Construction Set Giveaway

Check out this amazing giveaway, and also the whole shop on this blog. So many truly amazing children's tools that lend to nature exploration, creativity, and just plan amazingness. WOW!

Click here for the giveaway!!!.

Take it or Leave it - 1st song....

Northern Lady

Since I haven't really been posting lately due to being plain LAZY, I've decided to instate a "Take it or Leave it Tuesdays".

For the first :

An inspirational photo shoot for Vogue Türkiye November 2010
Shot by: David Dunan
Styling: Natalie Brewster
Model: Yulia Kharlapanova

Please enjoy the whole shoot here.

Makes me want to subscribe to Vouge...

2011 Calendar

CLEARLY I've been AWOL, but I thought I'd share this really amazing thing. I just created one for myself.

src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw852cFAL3GvUVXvADUC7YmdXTjmAwRnLoJ-65Jat3_zVNWErfMOcmynGYEsF1e4U05ezXhRMwRKqfd1P3lMm-nakU0mVEvnMmsYBZNIwmQIPDc_T9r9AZM0oJTgXcW9GhGmiw7sqGqkUV/s1600/share-logo-125.gif" border="0" alt="Owl Lover 2011 Calendar"/>

Vacation

I realize that I haven't posted in a very long time, and mainly it because I've had this whole month off from work! Many projects have been brewing, and once I get back into the swing of things, I'll be back. I'm still here!!!

Cuddle-Bot

I've sent a cuddly robot out into the world. He hasn't gotten to his destination yet, but he was actually really fun to make. I mostly used old t-shirt material.

His body with the love buttons


The head and body piece were 6 equal squares, which I sewed on the extras before attaching. These definitely needed pins to hold it together while I sewed.


A rough idea of the body


Finished!


I attached his arms and legs with coordinating buttons



And finally, the box I sent it in...


I attached his head to his body with a hidden stitch using embroidery thread. Probably not the greatest sewing job, but it won't be seen. I must re-iterate that the new poly-fil I bought makes all the difference in how cuddly things become. Now I'm using Silky Soft Ultra Plush. Before it was just the regular stuff. The silky soft is just amazing!

Leaving right now!

Lavender Satchel

I have this lavender plant that I am trying to save. All the branches had died, and I didn't want to waste the beautiful smelling leaves and flowers, so I made a little bag for them.

It is just simple Muslin, cut in a square and sewed together. To make it a little fancier I cut some rectangle strips and sewed them on.


I took the branches and cut them up with scissors and a knife. This released such a wonderful fragrance!

I stuffed it in, sewed it shut, and now it lives in a nook above my bed.

Pillow for a little fireperson

As mentioned earlier, I created a fireman pillow for a little dude friend. I picked out some firetruck/ambulance/things that make noise fabric ,red fabric, and set to work.

First I cut the fabric to size. I wanted the bottom 1/3 of the pillow to be plain red, so I cut the print fabric a little short, then added the red with pins of the same width. Then i sewed these together.


Next I ironed it all (I usually don't. I know, I know, I should... but I don't). Then, out of the leftover red fabric I cut out a "B"(that's his letter), which was then pinned and sewn onto one side of the print fabric.


Finally, I sewed it all together inside out, left a little space, filled it and filled it with silky soft polyfil (the best!). The I sewed it shut.

Regrettably, I did not take a final photo with the regular camera.

I was told that he has now replaced his 'lovely' with this pillow, and sleeps with it at night. Awwwwwww...

Love to love you

Today I went to my "Google Analytics" page to check out my blog visits. This page helps me to know how many people are looking at my blog each day, which posts they are looking at, where the lookers are (don't worry, it doesn't say who exactly, just the city), and how they happened upon my blog.

So back to the beginning, I went to go check it out today and I see that my blog has had 61 views just today!!!! And 38 yesterday!!! This may not sound that significant, but let me tell you, the average before these two days was 3 visits a day. I SURELY thought this was a mistake, so I went to check out where these so called viewers are from. How in the world did they find MY little blog?

So come to find out that over at Fine Little Day.

,

the lovely Elisabeth from Sweden has linked to my stamp from a photo.

post. You have no idea how flattered I was. I'm still flattered, and will always be flattered when people visit my blog. To me, it is just a little presentation of things I love to do and see.

I hope I've inspired some of you out there!

Dog love out to all of you.


IN ADDITION>>>>
a friend/co-worker of mine was telling my about these rolled paper bead necklaces that her friend sells to benefit women in Ethiopia (I think). I was telling her, oh yes, I know those, you can make them too! We sat googling some links and we parted ways.
A few hours later she texts me saying that she has "caught the craft bug from [me]". I hope she makes them, or think about it anyway. I will have a little something for her Monday when we meet again... I'll post about it later so the surprise isn't spoiled.

Today was an inspiring day for me.

Tomorrow, beach.
Sunday, RENEGADE CRAFT FAIR!!!!

Little Munchkin Skirt

I don't know if you all noticed, but I've been absent for a while. I have just been crafting my butt off. I had accomplished so many things in the last few weeks!

Also, I've added buttons to the bottom of my blog so you can "like" or whatever facebook thingy you like depending on if you like the post or not. I'll take any feedback I can get!

It was two of my little buddies' birthday last week. They both turned 3. Truly amazing for them. I figured I would make personal gifts, for the munchkin, a tutu skirt based on this link :

See Samster Mommy's Tutu Giveaway Here!!!.

it is a truly wonderful, well written tutorial!

For the dude, a fireman pillow. But more of that later, this is about the skirt!

