Helloooooo? Anybody still out there?

WHOA...has it been ages since I posted here or what?? Embarassing. Things just got a little crazy for a while. And it's not like their slowing down any, I mean it's December people. So I guess you won't be able to expect much for the next month or so either. Sigh. But you don't mind do you? Because you'll be too busy with festive fun, friends, and family, right? To show I still care, very much actually, I will quickly get you up to speed. This will be a very abbreviated version of the past two and some months.

First of all I have to tell you that I love my camera. Superman and I had a bet going this past summer. It went something like this: If I could make it approximately three months without shopping (you know the unnecessary kind) then he would get me a camera (you know the awesome kind). Well, I did it. And it IS AWESOME. Way awesome. I love it. It's like a second child to me. Here is what comes out of this baby. I took these on one of our family walks this fall:

Next, we had a great Halloween. Sweet Pea is
getting older now and is beginning to really understand how this holiday works. We decided to be a whole family of Waldos from the Where is Waldo books. Technically Superman was Waldo, I was Wenda, and Sweet Pea was a little version of us. It was fun. We all dressed up for trick-or-treating. We also dressed up again for our church Halloween party. Yay! Sweet Pea is very good at saying "Twick or Tweet!" After our nice neighbors tossed the candy into her bucket she smiled her cutest smile and exclaimed, "Fank you SO much!" And raced to the next door as fast as possible for more delicious candy.


In November Sweet Pea turned four! Can you believe it? Squeak! four years old. Holy buckets of crazy. The time is whizzing by so fast. She is an amazing, curious, fun, energetic four year old. She is also getting SASSY. With a capital SASS. But we love all of her. So much. She wanted a rainbow party so we had one. With rainbow decorations, a very huge rainbow cake (six layers to be exact), a rainbow sweatshirt, pizza, and loads of fun. The highlights of the party were the very tall cake and the swing that Daddy put up in the basement for loads of swinging fun all winter long. The best.

And that is all for now. I'm signing out. Because I'm tired. And my arm and back really hurt. Know that I've missed this place. I've missed you. But I hope you'll stick around for my sporatic (at best) posts. Please say you will. You will? Well, fank you SO much!

A few things I've finished...

Just a few more things I've completed. It's actually taken me the better part of a month to finish them but they are completed as of today. Yay! Both are watercolor and ink. I'm not sure of titles for the pieces yet. Maybe you have some suggestions?

Here are a couple blogs I've linked to. Drop by and enjoy all the wonderful, creative splendor!

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins

My wonderful and super talented lil' sis asked me to stop byand share something pumpkin related this week for “Pumpkinspiration” and I washappy to oblige. BUT, given the state ofmy life right now it’s break neck pace I had certain criteria my pumpkinproject had to meet. First I didn’t havetime to go out and find materials. Second, I didn’t want to spend any money on said materials. Third, it had to take me one sitting,because, of course, I don’t have time for much more than that, not to mentionpatience (I don’t have much of that either). So I chose a throw pillow. Hereit is:

Sort of cute. Iactually like it. And very easy.

First I looked through my stash and found the fabric Iwanted to use. I also had fiber fill soI spent zero dollars on my project. Here’s the fabric I picked out:

I cut my orange fabric into strips of different widths. I cut a rectangle out of the green fabric, aswell as three strips.

I sewed my orange strips together length wise, placing rightsides together and stitching a quick seam. I did this with all of them. Ipressed my seams and turned my “pieced” fabric over. Nice.

Then I cut two large squares from my gray knit fabric. I drew a pumpkin shape, including stem, outon one of the large knit squares with a fabric marker.

Then I pinned myorange fabric, right side up against the back of my knit where the pumpkin wasdrawn out, and the green rectangle, right side up against the back of my knitwhere the stem was drawn out.

I sewed a quick running stitch just on the outer edge of mydrawing. I removed pins and used ascissors to cut my gray knit pumpkin and stem out to reveal the cute orange andgreen fabric underneath. It’s a reverseappliqué.

I gathered my three green strips and sewed them on below mypumpkin to look like vines.

