polkadotbug

Crayons to Go

I think these crayon rolls are the cutest thing.  I saw my first one in person when I went on my visit to Josie’s house.  She always makes the cutest stuff.  Now she has upgraded to crayon wraps complete with books, paper and other accessories?!  I just can’t keep up!! 

I found a lovely little tutorial for the rolls at Skip to My Lou.  They are so easy and a great gift idea.  Just throw it your purse or diaper bag and always have a little entertainment with you.  Not that you couldn’t just throw the whole crayon box in your purse but this is SO much more stylish and adorable.  Again, I was using up some of my Heather Bailey fabric.

On a completely different note, our little Abby will be turning 1 in a few weeks!  How quickly the time goes.  She has developed such a little personality of her own already and has also decided that she wants to be on her feet.  She’ll scream and yell at you in her little baby talk until you grab her by the hands and take her for a stroll around the house.  Funny because she doesn’t even crawl yet, just a little butt scoot.  I think she is going to skip the crawling step.  

Oh, and I even did a little school shopping for Molly this past weekend seeing as she will be starting kindergarten in September. AHH!!!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

This Little Light of Mine

 

***Update***  I found the tutorial!  Sorry it took so long.  I had actually forgotten that I was supposed to be looking for it.  Here it is!  Good luck and have fun! 

Yay!  I’ve completed something!  This is my very own handmade lampshade.  My mom had this old lamp that she was going to sell at our garage sale.  I knew that lamp had potential but the shade was all torn up and gross.  SO why not cover it in one of the many amazing yards of fabrics that I’ve collected?  This one is from Sandi Henderson’s Ginger Blossom line. I feel like I am linking to Sandi Henderson and Heather Bailey on a daily basis!  You can probably cover a piece of poo in one of their fabrics and it would look like the most amazing thing ever.

I searched Flickr and found a great tutorial.  I wanted to link to it but can’t find it now!  I’ll add it when I have more time to look for it, or you can search Flickr if you’re interested in making one of these bad boys for yourself.  She made hers in Heather Bailey fabric and it was beautiful.  No wonder I fell in love and had to try it.  It was actually quite easy and now that I’ve finished I know a couple things I may do different next time. 

I love lamps and I love fabric so I am really excited about this.  I am tempted to start dissecting all the lamps in my house.  I was actually at Joann’s today and they had 50% off the lamps so I bought a cute and plain ivory base so I can make another.  Perhaps one for Abby’s room…   Oh the possibilities are endless. 

I really have developed a love/hate relationship with these fabric designers.  I am absolutely in love with all these colors, patterns and possibilities, but I hate that I have an addiction, I can’t decide what to do next which is causing my little head to spin, and my bank account in dwindling!  Take it one day at a time Tina, one day at a time.

Terrific Tutorials

Quick message.  I found my little reversible dress tutorial on a great blog today.  It's called 30 Handmade Days and for each day of the month she has a list of tutorials she’s found.  It was very exciting to find me there on day 21, but even better than that I found a lot of other sweet tutorials that I have to try there.  Go check it out and if you're anything like me, you can add a few more things to your list of things you want to try!

Pretty Problem Pants

Hi!  I am here!  I feel like this is my special diary and I have this stong urge to write in it all the time, but can never sit down long enough to do it!  I liked this pic of Molly and I a lot.  We had the same color shirt on and Molly thought we were twins.  That's all I want to know is how I can transplant her hair onto my head.  It's absolutely perfect. 

I want to start by thanking everyone for my birthday wishes and healing wrist wishes.  My birthday was delightful.  The girls at work went all out for me and I came in to a desk covered with balloons, flowers, banners, etc.  My sister (whom I also work with) made me a wonderful ice cream sandwich cake. YUM.  Thanks Ang!  She doesn't even read my blog but I thought I'd throw that out there anyways.

My wrist is much better now.  It's still very sore but I can do almost everything.  I just need to go to physical therapy once a week so I can stretch out the tendon and massage the scar tissue.  Fun!

With the healing wrist I actually got around to a little sewing this weekend.  You can see the girlies in their matching pants.  I started with a pair for Abby and of course Molly wanted the same exact fabrics for herself.  I don't blame her because they are adorable patterns from Sandi Henderson's new Farmers Market line, but I only ordered one yard and I could've used a little more.  I love it so much that I guess I will eventually be buying a lot more.  I need a separate bank account for this addiction I've developed.  Why does everyone have to keep coming out with new amazing fabrics!  Of course I really don't have a pattern, so I did my classic "wing it." 

