MyLuckyChicken

posts of Christmas past

As I was poking around through my iphoto (I am slowly becoming a mac convert, don't tell anyone), I found pictures of the Christmas presents we made for the teachers last year. Since they may be making a come back this year,  I thought I'd post them. 

 

Simple and fun. I cut out the circles, the kids drew on them then I glued the circle to a wooden disk I got at Michael's.  Then I covered the drawings with a thin coat of diamond glaze. If you haven't tried diamond glaze I highly recommend it, it makes things super shiny and gives it a professional look. Very satisfying.  

We finished them with super magnets. Which I love because they are super small but will hold many many pieces of paper to a fridge or a white board.  

As a teacher myself, I can say that I always need magnets. Teachers don't need hand cream, and please dear God no more mugs! Magnets are good. 

Making things again!

I've got a break from class due to the holidays. I am mostly going to use it to write a grant, but in between I've started this...

 

It's going to be an advent garland. One for each day. We'll hang them under the mantel.

I'm going to fill some of them with little toys from this fabulous site I just found, The Toy Maker. They have fun little paper toys you can print out.

The rest I'll fill with activities for us to do together, like roast marshmallows for desert, or make Christmas cookies.

There are lots of great ideas for Advent Calendars here at Little Birds, here at Kid's Craft Weekly and here at Kiddley.

If you've got other ideas or resources, I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

Some Totes

Just a quick picture of some finished totes with my mother's day flowers repackaged.

This is..., and some updates

This is...

I've got 2 This is posts to catch up on today.

This is my demon. So it's not as serious as some of the posts I've read for this theme but it is the thing that is always hanging over my head.

My laundry.

It's always in a huge pile in the hall. There is a basket under there but it's quite buried. I try to catch up, but it never seems to happen. Whenever I sit down to read, sew, or just relax, there is a little nagging voice saying; "You should be doing laundry". I used to really enjoy it, and now that the weather is getting nicer and I can hang it out on the line, maybe  I will again. but right now, it just ugh.

So that's kind of a downer. On to lighter fare...

This is the contents of my purse...

First the purse before being dumped,

and all dumped out.

What's in there??

a kids hat

my gloves

some trucks and an alien for emergency use

water

my cell phone

a sketch book

emergency oyster crackers

a diaper bag I made

my money/card holder from Sewing Stars , it says, "I'm Lucky"

summer camp info

and my new rotary cutter from Martha :) , I got it today with a 1/2 off coupon, love that.

and a pencil and sketch book holder I made a a birthday present for one of Bubba's friends. I was carrying it around trying to find the perfect book to fit it and I think I did.

Some close up pictures.

This was pretty fun to make and guess what? I used interfacing! A first for me, so I am all kinds of proud of myself.

I was looking through my pictures and I found this one.

It's my Dotee Doll I made a while ago. She has been at her new home for sometime, but I realized I never posted a picture. I still think they are oddly cute, but I've got some major bag sewing to do.

I asked about possibly selling my market totes at a local farmers market this summer. This is huge for me because I am super shy and  the idea of talking to people about my work is difficult to say the least. So I just got an email and they would like to see a few samples before they ok my little stand. Exciting and scary at the same time. I've got s few bags here, but if they say yes, I've got to get busy!

Some fairly random photos...

my crocus are up

the first, but not so pretty, laundry on the line this Spring

and Buddy says hi!

This is...

This is, first of all my 100th post! I can't believe I have written that much, but it must be true. Thanks to every one who has been reading, commenting, and supporting my efforts at crafting, gardening, and tiding up my life. It's been super fun and I think it's going to get even better!

This week's meme theme, suggested by Betty the Geek is...

This is My Creation

Since I tend to blog about every thing I make, here is a view of my most important creations. They are playing windmills.

I am so blessed.

Catching Up

I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do.

Being sick last week really put a wrench in my well laid plans. I hate being sick. Besides the obvious not-feeling-good part, it just feels like a giant waste of time. I would come home, hit the couch and basically be disabled for the rest of the night. Although I couldn't muster the strength to get up, I would lay there thinking of all the wonderfully productive things I could have been doing.

I think I will do the catching up in reverse, most recent (and fun) first.

This week we went to...

New York!