I pinned my two gray knit squares, right sides together andsewed around the perimeter. I left asmall opening, turned my pillow right side out, stuffed it, and sewed ittogether by hand. There you haveit! Easy. Fast. And kind of cute. And zero dollars spent. Happiness all round. Today when she saw it, my daughter asked meif it was hers or mommy’s. Smile.

Last Weekend

We're enjoying a pretty great autumn around these parts. (We had a very brief little cold snap for about, oh I don't know, threeish days but other than that...beautiful.) Our grass is green and lush, the temps have been warm but not too warm, the leaves are turning all kinds of wonderful, and I'm loving it. Tonight, as I'm typing this I can hear the pitter patter of a gentle rain. It smells like autumn. It looks like autumn. But it feels like early summer days. I hope it lasts just a little bit longer. Last weekend we decided to get out of town to see the colors. We took Pumpkin on a hike. She super-duper loved it! Her favorite part was running off the trail and climbing up the rocks and over tree trunks, tripping all the way. These are some pics from our adventure. Right out of the camera...

These two

When things get crazy around here these two keep me grounded. These two keep me going. These two keep me smiling. These two make my world go round...I love these two.

Whew!

Well...yesterday I hit another personal best. Five miles. Of my slow and awkward running. Graceful I am not. (As I've stated many times before...openly.) It took me about an hour. I can't believe I ran for an hour. I also can't believe how crappy I felt when I was done. It's crazy because I felt like a rock star when I hit four miles several weeks ago. For some reason five was just too much for me. We'll see if I do that again any time soon. I'll have to wait a few days and maybe I'll forget...and try it again. Or maybe I'll just stick with four miles for a while.

The Tree of Life

Here's the latest. I really love this one. A lot. There is a bible reference that follows the circumference of the circle around the tree. It's from the Book of Daniel, chapter 4: 10-12.

"...I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth: The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all: the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it."

I like the symbolism in this verse. If you look at the context from which this is taken it's actually a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar’s that Daniel interprets. It's a fantastic dream. I love to think of a place, bountiful, full of beauty and peace, where all might feel safe and well fed. Physically and spiritually well fed. I take comfort in the thought that our Father's love, just like this tree, is big enough
for all of us.


I'm participating in We Did It! Wednesday. Go check it out. Tons of wonderful stuff and very creative people.

I Did It!!!

I just had to document this day...

I ran four miles today. This is something I've never done before. While this may be no big deal for many people, probably tons of people the world over, it's a huge, ginormous deal for me. I've always had issues with strenuous activity, stamina, etc. This is due in large part to heart problems I've had since birth. Without going into much detail I will say this: I asked my cardiologist this summer if I could run a half marathon this fall and he said no. He told me that I was at a much higher risk than other heart patients. So I let that goal fall to the wayside. Bummer. But I've continued to run and increase my distance. Granted I don't run fast. And it's not pretty to watch I'm sure. But I don't care. I'm at four miles! (I'm patting myself on the back RIGHT NOW.)

Something For Me

Recently I found several different tutorials on how to make an infinity scarf. I like the look of this type of scarf. I've seen them in stores everywhere but I have loads of fabric in my stash and really didn't think I needed to spend money on one. Especially if I could make one out of material I REALLY love. So I read through all the tutorials, and I don't know what's wrong with me, but I could not visualize what they were talking about. I tried. I really did. I reread the steps. I still couldn't understand what was being described. Thankfully there were photographs included in some of the tuts, and I pieced together the steps from several of them until I grasped what they were trying to explain. Now, after making a couple, it seems so easy...makes perfect sense. I will try to explain here, in very plain and simple terms, what I did to make my scarf.

You need a piece of fabric that is approximately 60" long. Mine was closer to 70. The width is up to you. Mine was about 24" wide. (This will make a finished scarf that is 12" wide.) Fold your fabric in half the long way, right sides together.
Now sew a seam the length of your scarf. Basically you are sewing a long tube.
**TURN YOUR SCARF RIGHT SIDE OUT, THEN PROCEED TO THE NEXT STEP.
Add a twist in your scarf.

Start to turn your scarf back over itself, taking special care to maintain the twist you put in it. You want to bring the short ends together.
Sew the short ends together around the circumference of the tube. (Hope that makes sense!)

