Can you smell that… I do believe that Christmas is in the air people!!!

 

G and I spent the weekend hitting those awesome Black Friday sales – and I’m more than just a little excited about Cyber Monday today!!!  But I took a little break from playing Santa to play along with some fellow designers at SSD on a little Christmas printable blog train!

 

I’ve got gifting on the brain, so I decided to put together a little list for you to print out and make your own list to check twice:

 

 

Click on the image and to download it for yourself and enjoy!  Then go visit these links for some more awesome printables from some of my ssd-pals!!

 

Darcy Baldwin {fontography}
http://darcybaldwin.blogspot.com/
Libby Pritchett Designs
http://blog.libbyweifenbach.com/
lleilla designs
http://scrapgoo.lliella.com/
Heather Roselli Designs
http://heatherrosellidesigns.com/
Penny Springmann Designs
http://pennyspringmann.com/
Melissa Bennett Designs
http://melissabennettdesigns.blogspot.com/
Meghan Mullens
http://www.confessionsofadigijunkie.com/blog

 

Ok, now it’s time for me to do some cyber-shopping!!

So, just incase you thought I’d been over here hiding under a bush and twiddling my thumbs – I have actually physical proof for you – I’ve been a busy busy lady!  In addition to school, and soccer and home life craziness, I’ve spent the past few months carefully preparing for our MOMS Club Holiday Bazaar.  Last year I participated, although I did not take near enough time to prepare so I ended up with just a handful of hand-made cards and a pile of recycled gift bows.  So as soon as the last year’s was over, I started looking forward to this year – and all of the awesome-ness that I would put up for sale LOL.  Well, in August I kept my word and started looking in to making our Bazaar happen again this year. Then I started carving out a day here and there, a down week in the designing department, a free evening, when ever I started to feel like I needed a little bit of craft therapy.  I slowly started piling things up, and then last week I went into high gear, and pulled it all together – and on Friday night (at 1 am!!) I had a respectable pile of crafts to fill my table at the bazaar.

 

Now I’m going to show off what I made:

 

The biggest project (and most time consuming!) were these:

 

 

Last year, when I had a zillion paint chips left over from my living room painting project, I had this thought that it was such a waste to put all of those beautiful colors on that high quality paper into the trash – I’m not sure exactly what spurred the idea in my brain, but I started thinking that they would make beautiful rolled flowers -  after I piled them up, I realized they would be the perfect decoration for my living room, so I hot glued them to a simple little wreath, and I just LOVED what I ended up with.  This year, I started collecting paint samples, from around my house, from all my friends, and from the local hardware store just a few times.  Then i spent hour after hour, cutting them in to spirals and rolling them up – i brought piles of paint chips to soccer practice and cut my little heart out – then I became bff with my glue gun as I carefully glued them together – I should have counted how many roses I ended up with, but it was well into the hundreds I’m sure!

 

After they were made, I used some pretty wicker and grapevine wreaths that I picked up at the dollar store, and clustered my little roses to make some perfectly adorable little wreaths!

 

When I ran out of paint chips I still couldn’t bear to stop, so I have one I made out of an old roll of wallpaper my mom gave me forever ago, and one from an Ikea catalog. I am planning to do one with a book of maps and a vintage book as soon as I can!  These are so addicting to me, if I could, I would cut up everything I can get my hands on and roll it up into a flower!

 

I also made some “kissing ball” ornaments with rolled scrapbooking paper:

 

I adore these so much! I made some for gifts for Christmas last year, but wow are these time consuming!

 

I also had the urge to cut up a self magazine when I was at another practice – I turned it into these.

 

 

I wanted to have a few teacher gift ideas – so I decided to make these:

 

 

They Velcro closed and hold a gift card inside – they were a big hit – which is bitter sweet, since it means i have to make them again to give to the boys’ teachers

 

I also wanted to make more pomander type ornaments, so I tried this idea – with cupcake papers, it was a little bit less time consuming and I adore the result – although you would be surprised, it takes a TON of liners!!

