I've been thinking

I've never made myself a bag.  I didn't realize how many I had made until my last post.  Here are my excuses:
1.  I haven't found a style/pattern that I like enough to make for myself (either a pattern I've created or one that can be purchased).
2.  I could never settle on the fabric(s).  There are just too many good ones to choose from!
3.  I don't have any extra time to make things for me.

But, there is this one pattern that I've been eyeing for awhile now.  Maybe you've seen it?  The Amy Butler Weekender Travel Bag.  It's all over the blog world.  I'm not sure what it is exactly about this bag that grabs me- the shape of the bag, the pretty fabric, the vintage inspired feel of times past, that it has a reputation of being a beast of a bag to make and I want to see if I can conquer it?   

But it's just so big for an everyday bag...

It's really complicated and along with lots of bloody fingers from pin pricks, there's also lots of cursing going on while you're sewing...

And then there's always excuses #2 and #3 above...

But...

It's 2010!  Maybe I should finally make the time to actually make something for myself.  I think it would be a good challenge for me, to see if it's really as complicated as I've heard.  Maybe I'll reduce the scale of the bag so it would be better suited for an everyday bag. 

Have any of you made this bag?  If you've blogged about it, send me the link, I'd love to read about your experience in making this bag.  Anyone have the pattern but is too afraid to start it?  Anyone want to join me and make their own Weekender?

Bye bye 2009, hello 2010!

Lately I've been finding myself thinking back to this time last year and reflecting on all the changes that have occurred in just 365 days. 

Last year at this time:
-I was 7 months pregnant with Avery
-I was working full-time and bringing home a paycheck every two weeks
-I sewed 12 taggie blankets for friends on my mom's old Singer that only goes forwards and backwards
-I loved sitting next to our live Christmas tree with its sparkly white lights while sipping some hot cider

I also had no idea just how much our lives would change within one year...

This year:
-Avery is almost ready to start walking on her own
-I'm a full-time stay at home mom, without any paychecks!
-I bought my own sewing machine and sewed 38 handbags, 17 wristlets and 6 Before/After projects that weren't handbags
-No Christmas tree this year because I knew I wouldn't be able to keep Avery away from it

It was a busy year full of lots of transitions and changes.  Being able to stay at home and watch Avery grow into this little person with such charisma has been the highlight of my year.  "Finding myself" in this new role of motherhood has been hard, yet very rewarding.  I'm so grateful God blessed me with a patient, loving and supportive husband.

And now we can look forward to what 2010 has in store for us!

Happy New Year!

A couple handmade gifts

Today's the day that everyone in blogland is sharing their handmade Christmas gifts.  I figure I'd do the same.  While I had lofty ideas of making lots of things, there never seemed to be enough time to get to them all! 

First up are these adorable snowman crayons.

I got the idea here.  After a few rounds, I decided I needed to adjust my oven temperature and timer.  Once I had that figured out, it was smooth sailing.  If any of you are interested in trying this yourselves, here are a few tips I found while researching online.  Don't try using the silicone ice cube trays- apparently those are made from a different kind of silicone and you will spend the rest of your afternoon removing melted silicone from your oven.  Ultimately I set my oven at 280 degrees, and I let them "cook" for about 15-20 minutes.  The trick is to keep watching them to see when the last of the crayons melt- pull them out then.  There will be a layer of wax that sits on the surface.  After they cooked, I rubbed them on sand paper to get rid of some of the wax.

I wanted to make my sister a bag.  I gave her the task of choosing the fabric and bag style.  She loved some of the Amy Butler home decor fabrics, so she gave me a few options and this is what I came up with:

The welt is a lime green lightweight canvas and the top and handles are a deep teal green corduroy.  She requested two shallow pockets and two deeper pockets.

 

And I'm very impressed with this recessed zipper:

And then with some of the scraps I made her a little matching zipper pouch:

Did any of you make anything for Christmas gifts?  I'd love to have a look- leave me a link to your blog!  I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

     

As promised

I said I would post about our white elephant gifts...

Here's what Franz got:

A knock-off version of the "Snuggie".

