Runaway October

Not too long ago we bought two sets of the Svala table and chairs from IKEA for our “play­room”. I was kinda bummed they came unfin­ished but then got excited that I could do what­ever I wanted with them. I mean, who doesn’t dream of this per­fectly coör­di­nated play­room that looks like it came straight out of a Pot­tery Barn or Montes­sori guidebook?

Svala from Ikea

The kids had dif­fer­ent ideas, as usual. Within a few days they had scrib­bled all over the top with crayons and who-knows-what. Even the table legs had been col­ored on. I’m totally psy­ched with the cre­ativ­ity com­ing from these two lit­tle boys. Psy­ched. Too bad they didn’t con­sult me first because their art­work totally didn’t go with my Pot­tery Barn color schemes.

Daisy Dreams lam­i­nated cotton

I recently came across a tuto­r­ial for an oil­cloth table cover from Twig & This­tle, that I thought was a great idea for the boys’ work­space. I had some oil­cloth that I picked up from my favoritest fab­ric coop but it was very girly.

Then it occured to me that I had a yard of chalk­cloth in my stash. That would be per­fect! It’s fairly water resis­tant for spills and such, and I could whip out the chalks when the kids were bored. Score!

Kathleen’s tuto­r­ial included adorable lit­tle scal­lops around the edge, which I thought would be okay if done in a nice manly color, like black

chalk­cloth. But man, chalk­cloth is hard to work with. I didn’t have quite enough to cover both tables sep­a­rately so I did one cover for both tables pushed together.

I ended up just hav­ing straight edges with a lit­tle bit of dec­o­ra­tive stitch­ing.  I think it turned out pretty good and the kids have throughly tested it. Heck I even ended up eat­ing on it last night because we had a HUGE crowd to feed last night.

Chalk­cloth Table Topper

Pretty Col­ors

This is seri­ous business…

(Declan was still napping)

So if you’re in need of some­thing sim­i­lar head on over to Twig & This­tle for the exact instruc­tions. Or you can check out Oil­cloth Addict for a no sew cus­tom chalk­cloth table top­per, also.

I hope all of you are hav­ing a won­der­ful day. I know I am!

My boys got me this:

Isn’t it cute?

Here’s a Mother’s Day Inter­view from my 3 year old, Declan:

My Mom

I really love it when my mom puts my clothes on.

My mom likes to wear underwear.

My mom always tells me, “Go to time­out.” (Yikes!)

The best thing she does is feed me breakfast.

It makes her happy when we get on our bikes, go bye bye and have breakfast.

My mom loves to relax by sit­ting in the chair and talk­ing to me.

I like it when she reads bed time stories.

The best thing she cooks is pancakes.

When my mom shops she likes to buy food and fabric.

My mom’s favorite house­hold chore is ironing.

My mom’s favorite TV show is Spongebob.

If she could go on a trip, she would go to the park.

I love my mom because she is a good, nice mama!

Thanks to Let’s Explore for the won­der­ful idea!

It seems alot of peo­ple are really get­ting into the spirit of the giv­ing sea­son early this year. There are some really spec­tac­u­lar con­tests and give­aways going on right now.

First off there is this lovely beauty:

Just head on over to Pig­tails and Snail’s Quilt Give­away and leave a com­ment. There are more chances to win listed also.

The sec­ond give­away is over at Indie Fixx. She’s giv­ing away more than $750 worth of hand­made good­ness. I totally love the bag by Faite Designs in the sec­ond prize pack­age shown below. Be sure to tell her I sent you!

The third give­away going on cur­rently is The Sew Sweet Give­away hosted by Fabric.com.

Here’s the Scoop:

Who says sweet things are only for kids?!  Enter the Fabric.com “Sew” Sweet Give­away for your own grown-up treat pack­age cus­tom tai­lored for a sewing fanatic.  We have 2 grand prize pack­ages that were designed with apparel design­ers and quil­ters in mind.  Both prizes come with a selec­tion of items spe­cific to your sewing “fla­vor” as well as a $300 gift cer­tifi­cate to Fabric.com and 1 year of free ship­ping.  You can even enter once a day, every day — so come back often!

You can enter every­day until Halloween.

