Our House in the Middle of Our Street

This is by far my favorite creation ever. My friend (who I don't think reads this blog :) is having her first child in June and her baby shower is Saturday. I love working with cuddly flannel, as it is very soft and easy on the machine! The cutout leaves were just some scraps I had lying around ( I LOVE scraps...do not throw them away, give them to me!) and the nest and eggs were embroidered and sewn on. The idea of the tree/ nest was from my friend's nursery. She is an interior designer, so I knew she would decorate that baby's room exquisitely! She has this covering one of the walls in the nursery(it is vintage wallpaper in decal form!), this is her mobile (!) and squares with small, flying animals are part of the theme. Can you guess? Birds! What better idea for a blanket than where the birds came from! I hope she likes it!

Alright, I know this is a bit ridiculous, but I will actually look at all of these....even if my mission to the library this morning was for one book (see below). Once again, InterLibraryLoan gets it right!

This is the first baby blanket/quilt I have ever made, and although I feel the design and prints on the front are a little "eh", I really like the ties and "sleeping bag" roll I included. Gender-neutral makes brown and red an easy choice for colors! The inspiration was a patch of brown fabric with yellow/orange pears and red apples, which I had two small scraps of (see cut-outs). I have never hand sewn anything and found it very tedious, and it was too hard on the machine because of how small the individual prints were. So as you can see (bottom), after awhile, it got a little sloppy! Add a few embroidered fruit "patches", and that is the theme! I used fusible batting (a cinch to use!) which I would buy again, but because I am a self-taught sewer, I had no idea what I was getting into with the brown side coverings. Those were the most challenging thing to do! I think my next idea (baby quilt #2) will be so much better. I have had the idea for a long wh...

--2 garage sales in 2 weeks and leavin' town soon means getting rid of 2/3 of our belongings and organizing remaining 1/3 --nice weather... I must play outside! -- knitting group this wednesday night, sorry I missed it last week --M2M "Girls Night Out" this friday! FREE FOOD! --errands today --small renovations Saturday (missing my friend M) --family in town over weekend Needless to say I am Very busy this week, don't be surprised if I have nothing other than a look at the sweet projects I'm working on for 2 friends. EDIT: You won't believe it, someone wants to look at our house during garage sale/organizational disaster. With Stefan home over his "lunch break" (poor guy!), we got it all squared, packed, and ready, and clean in 1.15 hours!! We're keeping our fingers crossed.

I am just tearing through my books I got from the library last week. I just finished #4, The Translator , (Daoud Hari) which is a memoir of a tribesman from Darfur who came to work with reporters from all over the world and eventually the BBC to cover the atrocities. I wanted to read this because I didn't really know the specifics of what is going on over there, and in the back of the book there is a section called, "A Darfur Primer" that was helpful in covering the history of the past 50+ years. At 179 pages, and a lot of action, it is a quick read, but not at all an easy one. I encourage you to check it out at your local library or read about it online .

Well, as you could guess, I've been reading all weekend long and read The Creative Family in two days flat, then moved onto the next thing I'd been excited to read since Tuesday--Amy, Amy, Amy: The Amy Winehouse Story. It was only about 150 pages and it was also a two day read. I really don't read many biographies, unless they are about musicians I really like. The last one I read was about Ani D . (on "the list" there is only 1--about Nelsen Mandela). The book was interesting, as I really didn't know much about her (or, rather, anything) other than the fact I have always thought she was our generations version of Billie Holiday. Unfortunately, that might be more true to life than I thought. She is dangerously addicted to hard drugs, like cocaine, and is often seen in public very inebriated. Just pop over to google news and enter in her name and you'll find a slew of awful stories from the latest drug binge to her cutting out of her plans for a new re...

I think this one is pretty stinkin' cute, because it's so small. I got the ideas from this book , and I hope they go over well and raise some money for the Missions' Conference they were made for! I also now have an inexpensive way to decorate a future room--either a craft room or another child's room. In other news, I had been taking a break because I couldn't put down this book. I gleaned a number of helpful websites and projects, and most of all, inspiration to be fully intentional with allowing my child's imagination to be the source of creative play. To help sum up what that means, I found a great quote from Mrs. Soule's introduction, "A large part of nurturing a spirit of creativity comes from being mindful, slowing down, observing, and looking around you at the beauty and inspiration all around". It was a wonderful reminder, actually, why I chose to be a stay-at-home-mom; to allow my child to be the director of interests, projects, playtim...

Lukka and I spent about an hour at the library today. We got a bunch of board books for him and I decided I'm taking a break from the list for a few reasons. One, the book I've been dying to read was held for me and I finally got my hands on it today...then I just kept seeing more and more new books that I really wanted to read. Two, See above. I am very interested in this 142 page Amy Winehouse biography. Something like a Sid & Nancy story of my generation (that's still happening). Don't know who Amy Winehouse is? Scroll down and listen , fall in love with the millennial Billie Holiday. The top was a book with over 40 cute ideas for knit children's clothes/accesories. I am trying my hardest to get back into the knitting groove, and learn something other than squares and scarves! The Art of Simple Food looks promising for I like things to be as simple as possible when I cook (read: can throw together within 10 mintes). The Translator by Daoud Hari I picked u...

Second piece for Missions' Conference

Remember when I was talking about this ? I asked the library for it--and they agreed! Five copies are newly aquired and I'm first in line to check it out ! Can't wait to read it!

One finished art piece I'm donating for the Grace Chapel Mission's Conference. Hopefully, by April 13th, I will have 3 more done. I'll post pictures of all the rest then.

This morning in the Lincoln area, a huge event called, "Mother of All Garage Sales" was held in the event center. $2.00 to get in, and I got some pretty good deals. Two items not pictured are 2 (BIG) rolls of different fabric (baby blanket and curtain), 50 cents each, a 4 part wooden train set for Lukka, $1.00, then Shown Below: 5 sealed* ink pads, $1.00 each (reg. $7-$10 in store) Vintage Kitchen Set (can you believe how awesome these are? Look over at Bug's blog to see all the pictures of what was inside the set!) $4.00 My best buy ever! BARELY* used Keen shoes that fit like a glove! Haggled down to $20! Originally: $100.00 in the stores!

I used to read Radiant magazine while it was out, and this year they didn't have the resources to keep it going, so it is now a website where there are 4 blogs, and a daily article about living in a post-modern society as a Christian woman. Sometimes the articles are so-so, but today's was pretty good. I found this paragraph pretty interesting (by Tara Leigh Cobble): Looking at Mik’s white-blond hair, pale blue eyes and milky skin, it’s easy to tell he’s Swedish. He’s also six-foot-three with a radiant smile. Most of Mik’s modeling work takes him to Asia, where his face graces numerous billboards, magazines and commercials. “Why are you always jetting off to Seoul and Tokyo?” I asked him. “Asia is where the money is at—at least for me,” he said. He explained further. “I think the reason it’s such a big market for me is because, honestly, I represent everything they will never be. No matter what they do, the people in Seoul will never be my height, and they will never have my ey...

I rented Happily N'Ever After thinking it would be a bit more like Enchanted. It wasn't. It was awful. The lines made me gag. The animation was like watching those annoying Barbie videos . The characters were annoying and had chips on all their poorly put together shoulders. In other news, Stefan's and my favorite comedian Jerry Seinfeld ( who rolled his car this past 24 hours ) was back for Bee Movie . Cute, pixar-worthy, but no Incredibles. I have been watching too many movies these days, it seems. Thanks netflix!