Sunday, January 25, 2015

December projects

Every December starts out innocently enough. But soon, something like this happens:

Image 
 Child brings home paper from school announcing a "trading post" that they need to bring items for. Homemade items, not costing any money, preferably! So I pull out my popsicle sticks, buttons and glue, and next thing you know, we've made about 45 snowflake ornaments. (We first made these for Madelyn's 4th birthday and they cover our Christmas tree and I love them.)

Image

Then, my niece Emery's birthday is December 3rd, and she had worn out the bracelets that I made for her when she was a baby. So I thought I'd make her a new batch:

Image
She loves Frozen, and I made the bracelet on the far right in Frozen colors. That got me to thinking......

Image
Make ALL the Frozen themed baby/toddler/girl bracelets!!!

 Image
So I did that, plus restocked some of my most popular designs...

 Image Image
And then I made even more stuff, because December is my busiest selling time for my etsy shop.

Image
Image 
 Then, everyone at Mark's work needed treats.

Image
 Image
Image 
Then a bunch more people needed treats. (I think there were 83 on the list this year...oy) I made mint brownies, homemade turtles and caramels, toffee, and everybody else got a store bought cookie or muffin mix with a new rubber spatula.

Image 
In the meantime, I was attempting to make 8 "I Spy" Bags without the kids seeing what I was doing. Ha!! This project dragged on forever. It was very hard to find time to sew when they weren't home, and since my sewing machine is just on the kitchen table....Madelyn guessed what I was up to.

Image
I didn't really know what I was doing, but they turned out pretty cute. A lot more work than I thought, though!

Image
The top three were Madelyn, Luke and Isabelle's; the left bottom went to Hattie, Jack and Gary, and the right bottom to Nathan and Ava, my nieces and nephews.

The kicker came when I decided that we MUST have new stockings for Christmas, because ours were never coordinating (which bugged me) and Isabelle didn't have one yet. I even took all three kids to Jo-Ann by myself so that they could pick out the fabric they wanted, which took an hour and a half and more patience than I really had. I had never made fully lined, big stockings before (I've made tons of mini ones) but of course that did not deter me! Oh no!! I will not be deterred.

So then what happened was that Christmas Eve dawned and I still had not made them yet.

Image
l-r: mine, Isabelle's, Tiger's, Madelyn's, Mark's and Luke's

As you can see, they did get finished, but not until 10:44 pm on Christmas Eve.

Somehow, I figured out how to sandwich some Warm & Natural batting in there and adapted two different patterns I found online to make the fold over cuff method work, instead of doing a detachable cuff.

 Image
They turned out very cute!

So.....add to that all the normal Christmas shopping and mailing and craziness, throw in a birthday and an anniversary and two 4th grade book reports and a teething baby and that is why I was quite done in come the end of 2014.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

4-6 years late is better than never

I presume that some of you might also start craft projects, only to not finish them for 4-6 years? No?

Well something came over me recently and I actually finished three such projects. *Pat on the back*

Image
The first one was a little quilt--you can tell that I cut it out 4-6 years ago, because nobody uses those colors anymore. I was trying to use up scraps. The squares were 3" when cut out and 2 1/2" when sewn. I had to add a couple of borders to make it a decent size.

Image
To avoid having to use batting and such, I decided to finish it by self-binding with some heavyweight minky, which is the Satan of all fabrics. If I wasn't in such a rush to get it done, I probably would have used interfacing or some other method to stabilize it, but as it was it shifted all over and turned out all wonky. And that was after sewing it twice, because despite the fact that I have made several self-binding blankets, I still get the method wrong about 50% of the time. HOORAY.

Image
 However, as it was for my 3-year old nephew, I didn't sweat it too much.

Image 
Happy birthday, Jack!

 Image
The next thing I finished was a pile of 11 kid sized aprons. I'd cut out over a dozen of them a few years ago and serged around all the edges, but then only finished a couple of them. This time, I finished them alll. I kept a couple for Luke and Isabelle, gave one to my niece and sold a few. I still have two pink and white ones, a blue/brown stripe and a blue/pink floral left, if anyone wants to buy one for $8.00.

Image
Image
I'd figured that I really should finish Luke's before he outgrew his, and I didn't want this Michael Miller fabric I got in ABQ go to waste.

Image 
Six years ago, my mom gave me and my sisters-in-law some Betty Luken felt books, which come in a giant sheet that you have to then cut out and assemble. I cut out all the teeny little pieces right away, but then the rest of it sat in a bin until now. My excuse is that 2009 was the time when we moved twice in six months, I was helping to plan my sister's wedding, and I was pregnant and sick.

Image
 Another reason why I put it off was because it required grommet installation, which involves tools and hammers and you can't make any mistakes. I had Mark* help me a couple of weekends ago, and I FINALLY FINISHED THE DANG BOOK.

I'm looking forward to bringing it to church tomorrow so that the kids can lose all the pieces.

Maybe this will be the year that I finish the two shoulder bags I cut out that have since been sitting in my garage, and figure out how to make the zippered pouches that I bought the stuff for ages ago! Who knows!


*While we were grommeting, Mark had me go buy a replacement snap for a pair of board shorts that he wears to bed (which are "the best pair of board shorts ever made" and he refuses to ever stop wearing them, even possibly when he's dead), which has been missing part of a snap for SEVENTEEN YEARS and we fixed it.

