I sewed this on 12/23. I used the free RRP diaper pattern found here. I love this pattern, it's so easy, even I could do it! heh =) I've made 6 or 7 now, I believe, and I've gotten better and a little faster at making them since the first. Now, I need to get making some covers. =)
I've got a ton of pics to upload to the girls' blogs, I just have to find the time. Hope everyone had a great Christmas.
I don't know what it is..... but homesickness struck really hard today. I think it was the weather. It's cool, fallish, and cloudy. When I looked outside, it looked like Central Texas fall. =( My Texas. Every time I glanced outside I thought I should be able to just drive to my Mom's house. sigh....
It's a good thing I had quilting class today. I would have brooded around the house all day crying about missing home. lol A funny thing was after a few people showed up to the class, someone noticed my t-shirt of my brother's highschool football team, and asked if I was from Texas. I said yeah. Turns out all 4 of us that were there first are all from Texas. So I shared my homesickness, and we talked about Texas for a few minutes, how we all missed it. That helped a little bit. =)
Then I spent the next 3 hours learning how to work my sewing machine (again,) and cutting my first color of fabric for my quilt. I am very excited! I hope to have all my fabric cut before the next class two weeks from now, so that I can start my sewing. =D
Monday night (6-9-08) reading ALL of lesson two (=2+ hours,) after having finished lesson 1 earlier that day. Yay for this 8 week class! I just love how the book is glowing.... (and yes, that is a blanket over our window... LOL curtains do NOT keep enough light out. We like it super dark when we sleep.)
Tuesday night (6-10-08) after just coming home from a craft night! I made this super cute tin with Stampin' Up! products. I love it. It's so me! Too bad they don't make that paper in those colors anymore. :( Here's a better one of the tin:
Tonight (6-11-08) I decided to take a belly shot. :) I'm at 17 weeks + 3 days!!
Somehow, I am getting everything done... hopefully it will stay that way. I even got some cards made tonight. Tomorrow, I take my first quiz over lessons 1 and 2. Wish me luck! And Friday, I have a MOMS Club event. Then, I need to work on a paper this weekend. whew! :)
June 1, 2008Carlee's First Real Bath (made blogger friendly with Paint LOL.) I made this super simple, but fell in love with it. I messed up on the lettering a little bit, then I tried to make it look like I did it on purpose, but it didn't really work like I wanted it to. Oh well. I still love it. I still need to add a journal somewhere, or maybe not, since the date is on the photo.
Carlee's First Time in the Swing. I love this one too, I think because I put more effort into it. I painted the background with acrylic paint (thanks for sending it Grandma!) And even stamped the background on the white part to match her sweater. Actually I made the small green background too. :) I need to go back and add a journaling to the little tag.
I hope one day to get more creative with my scrapbooking... I'm still a work in progress, and I've been doing this since I was in the 6th grade! lol... But I love doing it.
I was walking to the store with Carlee to get some rice for a project, and a lady that I know saw me and waved. I waved back, and when I reached her, she bluntly said, "You look pregnant."
hunh. All I could think was... "Wow. You're so lucky I actually am."
LOL
As for the rice project... This week I'm working with Carlee on the letter R. She picked the letter. :) I made her some red colored rice (instructions here) to use to glue on letter Rs that I cut out for her. She loved the project, and then continued to play with the left over rice by "cooking" it at her little kitchen set that she begged for me to bring downstairs. :D
As soon as Tony walked in the door, I had to warn him, "Don't be mad," I said.
"Yeah, don't be mad, Daddy," said Carlee.
Tony looked around cautiously, "Uh, why?" I showed him what I made for Carlee, and he shrugged it off. It was not until right before dinner time, while he was sweeping up rice for the 6th time since he got home, that he admitted, "Ugh, that rice is an OCDer's nightmare."
I couldn't help but laugh.
:)
I have been looking for a good table for Carlee to do her artwork at, and this is perfect! I found this at a garage sale on the way to the park for a MOMS Club lunch. Three other moms were already there, so thankfully none of them wanted this. One did however get this nifty sandbox table that I would have bought as well. But then again, I've been planning on just getting a shallow storage container to put on top of the coffee table. I recently saw on a blog that a good thing to use is colored rice, much easier to pick up than sand. I'll have to make some of that for Carlee. Anyway, she loves this already. I can't wait to get it set up upstairs with all her art supplies readily available. 
*edit* So I googled this set, and at Target, it's $80! I paid only $15. :D Very nice!
Remember the crow on Secret of Nimh? He would love my U card. :) I went to another class last week that was completely filled up and so worth it. We made my two favorite cards yet, both in one night. We were warned that we would end up going home covered in glitter, and we didn't leave disappointed. Here are the cards:
I hate how my scanner focuses on the embellishments... but oh well. And I'm horrible at putting them on the scanner straight... lol Anyway, aren't those adorable? I had a good time, and am really enjoying the girls that are in my stamp club. I was really quiet the first few times I went, but now after getting to know them, I'm laughing and cracking jokes as much as they are. It's a lot of fun.
I am exhausted! We had a potluck today, and it went great! So many people came, and we had so much vegan food it was so awesome!!! The company was awesome, and I had so much fun! And the kids had a blast, we did an Easter egg hunt, and painted some more salt dough Easter eggs! And of course they've eaten more candy today than they have the whole first part of the year combined, I'm sure! lol. Carlee was in heaven, I think she was amazed at how much candy she was getting to eat. She was lucky I was busy running things lol. Hope everyone had a great day!
Last night I headed over to a friends for some scrapbooking... I didn't get home until after 1 am. LOL I worked on my sister's baby's birth announcements. The scan didn't to the background texture justice. It's an orange speckle looking background. I liked how it turned out a lot. I got ten made of this design. I'm going to have to make a few different designs since I'm working with the paper supplies that I have on me. :) Britt - What do you think?
