Snowman Jars

Some exciting news...Sissy has some snowmen on Etsy that she made and the website Fave Crafts found them and asked us if they could post them. Here is the link. I think she did a wonderful job.

Jesus, Bring the Rain by Mercy Me

I may have a lot of things that I need to work on in my life and not be the best wife, mom, friend, daughter or sister...but thank you God that you forgive me and are here to help me. My family is going through a tough time right now. This song captures what I know needs to be for now. God has a purpose for each and every one of us and we can't get there without going through trials. He loves all of us and wants none of us to be separated from Him...that means in my understanding...HE DOESN'T WANT ANYONE TO LIVE SEPARATE FROM HIM FOR ETERNITY...HE DOESN'T WANT ANYONE TO GO TO HELL FOR ETERNITY...(just read the book, "Twenty-Three Minutes in Hell"by Bill Wiese, it really isn't a picnic! Being torn from limb to limb only to be put back together again and repeated...that is just only one of the horrors... And we don't have to go there because Jesus did it for us. God, I thank you that you have come into my life because I asked you to, that Jesus lives in my heart and that you have forgiven me of my sins because I asked you to. Thank you for being the Lord of my life because I choose to make you the Lord of my life. Thank you for this time of rain and help me to get stronger in You everyday because of it! There are people out there that didn't know me when I was in High School or College and was living more of a Christian life...I fell off the bandwagon big time and it took a long time for me to get back on. For those of you that I was "living it up with" and wondering what happened to me and why have you changed so much? This is the reason...this life is not about me. It is about living out the purpose God has given me. He has entrusted children and people that I come in contact with everyday, to live a life of purpose. Am I going to live perfectly? No. Am I going to mess up? Yes. Are you going to like these changes in me? Obviously not. Will I still love you? Yes. God says that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord (my version of Phillipians 2:9-11) . We all will have to give an account to Him when we stand before Him and He looks to see if we are in His Book of Life...I choose to do it before it is too late! (There is my soapbox for now.) I love you!
(if you click on the song title...you can hear it. It is a really awesome song!)

JESUS BRING THE RAIN, BY MERCY ME

I can count a million times
People asking me how I
Can praise You with all that
I've gone through
The question just amazes me
Can circumstances possibly
Change who I forever am in You

Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It's never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you, oh Lord
My only shelter from the storm
But instead I draw closer through these times
So I pray

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings
You glory And I know there'll
be days When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to
praise You Jesus, bring the rain

I am yours regardless of the clouds that may
loom above because you are much greater than
my pain you who made a way for me suffering
your destiny so tell me whats a little rain

[1st Chorus]

Holy, holy, holy
Holy, holy, holy
is the lord God almighty
is the lord God almighty
I'm forever singing

[2nd Chorus 2x]

everybody singing
Holy holy holy
you are holy
you are holy

[2nd Chorus 2x]

How to Make a Tshirt Rug

I had seen a really neat t-shirt rug in the store and thought that I could figure out how to make one. (So you have probably noticed that I am having underlining issues again. Oh, well.) So here is my version of a totally green t-shirt rug. I used old t-shirts, plastic bags - yep- you will see how in a minute and a non-slip matt.





I used strips that were about 5" x 1" and found out after I cut them and attached them to the matt that I evidently cut them the wrong way. If you want to get the stretch and rolled look, I believe you have to cut them with the longest horizontally. Sorry I didn't write it down. I am using my pictures to remember how I accomplished this project. Alot of my crafting is just "winging it".


Here is where the plastic bags com in to play. I made the famous plastic bag yarn and crocheted a base for my t-shirt strips to be tied to. I chained for about 25 inches with a "K" hook and double crocheted the rows until it measured about 15 inches. To tie the strips onto the base I used my crochet hook to pull the strip around a post (sorry forgot to get a picture of that) and then pulled both ends up and tied them in a double knot. You can also do this like you would a latch hook. Which ever you prefer.
Here is the almost finished version. The last thing I did was to sew a piece of non-slip shelf matt to the bottom of the rug with embroidery thread and a whipstitch. It feels nice and soft when you get out of the shower!

Can you see what is missing in this picture? There it is on the bottom row of teeth...a cute little space from where he lost his first tooth. He didn't want to take a picture but I convinced him we would want one later.

Busy Day

We had a lot of fun yesterday. We:

1. Went Little Man's best friend's soccer game
2. Went to the Library
3. Eat lunch with Grandma
4. Went to the neighbors to see the mole they captured
5. Went to the Plaza Art Fair
6. Stopped by the grocery store
7. Stopped by my sisters
8. Finally made it home to hit the hay

And to top it all off...we were featured on OnePrettyThing.com yesterday! Ciara's doll bed is featured on there! YAY! Pretty eventful day. Lots and lots of fun. We also detoured from the artist's booths to see the Zoom Store. It is fabulous. Fun for kids (of all ages). Sissy wants to go back there today and get the little aquarium of with the two tiny frogs in it. Seems since I don't want to take care of a dog, she thinks we might be able to handle some fish or frogs. (Walking a dog at all hours and weather along with scooping poo just doesn't appeal to her either.)