SEVENTEEN YEARS.

Friday, January 23, 2015

Madelyn's new desk and chair

  Image
 It all started with this chair. I spied it in my Grandma's "Chic Shack" in California back in August. I immediately thought, "That would make a perfect chair for a little girl's desk!" We didn't even mention anything to G-ma at the time, but later when my dad went back to visit, I had him ask if I might have it someday, and she said, "Sure!" and he brought it home immediately. Yay!

It obviously needed a new coat of paint and a lot of cleaning up....Mark decided to go ahead and strip it. Turns out it had been painted over about seven different times, in all different colors (including red).

Image
 Image
Image
 Getting all the paint off that thing was a huge project that took many days.

Since we only have three bedrooms in our house, when Isabelle came along, we had to figure out where to put her and all of her stuff. Right now her clothes and changing pad are in Luke's room, she sleeps in our room in a playpen and swing, and then her permanent crib needed to make its way to Madelyn's room. That meant we had to move her little table and chairs out (which were way too small for her but she still loved and used them).

Image
 Then one night while I was having a church committee meeting in the dining room, Mark and Madelyn started brainstorming about how to build a custom desk underneath the loft bed he had built her a couple of years ago. Next thing I knew, they were building it.

Image They wanted to keep the wood natural for the desk top, and put some stain on. That turned a violent shade of pinky-orange......and so white paint it was!

Image
 Madelyn chose her favorite shade of blue for the chair.

Image
 It is the perfect little spot for homework, coloring, reading (and cluttering up with all sorts of stuff) or watching movies on a portable player.

Image
Image
And Madelyn loves it! I find her tucked away under there all the time. What a great project.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Thanksgiving 2014

We spent Thanksgiving in Hurricane, since both sets of our parents live there. We ate the main meal with the Yoders--it's always a feast! The other family that was there included Mark's brothers Frank, John, Mike, David and their families. Paul and Nikki were thinking about coming, but they'd just had a baby girl (Lily) the week before!

Image 
Image
 Isabelle just got passed around all day and she did her job of being sweet and charming.

Image Luke "helped" the guys play Hearts by going around and announcing what cards everyone had in their hand. LOL. 

The other three people in this picture are all named Frank Yoder.

Image 
Madelyn, Isabelle and Autumn 

Image
 After that, we drove to St. George so that I could get some new Corelle dishes (I've been without mine for over a year, people) and season 7 of The Big Bang Theory for cheap at Target. Luke decided to come with me to stand in line. I've never been to one of these shopping melees on Thanksgiving night before. It was really something.

My sister-in-law Sally was hitting up the Wal-Mart for some sales and she picked up a carpet shampooer for us so we wouldn't have to go stand in their lines. It was so nice of her!

Image
 The line for checkout was about 3 miles long and snaked all the way through the store, and at some point, Luke saw this Minecraft set and picked it up and wouldn't let it go. I was planning on getting him some for Christmas anyway, and I saved 50% (although it was still $25 and WHY they charge that much for little plastic blocks that don't do anything is beyond me).

And then we still had to go drive back down to Hurricane/LaVerkin to pick up my new vacuum and then visit my parents and have some pie...and we got home at like 10:30. It was a very long day!!

Isabelle is 6 months old!


Image
 6 months old

Weight: 15 lbs. 3 oz. (26th percentile)
Height: 26 inches (48th percentile)

Likes: Playing with toys, eating, her swing, being held, giggling, babbling, grabbing her toes, sitting in her "gadget chair", clawing at people's flesh with her fingernails

Dislikes: Getting her nose wiped, getting buckled into her car seat, getting dressed, shots

New skills: sitting up, rolling over and clicking her tongue

Image
Image
 Time to switch to 6-9 month clothes and size 3 diapers!

Image
She had back to back colds this month...thank goodness she has a daddy who can check her ears and breathing at home.

Image
 She was still not sleeping well during the day. 15 minute naps, sprinkled throughout. Uuugh.

Image
 I used to be able to get my babies to sleep and then lie down with them on my bed, slide my arm out, and sneak away. This one is not having it!

Image
Image
But isn't she beautiful?! I took a lot of pictures this month.

Image
She's got some big cheeks. I think she's taking supplements.

Image
What three cuties. They look so different to me, but I always hear that they all look like their dad, or look like Yoders.

Image
I'm glad that we borrowed this "gadget chair" from my sister. She'll stay in there for a long time.

Image
Image
Image
 Wrapping paper was the final motivation for her to roll completely over on her own.

Image
 She likes watching Baby Einstein DVDs (yay! I get some free time!)

Image
 This was Luke's old romper. So cute.

Image
Image 
 He's so big now. 5 years old!

Image
 With Uncle Kevin

Image
With Grandmom Yoder

Image

Image
 This is what Madelyn calls Isabelle's "Tomato Face" because when she does a closed mouth smile, her cheeks plump out like a tomato.

 Image
 It started to get below freezing...

Image
  Luke's winter attire leaves something to be desired...

Image
Image
 Image
 Image 
Image She got better and better at sitting as the month went on. Our princess is growing up!



This is her favorite one legged kick/abs of steel workout.