Mushroom Villagers

“I’m bored” has been an often used phrase around here. I’m busy, Chris is busy and the kids are going nuts. I found this “Super Foam-erator” idea from this post and was amazed how fast and easy it was!

The kids loved it and the best part was that all of my kids could do this easily. Ms O loved making the long worms and Eddie was the champion blower.

Directions can be found here, but really all you need is a plastic bottle with the bottom cut off, a rubber band, some terry cloth, and some sort of bubbly soap poured into a lid. It’s stuff everyone has around the house already- love it!

Simply cut off the bottom half of the plastic bottle and attach a small piece of terry cloth with the rubber band. (The thiner the cloth the better since the kids have to blow through it.) Get the cloth wet, dip it into the soap and blow. It takes less than 5 minutes to make and results in alot of fun. I do have to warn you to remind the kids to breathe in through their nose and out their mouth. My boys keep sucking the bubbles up into their mouths through the bottle because they were breathing out and in with through their mouths. Funny, but not really…

Anyhoo, try it out today. It’s hot, the pool’s up and there’s plenty of sewing to be done. Keep them busy and happy!

I won just about the best give-away ever: Mr Monkeysuit’s mini prize!

As you can see, the prize wasn’t “mini” in any way. Her package came smellin’ luscious and yummy before I opened it. It was filled with all sorts of goodies for face, hair, skin and house most of which aren’t in the photo because they’re gone already. She made a beautiful cosmetic roll and I think it’s even made out of linen.  (Man, she’s generous. I’ve never given away linen.) She also included cute postcards and everything had awesome labels which I wanted to buy immediately.

After trying all her homemade beauty and bath products, I had to have more so I bought this book which she recommended. It’s full of how-to information as well as storing and packaging. Now I need to whip up some of my own batches because I’m just about out of all my free samples. Thank you Josie!

BTW- Check out her newest tutorial on matchbook notepads. How cute are those?!

Spelunking in Central OR:

After 3 hours we didn’t find any Morels, but kids are still happy:

Catching up with our horse friends:

Feed, bathed and now happily relaxing in the sun:

We hope you had a great 4th of July as well!

Grandma had this oldie in a Goodwill pile, but I quickly stole it. Isn’t she beautiful? A machine like this deserves a name. How does Sally sound? Wonderful! Sally it is…

I tried to sew on Sally a few month’s ago, but she smelt like burnt rubber. I put her away because I figured she needed a tune-up and I couldn’t justify the expense when I had another machine to sew on. I took Sally out again last week because of a large project which requires me sew through many layers of home dec fabric. I think it’ll wear my Janome out too fast, but Sally should have no problem.

My aunt told me that for the older, all metal machines, you can pretty much tune it up yourself. I bought some oil specifically for sewing machines at my local grocery store and had Chris oil the parts he thought needed it. Voilá , it works! In fact, it was very clean and was probably tuned-up up years ago and never used much.

I was even able to buy a manual for it online here for $10 and had it downloaded less than 30 minutes later. Now I know what all the gadgets and levers are for- cool! She’s loud, but she’s a work horse and I love her. Thank you Grandma for saving her all these years!

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Thank you to Sew Mama Sew! for encouraging me to write a tutorial for the grocery bags/totes I’ve been sewing. It’s up on their blog so check it out if you have a minute. And since I’m their Forum hostess, if you have any questions regarding the tutorial, please post it there and I’ll be sure to answer quickly. Also, July is Summer Sewing month so check back often for many great projects and ideas. I can’t wait!

Oh, and thanks to Craft for picking up my Tote tutorial as well.  Woohoo!

I’ve been so busy lately that I did not notice I used the last of my Amy Butler Forest line fabric. It’s the heavier home dec fabric and I’ve used it for so many things. I *love* this fabric and really wish more will be printed. Does anyone know if it will or is it long gone?

I did finish the last of Fini’s birthday presents and the package arrived so I am free to post these pictures.

At her request, I made her another CD Poket and a lunch bag. The lunch bag had to be big enough to hold a frozen meal and a can of soda. I hope this one fit the bill.

It’s large measuring 10″ across the top, 12″ high and 15″ across the bottom with 2½” gussets. (I love gussets! I put them in everything.) I added a magnetic closure because it seemed to need it. I wanted to do a roll-up one something like this pattern, but with the interfacing, heavy fabric and lining, I thought it was just too thick to try to roll and velcro closed.

Anyhoo, it’s done and I even found my new favorite song downloading some tunes she requested. I could seriously listen to this song all day long, but I can’t because some little people in my house insist on listening to this at least 20 times a day as well. I guess it could be worse… (Yep, this one’s Daddy’s favorite.)

