The lists are in

Christmas is 1,000 times more fun when you have little kids around. One of my favorite things about Christmas is seeing my kids’ Christmas lists. Forget the presents for me this year, just pass me the lists. I think I’ve already established before that I’m a mean mom, but I won’t let my kids send their lists. I want to save them for them to read later so they make a paper copy for me to give to Santa (insert in their baby books) and we email him a final draft. Here’s this years fun.

Mary would like a baby alive, a real dog, a night light, a ruler and paper, a flower, a quilt, a rainbow shirt, a red hair bow, a rainbow crayon, and the yellow zhu zhu pet. I was informed “weally I want the one thousandth mosts is a weal dog”.

Ashlyn, in an attempt to butter up the man in red for her long list, drew a picture of Santa as her best friend and wrote Santa a poem:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I bet you love kids,

When I am a grown up I will to!

Let’s see if that works this year ;).

Ashlyn would like a Littlest Pet Shop eagle, a shirt, a robot dalmatian dog, a dog house, a laptop, a t.v., a pony book, a rug, a clock, a toy cat, a Word Girl doll, a toy Huggy Face monkey, a Barbie house, a Barbie doll, a pillow, and a blanket.

Jeremy knows how much Santa appreciates fine art and draws him a separate picture every year.

Jeremy’s list is for the most part readable so I won’t type it out, plus the fact that it makes me want to cry just reading it so typing it is next to impossible. Every year he asks for one or two things for himself and the rest of his list is for his sisters or other people. What 9 year old boy does that? Every year he thinks of things Santa can bring for someone else. Every time he has any $$ he wants to spend it buying something for someone else. Here come the water slides… I can’t even think about it without choking up. I better get off here before I hop on my soapbox about being thankful and stuff again ;).

Before I go I wanted to show you that in my last post I made a necklace and a ring to wear. I thought I included this picture but I guess not, probably because it’s so dark and junk. If you were wondering what in the heck I was talking about “wearing” it here you go-

Have a great Wednesday!

Get your sap buckets…

I’m in a thankful mood today. Maybe it’s the weather and the crunchy leaves or maybe it’s that I’m craving turkey with real stuffing (stove top, not the yucky soggy bread stuff). Could be all those blogs I read and their sincere thankful posts that sometimes gag me with sappy-ness but make me appreciate the blogger even more. It might be because of another great weekend at stake conference and the uplifting messages that were shared. Who knows but I’m about to get gag worthy here.

I’m thankful for my awesome husband. I’m going to make him a pillowcase today that says “you complete me” and see what he says ;). Just kidding… but I saw one a few months ago and thought that would be funny. I’m thankful for my amazing kids that are healthy and as happy as can be. I’m thankful for my crazy fun family and my sane friends. I’m thankful for church and for the little primary kids I get to “mold” every Sunday. We’re going to get down and dirty with paint next Sunday, I’m so excited!

I’m thankful for a mom that let me break her sewing machine my entire young adult life and the never ending scraps she let me mutilate. It’s because of her influence I got to embarrass Cody on Saturday wearing this-

Don’t those colors just scream feed me turkey and pie? Love it.

Have a great Monday!

***I have to moderate my comments now because some weirdo is plastering old posts of mine with yucky gross product comments. I hate moderating so cross your fingers for me and hope that person finds something better to do soon.***

A random bit today.

I haven’t been completely random in a while and that’s just wrong.  I think about random things all the time and it’s nice to be able to express them once in a while.  If you're not up for my random thoughts and feelings about the “book” you’ve been warned…

So facebook.  I love blogging and have had a blast with my blog and blog friends for the last few years so I thought I would give facebook a whirl a few months ago.  Not everyone has a blog and most of my friends and family don’t read mine (blasphemy! or blessing?) so I thought meh- why not?

I was lost from the very beginning.  I must have been doing it wrong.  Something about invites, accepting “friends”, ignoring “friends”, “friend” suggestions, what is a wall and why is everyone writing on them- graffiti?,  profiles,  fans, who’s chatting with who, submitting dna samples- okay so I made that one up but it’s not far off the mark, the list goes on and on.  Then on top of all that other stuff someone started hiding daggers (?) and the mafia was warring.  Someone gifted me a dog and a lost cow found it’s way from some farm.  I started to feel like I was lost in some spanish version of “Days of our Lives”.  I had no idea what was happening and I didn’t have the time to figure it out!  That’s where I start to plead the “I have 5 kids so I don’t have any time at all” card.

