Sewin’ with my hands tied…

Posted on November 23, 2009 by Trish

THIS was my Saturday...little pea wouldn't be anywhere but with me. I'm trying to finish stuff for my Sunday craft show and hold her at the same time. Don't try this at home - experienced professionals only (teehee!)

…well, not exactly tied, but let’s say very full. Here’s where being a twins Mom comes in handy. I have a plethora of experience of doing things one handed or no handed and gettin’ stuff done.

I’m often asked, “How on earth do you do all that you do?!”. And my answer is…I do not know. For serious. For one, I have a super helpful husband who cooks dinner without being asked, cleans my kitchen, um, quite frequently, and spends a whole heck of a lot of time with our kids. The rest of my house…yeah, that…not so much organized, or clean. As my Mother said last week when she was here helping, “your house is clean…underneath all the stuff that’s laying around”. You know, the 7…oh yes ladies, SEVEN tubs of clean laundry in my bedroom that are folded but not put away. Yeah, that’s “how on earth I do all that I do” (wink! wink!). It’s called, just shut the door when company comes and hide the messes.

Making memories...I love this picture and I DID actually get this tote done in the midst of all of this...

See? I got something done with little pea on my lap...

And I tell her, "don't move" and she sits on my cutting table while I pin...and loved it!

SOOOOO….I was prepping for this “craft show” on Sunday…one of my first. And prepping lots of product and conferring with SuAnn, a fellow crafter who teams up with me frequently on events, and giving myself a serious ulcer in trying to get EVERYTHING done. Let me backtrack…

Thursday before this event, I had the GREAT idea that we should go to the Zoo for the Wildlights preview night for zoo members. (I HEART our Columbus Zoo!) It was a school night, sort of raining and I thought, nobody will be there. This will be great! Um, apparently, EVERYONE else had this exact same thought because it was wall to wall people. Kind of a bummer. We got our photo taken with Santa. Well, little pea is barely in the frame as she has this terrified look on her face and is trying to escape. You can see my hands in the picture holding her back trying to get her to stay next to her sister for a quick photo. I love it! It’s so funny! Traumatic for her? Oh, maybe slightly :>) No!! I’m just kidding! She was fine so long as Santa was a good 10′ away or so…close up, not so much.

This guy was great! He'd be at attention and as soon as you walked by he'd give you a thumbs up, a high five or a super crazy face. My kids loved him!

Many people that night left their manners at home. That was a bummer too. Case in point. We went in to sit with our little ones and eat some packed dinner as well as a couple of things we bought there. No tables. Packed. One table was getting up to leave and we went over and asked to have their table. They were very nice, said yes, and we sat our two older kids down and then some grown adult, his wife, and their 3 teenage children came over and LITERALLY took the seat out from under me and my husband and said they were sitting there. I was dumbfounded. What do you say? This guy was clearly a jerk. He’s teenage daughter said, Ma’am, would you like this seat? She saw what her Dad had done but I was too ticked. I said no thank you and we stood behind our kids and just took care of them. I can only imagine what must be going on in this guys life for him to think that he would bully some woman with a baby in stroller and two small children for a table. Really? But you know what? Coming home in the car, for as much as my husband and I were “not happy” about our experience, our kids were talking about how they got to touch a sea star, see a shark, and they loved the “real” toy soldier that was marching around and posing for photos. They didn’t even notice it was crowded or the bad manners from others.

Little pea was all bundled up for the zoo...

They just knew they got to go to the zoo on a school night and see the lights. That made all my anger go away…they are such good kids. With no prompting they both said, “thank you for taking us to the zoo”.

Spending time with family comes first but that also meant my window for prepping was smaller. But get it done, we did! And here it is…

Do we look a little full? We had a LOT of stuff! Too much?

This little side table and the dishes were some of my thrift store finds...

Well…that’s pretty much it for this post. I’m mush brain with thoughts of turkey and family all coming here for four days and…did I mention my house is a mess? Oh, I must go start loading up bins and hiding my mess! Happy Turkey week…

ps Up for a giveaway? Kaye over at Miss Print is giving away a Hazel Hipster pattern…and her blog is fabulous. Go check her out and follow her adventures. You’ll be glad you did!

xoxo,

Trish

Don’t sneeze when you’re hiding

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Trish

1) Spy on people who are acting weird and looking suspishise. (I love the spelling here!)

2) Don’t sneeze when you’re hiding.

3) If criminals are being nice to you, stop walking and run away.

4) If you’re moving, pick a house with a mystery.

5) If you want to know about someone, go on the internet.

