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2 Little Hooligans

four.

Today is our little boy turns 4. He is our nonstop chatterbox that will talk to anyone and tell them anything and everything. He loves his tractors almost as much as his tools. He can use a screwdriver and a hammer almost as good as any man and definitely better than his momma. His daddy is his #1 and wakes up extra early every morning just to give him a hug and a kiss goodbye before he goes to work. He is a relentless little boy that loves to do things his way and will always tell you how he likes things done. He takes such good care of his baby sister but always competes with his little missy girl. He still sleeps with piggie and chippie and we always have to sing the ABC song when tucking him into bed. He is so sweet and loving and we are so lucky to have him as our son!
Happy birthday little buddy!

embrace the camera {tapping trees}

With the cold nights and warm days sugaring season has arrived! There were a few trees that still needed to be tapped, so we packed our minivan full of sugaring buckets and headed out to give Daddy a hand.

It was the perfect spring day. The weather was warm and the sun was shining bright!

The snow was still a bit deep in spots, but we wont complain, especially to those of you that did the majority of the tapping a few weeks ago in the pouring rain!



Our little girl was a little more interested in playing in the snow then helping out. Walking in the deep snow was still a bit challenging for her. Plus she knew that a certain auntie had some marshmallows inside waiting for her.

All the trees are tapped and the sap is flowing like crazy! 8 1/2 gallons has already been made. It already looks like it’s going to be a good sugaring season.

Our handmade caterpillar birthday party.

I received a few emails asking about our little homemade caterpillar party that we had for our baby girl’s birthday. Some of you were wondering if I made the caterpillar “party hats” and the caterpillars. So I figured I would give you all a closer look and quickly show you how I made everything.


We made the usual chocolate cupcakes with lots of sprinkles, a mini cake, chocolate covered strawberries and sugar cookies.
I planned on making a cute little argyle birthday cake to go along with the theme, but went wrong in some many ways. So instead my little argyle cake became an ugly diamond cake, oops!

See why I turned it around? Not pretty.

We baked some sugar cookies and made them into lollipops. I loved making them into little swirly pops, cute and yummy. It was pretty easy. Make some sugar cookies (I used Martha Stewart’s recipe) and then divide the dough into 3 different bowls. Add food coloring to each bowl. Then roll out the dough onto a powdered sugar work surface and use your rolling pin to shape into a rectangle. Repeat with remaining dough. Then pile all three rectangles on top of one another. Cut the dough to make it even and into a nice rectangle shape. Starting with one edge, roll up the cookie dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for about an hour in the fridge or overnight. Take the roll out of the fridge when ready and cut into 1/2″ wide pieces. Poke a lollipop stick in about 1″. Cook a little longer then you normally would a sugar cookie. You want them to be a little harder than usual so they stay on the stick.

Our cute little caterpillar bunting. My little guy made the caterpillars by using his Elmer’s glue and our cake sprinkles. Aren’t they adorable?! Totally his own creation, this momma was not involved on this one at all, except to police him from consuming too many sprinkles.

I used some of our drawstring bags that we normally have toys in as the goodie bags.
And our much loved little caterpillars.

I never took pictures on how to make them because they are so easy to make. Make 5 little pom poms and 1 larger pom pom. Use your hot glue to just glue them together. I used a lot of glue here. For the little antennae I simply wrapped shortened wooden skewers. I hot glued them into the larger pom pom and then topped them off with tiny little poms. They hold up pretty well. We still have one caterpillar intact. My little girl is giving these little critters much love.

For the cute little caterpillar “party hats” I bought some headbands from Walmart and started wrapping some wreath making wire around the head bands. I’m not sure which gauge it was. When I got to the antenna part I wanted to make them a little stiffer for holding up the pom poms, so I pulled out enough wire to wrap around the headband 4 times and then wrapped the four wires together all the way down to the base of the headband.

You don’t have to be too picky on what it looks like because you are going to cover the wire with the yarn.

Once all of the wire is finished grab some yarn. Starting on the bottom edge of the headband place some glue and carefully start wrapping the yarn around the edges to cover up the headband. Keep wrapping the yarn around the entire headband and antennae. I only used hot glue on the bottom edges of the headband.

Hot glue some pom poms to the top of the antenna and add a little fabric rosette if you want.

I also made a cute little wreath to match.

I spray painted the wreath ring and then hot glued on some pom poms and rosettes. I also wrapped some wooden circles in yarn to make those little yarn circle do-dads.

And since I had some leftover pom poms and rosettes, I made a few “flowers.”

It was a lot of fun putting this little party together. I’m sure the kids would have liked it just as much even without the decorations but it was fun finally making a birthday party a little more special. After all, our little baby only turns 1 once!

**smitten**

I am completely **smitten** over this new monthly planner of mine! I first learned of the erin condren planner from i heart organizing. I’m kinda fussy when it comes to my planners and always find myself switching to a new one every few months because I can never find the right one. Well after much contemplating I finally spent the money and bought one of the erin condren monthly life planners. It is everything I have ever wanted from a planner and then some.

