Hearts and Needles

Happy Valentine's Day! We had a weekend of heart shaped food including toast with hearts cut out and filled with eggs. We call these birds in a nest but I'm not sure that's an official name for this food. We also made homemade pizzas in heart form.


Today is a no school day for Sydney. The girls have been having a fun day playing together. While Vi was napping I decided to work on a little hand-stitching.


It is so lovely to look down at this fabric (from Anna Maria Horner). But so much better to look up to find Syd has joined me with her own project. She knows how to make a mama feel so loved.


The only thing that would make this day better is having my Valentine here with me. But alas, a day of love is not a holiday for the movie making folk. :) I'll just have to wait until dinner.

Beautiful Pottery

I have had my eye out for a nice cake stand for awhile so when I spotted this one that Oh Joy shared I fell in love. Although these are a bit out of my price range, I love them! I may have to save and splurge on a little one in the future. All Jeanette Zeis creations are amazing so go take a look.

Favorite Things: Homemade Gifts

As you already know, I love handmade gifts. The girls have received so many amazing things from friends and family. The amazing knitter, mommy, wife, and friend, Amy made this beautiful vest for Violet (she was wearing it back here too). I just love how soft and tightly knit it is, plus it can be machine washed. Amy blogged about it back here and gave Vi the gift months ago but I just haven't been able to share yet. Hope you are all inspired, I know I am each time Violet wears it.

Thank you (from Vi)

Violet has been blessed with many sweet and thoughtful gifts. I just had to share these two in particular. First, my auntie knit these sweet booties for her in the perfect color, violet of course! She also made her a little blanket which is extra special because I still have the blanket she made me from my own birth. Second, Jamie sent her this amazing doll that big sister Sydney keeps trying to claim.

Thank you for blessing my littlest babe.

I want this....

I have long admired the beautiful prints from Ashley over at Kitty Genius. This print set instantly made it to my wish list. I just wish I had a good excuse to purchase it. As it is we don't have enough wall space to hang all the artwork, painting, and prints we have for the girls' room. BUT if anybody can think of a good reason let me know. ;)

Feeling Blessed on Mama's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day thanks to my amazing husband and daughter. Thank you!


"Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him" - Psalm 127:3 (NLT)

Amy Butler Inspiration

Another amazingly talented girl I love is Amy Butler. I just purchased her book Little Stitches and it is full of fun sewing projects for babies ranging from beginner to intermediate. Now that we know we are having a girl I am very excited to start creating things from this book. My head is filled with all sorts of ideas for the new baby and for the girls' room.


I also discovered today that Amy is releasing a new set of home sewing projects. I like the idea of releasing projects on CD. While I do enjoy having a hard copy, like a book, to flip through, it will be a space saver in digital form. There are lots of fun projects that I would love to add to the girls' room over time. Like those adorable cushions in the above picture.

Great Morning Tradition

Amanda Soule is so inspiring to me as a mother. I love her book The Creative Family and I am looking forward to reading her newest book soon too. Her blog post today really touched me. She talks about setting up an activity for the kids before she heads to bed. Then when the kids get up they have a fun way to start the day. What a great way to start our days on a positive note and encourage our kids to be active either with an art project or fun activity. I am looking forward to trying this out with Sydney some times.

I remember growing up that my mom would surprise us with lavishly decorated dinner tables for different holidays. I have distinct memories of arriving home after school to find an array of Valentine or Saint Patrick's Day treats overflowing the table in the kitchen. It is these little things that we do as parents that make the biggest impression. A little forethought and planning goes along way in our children's eyes. So whether it is preparing something for the morning, after nap-time, or after school think of something fun to surprise your family with this week.

A quick but Good post

Before leaving town for a couple days I wanted to share these with you. Anna Maria Horner, who as you know is one of my favs, just shared pictures of her newest line of fabrics, Good Folks. I just love them and want some of each. She is even giving some away so run over and add your name to the ever growing list of comments if you are feeling lucky. I have saved up some money so I think that I will be fixing the sewing machine and buying some to play with.

Blog Award

What is an Uber Amazing Award you ask.

Uber is a German word that is similar to our English word super.

An Uber Amazing Blog Award is a blog award given to sites who:
~ inspires you
~ make you smile and laugh
~ or maybe gives amazing information
~ a great read
~ has an amazing design
~ and any other reasons you can think of that makes them uber amazing!

Amy from Knit Me Pieces gave me this award. Here are the rules to play:

Once nominated, recipients are to follow these rules:

~ Put the logo on your blog or post.
~ Nominate at least 5 blogs (can be more) that for you are Uber Amazing!
~ Let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing award by commenting on their blog.
~ Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from.

So I thought I would share some on my favorite (often daily) reads. I decided I would share some smaller more personal blogs since we all should know about Anna Maria Horner and Decor8 by now. (wink)

Mulholland Drive because I love him and it is fun to see things through his eyes.

