Robson turns 3

Pizza, cupcakes and pink fuzzy boots makes for a great party! The simple things are what matters to Robson. He was so excited for his party, it makes you want to freeze time, when the life is clear cut and wonderful. Attending a few of his older brother's parties and friend's parties, he knew the part of the party he likes, the food! Throw stuffing his feet into Ellie's pink fuzzy boots and running around the house with a few friends and it was birthday bliss! Happy Birthday Big Guy, it seems like you arrived only moments ago!

Baby shoes for Taylor and Knox

Love, love, love making these little shoes! Can they be any cuter? This weekend I will figure out how to make them in larger sizes for Ellie and Sam. I have a feeling I will be making a lot of these. I have taken apart a few of the kids soft shoes and have created a template, will have to see how they come out. The three pairs I have made so far are for gifts that need to be sent out soon! Stay tuned . . .

First Quilt adds some flair to Ellie's room . . . but have a way to go!

This crazy obsession with sewing started with a class I took before the holidays. This is my first finished quilt and I have three almost finished right behind this one. It is from the Yellow Brick Road pattern and it is wild! Maybe a little wild and random even for me, but Ellie loves it and that is all that counts. Ellie and Sam are almost two now and I am just getting around to decorating. Their adoptions happened so fast and we originally thought they could share a room. Boy were we wrong. The bedroom shuffle continued for over a year. I think this is where we have ended up. Ellie will have the room that we decorated half baby girl/ half baby boy. The built-ins that Todd Borlang, excellent carpenter did for us, are wonderful. She has been in the room since Sam came home with us from California. He slept in our room. Around nine months, when his sleeping got better, Max wanted Sam with him. So we bunked the beds in Max's room and Grandpa Rein put the crib up. The crib is too big to go through the doors so moving it around is really not an option. Max slept in the room with Sam all summer and then decided the top bunk made him scared, then Sam was too loud and finally when Grandma Sue came to visit and Max stayed in the guest room with her, he announced it would become his sleeping room. He has finally admitted, he likes the bigger bed in the guest room and it is closer to Mom and Dad. So to sketch it out - Ellie has a undecorated boy/girl room. Sam sleeps in a room with all of Max's clothes and toys, but no Max and Max is in the upstairs guest room that is very guest room like! This new sewing skill is going to come in handy. I need to do quilts and duvet covers, curtains (wood blinds in each room now) and pillows. We will have to do some painting and then perhaps we will have some fun kid rooms. Back to Ellie, since for me girl stuff is fun and new. I have started with some paintings and prints. The talented Grandma Carole did this wonderful Alice in Wonderland inspired watercolor for her room. Our friends Gabs and Janus from England gave us this wonderful print of Barbar. My new favorite way to find some fun for the walls is prints from ETSY, some wonderful stuff from the Black Apple is now in Ellie's room.

Diamond Glaze is BACK . . . or almost

Okay I am excited to announce that we will finally have NEW and NON-RECALLED Diamond Glaze back in our shop by the end of the week! It has been a tough month without our long lost friend. We still have a lot of the recalled product on hand and are so glad we stopped shipping it out as soon as we knew a problem existed. Darcy and I feel terrible that five bottles were sent out from a batch we were told was okay and then we learned a week later both from customers who tried to use it and our distributor of Judikins, that the product we had was added to the recall. Both our distributor and Judikins have been great to work with. They are taking back our product and will replace it with new product. I actually got a call from Judy herself to handle our return. Great customer service to go with a great product. Here is the statement from Judikins:

Thanks to some very astute Diamond Glaze artists, we have tracked a batch of Diamond Glaze that did not meet specifications. While there is no health hazard associated with this batch, it does develop cracks if applied thicker than 1/8 inch and allowed to dry below room temperature (less than 70 degrees F). The batch was bottled on the 13th of November 2008. Any bottles purchased before that date are not affected. We have tested later batches (after the 15th of December 2008) and they do not have this problem. Only 2 and 10 fluid ounce bottles are affected. The batch was small, only 3 barrels of 50 gallons each.

