Well, my couple of days turned into a couple weeks. Sorry about that.  We are now home and took many pictures, over 1500! Been working on getting them fixed up and able to show to my brother and his new wife.  I've also been working on things for my Etsy site. Got some new nursing covers, pacifier straps and coffee cozies done up and just getting pictures done tomorrow.  I have 2 custom orders to do up as well so that will take up some time as well.  I am going to try my hand at photo props. A blogger friend asked if I can do up some maternity wraps so I'm going to try. Told her I couldn't promise, but I will try and see what happens.  I will post what comes from it either way if you want to see.  I am going to try two different ones. A short one that just covers the upper and cinches in the back and a longer one that has a mesh type material on the bottom and ties in the back. 

I will also be posting a couple of jewelry pictures I've done up.  One set is the Ball and Chain keychains I made for my brother and his new wife. His was a darker 'ball' made with beads surrounding the bigger bead and her's was more girly with pearls.  On hers I also put a charm pendant so I can add all the kids birthstones onto it so she can carry them all around with her. 

Spring Break Time!

Hi everyone!  It's Spring Break time around here, so I have the kids home with me and we are working on getting my craft room up and running! lol  Hubby helped me set up the new shelving system we found at IKEA on sale and tomorrow I have plans to get my table that we bought from IKEA set up as well.  The shelving system is an Expedit with 16 shelves 4 across and 4 down.  I've already filled up most of the squares in the shelves.  I have more to get back into the room and I'm trying to figure out what else I can do for storage. Any ideas are more than welcome!!!  I know I need one more shelf so that the door will shut properly lol I have an armoire type shelf in there now and it makes it hard to get in  and out of the door properly. Gotta figure that out.

I'm hoping (ya right! LOL)  to get some sewing done as well. That will depend on the little guy and whether he wants to cooperate!

I made a cover for my Kobo E reader and I'm quite proud of it. I have some tweaks to make on it and I'm hoping to get to that this week. I'll be trying to take pics as I go so I can make a tutorial for it.  If you are interested, please comment and I'll put it up.

Have a great week!
Stacy

On my to do list!

I bought Amy Butler's new book as I said in this post Happy new Year  and so far I haven't done anything with it, but this Blossom Handbag will be my first to do!  I found the free tutorial over on Sew Mama Sew blog and thought I would pass it along to you.  I think this purse should do me fine since I have to carry so much for the kids in my purse. It should fit my purse organizer too!  I made one over the holidays because I was tired of digging through my bigger purse to find one little thing! lol  If you make one, can you send me a picture and I'll put it up with mine when I get it done.  I am starting a flickr site to do this and if you want the like, comment and I'll pass it along.

Also I will be putting up a giveaway on Wednesday so stay tuned!  If you have preferences over fabric or a book or pattern, please comment and we'll see what the consensus is.  :)

Kids off to school!

Well, the kids are off to school for another semester and I'm so happy! I love having the kids home, but they were starting to get under my feet while I was trying to get some orders done. 

I have 50 business card holders to get done. It's a custom order through Facebook! Yah!!  I will be taking pics as I go and will post them up here in a couple days.  They client wants blues and pinks which should be fun to do. I may have to make some extras for me  :)

I also have a new bag to create for  my camera. I want it to be similar to a bowler bag, but not quite so big. I've seen ones that look similar, but I don't like how they are made. They look like they don't have enough padding in them and I am worried that it won't protect, so I'm making my own.  If it works, I may make more and put them on my Etsy.  I will take pics and put them up here for you all to see.

I was able to get some organizing done in the craft room and so far I love how it's looking. I have more to do, of course, but so far, it is looking so much better than it was. I'm now trying to decide if I want to make my sewing/craft table smaller or not. What is your opinion? I have a 4ft by 4ft table right now and some days it feels too big, but others it's almost too small.  What do you think?

Friday night sewing

I am getting involved in this month's Friday Night Sew-In because I have sooooo much sewing to get done to get ready for Christmas.  I plan on getting a fair bit done. I have some cut out, so I should be able to get those done. Maybe I'll get Meg's Christmas present done. She wants a hooded bathrobe and I never realized how hard it would be to get it done.

I have also some little stocking stuffers to finish as well. Not really hard to so, just little bit fussy.  I will add them here if anyone is interested. Just post a comment and I'll add the tutorials as well. I'm making a make up roll-up for Meg's purse and for dh and one of the older kids, I'm making a camera strap cover. For Joey, I've designed a game carrier for his DSi.  He outgrew the one I'd made this summer, so I'm revamping it and adding more slots for games and a spot for the styluses.

adding seat belt covers....

