Present

Oh hello. It's been a while, hasn't it?

It's a whole new year. A new calendar. Lots of lists of things we did and things we hope to do. Introspection. And there was a three day weekend. All things I love.

I've decided to participate in One Little Word this year and my word is "present". As in, be present, be in the present, present a good example (yes, technically that's a different word entirely, but it's spelled the same so there), each day is a present (and I like presents!), all the things in my life that are presents from above, and I'm sure tons of things I haven't thought of yet. I will try to be present more here, as well. I missed my own blogaversary for Pete's sake.

So let's catch up.

Our new baby is almost 3 months old and has a stack of outgrown clothes! The oldest is almost 4 and, by "almost", I mean that I have 2-3 weeks to throw together a birthday party (top theme contenders are an art party or a Mario Bros party). Yes, I will be spending copious amounts of time on Pinterest. And, lest I have leave out the other boy thereby fostering his inevitable middle child syndrome, he has a huge vocabulary for a 2 year old, recognizes several letters, counts, sings songs, and adores his little sister.

We had a great holiday season if you ignore the stomach bug, the ER trip for the busted gum (no stitches needed!), the crazy melt-down I had trying to get everything ready for extended family Christmas Eve morning, and that the suitable for 5 yr+ transformer I bought the boy took my extremely handy husband 30 minutes to turn from a robot to a car. But it really was nice. There was a lot of good family time and that's what it's really about, isn't it?


I have been crafting and cooking so I should have a post with pictures next time. I'm going to try my hand at Project Life this year and take Ali Edwards One Little Word class. Through the magic of Pinterest I've discovered embroidery. This baby season is just about over (waiting on 2 last babies) but the next cycle has begun! So I won't just gab next time, but if I wait until I get pictures to get started it might be February or 2013! So best to just get this awkward first post back out of the way. And there's no time like the present.

PTI Blog Hop and a New Arrival

I cannot believe I'm actually doing the PTI blog hop! It's been months since I've managed to hop! I loved, loved, loved the pumpkin picture with all the fun patterns and was all set to do something like that.

And then, totally didn't. I noticed the acorns and thought, "hey, I have a rockin' acorn set from PTI that hasn't seen enough ink." And then, "hey, I need to make a baby card for my friend who might come visit tomorrow." So I made this instead. :)

I used the onesie die, the canvas and linen impression plate, and the Autumn Acorns set and acorn die. The felt is not pti and I promise the dark one is green not black! I don't know what's up with that, but it's a very pretty dark olive green that I got at Joann's for an abandoned project a few months ago. Super simple, but I don't have much time to stamp lately.

Our own new arrival showed up earlier this month and I'm pretty nuts about her, too. Her brothers are over the moon and her dad is already in abject terror of her dating. She's pretty and sweet and took a nice little snooze so I could make this card tonight. Thanks for looking!

Supplies:

Stamps - PTI Autumn Acorns

Ink - A Muse French Roast

Paper - PTI Orange Zest, GinaK Ivory, Stampin' Up! Close to Cocoa

Other - PTI Autumn Acorns die, PTI Onesie die, A Muse light green felt, dark green felt from JoAnn's, PTI Canvas and Linen impression plate, scor-tape

Apples!

It's finally fall! Hooray! It's still 90 degrees here, but we'll just ignore that for the moment. I made a few fall apple crafts to celebrate the demise of summer. I promise to work on my blog photography skills in the coming months, but for now these will have to do.

Apple specimen art using the Martha Stewart apple punch and a ton of paper scraps. I do want to frame it but haven't found an 8x10 cheap enough yet.

These were extremely fun! I saw this awesome Everything Etsy link on pinterest (one of my favorite hangouts lately) which takes you to The Purl Bee's Apple Coaster tutorial. I love projects that you can do while watching tv with your family in the living room. And the only thing I had to buy for the coasters was some green embroidery floss. I love that, too. :) There are three more plain apple coasters in yellow, green, and red, but my horrible photo skills didn't let them all be in the shot. So hooray fall, hooray felt, hooray scraps, hooray apples!

Dino Birthday

Well, I am just not keeping up with things! It's been a month since my last post. I didn't think it had been that long. Baby girl will be here in three weeks and that's the excuse I'm going with. ;)

A very sweet little boy belonging to a very dear and sweet friend is having a birthday tomorrow. We are going to do everything we can to get to his birthday party this weekend since we'll be staying close to home once Little Miss gets here. It's dino themed. I love this retired My Favorite Things dinosaur set (that another dear friend sent me) and pulled it out for his card. FYI: I did make *my* sweet little boy a birthday card and might actually blog it some decade soon. Also, I used the MFT sketch challenge sketch for this but didn't realize the upload deadline was today at noon. Oops! It's a really cute sketch so don't be thinking it was my idea or anything. ;)

I colored the dino body with copics - um, green ones - and then dotted all over it with the colorless blender to give it some texture/not have to blend so much. The paper is Basic Grey Life of the Party that I got half off at Hobby Lobby today because they have finally started carrying some 6x6 pads! Whoohoo!