I tried, I really did.  I tried to keep up for a month. I was doing fairly well until I started to feel like it would take me all night every day to scribble on walls, comment on photos,  figure out what to do with a computer dog, accept new friends and so forth because for the most part I really did know those people.  They would know if I was slacking.  They would know that I didn’t want to be their friend if I didn’t accept.  They would know if I didn’t want their dog or dagger.  They would see that I was online but ignoring the little chat box.  I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to look at my computer like it’s a treadmill. If I can’t give something 100% I don’t want to do it at all.

Blogging is safe and less pressure. No one comes to hunt for me, or at least it’s not public when they do.  No one gifts me random animals unless they are stuffed and come in the mail.  No one can see when I’m online or when I’m not- I like a little anonymity.  No one will see that I’m only giving 20% because that’s all I have.

So, I deleted my facebook account and I’m pleading the five kids card.  It wa making me feel like a loser. I hope I didn’t offend anyone when I shut it down. Nothing against those of you who understand it and love it, nothing wrong with that! May your farms flourish and friend box grow larger ;). I blog and hide and that’s all I can do.  That’s all I want to do so facebook just isn’t for me.

Aaannndd that’s the end of random for today.

Tattered Fabric Roses

I love jewelry- a lot. I rarely wear it (only on Sundays) and I have tacky 90 year old grandma pretty funky taste so I feel guilty buying it and spending any $$ on it when I know I’m only going to wear it 3 times if at all. I love the bib necklace trend with rolled roses and I am super excited because I know I can make them and not have to spend a dime to get a pretty new necklace. Guilt free jewelry, what’s not to love?

I haven’t actually made my necklace (edited to add- *made it here!*) yet since the roses are so fun I can’t seem to stop long enough to apply them to anything. I thought I’d share how I make the tattered rolled roses so you can make a bunch of your own. I made 15 in one hour. EASY and no sew. These would look great on bags, pins, headbands, you name it and would make a great gift.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started-

• 
• Strips of fabric about 1 1/2” – 2” wide by however long. About 1 1/2” wide for velvet and corduroy and about 2” for cotton and silky stuff. Mine were 44” long because I used new fabric and not scraps, by all means use scraps if you’ve got them.
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors
• Bar Pin backs

Loosely fold your strip of fabric in half and tie a not in the very end. Don’t worry about the selvedge edge or anything like that. We’re being casual. Keep the fabric folded in half with your fingers and roll it a few times tightly around the knot. Apply a tiny dot of glue to your fabric once your center knot is as big as you want it to keep your knot in place.

When you have it rolled a few times around you can start to twist the fabric. I hold the knot in my left hand pinching the tops and bottom between my thumb and forefinger and twist and roll the “tail” fabric around the sides with my right hand. I like them pretty tight.

When the rose gets a bit bigger it might try to move around on you so just apply a little dot of glue here and there to keep things from migrating. I only had to use 4 dots of glue total for this rose, don’t get carried away with the glue or it won’t be tattered… it will be gloppy. You don’t want gloppy. I did use more for the satin roses, just don’t go overboard.

When it gets to a size you like, or you run out of fabric, check the front and back and decide which one looks prettier. I was surprised at how often I liked the back side better. Add a little glue to the “tail” and tack it to the ugly side of the rose. Cut off any left over “tail”. Group them together and add a pin back and you can put them on anything.

That’s it! So easy.

If you want to mix it up a bit you can add tulle or satin to your fabric flower to add texture. Here’s how I did it-

Follow the same steps above for a normal rose and when you get about half way done, dot a little glue on your rose “tail”. Open it up and set a strip of tulle about the same width as your fabric to the inside of your tail.

Fold the tulle up inside the tail fabric and just keep going with the twisting and rolling. Finish it off like the other flowers when it gets big enough and you’re happy with it.

You can tell by looking at the light grey and light yellow cotton that they were the first roses I made. I got better after the 4th one so don’t stop if your first one looks a little wonky. That’s just shabby in disguise. If you want them smaller cut smaller strips and stop rolling sooner, if you want them bigger cut wider strips and roll until the end of your strip. Glue on pearls if you’re feeling extra sassy. Have fun and go forth and play!

10*31*09

I really wanted to show off the costumes I made with fantastic pictures but in the whirl of the Halloween evening, having a little one that I thought was sick, and a big one that was even worse off than the baby I didn’t get any good ones. This is the only group shot I got. I had a costume for Kennedy but I felt guilty about putting it on her when she didn’t feel well so she skipped out this year.

