Rainy Day Crafting

One of the little projects on my list of things to do during Spring Break, at the request of the kids, was to make marble bags (for their marbles of course). Monday it rained constantly all day long, the kids watched way too much TV during the morning hours while I designed posters for our upcoming Stake HFPE Women's Conference to mail out this week - I'm very pleased with out nicely they out! And even more pleased that they didn't take nearly as much time as last years posters! - and by early afternoon while Alex was down for a nap, the kids were ready to be engaged in something! And so we turned to the marble bag project.

For Christmas my brother Joe and Katy got Rebecca a small embroidery kit which she has showed a lot of interest in. And thanks to Heather, I've started to feel more comfortable with it myself. Given Becca's interest in embroidery, and Emily's detailed approach to art, and Sam's willingness to do try just about anything so he isn't left out, I asked if they would like to embroider a little design on their bags before I sewed them up. They each choose their designs and crowded around the dinning room table, we all set to work stitching them. Sam, a Rocket; Emily, a butterfly; and Rebecca, a cat; Alex, a turtle.



I am extremely proud of the kids, 'cause this was not as easy for them as I had first thought. It's been a definite exercise in patience for the girls and me. We had to take out lots and lots and lots of stitches, over and over again, working towards learning the correct way to do a stem stitch. But they have stuck with it and have done a beautiful job! Monday night I went out in search of small embroidery hoops and came home with three 4" hoops which have been very helpful!

By Tuesday night, both Rebecca and Emily were done with their outlines and were ready to start the embellishment portion of their designs. Sam didn't quite have the hand-eye dexterity to do all the stitches himself, he knew where the needle was to go, but getting it there, was really hard. So we found team work to be the best for his rocket. He choose all the colors and worked the needle for me.

I'm not ready to reveal the girls yet, since they are still working on theirs, but today while the kids spent all day with Grandma and Grandpa, and I spent all day sewing, not getting as much accomplished as I'd hoped. But I did sew up the boys bags. For as simple as they are, they took much longer than they should have to sew together, and I'm hoping the girls won't take quite as long now that I know what I'm doing. But I am pleased with the results and am toying with the idea - if I can improve the process - of trying to sell a few at an upcoming Etsy Trunk Show I'll be vending at in early April. It seems only fitting that I listened to a good portion of Cheaper by the Dozen today while sewing... I'm sure Mr. Gilbreth would have plenty of suggestions.



Tomorrow we are taking a little family overnight trip to Exploration Place. We have a great family friendly hotel with an indoor swimming pool that the kids are excited to swim in Friday night, and then we'll go explore Exploration Place Saturday. Hopefully it won't be swamped given that it's Easter weekend and Spring Break. The kids are excited about a road trip, staying in a hotel and getting to see different things, and GR and I are very excited for a little family vacation that'll be educational too.

How cute are these!

For all those looking for a girlfriend craft ... I found these linked from another blog on Etsy ... ahh! I love them. Not cheesy country cute, just cute with a great bit of funk added in. I would probably take off the ribbons, or use much wider ribbon simply tied in a knot and cut short, or make equally fun paper leaves ... hummm ... I will probably never make them, but it's so fun to dream isn't it.

Sidenote: it's amazing how after four years of work with the women on the stake level and not in the trenches doing it on the ward level, I'm constantly seeing projects that would "make a great Super Saturday Craft" ...

A Wee Bit of Green on St. Patty's

We are having constant rain today for our first day of Spring Break... so much for all my wonderful plans for spending the day outside enjoying a healthy dose of fresh air and space to run.

GR and I spent the weekend preparing a special St. Patty's mailing. I did this on a much, much smaller scale last year and since we only seem to be able to pull together a Christmas card every couple of years, we're expanding the project this year ... Thanks to a printing debacle that I'm still fuming about, all 90 envelopes will hit the outgoing mail box today. So until then, here's a little sneak peek of what's to come ...