Team Up Thursday- Rain

This last week has definitely felt like April. All of these April showers are helping all my plants and flowers grow so I am not complaining. This week Cara and I chose Rain as our theme. So I grabbed my macro lens and headed outside in search of rain drops. You know I can't resist a good rain drop.


I love that we both captured rain drops. I think they work well paired together.

For more Team Up Thursday head on over to Mental Inventory.

Gettin' Into a Crafty Groove

This week was all about sewing. I start having major withdrawal symptoms if I go too long without sewing. I am finding that what I really want to sew is stuff for me or the kids though. The week before last I did manage to finish a small wholesale order.

This is Tabitha. She is living with a family in New Hampshire now.

I also made some patches for her to put on items that she sews to sell in her shop. It was a nice change of pace.

Then last week I made these bibs and burp clothes for a baby shower we attended on Saturday. You can't tell by the photos, but they are backed with chenille. It is REALLY hard to find decent fabric for boys, but I was pleased with how they turned out. I ended up using stuff I already had on hand, which is always a good thing.

It was rainy on Saturday so I had the perfect excuse to sew a dress for myself so that I would have something to wear to the baby shower. I have had the material and idea for this dress for at least a month now. So I am glad that I had an excuse to finish it. I took photos so that I could do a tutorial, but the photos are horrible. Guess I will just have to make another one, right?

Here's a photo (see what I mean about horrible) before I made the belt. I used 2" wide elastic for the waist and it worked out perfectly.

Here's a photo that my husband took of me last night. Yes, I cropped my head out of the shot. I was all sweaty from working out and had the most awful expression on my face. I wore a sweater shrug with it on Saturday, which made me feel less self conscious of my flabby arms. Plus it dressed up the dress some.

This is what was happening on the other side of the camera, which would be why I had a crazy expression on my face.

Happy Crafty Tuesday everyone.

Earth Day

Happy Earth Day everyone.

Since today is Earth Day, Cara and I decided that it would be an appopriate theme for Team-Up Thursday today. Man, oh man. This was a tough one. I took tons of different shots, but in the end chose the one with a little bit of a message. Cara's shot is beautiful and exactly what I had in mind when we chose the theme. The photo has such an awesome perspective plus I love me some flair.

Click here for more Team-Up Thursday.

Arbor Day Celebration

On Saturday, we did what any normal tree huggin' family would do. We went to the local park to celebrate Earth Day and Arbor Day. There was a zip line, which Harper was very excited to try out. She has been begging my husband to put a zip line in the backyard. She is crazy I tell ya. Already an adrenaline junky and only 5.

Here she is on the way up. Eventhough she acts mighty brave, this one made her a little nervous. You can tell she is holding on for dear life.

Almost there.



And there she goes.

The first thing she said when she ran over to us after she was finished was , "I want to do it again." Luckily the line was getting long so we could use that as an excuse. There is only so much I can take.

Miller on the other hand was excited about the fire truck, which is much more speed.

As I was snapping photos this fireman tapped me on the shoulder. He asked me if I ever get my photo taken. I said, "no not very oftern." He said, "Is that your husband right there?" I replied "Yes". He said, "Hand him the camera." I did not know what this guy was going to do. He then walked me through putting on the fireman gear. Fun stuff.

These two were crackin' me up with their dancing. Too, too cute.

What can you say about this sweet face? I just want to gobble her up.

Plantable Paper

I did a little bit of sewing this week, but I am going to hold it until next week. Instead I thought it would be appropriate to share a craft in honor of Earth Day. Last year we were at Disney World for Earth Day so I did not get to plan anything. The year before we did coffee ground fossils here is a photo of what ours looked like. This was pretty fun. I am thinking about doing them again since the kids are a little older.

This year I thought we would make some plantable paper to give to the kids teachers and maybe save some for Mother's Day gifts. I saw the idea over at Alpha Mom and knew that my kids would love this project. I took a bunch of pictures so I could show you my process. I changed a couple of things around, but the process is pretty much the same.

Harper had SO much fun doing this project. After a couple of times, she could do it without my help. She probably spent 2-3 hours working on the paper. I didn't count how many that we made, but we made a ton. Plus we still have about half of the soggy paper left.

