Monday, June 25, 2012

sunshine

A good friend of mine just had her very first baby, a sweet little girl. I have a few things on the go for her (of course) and thought I would share one of them. While she was preggers, my friend didn't want to give away the sex of the baby so she referred to her as "Sunshine." What could be more cheery than that? So naturally I have had THAT SONG in my head for the last 9 months...you know the one :)

Now that Sunshine has arrived, and bears the name of Esther Mae after her great-grandmothers, I thought I would make a little something for the nursery as a nod to that special time.


I had so much fun making this. I used a bunch of scraps from my favourite fabrics and appliquéd them onto linen, then topstitched in black thread. Then I hand stamped the words using fabric paint.


Some sun, a cloud, a rainbow, and then I hand stitched some rain.


Stretched it all on a wooden hoop and added some pink ruffled ribbon for hanging. I forgot to photograph the back, but I used some Rainy Days and Mondays umbrella fabric (perfect!) and personalized it with Sunshine's name and mine.

Wishing you a life full of sunshine, Esther Mae!


Linking up at Canoe Ridge Creations and Quilt Story :)

Friday, June 8, 2012

for the TEAchers

School is wrapping up at the end of June, and look at me, all prepared with my teacher's gifts made already. Gold star!


Now I can't take credit for the idea or anything, but I am an awesome copy cat. I scored some cute plastic reusable cups from Superstore and filled them with packages of Tetley Infusions iced tea flavorings along with a Starbucks gift card. These adorable flag printables with the snappy messages were free and I found them here. Perfect for the tea/drink theme, they read:

Thank you for being such a wonderful TEAcher!
Thank you, I hope you have a TEA-rriffic summer!
Thank you for quenching my thirst for knowledge


While on Lisa's site, I also snatched the PDF to print off these cuties for the kids to hand out to classmates at the end of school.


I used a couple pieces of Hubba Bubba gum instead of the Hershey bars, and they fit perfectly. The little curves between the owl's horns were supposed to be cut out, but give me a break- I have 3 kids so I made more than 70 of these, and corners were cut as needed!


Feeling a bit like SuperMom. My work is done here. Off to iron my cape!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

rhubarb, grannies and sex

Today, I am having a really good day, and I am feeling a little sassy, truth be told ;) It is my day off work, the sun is shining, and we have a day with NO SCHEDULED ACTIVITIES. Flipping unbelievable. Don't worry, the chaos resumes tomorrow, but tonight, we are lighting up the BBQ, riding bikes to the park, you know, summer stuff!

Even baked a rhubarb crisp for dessert. On the weekend I cut up a pile of rhubarb from my "such an incredible will to live that I can't even kill it" rhubarb plant. So it went from this....

...to this.....

...and then to these:





10 jars of apple rhubarb jam (tastes like apple pie in a jar)



(sounds odd but are the best. cookies. EVER!)

Seriously, these are good eats! I have linked all the recipes, I highly recommend them. The cookies especially have become a bit of a tradition that my kids look forward to every year as they watch the plant grow. Well, there was a little meltdown one morning this spring as we watched some huge labroador which was walking through the neighbouring park unleashed come bounding into my yard and piss all over the plant. I actually ran outside and hollered at the owner, as my kids sat crying for their potentially lost cookies...sheesh. But anyways, we won't speak of it!


On the crafty front (because Lord knows, you people must be starved for any quilty behaviour out of me by now), I am happy to report that I have finished off my remaining granny square blocks and have assembled my quilt top. So, in all, 3 quilt tops done, 2 sandwiches basted, and one half quilted...there is hope for some finishes out of me this June. Just don't hold your breath!



I have actually been enjoying lots of time reading of late, and I wanted to update you on 50 Shades of Grey...quite a few people were wondering my thoughts about this "unique" trilogy. Well, let's just say I enjoyed it (*wink*). And my husband ALSO enjoyed me reading it, and was wondering when the fourth book was coming out pretty please?? ;) Think of me what you will! But I do recommend it as a fun, stimulating read.

