Completed I-Pod Case

Here's the I-Pod case that I finished for my niece.  I think she really liked it.

I thought it turned out pretty good, and it was REALLY easy.  I used a pattern from Sew, Mama, Sew, and it took me like 20 minutes!  That's my kind of project! :)

And here's some curtains I made for our changing table, in an effort to keep the boys from getting into all of the wipes and diapers.  (It's not stopping them at all, now they like to hide behind the curtains and play....just can't win) :)

Oh, and did I mention that my AMAZING husband got me an awesome new camera for Christmas??!??  Yeah, it takes wonderful pictures, it's so clear in comparison to my old one I was using (4 megapixels to 14 is a HUGE difference).  I'm SO happy with it!  And now I'm going to find a pattern to make myself a camera case.  :)

Have a Happy New Year everyone!!!

Happy Holidays!

What a wonderful Holiday it has been.  Christmas was just amazing!  I don't even know where to start!!  :)

The kids were so cute Christmas morning.  We had to force Matthew to get out of bed, he wanted to just sleep in, and then he had pretty much no interest in the presents, and went straight for Santa's left over cookies and milk!  Classic! :)

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 Lillian with her little puppy alive (our substitute for the real puppy she asked for) :)

They got SO spoiled...it was so much fun!  I found this AWESOME cardboard castle from Gaggle of Chicks.  For only $5...I was SO stoked!  And the kids love it.  It came with markers that we used to color all over it later in the day. 

 I think this little cars slide from my husband's parents in St. Louis, was Matthew's favorite present.  It's just the perfect size...(he's actually on the floor playing with it right now) ;)

 I think this has been my all time favorite Christmas so far.  As the kids get bigger and understand more, it just makes it so much more fun.  Lillian had such a hard time getting to sleep Christmas Eve, she was so excited.  I think I could hear the hum from her little brain just whirring with questions.  She slept in our bed, and every couple of minutes, she would ask something like..."psst...mom...do we have a chimney?"  It was so cute.

What a fabulous Christmas.  It just doesn't get much better than this.  :)

Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Eve.  Poor Lillian...she was so confused this morning, she woke up and the first words out of her mouth were "Is it Christmas?"  I guess telling her today was 'Christmas' EVE was just a bit too confusing, she thought today was thee day for opening presents.  She had little tears and everything.  Poor little thing.  But we've got a fun day of last minute Christmas crafts, gingerbread cookies and taking a car ride to check out Christmas lights to look forward to today, so she's looking forward to all of that. 

A while back I found these awesome printable Disney charms from Disney Family (I love their website, they have SO much fun stuff for kids!).  Anyways, you print them on Shrink paper, cut them out, and then bake them and they shrink into these really cute little charms!! 

These are the Pook-A-Looz Mickey Mouse Charms!  I think they're adorable.

Of course, I bought the wrong kind of shrink paper that you can't print on, you can only draw/color on it.  So Lillian and I made these for charm bracelets for her cousins.  We just traced the pictures with colored art markers.

 They turned out better than I expected, but they were far from the perfect ones shown on the website.  I've still got to figure out how to attach them to the bracelets....nothing like waiting until the very last minute. (I think this procrastinating stuff is become a terrible habit!) :)

And then we made these for my nieces too.  I like the one on the right the least, and may be pulling it apart to retry using something different.  I really hope they like them. :)

So today I'm going to try to make a couple of these I-pod cases from a free pattern on Sew, Mama, Sew.

I've got a ton more stuff I'm supposed to do before tomorrow...but if I sit here and talk about it all day I'll never get off of my rear and DO it. :)  Plus, we're having Christmas dinner at our house tomorrow, so we've got to get ready for that too!  I love Christmas...and I can't WAIT for the kids to open all of their presents.

Merry Christmas to all of you.  From me and my family to yours...

Merry, Merry Christmas!!

Best Birthday EVER

That's what Lillian kept saying all day Sunday...."this is my best birthday EVER!!"  It was SO cute.  We had so much fun.  Naturally, I didn't get all of the stuff made that I wanted to, but I got most of it, and it was still a LOT of fun!

 Here's the table set up:

 All of the awesome Birthday Princess printables were from Paper Glitter's Shop on Etsy.  They were so adorable and easy to use.

