Speaking of Creativity...

My precious David decided on a whim the other day to draw a portrait of his mom and unborn brother. Forget the fact that I have no legs in said illustration and that my hair looks like Moe from The Three Stooges, my big boy drew a picture of me and his little stick figure brother. I love it. He could have drawn a dinosaur or a fire engine, like usual. He even captioned it with his brother's name next to it. (The "R" and the "O" ran together a bit, but hey, give the kids a break, he just turned 5.)

David's heart is one of my most prized possessions.

Flowers Pins

These wintery snow days can be pretty dreary, especially when the puny amount of snow doesn't warrant a snow day for Daddy or the kids. Flower pins to the rescue! I saw this tutorial first from here, but the original source was here. These sweet pins really are perfect for crafting through the slow days in winter.



The girls I mentioned above, who made these before me, made them from felt, and I did too, but I think you could be creative with what you have on hand. I think felt is such a great, wintry, warm choice. And guys, this is so easy! Just cut the templates (or make your own), trace, cut and glue together! I had some acrylic felt in the basement but while we were out the other day Dabney and I picked up a few 9x12" sheets of a few more colors for $0.29 each at JoAnns.

Dabney chose hot pink and baby blue. I think the baby blue ones sort of look like sweet little hydrangeas.

If you trace and cut carefully, you can make at least 3 flower pins per sheet of felt! Not counting the hot glue and the pin base (look for them in the jewelry making section) that's less than $0.10 per flower! Quick, cute and cheap~ my kind of craft.

Pumpkin Time

This is a project that I wanted to complete last year, but never got around to it. These are designed to be just like Pottery Barn's Build-A-Pumpkin Kits, but for all 4 of mine for less than half of the price of 1 kit! I think the project cost us $3. Anyway, find instructions over here. We didn't make the skeleton (he's pretty ugly) so we made our 4th pumpkin (last one on the left) an homage to King Tut, whom we will meet next week!




Funny, I see 5 pumpkins in the picture. Hmmmm.

First Sewing Lessons

As you may remember, Dabney bought an American Girl doll last spring with her own money. Naturally, we've been on the look out for more clothes for Kit, but boy, can they be expensive! In our case, necessity really is the mother of invention so Dabney and I took inventory of the house. Providentially, we had just gathered a large garbage bag of clothes from the closets, destined for the Goodwill.

We found some free patterns online and got to work. We loved the patterns so much that we even bought a few, which is almost out of character for me.

Dabney and I printed, cut and laminated the pattern pieces, then got to work on cutting and marking the fabric. I did the sewing this time, but Dabney is not far from doing those steps herself.

Happy Customer!

Boys + Ponies =

The Previous Announcements

Here's what we did for Baby Dabney. We didn't know her gender, so we thought these Pooh
announcements were appropriate.

Here's what we did for David:

And Joshua's announcements:

Junebug Announcements

Something I love to do while pregnant is plan and make the baby announcements. It's another one of those prenatal bonding activities, I guess. I get to think about our little Junebug and pick out some masculine design and colors. I remember doing Josh's announcements on the plane trip home from Kauai. It allows me to be creative and I think it makes me feel like I'm a little more prepared for the baby's arrival. (When you think about it, can you ever really be ready for the tiny person you hold in your arms after delivery?) Anyway I thought I'd show you our new announcements.



Aside from the masculine theme, and considering our economy, the other theme I was aiming for was "practically free". So I surveyed what I had and remembered a little while back while scrapbooking with some friends a friend was tossing a pile of sage cardstock when her project took a different track. I couldn't leave all that beautiful cardstock for the trash so I asked her about it and then snatched it. It happens that there were about 30 pieces, which is perfect for baby announcements. The other paper comes from my scrapbook stash~ using what I already have. The stamp comes from the Stampin' Up stamp set last time I had baby announcements to make. I so badly wanted to order new stamps, but it is just not in the budget this time around. Honestly I can't take credit for the design this time. I copied it from a card layout in a Stampin' Up catalog and sort of changed it into a baby announcement.

