Another Lickety Split Bag

Can you tell I REALLY like making these bags? This one was a gift for my brother's girlfriend. She just graduated from nursing school. Congratulations Whitney!! We are all so proud of you. You are going to make a great nurse.

It was hard for me to part with this one. I fell in love with this fabric and thought it would be perfect for Spring. I do have some leftover so maybe I can squeeze something out of it for myself.

I finished an owl last week, but once again forgot to take a photo. It was a cute one too. I could have sworn I took a photo, but I looked through my SD card and there were no owl photos. Hmmm? I worked on a wholesale order some last week too, but it is slow goin'. I am having a really hard time with coffee cozies lately. I also did not take a photo of the completed third pouch from last week. It was better, but still not quite right.

My major project this weekend was reorganizing a cabinet with all the craft stuff. I still need to label everything and then I will take a photo. We stayed up way too late watching Lost on Sunday night, so after I catch up on my sleep I plan to knock out my wholesale order. Then I am taking the summer off. I have too many personal projects calling to me.

Happy Crafty Tuesday!!

Numbers

This week Cara and I chose numbers as our theme. Once again I had grand ideas. I had visions of finding a cool sign that had numbers on it. I am not sure where I thought I was going to find it since I pretty take the same route every day, but that's ok.

I can so relate to Cara's shot. She said those were the cars that she picked up off the floor yesterday morning. We also have cars everywhere and I only have one son. So I can't imagine what it would be like with 2 boys running around. I love that you can see all the individual cars so distinctly if you look up close, but from far away the number 58 is really what you see.

My shot was a last minute thought I had at work today. I have been searching all week for the perfect number shot with no success. Out of nowhere I thought it would be cool to take a shot of a bunch of numbers in different fonts on a piece of paper. I purposely focused in on the 4 and 6 since that is how old my kids will be in less than a month. However, when I typed up the paper I did not intentionally type them together. It just happened that way. In hindsight I should have been more deliberate with my numbers for a more meaningful shot.

I do like the contrast of Cara's multi-color shot with my black and white shot.

Check out all the other talented ladies over at Megan's blog.

Pouch Problems

This week's Crafty Tuesday is brought to you by my latest obsession with sewing pouches. I have a serious zipper pouch problem right now. I am sure it will pass just as fast, but for now I am just embracing it. I had this brainstorm for a zipper ruffly pouch made from an old pair of jeans. It did not turn out the way I envisioned it at all. It looks like a little mini skirt. Yikes. Why is it those ideas always seem much better when they are in my head?

Since I was not really satisfied with my first pouch, I had to have another go at it. I dug out a vintage pillowcase from my stash. I am realizing I have a bit of a pillowcase fetish, but that is a topic for another day. This time I went with a different sort of ruffle. It turned out ok, but I used a felted wool sweater for the lining to give it some body and it just doesn't feel right. The coloring for the denim purse is off in the photo below, but the pillowcase pouch looks ok. I was too lazy to try to fix it in photoshop.

On a more positive note, I actually made myself start knocking out my pending orders.

I finished this bib and burp cloth set late last week. Then Mitch was kind enough to take the kids to the park for a long bike ride so I had the house to myself Saturday morning. I was able to get all the coffee sleeves cut out and assembled. I was able to also sew an owl. Now I just need to sit down and applique the sleeves and put the finishing touches on the owl. Oh, and also finish the third pouch that I have cut out. Hopefully this one will turn out better than the first two. Working for an hour every day worked well last week so that is the goal for this week as well. Wish me luck.

Happy Crafty Tuesday everyone.

Motion-Team Up Thursday

Cara and I chose motion this week. Once again I had so many ideas and none of them turned out quite like I had imagined in my head. Miller could stay on that swing all day long. Harper is nice enough to push him. So it only seemed natural to caption those two in motion.

I love the bright colors in Cara's shot. There is so much going on in the photo. It almost seems like a clip from a dream. Both shots definitely reflect how I am feeling right now. With school ending in a few weeks and birthday month approaching there's a lot coming at me and I am spinning in every direction to get things done.

Check out Megan and Melody for more Team Up Thursday.

