March Christmas Through The Year…

Well, I barely made it! Here is my finish for March:

I covered a small three ring binder that I picked up from the Dollar Store for a friend of mine. I love it so much that I want one for myself! I’m also going to make a couple more for more friends now that I figured out a pattern for this size book! I stopped at the dollar store tonight and picked up 5 more binders…unfortunately, they didn’t have any more girly colors left. :-(

On another, but related note, I’m hoping someone might be able to help me find a particular material I am looking for. Here’s a picture:

I really want to make one of the binders out of this material! If you have any clues as to where I might be able to purchase some, please let me know!

I Guess It’ll Be A Good Day…

after  all.

I woke up with a headache this morning. I seem to be getting more and more of them since I’m getting older.  I was thinking to myself “great, another wonderful start to another wonderful day.” I noticed the sun was shining through a crack in my room darkening curtains, so decided to open them a little. Nothing kills germs better than sunshine and after being closed up all winter, I’m sure my bedroom could use a lot of sunshine.

As I was opening the curtains, I was thinking about the fact that after twelve years of living here, on four acres, in the middle of the woods, that I have rarely seen deer.  Seriously, only a handful of time over the twelve years. 

Scanning the still mostly barren woods around my house, the unbelievable happened! I noticed the sun shining off of a strangely shaped stump just inside my woods near an area where we have a fire pit that we never use. I squinted…hard…I can’t see very far without my stupid glasses.  It just so happens that I had a very dusty (I’m such a good home maker) pair of binoculars on the window shelf. After wiping the lenses off with my robe tie (I’m also extra careful with my things – ha!) I put them up to my face. Adjust…adjust…lo and behold! A deer. Laying down in my woods! I never would have seen her if the sun hadn’t been shining on her. I watched for a couple of minutes and then noticed movement to her left. OH. MY. GOD. Anther deer! This one was standing just to the right of the first eating.  She even stuck her tongue out at me! (Yes, I know she was only licking the tree next to her, but I choose to imagine she was sticking her tongue out at me!!!)

So anyways, after twelve years I finally got to see deer laying down in my yard. Even after I let the dogs out to do their business, they were still there. About an hour later, Hubby came home from running club and they didn’t even budge when the car came up the driveway. I’m so excited, we have our very own deer pets!!!

Are You Clean or Dirty?

We recently (FINALLY!!!) got a new dishwasher.  It is absolutely wonderful! No more tea stains! Everything is sterilized again! I am a VERY happy camper!!! I only have one gripe. Since the dishwasher is super energy efficient…it doesn’t have an indicator of whether the dishes are clean or dirty…not a light to be seen!!! So, being the crafty diva that I am…I just had to make a clean/dirty indicator for the front!  I looked at a few different ones that I thought were pretty cute (click picture to got to site):

There’s crafty girl’s:

On Home Made Simple, Cascade offers some graphics you can print out and put on a magnet…super simple!:

 

I finally decided I liked the look of crafty goat’s polymer clay magnet. She has a great tutorial on her site if you want to make one in polymer clay:

I ended up doing mine in wool felt.

Not quite as crisp as my inspiration, but it makes me happy! It’s two sided with magnets sandwiched in between. It definitely let’s us know whether the dishes are clean or not…now if I can get the kid’s to remember to flip it when appropriate!

I May Be A Ditz…

but at least I can sew a (mostly) straight seam!

I saw this picture and thought what a cute little bag! I can use this to hold my little applique pieces I have been working on.

Please note the FULL SIZE items in this bag. I did NOT take note of them. Even when I was cutting the material, I wasn’t really paying attention to dimensions. I had my head to full of figuring out what material should be where since I decided to make the bag with three different materials instead of two. I would like to point out that Gina Allen even included the finished dimensions (7”x13”x6”) AT THE TOP of the instructions I printed out.

It wasn’t until I had already started sewing the bag together that a light bulb went off in my head and I said “wow, this is going to be a big bag.”

I love the way my bag turned out. Love the colors and the instructions were pretty easy to follow. I do think I will cover a piece of bass wood with matching fabric to reinforce the bottom.

front with embellishments:

back with large subdivided pocket:

Inside with large subdivided pockets:

Moral of the story…I need to make sure my head isn’t in the clouds when I decide to make something!

You can get the directions for this bag on Gina’s blog. Scroll down and the pattern is on the right hand side.

This Says It All...

Thanks to Erin for this video

TUSAL Update…

Not a lot of threads this moon phase.  Not to shabby either considering I was sick for most of the month!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

I thought I’d do a post about Dr. Seuss since it’s his birthday today. My favorite Dr. Seuss book has got to be “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.”

I have most of it memorized.

The copy I have is very well loved! The corners are chewed up. The pages torn, taped and torn again. The binding has let loose. My book has been read millions of times in the last 21 years. I read from it to ALL of my children. I will fix it up...again... and read it to my grandchildren some day! It is definitely one of my top two children’s books ever!

I love Dr. Seuss’ way of looking at the world. He definitely understood the necessity for adding a little bit of silliness into our lives. Where would we all be if he had never written down his wonderfully wackiness!