My week

If you want a glimpse at what my week was like, these are my facebook* updates from this week...

Sarah wonders why every time Justin leaves to travel for work something weird/tragic/major happens here at home?????

Sarah is wondering if Hudson's timing could be any worse... he has the stomach bug and this is just not a good week to be sick!

Sarah realizes that the day your son has the stomach bug is not a good day to run out of laundry detergent!

Sarah is missing Justin.

It's been a rough one. My husband left for 15 days on Sunday. (He travels for his job.) Then my grandma died on Monday. She was 96 and had suffered with Alzheimer's for about a decade. It was horrible. It was a blessing that she is finally at peace. Tuesday my son came down with the most dreaded and evil stomach bug...both ends I'm telling ya, both ends!! Wednesday were the calling hours (does everyone call them "calling hours"? or is that a po-dunk thing to say? I don't know what else they would be called, but my sister who lives on Long Island told me they call it something else there- although she couldn't remember what.) Thursday the funeral. My sister and cousins and I sang. My sister read the eulogy. My mother sang Ave Maria. it was beautiful.
Today I am recovering. I feel exhausted, although i am going out to dinner with my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins... most of of live nearby, but a few traveled from all over the country (Wisconsin, Montana, Washington State) and they leave tomorrow, so we want to get together one more time.

My sewing machine is still on the fritz. My wishful thinking didn't work this time, but here is picture of the pj bottoms I made for Alex for Christmas. She loves them. I feel bad that I didn't make the boys anything.
*Yes, I am on facebook....want to be my friend?

New Year..... catching my breath

Sorry I took quite a break there... between Christmas prep and then recovery I have done very little in the way of anything crafty. And so far this new year is kicking my butt!! But I wanted to check in here and say Happy New Year. I especially want to say Happy Blogiversary to Amber!! Hi Amber! And thank you so much for mentioning me in your post about your anniversary. That was awesome. And also thank you for mentioning me and the bag I made you in your give-away post. You are too kind. Seriously!! That bag is fantastic and I am jealous of the winner :( Oh- and I love the new look over there, Amber. So soft. Love it. OK then.....

I just re-read the last post I wrote here...OK, I guess it was the second to last post I wrote and thought I should let everyone know that I survived the weekend before Christmas.... the babysitting/fundraising event went relatively smoothly and the Christmas Pageant went pretty darn well. Thankfully I had the forethought to get all the kiddos in their costumes and snap a group picture in front to of the backdrop (I decided to forgo any individual animals and went with a simpler backdrop, that I painted 3 nights before the show). One woman in our church said it was the "most moving Christmas pageant" she has ever seen. Wow. See the shepherds beards?? How cute are they? I was also talked into making a Patrick costume for my nephew. My sister wanted to order one for him for Christmas but they were , so I stupidly volunteered. Actually I said, "Why do make him one?" And she said, "Why do YOU make him one?" So I did. It was a hit. I also made Cate an oven mitt and a matching one for her mom. I put them with some sprinkles, cupcake papers and a cool spatula. I was told that Cate received a play kitchen from the big guy, so she was pretty excited to have her own little oven mitt.
Up next is a scrap quilt. I 'll try to get some decent pictures of my progress soon.

Happy New Year to you all!! Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Procrastinating

I have so much to finish up, but I wanted to show you this..... it's the gift I made for the little one I watch, Cate. She loves all the "If You Give" books, and this is the newsest version. So I made a little kitty to go with it, wearing tropical shorts (he does in the book) and a cupcake. The Kitty and the cupcake fit into a little lunch pail, which actually would be better for another book in the series, If You Take A Mouse to School, but she'll still like it. I think I might also give her a cupcake recipe and a jar of sprinkles.

And just to procrastinate a little more, here are some of the finished oven mitts with a cookie cutter attached. That's how I plan on presenting them. They'll be going into my sisters' stockings so I'm not even going to wrap them. I made some cinnamon ornaments with each cutter first and will attach those to the mitt as well. I highly suggest making the cinnamon ornaments, they make your house smell soooooo good.

For the few things I need to package up, I whipped up these gift bags. I was looking at printed gift bags and even at $1.00 a piece I thought, that's too much. (Have I told you that I am extremely cheap about somethings?) So, I bought a pack of plain white ones, (10 for $4.00) cut some tree shapes out of sticky backed felt that I had on hand, had Ethan help me glue sequins onto some of them and stamped them with a "Merry Christmas" stamp I got at Michael's last year. Festive and super cheap!!