You should leave a 3-4" opening so you can pull the scarf through, the right way. Once you've turned it the right way you can stitch that small opening closed by hand. Voila! You are done!!

Here's my finished scarf. I also made a couple flower pins to go with it. One of them using this tutorial, http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2011/08/full-and-textured-fabric-flowers.html, the other using this one, http://hellobeautifulblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/felt-flower-tutorial.html.(I tried the bright pink one on with the scarf, I'm not wearing the blue and yellow flower with my awesome new scarf in the photo...but I like it with the stripey shirt too.)

 

     




So, I'm off to make another scarf.

A "Craff" for Sweet Pea

So Sweet Pea loves "craffs". Whenever I get my craft stuff out, or sew, or paint, or draw, she's right there asking if there's a "craff" for her. I've done a lot of impromptu stuff to keep her busy while I play. I can usually give her a pair of scissors and a couple pieces of paper and she's good for a half hour or so. Or I've had her thread beads. She also likes to play with stickers.

Today however, I actually planned a craft specifically for her. Every once in a while, when I'm feeling particularly unselfish, I do that. (I hope all of you who are reading this know that I'm kidding...I don't TRY to be selfish, it's just that when I'm in my groove, creatively speaking, it's hard to stop, even for her.) It really does bring me joy to see her grow artistically though, so I do try to provide opportunities whenever I can for her to stretch herself a bit and create something.

She picked out the bag herself. It's one of those premade canvas bags you can get at any craft/fabric store. She used acrylic craft paint.

  




We let it dry and then she used a sharpie marker (After much explaining from me that she needed to be very careful and not get it on her clothes, or her skin, or the furniture, or the floor, or the carpet, or the table...she did just great.) I love her little people. LOVE them. I think she said that I'm on there somewhere, and Daddy is too, and so is she, as well as some of her cousins. I couldn't get her to draw everyone because eventually she lost interest.

She loves her bag though. And I love to see her involved, busy, and happy. Time well spent.

I Can Sing a Rainbow

The other day Superman, Sweet Pea, Gram Gram, and I decided to go for a bike ride. As we started out we noticed some swirly, billowing clouds to the south that were moving in. (You know, kind of like "The Nothing" in the Neverending Story. And if you don't know what I'm referring to then you should go watch that movie right now. Yep, right now. Now. Go.) So, The Nothing was moving in but we decided to go for that ride anyway. We had already biked down the street and around the corner so we figured we would just ride fast so we could still get the exercise in before the rain started. Ha! The rains came down upon us...Gram Gram wears glasses and couldn't see anything so she turned around and started for home. The three of us kept riding in the rain. And after a while we were riding in the rain and the sun. It was so beautiful. We turned a corner and were heading in another direction when I glanced up in the sky and saw this:


Sweet Pea loves rainbows and as soon as this big, brilliant rainbow was pointed out to her began singing one of her favorite songs. "Red, and yellow, and pink, and green, purple, and orange, and blue..." Her little voice floated out of the bike trailer behind me on the rain soaked breeze. I smiled. I love that song too. I remember MY mom singing that song to me when I was little. I love that she loves it. When she was very little, singing to her was one of the few things that would calm her down. I sang to her every night. Lots of different songs but always the rainbow song. Hearing Sweet Pea sing it now, just the way she remembers from listening to it over and over, does the same thing for me. Calms me right down.

My Fat Quarter Addiction Part VII: Another Skirt For Sweet Pea

So you knew it was just a matter of time before I started digging through my fat quarters again. In fact, truth be told, I've accumulated quite a few new ones this summer, and WITH Sweet Pea's help too! Here is one that she fell in deep love with immediately. Monkeys! I used this tutorial here: http://blog.megannielsen.com/2011/05/how-to-make-scallop-hem-shorts-from-old-shorts/

Megan explains the process perfectly. I, on the other hand, did not follow the tutorial perfectly. Or so it would appear. My scallops pull and pucker a tiny bit. But I swear I did it just the way she outlines. I added my scallops to a very simple skirt. A big rectangle of fabric with a casing sewn at the top. The casing is made from the same yellow fabric as the scallops. I threaded elastic through the casing.

Oh well. I still think it is cute. And so does Sweet Pea. Boy, she sure has trouble standing still!