The birthday giveaway I almost forgot to give away

hi BLOG!
when I'm not blogging, you KNOW something's up. This past month has been a new level in exhaustion for me... wow! So much so that I haven't had more than a few minutes at a time to sit down at the computer over the course of even a week. SO. That said, I nearly forgot about my promised giveaway. This morning, as a birthday gift, J took all 3 kids to a cousin's basketball game so I could have some mommy time to myself. (trying NOT to clean for tonight's little mini-party)
This is one that I have been excited to give for a while. I've been saving it and hope that you will like it. Remember when I went to Italy last summer? Well, the one day that J and I went to the island of Murano and toured the glass factories, we had the best time. One of the highlights was walking up and down the little canals of the island, peeking into stores to find the perfect Murano glass rings for myself and one for my sister's upcoming birthday. (That day we also started a fun art project where we walked around colorful Burano, Murano and Venice collecting pictures of house numbers that had signifigance to us personally for different reasons)
Well, I recently stumbled upon - in the most peculiar (secret) place - a treasure trove of Murano glass rings. And as you can see... I've been wearing them a LOT. So I have one to give away!These rings tend to be a little bit big (close to a size 8 or 8.5). If you have small fingers, you'll want to wear them on your bigger fingers... or win it to give to someone else and keep sharing the love. Enter to win by sharing a favorite birthday memory. (don't forget to check back here by March 4 to see if you won... I'll post it, but I can't promise I can hunt you down with all the insanity going on around here lately!)

Subtle beauty of a silohuette

It's been a tough few weeks. It's lovely when life gives you a little glimpse of beauty when you don't even ask for it. I've always been more inspired by trees and branches than anything else. Today, I had the opportunity to take 2 hours to myself and as I walked, this caughty my eye.
Today, I am grateful for eyes to see and recognize beauty... Even the kind that lies underfoot.

Ps. It's my birthday this weekend. When I get a minute, I will post a celebratory giveaway, so check back this evening!

A house for hermit crab... Kinder crafts

Since I'm the designated artsy parent in mimi's kindergarten class, when the all school Festival of Arts was fast approaching and the class needed to do a 3D illustration of this Eric Carle book (A House For Hermit Crab)... I was called. I've spent the last two mornings in kindergarten, making tons of art projects. And today our masterpiece is finished! Tonight's show may offer us chances for better pics, but here are some to share for now.
What fun we all had... and if you know the book (which IS adorable) you'd immediately recognize that we have the whole underwater world of this hermit crab represented. ALL made by kindergarteners. The only thing I did on my own was to wind the pipe cleaners to make the little red hermit crab himself. They did ALL of the rest. I'm so proud of them!

Trying to make sense. A collage.

Got a little extra sleep last night. Which meant I got to stay up tonight and work on a project. I wanted to work on that yellow and grey quilt I've got all pinned and ready, but remembered that for lent this year, I decided to revisit my commitment from last year- which was to add to my personal creative time a few introductory moments of meditative creative time... Last year, I was so happy with how I grew spiritually and artisically during Lent by offering a little more of myself creatively to the more spiritual side of life - to my love for God... It seemed a great thing to try again this year.
So tonight I got out a collage I've been meaning to get to for a few months. I think I'd like to offer it here without too much explanation, ... for you to see and think about and absorb without too much of my own pontificating. (my personal meaning is not obvious or typical - it comes from a feeling I had after a story I heard...perhaps you'd like to share what it presents to you?)
Doing collage is good for my soul. Sewing is, too, but collage seems to rest a little deeper down in there. Which is good, I need some of that right now. A fussy baby is hard on the soul.
(good night!)

Trying to keep it all inspired - one yard wonders

I know, I've been neglecting you, little blog... Which just goes to show I've also been neglecting me.

Ace is not what I'd call an easy baby. Sweet - yes... Easy - absolutely not. We are sleep deprived and ache-y. Every night I look at my to do list of awesome projects and I sit down to catch my breath after the "bedtime battle" and I crash hard core.
This morning I'm trying just to peek at a stack of my favorite books with Ace on my lap (not going so well)... But at least I can show you this book...
"one yard wonders" by Rebecca Yaker and Patricia Hoskins. What's fun about this book (Besides all the awesome projects) is that it's basically a collaboration of many many different bloggers and artists sending in their ideas... There are 101 of them, whereas most of these project books are in the 30-50 range. (and the Barnes & Noble version has 5 extra)...
Super fun and cute. You can also hear a funny interview with one of the authors on Craftsanity
Happy reading!