I made Ashlyn’s from head to skirt and wish I would have gotten a better picture of it. I painted the skirt, made everything but the wings from scratch, and painted the wings.

That took me awhile so the moth idea for Mary went out the window the second I had some trouble with the first ruffle the day before Halloween. I know I should have started it sooner but I just wasn’t feeling moth-y. I couldn’t get excited about it. I secretly loath moths and am completely terrified of the things- thank you Silence of the Lambs. Kind of puts a damper on wanting to dress your 5 year old up like one.

I sat at my table with a giant pile of material trying to figure out what she could be last minute. I was running up the stairs to grab more tulle when I spotted the pink umbrella in the corner and it was all over- a jelly fish. Not completely original but I know I’ve never seen one here. It’s my favorite and only took 3 hours to put together from start to finish all using stuff I already had on hand.

Jelly fish get a lot of extra candy by the way. There were about a dozen other butterflies but not a single jellyfish. Each of my kids wants to be one for next Halloween and I’m half tempted to let them. My chocolate supply is running low ;).

Have a great Monday!

Cupcake Apparitions

Jeremy signed me up to make cupcakes for his class this year and this is what we came up with.

I saw the idea for the ghosts on the internet using just gumdrops but that makes one tiny ghost even with the jumbo drops so in a stroke of genius (and a massive sugar high) I unwrapped a bunch of dum dums I bought for the trick or treaters and came up with this instead.

I’m so proud of myself. I used a #3 piping tip from Wilton to punch out the eyes in some marshmallow fondant cut with a cookie cutter the size of a wide mouth mason jar ring and draped it over. It doesn’t get any easier (or cuter) than that. Took me an hour to decorate 25 and that’s because I’m cake challenged, it probably doesn’t take anyone else half as long. Plenty of time left before Halloween to make at least 500 if you want to give it a whirl ;).

Costumes are done. DONE. I’ll show off some more tomorrow!

School Pictures Stink.

No surprise here but I got our school pictures back and heaven help me. My mom came this weekend and saw them and gave me that look. I know what she’s thinking. She’s hoping I give her wallets so she doesn’t have to display them ;).

Jeremy actually takes pretty normal pictures as far as his body goes but his expression is not my favorite. He likes the “drunk, dazed, and confused smiling chicken” expression. I think you have to have a chicken to know the look. They cock their heads kind of sideways and give you a blank stare. If chickens could smile they would look like this-

When anyone but myself takes Ashlyn’s picture she gets really shy and ducks, losing her neck completely. She looks like one of the Barbies we had growing up that no one played with because her neck was broken so we crammed her head on the neck stem anyway. Every school picture reminds me of neck less Malibu Barbie. Her skin is pretty tricky since she’s so porcelain toned and it almost always comes out green on film. Don’t even get me started on her expression. What is this?

Lifetouch says “looks you’ll love”- uh huh. Every year. So, because these are staying hidden in the kid’s baby books for all time and eternity I decided to take it upon myself to capture my criminal’s mug shots as I see them. I had to grab each kid at a different time of day so the coloring is a bit different for each of them. I’m no photographer (obviously) and I don’t claim to be but I think these are just a tiny bit better than Chicken Jim and Malibu Ash.

So mom, you’re welcome. I’m such a nice daughter I won’t make you hang the blue ones on your wall until you’re 90 ;). I took a picture of all of the kids so I could send updated photos to everyone.

I’m off to stop procrastinating and *start* sewing the costumes I need to make. I’m so glad I’m only making 2!

The making of a monarch

Just your average Tuesday afternoon.

With the worlds biggest freezer paper stencil and free hand sketching. And a very large salad bowl. And carpal tunnel syndrome.

And lots and lots of paint.

And a bit of patience.

All for Ashlyn who doesn’t want to be just a butterfly. Not a butterfly fairy with wings either. She wants to be “you know, that black and orange butterfly. With spots.”. Yeah, I know- sigh.

She’s such a bad influence, that Ashlyn. I had Mary convinced she wanted a hot pink tutu and wings for her butterfly costume and that’s all. But now she wants to be a pink moth since Ashlyn is a monarch. A moth? A moth- fine. Sigh.

Next year they are all going to be rocks. I mean it!

Pretty Please!

I have a little bit of a favor to ask, just an teensy one that should take only a few seconds to do.  I love getting comments and I love it even more when you ask me a question, and I love answering them.  The problem is sometimes those questions need to be answered one on one and when I go to reply some of you have your profiles set to “no reply”.  I want to answer, I want to talk to you but I can’t.