It arrived wrapped & packaged in the cutest little box along with a few freebies.

Of course I chose an orange cover, but they have a ton of other colors and cute designs to choose from as well.

I decided to buy just the monthly planner with lots of blank pages for my blog ideas and etsy shop. This way I can keep everything in one spot instead of carrying around 3 different books.

There are more than enough lined and blank pages to make lists and sketch ideas on.

And has two sheets of these brightly colored little sticky notes. You can use them as stickers, labels or for page tabs…LOVE!

There are two pockets for holding loose pieces of paper as well as a plastic zipper pouch for holding smaller items that are always falling out of my previous planners.

To keep all my blog ideas in one spot, I printed off these FREE printables from i heart organizing. Jen has the most amazing organizing blog and is offering some free printables for the rest of the month, so head on over there before the month is over.

I just love how perfectly her printables coordinate with my new planner. So how do all of you keep your blog ideas, etsy shop, and sketches organized? Please do share if you have any great tips!

fat quarter friday {guest post from Me Sew Crazy}

Hi everyone! I am Jessica from Me Sew Crazy, and I am so happy to be here today! When Christina announced that she was starting her Fat Quarter Fridays, I was thrilled! Not being a quilter myself, I never really know what to do with those little squares. I couldn’t wait to see what she would come up with, using such little fabric! When she asked me if I wanted to participate, I was honored and excited to pick up the challenge!

With Easter around the corner, my mind has been pretty occupied with wanting to keep our Easter Baskets homemade. My kids would probably be just as thrilled if I threw in some Peeps and jellybeans – lol. But I want it to be more than that this year. I want it to be from the heart.

So when the Fat Quarter project rolled around, I had Easter on the brain!

Without further ado, I give you Easter Bunny Bean Bags!

These cute little guys use only 1 Fat Quarter to make 3 bean bags, and will provide a great game to play with those Easter Baskets!

My daughter really tried hard to get those bunnies in her basket!

Whereas my other daughter…well, had a different approach:

Either way, they kept going back to play some more!

My favorite part? My daughter gave hers away at the end of the playdate to her friend because she enjoyed playing with them so much. I am so proud of her :).

For your free tutorial to make these cute little bunnies, click HERE.

Thank you again so much for having me Christina!

Happy Sewing everyone!

Lupus.

So it’s not much of a surprise that fat quarter fridays have been a struggle for me lately. While I am on the mend, and will hopefully keep getting better, this is something that unfortunately will occur again. To be honest with all of you, and more importantly to be honest with myself I was diagnosed with Lupus. I have been feeling pretty miserable for months now, and have been in denial about it until a few weeks ago when I got sick. The kind of-scary-what is wrong with me sick. While the doctors thought I was simply over exhausted and depressed, I pushed them to do further testing and I’m so glad I did. While I knew this was going to be my diagnosis, I prayed it wasn’t. I prayed that I was depressed and over exhausted at least then I would feel better someday and not live in constant pain and suffer from the craziest symptoms I have ever had.

While I impatiently wait to meet with the specialists, I am hopeful that I will be relieved of this pain and will regain my strength and energy level. For now, it is slowly coming back and hope it keeps coming back. I really do not want to give up on fat quarter friday as it is fun for me and I NEED this little outlet to escape to. Crafting is such a huge part of who I am. And this is the only thing I am able to do for me while being a stay at home momma with 3 little ones. So I’m asking all of you not give up on me while I’m going through such times. I’m not looking for sympathy or pity, I’m just being open and honest with all of you. So many of you have sent me emails, comments or get well wishes and I truly appreciate all of them. Like I said before, I never knew blogging would lead me to “meet” so many wonderful crafty ladies, that just get me. And a big thank you to my sister in law that lives hundreds of miles away, dealing her own issues, but always takes the time to check up on me. Love ya girl!

So tomorrow, thanks to this amazingly talented bloggy friend of mine (that makes the most adorable dresses for her little girls) fat quarter friday will continue. Thank you Jessica from Me Sew Crazy for putting together a super cute tutorial for us! And if anyone else has a great tutorial using fat quarters and would like to be a guest blogger, just send me an email.

tw****************@ya***.com











I know “things could be worse” and promise to all of you, that my blog is not going to turn into a big pity party, this is my happy place and I want to keep it that way. So to end this post on a happy note, here are the prettiest flowers that my hubby brought home to me the other day. They sure did brighten my day!



See you all tomorrow for a super cute Easter tutorial from Jessica over at Me Sew Crazy.

embrace the camera {our baby’s first birthday}

Yesturday we spent the day celebrating our baby girl’s first birthday.

Cupcakes were made and decorations were finally hung up.

Balloons were found.
And snuggles were shared.

Caterpillar “party hats” were worn.

And lots of goodies were consumed.

