I Like Owls

my MIL, grandma K bought this owl pendant necklace on one of her weekend shopping trips to antique stores and thrift stores. she didn't know what it was and she saw that i liked it very much. all she saw was an eggplant shaped pendant with a couple of squiggles, until i pointed out that those squiggles were the owl's eyes and beak. so she resold it to me for $10.

i like how it has a modern feel to it because the features are so simple; but at the same time, it looks like an antique because the shape is not symmetrical. the pendant also has a nice weight to it that i like as it lays in between my collar bones because the chain isn't long.

i don't know if it is silver, but it does look like it. and i don't know who designed it or what year it is from. does anyone out there have any ideas? did i pay too much? does anyone recognize it?

Back to Work

well, i don't have much to show for myself right now, but it's mainly cause my camera is not working. i'm still not feeling so good, and i guess my husband is feeling out of sorts, as well, so because i don't want to make it worse for our little family i decided to try to be more positive, active and productive. and i'm happy to say that i'm finally crafting again!

one of the projects i'm working on is a father's day present for my husband. of course, it wouldn't be a father's day present if it wasn't done in collaboration with my two daughters. i won't say anymore on that because i would like it to be a surprise for him.

another project i'm working on is a father's day present for my own father. he just recently became a U.S. citizen and so he just got his new passport and is planning to go back to his home for a visit. so i thought it would be nice to make a protective sleeve for his passport and maybe a bright luggage tag to make finding his luggage at the airport much easier. i am embroidering a little drawing C made on the passport sleeve and i'm letting M decorate the luggage tag with fabric markers. i think i may also embroider over the decorations M makes, but i'm still not sure. and i also plan on embroidering my dad's initials on his luggage tag. i'm guessing that he would probably need more than one, but i'm not sure if i'll be able to make more than one, so for now that will have to make do. maybe i'll make more for him for his birthday when it comes up in sept.

i was also going to do the same for my FIL but i decided against it because i'm pressed for time. he is also planning on making a trip to his homeland and he will probably be staying there for about 6 months, so i decided to just make him a little gift set of a box of homemade green tea cookies with a box of tea and a flat canvas painting from each of his granddaughters. i also plan on letting the girls make paintings for their dad and for my father.

all in all, i feel better about what i decided to make for the fathers in our lives. and i feel confident that i will get them done on time and that they will be appreciated. so it makes me feel good knowing that; and it makes me look forward to completing the gifts and presenting them.

the picture i added has nothing to do with my post, other than showing how much M loves to be with her daddy. it's a picture of M with her daddy on her birthday. in most of the pictures of her birthday party she was not smiling, but in the ones with her daddy, she was. i guess she was happiest that day being with her dad.

just seeing how much my girls love their dad makes me love him even more. and because he's currently having a stressful time, i really want to help make him feel better, more appreciated and loved. so i'm also trying to do more for him any way that i can to make his days a bit more cheerful. i think sometimes we forget that we should celebrate each other and celebrate life in everyday, rather than just on the days that we're told to. so i'm gonna try to do that with my husband and my children more often. hopefully that will help us deal with our stress and depression.

Unproductive

it's been twenty days since i've posted anything. i haven't done much, even thought there is lots for me to do. i guess i'm in a craft slump. i keep trying to get out of it every morning, with good intentions, but i find any excuse for giving up that day and so i wait for the next day to come so i can try again. part of the reason is because i feel like i'm in a slight depression. i say slight because i don't feel like the world is caving in on me, like i've felt before, but still, i can recognize it as a depressed mood. i'm not really worried about it, as i have been before, but still, i feel like i'm not being productive and therefore not useful to my family. there are things that need to be done, such as laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. and there are things i'd like to get done, such as father's day gifts, end of school year gift to my daughter, C's kindergarten teacher and classmates. i realize that these things are not necessary, but they are more fun for me to do and i enjoy making things for others. but at this point in my life i just don't feel the energy or desire to do it. i don't feel comfortable talking about my reasons for feeling like this, so that is all i'll say about that. i'm sure i'll feel better soon.

