This day in 1914...

...the US celebrated it's first Mother's Day as a national holiday (woohoo...that's 96 years ago). President Woodrow Wilson passed it into law as an official holiday and since then we've escalated in our celebration of it. Anna Jarvis coined the phrase "Mother's Day" so that we would celebrate one's own mother versus what was widely known as Mothers' Day, or the celebration of all mothers. Seven years after the passing of this day into a major holiday, it had become so commercialized that Anna Jarvis then fought the idea of it as a major holiday for the rest of her life. She criticized the idea of sending a card because she saw it as a sign of being too lazy to write a personal letter.

My message for you today is...WRITE YOUR MOTHER A LETTER. Over the past five or so years my dislike of cards has grown for various reason I won't go into. The internet has allowed us to be in contact with friends and family in an instant...but what about the joy of receiving a bit of mail from the postman?? For me, it is still more exciting to find something in the mail than it is to find an email in my inbox. You know time and thought went into writing that letter or putting together that package and it makes you feel loved and special. I admit, I am guilty of Christmas Cards, but I'm not discussing that holiday today. :) Remember...write your mother a letter.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to all you mothers out there!

Splurging...

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!! I don't recall the true reason behind the day, but it's been one that has been celebrated all around me since I was born...due to where I grew up. I grew up in an area that has a very large hispanic population. Now that I think about it, I find it funny that a few of my favorite drinks are actually margaritas and mojitos!! haha!

I FINALLY decided on an Amy Butler sewing pattern...it was a toss up between this one and her Sophia carry-all. I finally decided that I didn't want to deal with any piping around the edge, so I went with this:It even comes with a diaper changing pad pattern! Woohoo! Now...do I have enough of anything in my stash to make it?? The outside takes over a yard and the lining is over three yards!! YOWZA!! Hmmm...I guess I'll have to save that answer for another day...a day I can dig through my stash.I also bought some REALLY COOL laminated fabric to make more diaper covers!!! Yeeheee!!! However, it's already after sunset so I don't have good picture light....again, maybe another day.

Happy (belated) Valentines Day!

I thought I would share a cute little crafty tutorial for some sweet magnets to make with your little ones. My three year old and I made a set for each of the grandparents.

Supplies needed:
-bottle caps
-acrylic paint
-varnish for acrylic paint (optional)
-paint brushes
-various felt colors
-printed pictures
-sheet magnet or old refrigerator magnets
-craft glue
-scissors

FIRST: Clean and dry the bottle caps of any stickiness. Paint inside of bottle cap with acrylic paint, allow to dry in between coatings. (I applied two coats to hide the brush strokes.) Final layer could be the varnish, it just makes it shiny, but is not required.
THEN: Cut out desired pictures into a 1 inch diameter circle (or a tad smaller) and cut out heart shapes from felt. Cut 1/2" square pieces of the magnet. (I bought sheet magnets only to realize that I could have used the old calender sheet magnet that was on the fridge.)
AND THEN: Glue magnet to back side of bottle cap, or if sheet magnet, peel paper and stick.
FINALLY: Glue pictures or felt heart shapes to inside of bottle cap that was painted. Allow to dry, then wrap them up and give them to the ones you love!

Happy New Year!

Another year has come and gone! This past year I've quit my job, had a baby, joined a few new groups around town and have been crafting as frequently as I've always wanted to, which is EVERY DAY!! This coming year we plan to travel and adventure more (as finances allow), devote more time to my Etsy shop (Hear those crickets? I'll be shoo-ing them away!), giving more time (and maybe money) to our church we joined and hopefully will get all my Christmas gifts done before December, I'd like to devote some serious time to creating gifts this year, I'm burnt out of the holiday madness shopping. NO MORE!

I hope you all have a fun and safe New Years and have goals for your year to come as well!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

No Sew Costumes...

THIS is the CUTEST costume!! I'm not the biggest Martha Stewart fan, however, from another blog I follow, I learned about her no-sew costumes. The tutorial for it is here on Martha's website, it is so easy to make. I would LOVE to make this for my 3 year old, however we just bought our costumes yesterday and he wants to be a dragon (you can view it here at the Target website). I know, I know, I should be sewing his costume like I did for the past two years. Last years Halloween costume is shown here in last years blog and the year prior to that he was an Oompa Loompa from the original Willy Wonka movie. I made both of these costumes. The Oompa Loompa costume was so cute, I even made two others for our friends kids we went trick-or-treating with, so there were three little Oompa Loompas together. This year, time is not really on my side. But I do have to make the hooded head and dragon legs, it's only a partial costume, it was missing pieces so we got it for a great price. I'll have more pictures after the event, until then, I do need to get sewing on the dragon head.

Happy Mother's Day!

A day late, but I tend not to get on the computer whenever I'm at home because I spend my work day on the computer. We started our day by sleeping in, which was about 8:30am....yeah, no longer are the days when we sleep in until 11 or noon. Made waffles, I got to add my cinnamon, raisins and chopped apple to the batter. Mmmmm!!! Then we went for a three mile hike up north near the Little Spokane to seek a geocache. Our 2-1/2 yr. old did AWESOME! He walked most of the way, only really wanted to be carried up hill and the last quarter mile back. I was surprised at how well he did. I was also surprised at how well I did, being around six months pregnant, the one up hill part was a bit steep, it burned my legs more than my lungs, but I made it. We saw 6 wild turkeys, a white tail deer, squirrels galore, a couple red ant hills, big black beetles, and a newer deer carcass of mostly bones but had been dragged by something (it still smelled bad!), we also heard peacocks, we were near a farm at one point and they must have owned some. About a mile into our drive home, little one was zonked out. The rest of the day was pretty leisurely and lazy on my part, I didn't even get any crafting in, that's how lazy I felt. My hubby worked on our yard, he started landscaping the front. On top of it all it was sunny all day and around 70...SO NICE!! Overall it was a very lovely day, I wish I could have more like it....with absolutely no cleaning done by me. THAT was nice.

Happy Easter!

A little late, but that's okay! We dyed eggs Friday night with the little one, this is how they turned out. The interior designer in me just had to put them in order by color....it's always more pleasing to my eye. I look at A LOT of paint fan decks....to me, the colors needs to be orderly. So pretty!! This was our first Easter we stayed home. It was so quiet, it was almost sad and lonely. But then our friends came with their two toddlers and the quietness was gone. It's always fun to watch them play. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!