What Would Stacy London Say?

I've mentioned that I've been cleaning and tossing and organizing lately~ and hence, not blogging much. I've gone through every piece of my children's clothing that isn't stored in the crawlspace and making the kids put on little fashion shows while I decide what fits and what doesn't. Man does it feel nice to have all of the clothes put away coherently! I ushered out and stored all of the outgrown things, tossed the grubby looking things, brought in the next sizes up and assessed what was lacking in their wardrobes. Although I haven't been snapping pictures of our apparel adventures, here is my one piece of proof: my David~ who apparently has a fashion sense all his own and disagreed with half of the pile headed for the door. (And for the record it is: fuzzy sweater, short denim overalls, fuzzy sweatpants.)


And stay tuned! I hope to post our baby announcement prototype sometime early this week!

Our Upstairs Tree

Meet our new tree. We got him last year when we traveled to Park City for Christmas so we could have something under which to put our presents. He was very inexpensive (and I used a coupon~ love that) and he served his purpose very well. After we returned from snowy Utah, we stashed him in the crawlspace and totally forgot that he existed. That is, until last week when Dabney suggested we bring him out of hibernation from the depths of the basement. We unpacked him from his box and set him up in the upstairs hallway with the smallish tree skirt I made for our first married Christmas when I was trying to save money so faithfully. The only problem now, was that we have a zero dollar budget with which to decorate our little fiber-optic fella.


As we all know, necessity is the mother of invention so we decided to brainstorm. We decided that we bake things pretty well around here so we resolved to bake our Christmas ornaments for our luxurious second Christmas tree. (I've always admired those huge houses on palatial estates with enormous themed Christmas trees in every room. Think the Biltmore or Winterthur.)

Let me apologize for the pictures- either I used the flash and you couldn't see the lights or I didn't use the flash and it was too dark to see the cookies.

Anyway, the kids had a blast cutting and baking the cookieboys, gingergirls and the cookie children and adorning our new upstairs tree with the fruit of their labors. Our ornaments are edible and they smell delightful, and if temptation overcomes one of the kids, namely child #3, its not the end of the world. The kids have felt so important knowing that they made the decorations and created their own tree. They love it dearly, always making sure that the switch is on and it's glowing warmly with it's colorful lights.

P.S. Because I know you're asking, Mom, Josh is not in the pictures because we were trying not to lead the little guy into temptation. He just can't resist grabbing handfuls of cookies and then running away as fast as he can.

For David

Before I was married I made quilts. Many many quilts. Some were wall hangings, some were bed coverings, some were kept for my family, some were gifts. I even got paid to make a few. It's funny now how few quilts I make. I always imagined I'd make a quilt for each of my children (at least one), and now I'm in the midst of it, although I thought I'd have finished more quilts by now.

We moved our big boy from a crib to a toddler bed last week (love those convertible cribs) and considering that winter is just around the corner here, we figured that he needs more than his little chenille blanket when we tuck him into bed. Excitedly, I went shopping in that tiny fabric store in my basement and emerged with the blue plaids and checks. I really like the result~ masculine, but not babyish is exactly what I was hoping to accomplish. However, in the spirit of a stubborn 2 year old boy, he claims that he already has a blanket and doesn't need a nice, warm, soft quilt and I should give it to Josh.

I made this pattern based on a beautiful vintage scrap quilt I saw at my uncle's house a few weeks ago. Maybe I will post a picture of the original some time. My quilt is only about 56"x65" right now~ which is a nice size for a lap quilt or a toddler bed (which was my original intention)~ but I'm seriously considering enlarging it to at least a twin. Maybe by the time I've quilted it, David will really love it.

If not, I'll cover him with it when he's sleeping.

Creative Friday

I think clear stamps are the best. I wish all my stamps were clear. I picked up some cool alphabet stamps a few weeks ago and now I want to stamp everything I think of.