And this little cute thing, I just had to share.... it's a reindeer Ethan made in nursery school a few years ago. We reined him up to this Santa and sleigh that we received as a gift. I just think it's hysterical.

This past weekend we went away (kid free- yoo hoo!) to Aurora, NY. My parents rented a house (with servants!! yoohoo!) so we could all hang out, drink wine, be served dinner and celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Aurora is a totally adorable little town on Cayuga Lake (one of the Finger Lakes) and Mackenzie Childs is located there. We looked around the shop a little, and although everything is so fantastically cute, it was also so fantastically expensive!

Here is my hubby (sister and parents are in the background) leaving the grounds. We thought about staying for a factory tour, but Bloody Mary's at Fargo were calling us. (Did I mention we were kid free!!)

This was a cute tree decorated with chicken ornaments.... I almost bought one for my daughter because she made some chicken ornaments for her brothers for Christmas and I thought it would be ironic... but $18 was too much to pay for irony.

You can order tiles and sinks and knob there too.... if you can afford to outfit you home with it.

The displays were all so wonderful.

This little girl bed was so beautiful... and I don't even want to tell you what it cost (more than my husband's car). But, to be a good consumer, I did buy something.... this little cardboard house.

It goes with the little cardboard church I bought a few years ago and the sparkly tree candle that Ethan stared to peel this year!

Christmas Present Makin' (Part 3) and Buying!

I've slowed down a bit on the oven mitts... but finished one lat night, along with a set of cloth napkins! Now I only have,what, 6, to go?? Something like that.

And I just made my second Etsy purchase. I followed a link for one of your blogs to find the Etsy seller.... so thank you to who ever linked to Lynn. I am so excited! look at the gorgeous packaging!

And the necklace!! So beautiful. The necklace is for my mom for Christmas and the flowers represent her five daughters.

I have one question.... is it pronounced? ET-see or EET-see?? Anyone??

Christmas Present makin'- Christmas Past version

Because I don't have anything new to show you yet, and because I did not have this blog last year at Christmas present makin' time, I am going to share what I made for gifts last year.

This is the little train bag and quilt set I made for Jack. (My little charge Cate was my toy tester.) Before he was a tractor freak he was a train freak. I bought the fabric with the train on it at the awesome fabric store that closed, and added the rest from my stash. The quilt flips over to a play mat. I got the train at Target in the dollar bin, and the tote was from Micheal's or Joann's.

Here's a close-up of his name on the bag. When Ethan saw the bag he wanted something special too... so I made him a "5" pillow. It's in the picture below behind Knuffle bunny... which I made for him for Christmas.

Here's Knuffle on Christmas morning.Knuffle Bunny is one of Ethan's favorite books. I searched high and low for a knuffle softie, but didn't like what I found... so I decided to try to make him one. He's made from a green sweater I found at the local thrift shop, some felt and a big white pom pom tail. I didn't use a pattern (do I ever? I'm far too lazy) so he's a little wonky... but Ethan loves him.

I also made for some fabric flower barrettes for Alex, a squid t-shirt for Hudson, a set of coasters for my friend Sue, artsy clutches (from Bend the Rules Sewing) for all my sisters and my mom, some rolo turtles for one brother-in-law. I helped the kiddos make ice candles for their grandmas.

This year, in addition to the toy barn and the oven mitts, I plan on making more rolo turtles (my BIL ate them all in about 5 minutes last year!) my peanut brittle that I make every year, a painted sign for my nephew Griffin, a little kitty with some accessories for Cate, a tag like this for my husband (it will be from Ethan) and some pj bottoms for Alex. I am also helping Alex make some chicken ornaments for her brothers to represent their real gift.

**If you need any ideas for Christmas crafting with little ones, head over to the Crafty Crow. Such cool ideas!!

Christmas Present makin'

I asked my sister in law what my nephew Jack (who is three) would like for Christmas. He is known to be a tractor freak, but Maura said he had enough tractors. "Maybe a barn," she suggested. So the hunt began for a reasonably priced nice toy barn for Jack. I found a few nice (but pricey) wooden ones, and nearly ordered one, until I saw the shipping price was $18!! So I decided I could try to make him one.

I saw this tutorial and thought that it was just adorable, but didn't know if I'd have the time or the patience to make it. So I took the pattern but tweaked it.