So you need to open a new window and login to your blogger account (even if you don't have a blog, you have an account in order to comment). On the left hand side of your Dashboard page you should see-

Click on "Edit Profile."
(Not so bad, see?)
Now it will take you to a page that looks like this-

Now scroll to "Show my email address" and check the box.  Hit save at the bottom. That's it.  Done!  Pretty painless.  Now when you leave a comment it gets sent to my email and I can reply directly to you from my email.  Your email won’t show up for everyone to see in my comments, it will only show up to those people you leave the comment for.

If you aren’t comfortable clicking the box that’s okay to, just send your questions to dontlickthefloor@hotmail.com and I’ll answer you there if you’d rather.  I’ve had a bunch of questions lately that for one reason or another I can’t do an entire post on and I really want to answer (really I do!).

I’m working on Halloween costumes today. I’m up to my eyeballs in wings and tulle.  Have a great Monday! 

Cottage Prequel

I’m not feeling very “wordy” tonight.  I just need my lasagna to hurry up and finish baking so I can go curl up and shrivel away on the couch.  I’m feeling shrively.  With a need for chocolate and ice cream.  I don’t have ice cream so I’ll have to wing it and eat my weight in other things to try and pacify the craving.  Awh, it’s good to be a hormone ridden girl. 

So without further ado and barely any explaining here are the pictures I should have posted yesterday but just got my camera back today-

I can’t take a picture of the peg people in their home with the littles awake so that’s going to have to wait.  I don’t want them to see my hiding spot ;).

This one’s for the family and anyone else that loves to see my cute son. Jeremy finished his football season last night, undefeated I might add.  Doesn’t he look grown up in his uniform. A bunch of mini men running around on a really big field.  I love it, and the boy under all that padding!

Off to shrivel and find some chocolate pudding.  I think I have some of that…

Miss Locks

I’ve been singing “O Holy Night” all week so you can guess what’s on my mind. It’s really hard to work on Christmas gifts when the girls are awake and I go to bed by 10 every night to read so not much is happening yet in the toy making department. I’m making slow progress in between curtain sewing bursts but I did manage to paint up a few peg people and an adorable little house bag for them to live in last week. Yep, I’ve had this project marinating for over a week now and I haven’t been able to blog about it since my camera has been going to work with Cody (ugghh). So you get this-

A cruddy cell phone picture taken in the dark. I can’t wait another minute to share. Patience has never been one of my virtues. This is the Bear Family and their rude little blond house guest for Kaci. The little cottage bag has a see through window in front. I plan on making a doll house for her (I already have it) but the bag should come in handy for those times when Kaci just needs to bring them places. I’m also working on a vet set for Mary so I’ll take a real picture of the entire thing when I’m done. With a real camera even ;).

The queen of this castle is getting her first crown (dental) tomorrow and I’m a little nervous about the whole thing. I like my teeth ordinary. Wish me luck!

For the love of free fonts!

I’m not sure if I’ve shared this before or not but I am a complete font junky. I collect them and have tons of them. You’ll never see me collecting purses, shoes, or beanie babies but show me a font site and I’m taken. I only use a handful at any given time but if I ever need dancing Cinderella on an A (why??) or a random doodle I have it. I’m a fontaholic and I am not seeking treatment. So as I was reading Hannah from Sherbet Blossom today she shared a link that I think is amazingly cool- www.fontcapture.com . You can make a free font from your handwriting. Free! I’ve wanted to do this for a long time but was to cheap to pay out for my own chicken scratch. Now I can type my free scratch all I want. Like this-

I also tortured the girls and made them write one. I can’t wait for Jeremy to come home (rubbing hands together and laughing an evil evil laugh here).

Have a great Monday!

A few things in my little world…

That make me happy.

*Whirly giggles.  Doesn’t the name just make you want to smile.  When I’m done, and I’m just starting, this block will be part of a twin sized quilt for Jeremy.  I’m going to quilt, gulp, again.  I think.

 

*Playing with my versa tool and getting a pretty tea towel out of it. I tried heat transfer images from a laser copy and all in all I think it looks pretty darn good.  I only burned myself once!  I’m told the image is permanent and won’t fade with washing more than it already looks- we shall see.

 

*Giving Mary a camera and letting her snap pictures at will.  I have a ton of pictures of my tv screen and Kennedy’s eye balls but every once in a while I get surprised with something like this-

  Not too bad for a 5 year old with a point and shoot.