It was kinda spur of the moment but super fun! It was the kids version of the city,

the Museum of Natural History,which is AMAZING,

Toy Stores,

FAO, and Toys R Us, if you don't like crowds, skip Toys R Us, but FAO is worth the trip,

and candy stores

the M&M store, our youngest's favorite candy,

and a very fun place called Dylan's Candy Bar

(photo from Candy Addict)

in which I found the BEST Australian licorice which is my favorite sweet thing.

We had a Fromer's New York with Kids guide book and I would highly recommend it. It was full of good places to stay,eat, and was generally very helpful. I've put it in my Amazon astore.

For breakfast the last day we went to a little place called Alice's Teacup. A sweet little restaurant on 64th Street. The crepes were wonderful and it rekindled my love of tea. They served everything on mismatched china and there were child sized wings that you could borrow to wear. I was tempted, but I resisted.

A rare photo of me, I'm usually behind the camera. See the wings in the back?

yum.

In the going through the storage unit department, we have been making great strides and have managed to downsize to a smaller unit which saves us money and makes it feel much less overwhelming. One thing I found on this recent go-through was this picnic basket. It is full of sewing things I saved from my grandmother long before I started sewing with vintage materials. I didn't even know I had it. It was like getting a little present from Nana.

yes, that's a penguin.

My Nana was very frugal, she saved everything including the bread bag to keep odds and ends in. See the buttons :)

More catch up...

a fat quarter swap I sent to Portugal...

and finally, I've been loving...

vintage embroidery patterns which you can find at Needle Crafter ...

this mobile which I found going from here to here...

and playing with Flickr tools...

Just for fun...

a random weemee.

phew!

A little off track...

Well, so I know I am supposed to be focusing on my needle books this month, and finishing my birds, but have you seen these?

1. Group Shot Of The Girls, 2. Dotee Dolls, 3. Dotee 1, 4. Shabby Chic Dotee

They are called Dotee Dolls and I am strangely drawn to them. I know, weird. But there is something a little cozy and babushka about them.

So I made one. For a friend who needs some cheering up. She'll go in the mail this weekend. (the doll, not the friend) I'll post a picture in the morning, when I've got some light.

February is for...

sewing kits. I've decided to focus on my little needle book/ sewing kits this month.

After I finish my birds, of course. 

Tonight I cut out a bunch from the quilt I took apart. It's really hard for me to dismantle something that someone so painstakingly put together, plus then to cut into the pieces, yikes!

But I am trying not to hold on to things, and I feel like I am making something useful out of it, so they will be loved and used instead of sitting in a trunk gathering dust.

So I'm feeling good about them.

Here they are waiting to be put together...

the light is dark and way too yellow, I'm still waiting for those long summer days full of great natural light!

sachet, sachet, sachet

Some sweet little sachets I made for birthday presents, some late, some on time. I won't say who they are for so as not to ruin the surprise.

The flower is a Bubba original. The lace for the hanger is from my little gray cabinet, which has served me well. They are stuffed with lavender that is from the MyGooodness Etsy Shop. It's amazingly fragrant and if you are looking for lavender I would highly recommend this seller. I really enjoyed making these, they were fun, simple and done in a little over an hour.

a half birthday and a little fun find

Yesterday was Bubba's half birthday. They celebrate it at school because he is a summer birthday. I think it's a sweet little tradition. Plus when you're 5, it's really important to be able to say that you are now 5 1/2.

Last weekend while we were at the fabric store he had wanted to buy some 'kid fabric' so we picked up a yard of sweet little squirrel print flannel. He wanted to make a pillow case. So we put this together as a half birthday present.

I had some great cozy white fuzzy material (if anyone knows what I am talking about please let me know what you call this stuff). It's supper soft. I was going to use it as the back of a baby blanket, but this pillow case came first. The bias tape on the top is vintage from the gray cabinet. I used the fancy stitch option on my machine.

Yesterday I also went to my local recycle center. You can buy a membership and people and businesses donate things to be recycled. What you can find there is totally random. It ranges from office furniture to copy paper, binders, file folders, fabric scraps, felt remnants, and yesterday there were 2 weird bags of beads. Of course I snagged them. They are all strung on elastic so I spent a long time last night taking them off. It is oddly satisfying work.

I think there may be some bead embellishing in my future.