Pom pom caterpillars were finally played with and got lots of loves.

Sadly the party was cut short due to a potty training accident.

But that didn’t stop balloon fights from occuring once everyone was clean.

Then tears were shed and loud screams were heard.

While Mommy and Daddy just sat there and watched.

Gosh, we haven’t laughed that hard in a longtime! It’s hard to believe that we have a 1 year old, 2 year old & a 3 year old …at least for 10 days!

One.

I still remember the moment they said “Its a girl!” Oh how I cried. I was so scared to have another girl and your Daddy was even more scared! But here we are, one year later and you just complete our little family. Your so snuggly, sweet and funny. That giggle of yours is so contagious and that pouty face can get you whatever you want. Your brother is your buddy but your momma is your #1. You already compete with your sister and always want what she has. The kitchen cabinets are your playground but the bathtub is your favorite place. You still wake up 3x a night to be nursed and have the figure to prove it. We love every little morsel of you and we are so blessed to have you in our lives!

Happy Birthday baby girl!

Closing up shop for a bit.

I was hoping to make my 100th sale soon, but instead I’m closing up shop for a bit. For those of you that have already placed custom orders, no worries…I will still be filling them. Hopefully in the next few weeks I will be back to my old sewing ways and staying up till the wee hours of the night to sew. But for now, I will be taking it easy while getting ready for 2 birthday parties and hopefully finishing some goodies to share with all of you for fat quarter friday. I am only two super-quick steps away from being able to post that cute organizer this friday, fingers crossed it will get completed. Unfinished projects drive me crazy, not to mention I’m having withdrawals from my sewing machine.

fat quarter friday {getting organized}

Since I won’t be able to post a tutorial today, let’s talk about storing and organizing those cute little fat quarters instead. You can see here that all of my fabric is neatly organized in dresser drawers. I have to admit, I don’t have a ton of fat quarters like some of you out there, but I still needed a way to organize them.

I neatly folded each fat quarter and used 2 baskets from The Dollar Store. Nothing exceptionally pretty or inventive, but it was cheap and it works.

So let’s see how others organize their fat quarters and what types of products are out there to help us get organized, shall we?

Products to buy for storing fat quarters:

Fons and Porter Jumbo Fat Quarter Box

Fat Quarter Tote

source
Janet Basket Aluminum Frame Bag

Did any of you know that Marie Osmond has her own fat quarter organizing system? Basically you buy these cardboard cards that you neatly wrap your fat quarters around and then secure the fat quarters in place with a fabric band.

Then once all of your fat quarters are neatly wrapped and secure, they can either be stored in this portable tote bag,

or in this fat quarter storage box.

The Marie Osmond fat quarter organizing system can be found here.
This is a great system for those of you traveling with your sewing goodies (hmm, like Marie Osmond) or if you take a lot of sewing classes.

Neatly fold those fat quarters and store them in this portable plastic case.

source
ArtBin Super Satchel

Here is one of my favorites that I found, a Clip It Up Base Unit. How adorable would this filled with all of your favorite fabrics stored on a shelf or cabinet?!

Or if you rather store them using the Clip It Up system on a wall.

SWOON! Am I right?! You can read more about the Clip it up Base Unit here.

For those of you that have a lot of fat quarters, how about storing them all neatly folded in this Besta-Shelfa unit from IKEA. Or for those with a lesser amount of fat quarters, how about these cute little cubes?

( Store in style 2-drawer accessorizer cube from Oriental Trading.)

CD boxes are the perfect size for storing neatly folded fat quarters.


Acrylic Storage box from The Container Store.

Etsy finds for storing fat quarters:

A Vintage wire basket from SweetAnneVintage.

Old wooden boxes like this one from GiantFlea.

Or how about this Dansk Sunshine Yellow Enamel Pot from Swoonshop. I can already see my fat quarters all neatly rolled up inside this beauty, next to these…

Felted Treasure Bowls from Shanineal.

Fat quarter storage ideas from others:

Metal bins or baskets

source: BH&G
Labeled wicker baskets

Plastic shoe box storage containers.

Good Housekeeping shares this idea for organizing a craft room. See the fat quarters in a clear box on a shelf.

And here is a great way to label all of your fat quarters and scraps. Want to keep track of the name of the fabric, type and washing instructions?

Thanks to Shannon who tipped me off on this one. Cathe from Just Something I Made, created these downloadable wraps for organizing her scraps and remnants.

And this curated gallery on flickr is a must see!

And this fabric stash and storage group from Sew, Mama, Sew.

It was so fun seeing how others store their fat quarters and scraps. I saw so many sewing rooms and areas that I loved! But for some reason, this sewing room just stuck in my head and had to show you. Maybe it’s because orange is my favorite color or maybe it’s that cute little kids table next to momma’s sewing station. Love it!

Hope you found some inspiration here to help you get those fat quarters organized. Already organized?…care to share your tips, tricks and ideas?