Enchanted Forest Ornament Swap

YEAY! I just signed up for my first swap ever! Yarni Gras is hosting an ornament swap with a theme that I just could not resist. She hosts quite a few swaps throughout the year and they are really fun to read about and follow. I've read so many blogs from different bloggers about swaps. As a new mother of now two boys, this one sounded do-able. I'm so excited!! If you are interested, the theme is Enchanted Forest Ornaments and you can go to Yarni Gras swapper blog post here. She explains everything and it sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun!

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.

Awesome fabric!

Rae Gun Ramblings is having another awesome fabric giveaway! You can go here to check it out and enter. They are VERY cute fabrics from Japan! Yeay!

Ten Tiny Toes...

You'd think that I would have been able to post sooner, time just flies when you have two kids. My new little guy was 8 days late and now he's 8 weeks old! I think I've adjusted pretty well from working mom to home mom, I've managed to maintain a semi-clean household. However, in doing so, I have had very, VERY little me time. What I mean by me time is craft time. I have spent about 5 hours in the past 8 weeks on crafts and only then was it because I'm forcing myself to get a baby gift completed. My crafting is my stress outlet, is my form of relaxing from a long day, and I have no time for it!!! I will manage. In the mean time, baby is doing great, 3 year old brother is adoring little baby brother, gotta watch him with his love squishes, and the house is cleaner than when I was working and pregnant. :)

Iraqi Bundles of Love

In my patience and boredom in waiting for baby #2 (who still has not arrived), I was surfing the net today and came across this really cool idea from a US soldier currently in Iraq. It's called Iraqi Bundles of Love and it's all about raiding YOUR stash of sewing fabrics and supplies and sending them to this soldier currently in Iraq to distribute to the Iraqi's. Bundle up a bunch of stuff in a larger piece of fabric with ribbon, place it in the large flat rate box from the USPS and mail it to his APO address, which you have to request from him through his blog. Being a military wife (who's husband has been over there once so far) and crafter myself, I REALLY support spreading the love of crafting, even to a country we have had "issues" with, and I REALLY like the idea of thinning out my stash. I know my husband would appreciate it as well since my hobbies take up a whole room upstairs. I encourage all you readers to check out this soldiers site and send your own box of craft goodies. Here's the link again...

IRAQI BUNDLES OF LOVE

or if that doesn't work...

http://ibol.wordpress.com/

He explains everything in case mine doesn't make sense.

Anticipation and Adventure

Well...Thursday was my last day of work as an interior designer. Yesterday was my first day of work as a full-time mommy. Tomorrow is my due date with baby #2. ALL of it is so surreal, nothing has sunk in yet. I'm just going through the motions like it's another three day weekend and Monday I'll be back in to work. Only I won't be. I'm anticipating that once baby arrives, which I hope is Monday or after since doctor is on vacation until then, that everything will sink in and I'll have one big emotional break down. The reality that I will no longer be working will hit me, the loss of one identity and the gain of a new one as full-time mother may be overwhelming. This new one I'm not quite sure how I'll handle, I'm in control of structuring it, not a boss. Thus begins a new journey and adventure in which I'll probably have A LOT to learn. Wish me luck!

Harry Potter and Fabric Giveaway

Well, I went and saw the 6th Harry Potter movie yesterday. I have mixed feelings. I LOVE these books, but the movies...I don't know. I think it's still too soon to have a full idea of how I feel about it yet. Some major parts of the book that I remember were not even mentioned...hhhmmm....I may touch more on this later.

On another note, there is this AWESOME giveaway on RaeGun Ramblings for some super cute Japanese fabric precut into squares. I would love these fabrics!! They would be super quick and easy to sew together for a new baby blankie for baby that's expected to arrive in less than three weeks. Check it out at the link below...

Rae Gun Ramblings: Giveaway: 3.5 inch Japanese Fabric Square Pack

Catching up...

Remember back in May when I blogged about going on a family vacation?? You can read about it here. Well, now that I have my camera back, here's a couple pics. We stopped at a rest area that featured this geological site. My prego-baby-brain is preventing me from remembering the name of it even. It's on Hwy 12 in Washington.

We also took a family pic on the concrete, you can see my prego belly and the square of the camera on my head.

Once at the Great Wolf Lodge, I learned about MagiQuest, I had briefly heard of it before, but as a video/computer game (I don't even know which it is). The resort made it an actualy wave-your-magic-wand game that you can do quests, adventures and the like with. The little one really enjoyed it, it requires A LOT of walking on foot, back and forth down hallways and in the lobby, and up and down stairs, sometime five floors worth. It's great for wearing out kids. :)

Here's a couple of WIP's...they both started out for my PIF but my super creative brain just went with the flow of how they were laying out and both are not want I had intended them to be. But, they're not bad.
This one is copper pearls, square matte onyx, black faceted glass, copper seed beads, Swarofski AB bicones and the center bead is a stone that again, baby-brain is not allowing me to remember. The button is one from my vintage stash that I blogged about months ago here. So, just to tell you a little bit about it...I'm beading along with my needle and thread, going back from having finished the button end of the clasp, when I get my needle stuck in the first copper pearl from the end. I pull and shove with the pliers to get the needle through, which I was beginning to feel like was a bad idea, when the thread breaks!!! AAHHH!!! I was SO CLOSE to being done with it, now it has to be completely restrung. That's why it's a WIP.

For this one, I bought these lampwork glass beads on the craft retreat I went on with my mom, aunt and grandma back in February. I wanted to play with some wirework, just the simple loop and wirewrapping. I had plenty of beads in my stash to match to the focal lampwork bead. Again, this started as a simple elegant necklace for my PIF receiver, but turned into something more elaborate than I wanted and some parts became difficult to find. The copper chain is not right and the focal lampwork needs a couple tiny pendant drops. I don't know....it headed in a completely different direction, so I took a break. That's why this one is a WIP.

I have a ton more WIP's to show off once I find my other camera cord to download them. They are all crochet related. I'll be catching up more soon!!

Great News!!

YEAY!! I FINALLY found my battery charger. I've neglected posting a few vacation pics, new crafty pics and other related sorts because the camera has been dead. I've started writing a knitting pattern that I posted about here. I'd like to post about it soon, WITH pics. It's an interesting story, an interesting pattern and a big learning experience for me. I've created a few crafty things since I last posted about something crafty, I'll have those up soon. AND....the best new news of all...I think our 2-1/2 year old is potty trained!! YEAY!! He still wears a diaper to bed at night, but all day he wears his undies and the accidents have become minimal. Minimal as in maybe two accidents in the last five days (so far). YEAY!! It's such a good feeling. :) We'll see what happens once baby #2 arrives...only 7 more weeks +or-.

More and More Fabric...

My new blog I learned about yesterdat and have been checking up on lately is doing two giveaways right now. I've already entered the diaper cover one...so cute!! Now she's giving away THE CUTEST fabric I've seen in quite a while. Check out Rae Gun Ramblings: Giveaway: Fabric Bundle and enter. One of the great things is that she lets you use her pic to post on your blog...that's so nice!! All these sewing blogs are really making me want to sew, but a very messy sewing area is preventing that. Mostly due to the roof leaking a few months ago and having to scramble to move everything from one side of my craft room to the other. I just haven't gone back up there to organize it back into shape again. :( I miss my sewing machine. I miss sewing.