I must admit that they look pretty cute in the pictures but let me tell you the whole truth.  Anyone reading this who is not an expert sewer (a novice like me) should appreciate my blunders.  Abby's pants were sewn um... upside down I guess you can say.  Basically, what was supposed to be the legs turned into the crotch and the crotch ended up the legs.  This makes for a very "low rise" type of pants that only make it 1/2 way up the diaper and fall off continuously (doesn't help that the elastic was to big too also).  Elastic always gets me because I hate pants that are too tight and leave marks on their bellies so I overshoot.  Note to self... elastic stretches a lot.

With Molly's pants I made sure that I had the crotch/leg situation under control when sewing but I still didn't make the crotch big enough.  The I have been following has the front and back of the pants exactly the same.  Is this normal?  I realize that you need more room for the butt to fit in the back so maybe I should be looking into a different pattern?  Or should I just leave a really lot of room in the crotch area?  They looked really cute on Molly but she did have to keep pulling them up so her little butt crack wouldn't sneak out.  It was definitely a learning experience, although I still really don't know how to do it right.   

Oh yeah, the serged seams tore in the crotch area on Molly's pants before the end of the day.  I was told that I didn't have to sew the seams and then serge afterwards, that the serger would take care of everything.  Is this true?  Do I just have to reinforce the high stress areas? 

I hope you have some advice for me! 

One Year Older and One Wrist Short(er)

Tonight I am here to whine. 

Is that acceptable?  You probably don't want to hear me complain but it's my birthday tomorrow so I can if I want to.  Yep, that's right, it's my birthday.  I will now be 31 years old.  I am not at all unhappy about my age.  I believe that it's all about what you feel like and I don't feel like I am getting old (except for the minor body malfunctions).  Heck, I am just getting started!  My wonderful husband's birthday is Saturday (I am 3 days older) so I guess we need to celebrate.  Happy Birthday Andrew!

I am unhappy about my wrist though.  I got the cast off on Friday and had my first physical therapy session.  My wrist didn't want to do much of anything.  I got a 2 page list of exercises and soaking regimens that I was supposed to follow.  I am absolutely terrible at following a plan so it worried me slightly.  Friday evening we had everyone here setting up for the family garage sale.  I go to pick up the pot of coffee ( I need my coffee to survive) and something happens.  Something bad happens.  My wrist begins to swell out of control, there is intense pain taking over, and I look completely deformed.  To make a long story short, I ended up meeting the doctor on call down at the hospital while everyone else sets up the garage sale (there were obvious advantages and disadvantages to that).  The doc wasn't sure exactly what happened but told me to ice the lump all weekend, don't lift a thing, and take my pain meds. 

I went in again yesterday to have things checked out.  They think I caused a bleed in my wrist somehow.  I am now told to skip the exercises and take it easy.  I need to heal first.  I really can't do anything though without disrupting it again and making it hurt really bad.  I am not one to sit around and take it easy though, so this is killing me.  Molly's lovely face above is pretty much how I feel right now. 

Ok, enough about that.  Maybe I should mention the nasty allergic reaction I had to my new soap that left a nasty itchy rash all over the sides of my face and neck.  I told you I wanted to whine!

I wish I had some crafty stuff to talk about but that will have to come later because my wrist isn't cooperating.  We are actually headed off to yet another wedding this weekend.  I should look beautiful with my rashy face and bruised deformed arm.

On to happier notes. I am not sure if you read Sandi Henderson's blog, Portabellopixie (you should if you don't), but she informed us all of a giveaway.  It is an absolutely mouth watering fabulous quilt made out of her fabrics from her Ginger Blossom line.  I LOVE it.  I want it bad.  Anyways, you can find the giveaway at Old Red Barn.  It also turns out to be a great blog so now I have some more reading.  You can always enter the drawing and give me the quilt as birthday gift if you win...  just an idea.

Alrighty folks, I am off to get an ice pack and relax.

Club Hand

Quick post tonight just to update everyone on my wrist surgery.  I am sure you've just been dying to know.  The surgery went well, I guess.  They gave me some drugs to "relax" me and I was out cold almost the entire time.  I faded in and out towards the end just to see a big blue curtain and the tops of the doctors heads.  I was a little panicked as to what I might say in my sedated state.  After my last surgery I woke to the nurses giggling.  Apparently I had been smiling and extremely happy as they woke me from my sleep.  When they asked why I was so happy I replied "I'm making bacon."   I do love bacon, but geez, couldn't it have been something better than that!

