Spaceboy and robbie have been gifted

yesterday was my nephew's bday party. so now i can post the completed gifts and the cool recycled packaging we used.

this is the robot my daughter, C, drew and embroidered. i transferred the image onto fabric so that she could embroider it. i then sewed it up, and she helped to stuff it. so much love and care went into making this little robot stuffie, that it was hard to let go. but, in the end, it was made for the purpose of gifting it to my nephew from C. she was so proud of her work, as was i! her embroidery skills are improving so much!

and here is my nephew's finished spaceboy. it is cute, as are all of wee wonderful's doll patterns. but, i feel like C really outdid me, in originality. of course, she was inspired to make the robot stuffie after she saw what i was making for him, so the two gifts definitely go well together. and because we thought they were such a nice pair, we decided to package them together as a set. here is what we came up with:


as you can see, C named the embroidered robot stuffie, 'robbie'. i thought that was cute and more appropriate than her first choice, 'stephen'.

i found an empty cereal box in the recyclables and decided to make a box package. i was inspired by lizette greco's recycled box packaging tutorial. i didn't exactly follow her directions, but she was the main inspiration for my choice in packaging the presents. i opted for covering the box with brown paper bag and i didn't put any plastic in the windows, mainly because i was short on time and couldn't find any. i also pasted some cute space themed stickers from lotta bruhn. i thought they went so well with the dolls and overall theme. the stickers are a free pdf download, so go get some!

for some reason my printer was acting up, despite the fact that my husband had just replaced all the colors. that is why the blues came out striped. it didn't affect the cuteness factor, so i was okay with the way they turned out.

the birthday boy was very pleased with his present and we all had a wonderful time with family and ate yummy chocolate cupcakes, made by the best aunt ever, me! ;)

Difficult times

i'm still learning how to start an etsy shop. i know it's taking me a long time, but i guess it just doesn't click for me so easily. it's frustrating at times, but i am still determined to do this. i've never been more determined to start my own business than i am now.

my husband is on day 4 of unemployment, which isn't so bad. i like having him around, and even though we can't look at his stay at home as a vacation, cause we can't do anything that will cost us money, he has been spending a lot of quality time with our girls. right now they are working on making a movie, which i hope to post here as soon as it is finished. both of our girls are having a blast, acting and dressing up and watching the playbacks of what they recorded. it's really fun for them, and it gives me time to figure out this esty shop thing and try to get some craft work done.

along with me trying out this business thing, my husband continues to look for work. he also works on his resume and is now looking to apply for unemployment. all this worry of running out of money on mortgage and bills has made us be extremely frugal. now don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to get sympathy from anyone about our financial situation because i'm sure there are many families going through the same thing. i have hope that we'll work it through, and i try to see our obstacles as challenges.

it's made us so much more aware of how wasteful we've been and is making us appreciate everything handmade, homemade, and home cooked even more than we already did. i even plan to reuse any cardboard containers, like cereal boxes, and other boxed foods, for my etsy shop packaging, when before i would just put them in the recycling bin.

my husband is also using his time at home to work more on his hobby, which is cooking. he's careful to buy foods that are low priced, can be used in several different meals, and he gets to practice his cooking skills with what he has and comes up with the most delicious food i've ever tasted! i'm so proud of him! i keep hinting at him that he should start his own cooking blog, but he won't. oh well! maybe he'll change his mind later.

one thing that makes our situation so difficult to live with is my MIL. i won't go into details because it's just too much stuff to talk about, but i will say that my husband and i caught her in a lie and her reaction is to make herself the victim. she makes living in this house very difficult for us. we are definitely not in a place to try to sell the house because we have only co-owned it for about 3 years and so we don't have much, if any, equity in the house. if we were to sell it (and actually be able to sell it at this time!), we would be lucky if we could walk away without owing a thing. but the reality is that we would most likely have to sell it for less and still owe money on the house. we cannot afford that either.

needless to say, we are under a lot of stress. i hope that it doesn't take a toll on our health, because it's the last thing we need. fortunately, my husband decided on keeping our health insurance, despite that fact that it's expensive. but, i'm very grateful for that. i'm also grateful because a have a husband that is supportive and loving with his family. it makes it all worth fighting for.

Spaceboy and embroidered robot for my nephew

my nephew, the only boy in our family, so far, will be turning 6 in august. he's a tough little boy with a sweet heart. he's very much into the typical things little boys like, like super heroes, robots, pirates, cars, etc., so i'm sure he will like the spaceboy, from wee wonderful's, that i'm in the process of making for him. he's still young enough to appreciate soft dolls, and he still has pretty much everything i've hand made for him. it's very touching to see the toys i've made for him throughout his life, very well loved and very well played with. the years in which he will play with these sorts of toys will soon be ending. i want to get a few more in before i have to come up with new gift ideas for a big kid. i plan on making him the robot, also from wee wonderful's pattern, for xmas.


C is very close to her cousin, N, so she insisted on making something, too. she decided on making him a robot to go with his spaceboy, so after doing some reseach on robot looks and designs, she came up with a cute drawing of a robot. to keep it simple for her, i copied her drawing onto fabric and let her color it with crayon so that she could embroider it. when she's done with the embroidery, i'll help her find a suitable backing fabric and help her sew the front and back together (right-sides facing), turn it out, stuff it and sew it closed for an easy stuffie robot to accompany the spaceboy doll. stay tuned for pics of the finished presents!

Mail-themed handcarved stamps

i have been working on some new hand carved stamps. they are mail-themed and were inspired by C, who is learning to write friendly letters and enjoying the anticipation of receiving a letter in return. this all came to be because my sister-in-law, who is a very good friend, recently moved to a different state with my niece. we both agreed to try to encourage our daughters, who are only four months apart, to write to each other. they are very close, so they will miss each other very much. i thought it would be nice for the girls to keep in touch and practice their writing by sending letters.

the stamps, of which there are six, are designed by me and would add charm to letters, envelopes, packages, etc. they can also be used to make fake mail so kids could play post office and mail carrier. the stamp set includes:

• 'to:'
  
• 'from:'
• postage mark
• stamp
• envelope
• snail (to be used with the envelope to say, 'snail mail'. cute, huh!?)

i'm almost done with them and i think they look really cute! as soon as i get some good pics of the stamps, i'll put them in my shop.