April Day 50: Christmas card parts

I spent a chunk of the afternoon fighting with my Silhouette Cameo. For some reason cutting paper of all things is the most challenging. Card stock goes off without a hitch but when I try to cut regular scrapbook paper it ends of tearing. So after much experimenting I finally got it to work and then of course decided to use card stock for my project instead. I have decided to start making notes on scrap paper that I have cut so I know for sure what settings work with what. It's tricky because the Silhouette gives you paper weights but most scrapbook paper does not have the weight of the paper on the package so you just have to guess. These parts are for a few Christmas cards I am going to make. I still need to figure out how I am going to give the background a little more "umph" though.

April Day 47: Costumes

I have been exhausted lately but the afternoon light is so pretty and the temps so warm that I knew I needed to try to snap some photos of the boys in their Halloween costumes. Superman and Captain Kirk will have to do. I didn't have the time to really do anything to creative this year but maybe next year.

April Day 46 Christmas crafting

Today I said to heck with house work and work and worked on Christmas gifts. So, once again all I can post is a teaser of some stuff I cut out using the Silhouette Cameo. I hope to get started on cutting some snow flakes for cards and Christmas tags soon too. If I don't get it done now I am pretty sure it's not going to happen after the baby is born.

April Day 44_45 Needle felting

On Saturday I went down to the Southern Indiana FibreArts Festival at the Harrison County Fairgrounds. There were a ton of awesome vendors there selling the most beautiful fibre products imaginable. The colors were just amazing. One of the booths sold Needle Felting supplies. Needle felting is something I came across sometime in the past 2 years and thought I would like to try but I haven't exactly had the time or the supplies for that matter. I bought a simple little kit for making felt ornaments using a cookie cutter to shape the felt. I have been working on this one a couple of days. It's not really taking on any of the details of the shape though. I'm not sure if I used too much felt or just haven't poked it enough with my needle yet. There are artists out there that make the cutest felt animals and you can also "felt" shapes and decorations onto items such as felt blankets, pillows, ect.

April Day 42: Southern Indiana FibreArts Festival

Today I went down to the Southern Indiana FibreArts Festival at the Harrison County Fairgrounds. I have been wanting to check it out but have missed it for one reason or the other. We also needed some photos for our files at work so I had a good excuse. There were a ton of awesome vendors there selling the most beautiful fibre products imaginable. The colors were just amazing.

Lacy Day...uhm....

Not to make any excuses for my inability to keep up with this blog, but I have developed tendinitis in both thumbs which makes manipulating scissors and pencils incredibly painful.  And it's impossible to do any fine motor work with my hands when I have my braces on.  Boo!  But like I said, I don't intend to make any excuses.  I really want to catch up with this blog...just not right now when I have so severely overestimated the amount of free time I'd have to think/plan/do crafty and creative projects while trying to settle into my new role as a stay-at-home mom.  And it's not that I don't have some free time during the day.  The real problem is that I have zero spare mental capacity to put into dreaming up projects for myself.  It's mental exhaustion that's what's really killing my good intentions.

I actually started to make this cute fall decoration I saw on Pinterest, and I got a few felt flowers made and one letter cut out, but the parts have just been sitting on my table for weeks with no more progress.  When I have had time to do anything, it's usually taking pics of the baby.  Sometimes I even sneak a few minutes on the computer to edit them.  I have been doing okay with my camera, but not great.  I want to take a few minutes sometime to do a more elaborate setup than just laying the baby on the changing table and pulling it into the "good light" to snap a few hasty pics.  We bought a giant pumpkin with plans to hollow it out and stuff the baby into it for some pictures.  I'll post those pics when we get that done.  I'll also post pics when I get our Halloween costumes done.  I'm keeping it simple this year.  REAL simple.  You'll see soon ;-)

I picked up some freezer paper today and hope to find something awesome to do with it.  I have pinned a few things that you can do with freezer paper, but I've been it'll probably be awhile before I get around to utilizing it.  I have a couple of footprint projects on the back burner, too, but haven't had time to follow through with anything.  I should teach myself to make afghan squares because I have a crap-ton of awesome yarn stockpiled and I'm sure I could find time to make a square every day.  Then I'd have an awesome afghan to show for my 100 days.  Of course, if the whole point is to try new things and stretch my creative muscles, doing the same thing every day definitely defeats the purpose.

April Days 37-40 more crochet practice

For the past few days I have been trying to perfect my crochet skills. My goal is to make some simple hats for the boys. Nothing fancy. So I thought I would go ahead and try my hand at starting the circles. I got some tips from some online sources and stitched and stitched. I tried several times and each time it looked wrong and different. As it turns out it wasn't wrong it just wasn't the type of stitching I was trying to replicate just a different technique. After several attempts and finally figuring out my groove I decided I would just try to make a tiny hat so now that bear has a hat. It's only about 2.5 inches in diameter. Too bad it doesn't have ear hole or Charlie could have it for his Rabbit Boy. The blue one is the start of what I hope will be a real hat.

April Day 36

Cutting out felt squares for a Christmas project.

April Day 35: Deere Farms

Today we took the boys out to Deere Farms. They had a big time bouncing in the bounce pumpkin, playing in the corn box, climbing the tire tower, sliding down the culvert slide, running through the hay bale maze and going on the hay ride. Henry especially loved all the tractors. I took a lot of pictures some of which can hopefully be used for my job if we need them but this one is by far my favorite of the day.

April Day 33

I stopped into Target today to buy a new nursing top and checked out the colorful socks that I like for the Rabbit Boys. Alas, they were clearance-ing them out and there were only 3 pairs of crazy knee socks left. If only I had been there a few days ago I could have stocked up. That's the way it goes though, you find a store that carries something you like and then they quit carrying it.

April Days 30-32

Over these 3 days I have been working on a Christmas present. With that being said I can only post a teaser picture as I do not know who looks at this blog. I will say it involved Mod Podge, acrylic, and my Silhouette Cameo.

April Days 26, 27, & 28: Rabbit Boys

The past 3 days I have been sewing together the 4 blue Sock Rabbits, stitching the nose and mouth on them, and sewing on the button eyes. One of the argyle ones is for my niece Secily. I hope she likes it. The striped one is made differently. It is made with calf high socks instead of knee socks so the legs were separate pieces. You could easily put beans or something in it to weight it and it would sit very nicely.

April Day 24: By George I think I've got it!

With a few tips from Becca, rewatching a YouTube video and studying some diagrams- the crochet thing finally clicked and I figured out why my crochet didn't look right at all. Here is a little square I did.

April Day 23

This is just a mock up of an invitation for Kate's 1st birthday. Becca requested a little help in trying to figure out how she was going to tackle it.