Bricolage and Butter because their blog is a great read and inspiring. Plus, they are my dear cousins.

Alff Family Adventures for its witty humor.

Make It for her inspiration and beautiful designs.

My Longest Year because she inspires me to be a creative and encouraging wife and mom. In fact every girl should read this post, it is good perspective!

Hope you all enjoy these blogs. Go check them out especially if they are new to you.

Voting

We went as a family this morning to vote. It is always a good way to teach Sydney about the process and about how blessed we are to live in a country were we have a choice. Whatever your feelings about either candidate or proposition on the ballots today, I hope you go vote. I have been feeling very torn over some of the choices in this election. I guess you could call it a general anxiety over where our state and country are now and where we may be heading. This past Sunday our pastor shared these words in our bulletin. I found it encouraging and a great reminder to always be praying for our elected officials and our nation. I especially loved the song he included which we also sang on Sunday.

The Apostle Paul had dual citizenship. He was a proud Roman citizen (Acts 22:28). He exercised those earthly rights more than once to further the Gospel. He was also a proud citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20). This was his eternal citizenship (Hebrews 11:16).

We have dual citizenship too. We are citizens of an earthly country and a heavenly country. If you are a citizen of the United States, this is a big week. We have several big responsibilities:

1. We register to vote.
2. We vote our conscience.
3. We pray for our elected leaders.

I want to teach you a song today. I think of it as a song for Wednesday morning. Beyond our periodic opportunity to vote in this country, we have a daily call to pray for our leaders (1st Timothy 2:1-2). This song has helped me pray.

You're the God of this city
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You are

You're the light in this darkness
You're the hope to the hopeless
You're the peace to the restless
You are

There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done
In this city

For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done here

Sydney's First Quilt

Last month for her birthday Sydney received a package from Jamie. Her excited little fingers opened it to find her very own fabric scraps. Some of these scraps were decent size and while Mommy was tempted to claim some, I let Sydney keep them. She has been laying them out in different designs and patterns for weeks now. She even carries them around in her purse or backpack often. Earlier in the week I saw this post from My Longest Year about making a quilt with glue and knew we had to try it. Sydney loved making her very own quilt and even wanted to add some crochet flowers I had laying around.

Since she has the bitty twin babies, she is already asking to make one more quilt so do not be surprised to see another one.

Comic Con

Honestly, I go to Comic Con largely because Shane goes. Sydney and I just sort of tag along and usually do our own thing most of the time. However, this year I have spent more time looking around the floor and found so much great inspiration.

We love filling Sydney's room with original artwork or at least prints of fun pieces to inspire her imagination. We met Travis Hanson Saturday and he drew each of us our own sketches: Shane received a robot, I received a girl reading under a tree, and Sydney asked for a comic book with a girl in it. Then we also purchased a print for in her room.

Here are some other prints I liked.

Seaside Village by Dan Thompson

Braid Hair by Vera Brosgol

Check Point by Mike Lee

I really like the composition and color in this one.


These next two are both from artist Chris Appelhans.

Boston Common

Dance Bot

And these two are from Kazu Kibuishi.

Good Life Scene

Charnon House

Sort of a wide variety but I guess I like variety. They do all seem to be whimsical to some decree, maybe that is what draws me to them. I do feel inspired and ready to get home and start creating.

Drawing Room

Anna Marie Horner just previewed her new line, "Drawing Room" on her blog. I love her descriptions of things she was thinking as she designed this line. I also love how it is so different from her other two lines and yet still has her touch on it. I can't wait to see it in person and hopefully have some soon. I am already dreaming up things to sew with them.

Thanks Frankie...

Recently Frankie posted little characters for different blogs. I just love them. Mine is of course ready with needle and thread. I don't know why but looking at these just makes me happy.

Fabric Fabric Fabric

(Sorry for the bad light in the photo, I think I need to take Photography lessons.)

I have finally started in on the first projects using my new little birds. The first is not finished yet but looking at different combinations of fabrics has been getting me excited. I think I definitely NEED more to add to my stash. Although, I think this is becoming a common "need" which I must control. Here are just a few items I 'must have' soon: this Alexander Henry, some from the Katie Jump Rope line from Denyse Schmidt, and I can't wait for Amy Butler's new line Midwest Modern.

Have a wonderful long weekend!

Sydney

Photographs that capture life are just amazing. More specifically, photos that show the essences of Sydney are the best. Shane captures many beautiful pictures and they just inspire me to learn more about photography and creative ways of displaying life. Maybe I will try to do a fun scrapbook-type display of them soon. These are just a couple to enjoy but I am sure there will be new ones occasionally. Enjoy!!



This one is from Andrew, a photographer who took Sydney's pictures for her birthday.