After we were done, Harper turned to me and said, "Mom how do you know how to do all this cool stuff?" I told her that I saw the directions on the internet. She said, "When I am a mom I am going to do this with my kids." This conversation made all the prep and mess well worth it.

I created a flickr set with my step by step instructions.

Plantable Paper Tutorial

If you missed it, I posted my Birthday Crown Tutorial yesterday.

Happy Crafty Tuesday everyone.

Birthday Crown Tutorial

I have an Earth Day craft planned for Crafty Tuesday tomorrow. So I thought I would go ahead and post this tutorial.

I am trying something a little different for this tutorial. I made it a photo tutorial rather than creating a pdf. It is a set in flickr. You can click through the photos or view it as a slideshow. There are no pattern pieces and it is pretty straight forward so I thought this would be sufficient. Please let me know if anything doesn't make sense. I am also going to apologize in advance for the photo quality. I was working fast and the lighting was horrible.

Birthday Crown Photo Tutorial

The View From Here- Team Up Thursday

This week Cara chose our theme. She has been participating in a photography course and they recently explored taking photos from the ground level. She suggested using this as our theme this week and it sounded perfect to me.

I had visions of bare little toes in the grass or new sprouts from my herb garden, but sometimes things just do not turn out the way you envision them. There are no little sprouts in my garden yet and those little toes sure disappear fast.

When I opened Cara's shot, my first thought was WOW what a cool shot. It is such a cool perspective and contrasts well with my grass shot. I also love that it tells a story. No telling how many of these balls she has had to retrieve from under the car.

Head on over to Megan's for more Team-Up Thursday.

Spring Break 2010

Here's a recap of our vacation in photos.

We stayed at an indoor waterpark the first night.

The water slides

The next day we headed to Gatlingburg. This is Ober Gatlinburg on the chair lift.

Getting ready to do the Alpine slides.

The highlight of the trip for Harper- ice skating.

On Wednesday we did the Laurel Falls hike, which was 2.6 miles round trip. The kids were troopers.

Some sibling love

They had to get their feet wet.

Then we cooled off by going to the aquarium.

Enjoying our last night chillin' at the chalet.

The view from our chalet.

On the way out on Thursday we stopped at Wonderworks. Harper talked about going to the upside down house all week so we couldn't skip it. This place was SO crowded too.

In the earthquake simulator. I am not sure what Miller is doing. Silly boy.

Harper getting ready for the hurricane simulator.

This girl LOVES to climb.

Miller making some huge bubbles.

Mitch on a bed of nails. The kids actually did this too.

What a week. Even will all the crowds we had an awesome trip.

No Longer Missing in Action

I have officially resurfaced after a much needed Spring Break. We headed 3.5 hours east to Sevierville and Gatlinburg for a little family vacation. We had a blast. It was so nice to be away and unplugged for a week. I am still going through photos so I will post some soon.

I have not found too much time for crafting, but have a couple of things to show today. We spent Saturday cleaning out the garage so my sewing area is all clean and somewhat organized. Now I just need to get busy and use up my overabundance of materials.

Here is a cell phone holder that I made for a custom order.

I made myself these yoga pants from an men's XL t-shirt. It was super simple. If I make another pair I think I will make them shorter though. I used this tutorial.

The last thing that I made was a crown for my niece's 4th birthday. I took tons of photos so I hope to have a tuorial up for next week.

Happy Crafty Tuesday everyone!!

Team-Up Thursday- Negative Space

This week Cara and I chose negative space as our theme. We both agreed that this theme would push us to get a little creative. I can't say that my shot is all that creative, but it was one of those moments that I felt needed to be captured. The sun was shining through my window at work and hitting these flowers on my desk perfectly. My dad always puts flowers in a little vase on my desk each week. How sweet is that? So I grabbed my camera and shot away. Lilies are one of my all time favorite flowers so it just worked.

Cara's photo is incredible, isn't it? Now she got creative this week. I love how you can just barely see his face in the left hand corner, but you can see him perfectly in the reflection. Awesome job Cara.

If you want to join in on the fun or just check out some extremely talented ladies, head on over to Team-Up Thursday hosted by Megan and Melody.