 Matthew had some fun with the print outs too.  (we still used them, it just added some personality) :)

Lillian just loved all of the pink decorations!

 

I made some pink gingham napkins and got these amazing taffy wands from Kate Landers Events.

 I got the adorable bear and the paper cake from Party Starters. Each piece of cake opens up and we put fun candies inside for everyone to take home.  And the pink popcorn was from Oh, Goodie!

 

 

 

 Reading her card from Papa John

 She LOVED her new baby Aurora princess! :)

This really was the BEST birthday party EVER! :)

And thank you so much Save the Date for Cupcakes and all of the other wonderful sponsors from the Blogmania event that made a lot of it possible!

Results of the Friday Night Sew-In

Well I ended up doing more crafts than actual sewing....but that still counts right?? :)  First off, I made a couple of these:

Tissue Poms for Lillian's Birthday tomorrow.  And boy were they a pain!  Well, I guess they weren't that bad, I mean I still made 3 of them!  It was just hard trying to keep them away from the kids.  And now that I look at it, the picture makes it look a bit lopsided, but it looks better in person....and I'm sure no one else would even notice.  :)

Then I did a TON of printing and cutting!  

I cashed in all of my gift cards from my huge Blogmania win back in September to use for Lillian's party, so this is going to be the BEST birthday party ever!  I'll write all about it and make sure to share some great pictures tomorrow!

Okay, so what else did I do last night?  Well...I finished up some sewing on this little gal and finished stuffing her, it's going to be a Raggedy Ann doll when it's all finished.  :)

And I guess that's about it.  I know...no GO!!!???!  And sadly, no GO!  It's still IN THE BOX!!!  I KNOW!  How can this possibly be?!??!  My sewing area is such a mess right now, and I've got so many other random projects going on, I hate to take it out and make it all messy until I can actually use it for a project....I know...that's weird huh?  I think it goes along the same line as I hate to actually wash and cut into my pretty fabric.  I like to just set it on a shelf and stare at it!  Or like when you read a magazine REALLY slowly so that you don't finish it too quickly...I don't want to open it until I have the proper amount of attention to devote to it.  (I'm a dork...I realize this).

So that's what a did, (and didn't do) last night.  :)  And this morning we woke up with no power, which COMPLETELY changed our plans for the day.  I really wanted to make some adorable girlie napkins for Lilly's party tomorrow, so we ran to Joann's and I got all of this...

Some sweet new pink gingham and solid pink for the napkins and some awesome fleece remnants that were 75% off!!!  I LOVE sales!

And then we picked up a fake tree that my sister wasn't going to use this year.  It's the first time we've had a fake tree, but it's been raining for the last week straight (and who wants to get a tree in the rain, little lone bring it sopping into their house??!).  So we decided to go with my sister's old one and save a couple of dollars too.  By the time we started putting it together the power FINALLY came back on, so we've got the lights on (cheater...they were already on the tree)....and all of the ornaments up...it actually feels more like Christmas now.  :)

Friday Night Sew-In

So I've committed...I'm IN for the Sew-in!  I TOTALLY need to do this!  I have SO many projects that need to be worked on!!  Some for Lillian's Birthday party on SUNDAY!!!  YIKES!

And it's not too late for you to join too!  Just head over to Handmade by Heidi's blog and sign in here.




I love that she hosts this every month so that we can all get together and make real plans to sit down and finish some of our projects that need our attention.  Thanks for all you do Heidi!  And I'm glad you make it so easy for everyone to be able to join in.  THANKS! :)

In Joann's Heaven

So yesterday I got a nice little envelope in the mail....and HOORAY it was my Joann's Gift Card!!  I was SO excited!!!  I've just been too darn sick lately to go out last night, but I knew I was going to make it over to Joann's tonight!!  NOTHING was going to stop me! :)  So...I just got back about an hour ago.  I went with the intention of taking a closer look at some bigger items that I would never in my wildest dreams be able to buy for myself and ended up walking down EVERY aisle! 

I bought a handful of stuff that I've been wanting for a while but didn't want to spend the money on.  And I tried really hard not to worry too much about whether it was on sale, or how much I would be saving if I waited until I could use another coupon and things like that.  I just tried to enjoy myself, and not stress myself out like I tend to do.  :) And it was nice.