Supplies: Stamps - My Favorite Things dino set

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Peeled Paint

Paper - PTI white, SU certainly celery, Basic Grey Life of the Party 6x6 pad

Other - sponge, copics, pop dots

Nuts About You

I haven't done a Tuesday Trigger in forever. Ages and ages forever. I got new PTI stamps for my birthday this week and I was itching to try them out so I checked out this week's challenge. (My birthday's not until October, but my mom and my friend Alyssa decided to gift me early so I could get a little craft time in before baby girl arrives. :) Thanks!)

Here's the trigger picture. The yellow chairs reminded me of mushrooms. I don't have any cute mushroom stamps, but I did just get Maile Belles' adorable Autumn Acorns set and acorns are kind of like mushrooms, right?

So I came up with this. I stamped the acorns in Memento Dandelion and Angel Pink inks and added a little sparkle with a clear spica pen, which is apparently afraid of my camera because I have yet to take a picture where you can see it. Stamped the sentiment and that darlin little acorn on a circle punch out, added some black mats, and c'est tout. A nice, nutty CAS Tuesday Trigger. Thanks for looking!

Supplies & Dimensions: 4.5"x4.5"

Stamps - PTI Autumn Acorns

Inks - Memento Tuxedo Black, Angel Pink, Dandelion

Papers - Stampin' Up Very Vanilla and Pink Pirouette, unknown black

Other - Paper Shapers 1.75" circle punch, Marvy Super? (the blue one) scalloped circle punch, clear spica pen, pop dots

Baby Season Preview

I have been reading crafty tutorials all morning long. Theoretically, I am getting a "break" this weekend. This may or may not happen since we have two birthday parties tomorrow and it's actually raining (YAY!) and wet today. Theoretically, if I get a break, I am going to be super productive and make lots of things. This may or may not happen as I am notoriously well intentioned but not overly motivated in general, I am about 26.5 weeks pregnant, and, well, do I need any other reason? Yes? Well, I bought oreos yesterday (because they're was a coupon stack at Target and it's morally wrong to not buy oreos when you are getting a good deal on them unless you are allergic to chocolate, sugar, or fun) and I have some pretty decent hot chocolate and it's a grey, rainy, and shockingly quiet day even though everyone is home. So not looking too good at the moment. I think my best shot is to have so many oreos and mugs of cocoa that I give myself a sugar high and that gives me the energy to craft. Sounds like a plan. (And, yes, I know it's July. I eat ice cream in February, too, so it's all good.)

If I should happen to get something done, baby gifts are high on the list. Two dear friends just had babies and I know 12 other preggos not counting myself. Baby season is at a trickle right now, but it picks up speed in August and breaks wide open in October and goes strong through January. Alyssa started things off with her sweet little chubby-cheeked man and I got a few things made for him. Just a week before he made his appearance, Alyssa had given me a cute little $1 stamp set of mustaches. I decided it would be fun to use that for his card and present so I did mustache onesie card and a custom mustache onesie. Since then, I've seen mustache pacifiers on Pinterest so that would have been fun to include too.

The other thing I made was this adorable rainbow sunshine plushie from Chez Beeper Bebe. It's a free pattern and even though I am really not a seamstress and have never embroidered it came together very quickly. I think next time I will either use thicker ribbon or more ribbon because it seems a bit sparse in places, but I still think it's pretty cute.

So a handmade with love baby gift that comes together in a day. Nice. And, since I had the onesie already and everything else was from my fabric and ribbon stash, this portion of the gift was free, which left more money to buy all those little baby things that add up crazy fast.

Now, to see what we can make today. :)

Summer Bucket List

Figured I better do a post with my summer bucket list (ya know, since June is almost over). I keep forgetting what all we were gonna do so this is really more for me than anyone else. ;)

A Summer Bucket List, if you don't know, is just a list of fun things you intend to do over the summer. A lot of families write things out and let the kids choose a slip from, oh say, a bucket, but this year I'm picking off the list or just giving them a couple of options. Items in italics we've done at least once.

Make ice cream
Make popsicles - These or these are nice :)
Make playdough
Make slime
Have glow in the dark drinks
Learn new songs
Make crayons from old crayons
Make melted wax art
Go to the lake
Paint Mommy's belly
Play with cars and finger paint
Get sno-cones
Family water gun fight
Make big bubble wands
Let the boys make their own pb sandwiches
Crazy hair with hair gel
Dye hair with koolaid
Pick our grapes
Build a fort in the living room
Wash the car
Make and decorate sugar cookies
Water color
Make smores
Go for a picnic
Go to the zoo
Make fizzing sidewalk paint
Dress up play day
Make short videos for the baby
Make and play with pinwheels
Mail someone a surprise
Discover the wonderful world of gluesticks
Discover the wonderful world of paper punches
Handprint art
Paint with rolling pins
Make placemats with old books

Will we get to all this? Who knows. Will we add other stuff to it? Maybe. Is it better than watching tv all summer? Oh yes!