Ok, I give up.....

Well, I don't really want to give up on the blogging idea, just postpone it for a while.  I feel that there's just too much going on and I don't have enough time to do blogging justice.  And at this time, I don't have enough of what I want to blog about to offer - crafty projects and ideas of things I'm doing or want to do, or find online that I want to share.  One can only spread oneself so far, and right now I choose to concentrate more on family and home.  We just had two babies born, my mother had a small heart attach and is recovering, and she, my grandma, my sister (from Chicago) with my niece and nephew are all going to be moving in sometime this summer to the house we purchased for my mom & grandma and we're getting things all ready for them.  Plus it's summer fun time!  Lots and lots and lots going on.....

So......bye for now!

I.

Summer has begun!

Yesterday was the last day of school.  Pixie's 2nd grade class had a Pizza & Root Beer float +  watching Tangled party to end the year with a bang!  It was tons of fun.  Felt bad for the other 2nd grade class, but hey I guess we had the cool moms with cool ideas! ;)

The cutest thing - her teacher gave them these school "yearbooks" and they went around signing each other's.  How. Cute. Is. That! 


I brought silverware and stuff to the party and a big hit were these super colorful, fun, large diameter straws that I got from - of all places - JCPenny Home store.  They were just in an "under $5" bin, and cost $1.99 for 50.  (as you can see we used many up.)  The moms were like "where'd you get those, they are so cool".  The kids liked them too. ;)

I remember growing up how fun and rare it was to get one of those twisty straws.  So if I see unusual straws I get some, and the girls love them. We don't use them all the time but sometimes they like to use the skinny coffee stir sticks for their hot chocolate and I always use the jumbo wide ones for our smoothies and milkshakes.  Just adds a fun novelty to your beverage!  So look around at the grocery stores, dollar stores, restaurant supply stores, and even the "home" department stores during the spring/summer time and you might score something fun for really cheap.  Maybe even some Asian stores, since I saw they use them for bubble tea.  I did a quick search on Amazon - my absolute favorite online place to shop - and found these, and these, and these.  And here at Nutsonline.  Not as cost effective as local, but if you absolutely want some and can't find them, and maybe rinse and reuse....and I'm sure the WWW has plenty of other places to find them. 

I keep all sort of staws by my Magic Bullet blender ready for smoothies & shakes!

Photo Freedom

Today I start the Finding Photo Freedom class from Big Picture Classes.  Yay!!!  I've had Stacy Julian's two books, Photo Freedom and The Big Picture for a few years.

I've tried to start implementing her "Library of Memories" system once before but didn't get far.  I've had the Adobe Photoshop Elements with the Organizer for a couple years as well, and have slowly been using it more and more.  But I have yet to get all my photos organized.  Until Now! :)

Family Matters

I've been all out of sorts all week.  (Truth be told, been out of sorts since2 weeks ago when we all had the stomach flu)  This weekend was particularly crazy.  No lazy Memorial Day weekend for us.  Pixie had a 5 day weekend.  We suddenly went shopping for some new stuff, in addition to the other new stuff we'd already been shopping for/ordered in the last couple weeks.  So I feel my house is topsy turvy with all the re-arranging and cleaning out going on.  SIL #2 had her baby boy Sunday morning!  The BBQ SIL #1 hosted that day was a little crazy, they drove at crack of dawn a couple of hours up to where baby was being born then came down to host tons of people at their house.  We drove down there that day, then Monday drove up to meet the new baby.  Then I got word that my mom was in the hospital in Puerto Rico because it looks like she had a small heart attack on Saturday.  She was fine, but went to the Dr. on Monday, they ran some tests and put her in ICU for observation.  Today she had a Cardiac Catheterization and they found no problems.  Yay!  The hardest part for me was having her so far away and how hard it is to get info.  And she was scheduled to fly up to my sister's in Chicago this Saturday, so my sis is scrambling to change everything.  I only got to talk to my mom directly Monday night while she was still in emergency awaiting an ICU bed.  But now the news is good, she might go home tomorrow or Saturday and be cleared to fly to the States in a couple of days. I'm still worried because my mom has medical issues and medicines they had to change to do the procedure, the biggest worry is clots.  But still the fact that her heart looks fine is such a relief!


So I haven't been in much of a crafty mood.  I've sorta been a hermit the past couple days, been doing alot of escape reading.  I had this online class I was starting today and wasn't sure if I could get to it.  But now that so much of the uncertainty has been removed, I feel like I can go ahead.  Details in next post....