When I got to the fabrics I just had to take a minute, I actually felt close to tears and had to call my husband.  For the first time I could buy any fabric I wanted!  What a feeling!  I've looked over some of the same home decor fabrics a hundred times, telling myself to wait until I had the money, or until it was on sale for a better price.....but today, I just bought it!  No pulling out my cell phone to do the math (except once)...I just bought it.  It was great!  Amazing!  So here's my fabric fare:

 Some new Christmas fabric!

MORE adorable Christmas fabrics 

(these are intended for making gifts for the kids at the hospital)

I just walked down the aisle, and these ones were just too cute to pass up! :)

Baseballs for a wallet for my nephew for Christmas, 

and the much sought after decor fabric for some kitchen curtains.  :)

Funny thing about this baseball fabric...it was turned wrong side out on the bolt, and I thought the faded look was REALLY cute!  Didn't even notice it was the wrong side until I got home and unfolded it!  The worker who cut it didn't even realize it!  How funny is that...guess I'll have to decide now which side to use for the project. :) 

Oh...almost forgot, I got one more thing.......................................

I can't believe it!  I actually DID it!  I bought a GO!!!  I'm SO excited!  I can't WAIT to try it out!!!  :)  What a great evening!  What am I talking about!?!?  What a great MONTH!!  This whole ordeal might just make my whole YEAR! :)

Whew...I'm going to sleep good tonight...with LOT'S of dreams about fabric (and cutting it!!!)  :)

I'm still here....

Man...what a month!  Crazy ups and downs.  Currently we're all sick...what a bummer!  My daughter's birthday was this last Wednesday and her big birthday party was supposed to be yesterday...but how can you have a party if everyone is sick!???!  So, unfortunately it got postponed until next weekend.  Poor thing...try explaining that to a 4 year old...over and over ALL day long!!!  Talk about torture! (for all of us).  And she's the only one that's not sick anymore, so it's even harder for her to understand!!

But, at least we'll be able to do it next weekend, and I've been cashing in all my gift cards from my Blogmania win so this should be the best party I've ever thrown!!  I am so excited....just wish I could get over being sick!!

In other news...I'm totally overwhelmed by Christmas.  Well...I guess obsessed or consumed by Christmas is probably a better way to describe how I'm feeling.  The kids are TOTALLY getting spoiled this year, and I CAN'T WAIT!!!  This is going to be the best Christmas EVER!!! :)

I've become obsessed with coupons and finding awesome deals, so I have ALL of my gifts bought for everyone, and now only have left the ones I'm planning on making (A TON!!).  And I really wanted to share all of the awesome deals I've found, but wow...I'm barely keeping up with one blog...what was I thinking!  So, I'd like to keep this blog pretty much 'crafty' so I'll just try and share what I can on Facebook and Twitter.  So if you'd like to follow, feel free.  :)  I'm still working on my Facebook fan page, so I'll link that when I get up (eventually) :)  But here's the link to Twitter if you're interested.

Okay...I was trying to wait and see if there was some kind of announcement from Joann's, but I guess not...I'll just have to spill the beans myself.  Remember the Joann's Craft for a Cause Contest that I was entering?  I was REALLY excited and nervous about it.  I completed only my second quilt ever??  And I shared it with you on THIS post??  Here are some pics to refresh your memory....

well.................................I WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you BELIEVE IT!!!!???!?  I can't!  I'm STILL in shock!  I've known for about 3 weeks now, and it still hasn't sunk in!  And WHAT did I win you might ask???  Oh, only a $1500 gift card to Joann's store!!!!  Wow...writing it down, makes it even more unbelievable!  MY little quilt won a Nationwide Joann's contest!  wow!  Wow, wow, wow!!!

Yeah, so I've been pretty excited and still just pretty much in disbelief over the whole thing.  But now I've been able to share with all of you, so I feel like this secret I've been hanging on to has finally been lifted....and maybe it's actually a real thing now.  ;)  So yeah...it's been a crazy month....but now I'm back...and can't wait to share more! :)

Thank you so much to all of you who have been following along with me, giving words of encouragement and support.  Blogging has been so much fun and such a great way to share a wonderful love of creating with others who have the same interests and passions.  I feel like I wouldn't have been able to be successful if it hadn't been for all of the amazing information and inspiration I've found from all of you amazing bloggers!

Thank you.