Valentine's Day outfit

But you already knew I was wearing this today, didn't you?

Rockin' baby gift.

I am going to a baby shower for a baby whose parents were married last year by Elvis... Who was born on Elvis' birthday and is named Presley. They are KIND OF big fans of The King.
So they're getting this, along with a polka dotted baby sling today at the shower.
I literally sewed this with Ace on my lap at the machine, licking my arm the whole time. (he's kind of into licking... This guy. Now I have to go shower all of his slobber off before the shower!)

Wonky frenzy

The design director has caught the bug. "momma, let's sew!" (could I imagine happier words?) Today we made another quilt for her dollies. Again she impressed me with her sense of color and confident design direction. And how cute is she at the machine?

Quilting kids

Tonight my kids asked if they could sew. (um okay!) They loved last night's wonky square project that i did ad showed them and asked if they could make their own. I stood next to the machine, did the pedal, and let them not only make the design decisions, but work the presserfoot on the machine and guide the fabric through it. I loved watching them do it. Ze artiste even lasted way longer than I thought he would (thus the smaller square)... The design director could have done it with me all night. This is totally my love language... Making things with people. I've bonded with so many people over a sewing machine - how happy was I to do it tonight with two of my biggest prodigies/critics/challenges/joys.
They go to bed tonight with mommy's heart happy.
And yes, the rockin' scrap box strikes again.

Feeling wonky

Tonight my quilters group met and instead of just comparing squares, we all tried a new pattern... Wonky squares... (as described by "quilt dad's" blog)... Here's mine.

Who needs sleep when you can sew some sanity

Hanging out with a baby that screams all day isn't super inspiring... So during the few hours I had tonight while Ace slept, I opted against sleep in favor of sewing. I figured my soul needed the tending more than my body tonight. That's what coffee is for...

Here are the two tops I finished tonight. The yellow and grey one is the pieced back for last week's yellow and grey top and the red one is just something I made up from lots of scraps and an old stained tablecloth.

Both were sketches in my sketchbook and my own concepts.

Allison's scraps

Remember the scrap boxes and bags?Allison was one of the gals who
bought one and she sent this pic of her cute usage of some fabric you
will recognize. (thanks, Allison!)

Little notebooks (from re-used calendar)

These are what were supposed to be done last night before I did all my
other projects... Little scrappy notebooks for the friends at my table
at MOPS tomorrow... They were super fun and easy. I basically
laminated the pretty parts of an old calendar of mine (2009!) on a
small laminator I have here (bought the refills at the dollar store)
and cut some cardstock the same size. Punched holes. Added bookrings
and tied up with my new scrappy bows. Pretty!

Project 1 of 10 last night -appliqued sweatshirt

Or maybe there were 11. (I love nights like that... I hop into bed around 1am, exhusted and giddy about all I got done)

This is the most exciting project I did yesterday. The inspiration came for it at about 10:30 pm, but I knew I had to do it then, or it would become just another item on my to-do list. I'd actually bought the sweatshirt at a discount store earlier in the day for a few dollars. As I was doing carpool,I noticed some beautiful flowering trees and I daydreamed about maybe stretching a cherry blossom branch across the blank canvas of the sweatshirt... And then last night, while digging through my massive box of scraps, I noticed that the pattern on this vintage piece looked a lot like a cherry blossom... (hmmmmmm...) ... And we're off!

The whole project took a few hours to do because of the detail and I really wish I'd done it using heat'n'bond instead of Beacon's glue (less fraying on all those detailed edges)... And why didn't I think of using my new bottle of Fabric Mod Podge that I haven't tried yet? (it was late...) Anyhow, here it is and I love it. It may end up with another bloom, or not, crawling up the hood or down the opposite sleeve... We shall see.

Another 10 project night

Details to come, because some of these projects were actually really cute up close... But tonight was one of those nights where I just cranked. I counted and I got 10 different things made... Oh, but didn't do the one thing that was on my to-do list. :)
I just went with the inspiration and let it be organic tonight.... That was fun.