Okay. Try not to laugh, but these are my people:

I bought these wooden unfinished people with eggs back in March from here. (BTW- I could do some major damage in that store. I’d love to get a ton of these too.) I was all excited when I got these and wanted to try my hand at a new craft- painting. I can’t draw, paint or sculpt, but I wanted to try. How in the heck do people make such fine lines neatly?! I’ve always held artists in high regard because they can look at something and replicate it. It blows my mind.

Anyway. I primed all the eggs and people because the kids will be playing with these for years to come and I didn’t want the paint peeling or chipping off. I painted everything with some non-fancy acrylic paint, but man there were many, many coats involved with alot of drying time in between.

Everything was painted a while ago, but I still need to get the right amount of finish on them. Again, it takes alot! I used the spray-on lacquer, but ran out quickly. My dad just informed me that in order to get that high-gloss, glass-like look you have to spray, sand lightly and spray again. You have to repeat these steps over and over again until you get the finish you like.

Needless to say, I stopped after I used up the can and never sanded between coats. They’ve been sitting in a box for months, but since the weather’s finally turning around here, I think I’ll get ‘er done.

If you want to see some much better ones, check out these and this lady’s who inspired me to try this in the first place.

So I started this lovely dress a month ago. After this success, I thought I could conquer Simplicity 9784 with ease. NOT. In reality, it had nothing to do with the pattern. It was entirely me.
I was trying too many new things: piping inserted on the collar, working with corduroy, adjusting the size since the pattern only went up to 18 mos and I was going for a 2T. Also, I’ve said this before, but I can’t read. After ripping out the same step at least 5 times, I asked Chris what he thought the step was instructing. Duh! I was missing a whole pattern piece and didn’t realize it.
Anyway, I finally finished the dress today and it’s a little short, but it works.

I found this material at Mill End here in Beaverton and had to have it. I love polka dots!

The collar was a little tough to sew because I was trying to sew two pieces of thick corduroy with piping inserted along a curve. Curves alone throw me off and adding the other two issues really took some patience. I love the look of piping though and will be trying this again.

(Sorry to insist, but you gotta see what my little princess wears under such a dress.)

Also, after reading this article, I *really* want to try pleats. Something straight, cotton, tank, square-neck with nice crisp pleats is on my must do list.
But first, I still have to finish Fini’s April b-day presents- yikes. Sorry Fini!

Wonder where I’ve been? Here’s the rundown:
- Wedding in Seattle, beautiful
- Week at Black Butte Ranch in Central Oregon, aaaah
- My 35th Birthday, along with baby sis Liz- on the same day
- Mother’s Day, I cleaned
- Step-sis’ Baby Shower, lovely
- Dad’s 62nd Birthday, hot
- Chris’ and BIL’s Birthday, busy
- 2 hours of tennis lessons every Saturday for the boys, pure entertainment!
- More typing work, argh
- Nailing notes on my guitar and now moving on to chords, ouch
- Not one sewing project started or completed! (Well, one- I made a cozy for a glass ikea stein for my dad’s b-day. He’s a fanatic boiling-hot-water drinker. Not much of a project and no picture to post so there you go.)

- And lastly, Memorial Day Morel hunting on Mt. Hood- found nothing, but LBMs (little brown mushrooms for you non-shroomers).

Here’s some shots from our day up in the mountains:

I hit 35 last week and didn’t have my sewing machine (in the shop for it’s yearly check-up) so what’s a girl to do?  Why not start a new hobby?

This is my newest baby- a La Patrie Etude classical guitar. I researched guitars for days before deciding on a classical, nylon-string guitar versus an acoustic, steel-string guitar. I found this beauty with a hard case on CL and snapped it up.

Since I have no musical background whatsoever, I decided to teach myself the basics before taking lessons. So far I have down notes E, F and G and my left index finger is SORE. (I’m glad I didn’t go with a steel string guitar!) I’m using these books to get me started and can pretty much follow it easily. I’m having a blast, but with 2 time consuming hobbies and 3 kids, you can bet my house is a disaster and the laundry pile has turned into a mountain.

I played my first song (all on one string) for Chris last night. It was wonderful sitting on our deck, a gin & tonic within reach, tiki torches lit, strumming my guitar.  Having music in one’s life is more important than a clean house in my book.

Things that are making me happy lately:

New Marriage

New shoes

(These are Naot Gardenia Shoes in Toffee)

New Sunglasses

New Morels

New Baby Geese

New bike trails we have yet to explore!