I've got a girl with the sickies...

Sorry for the complete lack of posting this week. My girl woke up sick last Saturday morning and turns out it's pneumonia. She's been miserable all week despite starting antibiotics on Monday. The pediatrician gave her an antibiotic shot yesterday and she goes in for a second shot today. She slept through the night last night for the first time in a week. So the shot seems to be helping! I sometimes opt for natural methods of treating illness, but we all decided we weren't going to mess around with pneumonia, especially now that she's got asthma, too. Could be a lot worse, we didn't need to see the inside of a hospital!

So, she appears to be on the upswing and my head is spinning with crafty ideas. I will follow through on my promise about posting organizing tips and tips on paring down your stuff. Hopefully I can get in some crafting and blogging this weekend!

Happy Halloween to all of you!

Gearing up for our Garage Sale!

Not much craftin' goin' on 'round here. We're having a garage sale tomorrow. We have 18 trash bags full of clothes in our garage - don't worry, I've set aside all our old T-shirst and denim and khaki pants and any other items that can easily be transformed or sewn into an adorable outfit for my girl!), several boxes of housewares, a couple of boxes of books, movies and CDs, a loveseat, some baby gear, a ton of candles (from my former life as a candle addict and dealer) and a bunch of other odds n' ends. Oh, and a very small box of craft supplies. Times are tough and money is very tight, but come on, I'm not selling many of my beloved craft supplies. I'm not crazy! In all seriousness, we have been hit hard by the recession and economic challenges of the last year so we really need tomorrow's sale to be lucrative. Please send us prayers, well wishes, good thoughts, keep your fingers crossed and wish us luck that our garage sale is a success.

Once I've recovered from it, I'll be posting about ways to organize and pare down your stuff! It's amazing how great we feel knowing that we'll be getting rid of so much stuff that's been piling up in our garage! We've been married for 10 yrs and we've never had a garage sale, so we have a LOT of stuff!

Are you a yard sale go-er?(I don't know what the term is for people who frequent yard sales?) Have you ever had a garage sale?

Letter Matching Activity

This is a super simple activity to keep little hands busy while helping stretch their growing minds!

Supplies:

Foam Letter Stickers

8 1/2x 11 cardstock or sheet of paper

Marker

Set up: Adult writes the alphabet A-Z on sheet of cardstock or paper. This can be done in uppercase to match the letter stickers as I have done, or you could write the lowercase letter and have the child match the uppercase letter sticker to the lowercase letter on the paper.

To make this a portable activity, place 1 of each letter sticker in a zippered plastic bag and staple to the paper. To do the activity, the child simply chooses a letter from the bag and then matches it with the corresponding letter on the paper. Doesn't get much simpler than that!

My 3 1/2 yr old loves stickers and is loving learning her alphabet. She stayed busy with this activity for quite some time!

Knitted Basket

Does this look familiar?

As I was pondering how to fix it or if it would fit Taylor's doll, I turned it upside down and decided the too small hat was the perfect sized basket for sewing notions!

Of course, within minutes of seeing it filled with goodies, Taylor said "Hey, that's my hat!" and promptly dumped the goodies and reclaimed her hat. When I told it was too small, she simply said "No it's not." and walked away. I've casted on another hat and I'll reclaim my notions basket when I'm able to trade it for a better fitting hat. Negotiating with preschoolers...it's an acquired skill.

I Love This Yarn

It's Lion Brand Homespun. I'm making a wrap with it. You can find the free pattern, here.

I love the soft, buttery feel of the yarn in my fingers as I'm knitting and I love the color. My winter wardrobe is full of black and brown and this color looks good with both of those colors. Also looks fab with denim.

What yarn do you love?

This is Why I sew

I absolutely LOVE this fabric! I made this dress using The Paper Doll Dress Pattern by Lil' Blue Boo. I love this pattern! I used corduroy fabric from JoAnn's that was on-sale this week. I created the pleated purse on my own but used the same technique to create the band on the purse that is used to create the chest piece of the dress. Once I finished the dress and the purse, I just had to use my scraps to make coordinating hair clips. This is the first time I've made hair clips for Taylor and I can't believe how quick and easy it was!

My girl loves her new ensemble and I love the smiles on her face when I make her "pretty things". Yep. This is why I sew!

(I just noticed both the pic of her wearing the dress and the pic of the dress above, show the straps being uneven. They're not actually uneven, I just made the button holes a little too big by mistake and the buttons are sitting in the button holes unevenly. OK, I just had to point that out because I'm a little OCD like that!)

I've got a question for all of you...As I said I love this floral fabric, but I realize it's not for everyone, so what do you think? Is it totally adorable or totally hideous?

Paper Bag Pumpkin Craft Featured

I'm so happy to announce that my paper bag pumpkin craft is featured today over at The Crafty Crow! I love The Crafty Crow and get sooo much inspiration from the amazing projects featured there. Thanks for collecting all the kids' crafts, Cassi! I hope my paper bag pumpkin inspires others to get crafty, too! If you're visiting me today because you found me through The Crafty Crow, thanks for stopping by!

Sit back with a cup of coffee (or whatever your drink of choice) and take a peek into my crafty little life! :)