Reasons for Not Blogging................

• Someone put the black food coloring container on the kitchen window sill - laying flat with the lid ajar. 
• Put Dad's "Do not dry-Lay flat" sweater in the dryer and am trying to stetch it out before its fully dried.
• Had to catch the parakeets that were accidently let out.  
• Teaching Sam the right way to head a paper for spelling.
• John wants to drive me to the bank to get driving practice.
• Cooking two different dinners - one for Dad and one for everyone else.
• Teaching kids how to deep clean (so I don't get so overwhelmed doing it myself.)
• Reminding Pete and Ben they love eachother more than they know.
• Re-organizing computer area to equip Amy how to help in Dad's business.
• Molly wants me to hold her and play Mommy Deer and Baby Deer.
• Bread maker smelled like it was making burnt toast. I think it's time for a new one.
• Got lost in Joanne Fabrics (not really, but I forgot about the time.)
• Correcting school papers.
• Playing Spider or building birthday puzzles after dinner clean-up; sometimes it helps my brain relax.
• Teaching boys the right way to open a pomegranate (and that it STAINS!)
• Trying to finish the laundry before the weekend, but this is only load six.
• I (not the kids) spilled 5 pounds of sugar all over the floor!
• Cuddling David's soft ears before he thinks he is too old for that kind of stuff.
• And the list goes on...............................................................................

"Actually, Godliness is a great source of profit when it is combined 

with being happy with what you already have.

1 Timothy 6:6 (CEB)

Plaids!

A customer ordered this plaid print today.   Plaid can be a little tricky to work with if you want your lines matching together on the front and back.  The nice thing about this fabric is that it didn't do much shrinking during the prewash, which sometimes makes it difficult to keep the lines straight for a project.   I happen to like this particular plaid with the brown and grey colors. My first thought about this color combination is that it wouldn't match well together, but seeing it together like this changes my mind - this print looks great! 

Football Season

We picked up some fabric for our local football team today.  I want to make heating packs with it.  This is a fleece fabric so it is very cozy; perfect for keeping you warm on chilling evenings.  The size for this heat pack is 12 x 8 inches.

Eventually I want to get fabric for other teams.  Each team will most likely be have a different size heat pack since the fabric and logos vary.

I found this Green Bay material from a couple of years that someone special ordered for a heat pack. This particular one is a 13 x 5.5 inch size.  It's also a cozy fleece.  I'll post others as I make them.

No Time for Crafting.............YET

This past month has found me upgrading around our home.  So rather than creating with fabrics and flip flops I have been up to my elbows (and hair) with paint!  My son asked if he could paint his room (it needed it) so he and I went to get paint.  His idea was to use black and red!  My ideas were a little less radical.  So between our brainstorming we came up with what I would call chocolate pudding.  The color is a very dark but nice brown and the whole time we were painting I kept saying that I felt like I am painting pudding on the walls!

After painting his room I remembered I had paint for the hall so I painted that.  Then realized I had paint for the laundry room too, so that was next.  Which then, of course,  led me to the boys bathroom, touch-up in the living room and so on!

Now after all of that we are endeavoring to redo our porch, which is somehow making me think of painting our ceilings.............I don't know if I will go that far.................yet. :)

I am glad for summer upgrades.  Crafting will come soon enough as does winter around here which is when I seem to have more time for crafting.

We have also had some family time which you can view here:    Beach Trip

Photo Floundering

Our weather is warming up.....finally!  At least today is nice : )  Seeing the bright blue sky today inspired me to take inventory of already embellished flip flops and to make a few more pairs.  My main task of the day though, has been researching how to take pictures of crystals.  I'm not that great at it and am looking for any imput I can get.  Here are some (experimental) photos I took today while trying to apply some suggestions from my intenet research.  My first goal is to not have all the twinkles and glare.

The pictures aren't perfect, but at least the crystals don't have as many twinkles and/or glare. And the colors look true to color now.  That's one small step for capturing crystals.

Sam's Pillow

I have an eight year old who thinks he loves to sew!  He's been interested since he was about 6.  I even have a small sewing machine that I've let him use to sew pillows, bags, and other creations with.  But somehow when I moved my "craft station" from one room to the other, I misplaced the cord for his machine : (   This didn't stop him though, he asked me to teach him to hand sew!  He's certainly an aggressive young man.

The other evening he found me sewing and of course asked if he could sew too.  I had been saying no for about a month now, but I gave him a yes this time.  Sam had his own fabric that he had bought a while back (yes, he loves the fabric store just about as much as I do)  and wanted to make a big pillow with it. 



Sam's "Leather"



 I let him look through my patterns this time.  This is actually the first time I've shown him patterns and let him pin and cut.  Usually he does his own shape and cutting. He chose to make a bolster pillow.



Pinning the pattern

I let him use my machine this time and he did just fine considering it is a lot faster that the small one he usually uses.  He sewed everything but the last round piece.  I helped him with this since it was hard to sew once it was filled with the stuffing.

This project was quick from start to finish.  I had forgotten just how easy it was to make such a nice pillow.

Yellow, yellow everywhere!

I finished Amy's yellow dress a few weeks ago, and I will post pictures as soon as I get around to taking them.  I'm hoping to make little sister something to match or at least the something with yellow in it also.  Last night I had "yellow" on my mind and decided to make a few different hair accessories in that color.  Here is what I came up with:

I made a few others that I gave away already so I didn't get pictures of those.  A few more ideas were flying around my head, but my stock of yellow ribbon is now depleted.  Oh well, I guess I have to go to the fabric store and restock  : )