Happy New Year is WAY overdue!

Well, between Christmas, family in town at New Year's and the kids' B-day parties, I've been too busy to blog! But...not too busy to craft! That would be sad. Here's what I've been up to:

Making new basket liners for baby girl:




And a matching pillow (it's removable to be able to wash):




And a coordinating French Memo board for her big girl room (she'll move into it this summer). This isn't quite done yet because the store ran out of these cute birdie buttons, so when they are back in stock I'll finish it. It's great for storing all her hair clips.:







This is all to go with her new big girl set:



And I managed to quilt the top of the quilt I pieced for my folks as a Christmas gift. I'm binding it now (has to be done by hand) so they'll get it in a week or so. Doesn't sound like I was too late for it to be a Christmas gift right? Well, no. Sadly this was their Christmas gift TWO years ago. My machine broke while starting to quilt the top so it got put on hold. I got a new machine the following year for Christmas, however, I was also chasing after a 1 yeasr-old at the time too. And when I had any free time I didnt' have enough to be able to sit continuously to finish it, so I started doing quicker projects, or at least ones that could be stopped and picked up again at a later time. So I'm sorry it's so late, but better late than never? I hope!





And I've been having fun with the kids. My son wanted to make a monster, so he drew it, picked the fabric and I created it for him. That is a HORN on his head by the way. His name is Monster Mash. He uses his big hand to mash things, but he's a nice monster. Here's the original drawing and the finshed product:

It's DONE!!

Yippie! Hurrah! The book display is up! I tried to use a super heavy duty hook (holds up to 100 lbs.), but when screwing it in ran into brick (it's an outer wall). So this morning I went to Home Depot and got some 50 lb. hooks that are nailed in instead. It should do the trick. The book display is somewhere between 20-25 lbs, and I weighed a huge pile of his books this morning and they were only 17 lbs. So I think it should be alright.

Without further ado, here it is:





You can see in the last picture that it really is hanging, it's not on the ground! I like this idea because when he gets older (and taller) we have the option of moving it up above a desk. He can put trophies and knickknacks and whoozits on it eventually too.

Well, I was a bit worried looking at it in the garage, but now that it's up, I'm pretty proud of my handiwork! Would I do it again?? Maybe. I guess I'd have to be pretty motivated! It didn't take terribly long to do figuring I only worked on it during the kids naps and at night. But it was hard work. Anyhow, just had to share the finished product!

Been a long time, been a long time...

Its been a long time since I rock and rolled,
Its been a long time since I did the stroll.
Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back,
Let me get it back, baby, where I come from.
Its been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.
Yes it has.

Okay, back to the blog. See, the trouble with a blog for me is that I'm usually too busy living life to write about it!

Since I wrote last:

I made a shirt for baby girl for the 4th:


Here she is wearing the top AND a braclet her great Aunt Lu made for her. It's extra special because Aunt Lu was called to heaven about a week ago. We'll treasure it always. It has little beads that spell Baby's name:



My husband became my "old man" again, this happens for about 4 months every year since his B-day is July and mine November. The rest of the year we're the same age, which I think is about 29 and holding.

Let baby girl have HER OWN ice cream cone (a very big deal for her, and the dog loved it too):


played with the kids in the backyard:








Painted my Big Boy's closet with Blackboard paint. As an ode to Randy Pausch, who was right, kids should be able to write on their walls, that's the start of creativity! Who knows, maybe someday my little one will have a submarine and an elevator too! The blackboard paint is great because my son can change his pictures over and over. You can see he's already drawn a hamster on a wheel (upper left), a person (lower left), a ladybug (lower right), and a sunshine (upper right), not to mention practicing writing his name and some abstract artwork:


And, what seems to be the bane of my existence right now, I'm making a wall mounted book display (a la Pottery Barn kids but without the price, although I think my percieved labor costs are quickly surpassing the cost of buying the darn thing). I just have to finish sanding it, paint it and hang it. The nice thing about making one is I can change the design (I used a stop at the bottom of each shelf rather than 3 dowels) and I can decide what color it will be (red). I also made the shelfs high enough to fit his beautiful Usborne picture books:






And I bought some fabric from a cool online store I found. It's called Crybabys Boutique. Here's most of what I bought (some is being used for gifts so I can't show that!):
An organic cotton rib knit for a dress for baby:

A Minnie Mouse Poplin, again for baby clothes:


A cotton Japanese Matryoshka print to embellish shirts and dresses for baby:

And this I didn't buy but totally want to. It's a cotton jersey knit and I've never sewn with a jersey knit before, so it's "the unknown", but I think it's a pretty cool fabric!:



Well, hopefully that is enough. I spoke with a friend the other day and she mentioned that she checks this blog for updates so now she'll have something to read!
Enjoy!