Spring

Happy spring! So, it's officially spring according to the calendar and last week we were greeted with another round of snow! Luckily, it's much warmer now and all of this has melted. I just thought that I would share our coldness with you this week.


Speaking of this week, I am getting ready to head out of town for yet another business trip. I will probably be unable to post until Friday or later so please excuse the lack of postings until then. I never know how much free time I'll have on these trips and I'm definitely not cool enough to post from my phone like this gal.


But, good news on the crafting front. I have almost finished four bean bags and those should be coming together this coming weekend. I also have cut out around 400 squares for my quilt top so I'll be ready to finally put this quilt-a-long quilt together! I can't wait to see what it ends up looking like.



As you can tell from the photo, we're getting pretty stir-crazy around here and ready for some warmer weather (does the tent in the living room give it away?). Chandler and Ava love to spend time in the tent and Mommy and Daddy get to lay down in it for a few quiet moments before someone needs a diaper change or a snack.

Have a great week and we'll talk soon!

On the path...

Home Improvements

Spring always brings about the itch to do something to our house to fix it, liven it up, give it a face lift, or something along those lines. I usually do a few small things each year like replacing rusted out old shower curtain rings with new ones or doing paint touch-ups around the house.

This year I am thinking of trying to do something a little more drastic like replacing the linoleum and floorboards of our upstairs bathroom (Are you reading this, honey? Sorry!) or re-painting a room, or trying to talk my dad into replacing some more doors on our first level to match the new doors from last year (Are you reading this, Dad?).

With this kind of re-construction comes power tools, and with power tools comes all sorts of potential dangers. Especially with me. I have been known to slice a finger or two in my art school days (and beyond). But I will NOT be a victim like these poor, unfortunate people. Luckily, I don't think we have a nail gun like that. We have a power drill, but I think I'd notice the drill was digging into my finger well before the bit got anywhere serious.

All that said, please be careful in your spring fixer-uppers this year!

Also, I have been working like a mad woman on my Etsy shop. I try to squeeze in time mornings when my son isn't up yet, or at night, when everyone's asleep. I know you crafty moms all know what I'm talking about! I am in the process of getting it all set up and getting some inventory to fill it with. Hopefully all 10 or 15 of you can mosey on over there when it opens and tell me nice things about it. Oh, and check out this new shop. I really enjoy reading her blog and seeing all of the beautiful things she creates and now some of them are for sale! I'll definitely be shopping Etsy (and the philigry shop) for future holiday gifts.

Easter, Sewing and Life

I feel so awful for not doing regular posts lately. You know how life gets in the way. Life has gotten in the way of my crafting lately as well. So, imagine how excited I was to finish a little Easter dress for my baby only to NOT wear it on Easter. Easter Sunday here had below freezing temperatures so we all just chucked our Easter finery for warm pants and sweaters.


We WILL be wearing our Easter finery on a day that probably should have been Easter this year. Wasn't it way too early? We usually take Easter photos by our forsythia shrubs outside of our house and they were still all asleep underneath snow. Yes, snow! Since the grandparents were here this weekend, Chandler was able to build his first snowman with Grandpa.


He was so proud of this little creation, and he kept taking out the snowman's arms and putting them back in, taking out the eyes and putting them back in. So, eventually, the poor snowman's arms had shrunk to hands and his eyeballs were partially stamped.

I really hope all you readers (all 10 or so of you) had a wonderful holiday weekend!

On the path...

March

At least there is a holiday in March that promotes the color green. If only the out doors would take the hint and follow suit. I have loved shamrocks for a long time and went out and bought some gorgeous purple ones and these beautiful green ones. I am hoping these guys will last a long time since the previous shamrocks I owned lasted a very long time until my dad put them outside and the birds ate all of the roots. Apparently, these roots were mighty tasty.

How is everyone doing on their quilt for the quilt-a-long? I am still working on the last few blocks and will begin cutting out the 400+ squares for finishing the quilt sometime soon. You can see the quilter's progress here. There are some truly stunning quilts in this group. I can only hope to be that good some day.

Happy St. Pattie's!

On the path...

Pizza, Pizza

We're still trying to watch our calories here at our house and homemade personal pizzas fit the bill. It's been a fun project to do with our toddler. We let him pile his pizza with vegetables and cheese, only to have him refuse to eat it after it's baked. He loves to look through the oven window, though, and check on his pizza's progress. For some reason, he doesn't like cheese much (I only wish I could say the same thing) and will sometimes eat the bread or lick all of the pizza sauce off of the top. Sigh.

But at least now we can put him to work washing dishes...

Ta-Daaaah!

Here it is. The secret I've been working of for a while now. Okay, so it's not a published novel or a new clothing line, but I'm pretty proud of it - Chandler's bean bag chair. He loves it too.

I was a little worried about telling everyone what I was going to make since I had no idea if this thing would work out or not. Luckily, my hubby is good at math and the pattern turned out OK. Chandler loves anything with a motor so I had to put a truck on there. I really wanted to do something more organic with flowing lines and a cool pattern, but trucks are what he likes. So, I threw in the tree just for fun.


I'll have him try his best to bust this up and see how it hold up to washings and general wear and tear. This is what I have been thinking about using for an Etsy shop of my own. There are a lot of different kinds bean bag furniture out there for kids, but none of them looked like I wanted them to and the expense was too much. So, this was my solution. I bought the beans at our local grocery/super store and that was that.

Here are some beanbag-a-licious details:






Well, with all of that sewing, I had to catch up on my chores. I also had a little help. One of Chandler's favorite things to do is help me wash dishes. An interesting result of him washing is that the floor also gets washed. And the boy.


Keep on the path!

Gooey Goodness...

I notice that a lot of bloggers are feeling the pinch. The pinch when they try to get into their pants, that is. At least I am! Some are swearing off sugar, others are trying to eat smaller portions (good luck with that one - you are more woman than I am) and still some are just heading for the diet section of Barnes & Noble.

I'm back to watching my points, since I have some of the literature from long ago and I'm receiving wonderful update emails from this site. It's chock full of great recipes that taste great and are low in points (i.e. calories and fat). So, for all of you out there that are thinking about eating healthier while ogling a death-by-chocolate pound cake under glass in your local coffee house, I give you this great recipe. I've modified it a bit (the original calls for peanut butter - that's good too!) but it's from hungry-girl.com and each mini-muffin is less than 1 point on the Weight Watchers Scale. Now, this doesn't mean that they're free, so if I eat two, I count 1 point. Seriously.


Now, this recipe is really hard, so please pay attention:

Rockin' Awesome Brownie Bites

Ingredients:
1 Box Reduced Fat Brownie Mix
1 Can Libby's Pumpkin Puree (not pumpkin pie filling ... that's cheating)

Preheat oven to 350. Spray mini muffin tin with non-fat or low-cal cooking oil. Open box and dump contents into a bowl. Open can and dump contents into the same bowl. Mix thoroughly. Drop by the spoon full or use a small scoop into a mini muffin tin. Wait for oven to heat up because you're already done with the prep work.

Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until desired consistency. Bake less if you want a fudgy bite, or more if you want them more cake-like. Just test them out as you go.

Eat. Enjoy.

Yum! As you have probably guessed, these went really fast in our house. My two-year old kept asking for more even before he was done chewing. He looked just like a chipmunk with each cheek full of brownie bite.

Oh, and I'm still working very hard on this pattern/idea that's been stuck in my head for ages. I've just been too scared to make the first cut.


Until now...



Here I go!