More on the Mini Swap III package we sent...

So, now I'm gonna continue my post about what we made for the Mini Swap III. Tiffany told me that Oliver has been spitting up on her a lot (as most babies do) and so she was in need of some burp cloths to save her clothes. I made her four burp cloths in a cute flannel so it's soft next to Oliver's skin, with cute tiny transportation vehicles. I also had C make a drawing of a teddy bear onto fabric and I sewed it into a 2D stuffie. This is the same thing we did for X mas gifts for C's and M's cousins! We also made baby Oliver a freezer paper stenciled t-shirt like his big brother's, only his had an image of an antique airplane. In the picture, you'll also notice the bunting. Well, like I said in the previous post, that is meant to be for both Max and Oliver to decorate their room.

For Tiffany, I made a tissue pouch cozy, in colors and prints that she likes. I also made her a freezer paper stenciled image of a tree on a piece of fabric with small leaf print. I thought that she could use it to make anything she wanted with it. And since we were in the month of February, I couldn't help adding something with a Valentine's theme, so I made her some coasters with hearts and other Valentine prints.

Finally, I added some Japanese treat bags for Tiffany and her son, Max. One bag had chocolates with a more mature taste, such as dark chocolate, green tea truffles and a box of hazelnut flavored KitKats. The other bag has chocolate sandwich cookies in panda face shapes and some fizzy carbonated and a bit sour candies. Yum!

So, that's it! We had lots of fun putting this swap package together and we can't wait to get ours! More pictures can be found on the Mini Swap III flickr group.

Recap of this past week

Wow! I can't believe it's gonna be almost a week since I last posted! I've been busy with a sick child at home and catching up on the laundry and the dishes. It still bugs me that after having done the dishes and several loads of laundry, those things immediately start to collect! I have yet to find the solution to that and other cleaning duties. I kind of want to dedicate myself to setting a cleaning schedule for myself (and maybe get my husband and my girls to pitch in!) but I think the same will come out of it as the other times I've tried; I either forget or give up. There's just too many other things I would rather do (crafting) but I can't allow myself to do until I feel the house is in a semi-good condition. So, as you can imagine, I haven't done any crafting since I finished my mini swap package. It's a never-ending cycle and so nothing gets done! Well, hopefully I'll get my act together soon so I can start on some projects I've been putting aside since before x mas. One of them being a purse or tote bag for myself. That was supposed to be my x mas present for myself. But like usual, I put everyone ahead of me, and I never got around to it. Another project I've been wanting to work on is an ipod cozy for the new nano my husband gave me for x mas. I've seen many examples of what I'd like to make, so I pretty much have an idea of what I want to do. Now if I can only get myself off this chair!

We had a nice valentine's day. I cut out small hearts out of felt and then cut small slits in each heart so that I can attach them to her shirt buttons. Its an idea I got from Martha Stewart, to decorate C's shirt buttons with little felt hearts. You can only see a small glimpse of what I'm talking about, through this picture. I didn't get close-up view. Oh well!

I made Kool-Aid play dough, using strawberry flavor to color the dough red and give it a nice, fruity scent. I then added glitter to make it more fun for the kids, divided it into five pieces, shaped them into hearts and wrapped each heart play dough with pink food wrap. These were the valentines I made for my daughters and my nieces and nephew. I then stuck the hearts into zip food storage bags, added a few small pieces of candy, attached a cute label/card to the top that read, “Dough you want to be my valentine?” and then put their names on the front. They came out pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

The two examples of the valentines I made there are for my nieces. The play dough hearts came out really big cause I accidentally doubled the recipe. Don't ask! But I like how they turned out!

After seeing all of the valentines C got in kindergarten, I realized that too many parents are sending their kids with candy for valentines and so next year I'm gonna try to be more crafty and come up with an idea that doesn't involve candy. I have nothing against candy; a piece here or there is okay, but bags full of candy!? I don't like that this holiday is getting to be too similar to Easter and Halloween.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you have a LOVE-ly day!

Making the most of the weekend

I know it's been a few days since my first post. I really don't want to wait too long between posts but I've been busy trying to figure out how to get some good pictures and then get them onto my blog. I also want to try to get a nice picture to go with every post. It's one thing I've learned from reading blogs; that I enjoy them more when there's a picture to go with the story. I've also been really busy working on my swap package for the Mini Swap to Tiffany, of Likely Stories and her two little boys. My girls and I are almost done and I can't wait to get the package sent out to you, Tiffany!

Since I've yet to capture a good picture of some of the things I'm working on I'm going to leave you with a not-so-good one. I didn't want to give too much away, so I tried to get a really close picture of it.

Part of this is are the valentines I'm working on with C to go to her classmates. The other part is hopefully going to go to my swap partner; if I can get it done correctly and on time!

Well, even though I'm almost done with our swap package, I still have a few more things to do before the weekend is over, so that's it for now!