Iowa Balloon Festival

We went to the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Des Moines, Iowa last weekend. My husband's sister and three of her kids came and camped with us and joined us for all of the festivities.

Mass Balloon launch

We got to go right up the fence and watch them blow them up and take off.

They slowly went up one by one.


We got to camp out and have some fun!

Always time to swim!

We also got to go to the parade in town and get lots of candy!

BFF Necklaces

These are some of the new Scrabble Tile Necklaces that I have put together lately. One for you and one for your bestie!

Mama's Happy

Wow! This summer is busy, busy busy. We are having fun, just not a lot of extra time :)

A friend of mine recently talked me into being part of an occasional sale store in Mound, MN. They are open the second weekend of every month for Thursday - Sunday. We rent a small-ish space and then we have to fill it up each month! The above photo is our space so far for this month, we have a little tweaking to do but almost there.

I used to be part of a 50's store in St Paul and have always liked this sort of thing. Sometimes it takes a lot of time and I have a big mess at my house, but enjoy the challenge and the creativity.

If you are in the area come and check it out!
Mama's Happy

We will open Thursday 10-6, Friday & Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 10-5

Fathers Day Card

Here is my Father's Day Card that I made for my dad this year. I hate to admit to this, but I was very behind on making things lately because so far this summer has been very busy! I made it in the car on the way to my folks house. I even had to borrow a tape runner from my mother because I forgot one on the way out the door. Well I like it anyway!

I hope you had a great Father's Day! We had a lovely day outside on the lake, I even took a nap on a blanket in the grass.

Proud Aunt

We were in Omaha a couple of weeks ago for my niece's graduation party. While we were there another one of my (10 year old) niece's remembered that I had worked on my embroidery when I was there the last time. She asked if she could learn to do it too.

The only thing I had that she could use was a blank towel, so we came up with a pattern that had her name and a cute little ducky.

She was really determined to get it done and learned without much instruction at all. So in between all of the crazy busy-ness of the weekend she completed the whole towel and picked all of the colors herself.

We didn't have time to iron it before we left, but I'm sure it will be well used soon enough anyway.

Well done Emma, Well done.

More Wrist Cuffs

We have been making more reversible wrist cuffs.

This was my first one and it's the one that I wear. Made from a scrap of Moda Wonderland fabric.

These are two kiddo ones.

Sock Monkey on the outside and rainbow on the inside for my daughter.

This one was for one of Soph's friends who is kinda girly so I tried to add a ruffle to the edges. It's a little hard to see in this photo how it looks on, but in the above photo of Soph wearing them both you can see how it turned out. Kinda cute and girly.

I think there will be more of these made in the near future.

Peonies!

We have been out of town the last few weekends and almost missed them!

They bloomed while we were out of town and we have about a million things going on right now. But we did stop and cut some Peonies from our garden.

I have really enjoyed Peony flowers and tried for a few years to grow some. I finally have one awesome bush! I just wish they would last longer.

Don't mind all of the junk in the background, I seriously need to clean! Just look at the awesome splendor of the large blooms.

Graffiti Cuff

Sophia's kindergarten class each had a 5th grade buddy that would come to their classroom once a month to help them do an art project, play games etc... Last week was the last time they were coming and we wanted to make a gift for Jesse, our fifth grade buddy. Now, I don't know too much much about 5th grades boys anymore, but we have been testing out some wrist cuffs and thought we could make a boyish one for Jesse.

So we cut up an old pair of my hubby's jeans and stitched it up, on one side we wrote all over it with a pen and on the other side I stitched a "manly" pattern so it can be reversible.

The teacher said it was very sweet when she gave it to him and he put it on right away and wore it the whole time!

Colin Bag

Why does Blogger flip my photos? I have no idea, please turn your head :) thnx!

So a couple of weeks ago we went to a 4th birthday party for my friend's son. I asked her what he might like for a present this year. She is very crafty and makes the kids handmade things all of the time so they love handmade and don't need store bought gifts, which is fun.

Last year we made his brother an art bag, I made it out of black vinyl, added some "real" pencils and drawing paper etc. Danielle thought Colin would love his own bag because he is always trying to get into his older brother's stuff.

This is what I whipped(haha) up a couple of hours before his party.

