May Design Team Page

using Fancy Pants products:

The sun is chipboard covered in glitter, and the center of the sun is a brad covered in glitter. along the sides where the flourishes and words are has some shimmer as well.

First page I have done in awhile!

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Baby Chain

Today, the boys and I did our first craft in awhile. We made a baby chain from paper! Every day that passes, they will take a ring off the chain, which is one day closer until the baby arrives. I think it will help my oldest especially, to see when the baby will get here. 

Now. Where are we going to hang this beast?

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Where have I been?

Hey guys! 

I know things have been pretty quiet here on this end, but that is for very good reason. I am usually not much of a crafter/sewer/baker when I am in my first trimester of pregnancy.

Thats right! I am pregnant with our third baby. We are super excited and can not wait until Christmas/New Years when we get to welcome this new miracle of life into our lives! 

I promise to keep the pregnancy talk down to a minimum here :) and I am sure once I am feeling better, things will pick up around here. But the down time is definitely being taken advantage of. I am enjoying reading my Bible more and focusing on the true Creator...the One who gave us this beautiful gift!

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What I came home to find in the garden

Since we have been out of AZ for the past week and a half, it has gotten CRAZY hot. Welcome summer. Not that I want to welcome summer.

This morning, I went out to see whats going on in the garden and found some good surprises and bad surprises. 

What I lost:

• most of my herbs. i think only the mint, basil, and maybe oregano and parsley made it. the oregano and parsley hanging out by a thread.
  
• pumpkins (really dont want to break this to Jaden)
• peas
• marigolds by the tomato plants
  
• radishes
  
• all my flowers in pots. 
  

What I found doing super well:

• weeds. UGH!
  
• lettuce (which shocked me because lettuce isnt fond of heat)
  
• carrots (another shocker)
  
• cucumbers are blooming like wild
  
• green beans
  
• a new little circle pepper (not sure why they always grow in a ring like that when it was supposed to be jalepeno)
  
• and lots of new tomatoes with the old ones getting bigger
  

everything else is so-so.

We planted 4 different types of sunflowers which are blooming now and have gotten to be as tall as me or taller. I am going to  even have to stake some because they wanted to bloom before their stalks were sturdy enough.

The first type we planted was the one I took a picture of here...a standard sunflower

The second is a giant sunflower, which are what we grew last year.

These are the autumn bouquet Sunflower...all different colors on one stalk

And finally is the Vanilla Ice Sunflower:

So nice to look out our two windows and see these "bouquets" of cheery happy sunflowers!

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On our way back home!

Long time no blog! We have been enjoying our stay here in the midwest, but as my grandma told me last night, all good things must come to an end. Here are a couple of pictures I took yesterday in a field full of yellow flower---weeds! I was disappointed that I took them at the wrong time of day, lightingwise, so they aren't what I was "envisioning" at all. Plus, we were on the side of a busy road and the kids werent wanting to pose, so they were hurried, but I think otherwise, they were fun.

If you look closely, you can see the oldd corn stalks. Its a corn field normally.

(Sorry they are cute off here, flickr always cuts off the end of the photos when I post them on blogger.)

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Hi from the middle of nowhere!

We are driving to the St Louis area as I type this. Its going to be a very long drive but will be a really nice visit. We left this morning at 4 am and have 15 hours to drive today (7 so far) and 8 tomorrow. We are lucky enough to be staying at Micah's aunt and uncle's house tonight so it will be a great way to break up the road trip! 

I probably wont be posting much craftiness in the next week or so but I am sure I will have something interesting (to me) to post. 

And for a good laugh... my husband has begun recruiting anyone he can to grow a mustache with him the whole month of pay and has started a mustache may blog  that he will be updating through the month.

 

So if you have any crazy mustache stories or pictures, let us know :)

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Had me in Stitches...literally

I learned today that if you drop a food processor blade on your foot, it will mess up your routine for quite awhile. 4 hours later and 4 stitches later, I came home to stay off my feet for the day. Since my toe was still numb, I was feeling pretty good and went ahead and sewed this pattern. You know I am paying for it now, but the trial shirt turned out cute. I want to do this in more fun fabric later on....when I am not dealing with injuries and all.

Here is the pattern and here is my take on it:

I better get back to resting before I get in trouble.

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Chalk Table

Have you noticed lately that anything and everything can be a chalkboard?

Last month, we were going to build our little Harold an easel for his room. While I was at Ikea one day, I saw these little tables for 12 dollars. They came in a few different colors. 

I was thinking how it would be the perfect size for his room and we wouldnt have to mess with building an easel. But it didnt have a chalkboard or anything on it....yet! I went to Home Depot, got some chalkboard spray, and instantly had a chalkboard table.