The Comfy Chair

2003

Under the quilt and boppy you can see my nursery chair, a gift from my mother and sisters in law.  It had thin denim color pads.  Not super comfy, let me tell ya!  So I decided to replace the cushions with 5" foam (from Joanns) that EC cut to shape.  The foam is dark green so I made white muslin covers for them, and on top yellow chenille covers.  I know it is super hard to look past that cutie Pixie with her Hippy, but this is how it looked for a few years.

2004

And then when Ariel was born I decided to cover the arms as well, so this is how it was for another couple of years. (Again, try to look past the other cutie!)

2007

It sure was comfy with the new pads!  It was used daily for 3 years in our first home, and 2 years in our apartment but once we moved to our current home I decided Ariel was big girl enough that there was no need for it.  (nor the crib - she was just over 2 years old, so she got a big girl bed)  So that chair was stored at EC's grandmother's garage.  Until a couple of weekends ago.  Last week it got a fancy makeover with super soft dot Minky in yummy chocolate brown.  And coordinating polka dot ribbon border on the pockets, just because that would make it that much sweeter. :)

2011

I've been looking forward to passing on this chair to SIL #1 for years now....so happy it has a new life and a new home. :)

May 22 2011 - SIL#1 with Someday - T minus 3 weeks ;)

Mother's day cards

Just wanted to show and tell some Mother's day cards I made.  Cardmaking is fun!

for my mother-in-law

for my grandmother-in-law

for my sister-in-law #1, 1st baby Someday due 2nd wk June

for my sister-in-law #2, 2nd baby C2 due 1st wk June

Project - LIFE

Hi.  It's been a while.  I could fill a page explaining all the real life things, both the good (like I'm very close to getting caught up in my Project Life album) and the bad (like stomach flu came thru our house this week) that have been going on preventing me from posting.  But that's not really what I want to do in this space.  I knew from the get go that blogging for blogging's sake was not my biggest priority in leading a meaningful life.  It's just a spot for me to share some of my creative side, some of my favorite memories.

I was feeling guilty because so far I have not done much posting.  I felt this pressure that I was failing again.  Starting something and not following through.  But then thru the Ali Edwards FB page I came across a video  by Dr. Brene Brown (and it's no longer on the site that was linked before and I can't find it, but I'll keep searching because it is a wonderful message). She talks about the societal pressures right now to do so many things at once and to seek out meaning in our lives through recognition for all those things we do.  Leading an "ordinary" life no longer is enough...or so society tells us.  It really hit home with some of the things I've been pondering as I redefine what I want out of this life.  What I want to look back on.  Did I decide to give blogging a shot because of external pressures (everyone else is doing it so I should too), or did I just want a place to share with a larger group of my friends and family than I can reach on a day by day basis.  Do I feel my life is not extraordinary if I don't start seeking out recognition, or am I happy to experience an "ordinary" life.

Well, I don't know the short answer to that.  Just like with everything, there is no black or white, there are tradeoffs to everything I choose to spend time on, and priorities are ever evolving.  Right now I've been concentrating mostly on being thankful for the everyday things, and even the bad stuff that happens leads to further thankfulness.  So creatively, my biggest thing has been the Project Life album.  I put it on my sidebar as soon as I started blogging a couple of months ago, and I've mentioned it to some people, but haven't done a show and tell yet.  Well, given that the stomach flu has run it's course, I'll still be able to go to Foxy Lady Day on Sunday (yay!) and the main thing I'll be working on is my PL album.  Then I'll feel like I can show and tell. :)

Off to get my presents ready....

Have a Tweet Easter!

Many people have Easter traditions.  They might include going to church, having a ham or roast with family, taking pictures with the Easter bunny at the mall, egg hunting.  Holidays are a little weird in our family.   We used to live too far away.  My side is usually not around - my sis and her two kids are in Chicago, my mom and grandma are (usually) in Puerto Rico.  On EC's side, mama fox sometimes works holidays, its hard to coordinate schedules.  One year we even went over to EC's parent's house to hunt eggs in their back yard and they were away for the weekend.  So we don't usually have many specific "traditions" that carry out year to year.  We just play it by ear.