Happy Mother's Day!

here are the finished mother's day presents for my mother and my mother-in-law. i decided to frame them, as you can see. i don't know if this was the best idea, but i was running out of time and i didn't know what else to do. i do like how they look, but i'm not sure if it was the best way to display the embroidery. well, it is my first time doing embroidery and i can say that i learned a few things along the way. none that i care to talk about since i'm sure there are more experienced embroiderers with more informative tutorials. and since i still need to learn a lot more and i really want to continue with embroidery, i'm going to search for those tutorials. i've seen so many wonderful examples of embroidery and i hope to one day make work that is half as good as what i've seen!

one other thing i'm making for the mom's in my life is a pavlova! i've made pavlovas maybe twice and my mom has missed out on it both times, and i've been promising to make her one since then. so, i thought this would be the right time, if any, to make her this special treat. i'll try to get a picture of one before we dig into it!

i don't think i'll be doing much this mother's day. well, that's wrong. actually i'll probably spend it cleaning up my messy house since i've neglected a lot of my housework. i let the dishes pile up and i think we might be all out of clean clothes. and my craft/sewing area is a total mess. it's all work that i let build up cause i was so busy making things. i don't mind, really, cause i was able to make some nice things for people who i think deserved it. i can have my mother's day any time i want. my husband is really nice to me and is very supportive, and my girls are so wonderful! i feel very lucky! and so i hope all the moms out there who don't have it so easy but still deserve a day of pampering and being appreciated, do get to spend mother's day with their loved ones and get to do something special. my mom is one of those unfortunate mothers who isn't appreciated enough (IMHO) by family members she lives with, so i plan to bring her over to my house and i'm going to try to make it a special day for her. happy mother's day!

Teacher Appreciation

i first heard of teacher appreciation week/day through the blog skip to my lou. she gave so many wonderful ideas for gifts and sayings to show your child's teacher how much you appreciate their hard work. at that time my oldest daughter, C, wasn't even in school, but i made a mental note to try to do something nice for her teacher once she was in school. C started kindergarten this past september and i almost missed teacher appreciation day. but i was able to make something nice for her and gave it to her just in time on friday after school.

as you can clearly see, i'm not very good with wrapping and presentation. i'm trying to improve! but i took advantage of the free vintage postcard download from doe-c-doe. i thought it added some more handmade charm to my handmade present and went really well with the vintage fabrics i used for the gift.
i made a fabric fortune cookie, following lady harvatine's fabric fortune cookie tutorial. i thought my wrapping was too plain and this added the final touch. the tutorial was very clear and easy to follow. i included a strip of orange origami paper on which i wrote, "we are fortunate to have you as C's teacher!". this was also an idea from skip to my lou.

i used the tote bag pattern from the angry chicken's "Bend the Rules Sewing" book. i've used this pattern so many times because it's quick and easy and i can embellish it or personalize it however i need. in this case i wanted my daughter to contribute, seeing as how this was a present for her teacher. so i had her handwrite her teacher's name and what she thought of her, using an air erasable pen on the fabric that was to be used for the pocket. i also marked the lines on which she was to write with the same pen. once i got the message, i went over it with fabric marker. i accidentally set the air erasable ink pen when i tried to set the fabric marker. i forgot that it still had the air erase ink and was a bit impatient to finish the tote bag. i had only two days left to complete it and present it to C's teacher, Mrs. R. i decided to just let it go and look at it as those lines on the handwriting paper my daughter uses in school. i hope Mrs. R doesn't mind it. i also added a flower made out of yo-yos. the fabric has a print that looks like they could be houses or old-style school houses of years past.

i made this bag reversible so that she could use it on whichever side she liked more. on this side i used another vintage fabric with a more delicate and prettier print. C drew princess hearts with smiley faces and crowns on this other pocket. this is what she has been drawing a lot lately. i think they're really cute and i hope to include these drawings in other future projects.

well, i'm glad to say that Mrs. R really liked her present! she was surprised and i think she was so touched that she wanted to cry! she gave me a hug and i reiterated what i said in the note attached to her present. i truly am lucky to have her as my daughter's teacher because she is so gentle and patient and it's exactly what my sensitive daughter needed on her first year of school.