I will be adding seat belt covers to my Etsy over the weekend. I had a custom order!!!  She has ordered 6!
One of them is of our Edmonton Eskimos colors which shouldn't be too hard. She also wants one with my choice. I'm not too sure about this one, but I will figure it out. I may just make a couple extras and then take them all for her to decide! lol  If anyone wants a tutorial, I will be taking pictures as I go as well. I will be hopefully be able to upload it all onto Craftster I hope it will allow me to add pics this time.

I spent the last couple of days with Joey and it has been interesting.  He has such a vivid imagination that he surprised me a couple times!  He also helped me with colors for the Eskimo seat belt cover which was kinda funny. I had picked a couple different ribbons and wasn't sure which one to pick. He told me the yellowy one, I ended up buying the two I had narrowed it down to and turned out he was right!! LOL

I have designed a purse for Meghan's 17th birthday this weekend. I'm not sure I'm going to get it done, but I hope to otherwise she'll have the mock up I did.  It is going to be a smaller messenger bag with extra pockets for her diabetic items, her tester, needles, etc.  That way she won't have an excuse not to have it in there!  I am also working on a clutch type for me. Ron's Christmas party for work is the weekend of our anniversary (Nov 27) and the purses I have are all huge! I don't want to have to take all my things with me, just a lip gloss a comb, gum and my Epi-pen. Most commercial type clutches don't have enough length for my Epi-pen so I will make one and have an elastic on the side for it to be anchored in there. I will add pics as soon as I get it done. I don't know what color yet because I haven't decided on my dress yet! lol

Well, that was a bust!!

The craft fair was a MAJOR bust. The lady running it had told me that they generally have 3000+ people through and we were lucky if there was 1000!!!!  So the table cost me $$, the materials cost me $$$ and not to mention gas, food, etc, this was a very expensive weekend!  ARGH

Well, at least I learned where some cheaper places I can go to sell my stuff at farmer's markets and such that still have room! I will press on and persevere! lol

I am now making coloring book totes and the Nintendo games tote as well.  I had Joey out with me yesterday and he took these along. There were quite a few asking about them, so I am going to put them up on my Etsy and see if they will sell from there. I will also make some to take to the farmer's market. 

Friday night sewing.

I was actuallly able to get into my sewing room last night and sew with the group! YAH!!  I didn't get alot done, but I did get a couple coffee cozies done and a notebook cover for a friend's birthday.  I don't have pictures of it, yet, as I haven't got my lens back from the repair depot. I will add pics before I give it to her though.

I was also able to organize more of my room. I have a love hate relationship with organizing. I love how it makes my room look, but it makes me soooo tired.  I have just found out I have fibromyalgia. (actually I have known for a while, but finally diagnosed lol)   What I didn't know was the low energy I have is part and parcel of that disorder. :(

So what do you have planned this weekend. Joey and I are making beaded spiders to get ready for Halloween. We love to get dressed up and try to dress up the house a bit.  However, I'm not sure Lucky will allow it lol

I found this link in one of my other blogs I read, http://craftzine.com/  I belong to their twitter as well so I get things as they go up on the site.
http://blog.creativekismet.com/2009/08/20/placemat-2-with-directions/ anyways, I was looking at it and Joey saw this and decided he wanted one for school.  So I'm going to try and make him one.  I'll let him pick out the material and make him one.  He hates that he has to eat on a bare table at school so maybe this will make him feel better. He'll have his own placemat.  I will post a picture as soon as I get it done.

I'm without my favorite lens at this time and it's driving me crazy!! Hubby bought me a Tamron 18-270 when we got his income tax back. I have been using it over any of my other lenses since. However since we came back from Vegas, it has developed a sticky spot.  When I go to zoom out, it sticks in about the middle.  It was there before, but I've really noticed it as I use it more, it's gotten worse. :(  The camera store said it would be 4-6 weeks and that was 3 weeks ago. I hope it's done soon!!!

I am working on this tutorial http://houseofsmiths.blogspot.com/2010/07/fat-quarter-pillow-tutorial.html that I signed up for with Sew It http://sewchicandunique.com/2010/08/fq-pillow-for-sew-it/  It should be an easy one for me to do which I need right now as I don't have alot of time on my hands.  It  uses a fat quarter, which I have just found for cheap at Michael's.  They were getting rid of them for $1.49!!!  I picked up 10!! LOL 

Meg is still in hospital. They have decided to keep her in for a couple more weeks! They want to run some tests on her, which is what we've been asking for. Took a meltdown to get them to agree to it. Why is it that you or your child have to go to the extreme to get the help they need???