We have been taking back or replacing the few bottles we did send out before knowing we had a problem. Thanks for your patience. For new customers please know that we have taken special care to make sure we have quality product. If you want to reserve a bottle from our new shipment please convo us. We will have both the 10 ounce bottle with applicator and the 2 ounce bottles. We also will have Microglaze back in the shop!

Must Stop On-line Craft Purchases . . . NOW

Okay, I just can't control myself! I just ordered some cute Japanese fabrics to make some more slippers for Ellie and Sam. Don't you think these will made some cute little house shoes? ETSY and Paypal make it too easy to have wonderful packages just show up on your doorstep! After a little fabric shopping I turned my attention to wool felt. How wonderful are the colors? I am not sure what it will all become, but I know I just have to have it! I am taking an on-line class with Red Velvet Art and lots of the projects we will be working on over the next 8 weeks call for felt. I will posting some of my projects for the class soon. Finally, I turned to needlepoint shopping . . . Now that I have pulled out my loop, needle, thread and scissors, I am hooked.  While making bags with a friends over the weekend, a friend mentioned Sublime Stitching and the rest is history.  A box of fun should be making its way to me in the next couple days and I am thrilled!  But what should I work on first?  I could make a dress for Ellie with some of the lovely art of Emily Martin of The Black Apple, or some baby items for my niece who is coming soon with some sassy stitching, or maybe adorn some linen baskets I am about to attempt to put together.  The options are overwhelming, but for now I must get Max off to school, hit the grocery store and get my heads out of the "I must make something today" cloud.

Did I really do all this shopping with two toddlers climbing on me, before getting oldest son off to school?

B

My First Finished (needs button) Stitched Bag

Holy Cuteness, I LOVE how this bag came out.  Am I allowed to have so much fun with a new creative outlet.  This is a far cry from the blue and gold quilted gym bag I made in Home Economics . . . I am completely obsessed with fabric and sewing right now.  I just can't resist all the fun fabrics.  I am either buying them at our local quilt store (and new favorite hang-out) K C Custom Fabrics or shopping on ETSY for fabric.  Saturday three packages from Japan arrived with great new fabrics to make baby shoes from.  Steve signed for them and was curious why I had to have fabric from Japan, is it really that different?  20 minutes later and a little show and tell, he now appreciates Japanese fabric!

I have wanted to learn for awhile, but now that Ellie and Sam are almost two and Max is in school all day, I am finding a little time to learn a new skill.  Also my sister's pregnancy got me going.  Since my first lesson in late November I have made three quilts, baby shoes, a patchwork scarf, neck gator, baby doll carrier and this bag.  I have a couple quilts going right now and a huge line-up of projects ready to go.  This is way too much fun!  I guess I should have taken a few classes a long time ago and my previous projects would have looked much better.   

This bag also has inspired me to try my hand at some more hand stitching.  The "garden" in this bag was a lot of fun.  I really liked using the linen and love how it gives the bag a relaxed feeling.   I see a lot of embellishments on the kids clothing, pillow cases and pillows in our future.  When I showed the kids the bag after finishing today, they both tried to pull the buttons off while yelling "pretty" "pretty, mommy pretty"!  

Are we really going to BLOG?

Darcy and I have been talking about a BLOG for a long time.  We promised each other we wouldn't do fun things until we filed our NY State Sales Tax from craft shows we attended last.  Tonight after putting kids to bed, I had a choice paperwork or attempt to set up our BLOG.  Looks like the taxes will have to wait until just before the deadline!

Also we had a wonderful mention from a fellow ETSY shop owner in her BLOG.  She just opened her shop and she has wonderful products, awesome product photos and a BLOG ready to go from day one.  It made me realize that yes the paperwork can wait and we must get to the BLOG.  I was also thrilled that someone notices the time and care we take when shipping out our supplies.  She took a fun picture of what she received from us in her blog.

So this is it for our first blog entry.  Darcy and I have tons of ideas that we are excited to share.  Tutorials on covered buttons, scrabble tile pendants, glass magnets, cute packaging ideas, crafts with kids, a list of our favorite tutorials we have been compiling forever, and more.  To make it work into our lives, we are going to record moments with our families as well.  Like everyone we are short on time and anyway to combine our two loves our families and being creative . . .  also I have joined a sewing group and I have been inspired to sew, sew, sew and I just have to share the photos somewhere.