 

 

 

Here are a few more pics of the ornaments:

 

 

 

 

Oh! And i don’t want to forget these!  Inspired by Pinterest, I decided to buy a roll of jewelry wire and some assorted glass beads to try my hand at wire wrapping.  Those little birds nests are also incredibly addicting!  I am in love with these, and ended up with over 20 necklaces to sell, I only stopped because I kept running out of chains!

 

 

 

To make them stand out in the crowd, I made a bunch of little tiny paper boxes and had the customer chose one so that i could put the necklace on some batting inside and tied it up with a little bow.

 

 

I also made a few sets of handmade cards using some of my own designs:

 

 

I was so proud when I set it all out at the bazaar on Saturday:

 

    

 

It was an amazing time, sort of like a gallery show or something to me, it was a wonderful feeling to be sharing my “art” with the world.  I did pretty well too! People loved the wreaths and I almost sold them all, like I mentioned the post its were a hit, they sold out pretty quickly, and my necklaces found a few new homes too!

 

I’m completely hooked!  I am turning in an app for another bazaar at the elementary school this year, then I guess I start to get ready for next year!  I am just absolutely inspired after it all and I can’t wait to do it again!

This summer, for the most part, was so nice.  I really actually enjoyed having the kid home a good bit of the time, and I think everyone enjoyed a break from having to be on the go. But man, ever since we came back from vacation, the craziness has been growing.  I know the boys were getting bored, and therefore restless – plus, the weather this summer has sucked!  We ended up spending a LOT of inside time, and even I (100% a rain lover and hater of the heat) missed the sun this year!  So, needless to say, the second half of August had me counting down the days till we could get back to “normal.”  I’ve always been a bit of a free-spirit when it comes to how I spend my time, but over the past 5 years I’ve really had to buckle down into a routine – otherwise my house, and my sanity suffered. And these past few weeks my sanity may have taken a bit of a beating – So yesterday, the first day of school was really something to celebrate! (too bad I was too busy getting everything ready to go to actually enjoy it!!)

 

Anyway, here we are and guess who is a middle-schooler now:

My little man, is not so little anymore – apparently he has decided to continue getting older – and although he is certainly the best 6th grader in the universe, I am finding it a bit hard to wrap my mind around this next step of life! 

 

Up until now, I’ve really excited right along with the boys as they get older and I mean, it is amazing to see them grow and change and become the person they were meant to be.  Gareth especially has always been so capable – I know he is totally 100% ready for this next chapter.  But goodness, mom can’t help but feeling a bit of anxiety!! MIDDLE SCHOOL!! What a crazy, chaotic and totally defining time in life!  Gareth was so happy to get on that new bus yesterday morning, absolutely zero nerves, and he had an awesome day, but I would be lying if I said my stomach wasn’t tied in a few knots! I know I will certainly get used to it, and I am SO proud of the kid that I am sending out the door each morning! It is exciting… really… now I’ve just gotta let it sink in.

 

Here he is with the littlest bro – who was adamant about being in every picture:

 

Can’t you totally tell how excited he is???  He was totally cute and on the ball ready to go by 7am, and he walked to the bus with so much confidence.  I love Gareth for his solid, prepared self – he has this quiet self-assuredness that always puts my mind at ease, and yesterday morning was no exception. 

 

The other two boys go to school later than Gareth now – so they didn’t have to get out the door until later.  Here they are, all ready for 2nd and 3rd grade (No idea what T is doing with the whole tongue thing here. We all have come to accept that Tennyson is often doing something in his own little world!):

 

 

I loved seeing what they each picked out to wear on the first day, we haven’t gone formally “back to school” clothes shopping because I like to wait for labor day, but i did let them each pick one item out to wear for the first day.  Owen went with a classic striped polo (I love wearing stripes mom, the are just so me.)  Reece, never to be subtle, was completely uninspired by all the shirt choices, but he WAS beyond excited when we saw this hat!  Gotta love their little personalities shining through!!!  I’m really proud of the way my kids are all so uniquely them – it’s a good way to go through life I think.  They were both totally happy to be going back, probably they needed a break from me as much as I did from them LOL!!