This year's plan is to go celebrate in two weeks, up to EC's grandma's house - and most of his immediate family will be there, just one sister and her hubby can't make it.  The fab fox four will probably do egg dyeing and hunting this Sunday.  We got the ham during the week, so I'll have to get back to you on the culinary plans.  The Easter Bunny will probably be taking credit for bringing an assortment of stickers, small toys, apparel and maybe even a candy or two for the foxlets, using the baskets that they've gotten the last couple of years because they are still in awesome condition.  As for visiting said lagomorph* for pictures, not in this family.  Have you seen Donnie Darko's Frank?  *shudders*  I can't even bring myself to put the picture up on here.

* Lagomorph: any member of the mammalian order made up of the relatively well-known rabbits and hares (family Leporidae) and also the less frequently encountered pikas (family Ochotonidae)

What I will do is share some of my favorite photos of Easter's past (and present) from our little corner of the world:

2004 Pixie's first Easter - just wanted to play with the same eggs, not hunt for them.

2005 Why bother looking for more when she got her treat?

2006  Look what the Easter Bunny brought this year

2006 First year we did the rice crispy treat Peep nests - tweet tweet

2007 The year we borrowed EC's parents lawn

2009  ;D

2009 Pixie girl, or monkey girl

2009 We got grow your own butterflies as a gift and released them on Easter

2010, making our rice crispy Peep nests again

2010 playing Wii bowling, that's EC's grandma Muffy showing us her moves ;)

2011 We made a batch this year again, I found 5 yrs we've made these Peep tweets

Twilight Thursday: back to paper piecing

Well I finally managed to eek out some time to do some sewing.  A widdle bit.  I got one paper pieced block finished.  Woohoo!  I decided I wanted to do the book covers next.  So I downloaded and printed Cat's fabulous New Moon book cover pattern, which is officially called "Broken Petals".  Its funny after a long break from doing any paper piecing, I sat down and blanked on how to do it!  But fortunately, it's like riding a bicycle!  I really love paper piecing, it's very rhythmic and soothing.  And cheaper than therapy.  Sometimes.  So this is how it came out:

The background fabric is Moda Bistro Steam in Black.  I'd gotten a piece during an exchange way back in the days of working on Stephenie Meyer's quilt.  It's so yummy that I ordered 12 yards of it from Nana's House Quilt Shop. (@ $8.50 a yard, its still cheaper than therapy! )  They only have it in Expresso, Green, and Latte now.  Rambling Rose Quiltshop is the one I put on the link for black.  They have it for a little bit higher, but have it in black.  Plus the other colors I mentioned, and even Blue.  Anywho, all that yardage I ordered actually has a purpose this time, rather than just going to my stash.  I'm going to use in the quilt I make for my bed.  My Cal King bed.  Someday.  I actually have a pattern picked out for that, but that will be show and tell another day

Here is a closeup so you can (kinda) see the shimmery detail in the green and white fabrics.  The green is just a satiny material I had leftover from making little purses and stoles for my wedding.  I got it at Joanns but don't remember anything beyond that.  The white/offwhite feathery print fabric I picked up at the LQS (local quilt shop).  Unfortunately I don't have the selvage anymore.  It is similar to the Michael Miller Fairy Frost in Snow.  Of course I've tried time and time again to capture the look on camera, but I'm just not that good of a photographer.  If you want to get any Fairy Frost, the bestest place to order it from is Mary Jo's Cloth Store.  They have the best price, currently $7.39, and carry 117 colors!!!  (oh I see the glow in the dark is at $7.59)  The red is a batik I don't know what it is or where I got it.  (Gee, aren't I helpful!)

This was a really fun block to put together!  Definitely easier than the Twilight Forbidden Fruit book cover.  Not sure if that's because I've done more paper piecing since that one, or that it is easier.  Cat's patterns are very straightforward.  I did enlarge it from a 5" finished block to a 6" finished, as that's the size of all my other blocks.

So I redrafted my quilt, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do.  Here are two possible layouts.  I'm happy with the positions of each block now, but I'm concerned about spacing.  I originally thought to do each block butting up against the other, but I'm not sure I like that.  But I'm not convinced about adding sashing between each block.  I don't want the quilt to be bigger.  Plus I don't want to deal with the math.

 

So this is what my design wall looks like now.  1 more block down (plus I added the "I am Switzerland" quote to the shield).

Ooh, ooh, ooh, do you see that little section on the bottom left.  I just added that last week and am tickled pink.  My buddy Wanda brought me back this Twilight Apple Blackboard Vinyl Decal when she went up to Forks last year.  She's awesome that way.  It's been hiding in that closet to the right all this time.  I just wasn't sure where to put it.  But I recently rearranged my room and this is it's new home.  And the really cool thing is the pincushion right above it.  I got it from Cat for our New Years Exchange.  It's cute, has apples on it, and is a nice size and weight.  But I already have a pincushion that Elizabeth gave me last year at New Years Exchange. (hmmm...tradition in the making?)  Well Cat's pincushion happens to have a metal button on the bottom that sticks to the magnets on my magnetic strip!!!! SWEET!