Three Bags and a Moopy

well, it's been a long time, but i've been pretty busy crafting! i'm still working on the embroidery projects, mother's day presents for my mom and my MIL. i'm done with the embroidery part and i added a border. now i just need to find a frame for them. maybe i'll add some batting on the back, but i'm not sure, yet. i've never done embroidery before, so i don't really know how to put the work in a frame. since i started, i have seen examples of similar projects, and i think most have some batting to the back of the embroidery. well, i hope to find some frames soon so that i can complete the presents and post some pictures!

speaking of mother's day presents, i had been wanting to make myself a new bag ever since last xmas. i had put it off long enough when i realized that mother's day was coming up. i decided to finally make some time and got it done!

i have to admit that another thing that helped me finally get around to making myself a bag was that i needed to make one for a friend. it took me a long time to get the bag done for her, but i'm so glad to say that i finished! and i think it looks pretty nice!

i also made a tote bag for her older daughter, as i had already made one for her younger daughter's birthday.

finally i added a mini moopy softie to match the one i made for her younger daughter. although this is the first time i've posted about making a mini moopy, it's the 7th one i've made. this is the first time i actually took a picture of one. i made one for each of my daughters, my nieces, my nephew, and my friends' daughters, all as birthday presents. it's one of my favorite patterns and they've been a hit with all the children that have received one.

one day i hope to make my own patters for soft toys and either make and sell them on etsy or sell the patterns. but i realize right now that my time is still very limited because my girls need so much of my attention.

it's kind of frustrating, but at least i have more time to be creative now than when i first started making things. when my oldest daughter, C, was still a baby i just didn't know how to manage my time. i know i've learned to be more efficient with my time and how to ask my husband for help with the girls on weekends. it helps that the loved ones who receive my hand made gifts really appreciate it, and that means a lot. if i miss the chance to start a business selling my crafts, then so be it, as long as i still get to be creative and share in the creative process with my daughters!

C's First Embroidery and My WIP

When my oldest daughter, C, turned 5, one of the things that I made for her present was this sewing kit. I made everything I could think she would need and bought the rest. I later found this old box, in which my sunglasses came in, and thought it would be the perfect size to hold everything. So, to add a bit of color and cuteness, I finally made a pincushion and sewed a piece of elastic to wrap around the box and keep all it's contents safely inside.

In the kit I included another pincushion with some pins with button heads, a needle threader, a needle book with large needles, a pair of safety scissors, embroidery thread, some embroidery thread holders made out of fabric wrapped cardboard and a jar of buttons (not pictured here).

Here is C, 5 months after her birthday and she finally decided it was time to learn to sew. And since I was doing my own embroidery, I thought it would be easy to teach her to do that. I did all of the needle threading, knotting and fixing any tangles, but she did the rest all on her own. I'm so proud of her!

Here she is hard at work!

And here is her finished work. We still haven't decided what we should do with her first embroidery. It's pretty small, so I was thinking that maybe I could teach her to sew it into a small pillow in which we could put some lavender inside to make a drawer sachet and give away as a gift. Or I could just leave it as is and hang it up on our wall. I'll make sure to post on it once we decide what to do with it.
And here is my latest WIP. Another embroidery/applique made using another one of C's and M's drawings. This embroidery project will be a gift to my MIL, Grandma K, for Mother's Day. I hope she doesn't read my blog, otherwise the surprise will be spoiled! I doubt that she does.

Mother's Day Gifts WIP

Since Mother's Day is coming up next, I started thinking about what I could make for my Mom and for my Mother-in-Law, and for myself. I decided to make them something decorative; something I'm sure they will treasure. So, again, I decided to include my girls in the gift making and giving by using some of my favorite drawings that they have made and use a combination of embroidery and appliqué to "re-do" the drawings.