Have a great day!
Kristie :)

Friday, June 1, 2012

didn't smack the Mac

I am sloooowly figuring out this Mac stuff. I am a child of the 70s after all- the first computer I used was when we had one at school in the 3rd grade, and it took up the space of an entire room. I even learned to type on an actual TYPEWRITER. So, being as archaic as I am, it may take some time to get my head around this. Thanks to all of you who so kindly offered tips and advice, and generally just commiserated with me as my tantrum played itself out. I haven't gotten to editing photos yet, nor have I figured out how to organize my pictures within iPhoto, but I have achieved the Minimum Standard by learning how to post pictures here, so from now on it is my goal to take perfect photos not requiring alteration and all will be well, right?

So, just thought I would pop in and say hi and show you a bit of what I am up to lately. To get right down to business, life seems to revolve around these 3 little gremlins:
(Mother's Day 2012)

I was operating under the misconception that once we bypassed the diaper-changing, shoe-tying, meat-cutting stage of babies and toddlers, life was going to get EASIER. Well, let me clear that one up: it does not. Sure, in some ways it does. We can go to the park and I can sit on a bench rather than hovering over the kids at arms length. I can turn my back to make dinner or go fold a load of laundry without worrying they will aspirate a toy or color the walls with marker. But we still have many sleepless nights with kids in our beds, bedtime is later so there is little to no "me" time in the evening and certainly no nap times to regroup. Add homework and their 3 very active social/activity schedules, not much time! Maybe that explains the lack of crafty production over here!

That said, I love watching my kids doing the things they love. So, while we spend many-an-hour at the rink, dance studio or soccer field, it is great to see them working hard to achieve goals, and having fun. And spending that many hours with great kids and parents, it kinda is MY social life, as well!

Mid-May we had a long weekend as we celebrated Victoria Day in Canada. This is the official start of summer up here- affectionately referred to as "May long." Now, we Canucks may only get 3 months of decent weather up here, but we worship it, and do it up right. So, cottages were opened, tents and trailers pulled out, BBQs lit- good times.

Our family is still short one storm-busted cottage...looks like it is going to have to be torn down due to the damage from last May's storm. But, we can't waste another summer! So, we decided to invest in a travel trailer, one that can be used to tow around now but then is big enough that we can park it at the lake in a year or two when the rebuilding phase begins out there. So, this May long, off to the lake we went!

Now, Manitoba, our province, happens to be stuffed full of fantastic lakes- over 100,000, if you can believe it! So, for our maiden voyage, we only had to travel 15 minutes to our nearest Provincial Park, Bird's Hill. We set up camp....and spent our first 24 hours int the trailer due to a crazy rain storm. Which caused a mini flood in the trailer (perhaps all this flooding is due to the fact that I am an Aquarius and married a Pisces??). But, soon enough the sun came out, we dried ourselves off and headed outside.

Marshmallows were roasted. S'mores were inhaled.


Games were played.


Kids went swimming. Yes, they did. Yes, it was only 16 degrees outside, and God knows what in the water.

Dads worked hard at supervising.

Even did a bit of knitting!

Overall, a good weekend :)

Then a busy week followed....a great night with a bunch of local girlfriends with a Norwex/Partylite party (no photos taken, but much wine ingested). Then the usually smattering of hockey, soccer and dance, a field trip at school, the annual school folk dance festival, and so on. This weekend we had the summer carnival at out local community club. The family had a blast on the rides, we did some volunteering, saw plenty of friends and neighbours, and the kids danced the night away in the beer tent to the band.
This weekend is busy again- Big G is off to Fargo, ND with the hubs for a hockey tournament, the girls and I are home to enjoy their year end dance recital and Last But Not Least's preschool graduation and summer concert.

So, as you can see, life is trucking along, and if I am not here as often as I would like, know that I will pop in from time to time. I have a few quilts planned to finish in the next month or so, intended as gifts, and a sweater getting to the finish line, but really, most of the time I am just living life, trying to keep up with all it throws my way, and dreaming of sewing times to come!

I did have a few blissful hours on my new Juki! To sum it up: I love it. One of the best parts? It is So Simple. It does one thing, and it does it well- straight stitch. There are no computer program thingies or complicated set ups, just stitches in a straight line with amazing tension, working quietly and quickly. I did a bit of piecing and did some free motion quilting on a baby quilt (until I ran out of thread. Sigh). It was just wonderful. I can't wait to get a chance to pull it out again!

Hope you all are well! Happy June!
Kristie :)