Hah, it's 11:40!  It's still Thursday, so I made it!  Y'all have 20 minutes to read this on time.

A little Sweet Tweet

While I have a few minutes I thought I'd share a quick little project I did today. Nothing fancy, but Pixie loved it. I got her a plain wedgewood blue leotard a few weeks ago at a kids consignment store down the street. I thought it was a good coincidence cuz I'd bought her a lilac one that's almost exactly the same about 4 years ago at another kids consignment store. And now little Ariel is currently wearing that one. So they kinda match. ;) But they are both very plain in comparison to the leos they were wearing before.

So to add a little something I used some felt scrapbooking embellishments and just stitched a few on by hand. I love it when I can crossover hobbies. And when I actually use something in my stash! I think it came out cute, and now it's got something. Now I'll just add a couple to Ariel's when it gets laundered later this week. :)

we now interrupt your regular programming.....

That's how I felt these past two weeks.  All our normal routines have been interrupted.  Much going on, many new things happening.  It's all just taking lots of time and energy.  In the end rewarding, just tiring me out.  (and I could have skipped the foxlets and I getting sick.  again.  that needs to stop already!)

When it rains it pours.  A couple weeks ago we got an inch and half of rain in one day, causing a bit of flooding.  (darn it, I forgot to whip out the camera that time)  But then sun burst out and we've had a great beginning to Spring!  (don't hate, all you guys still stuck with winter weather, we get more rain tomorrow)  And we've had many new beginnings here in foxland. 

Sunday before last SIL #1 moved into her first home.  We went down (about an hour away) to help in the move.  She and her hubby have done a beautiful job of remodeling the very dated kitchen and installing new floors.  Mostly her hubby cuz I haven't mentioned yet that she's almost 7 months pregnant right now. :)  Her foxlet, is called Someday.  Has been called that for years.  Don't know yet if its the boy or girl kind.

Oh and a few weeks before that, we bought a house too.

It's for my mom and grandma. :)  It's 8 streets away. :D  It was a long process that started in September and I'm very happy it finally concluded, though now I've spent the last two weeks moving a few things over there every few days, and getting things set up.  And in the process doing some Spring Cleaning over here as well, going through closets, doing the bi-yearly clothing migraion, rearranging furniture.  If I'd had any energy or time to spare, I would have shampoo'd the carpets.  Now I have two houses worth to do!

Pixie moved up in gymnastics (it's incredible the things she can do now) and we changed both foxlets' class schedules last week.  Twice.  Now they have class on separate days.  Then my phone went all April Fools on me a day early and I had to research, buy, and set up a new one.  Which is good, and nice, but it still takes time.  I'm a high technology user, and my phone is no exception.  I need something that's fast and multitasks, so I went with the latest and greatest available at Verizon , the HTC Thunderbolt (pricey, but have had 12 yrs of great coverage).  Eeek, just noticed how dirty my old phone looks!  I clean my devices every couple days. Honestly.

Saturday EC went to pick up another new toy for me, the Koala Sewmate Plus IV.   About 10 yrs ago he bought a mechanism for lifting my sewing machine up and down, and I'd given him a picture of a Koala cabinet at that time, so that someday he could make me a sewing station.  I have made due with a folding table.  After having to set up two additional folding tables, that all wobbled and took up all the floor space in my room, where I could just barely squeeze out to get to the door, in order to quilt Ariel's Peep Quilt in Feb, I got to dreaming about a better sewing setup.  Then I googled Koala cabinets and found my dream station.  Then I asked if he would ever make me one.  He said "Probably not" and then I showed him my dream.  He said "Happy Birthday" and half hour later I was down at the local dealer ordering one up! ;D  That was a month ago.  I finally have it all set up and I'll show and tell all about that later.  Anyway, right after he brought it home and I unwrapped it, I had to wait to play as I had other plans that day.  I drove up to my MIL's house 25 min away, picked up a computer armoire, drove a little further to SIL #2's new apartment, and helped her assemble it while her 6 1/2 yr old foxlet and my two played together.  Oh by the way, she's 7 months preggo too!  Her foxlet, the boy kind we're told, is called C2 (for child 2).  MIL and I are doing her baby shower this Saturday, and I picked out the theme and I'm all excited.