Since I don't think either of them read my blog, I decided to show my progress here.
So basically, I took two drawings that my daughter, C, drew and combined them. I traced them onto plain white fabric with a water soluble ink pen. And if you click on the picture you can see a closer view and see the little circles I added. These are the tiny little circles that my little girl, M, has been drawing lately. It wouldn't be fair not to include some of M's creativity. She usually draws in pencil so I'm still not sure what color to embroider them. Maybe I'll just stick to gray, like her pencil drawings.

And if you haven't noticed the drawings C made are of the two dolls I made for my girls! The love and inspiration just keeps on going! They inspire me, I inspire them, and they inspire me, again! So as you can see, I tried to use some of the scraps from the fabric I used to make their dolls so that they look as much as possible like those dolls. This embroidery is going to my Mom. I have another drawing picked out to make a similar embroidery for my MIL, so I'll try to post some pics of that when I do more work on it. As for my present to myself, I still haven't decided. There are so many ideas in my head and ones I've seen in other craft blogs. I've been needing to make myself a new bag, so maybe I'll just do that. I would also like my own embroidery of my girls' art, too! And I've been wanting to make silhouettes of my girls' profiles, either in paper or fabric. I guess I'll just have to wait until I'm done with the two embroidery projects I've already started and see how much time I have left for my own Mother's Day present.

Happy 2nd Birthday to My Fairy Princess!

In the picture above you'll see all the little fairies and my sister acting as the big fairy, to help lead all the little ones from one activity to another. I was gonna play that part, but felt that I would be too stressed out to be any fun, so I was more of a director. I made tutus and matching crowns for all the little fairies and M got to wear a dress-like tutu with large daisy flowers on the top, across her chest. She looked so adorable! I didn't get any other close-ups of her or big sis, C, in their costumes. But hopefully, my friend Jessica, the photographer at the party was able to get better pictures than mine so I can post them here later.

Here is one of the art activities I had for the girls. They got to make their own beaded necklace with their names on it. As you can see, they were really enjoying it!

I also had an activity for all the little fairies to make their own wand, and you can probably see from the picture above, some of the wands the fairies decorated. I had the stars already cut and attached to a stick, so all they had to do was color them and glue glitter, sequins and other sparkly things.

I also got the fairies small bottles of body glitter that they could easily roll-on, so they weren't too messy and some kid-sized bottles of nail polish; and so we then went ahead and gave them fairy "make-overs". Obviously these girls didn't need any make-up, much less make-overs, but I thought they would enjoy sparkling up to get more into their make-believe play.

After that I read to them two stories about fairies. One was called Princess, Princess by Penny Dale. It was a story about a little princess having a fairy party, so it went with our theme and was a nice and short introduction to fairies for those little ones who perhaps hadn't known anything about fairies. The second book, The Tooth Fairy by Michael Rex, was a story without any words in it. The story about the tooth fairy was told in pictures, and so I made it up on my own as we went from picture to picture. I wanted to tell a story about the tooth fairy because I wanted it to transition to the next activity, which was a coin hunt.

I told the little fairies that the tooth fairy had flown by the park (where we held the party. forgot to mention!) over night and accidentally lost her coins, and only children were allowed to collect and keep the coins as a gift from the tooth fairy. I then handed each of the fairies their own goody bag, already holding some treats inside, to collect their coins. The coins were foil covered chocolate in coin shapes. The fairies had fun collecting their coins, but unfortunately the younger ones, including M, were a little too slow to collect so were lucky if they even got one!

And the last activity we did was to make "fairy food" to thank the Tooth fairy for the chocolate coins and to try to attract fairies, in hopes of seeing one! I let the girls measure out 2 teaspoons of sugar and 1/2 a teaspoon of whatever color glitter they liked. I was prepared and had many different colors to choose from! After they poured their fairy food mixture into their zip lock baggies, I attached a label I made that stated the instructions, ingredients, and a warning to make sure the kiddies didn't try to eat it, on the back of the label and the front had the words "fairy food" and a picture of the fairy doll I made of M.

