I’m still here!

Tonight of all nights I choose to blog, but since I’ve been uncharacteristically glued to the television for the last couple of hours and taking a break from sewing, what else could I do but dust my laptop and fire her up! It’s interesting watching the results, President Obama’s camp waving flags and smiling, long sedate faces at the Romney camp. Whatever side your on, winning or losing, left or right, the thing to take away is that the country is split in two when it comes to political views and we aren’t going to get anywhere unless we work together. We don’t have to convince each other that your wrong and I’m right. My best friend who has starkly different views than me,  mentioned that we could listen to each other and learn where the other is coming from. You hear that Washington?  Just a little?

I know I’ve have been more than slacking lately, well at least when it comes to blogging. I have to say, when the twins started preschool I thought I would have more time on my hands. Ummm…yeah.  Meetings, auction, committees, conferences and volunteering, oh my! Add this to the list of things people never tell you until after you have kids, like how your bladder will never be the same, etc. When my daily to do list goes up on the chalk board everyday, blogging gets pushed down to the bottom. Plus it is also holiday craft fair season, which keeps me sewing up into the wee hours of the morning for days on end. I had my first bazaar last Saturday and it went pretty well, definitely excited to do some more and to get over my nervousness and start my Etsy shop. Two things keep me from jumping in. I’m not sure what to put in my shop policies regarding returns and complaints, it just makes me nervous. Then shipping, what do you charge for shipping? Do you charge a flat fee and just eat it if you under charge? I know these seem inconsequential and I will get over them soon, because I need to start selling some stuff or my husband is going to blow a gasket if one more craft store bag comes into this house! Here’s a little taste of what I’ve been working on and some pictures of my booth!

I managed the Weekender bag!

A cute lunch bag, I can’t wait to make more!

Needle books!

Even bakers get the blues.

PIes in jars for a bake sale, one guy bought a whole case!

Coffee cozies, my husband thinks these are nuts, I sold a bunch. Ah ha ha!

Bunting made with vintage linens.

My booth!

A few of my wares!

You can see a little of my Sugar Plum garland.

My kid’s reward for letting me sew so much.

Doing craft fairs is certainly a lot of work, but when my husband texts me and tells me that one of the girls says, ” Where’s the owl paper? I need it for my craft fair!” Classic!

Hopefully it won’t be so long next time, if it’s been awhile come looking for me, I may be trapped under my ironing board or stuck in a school meeting!

Weekly Pinterest Successes (and maybe a fail)

When Pinterest became so huge, it became the bane of husbands and boyfriends everywhere. Finally a time suck for us woman (and some men too!) that could rival video games or World of Warcraft! Insert evil cackle here! With the vortex of time lost, it can be said that Pinterest, though time consuming is ripe with crafty ideas, delicious recipes, witty e-cards and a plethora of other goodies.  Since I’ve been on Pinterest for almost a year, I have  quite a few successes and failures under my belt. This week I limited myself to a couple of Pinterest crafty projects.

The first was a result of my husband volunteering to help with a friends wedding favors and me hijacking graciously volunteering to help. The bride’s approaching nuptials have her busy and stretched, so favors had her stumped and willing to throw in the towel. My husband suggested putting flower seeds in some sort of burlap like fabric and accented with a cute tag. Isn’t he a keeper! I then suggested that we try making DIY seed bombs, a form of guerrilla gardening. Seed bombs look like coca powder covered truffles but really contain clay, soil, flower seeds and water to stick it together. They can be thrown from your car window onto ugly freeway green strips and a little rain and sun later you get flowers! Or you could take your seed bomb and lovingly tend to it in a cute pot and enjoy the flowers on your windowsill, which is what we are going for with these wedding favors. I found the tutorial on how to make your own seed bombs here. I modified the recipe a bit, maybe to it’s determent because I need to make at least 200 of these bad boys. Instead of using straight flower seeds, I opted for a seed mix which contains only 20% seeds and 80% inert matter. So I thought I could reduce the amount of soil I put in and leave the rest as is. It was a messy project and I think it turned out ok, but I won’t really know until we plant a couple and see if they bloom. My first batch turned out a little hard and a few of them have started to mold. Hmmm. I don’t think this qualifies as a success or a failure yet. A little time and tweaking is in order. UPDATE: my wiener dog, Chloe found test plant seed bombs in the backyard and thought they were the best toys. My husband has since chased her down, extracted the bombs and replanted them. Maybe the dog slobber will aid in the germination.

Seed bombs.

Chloe or the seed bomb killer.

The next project was for my nieces’ birthday party. I bought a couple of over priced pillowcase kits (groan, next time I will cut my own!) that came with draconian instructions, confusing and no pictures. Imagine my glee when I found this tutorial by the Twiddletails blog on how to make the easiest pillowcases! She uses a burrito technique with french seams (aka no exposed seams) along with a lot of pictures! My type of tutorial! I made two pillowcases, so the first one was riddled with mistakes and took a long time to make. This is one of the repercussions of midnight crafting, I’m wiped so little mistakes have led me to have an extensive love/hate relationship with my seam ripper. The second pillowcase turned out beautifully and was done in no time. Now I can whip one of those babies out in 20 minutes. Think of the possibilities, Halloween, Christmas, flannel, cotton! So that last line wasn’t actually me, that was my mom. I think she is envisioning a closet full of themed pillowcases. Perhaps not, but at least now I have to tools to do so!

The finished product