Handspun Shorties

I got my spinning wheel for Christmas.... I LOVE it!   One of my major goals was to be able to spin yarn to make shorties and longies for Ruby.   This is the first pair....and I love them!

Sunshine Shorties!

I'm working on diaper covers for summer for our little girl.  

 

We cloth diaper and I like to use wool covers because they are the most breathable and coolest option.   She gets terrible rashes if she wears disposable diapers when it's hot outside...and even if she's wearing some polyester types of cloth diapers.   

She seems to do best with the simplest cotton diapers, and wool covers. 

  

The wool gets washed with lanolin (from sheeps wool naturally, but can be removed during processing...).  Lanolin makes the wool sort of waterproof, and it's also self cleaning.  

There is a long chemical explanation for this, but I'll just give the very simple one.  Urea from baby pee, mixes with lanolin to form a type of soap.  Remember fight club...  lye + fat = soap... well... lanolin + pee = soap :)     and..they're waterproof-ish

 This style is available for custom order.  They can also be made without the ruffle at the legs, and can be longer (pants instead of shorts) style.

This is the large size... on a 11 month old girl..  very tall, very thin... They're quite baggy and are fitting over our bulkiest prefold diapers.  The fit is nice this way in my opinion...they'll fit her for a long time.

I'm so pleased with this pair...I love them, I really love them!

Toy Bags!

I wanted some simple toy bags, to keep things from being ALL OVER EVERYWHERE!

found this cute fabric in my stash...I've had it forever....I can't remember if it was my moms...or if it was given to me by someone else.  I had some pink stuff too that I made PJ pants out of years ago (we're talking 10 years ago!)

I didn't even pull out the iron.... I just cut...  yep..that's right...I just cut right on the wrinkle folds...I'm risky like that

This first one I folded over and hemmed (but still in a lazy way)...the others I just ran a zig zag around really quickly... much better.   Folded over about an inch at each end and stitched it down.. I didn't measure...  :)

Here is the first one... semi-hemmed and with the 1-inch folded at stitched at each end.

Right sides together....stitched the sides closed.... NOT stitching through the folded over casing at the top

Turned right side out....still not ironing....these are quick quick nap time sewing...

Found some elastic in that box too...score....threaded it on my yarn needle and ran it through the casing at the top of the bag....

Just tied it in a knot....   these bags stay sort of open...but drawn in enough to keep things from falling out too much.  I wanted little 11-month old hands to be able to get things out :)

All done....time to organize!

  

Perfect... a place for all those little people!

Super Simple Tea Towel Lunch Bag!

Our little Miss needed a bag to take her snacks in to church nursery on Sunday...and I realized that I'd left some leaky stuff in hers :(  oops... So..  I quickly whipped up this new one from my favourite (but a little stained) tea towel!

 It really IS super super simple!  All I did was fold it in half, and stitch up the sides, as if you were making a flat bag.   Then I made little box corner, like a flat bottom paper bag.

 The whole thing was super flopsy!  So I just stitched up each of the corners, there are no seams there...I just did it to add some structure, so it would keep it's shape.

 Then I used my very loved snap pliers, and applied some plastic snaps to the top...so it's a snap close lunch bag.

 Worked perfectly!!!   and...bonus...  it's a really thick and absorbant tea towel...so if there is a bit of a spill, it will likely soak it up...plus...it will be a little insulating, because of the thickness. 

 Now I just wish that the shamrock picture wasn't upside down...but the whole bag is a little too short to make that a fold over.  Oh well. 

Made this one have a fairly square bottom... for low wide food containers and such... I don't like having to put containers on their sides, so I usually like a big base on lunch bags.

This would work best with a long thin towel, that way there would be more of a fold over top..and a little more of a traditional lunch bag shape, but this one is working just great for us.  :)

Fun in the sun!

But with proper sun protection!  :)  and a fabulous hat!

Seriously...sometimes I still can't get over how cute she is!  :)

Just sold

I just made a sale for this card!   My listing was of the second photo, and I got a message asking for some ribbon, and maybe a bow tie to be added.  The first photo is what it ended up like.  I love the additions!  Especially the top hat.   It was great to have some feedback and be able to give someone just what they wanted.   I'm so happy about this sale!  The final photo is kindof blurry because I had to use no flash, it a dark room (rainy)  but it was the best one.   Cute right?

Saweeeet!

Woot!  Down 8.6lbs in 4 weeks....   finally!  I should feel like myself again around the end of summer!  yay!   This is so exciting to me!   I can't wait to feel like I put clothes on and wear them....rather than put clothes on and tug and pull and try to figure out how to cover up all the "stuff" that I don't like...