And last but not least is the Sew Like a Pro Sweep­stakes from SeamsToMe.com and Anna Maria Horner

Enter now and you could win every­thing you need to sew like a pro! One grand prize win­ner will receive a Singer® Con­fi­dence™ Quil­ter sewing machine, a signed copy of Anna’s book, 20 yards of Anna’s fab­ric from West­min­ster Fibers, and the Dual Duty XP Thread Sam­pler pack from Coats & Clark. Thir­teen (13) oth­ers will win prize pack­ages con­tain­ing a signed book, fab­ric and thread sampler.

 

Of course if none of these catch your inter­est you can enter any­way and give my your win­nings. Yay!

Okay, so, things have been quite busy here. Some good things, some bad things. Lots of pictures.

Where to start.…

Rowan now has two teeth and judg­ing by his level of irritibil­ity it seems he may be pop­ping out a few more. The first one was super easy and I didn’t even know it was hap­pen­ing. What a trooper huh? He’s been wear­ing his Amber Teething Neck­lace and just looks so cute in it! We call this his pirate face.

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We recently spent a morn­ing at Agri­topia with Grandma Ann and were blessed with an over­cast sky. Sadly it was humid enough to induce a full body sweat film, but we still had a good time. The food was won­der­ful as well. Rowan just adored the grass.  We don’t have a sin­gle blade at our house, because it’s a crappy rental. Declan loved being able to run wild while we sat and ate — Oh, to be a two year old again. Notice the shorts D is wear­ing? Made ‘em. Yep. I actu­ally made some­thing for a boy. Not as easy as you think.

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I com­pleted my Chromium Star Afghan for a very preggo friend, though it didn’t come out as expected. I don’t have the time, or the heart, to frog it and start over. It ruf­fles in cer­tain sec­tions, as you can kinda tell here. Before it ruf­fled so bad it wouldn’t lay flat. This is after wash­ing and block­ing. The points also curve but I kinda like it that way. I asked the pat­tern cre­ator for help a cou­ple times, but have got­ten no reply. If you break the star into sec­tions — you should see ten here — the sec­tion that goes from the val­ley to the peak ruf­fles up, like there’s way too many stitches. I’ve gone over the pat­tern time and time again and can’t fig­ure out what I did wrong. Any ideas?

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I opened an apple for the kids the other day and the seeds had started to sprout. How cool is that? We popped them in a lit­tle pot and look what we have now. One is a marigold and the leafier one is the apple. Funny how they start out the same size. The apple was organic and local grown so I’m hop­ing that it’ll will actu­ally grow since it’s most likely not some funky kind of com­mer­cial hybrid.

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My biggest news is that Matt has fully given me his bless­ing to really move on an Etsy bou­tique. I’d like to make some income from it, but Matt will be happy if I just cover the cost of all my fab­ric. I cre­ated a pat­tern for a sim­ple lit­tle jumper and match­ing dia­per cover and used one of my favorite girly fab­rics. It came out awe­some. I even made some labels that will make do for now. But then dis­as­ter struck! The reverse but­ton on my machine just kinda popped out in my hand while try­ing to do the last two but­ton­holes. I would have been fin­ished. But no! Matt’s mom had given me her old machine, so I can use that for straight sewing, but I can’t get the but­ton holer to work.

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Stu­pid me, I marked the but­ton place­ment on the out­side of the dress with an indeli­ble marker not think­ing I’d have an issue. Grr. Now I have a cute lit­tle jumper set that I can’t sell until I fig­ure out the but­ton­hole idea. I was so so so happy to be get­ting some­thing rolling. It’s cute though, no? Would you buy it? Well, if it was finished?

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I think I’m going to have my labels made by Spoon­flower. The ones I made myself were on muslin with fab­ric paint and I really like the soft­ness. No one wants those itchy pokey tags. Now I just need to come up with a logo and make all the ban­ners and avatars for my bou­tique. Any one want to help? I’ll make you cook­ies and water­mel­on­ade!

I’m think­ing of pay­ing some­one to do it for me. Maybe I should look into busi­ness grants? Any­one want to help fund my ende­vour? Or buy a new sewing machine!?!

Com­ments guys! I live for com­ments!! Seriously.