My Sweet Babu

My tiny family

I have to say that I was moved by the thoughtfulness and the creativity of the gifts that our friends and family chose for Sophia for her birthday.  Our friends knew exactly what we would love for her to have and other friends completely raised the bar with handmade gifts, such as the handmade apron/ cookie cutter gift set and the gift I wanted to show here.  A dear friend of mine made Sophia this wonderful birthday gift and I just had to share it!  This is our tiny family!

 

It is easy to see that a great deal of time and care went into making this little family.  I still can't get over the attention to deatil, especially with all of the tattoo work that she managed to include on the dolls of me and my husband!

 

I am trying to convince this talented friend of mine to open and Etsy shop with the other nesting dolls she has made and perhaps at some point she would do custom family dolls like this set.  I'll keep you posted on what happens there! 

My last thought is this...I love giving a gift and will usually try to give something that the giftee will enjoy, but that also goes with my personality as well...for kids, it will usually be something wooden.  With the econmoy the way it is, if I do not know what to buy, I will happily buy a gift card so that the parent and giftee can choose what items they would like for themselves.  More than anything, I like to know that money is being spent on something that was truly wanted and will not be something will land in the back of a closet!  I think that handmade gifts are very lovely and if you have a talent, please, by all means, share it with others through the gifts that you give!  Not only will you be giving the time and care that you put into the gift, but you will also be giving the child giftee the opportunity to develop an appreciation for fine, handcrafted items that do not come with cardboard boxes with millions of plastic "twistees" all over them!

a.

Little artists

We are supposed to be heading into some pretty rainy weather over the next couple of days.  It's not the nice, light, run outsides and play rain, but is more of the dark, thunder-ing, make popcorn and play inside variety.  Actually, it is the perfect weather for nestling back into our routine.  There is a certain kind of snuggley calm that comes with these kinds of rainy days.  It is the perfect weather for working on something bigger that might normally be difficult to do with the kids running outside every few moments!

When we set up our kitchen, the big black side of the fridge faced into the family room...I liked this not.  We rolled out a big piece of brown postal package paper and let Tobin, who was about 3 years old at the time, go to town painting this masterpiece.  When it was dry, I brought it to a Staples store to have it laminated on one of their big machines...twice actually, so that it would be ultra durable.  We used self adhering velcro to attatch the lamintaed art work to the side of the fridge, where it has lived ever since.

I thought that something like this would be a great activity to do on a rainy day!  The laminating keeps the artwork from being crumpled or torn and makes it easy to wipe off, if necessary.  It is a lovely way to preserve artwork and gives it a new life, for example, something like this might also make a fun table covering!  

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for a sunny weekend!

a.

The busy bee

Over the last week...well, actually longer, I have been up to my ear lobes in projects!  By the end of last week, every time I posted, I felt like I was typing "and I made this...oh, and there is this, and everything is happy happy...oh, then I just sewed this together...and what is sleep?"

As I reflect on the last week, feel that I became more preoccupied with what I was working on than I would have liked to have been.  It was not until the calm came when it finally struck me; "oh my gosh, my baby is 2 years old!"  Suddenly, my heart is breaking to have more time with her, how did the time go by so fast?  There is almost a panic that sets in, as I make sure that I remember exactly what it felt like to hold her as an infant...I'm sure it is natural, although awkward, to feel sad and excited throughout these changes in your child's life.  My son turning 5 was also a tough birthday for me.  Just as Sophia has moved just that much further out of the baby phase with her second birthday, when Tobin turned five, he had become more of a kid, if that makes any sense?

So this busy bee is winding down this week.  It is important for me to have balance in my life and for my priorities to stay in order.  I think it is natural to go a little overboard for holidays and birthdays, as long as we can come back to our center to replenish ourselves.  To be honest, now that we are settling back into our natural family rhythm after our chaotic week, I feel like I appreciate the simplicity of my life just that much more!

I'll spend this week trying to catch up on the cleaning, laundry and putting things that were randomly thrown in drawers back where they belong... oh, there are my embroidery scissors...why do they have glue all over them?  In a way, I feel like now my summer vacation is here; my projects are finished for now, and anything else I am working on does not have the same kind of "need- to- have -finished" timeline as what I was making this last week!  I feel like my reward is this wonderful season we are embarking on, where my children can teach me and show me so much.  As tough as it can be to see my little one's growing up, I am absolutely adoring the people they are becomming and I love spending time with them at their pace; where life is a little slower and there is so much to be fascinated by. 

alison

      

Success

 

 

 

 

We had a wonderful weekend!  I would have to say that the party was a huge success!  I'm sure I'll still be cleaning up for a while, but it was all worth it for this wonderful baby girl of mine!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

a.

Time to paint

This is such a fun project to do for an event, like this, or with your little ones on a rainy day...

We have these amazing triple french doors off of our family room into the backyard.  For this party, we decided that we would paint a Japanese landscape on the doors.  We sketched out an idea before we started and had our paint brushes and tools all ready.  Using Tempra paint (some people mix the paint with dish soap first, but we use it straight) we paint right on the inside of the doors!

We do not ever cover the entire door (we prefer sticking to the edges), so there is still plenty of light that shines through.  The tempra paint is slightly transparent when used on glass, which also allows light in. 

When it is time to clean up, we use warm soapy water and a sponge to take the dried paint off of the glass.  Over time, you can see that the paint can actually be scratched off of the glass, but trust me, the soap and water is the best way to go.  It will get super smearly, but dont worry, just keep at it and then go over the almost clean glass with a glass cleaner a few times. 

I am sorry that the photos dont' give the full effect of this project... it was in fact a rainy day when we painted it!  I think that this was the perect final touch for out Japanese tea party!  Thanks so much for hanging in with me this week while we were getting ready for the big weekend...I am feeling really tuckered out, to be perfectly honest!  Hey, it's nothing that a good night's rest and couple of great parties won't fix!  

Have a great weekend!

alison 

What will we wear?

How could we have a birthday party without having a special outfit to wear?  I hardly needed an excuse to try out another pattern from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross.  So for my little girl, I made the Flower Girl Dress.

  

I was a little nervous at points, as I had not made a dress like this before with the gathered skirt. Luckily for me, I knew that if I held my breath and took my time with this, it would be beautiful...

 

And we could not forget about mama, right?  I was not kidding when I said that I had a couple of fabrics already cut for more Yard Sale Wrap Skirts (from Weekend Sewing) .  As I suspected, once I had made one, the next one was really simple.  Again, I cut a button hole and threaded one of the straps (which I had made longer) through it.  This little adjustment combined with the addition of an extra panel, gave the skirt a great fit!

 

The last thing I'd like to mention is this...  I like boutique/ deigner fabrics as much as anyone, but as a stay at home mama raising two little ones, spending $20+ a yard on fabric is just not realistic.  From time to time I will treat myself to some special fabrics sold on Etsy, but only on occasion and in small amounts.  Both of the fabrics that I used here are from JoAnn fabrics, the one cost less than $9/yd. and the other was on clearance for around $5/yd!  I think that these fabrics will be perfect for this party and look great!  You don't have to spend a fortune to make something awesome!  So happy clearance shopping!

  

P.S.  I'll have one more post for tomorrow to wrap up Birthday Week, then Monday, I'll let you know how everything turned out! 

a.