So, the party favors were the fairy food, beaded necklaces, fairy wands, and the goody bags that held the chocolate coins, a pixie stick, a ring pop, a bottle of bubble solution, a bottle of roll-on body glitter and the nail polish. They all left happy little girls!

We caught M trying to sneak a cupcake before we had even gotten a chance to sing "Happy Birthday" to her.

And here are my two girls right before we were gathering the crowd together to sing.

I thought this was such a cute picture, so I had to show it!

I've been making cupcakes more often, lately, that M has become addicted to them! She's always asking me for a "cuppa cake"! And she takes her time to really enjoy them. She starts off by eating all the sprinkles, then gets to the frosting and saves the cake part till the end.

I made this 2D doll for her present. I used the image of the drawing I made of M's doll, dressed as a fairy. I also made her a clothespin fairy doll and a book bag for her to carry all her drawing supplies. Lately she's gotten more into drawing and is always getting her own paper from our printer and steals a pencil from her big sister's homework supplies box. So I also got her some Crayola color wonder finger paints and a tablet of wonder paper for her to color on.

I think the party lasted about 3 1/2 hours. Not bad, but still very tiring for my girls, my husband and myself. But all in all a big success, I would say!

I know this post is almost a week late, but I needed some time to relax after all the planning and preparing for M's birthday party, and then actually having the party, this past Saturday. I just wanted to wish my little girl another wonderful year! I know she and all our fairy guests enjoyed the party!

I would just like to write a few more words about my little fairy princess to look back on.

Things I love about you...
*You are an amazingly smart girl! I'm always surprised with how much you can already say, understand and how well you communicate!
*You are strong-willed and I have so much confidence that you will be able to stick up for yourself if someone ever tries to make you feel bad.
*You are mostly serious. I only get to see you smile whenever you are being a little clown and find yourself funny or if we tickle you.
*You are funny and love getting attention, especially from you two grandmas, whom you call 'Niania'.
*You also love your two grandmas a lot! I don't know any other child in our family who appreciates and is affectionate towards their grandmother like you do!
*You call your two grandpas "Papa" and even though you are still are still cautious around them, it is clear that you are curious about them, care for them and know their importance in our family.
*You are also a very grumpy little girl. Especially after a nap, whenever you don't get to do what you want or feel that your big sister is not nice to you.
*You are a daddy's girl, just like your sister. But I guess that is also because your Dadda is such a softie when it comes to his girls! He lets you step all over him!
*You call yourself "Baba" and your big sister "Hoho". For a long time you wouldn't even say C's name and when you started calling her that, we didn't know you were referring to C, until one day you asked me, "Mama, where could Hoho be?" right after she left for school. That's when i figured out every time we heard you say "Hoho" you were saying C's name! We think it's so funny and cute!
*You have a funny way of saying "Cinderella" and "umbrella" and any other word you can think of with -ella in it. I wish I could describe it in words but it's really difficult, but basically it's a lot of tongue rolling against your lips so it sounds like you're doing a childish taunt.
*You are very attentive to our house cat, named Little Boy. (Don't know who named him that. He came with the house.) You always want to make sure he gets fed and you ask to be able to feed the cat, even if he has already eaten. And the look of contentment after having taken care of Little Boy is priceless! You say, "Ok, kitty?! Ok! Bye!" just before leaving him to eat.
*You are becoming an amazing artist! You carefully and with a lot of concentration, draw perfect tiny little circles all over a sheet of paper. You prefer using a nicely sharpened pencil and can fill up a whole page and then go grab a new page to do it all over again! So much determination and patience and artistic ability!
*You are very understanding when I take the time to explain things to you and you're eager to please me by doing what I ask of you. You rarely ever act up with me and you've been very easy going considering how strong-willed you are.
*You are strong and agile! It always surprises me whenever I catch you doing something physical at your age, like jumping for long periods of time without stopping or carrying heavy things even your older sister refuses to carry cause they're too heavy for her.