I'm feeling SO encouraged by this....and it's been so so easy!  I honestly can't believe how easy this plan is...I don't know why I was always so resistant to weight watchers....I've done some pretty tough diets... and this one..is just the easiest thing ever!

Weigh in day...

Weigh in day was Saturday....I was sadly disappointed at only 0.4lbs lost.....but... my body was tricking me.... I hopped on the scale on Sunday morning too (I couldn't wait a whole week!!!)  and I'd lost 2 lbs from the day before!.... silly fluctuations! I'm going with Sunday's weight!

Woo hoo....  7 lbs down now!

Sunday's Comin'

Sunday's Comin'

Weigh in Day!

Wooot!   I've lost 4.6 pounds in a week and a half!  

Having lost and gained and lost and gained the same few pounds since 2 weeks after Ruby was born it feels AMAZING to have broken that glass...well...I guess it's a glass floor now isn't it.   Yay! 

It's all about MDS these days...

The scrapbook...is coming along!

Oh My Oh My Dinosaurs!

Rebel YELL!

I am in LOVE with this program....

 

I'm trying to make a years worth of scrapbook pages...as quickly as possible!  I'm so far behind!

Rebel YELL!

I want to cry

I don't want to go back to work... ever...   I wouldn't mind a day here and there of Ruby in daycare...so I could get things done...but... I just don't want to go to work...I want her here with me.... and I don't want to go back to work!!!

As much as I feel like I'm constantly failing and falling short at this raising baby thing.... I want to be the one raising our baby.... I want us, her mom and dad to be the biggest influence in her life....

Oh man, Oh man, I so don't want to go back to work...   I'm so so sad about this today.

Starting now! ...well...actually yesterday...or...errr...the day before actually

So, on Tuesday (our 5th anniversary) I was done...just done being overweight.   I've thought I was done a few times since Ruby's birth, but I wasn't really there yet.  Now, I'm really there.  It's time to get back to me.   So, we thought it was time to actually sign up for a real weight loss program.  I've never done that before, seemed silly to me when you can just do it yourself.  Well, we went for a consult...and it was going to be around $1000 a month for the two of us...and we'd have to commit for a year...  and go there every day for the first two weeks, then at least 3 times a week after that for a year!  Ummm...what?!?!?  OK...so clearly we picked the wrong place!

I came home and signed up for the online Weight Watchers....  this is reasonable... it's about $20 a month.  I don't have to find transportation, no stupid expensive supplements that I don't need.

So, I started on Wednesday...  just tracking food, not worrying too much about going over, but logging all.  We went out for our anniversary dinner (the day after our real anniversary) and ate a crazy amount of delicious seafood...oh...so good!  So, that pretty much used up all my weekly points...ha!  but... I didn't actually go over!  I just have to be careful to stay to my daily points for the rest of the week....and....I can always do more exercise to get a few points.   We went for a nice hour long walk yesterday and I earned 4 points.  

Today was great.  I ate good food, healthy food, and a treat.  I feel satisfied, and I have 2 points left.   I think I can do this... I really really hope I can do this.

I added a ticker to my side bar for accountability.  It doesn't have my weight, just my weight lost....  My big goal is to lose 31 pounds.....  my long term goal is 51 pounds....but that's just too much to think about right now, and, we might want to have another baby before I can get that far!

A baby album in the making....

I made a scrapbook page for Ruby's non existent baby album during nap time today... (I did NOT do the dishes..oops) 

I got MDS!

I've been thinking about digital scrapbooking for awhile...mostly because what keeps me from getting pages done is actually getting the photos printed...figuring out ahead of time how to crop them....  which ones to enlarge, which sizes...and then... what if I change my mind.

So, a Stampin Up! demonstrator who's blog I'd been reading for ages had a great promo for the My Digital Studio program...and that made me take the leap.

I have so much to learn.  Some things are easier than I expected...some things are harder (I imagine I just need to learn how to use the program).

Here's my first try:

I actually bought this scrapbooking kit (the paper kind) when I was pregnant, so that I could make an album for my little Pickle... I'm only 10 months behind!  Imagine my delight when this is one of the paper sets that comes already installed with the software.  SCORE!

I used a layout from my book "Cherish" from Close to My Heart.   I love to use those books to help me with layouts...I'm NOT a natural with scrapbook layouts.

A place for craftiness

I often think about posting my crafty things, like sewing, knitting, spinning, cards or scrapbook pages, like I used to on my other blog.  But since it is really all about the baby now.... it seems weird to stuff a picture of yarn or a card in between all the baby pictures.  So, now all my craftiness has it's own place.  The blog name is the same as my Etsy shop name...  some things on this blog will be listed in my shop, or available for custom order, while others will just be my own personal crafty business, but, now it all has it's place.