I now have a big club cast on my arm that will be coming off Friday.  I am still being quite productive with it on, although I haven't changed a diaper since my return from the hospital.  That's kinda nice.  I took the pain meds yesterday but discontinued the use of them today.  I was a little too giddy at work yesterday and began to think that it just wasn't right to be answering emails from scientists when I felt like I had a few too many cocktails.

Molly and I made a small gift for a little friend's 1st birthday.  Molly's card was just too cute. 

We made her two new bibs and a bunch of hair clips.  Happy Birthday Eliana!

 

A Room Revived

Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July weekend!  We had a very nice weekend here. The Fourth was funny actually.  It was just the four of us all day, not a typical party or picnic with lots of people.  We weeded, cleaned the yard, ate, and played.  Then we built a little fire, had root beer floats and roasted marshmallows.  Worked for me!  It was actually the first time we had a fire at this house.  Molly thought it was the greatest thing ever.  She got to stay up real late and hang with mom and dad.  Soon hanging with mom and dad will be the worst thing she can imagine so I made sure that I enjoyed it just as much!  After the kids were fast asleep Andrew and I stayed outside by the fire and the root beer floats suddenly turned into margaritas..  Weird.

Another thing we did get accomplished was getting all of the dining room furniture moved into the back room.  The picture above actually shows the kitchen table back there, but it's the dining table back there now.  The first night the floors were ready Molly couldn't wait for us to get the furniture in there so we had to drag the kitchen table in just to have dinner there.  We are all really excited about this room being functional.  It's Molly's new favorite place and we've eaten every meal there since the table moved in. Up until this point the back room was a junk room filled with well... junk, along with recylceables, dog food and other odds and ends.  I've moved my sewing setup and gear into the playroom but I've been bringing whatever I am working on out there.  It's really a great spot and now we're looking forward to really re-doing it once we finish the dining room and return its furniture.

Tomorrow I get to spend the day in the hospital.  How exciting!  I am having surgery on my wrist for some form of tendonitis and cyst I've developed.  I hope I can still sew with the cast on... 

Molly and Jessie

Isn't this funny?  These are some of the first things I made when I decided that I wanted to try and sew.  They have been stuffed in a basket in the corner since they were made.  This past weekend I moved all of my crafty stuff out of the dining room so we can begin demolition and Molly discovered the basket of firsts.  

The bonnet is Amy Karol's pattern.  It's where I started with the bonnets.  I was very proud of my first bonnets but my stitching wasn't so hot and it was still snowing so Abby couldn't actually wear it.  Since that time my bonnets morphed into a new shape and it's the perfect weather to wear them.  So now we are all happy!  I also made the little skirt that I had no idea what to do with, so it sat in the basket as well.  That's all Molly had to find was a matching shirt for Jessie.  She dug through her baby clothes bin (which is composed of old "real baby" clothes) and found a onesie to match.  I found some fabric scraps and ironed on a matching patch to complete the outfit.  

"Isn't she SO cute Mommy? " Is what I heard from Molly.

In the basket we also found one of the first dresses I made.  It just happened to be in the same fabric.  I obviously did a lot of experimenting with the apples and pears pattern.  It was a very cute pillowcase style dress but too short for Molly.  She was so excited to wear a matching outfit with her baby so we just threw some shorts on and she wore it like a tank top.  Now she was all ready to go to a birthday party with matching baby in tow. 

We had a great time at the birthday party/picnic.  It was Rosie's 3rd birthday.  Julia (my very dear friend whom I've mentioned in the past) and her mom (hi Judy!) throw a party for her at a local state park each year.  We always have a ton of fun and Molly loves the beach.  The weather also turns out perfect each year (normally weather and perfect cannot go in the sentence when you live in Buffalo).  Molly would've loved to stay in the water all day.  It was breezy and the waves were pretty big so I am glad Andrew was there to go in the water with her.  Bathing suits and I don't get along very well.  Little Abby thoroughly enjoyed her first experience with the sand.  Overall it was a great day and fabulous to see everyone.  Happy 3rd year Rosie, we hope it's a great one for you (and your parents)!!

Oh yeah, that's our backyard (that I mentioned needs a lot of work) in the background.  If you look over Molly's shoulder you can see our cute little garden that Andrew built.  We are all very proud of the veggie garden!