Happy 8th Birthday Harper

Dear Harper,

I can't believe you are eight today.  You are getting so tall and growing so fast.  It won't be long before you catch me.  Eventhough you are turning 8,  you really think you are a teenager.  We have to remind you that you are indeed still a kid.  You are still enjoying Tae Kwon Do.  You are now a purple belt.  You did great in school this year.  You won an award for best girl Spanish student in your class.  You also won two gym awards.  You ran the fastest mile for a second grade girl (8:06).  You also received an award for most consistent mile run in the fall and spring (8:06 and 8:11).  You love to take care of others, whether it is a child with special needs or your brother.  You are always doing something that makes me so proud to be your mom. 

I hope you have the best birthday ever, babycakes.

Love you,

Mom

Happy 6th Birthday Miller

Dear Miller,

How is it possible that you are already 6 years old? Stealing kisses and hugs from you is getting harder and harder, which makes me sad.  You learned so much in kindergarten this year.  You made some great friends.  You proved to me that I probably worry about you too much.  You just finished your third season of baseball.  You really enjoyed playing and would have liked it if there was a game every day.  You are happiest when you are playing some sort of ball.  You love playing any type of game.  You are learning to read, but do not have much patience.  Eventhough you are doing great, it's definitely not your favorite thing to do.   Your feelings are easily hurt, which always breaks my heart.  Your smile can light up a room.  I am so proud of the little boy you have become.

I hope you had the best birthday ever.  I love you so, so much.

Mom



Miller's birthday was actually on Saturday, but we were out of town. So I am just now getting his birthday post up.

Happy 6th birthday Millerman.  

The June Bag

It's a good thing that I had to wait to show you this bag because I have not done one crafty thing all week. I have been preoccupied with thoughts of home improvement projects. We are very slowly trying to tackle our very long list of things that need to be updated in our house.

I used this pattern to make a purse for my mother in law's birthday. I was pleased with how it turned out. Cutting out the pattern pieces took way more time than the actual sewing.

There's a pocket on the back that I forgot to photograph.

I made a little zipper pouch to match.

Happy Crafty Tuesday everyone.

Crafty Pillow Tuesday

Last week was all about pillows. My niece turned 4 last week. My sister-in-law wanted to make a reading nook in the corner of her room. So she requested some floor pillows to make the space nice and cozy. I spent way more time deciding on fabric and thinking about what kind of pillows to make then I did actually sewing the pillows.

I knew that I wanted to make the floor cushion by Living with Punks, so it was the first one that I tackled.

I also knew that I wanted to make the dress up doll pillow from the new Wee Wonderful's book. This book is so cute. There are so many dolls that I want to make from this book.

I had so much fun putting this pillow together.

All the pieces go in the back pocket.

Then I made a couple of simple pillows.

This one is 16" x 16' and has a soft furry pink fabric on the back. I thought it would be good for cuddling.

This one is 24" x 24". This was my first time to cover a button too.

Here's the other side.

I do have a couple of projects that I need to be working on, but my main focus this week is going to be operation de-stash.

Happy Crafty Tuesday everyone.

Harper's Birthday Party

We survived the second round of birthday parties. Even though we kept it pretty low key with just family, it still felt like a lot of work. I am glad that the birthday's are behind us. Is that bad?

For Harper's party I made two different kinds of cupcakes, which seemed to come out ok. Until I tried making the frosting. Something went terribly wrong. I kept adding sugar to make it thicker and then tried adding more butter. Needless to say it was a failure. So I scrapped it and decided to make the whipped cream frosting from this recipe. I have made it a couple of times so I knew that it would turn out. I whipped the cream then my husband took over because I was becoming increasingly frustrated. Have I mentioned baking is not my forte? The cupcake and frosting recipes were from Martha Stewart's website. I was not impressed with the final result so I don't think I will be making those again.

The kids did have fun dipping the dum-dums in sugar. They ended up doing all the suckers all by themselves. The end result was not completely what I had envisioned, but I am learning to come to terms with this. The kids liked the fact that they got a cupcake, ice cream, and candy.