And here's what I got:

A truly authentic vintage China Eastern Airlines travel kit...lucky me.  None of the items have been opened/unwrapped or used, but I still find it gross.  The seafoam green is retro, not like the seafoam greens of our day.  I'm pretty sure the original owner threw in their own travel toothbrush and toothpaste (the white brush) and a mini sewing kit.

Actually, the design of the pouch would be pretty easy to duplicate, I might have to try it.  It would make a cute little wristlet or clutch.

So what was the worst white elephant gift you've ever received?

A funny realization

Saturday night was the Christmas party for the young couple's group at church.  We had a great time, it was a lot of fun- we had delicious appetizers, yummy desserts, a white elephant gift exchange (I'll have to post pictures of what we ended up with), and fun times for the kids (all are under 3 years). 

But as we were driving home, I commented to Franz, "You know you've become old farts when you're the last one to leave the party and you're home before 8pm.

A Friday Funny

Hmm...

What do we have here?  (Look at her smacking those lips!)

Yummy frog legs!

We're hanging in there...

Thank you to everyone who has asked about Franz and offered to help us out while he is recovering.  He's doing well- he went back to work yesterday for a half day and today was his first full day.  He's standing up taller and not hunching over as much, so I know he's healing up.  I think Avery must know something is up because he isn't able to pick her up or even hold her on his lap yet (in case she were to squirm and bump the incision site).  All he can do is bend over and give her little hugs and kisses while she's on the floor playing or if I'm holding her.  He's usually the one to giver her a bath, put her pajamas on, hold her while she's drinking a bottle and put her in her crib.  I know she misses this, and now instead she gets me... 

With the rain we've had recently, it's driven every ant that lives on this planet into our house.  I've lived here 3 years now, and we've never had an ant problem- until now of all times.  The ants were marching along at ceiling height and pretty much took over one side of the hallway and the entire entry way.  We sprayed, wiped down the walls and sprayed some more and wiped down the walls some more and then I finally gave up.  I am far too busy taking care of Franz and Avery to worry about some pesky little ants.  I figured they'd go away once the rain went away.  Franz didn't like my idea, so he sprayed some stronger stuff while we were out of the house one morning.  Guess what?  No more ants...now if only I could find the time to wipe down those walls one more time...

Tuesday night Avery decided to give me a little surprise while she was taking her bath.  Now this has happened two other times, and both times Franz has dealt with the clean-up because her bathtub is too heavy for me to carry outside while it's full.  This is where he normally does the clean-up, and heck, we're fertilizing our yard at the same time- bonus!  Long story short, everything got cleaned and bleached- including the new shirt and jeans I was wearing at the time...

Today is Wednesday!  Guess what that means?  It's trash collecting day tomorrow.  I forgot how much I hate dragging those big, heavy, rolling bins to the curb...

Okay, I can't really leave you all thinking I'm Debbie Downer over here, things aren't that bad.  On Monday night I got a call from the manager at the Trader Joe's where I do my grocery shopping.  Yippee!!!  I won the raffle drawing this week!  If you bring your own bags, you get to enter your name into a weekly raffle for a $10 giftcard and another re-usable shopping bag!  It's funny because I've been entering that raffle almost weekly for 3+ years now.  And everytime I drop that little ticket into the bucket I think to myself, "one of these days I've got to win".  God must have known I needed a little pick me up this week :)

Oh yeah, Avery loves Sesame Street :)  I was desperate this week and I finally gave in and turned the tv on to entertain her while I was busy doing other stuff.  She especially likes Elmo, whenever he comes on, she gets right up to the tv and starts talking to him and tapping the tv screen.  She gets really smiley and giggly, it's super cute.  She's only entertained for about 15 minutes and then she loses interest and goes back to playing with her toys.  Then I turn it to the local news so I can catch up on all the Tiger gossip- he he he!  I wonder if he and Jon Gosselin are friends?

A whirlwind 48 hours

Well, I now understand why I had this sudden desperate urgent need to clean the house.  Let's rewind a few days to Thursday morning. 

Franz complained his stomach was bothering him before leaving for work.  He mentioned something about maybe the milk was bad or a possible hernia and kissed me good-bye for the day.  That evening he comes home and the first thing he says to me is "I need to lay down".  He lifted his shirt and asked if I saw anything unusual.  Um YEAH- what the heck is that???  He had a bulge the size of a golf ball near his right pelvic bone.  He took 3 Advil's with a half a glass of apple juice and 5 minutes later he saw it again- bleck.  Something was wrong, and when a doctor volunteers to go to the emergency room, I know it must be bad.

