefully we'll get back to a routine soon.