A kid sized messenger bag with a letter "C" on it!
I had this cool modern upholstery fabric on hand and thought it might be stable enough, since I don't have any interfacing on hand.

I even decided to add an inside pocket to hold the stencils that I found. We also included a sketch book, pencil box with twistable colored pencils, eraser and his own box of fruit leather because he loves that stuff.

It looked a lot better in person, really it did.

Sugar Cookies

We made about seven dozen cookies to donate to the school carnival for the cake walk.

They have it set up in two different rooms at our school and it's s very popular game. I made these sugar cookies because they are so addicting. I had Steve print up some labels for me and we labeled each plate that we made so that people would know what they were getting. I also labeled that these were peanut free in case someone had a nut allergy.

Earlier in the day I helped to "sort" the donations and learned for next year that they divide up what they can so it goes further. So next year I will put 1/2 dozen cookies on a plate :)

Mother's Day Card

Here is the card I made for my mother for Mother's Day.

I found this paper and really thought it was nice and didn't need too much stamping. My mother's kitchen has the soffits painted a spice color and this reminded me of that.

I have this sentiment stamp from a new to me stamp set by Stampin Up that I keep using on lots of things and it says "to thine own self be kind". I think that is something that we ladies often forget when we are taking care of everyone else's needs around us.

I fussy-cut out another flower, stem and leaf from the rest of the paper and popped it up on top of the other ones. I also had to glitter-ize the edges to make them super sparkly.

close up shot.

Sandi Henderson

Alyson and I went and met Sandi Henderson last night! Everyone is in town and it is so fun to get out and meet them.

She was so nice and normal too! We actually got to talk with her and her husband for while and at the end of the night they had a giveaway. We didn't win, but it was fun to be there anyway.

You can find out more about Sandi and the things she designs on her blog at Porta Bello Pixie . Sandi was wearing the sweater that she made and is also on the cover of her book. So cute.

Amy Butler in person!

Tonight we ran over to Crafty Planet (which is a local fabric/yarn shop) to meet THE Amy Butler!!

There will be a lot of people from the fabric industry in town this week and through the weekend because this years annual Quilt Market is here in Minneapolis.

When we heard that she would be here in town, we figured we better go and get a photo with her :) I brought her one of my Scrabble Tile Necklaces that I have been making that used a piece of her paper on it(and some glitter). She seemed almost humbled and grateful that I gave it to her. I also had to wear my crazy pants that I made with Alyson out of Amy's fabric. My lucky kiddo got to come with and meet her too because the hubs was working late tonight.

She was just so sweet and "normal" and I will be happy to continue to support her in the future. In fact we bought a new pattern and a couple yards of her fabric when we were there tonight!

Tomorrow night Sandi Henderson will be at Quilted Treasures in Rogers and on Saturday night Anna Marie Horner will be at Treadle Yard Goods in St Paul.

Art -A-Whirl

I am participating in Art-A-Whirl this Saturday May 15th! See Art A Whirl Website.

I have not been involved in this art crawl for the past 10 years, but I was there when it all started in 1995. I am very excited to be doing it again this year after a friend of mine over at Second Street Designs asked me if I wanted to have a table at her son's school.

We will be there on Saturday from 10 am until 7 pm and we are right by a trolley stop, near Johnson Street and the Quarry. A lot of the items are geared towards children and will have children's activities along with live music all day long. It looks like a large, fun and varied group of items available at the school.

Yinghua Academy
1616 Buchanan Street NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413
Yinghua Art Fair

I have been making items geared towards children and end of the year teacher gifts, because we all need a few of those! I will try to post some of them, but right now I am trying to finish them all up.

More Silent Auction Items

These are the other sets of cards and necklaces that I donated to the school's silent auction.

The carnival was last Friday night, we went and had A LOT of fun! Our PTO asked parents to donate newer/slightly used toys and books to use as prizes, which is great because you get to clean out the items you don't use anymore and then get "new" ones to play with.

The book walk was the best! I didn't even know about it before last weekend, but just like the cake walk(but not as busy) the kids stopped on a number when the music stopped. Then a winning number was drawn and the kids could pick a book from the huge assortment of books. The best part was that they kept drawing until everyone won a book! We came home with 4 different Magic Tree House books to read. How fun

Home is Where your Mom is.