Make a wish.

Since we kind of had a garden theme going, I made garden tool belts for the favors. For the two younger cousins, I made more of an apron using an old pair of blue jeans and some fabric scraps that I had in my stash. For the two older girl cousins, I used the pockets of the jeans and made them reversible. Then I added some belts that I found at Goodwill. I put gummy worms and some candy raspberries in the pockets and these were more of a hit than the actual tool belt.

Front view of the reversible apron

Back view

The 3 pocket apron

Back view

Harper's cousin on the left is wearing the reversible apron on the opposite side.

I did take photos so look for a tutorial next week. Also in case you missed it, I posted the T-Shirt to Cardigan tutorial yesterday.

Happy Crafty Tuesday everyone.

Happy 6th Birthday Harper

My baby girl is 6 today. Six. How is that possible? We are having a family party for her tonight. So I will have party photos up next week. Today I have this shot for you.

Nice, huh? I was taking photos of the garden and realized that I haven't taken any decent photos of the kids in awhile. The lighting was good. Why not try to snap a couple of close-ups of the kids? Harper was more than willing to pose for a shot. Just as I snapped the shot her finger went straight in her nose. The little stinker. She immediately asked to see it on the camera. She was most proud of herself. All the other shots she is sportin' some sort of fake grin. Sigh.

I was debating on whether to post this shot. I imagine it is one of those photos that will embarass her beyond belief in a couple of years, but you know it does really show her sense of humor. There is never a dull moment when she is around.

Miller was not thrilled with the idea of having his photo taken. At all.

See what I mean.

Harper, I hope you have the best birthday ever.

Happy Birthday sweet girl.

Happy 4th Birthday Miller

I can't believe my little boy is 4 today. We had a party for him on Saturday night. I know last year I said that this was going to be the year that Miller gets a class party, but obviously I lied. I decided a couple of weeks ago that we were going to do a family only party. Miller requested a bowling party so we convinced the family to go bowling with us.

Then we had everyone back to our house for pizza and cake.

I made 2 cakes from scratch. I am not the best baker, so this was quite an accomplishment for me. I have issues with following the directions exactly, which is pretty important when you are baking. So I made sure I had ALL the ingredients and actually followed the directions. It worked pretty well. Mitch once again did the decorating.

My sister-in-law's birthday was yesterday so we celebrated her birthday too. She requested this cake. I like to think it is healthy.

Happy Birthday sweet boy.

The To Do List Is A Little Bit Shorter

I actually have a little bit of craftiness to show after a long, productive weekend. I finally finished my pending wholesale order that took way too long to finish.

Then I finished my sister-in-law's birthday present. I made her a Buttercup Purse, like the one I made myself a couple of months ago. I enlarged the Buttercup Purse pattern and added a recessed zipper. The tutorial I found online was very confusing, but I somehow figured it out. Now I want to create a clearer tutorial on how to do this. Why is it one thing gets crossed off the list and something else is just added in its place?

Here's a close-up of the flower. I made it a pin so it is detachable.

See I told you I put in a recessed zipper.

There's a little pocket inside too.

I also labeled everything in my craft center. So now there are no excuses for misplaced items. I used chalkboard contact paper and my trusty die cutting machine. The contact paper is really cool. I have had it for awhile and was excited to finally use it.

Since I was obviously all about getting things done this weekend and Harper asks me at least once a day when I am going to finish her cape, I finished the capes that have been cut out for weeks now.

Miller requested a Batman cape.

I really planned on getting shots of the kids modeling their new capes, but instead we spent the evening in the ER.

Yes, that red stuff you can barely see on the sides is my husband's flesh.

My husband has been working on a Fairy House for Harper for a long time now. This is his second trip to the ER. It has turned out to be a very painful and expensive project.

I hope everyone had a safe Memorial Day Weekend.

Happy Crafty Tuesday!!