Thank you for being who you are! Our family wouldn't be the same without you and I feel so lucky to be your mom! I love you! Happy Birthday my 2 year old!

What I'm Listening to Now

Egg Hunt

We had a nice quiet Easter at our home. This is the first time we didn't go to celebrate with family or hosted a get-together at our home. We kind of liked it! Not that we don't like to celebrate with our relatives, but it was just more easy going for myself and my husband. We tend to do so much work and rarely ever get to enjoy it cause we're so busy making sure things are right and everyone is having a good time. And since it was only my husband and my two girls and Grandma K, it was nice and quiet.

The girls had so much fun! This was M's second Easter and I can tell that she really enjoyed it! She had trouble finding the eggs but was very quick to follow my hints. If she still couldn't see an egg she would say, "Where Mama!? Where!?" and when she would finally find it, she would say , "There it is!" C was more of a pro at it since this was her 6th Easter! Time sure does go fast!

Unfortunately M got the smaller basket since we thought C would probably get to all the eggs before her sister. So M's basket got pretty full and she couldn't keep her eggs from falling out of the basket. I think she's gonna need a bigger one next year!

C was happy to find a miniature My Little Pony in one of her eggs.

M also found one in one of her eggs.


We had a great day! It was very low key and yet we all had so much fun and enjoyed our day together!

Fairy Party Preparations, Pt. 2

Here are a few more things that I've done for M's Fairy Birthday Party.

This one is part of her present from me. It's a 2D doll with the drawing I made of her doll in fairy costume. I really like how it came out! And I saw that Hillary Lang of WeeWonderfuls also made similar dolls! She is a great inspiration and I love her work! I think next time I'm gonna try to make my drawings look more polished like hers!

I made the doll by first making a drawing of M's doll, then coloring it with color pencils and outlining some details with marker. I then asked my husband to scan the drawing and print it out on Colorfast Sew-In Inkjet Fabric Sheets. They were kind of expensive seeing as how they only have 3 sheets in the package. Next time I try printing on fabric, I'm gonna try ironing a piece of fabric onto freezer paper and then cutting it to paper size and running it through my printer. Much cheaper!

I also made her a clothespin fairy doll, also as part of her present from me. I was influenced by all the clothespin dolls other craft bloggers are making. One of them being, Alicia Paulson of Posie Gets Cozy. She is also one of my biggest inspirations! Obviously, I didn't buy one of her kits, even though I've been wanting to. So I pretty much winged it! I like the way the face came out and the tulle skirt and wings. I'm not too crazy about the bodice, but I'm not going to worry about that anymore. I just wanted to get it done to check it off my list of things to do. I can always change it later. It took me a while to do because I had to do it while taking care of M and so I had to wait for times when she wasn't around or was asleep. And I had to paint a little at a time, waiting for the paint to dry between coats and colors. But it wasn't too difficult to do because it's so small and so it only took a few minutes to paint each time I worked on it.

These are the fairy tutus and crowns I made for the kids to dress up in. I can already imagine all the little girls running around the park in such bright, yet soft colors! So cute! I got the idea to make the tutus and the crowns and the whole Fairy Birthday Party after my girls each got a tulle crown as part of their swap package from our Mini Swap partner Tiffany, of Likely Stories. Thanks Tiffany! My girls have really enjoyed wearing your crowns! Like Tiffany, I also added silk flowers onto the crowns and a few on the tulle skirts. The first crown is actually one that Tiffany made. I plan to use her crowns at the party!