Instead of using fabric, batting and something rigid inside, I made the whole thing out of stiff felt. I just cut out the pieces and sewed them together using a zig-zag stitch. The little fence is from the flower decor section of Joann's. I sewed it to the side of the barn with red thread with tiny stitches around the wire that is holding the slats together.

The hay bale on the inside is also a floral item. Its and actual real small straw bale, and to make it so that it doesn't shed it's straw all over I covered it with Mod-Podge.

I'm adding a tube of animals (I took them out of the tube for the pictures) to complete the set. I figured Jack could play with the little barn with his tractors too. Hope he likes it!

Shepherd Beards

My sister and I are in charge of the Christmas Pageant at church this year, and the one thing that the kids all seem to be excited about is wearing a beard. So I decided to try to whip some up. It was actually pretty easy and I think they turned out OK. So, if you have any shepherd's or wise men to costume this season and need a beard, here's how I did it.

Step 1: Wrap yarn around a piece of cardboard. My cardboard was about 9 x 12. To remove the yarn I had to bend the cardboard a bit. Slide the yarn off, keeping it in this shape as best as you can. Step 2: Run the yarn through your machine. This can be tricky, so go slow. I had to stop a few time and tuck the yarn back under my sewing foot... it kept wanting to ride over the top of it. This doesn't have to be perfect or beautiful, and uneven spaces between the yarn are OK.... you can fix that later.

Here's the yarn after it was sewn.

Step 3: Lay the yarn on the middle on a piece of elastic. My piece was about 30 inches long, which turned out to be too long, but you can trim and adjust later. (The elastic needs to fit around the front of the face, in front of the ears and up over the head.) Pin in place, scrunching the yarn together if needed to cover the elastic. Sew in place.

Step 4: Make a moustache. Wrap some additional yarn around your palm a few times to make a bow shape. Tie it in the middle with another piece of yarn. Then sew the ends of the "bow" onto the beard near either ends.

Step 5: Cut the loops that are end the ends of the beard. Adjust the elastic and sew it or tie it to fit your shepherd's head. Then you can trim the beard if needed. I found that the furry type of yarn looks better, but the thick stuff looks ok too.

Some crafting (warning: bad photos ahead)

My Kansas friend Deborah, mama of three, saw over on my family blog the tooth fairy pillow I made for Ethan last Christmas. (I made one or Hudson too.) She said how cute it was and that her son Aidan would be starting to lose some teeth soon... and that's about all I needed to make her kiddos their very own pillows. I know it will be a while before little Ella can use hers, but it was fun to make. I snapped some quick photos before I mailed them off. The pictures are terrible, sorry.

For her boys I added little sculpy initial charms so that they could tell them apart. Of course when Ethan saw the charms he wanted his own.

I am starting to do a little Christmas crafting, and because I am nearly positive that no one who I plan on giving a gift to reads this blog (or for that matter, anyone at all reads this blog, except maybe Amber...hi Amber!) I am going to talk a little bit about what I have been doing. I found a great tutorial for oven mitts over at Skip to My Lou. And because I figure that everyone can use a new oven mitt, I plan on making them for all my sisters, my SIL, MIL, my mom and a few friends. That's like 10 mitts. My first one, on the far left in the photo below, looked great, but I'm glad I decided to try it out before I made more... it wasn't heat resistant enough. So I went back to Joann's and got some thin batting to sandwich between the lining material and the insul-bright. Works much better! But because there is added thickness now I needed to use a thicker binding. On the one in the middle I tried some brown knit I had left over from Halloween costume making. It worked OK. It feels really soft, so I guess that makes up for the less than great sewing. The red one is my favorite so far. The material is vintage that I found at the thrift store. I have used it before in a bag I made for a friend's daughter. One of my sisters has red accents in her kitchen and I just think it will look great in there.

This one is a work in progress. One of my sisters has chickens. In fact, she gave us our first two chickens. I need a little bit of black or red for the binding to finish it up. That would make 3 that I can give away... only 7 to go!

Oh, and I made one other change to Skip tp My Lou's tutorial (besides adding the batting).. I use Amy Karol's "sew then cut" rule. It is seroiusly the best tip I have gleaned from her incredible book. (If you don't know what this is, I'll explain: instead of cutting out the mitt shapes and then sewing them together, I place the two quilted rectangles right side facing together, trace the mitt pattern onto it, sew on the pattern line and then cut it out all at once.)