Running, Fishing, and Gymnastics

+++++WARNING+++++Parental Boasting will occur multiple times in this post.

For several weeks, Harper has been anticipating her mile run (which actually ended up being a half mile) at school. Let me to tell you she is one competitive little girl. The day before the race they ran during gym class. Harper ran so hard that she felt like she was going to be sick and had to visit the nurse. I tried to convince her that she didn't have to run full speed the whole entire time, but I could not convince her that pacing herself was a good idea. The day of the race we went to the school to watch her in action. She started in the second group of kindergarteners and steadily passed her classmates. She was the very first kindergartener to finish. I was so proud of her determination.

Yes, her shoelaces are untied and she is holding her headbands.

My proud little runner finishes school in less than 2 weeks, which means I will have a 1st grader. Can you believe it?

Miller has been asking to go fishing for several months now so we ventured out on Sunday for a relaxing day of fishing.

This is Miller's smile. Very natural looking don't you think?

It was actually cool out and felt like Spring.

I love this photo of my two favorite men. Cheesy grin and all.

Harper has been taking gymnastics all year long. Halfway through she was ready to quit and really wanted to take karate. We encouraged her to stick with it. At some point during the year something clicked and she has mastered everything they were teaching in her class. During the end of the year evaluation, the coach asked if she would be interested in the development team. Of course Harper was SO, SO excited, but this means 2.5 hours of practice each week. Yikes. That is a big commitment. We are going to try it for the summer and see how it goes.

Have I mentioned that I sure do love those two kids of mine?

One

For Crafty Tuesday today I only have one thing to show you. I made my mom a gathered ruffle zipper pouch using this tutorial. Then I slipped a gift card inside.

I did manage to clean off my craft table and cut the fabric for the kid's capes, but there was not much sewing going on this week. I have vowed to spend an hour every day working on the various projects I need to get done. Hopefully next week I will have a little bit more to share.

Happy Crafty Tuesday everyone.

Out of Focus

Cara chose the theme this week, which is Out of Focus. I have to say it is my favorite so far. I had so much fun playing around with different settings and situations. I even learned a thing or two, which is never a bad thing.

Although our photos are very similar, they are also very different. I love how you can see the park bench and trees in the background of her photo. Of course the bokeh is magnificent too. Just look at that heptagon sitting on the park bench.

Join Megan and Melody for more Team-Up Thursday.

All Things Green

For the last few months I have been back on my green smoothie kick. I have been having one for breakfast almost every day. I have it down to a science now. I started adding the chia seeds and the nut butter for some protein and staying power.

Here is my general recipe:

Fill blender a little more than halfway with greens (spinach, kale, chard, or even a salad mix)

1 banana

2 tbsp of nut butter

a sprinkle of chia seeds

1-2 cups frozen fruit

1 cup almond milk

1 cup water

Makes 2 servings

I also wanted to show a few shots of the garden so far. Here is some lettuce that my husband planted.

Broccoli and brussel sprouts, which REALLY need to be weeded.

Some basil sprouting up.

A little bit of cilantro too.

Just to add a little bit of color. Here is some wild columbine.

I took all of these shots yesterday so as you can tell everything survived all the rain. I can't believe that nothing was washed away.

Feeling Fortunate

If you have been following the news, you may have seen the terrible flooding that has occurred here in Middle Tennessee. We received close to 18 inches of rain in 48 hours. Nashville and all the surrounding areas are a complete mess. I feel so fortunate that we stayed dry and safe. So many people have lost everything. Here are a few photos that I took on Sunday. These photos were taken before the second round of storms hit us.

This is our local park. Harper was supposed to have a mile run here yesterday.

This is the Harpeth River.

Since it is Tuesday after all, I do have a few bits of craftiness. You would think that being homebound all weekend would allow me some sewing time, but not this weekend. I spent every free minute glued to the news.

I did find a few minutes to make this brooch for Harper's teacher. Her birthday was on Sunday and Harper really wanted to give her something.

Harper lost her second tooth last week so I finished this pillow just in time for the tooth fairy to come. I can't find where I found this embroidery pattern. If I find it, I will post a link.

I also finished 2 owls, but totally forgot to photgraph them.

Happy Crafty Tuesday everyone!