Hola from Cabo

More pics to come, but here's what I've got at this moment on my
phone. Now... Off to enjoy our last night in Mexico...

Pretty. Fascinating. Flowers

I've never seen anything like these.

Tip Junkie

yay! I am the featured mom-preneur today on Tip Junkie.
Check it out and enter to win a free Libby Dibby skirt!

More quilting... for bee happy

My quilting bee is really a fun source of inspiration for me. It challenges me to try something new and to work on my skills ... it makes me work with new types of fabrics in color schemes that are foreign to me - which is a great challenge that I enjoy.

This month's block is for Alison and we're making "liberated wedding rings". It was another strip (scrap) quilt pattern and I made mine last night. It was fun to try to work within her requests for each block using ALL of the fabrics she sent - and also to do my best to make two squares that did not look alike. She requested that we send the usable scraps back to her for more quilting, but there were some "unusable" scraps that I thought would be fun to make something of. So it was midnight and I got out my Mod Podge... (oy!) and one of Ace's old cleaned out formula cans so that I could make her a little pen/scissor bucket.

Have I ever shown you my scissor bucket? Sonja took a great pic of it when she was here. I loved that she saw the beauty in the mundane around here... my bucket does indeed make me smile, hopefully Alison will like hers.

Today's project: spiderweb quilt

I'm so excited about this quilt. I've been dreaming about sewing it since I did my/Abi's spiderweb block for the quilting bee that I'm in... I wanted to do a spiderweb block with a patterned interior since I don't love solids... And pin dots seemed appropriate, but not predictable... So here we go! Only two squares are sewn together right now, but by tonight I should have about 9 complete... Here's a pic of them all lined up to sew.

I don't often get to sew in the daytime, but today the a/c is getting installed... I'm hanging around here as much as possible instead of running errands and I gotba few solid hours to work on this.

This pattern is fun to work on. It appeals to my scrappy, patterned, colorful, use-everything side... And I love the chaos turning into ordered wheels... How big it gets depends on how tired I get of making these - though I currently am thinking this will be my first full size quilt.

Cake collage

Okay, how cute is this? The group that I made the "City Lights" artwork for used it to make a cake for their kickoff meeting. I hope it tastes as good as it looks! I should ask them to save me a piece just for royalties sake...

Call for Photos

Hey! Do you have a great looking pic of you in your Libby Dibby skirt?
I'm in need of some good pics of the current patterns of skirts to post on my testimonials page.
If you have a picture that shows the skirt/pattern/fit well - email it to me (with the understanding that I can use the pic) and if it's usable for me - I'll send you a prize!

 I'm most in need of the following patterns:
FALL SPRINGS
HOLLYWOOD
DAY JOURNEY
THE ORIGINAL (flowered side)
COCO IN LOVE
CARAMEL LATTE
CLASSIC

The pics need to be clear, good resolution, decently close up ... (and artsy is always great!)

Here are some examples that J has taken.

New Charm Photos

I don't know why it's taken me so long to do this. I finally got some good pics of the hand stamped charms.
I'm hoping dear hubby can upload them to our actual site while he's on break from making tv shows in the next few weeks. Until then, here they are and you can order the charms on etsy, too - where you can see the pretty pics.

This is how I feel today

The photo is not new. But the winter sunset and the joy is sheer magic.
I'm conscious today of both joy and pain and I'm okay with both.
I hope today you are able to breathe in a measure of beauty between the moments.

Fierce Handbag Winner

YAY! What a great day today has been - and now I get to announce that Catherine won my giveaway!!!
Send me an email and we'll get your order all made up and shipped out!

Job performance reviews

Apparently, it is job-review weekend and my bosses seem to think I'm doing ok. I must be doing allright if both kids write "my mom loves me" as the title of their Mother's Day artwork.

Teacher Appreciation Week

We just presented our kindergarten teachers with their class gifts. I got the idea from my sister last year when she was Kindergarten room mom at their school. It was her idea to use one of my handmade
journals (only bigger) and fill it with love notes from the class. I took note and saved the idea for this years gifts for Mimi's two teachers... The amazing office manager and PE teacher at our school
snuck me into a PE class so the teachers never saw me collecting the art. What a fun, easy gift... Might be doing this every year!

I have the coolest friends (Mod Podge Rocks)

I really have the coolest friends. And some of them have come to me through this blog... Like Amy, from ModPodgeRocks ... We've actually been able to meet in person after months of emails, but via email and blogs, she and I have become creative pals... And I think we both have something for giving and mailing gifts... Because I love sending her stuff (we met when she won a giveaway) and look what came in the mail today! My little wheels are turning... Chalkboard paint? Extreme Glitter Paint (in red, of course!)??? Outdoor Mod Podge? And Picture This Transfer Medium? Fabric iron on transfers? Oh man, the pressure is ON! (I didn't even realize Plaid made all this stuff)...
I'll keep you posted on what comes from this fun care package... And since my pal Amy, like me, is a huge polka dot fan, I'll make sure to include some of those in the ensuing projects. (awesome) I'll have to
be peeking over at her blog for some ideas and inspiration - 2 things she's never short on...
Thanks Amy!!!

More Handmade Scrappy Journals.

I love these journals. And I'm picky about journals. I fill up at least 4-6 journals and sketchbooks a year and I have a collection of both used and unused journals waiting their turn to be used... But now that I'm making these, the other ones are put on hold.

I've been making them for a while, but now they're cuter, a standard size, with nicer grommets, and bigger book rings. After using these the last year, here's why I like them better than my other (waiting) journals:

1 - They're sturdy
2 - They lie flat when you are drawing, writing, etc... and they fold back, too
3 - They're refillable. Don't like what you made? need a piece of scratch paper? These are not fussy. Refill it with some other fancier - or less fancy paper.
4 - They're cute. (some of them even have pen pockets now)
5 - They're scrappy and GREEN and we all know how much I love to use my scraps.
6 - They make great gifts. (I think I've given over 25-30 as gifts)

I've recently made a whole new batch and have put a few of them tonight on etsy.

What I'm wearing for Mother's Day

You know I wear Libby Dibby wrap skirts for pretty much every holiday, right? This Mother's Day, I'm not... I splurged, and used up all my gift certificates yesterday and got this PRETTY dress at Anthropologie... Oh, it's so pretty... (sigh)
J's reaction? "yummy"
:)

2 days left to enter the Fierce Handbag free giveaway

Dont forget about the bag giveaway!
You've got until May 6 to enter... Comment on the blog post here:
http://libbydibbystuff.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-have-coolest-friends-fierce-handbags.html

More pouches...

This is proof that I am certifiable, i think. Last week, my pal Amy - of Mazie Kane (www.maziekane.etsy.com) came over for a one-on-one sewing tutorial. It was a kind of crazy day as I spent the morning sewing with her and then the evening with four other women who I taught to make the Lazy Days (link later) skirt so we could make them to send to Haiti (all said and done we made 18). So what did I do in the in between time? I made these. And the front one... Oy, I couldn't bear to throw away those beautiful scraps and then made this pouch. Now I've been carrying it around for 3 days trying to figure out what to put in it. Yup, definitely I'm nuts.