 

I asked each boy to give me a photo that said how they feel about going back to school:

 

Gareth’s excitement.

Owen, not really a morning person, decided to go for tired (but he was really excited, you can tell).

 

 

Reecey was rather reserved, I think he was actually a bit nervous, but he assured me he was excited too!

 

Then there is our poor Tennyson:

 

He was sad to see everyone go – but he got over it quickly with some Sesame Street, followed by bringing out his toy drum and yelling, "it’s drumming time! Now you have to sing with me!”  After that I think he decided everything was going to be ok.

 

Aside from my middle-school nerves, it was ok, and it felt really indulgent to be able to sit down and design for while with out even one brother fight errupting! And although this week has been crazy stressful, I know it is all going to pay off when we get our routine back.  Now its day two, and I can sit down with my cup of coffee – and all is once again as it should be.

Well, this post is sure to be a doozy, but these past few weeks have been a doozy so it can’t be helped!!

 

The Clingerman family has spent the last 14 days on the on the open road, really, we all loaded up all the boys, back packs filled with various supplies and hit the road from here in Washington all the way to see g’s family in Pennsylvania!

 

On the way there we took only 3 1/2 days to get there – it is a 2700 mile trip so we had to push through pretty much driving non stop! One night we found a late night hotel room but the other two we drove through the night.  You wouldn’t believe how great the kids were for us, two nights of sleeping in the car would make anyone grumpy and I can’t say no one got growly but those kids hung in there and didn’t completely lose it on us!

 

Here we are day 1 all ready to roll:

We tried to be ready with loads of supplies to occupy their bored little brains. Each of them had a backpack loaded up with things to do – sketchbooks, notebooks, crayons, markers, pipe cleaners, post its, pretty much everything.  I also put together little books with maps for each state we were in and the route we would take – turns out this idea was much cooler to me than it was to the kids, but I used it a ton so it wasn’t all for naught!  The kids each had electronics too, gameboys/ds plus a zune for each of them that dad had loaded up with pokeymon videos to watch!  All of this + 800 million potty stops a day seemed to fill their time pretty well!

 

Here the kids are at day 2 (a rest stop somewhere in Utah I think):

the night of day 2 we stopped for a late night rest at a hotel in somewhere in Nebraska, so here we are to start day three (yay for fresh clothes and clean teeth!):

That night we drove all the way through the night and we rolled into our hotel in Pennsylvania the next afternoon.

 

Once we got there, we had loads of visiting to do!  G’s little sister was getting married that weekend, so there were loads of wedding-ish things to go to.  In addition to that, it G’s has a huge and warm family to visit.  It has been 7 years since we’ve been able to make the visit, and the kids had 3 new cousins to meet!

 

Cousin Derek (he’s 5):

and 2 year old twin cousins: Kayla and Mason

 

YES, these children all belong to the same parents, G’s sister and her husband are saints, what a challenge it is I’m sure to have TWO 2 year olds and a preschooler. They are amazing parents, and wonderful kids!

 

We squeezed as much cousin-bonding time as we could:

There was even an impromptu cousin-concert put on for the parents:

 

Tried to get a pic of them all together, this is the best we could do!

We also spent an afternoon visiting g’s grandmother (aka “mom-mom”) and his dad’s side of the family- the whole family lives in the same little farm town so Sundays at mom-mom’s is a long-standing family tradition.  G’s grandmother is getting older, so the fact that we got to spend some time with her was pretty meaningful to him:

Every time I get the chance to spend time with g’s family I’m reminded of what wonderful down to earth and fun people he comes from, this visit was no exception when g’s grown brother pulled out the water balloons and squirt guns! Grown siblings, cousins, uncles and the kids alike all got involved in a massive family water fight!