While I was gone 6 hrs on that trip, EC was busy with putting pavers down in our side yard.   We started landscaping about a year ago, and I'm sure I'll be showing and telling all about that someday.  The hardscape is almost all done, all the dirt is ready waiting grass seed, some baby trees are in, and raised planters are constructed and ready for veggie seeds.  Can't wait to just sit back and enjoy it soon.

And yesterday I got another shiny new toy.  This one is big, and I can't help but stroke it and giggle every time I pass by it. ;D  My old fridge still works.  It just went to my mom's house.  She needs a fridge so we took this opportunity to upgrade.  And this was a clearance model, so it cost not much more than our old one when we bought it 12 years ago!  I'd been letting our food run out so that it wouldn't be too much emptying the old one, but still spent several hours yesterday in the exchange.  Got groceries today and let me tell you, never before have I had so much fun putting groceries away! teehee...


So, we got two new baby foxlets coming in a couple months, my mommy and grandma will be living near us soon, I got a few new toys, my foxlets are keeping me on my toes, foxden is looking spiffy, and Spring Cleaning is in full swing.   Life is pretty busy.  But happy!  LIFE IS GOOD! 


PS.  I did get to do a tiny tiny bit of sewing, so hopefully will be showing and telling soon.

Twi Thursday - Look what I dusted off!

Just over two years ago as I stumbled around the TwilightMOMs chat forum, I found a chat thread titled "Twilight Quilt Mystery Style" that immediately peaked my interest.  Twilight.  Quilt.  Yes Please!  The chat hadn't been around too long by the time I joined in.  This was the beginning of a whole new chapter for me.  You see, I've been quilting for 12 years, but for the first 10 yrs my machine rarely got any action.  I remember having the cover on it for months at a time.  But I felt strongly enough about the Twilight Saga and had the encouragement of my new online friends, plus patterns to get me started, and so I dug in to making myself a Twilight Quilt!  Within a few weeks I had this:

This was a combination of the patterns given for the "Mystery Quilt" itself (that had been set up on a site called Zeppelin Threads, which no longer exists) patterns discovered on Sewhooked** plus a couple of alterations and and even a couple of things made up by moi!  Including a paper pieced meadow!  Me the "wannabe" quilter was suddenly busting out some mad skills!  I know someday the OCD will kick in and I'll give you the deets on the individual blocks, but right now I'm just concentrating on overviews.  My buddy Elizabeth over at Such a Sew and Sew has ALL the details of her Twilight Quilt.  There's some overlap as we have pirated borrowed ideas back and forth.  I'm even mentioned a couple of times in her posts.   Hmmm....might have to go steal some of her code.....oops did I say that out loud?

Right after getting all those blocks done we started this crazy talk about making a quilt for Stephenie Meyer, and then followed up with crazier talk about quilts for New Moon then Eclipse......fast forward two years and I've been a madwoman with that machine, belting out many a block and quilt in the Twilight theme.....and yet, this is what my quilt looks like right now:

So yes, there are a few more blocks.  The design evolved a little as we found more and more cool patterns (majority coming from our cool Cat down under) and came up with our own during the three group quilts I participated in.  Going through my photos recently I was shocked to find that the last time I worked on my quilt was last March.  Really, it's been a year?!  So guess what.  I'm going to be totally selfish and make this my #1 sewing priority right now.  I'm not going to go so far as to say I want to finish it by my birthday early May to make it a gift to myself because I have a few tops I'd like to practice quilting on first and I already have my present on order.   (I'd hoped to reveal that here this week, but it's got a longer lead time than I expected - Boooo) 

Here are the original plan for my Twi Quilt (gotta think of a name for it) and the revised one side by side.  I'm going to play with the design again because while I want to make it small enough to hang on the wall, with all the cool blocks I just have to include, it's getting crowded.  I think I need more "white space".

** Jennifer Ofenstein, incredibly talented designer, creator of Sewhooked, has a fabulous site with TONS of free patterns, and some special ones for sale, and is currently running the Project of Doom BOTW , a Harry Potter Paper Piecing Block of the Week project, on Live Journal.  It's easiest if you just check out her blog for all the up to date info.
** Catherine Magraith, our Coven sister in Australia, ran a Twilight Crafts BOM (Block of the Month) on Live Journal.  All her beginner and advanced patterns, many of these used in all the Twilight projects I've worked on, are being hosted on Sewhooked as well.