Do you realize there are only 131 days left til Christmas??? I looked on my blog and it hit me! The kids go back to school in just over 3 weeks, then there is hubby's bday, then it's Halloween, then Thanksgiving....and Christmas!!!

I am trying to make a handmade Christmas this year which will mean alot more sewing and crafting than usual. The good news is, I shouldn't have to delve out of my stash all that much. As the hubby is so happy(not) to tell me, I have way tooooo many things going on in my craft room. I'll have to put up a pic as soon as I can figure out how to on here. I'm still figuring out where to put everything, but for the most part, everything has a place. Now I just have to get the fabric stash under control. I have 2 full shelves and then some so it will take me a while. Any ideas?? I'll take any right now.

I was fully planning on taking pictures of the banana bread muffins I made, but unfortunately, they were all eaten. That is unfortunately for the blog. They were good! I've made them as low fat and low sugar as I can due to Meg's diabetes.

I got a deal with Starbucks for my Koffy Kozy's!! I can't wait til I take them down there and see what they say about all of the designs. So far they have seen the 3 that myself and the kids have and the manager of the local one wants to put them in the store. He asked if anything was going to go to a non profit and I asked him if I could choose, he told me of course. So $1.00 from each Kozy will go to JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) Since it was for Meghan's store, where else would it go? Maybe one day soon, they will come up with a cure for Type 1 diabetes and she won't have to do so many needles and such.

I am going to be doing the Friday night sew in again. I'm hoping to get some of my projects off my table so I can get down and dirty with the Kozy's. I am hoping to get the nursing pads, receiving blankets and other baby stuff done before the 2 babies I'm making the stuff for are born.

Here it is another Friday night and all I got done was arguing with the dog lol

Actually I did get some sewing done today. I finished some coasters that I had started before Christmas and realized how far behind I was in the gift dept and put them aside. Once I figure out how to post pictures on here, I'll put them up. I was fooling around with the free quilting I have on my machine and I think I figured it out. *fingers crossed*

I am also working on putting up my works in progress list and will be crossing them out as I go. I hope to get at least one done a month or more. Most are smaller things that I can get done fairly fast, but there are others that I'm not too sure of the logistics so I'll have to read up on how to do certain things so I can finish it. I am putting up a schedule so I can make myself accountable and get some things done. Hopefully the dog will be cooperative LOL

It's beginning to feel alot like Christmas!! I'm finally feeling more Christmas like since I was able to get the annual Christmas party and all the work I have to do out of the way. The kids are home starting tomorrow and I have crafts planned for Joey to do that will keep him sorta busy while I sew! LOL

I am hoping to be able to get into a routine that will enable me to get some things done on a more regular basis. I can't seem to get into the swing of things lately.

I'm heading to Red Deer on Saturday to pick up Ken. He's going to be home for a couple weeks over Christmas before starting his new job back at mom's. He's excited about it which a good thing to see. I hope that he doesn't start anything while he's here. I have enough stress in my life lol

So sorry I've been MIA. It's been a busy summer around here. I don't know how the time flies so fast, but it does and did!

I'm childless for most of the day now that J has gone to school full days. He's at the Glenrose School for more testing and to see what type of school will be best for him. He's been tooling around in his new blue wheelchair and although he is not needing it for most things, he is still getting super tired after walking for any length of time. Like this morning, we were going to go potato picking at a farm but the line up was way too long. It wasn't supposed to start until 9 am and when we got there at 9:15, there was a lineup almost 2 miles long down the highway. And as you know Joey doesn't do too well at sitting for any length time especially going nowhere, we decided to check out some of the local greenhouses around there. We love doing that but some others in the family think it's boring lol

I'm in the process of doing up some bread and butter pickles and some raspberry jam. I got some corn relish done up for Ron and he's so happy now. I'm hoping to get the pickles done tomorrow and will try to upload some photos for you to see.

I'm also in the midst of getting my sewing list together for Christmas. Do you realise that there are less than 90 days left???? yikes!! I know I have at least 20 things to do up so I had better get cracking. That's on top of the order I have for 20 coffee sleeves for the local coffee shop!! I'm hoping that order works because then I'll have a standing order for that one and hopefully more.