 

*Too cute dresses made from my tutorials, Ashlee sent me an email sharing hers and I asked her if I could show this on here because hello- in love with the pom pom trim and adorable model. There’s still time to make some halloween dresses so chop chop people, get sewing!  She made a couple of them so go check her out.

*The conclusion of the ring saga. I’m so glad it’s back and since some of you asked where I found it here goes. Grab some popcorn and settle in for the mystery of the century.  It wasn’t where I left it last at all, not even close, but I think it had help migrating to where it ended up.  I remember leaving it on a shelf above the toilet in the bathroom or on the counter next to the sink that has no drain cover and thought for sure it went down the sewer when I finally remembered it a week later and it was gone.  I’m bright like that.

I got desperate after week 2 of casually looking for it and dug around everywhere and couldn’t find it.  So I gave up and decided to make a c.d. with white fan noise for Kennedy to use at nap time since she’d gotten used to the fan in her room all summer and it was getting too cold to turn it on.  You know, you have something important to do like clean up so you look for any excuse not to do it… that’s what that was.  I should have been unpacking hoping my ring was in a box but alas, I was not. 

I couldn’t find the blank disks we had by the computer so I went upstairs because I remembered seeing a stack of blank c.d.’s or something on the top of my dresser (I have no idea why they were there but I can only blame my roommate who took over my dresser top long ago).  When I picked up the c.d.’s my ring was teetering underneath with a bunch of Cody’s receipts and drill bits.  I know I checked that dresser at least 6 times and Cody did to so it’s a mystery as to how it finally ended up there.  I have my suspicions but since it’s back I’m putting the finger printing kit away ;).   I’ve vowed never to take it off again, after Cody handed it to me last night from the bathroom window sill.  I’m a slow learner.

*Long winded posts that make me feel like I’ve just run 5 miles.

I’m off to finish a few more towels and wash the crud out of them to see if it actually worked.  Have a great whatever day it is today!

Something a little more girly

After Saturdays manly forest fun I haven’t been feeling very “frilly” and it didn’t help that my mom looked at my blog and said she couldn’t tell if the picture I posted was me or Cody. I realize it was a horrible picture and I was stuffed like a camo oven mitt with flaming orange trim but come on… still a girl over here.

To reclaim my femininity I decided to fix a dress I’ve been hanging on to for a few weeks now. I couldn’t wear it because it’s way too short but I thought it had potential so I picked it up. I thought it would be cute as a long tunic with jeans for those “not in the mood to wear a dress but still want to look girly” days so I didn’t want to add length to the dress itself. So I did this instead-

I found a long slip that was a little too big and I never wore, cut some length off of it and added a big ruffle. I ironed the ruffle flat so I wouldn’t look too little house on the prairie and viola`. I love it and I can wear the ruffle slip with other skirts and stuff.

I love my 1974 photo action, makes my darker arms almost match my pasty legs… almost ;).

Have a great Tuesday!

Shhh… be vewy vewy quiet

 

 

I went hunting Saturday.

I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning.  Such an un-holy hour, especially in the pitch black forest when it’s snowing and cold!

It didn’t take very long to realize hunting is nothing (nothing) like the wii game.  Very misleading and I think I might have to write a strongly worded email to the folks at Nintendo.  This was no duck hunt my friends…

It’s a lot of hiking, and woods, and snow, and cold, and dirt, and 20 extra pounds of long john’s (whoo baby, I looked hot!), and no make up.  Not to mention I had to whisper for 4 hours.  Did I mention there’s not a restroom in sight.  The world is your porta potty…

Was I successful?  It depends on how you look at it.  I got a really cool picture of snowflakes on a spider web and I got to spend the middle of the night day with Cody in his element doing something he loves to do.  That’s pretty much all I was hoping to do anyway.  I call it a win.  Until I get dragged out to try again anyway…

I see a very long weekend with sewing and fabric shopping in Cody’s future, the very near future. My thumbs are still frozen solid!  The things I do for the most handsome husband in the whole wide world.

Thank you so much for all your comments about my sad ring story.  I read each one more than once.  You all made me feel so much better, I felt like such a loser.  I can’t believe how depressing it was, but the good news is it’s found!  I’m naked no more!  It’s such a huge relief and I haven’t cried since Wednesday.  I think Cody is happier than I am- we don’t have to buy stock in Kleenex now ;).