I picked out some amazing (and not so cheap) fabric, and got a half yard of each. This lowered the cost an eliminated a ton of leftovers. My drawer is overflowing. I picked out an embellishment for each layer of fabric and set to work.
Added embellishments to each layer

The layers are only sewn together at the waist, so I sewed it inside out, then added the elastic. This part was the most difficult because i measured according to the tutorial, and not all little girls are created equal. I ended up having to open up the seam and cut out about 6 inches of elastic.
The waistband

I added my tag!

All the layers together

The final product. Looks better in person....


In the end, she loved it, and wore it to school the next day. At least until she decided that she wanted to be Sleeping Beauty, ripped off her clothes, and put on dress up clothes. Oh well...

Drawsting bags

I've had some random fabric lying around, and I felt that instead of packing my dotees or craft supplies in tissue paper, I would make cute, VERY easy drawstring bags to house the items.

This black and pink one I made to house my black dotee. It is rare that I would need or have any black materials besides ribbon, so I decided to use all the black I had left.

This is literally the easiest thing in the world. I cut two of the same pieces of fabric and sewed all the edged together except for one. Then, I sewed the top edge shut leaving a space for yarn to fit through. Then, I turned it right-side out, slipped the ribbon it, and voila!

cinched shut

I made this burgundy one for craft supplies going to Japan!

Doting Dotees

I made a beaded dotee that had to be as embellished or beaded as possible. I figured that a really colorful fabric would work best for this.

I used some leftovers from my Guadalupe pillows. She also has a very heavy wooden beaded hanger, and a red ribbon tail.

Before Embellishing

After Embellishing

The back.

I got these roses as an extra in a swap. I think they are EXCELLENT for colorful dotees.

Note the keyword... "colorful". I also had to make an all black dotee. This was VERY difficult to embellish. I bought some mostly black fabric, I had some black ribbon, and I received the velvet ribbon in a swap. I used t-shirt fabric for the face.
Here is the before embellishment:

Then I did around the face with kind of black beads. Then the body beads. The hair is just embroidery thread. The face... is terrible. I could not embroider black on black to save my life.... ugh.

The face close up. I'm going with the store that this dotee is depressed because she was in an accident that scared her face. This happens too often. I need to work on my embroidery. Or maybe make the face BEFORE I sew it on the body. Yea. That is what I will do from now on.

Wedding Thank Yous

A few weekends ago we traveled to NJ and received our very first gift as a couple. An engagement gift! So as tradition tells, we needed to send a thank you card and our DIY wedding called for DIY thank yous.

With our gift we purchased a printer. An Epson 1400 to be exact. What a printer! This is what we will be printing all of our envelopes, save the dates, invitations, menus, etc. with.

All the Thank you cards will look like this :


A hand carved stamp. I got the purple ink pad from a swap!!!



On another note, Independence Day is upon us. I'm going home for the weekend. Be back Monday. Hopefully I can post with some photos of my red, white, and blue tie dye shirts!

A swap of my own!

Hey everyone! I've been a little tired of swapping, not because I don't love crafting and sending to people, but mostly because everyone I swap with doesn't put their full effort into the swap.

Hence, I've created my own swap! It is for a dotee. Link is below.

http://www.swap-bot.com/swap/show/66488

For a while I was really into ATCs. Now, its dotees. I wonder what will be next....

Fresh Blueberry Muffins

I went to the 99cent store and they had some amazingly good looking, 99cent berries!


I bought 3 packs of blueberries and set to work.

To make the best muffins you need these ingredients

* 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 cup and 2 tablespoons white sugar
* 3/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 tablespoon baking powder
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 1-1/2 egg
* 1/2 cup milk
* 2.5 cups fresh blueberries
* 2-1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

First mix together the eggs, milk, and oil.
Then mix in baking powder, salt, and sugar.

Next, slowly mix in the flour. Dough will be thick!
Fold in 2 packs blueberries (about 2 cups).



Pour them in a muffin tray!

Finally, once they are in the mold you sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top. I also placed extra blueberries on top of the mix.

You can make the traditional crumb topping, but I opted not to to keep it more healthy. This makes a perfect 12 muffins.



YUMMMMMM!

Stamp from a Photo

For the Other One's birthday I knew I wanted to make my own card. I decided to stamp him on the card.

I found a photo that I wanted to use. I opened it in photoshop and took out all the color. I adjusted brightness and contrast until I had an almost all black and white image.

Then, with a pencil, I traced the outline of the image that I wanted to use, and also traced over details that I wanted to transfer onto the stamp. Then I transferred the pencil onto the stamp.

I carved out the places I wanted to remain white when I stamped.

And here is the stamp!


Here is the front of the card. I drew on a birthday hat for this card.

Birthday Doughnuts

It's the Other One's birthday today. I spent last night and this morning making him doughnuts from this recipe :

Krispy Kreme recipe.

I've been terrible at documenting my cooking lately. Not enough photos or the step by step process. I've been busy with the end of the school year coming. Also, I'm going away for 4 days (New Jersey) and I've been trying to wrap things up with my craft projects because my mom is staying at the house to watch The Wild Thing.



I'll be missing the last two days of the school year which I am VERY sad about. I love this time of the year because I often reflect about the things I've learned over the year. I think I've learned to be less serious about things. I've learned to recognize when I'm getting stressed out and stop it. I've learned to observe more. Mentoring someone has really helped me become a better teacher. I think a lot more about what I'm doing because I'm trying to teach someone how to be a good teacher and sometimes I feel like I don't even know how to be one. I think I've become a much better person this year at least. Today was the last day of teaching with my final Winkle (a person I've come to know as one of my best friends) and that makes me sad too.

On to the Doughnuts!
Like I said - Terrible documentation

The dough rising a first time
After I cut them. They rose again.

After frying
My favorite looking doughnut hole
After decorating
If I was to do this recipe again, I would let the dough rise more much longer than I did. I would also buy a doughnut cutter instead of using a knife. Overall, 3 out of 5 stars.