Our elementary school is having their annual carnival and silent auction this week. Back when I was selling my Scrabble Tile Necklaces for the Haiti Relief Fundraiser one of the mom's in charge of the silent auction bought one and thought that they might be a nice addition for the auction.

She wanted three different necklaces for three separate auctions and then I told her that I also made cards and I could whip up a few matching sets.

The first one I geared towards Mothers Day.

I recently saw this stamp and for some reason I connected with it and decided I would make my cards with this one this year. I also made the floral background with some two step stamps by Stampin Up.

I matched up the (Martha Stewart)blue gingham in the necklace to the gingham on the left side of the card. It's really hard to tell in this picture but they do match! and the little glittery circles on the right side are actually a matching purple to the ink color in the flowers.

Artist in the Making?

A little while back I decided that I was tired of the paint color in my kitchen. The easiest project was to re-paint just the one and half walls that had a natural break to them.

Of course the kiddo wanted to "help" so I let her get in on the fun. I did the trim parts first and she worked on the middle.

Here she is painting a shark and some seaweed.

She really got into her work and her only real rule was to not leave a big streaky blob thing that I couldn't smooth over.

Proud of her work!

We finished the first wall and then moved on the half wall. She thought it needed this groovy guy hanging around. I was actually tempted to leave him up there, but my trim job wasn't so great and needed to be filled in.

Sympathy Card

Unfortunately I had to make another sympathy card this week.

I made a similar one for my cousins fundraiser a couple of weeks ago and I now I really like this layout/paper for a sympathy card because it could be for a man or a woman. maybe I will have make up some more for my stash o' cards ")

Lilacs Already?

We went out for an evening walk tonight and could smell these down the road. I can't believe that they are already blooming.

Inspiring Mother's Day Giveaway

Want to win these awesome items for your mother or yourself?

Go to Inspiring Ideas and enter to win, you have until April 26th! or you can find them at all Hallmark Gold Crown Stores

Birthday Bear Card

We made this card for the other sweet little boy turning 2 this weekend.

Just a simple and cute little bear floating away on balloons.

Robot Birthday Card

We have a double birthday party on Saturday. Two brothers born two weeks apart sharing one party.

We made them two different cards and here is the one we made for the sweetie turning 5. I'm not sure why it is, but I think little boys need a robot birthday card these days. His theme is a super hero one, but I don't have any super hero stamps so hopefully a good robot with suffice.

I printed this groovy graph paper on my home ink jet printer from a free printable I found online(I will have to find out who it is and add a link). There were six cut-outs to a page and I just cut out the one I wanted and stamped my little robot in the middle. I colored him in with Prisma Colored Pencils and then I went over it with a little Gamsol to smooth it out a bit.

I cut out the outer blue square thing with my new Spellbinders Nestabilities and then I added the shiny star sticker and the dark blue Rhinestones to the peaks.

I stamped the "Blast Off" on the front and then drew on the sewn-look border, I stamped a happy birthday message in the inside. I also stamped a "shooter" on the envelope and colored it to match and drew a "bullet path" dotted line.

Homemade Laundry Soap

Lately I have been seeing a lot of recipes for homemade laundry soap on the blogs I check somewhat regularly. One of the sites that I saw it on was Pea Pod Creations, but I decided to Google it and see just how hard it would be.

Turns out it is really quite easy!

All that you need is:

*A box of Borax(this is new style packaging)

*Super Washing Soda

*Fels Naptha

Walmart had the Borax and Cub Foods(here in MN) had the Washing Soda and the Nels Naptha stuff, all found in the laundry aisle.

First I cut down the Fels bar into smaller pieces so it wouldn't overwork my food processor.

Then I used the grating blade and chopped it down, I think you can use a hand grater but I wanted to get it done quickly. I'm sure there is a way to grind it even smaller...

Then I added:

1 cup of the grated Fels Naptha

1/2 cup of the Borax

3/4 cup of the Washing Soda

and mixed it well.

Here it is all jarred up and ready to use! 1-2 Tablespoons per load, won't get foamy like other detergents and will wash A LOT of loads. It appears to only cost penny's to do a load with this stuff.

Price Breakdown

Borax -$2.98

Washing Soda -$2.57

Fels Naptha -$1.07

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I grated the whole bar of soap and it was enough to make 3 batches of the above recipe.