I went to Davey's Fabrics here in Edmonton. You have to have a business to shop there and now that I am planning on getting down to business I ventured in there and man did I hit the motherload!!! I was in heaven lol If I hadn't had the kids with me I would have been lost in there for a while. I ended up coming home with the webbing needed to do the bags and camera straps I want to do($5 for the 1/2 in and $7 for the 1.5 in) and the clasps and things I needed I found for cheaper there than I've ever seen them. 5 cents each!!! I am planning on going back when I have more time (and money!) and looking around. More than likely after the kids go back to school in the fall......unless I can talk one of the older kids into babysitting...hmmmmmm

I've decided to start adding tutorials and pictures to my blog. I love finding them and sometimes can't remember where I put them lol so I'm putting them here so maybe someone else can enjoy them as well. I will be contacting the people involved because I don't want to look like I'm stealing their ideas. I will also be putting up some of my creations when I can figure out how to make my own tutorial. I am currently working on a new purse design that is backwards my daughter says. But it works for me.

I'll be taking pics of it when I get it finished. I didn't think to take pics as I was doing it, mind you, in some of them, the pics might have had a blue haze ;)

So the kids are off school and Joey has decided that he wants to help me sew. Not a big deal. Today I gave him some material and a pair of blunt nosed scissors that he's used before and a pattern I made up. He didn't do too bad considering he doesn't have alot of muscle strength. He was so proud of himself when he got it cut out. You should have seen his face, it was beaming!

So we've ordered his wheelchair and they say it should be here by the time school starts. We've stated the plans for his ramp. It isn't going to be cheap that's for sure, but we have to make it strong don't we. You would think that there would be people who could help you for a reduced cost, but it doesn't look like it. It's looking like we'll be out $500 for the plans to get drawn up. We can't afford that, but we can't afford not to either, understand? ARGH!!!

Oh well, such is life. Especially my life lately. I know that God doesn't give you more than you can handle, so I guess He thinks I'm pretty strong!!! I don't know about that. But I guess he knows more than I do about what is coming up. I can only hope that it isn't any worse. Having 4 kids with varying degrees of disabilities is time consuming and tiring.

That's enough complaining for one day. Will be back soon.

well, it's still raining and brings me a nasty nasty migraine that made me out of commission for the better part of the day. blah!

I did get some patterns cut out and the material picked for some groupings of notebook covers and coffee cup cozies. Anyone want a leaping lizard coffee cozy?? I have 4 right now. I also have it figured out for kleenex package covers. I can make them all in one pattern with a bag to match! I am in the process of getting pics for my etsy site!! Yah!!!

It's finally raining!!! It has rained a little over the last couple weeks, but not like this. It's been raining overnight and now into the morning and it's soaked the ground. My garden really needed this!!

I have finished a couple things in my sewing. I got a bag done, my curtains are almost done, finally (now I just have to get hubby to put up the rod! lol) I did 15 notebook covers for teachers and such, I will take pics but there aren't many left. I think I have 5 left. lol I am in the midst of a hoard of material that has things slated for it. I bought some really interesting bag material and it will be going up on my site soon. I just have to talk the kids into cooperating with me so I can sew some more.

I have been trying to decide if it's worth buying a snap press. I am starting to make some different things that I've only customed before and if I'm going to start selling them, then I really need to get one. I've made some mamma cloths and diapers for friends and they've been wanting more, so I'm sourcing the pricing etc before deciding. If anyone has a good place to buy one, then post it please!!

hmmm, what else.....
Oh yeah, we are going to be looking into taking the whole crew down to the States next summer. Wish us luck lol I don't know whether I'll be able to handle all the grumpies for 10+ days but will look into it. Maybe we'll go one place and send the older ones somewhere else....lol

well, Ron's outta town and will be back tomorrow and what am I doing instead of all the sewing I need to do???? I'm sitting here on the puter smucking around!! LOL I know, I need a life.

Well, what have I done in the last two weeks. A heck of a lot of nutting. I've been everywhere, but feel like I've gotten nothing accomplished because all my appts broke up my days too much. What a pita! Oh well. Maybe tomorrow I'll actually get somethings done. I did get my patterns cut out, I cut up the material for the special quilt I'm making my friend. I also found the material for my friend's daughter's b'day quilt. So I guess it hasn't been a total loss has it?

Can someone tell me where the heck my son would have hidden the remote for the tv???? He decided that it would be fund for him to take the remote, but now can't remember what he did with it. Sigh.... Someday (soon I hope) I'll find it. I really don't want to go into his room... How the heck a 5 yr old can mess up his room so much I don't know. I think he was taking lessons from the other kids. lol