Here are some scrappy tin cans I made to put on the tables. I used a lot of the scraps from the projects I'm making for M's birthday party. So everything will coordinate. Of course, I did end up using so many different fabrics! But that's what I wanted. I'm going for the scrappy calico and flowery handmade look for this fairy party. I hope it all ends up looking nice! I think it looks very homey and young and happy! This is the first time I've ever decoupaged anything and I like the results! I used equal parts white glue and water and used a sponge brush to make sure the scraps were well saturated with the glue mixture. I also pinked some of the edges on the scrap pieces for a cleaner look. I collected cans of various sizes so that they could look more interesting when I group them. I plan to fill them with glass marbles to weigh them down and put some colorful tissue flowers in them. They will be placed in small groups on top of the table covers to give the covers some contrast as they are solid and to help keep the wind from blowing them off the table. I'm using plastic covers cause I didn't have enough time to make some out of fabric. I would have loved to use fabric table covers! Maybe for the next birthday party!?

And here are some of the tissue flowers I made. Again I winged it and made different types of flowers all using different techniques I've seen from many different places in magazines and online. I didn't follow any one tutorial; just made them up as I went along. There are different sizes to fit the different can sizes. I've since made more, but haven't taken any recent pictures.

I hope that I'll have some decent pictures of all of the decorations, table set up, favors, and the kids in their costumes. There is still more things I need to finish and I only have a week left. If I do manage to get them done with time, I'll try to write another post about it before the birthday party.

Happy Easter!

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Easter eggs decorated by my girls. They both helped to dye the eggs, then C decoupaged and glittered some eggs, while M used stickers to decorate her eggs.

Bunny Easter basket C made in her kindergarten class.

Spring Break

My girls are on Spring break and since I didn't plan anything to keep them busy, they're keeping me on my toes! So we've been playing, drawing, coloring, going to the library, reading, and watching movies (Pippi Longstocking is in our current rotation!) and when I'm not catching up on the laundry and dish washing, I try to get some crafting done. The good thing is that they can pretty much entertain themselves. All I have to do is supply them with materials.

Here is C, doing one of her favorite activities.

And here are some of the drawings C made, inspired by the dolls I made of for her and M! Aren't they cute!? I feel so very proud that I can inspire my girls to be creative when they're the reason why I love to craft!

Here is a picture of the dolls. When the girls are not playing with their dolls, I like to keep them on my desk to remind me of the things I like and to inspire me more. I hadn't shown you C's doll, yet because I would like to talk about it more on a later post and hopefully include better pictures. So there'll be more on that later!

And because I mentioned my desk/work area, I decided to show a picture of where I create. It's not very organized, but I try! I feel very lucky just to have someplace where I can have all my materials together to make things and escape every once in a while. The quilt wall hanging is one of Grandma K's quilts. It's one of my favorites. I love how colorful it is!

Well, that is what the girls and I have been up to lately. Now, to try to get more party prep done! I only have 2-1/2 weeks left! Wish me luck!

Fairy Party Preparations, Pt.1

Wow! it's been 10 days since my last post! I kind of feel bad about that, but the good thing about it is that I've been busy, busy, busy! I've been planning and working on preparations for my little girl, M's, 2^nd birthday party. I have so much done, yet so much more I still need to do! I don't know if I'll be able to carry out everything I had planned. But I'm sure that M won't notice what I didn't finish cause what will matter to her is that all her cousins will be there and there will be cupcakes! And as long as I have her birthday presents done, I'll be satisfied. Still, I'm going to continue to work on her party preparations and finish as much as I can.

My girls are getting excited as they see the stuff I've made in preparation for the party. Amongst everything I've made are several tutus. I still haven't finished them, but the girls are already wearing them and having fun in them.

And as I promised in the last post, here is a sneak peak of some of the things I'm making for M's party.

I asked my new friend Jessica, who is a photographer (sweetlife photography) to take pictures at the party. She'll also be taking some photographs of my two girls before the party begins, so I'll have some professional pics of them. I haven't had any done for M, so I thought it was about time. And I'm hoping she could also take pictures of some of the things I made for the party, such as decorations, gifts, and party favors. I'm not really good at photography, as you can tell from the pictures I've posted. And I think it would be nice to be able to show off some of the things I made for this party.