The kids seriously had SO much fun!  G’s cousins were so great with them too, running, tickling, joking, wrestling – the kids all really enjoyed their time with this fun, big family:

The main event of course was the wedding, here are the boys with Aunt Becky at the rehearsal dinner (bummed that it ended up being blurry!):

And my boys all adorable and dressed for the dinner:

 

G’s sister had not one, but THREE children that were part of the ceremony plus she was a brides’ maid, she did awesome juggling all the little ones that weekend and deserves a spa trip right about now!

 

Wedding day everyone looked adorable! I’m so proud of my boys who actually took an active interest in shopping for fancy outfits – each of them picked out something that really fit their personalities I think.

Funny story, Reecey picked out those black pants and that white shirt and REALLY didn’t approve of the choice, he basically had to BEG me to let him try it on, when he walked out of the dressing room though, I couldn’t deny it, he looked so snazzy!!

Just further evidence of the fact that my Reece has more style than I ever will!

Some more shots:

here they are with groomsmen daddy:

 

  

I’m not gonna lie, having four squirmy boys dressed up and required to sit still in the first pew of a wedding was not exactly a stress free time, these photos are adorable but they didn’t come with out their cost!! G’s relatives all sitting behind us at the ceremony can certainly vouch for me that there was a certain level of chaos going on for us while we waited for it to start – here is a more “real” photo of how my children felt about me by the time we were about to start:

and I guess we should add, here’s one of how mom was feeling:

Add to that, this was an outdoor wedding, and apparently we brought a bit of the great northwest with us when it started to RAIN on everyone while we waited!

 

All in all though, it was a beautiful day with beautiful memories and Becky looked beautiful and the venue she chose (a boy scout camp) was one of the most beautiful wedding spots I’ve ever seen!

I was too busy keeping the hooligans inline to take any more pictures, but thank goodness Tennyson had mercy on me and fell asleep on my lap! I do love this classic rainy wedding shot from a few minutes after the ceremony:

 

A few days after the wedding, we had the chance to go visit g’s parents house, the farm he grew up on.  This was probably one of the biggest highlights for the kids, they were SO excited to go see a real life farm, and it did not disappoint with bales of hay, farm equipment, and wide open fields to wander!

Pappy showed the boys around:

 

They also got to ride in Pappy’s big rig AND took a ride to the end of the drive way in the back of his pickup – pretty much the everything a boy could want!

 

…besides catching bugs…

 

oh wait, they got to do that too!

G also brought the boys by his old elementary school, still the school the kids in Clearville go to today:

and here is a shot with a view from the school, it totally feels like a perfect “Pennsylvania” photo to me, totally captures the rolling hills and the trees, and that quintessential PA small town feel.

After 5 short days it was time to head back towards home again – we tried to work out our timeline so that we could take a different route and make a few fun stops on the way home.

 

The boys were sad to go, and made us promise that we would visit more often! We really do hope to be able to!!  At least we had some exciting things planned on the way home so that they could be a little enthusiastic about loading back up to go.

 

Here we all ready to roll:

Our first stop on the way home was the Mall of America in Minnesota – g and I are total mall lovers and so this stop seemed like a given!  It was in fact as wonderful as we’d imagined – the lego store being the obvious favorite:

How cool is this?

and THIS:

The boys were very impressed too by the amusement park that is in the mall itself:

We didn’t ride though, we were saving up our adventure planned at a later stop on the way home!

 

Our second stop on the route home was Mt. Rushmore! I’ve seen a lot of places in the US, but this monument is one I had yet to see.  It really was incredible, and astonishing to me that someone had the vision to create this HUGE work of art in the side of a mountain.