I also decided to make Carlee some new playdough today. I used some neon food coloring my grandma sent me and it turned out great! Very Eastery. The carrots and bunny were crafts that Carlee made yesterday at the Easter event held at base. So we've been feeling pretty crafty lately. :) I should probably be spending that time studying for my exam... lol
Today, I co-hosted an Arts & Crafts event for MOMS Club. I had been trying to figure out what I was going to have for the kids to do for a few weeks. Then the other day, as I was trying to take a nap, I kept thinking (instead of sleeping,) about what we have planned for Easter. I had my Grandma send me some wooden eggs to paint with Carlee, and I all of a sudden thought, why don't I try to make some eggs for the kids to paint?! So I did. It took a few tries to figure out a good method, but in the end it was so easy! (and if something like this already on the net, don't tell me, I feel so crafty coming up with this, and telling me would ruin it. LOL) These eggs are so good for Easter, because not only does it not add to the demand of eggs on this holiday, they aren't wasted (how many kids actually eat their boiled eggs?), AND they can be saved forever! I really wish I had thought of this last year, then I would still have Carlee's first ever Easter egg. :) Hope you enjoy them!
Animal Friendly Easter Egg Keepsakes
Time:
30 minutes from making dough to putting them in the oven without Carlee's help.
45 minutes with Carlee's help. :)
For the salt dough:
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Salt
1/2 Cup Water
Mix well in a bowl and knead until a dough forms.
You also need:
A small piece of plastic wrap
Half of a plastic Easter egg, that is split vertically, not through the fat middle.
A butter knife
A pan
Piece of Sandpaper (optional, but smoothes the edges)
Acrylic Craft Paint, Glitter, Stickers, etc. to decorate
Acrylic Sealant (optional but will make it last longer)
Directions: Preheat oven to 250, for Mineo-ans it's the first setting. Make Salt dough. Take a piece of salt dough that you think will fill the egg (it's okay if it's a little more,) and roll into a smooth ball. Set aside. Hold the plastic egg in one hand and drape the plastic over it. Take the ball of dough and push into the egg. Lay the egg dough side down onto the pan. Push the egg down to squeeze the extra dough out. (You want to squeeze at least a little out, so that you know it completely fills the egg, and that it was pressed against the pan.) Once, you reach the pan with the egg, lift the egg by pulling up on the plastic. (Figuring out how to get the dough out of the egg took me a few attempts, but I told you it turned out to be simple!) Once the egg is removed, take a butter knife and cut around the edge of the egg to get rid of the extra dough. There might be a few lines from the plastic, but if they bother you, you can very gently smooth them out with your finger. Continue to make the eggs until you run out of dough. I got 11 full size eggs, and 1 wimpy one out of one batch of dough. Once they are all on there, bake for 2 hours. Remove and let cool. If you have the sandpaper, sand down the rough edges. Let your kids paint, glitter, sticker them all up, then cover or spray with acrylic sealant. Keep forever to use for Easter decorations, and memories. :)
*Some will look more egglike than others depending on how the dough decides to bake, and if an egg gets air under it before you bake, it might get a little empty pocket on the back, but the kids still love them! Overall, most of mine came out great, I only threw away about 4 eggs out of 3 batches. :)
Carlee's been playing with her play dough all afternoon again. She's really enjoying it. At least it keeps her busy, and lets me get some housework done. :) I've had the recipe for a while, since last year some time when my friend put it in our MOMS Club newsletter. I don't know why I waited so long to make it for her instead of buying new play dough that dries out so fast. It's great too, because the color doesn't come off of the play dough! Here's the recipe if anyone is interested:
Play Dough
Ingredients:
1 Cup water
1 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil
1/2 Cup Salt
1 Tbsp. Cream of Tarter
Food Coloring
1 Cup Flour
Directions:
Combine water, oil, salt, cream of tarter, and food coloring in a saucepan. Heat until warm. Remove from heat. Add flour. Stir, then knead until smooth. Store in airtight container or freezer bag.
Lately, I've got a few addictions... Thanks to my friend, D, who sells Close to my Heart scrapbooking & stamping stuff, I've gotten back into my old addiction to scrapbooking and... well, stamping! I've finally started Carlee's baby book, which has been a lot of fun. Also, through D I've met another lady who sells Stampin' Up! products, who also gives cardmaking workshops. I went to two of them so far and really enjoyed it. Here's some Christmas cards I made:
I made this next one last at one of the workshops, and I was rushed since D and I had to pick up the kids from the sitter's, so I forgot to stamp the leaf background onto the green part... :(
This one's my favorite... I love the colors!
I can't wait until my printer/scanner gets in the mail! Anyway, I kept adding my own little flare to all the cards and the envelopes. The hostess said, "I learn something from you guys every time we do this." And after seeing me stamp one of my cards, she told me, "You have got to join the stamp club!" It was nice to have a chance to be creative, and to hang out with girls who save every single little scrap piece of cardstock, too. :)
As for my new addiction.... thanks to the same friend, I'm now addicted to Desperate Housewives. When the show first came out, I think I saw maybe one episode and wasn't interested in it at all. A few weeks ago, I caught the last episode of season 3 at D's house, and asked if the whole show was that good. She assured me it was, so eventually last week I finally gave in and rented the first disc to the very first season. In one week, I'm almost done with the entire season, and can't wait to start season 2! I'm just hoping that the show does in fact stay this good.... I'm amazed at how complicated the characters are, I never realized how much depth this show had. Now I do, and I'm hooked. :)