I called a dear friend to come and stay with Avery while we headed to the ER.  Good thing, because since it's flu season, the hospital will not allow visitors under the age of 16.  Franz got in right away and they determined that yes it was definitely a hernia.  Because of the vomiting, they also knew that meant there was a small intestine blockage.  A few hours and some morphine later, they got the hernia reduced.  The surgeon on call took a look and said Franz was okay to go home but to follow up with him on Monday to schedule surgery to repair the hernia.  We got home around midnight.  Franz had half a glass of orange juice and we went to bed. 

At 3:45am he woke up and saw that OJ again.  The hernia had come back.  This time I woke our sleeping baby and put her and Franz into the car.  I had to drop Franz off at the ER at 4:15am and come home because Avery wouldn't be allowed inside the hospital.  It was one of the hardest, most sad things I've ever had to do.  I cried the whole way home.  I talked with my sister who lives 5 1/2 hours away and she got into her car and immediately started driving here.

I talked with Franz around 6:30 or 7am and he was comfortable, but still waiting to see the surgeon (a friend of his from their internship).  Around 9:30 she agreed he needed surgery immediately and scheduled it for 3pm.  I stayed home with Avery and waited for my sister to arrive so I could leave to go be with Franz. 

I got to the hospital around 3:30 and he was already in surgery.  It would be a few hours before I would be allowed to see him.  His surgery went well, but he would need to stay the night for observation.  I was thankful for that although I know Franz wanted to come home.  I hadn't gotten but maybe 3 hours of sleep the previous night and I knew the next couple of weeks was going to be tough- taking care of him and Avery at the same time.

Franz is home now, resting peacefully with the help of some pain killers.  He is doing well and able to keep foods down again!  He won't be able to lift anything heavy (including Avery) for a few weeks.  I'm just thankful he's okay and that it was nothing more serious.

But at least my house is clean :)  That's one more thing I don't have to do- and it's clear that I certainly won't have the time the next couple of weeks!

I'm embarrassed

For those of you who know me, you would be shocked, yes I dare say you would be laughing your arse's off if you saw how messy my house is right now.

With Avery crawling now, I just can't seem to get housework done because 1) we aren't going to baby-proof our house completely, which means there will be some things we have to train her to stay away from or out of and 2) she just likes my complete and undivided attention at all times.

I've got to get my domestic mojo back, this is pathetic.  Today I'm going to make a HUGE dent in the disaster surrounding me.

Do any of you have any words of wisdom for me?  How do you all get everything done? 

Giveaway Winner!

Wow!  Thank you so much for the overwhelming turnout for the giveaway.  I never expected that kind of response.  It was so much fun reading what brings joy to everyone.  The number one answer was FAMILY, followed by friends, pets and crafting/creating! 

I found so many new blogs to start following, now I just need to find more time to keep up with them all.  I hope I gained some new followers as well :)

Now, the winner chosen by random.org is number 67- which was:
Mountain Knitter who said...

my kids bring me great joy...and are the reason I always need a roomy bag! it's beautiful!

Congratulations!  I will be contacting you shortly.  Thank you again to all of you who participated. 

Giveaway Day!

Yippee!  It's Giveaway Day in blogland.  You haven't heard?  After you post a comment here, head on over to the The Sew, Mama, Sew blog to see the list of all the blogs participating in this years giveaway- there's bound to be some good stuff.

After leaving my job in the interior design field this past year to stay at home with our daughter, I realized there was a small part of me which was lost.  Don't get me wrong, I love being a stay at home mom~ but~ I also missed that part of me which got to be creative on a daily basis at work each day.  So I started sewing regularly and have realized that it gives me great joy, and has filled that creative emptiness I was feeling.

For this giveaway I'm giving away this fun handbag.  You can read more about it here.

It has lots of pockets:

So if you'd like a chance at winning this bag, leave a comment telling me what gives you great joy and an email address or blog link so I can find you if you are the winner.  The contest closes at midnight, December 6th and the winner will be chosen by random.org.  I will ship internationally.  Good Luck!