South Dakota really impressed me as  a whole, I just had no idea that it was such a beautiful state! South Dakota and Montana both really took my breath away! I remember seeing the Rockies years ago when I drove across the country through Colorado with my dad – I was sure I’d never see anything so amazing.  But Montana definitely held its own when it came to the seeing the mountains, that whole state was just gorgeous, a terrain I’d never really experienced before. It felt like we were miles above the rest of the world. The drive home was an amazing drive!

 

Our final stop on the way back home was in Idaho. We took two days to enjoy some family time at a place called Silverwood theme park. It is a theme park and a water park in the same place, and we had no idea what to expect, but it totally exceeded any of our expectations!  I have zero pictures of our time at Silverwood so you’ll just have to imagine the boys helping me reach my goal of riding every roller coaster – all of us spinning around on the tilt-a-whirl;  Cotton candy, waffle cones, log rides and magic shows.  Imagine each of us floating along for hours on our own inner tubes through the “lazy river.” Frankly I was just having too much fun to be taking pictures! Plus, hauling a big camera around didn’t really fit into my agenda of spinning, speeding, swimming and running around!  It was an amazingly fun time, and it is just a really great feeling to be able to do something like that with my kids!

 

After one last night in idaho we started the 8 hour trek home, and yesterday afternoon we rolled in to our driveway again.  G and Gareth both were so happy to be back home where things were as they should be, and Owen and Tennyson posed for this picture for me:

I think all of us are enjoying our own beds, clean clothes and getting to be back with our doggie guster.  But I’m not gonna lie, it was GREAT to get away and I’m a little sad we are back to the grindstone of everyday life.  After we got here Reece stayed in his seat in the car for like 15 minutes – he said his brain wasn’t ready to tell his body we were here! I know how you feel my little adventuresome son, I know how you feel.

 

In the end, it is practically a miracle that we made it there and back with out a hitch! Everyone is in one piece, the house is still standing, and I officially have a new love for my mini van that ticked over to the 99000 mark as we were getting home.  I love that we did this because it marks a whole new level of freedom and possibility for my family (and for me!) – and if I have anything to say about it we will definitely be setting out into the sunset some time again.

I know I’ve been quiet, but I’ve just been busy!  Not the usual type of busy though, I haven’t been working a lot or chasing my tail with the house and the scheduling and all that craziness.  I’ve been busy in a different way – I’ve been hanging out with the family, going to MOMS Club – I’ve been spending more time at the gym, doing a lot of running and walking, I’ve even been been painting my nails!  So I guess you can say that instead of the usual grind I’ve sort of taken on the full time job of just being me.  It’s a nice feeling and not something that I have ever really been able to embrace, so I’m just holding on to that for as long as I can!

 

Ofcourse, I can’t actually survive any amount of time with out some sort of a creative outlet!  Part of being me is making stuff, that’s just one of my perks (or should I say quirks? It depends on the day LOL).  This past month is no different, although I’ve been creating in a different way.  I have definitely been getting a taste for making actual tangible crafts, although I’m not ever going to abandon my love for digi, it has been super fun to just start filling my house a bit with some shawna-style – I’ve made a lot of things I’m really pretty proud of, but today I’m just going to show you my new love.

 

Meet my new best friend:

This beauty I got at a garage sale in mid June – I’ve always dreamed of having a sewing machine and learning the ropes so when I saw this in its box and only gently used for $50 I really had no choice but to get it! (and actually I ended up getting it for $40!)

 

Then home I came to google and read and then just dive in head first into a whole new dimension of crafting. Oh my goodness, is this a whole new world!  I feel like I’ve discovered America or something over here – the possibilities are endless!!

 

Because I’m cheap, my first project had to consist of fabric I already had laying around the house – and I found the perfect candidate – Reece’s old baby blankets that had been packed away in a closet and that the kid still talks about!  We took them away because it was an issue the whole baby blanket thing, and he needed a nudge toward being a big kid, so when I saw them sitting up there I knew exactly what to do!!