I found of all of those things written on a piece of paper lying in a heap of toys and other junk. Written in colored pencil by one of the Two Peas. I’m sure it was copied from a book – I think. But it totally made me giggle when I found it.

Don’t sneeze when you’re hiding.

You know, because, then you’ll be found out. This really struck me because one of the things I’ve been wanting to do with this blog is to get some of YOU out of hiding. I have found so many new and fun blogs through my readers and I’d love to highlight some of the fun and wonderful things you are creating. Would you like to be included here on my blog roll? Start sneezing!

I have a new link section called “Crafty Friends”. I’d love to include your blog there. Leave me a comment with a link to your blog and a short description about your blog. Once in awhile, I’m going to highlight some of you right here! That way, we can all find new blogs to visit and enjoy. Sound good?

...and when I get some "free" time - like in January, I am going to make myself one of these in a larger tote.

Alrighty then…would you like to come and visit with me in person? I have some craft shows coming up and I’d love for you to visit. Print off a page from the blog or pull it up on your phone and bring it to any of the shows. I’ll extend to you 10% off any one item!

Fresh from my sewing table...my owl applique on a bag? You like? I'll have a few of these at my upcoming shows.

Go here to see where I’ll be in November and December. I’ll have some kids shirts and skirts. Upcycled jeans too. Key fobs, pocket tissue covers, wallets, accessory bags, scarves, lanyards and of course, purses.

What are you making for Christmas gifts? Do share your ideas…we could all use a little inspiration.

xoxo,

Trish

Fun and funky-ness in a quick handmade gift…

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Trish

Fun and funky-ness go hand in hand, do they not? Ever since I was a kid – I’m all about the fun and the funky. While blog hopping the other day – I came upon this over on the “Where Women Create” blog. I happened over here via Paige who asked if it was ok to include me on their blog roll and I’m loving both Paige’s site and the WWC site too.

What I found that was so fun and funky was Amy Flynn’s FOBOTS. Seriously. These are so dang fun! I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE all of the fobots on her mantle.

I want all of these to come to my house!

And if anyone in my family is reading this like I know you do…HUGE HINT…I would LOVE one of these for Christmas. I really would like the whole lot because I think they look so stinkin fun all together but I would be happy with one…to start….my…collection because I totally see me collecting something like this. LOVE LOVE LOVE. Ok, I’ll stop gushing about these now. (*editors note* we just browsed her available fobots – and did not realize how much they were. I would still love to have them all but I may have to wait, or sell or car or two. So worth it – her work is amazing! Really imaginative! How she sees those faces in all of those parts – wow!)

Speaking of fun and funky…I have an idea for you to create some funk for yourself.

who says you can't wear flowers in the winter

Some bright bold floral hair barrettes or pins to be exact.

You’ll need some faux flowers.

You’ll need a hot glue gun.

You’ll need a little bit of ribbon.

You’ll need some fabric scraps.

And you’ll need some hair barrettes or pins (I found mine at JoAnn’s in the jewelry making section).

First, dismantle your flower. Cut the head off and pull it apart carefully. The reason being is that you are next going to reglue it back together so all these parts stick together. Otherwise, once you cut the head off, what was keeping it together is gone.

Glue the flower layers back together

Once your flower is back together, set it aside for the moment. Out of your fabric scraps, cut a couple of leaf shapes. I had some scrap that had some interfacing on it so I used that and it gave me leaves some depth and stability. I then glued them together - the front of the leaf to the rear of the leaf.

Next, I glued my leaves in a pleasing arrangement and then...

...I glued the leaves to the back of the flower (ignore the barrettes here...I'm getting to that)

To make a barrette, I took my ribbon and started on the back of the barrette...glue that down and wrap it around to the top of the barrette and cover the underside of the top of the barrette too.

Be careful not to actually glue your barrette closed - and remember hot glue is HOT. Very, very hot. I found that out more than once during this project.

If you are making your flower into a pin, you'll need to whip a couple of stitches around it with needle and thread to get it to really stick. I just used hot glue here...I think it will hold but you could do both just to sure.

Again, I just found the hardware pieces back in the jewelry making section at JoAnns so I'm sure you can easily find these.

hot glue your flower onto your ribbon covered barrette...

the edges of your leaves are left raw - run your fingers over them a bit to fray them up and rough 'em up to give a cute vintage look.

And you are done!

Wasn't that easy?!

These would make great easy teacher gifts or Sunday school teacher gifts. Seriously…I made SIX of these in 20 minutes. 20 minutes! I mean, this is super easy and fast and really quick for a gift or add a cute scarf to it and you have a great gift.