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Pleated Purse Pattern

After checking out a *new to me* fabric store from my sister in law's recommendation today, I got fabric to make a purse I have been looking at for awhile now here at My Spare Time.

It will be a good summer bag and I hope to make a couple more for myself. Different colors, different lengths and different strap lengths. Now that I know how to do the corners and pleats, it will be fun to do variations.

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When life gives you lemons,

make a cute bag set!

My sister bought this fabric last week and asked me to make a simple totebag for her books. 

These pictures just dont show how cute it is. I made it up as I went along, with a curved bottom and a thicker strap on bottom that narrows at the top. Then I made a matching wristlet/pouch for it as well. Sorry for poor quality of pictures:

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Little Boy's Star Apron

I thought this was a fun apron to make for a little boy that wanted an apron. His sister is getting the pink and black/white one!

Jaden dressed himself today. I asked him to model the apron for me and when I saw he still had his crazy socks on, it made me laugh. ...and the jersey is constantly being worn/washed.

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Lensbaby and New Necklace

I got a lensbaby for my birthday last year and havent gotten it out as much as I had thought I would (and as much as my husband would like). It was kind of initimidating to me and I didnt know as much as I do now (not that I know that much at all now) so I never reached for it.

Today has been kind of an eh day for me. I dont feel like putting all this laundry away or do dishes from lunch (ok and breakfast) and I dont feel like anything else that makes a mess, so I took my camera outside and started shooting pictures of the plants around me. 

While I was outside, I remembered I made this necklace this morning after I got home from errands with the boys and thought how pretty it would be on one of the sunflowers blooming (we have a few now!)

Then I decided to take a deep breath and try the lensbaby again. Its been awhile. Played around with the settings and got this: 

I thought it would be fun to play around with it in photoshop too.

So I still need to work on the focus point (its manual focus) but I think I may be getting the lighting right?! Its a little bit dark still but its a start! Now I am excited to keep working with this lens.

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Boutique THIS Saturday!

@ the Grove church on Queen Creek and Gilbert Road. 9 am- 2pm!

Looks like some fun vendors are going to be there, so come check it out if you can!

This recent painting (and the tree I did) will be among all my sewing and necklace goods :) (I am really enjoying painting. I think my favorite way of painting is just painting something in my head rather than from something in real life or from a photograph)

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First sunflower of the year!

Our yard is blooming with all sorts of flowers, but we were very excited to wake up to see this sunflower blooming. Sunflowers are special in our home, and its always neat to see something that started from a seed turn into a flower.

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Crafty Apron

I needed an apron that had a few pockets for when I am painting and crafting. 

Remember these fun aprons? I had a little bit of fabric left and used it to make this! 

And then I appliqued a little flower and doubled two buttons:

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Little Tree, Little Tree

This week as I am getting ready for the upcoming boutique on Saturday, I was trying to think of a way to display the necklaces I have been working on. So today, my husband and I trekked to Home Depot to see what we could make.

 It first started out that we were going to do an easel type board that I would decorate and put hooks on.  Well. Home Depot just didnt have the right type of wood at the right price, and honestly, I wasn't feeling the easel board.

Then we went over to Lowe's, which I always like to go to a lot more. We looked at their wood and found something but I still wasn't feeling it.I kept mentioning doing a tree and he would just kind of ignore it.

I went over to the dowels to pick out little pegs instead of hooks and our brains kicked into gear and together we came up with this:

 I probably still will decorate it, but I have a lot of fun ideas for it in the future too!

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Baby Cocoon

Last week, whenever I got tired of sewing, I would do random projects here and there. This was one of them:

Yep! Thats Charlie Brown! He's in a knitted baby cocoon for a photography prop. I have seen them on Etsy and love them but are a bit too pricey, so I made my own on a green knifty knitter loom. Score :) I am going to make another with a thicker natural yarn. This was a quick test run.

Thanks Charlie Brown for being such a good spot!

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Wristlets

Happy Birthday Little Sister! She turned 20 yesterday :)

She had been asking me to make a wristlet for awhile now, so I made her TWO!


Excuse the blur, she was a little excited...

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bloom (where you are planted)

Freehanded this painting yesterday (no sketching first) then added vinyl.  i love it. it will look so pretty framed and will be available for purchase when it is dry. cool brush textures on the sky.

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Oranges+Jacked=no more

Yep. Right after I took a picture of these two baby oranges, my son (appropriately named Jackson) came and jakked them off the tree....then tried to feed them to the dog. I found 6 baby oranges in his food bowl.

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