 

I very boldly and maybe a bit impulsively cut it up and started sewing – it’s a simple concept so just diving in with out a pattern or directions was totally doable!  I can’t even tell you too how much Reece loves it!

 

 

I’m cheap, so although I was already addicted, I didn’t want to go buy actual fabric yet! It is spendy! And I’m just starting so the idea of spending loads of $ on this just didn’t seem like a practical thing to do, so inorder to save all the soft goods in my home from getting snipped up and turned into pillows – instead I drove over to the goodwill outlet and for $1.25 a pound I picked up a whole cartload of pretty things to chop up!

 

Even when I do get “serious” and start making super nice things I may stick with the whole upcycling old clothes/sheets/etc because it is I get an extra thrill from making something new out of something old!

 

Speaking of upcycling – I found a zillion sites that mentioned this cool concept of making bags out of old t-shirts, it was another great first project because t-shirts are easy to find and the design is really simple!  Here is a tutorial that helped me just to give you an idea of how I did it.

Each of the older boys have one now, and they have been loving them!  I tried two different ways of doing it and I’m really still not even sure which one I like more:

 

Bottom stitched sidways or the Bottom stitched with the shirt laying flat:

 

Such a fun and addicting project, I just cut out the sleeves (leaving that seam to add some durability) and then cut out the top part by doing a deep u around the collar.  The bottoms I turned up and sewed a few times for more reinforcement.  The boys have been using them for swimming lessons and they’ve been just perfect!  I made these ones out of extra large shirts and that might be something I change next time just because these are HUGE and super wide, a few more narrow ones might be nice too.  Seriously SO easy and so fun because you can whip these puppies up in no time flat!

 

The next project I took on is using a big sheet to sew some pillows for the living room! I’ve been wanting to add some pops of red in the livingroom and I’ve been eyeing red throw pillows but man are they pricey!  These ones only cost me a few dollars tops and they turned out exactly how I envisioned them!

 

I made the ruffle one first, man was that fun to make, I love those ruffles!!  My boys aren’t going to know what hit them when I start adding ruffles to everything in site!!  Then some rolled flowers, and I made three plain ones to toss here and there too! I somewhat winged it on these but not with out loads of help, here is a great ruffle tutorial and here is the basic design I used on the simple ones.

 

As I was making my pretty pillows I got a lot of use out of my ironing board – but dude, that thing had an ugly cover!!  It also didn’t stay in place very well!  Come on now, who’s idea was it anyway to put those dumb strings in ironing pads instead of a good strong strip of elastic?!

 

I had picked up a sheet at goodwill that I absolutely adored but that I had not figured out what to use it for, so I traced my old ucky cover, then added an inch or so and sewed the edges with room for the elastic. After that all I had to do is thread the elastic and sew the ends. Presto – simple yet wonderful new ironing board! Yay!

 

 

See why I fell inlove with that sheet!?

 

After that project I scoured the web for my next idea, and when I saw one of these it was so obvious! My camera needed a strap cover!

 

This is a super simple pattern that I basically did on my own, cut two strips, put faces together, sew the edges and then turn that puppy right side out and squeeze it onto my current strap! I went ahead and sewed it onto the strap at each edge to keep it in place – When it was done, I decided it needed one finishing touch – so it got a pretty bow (tied around the strap and then hand stitched securely to keep it tied and in place!

 

This picture does not do it justice since I had to use my phone seeing as the strap is actually on my camera, but this is what it looks like now:

 

I took a close up with my camera too so you can see how pretty this fabric actually is! (one goodwill fabric remnant and then a pretty shirt that had seen better days!)

 

 

Yay! I’m so loving this whole sewing thing!  I think one of the best parts too is that these projects are actually a way that I can make some stuff just for ME – I’ve never really put a lot of time into those sorts of crafts and my little self is enjoying being spoiled!

 

I’ll have to come back and share the other things I’ve been up to but as for now I’m having withdrawal and I need to get back to sewing asap!!

 

Thanks for letting me show off a little over here!