The job search is over. I found a great job thanks to a friend from church. I will get to work part-time to start and be able to get the kids off to school and home from school. God does work in wonderful ways and in His timing. Just have to remember that it is all about His timing and what He has in store for us.

So things will be a little different around here for a while until I get used to being out in the "working away from home world" but change is good. It's how you act or react to at that is what is important. So on this last day home during the week how am I going to celebrate? Laundry...lots and lots of laundry. So hope you all have a wonderful day and weekend with your loved ones.

Make Your Own Doll Bed

Here is the doll bed we made today. Believe it or not it is made from all recycled materials.


We started out with a cereal box, an old telephone book and some packing tape.

Start out by taping one end of the box. We left the flaps open and taped it so that the tape was our end of the box to hold the crumpled up paper in.

We stacked the boxes so that the the bed would have some extra support. This bottom box will work as a drawer for storing the doll clothes in.

We used some old plastic tent poles from a toy tent that broke. (You never know when broken pieces might come in handy for a project.) We used a lot of packing tape to hold things in place.

We used glue sticks to help hold down the scrap paper to cover the images on the cereal box. Then we covered it with white school glue to add our tissue paper on the surface. This will give the bed a fun look when it doesn't have the handmade sheet on it. This will also help it to wear better with all of the use it is going to get.
Here we are using a glue stick to cover the bottom support drawer with tissue paper. Helps to save this from those pretty presents you get. The crumples don't matter now do they?

We used hot glue to hold the poles together and then tied them off with ribbon for extra support.

We used a piece of scrap fabric to make a special sheet for the bed.
We sewed the hems and used fray check on the edges that will be by the poles.

It's coming along nicely. Here are the beads we used to jazz it up. We used hot glue to attach the beads to another bead around the pole so that they can slide along the pole.

Here are the cut pieces of material for the canopy. These used to be a curtain.

Since I am trying to show that this can be made out of things we already have. I improvised and made do with the scrap batting I had to make it work for the doll quilt. I zigzag stitched the pieces together so it would be large enough. (Normally, I would not do this but since it is a small size, this will work.)

Here is the quilt sandwich with right sides pinned together. We are ready to sew up the the quilt leaving one short end open. Oh, I did pin the batting on to the wrong side of the quilt (from the right side) so that when the quilt is turned, it will be laying inside nicely.

Clipping the corner so that the corners will turn nicely. Yes, I mark my scissors so they don't get picked up by hands that don't know these are not to be used on paper!
The quilt has been turned and pinned and now the open end is being stitched shut with a topstitch. I topstitched the rest of the quilt.

Here is the finished doll quilt. I did a free form stitch between the decorative embroidery to add hold the batting in place. I added some embellishments on the bottom to help hold the batting. I had some cute little flower buttons and a little button that says princess.

Here is the finish product with a happy little girl. I think it turned out pretty nice. Hard to believe it is made out of a cereal box.

Quick Sketches

I am trying my hand at drawing faces again for the first time in about 12 years. Overall I am fairly pleased with how they turned out considering I only spent about half on hour on each of them. Curious to see how they look when I work on them some more. (Oh, yeah...finally found the camera and forgot to update the date on it again. )

KaLeiDoSCopE

Ok, so I am having some technical difficulties today. Can't quite figure out why everything is being underlined. Pictures are not wanting to upload and I am going through caffeine withdrawl. All good things to have happen on a Monday! Well, even with these problems, I hope you enjoy our pics from our trip to Kaleidoscope. We had a lot of fun.

Nephew 2...(now the underlining comes off, better late than never) coloring with melted crayons in the blacklight room. They get to make eyeglasses.

Too bad my camera didn't cooperate and let you get the full effect of the blacklight.
Nephew 1 making a puzzle of Spongebob. Great artist don't you think?
Little man trying his hand a designing a puzzle.
Sissy says that we went to France in her puzzle.

Making some stationery.




Just a really cool painting on the wall in Kaleidoscope. It is a really fun place to go and it is FREE!

3 Tabors: Mickey Mouse sings the Dukes

I just had to repost this. It is still one of my favorite moments. If you haven't seen the kids singing their version of the Dukes of Hazzard theme song, it's pretty cute.

3 Tabors: Mickey Mouse sings the Dukes

Kids Are Funny

Ok, so I haven't dusted the the tv in the bedroom for quite a while..."someone" with an A in their name just pointed it out. Hmmmm wonder who that could be? He told me, "Mom, look there's an A on the tv." He tried to tell me it could have been someone who's name ends in A that wrote it. Or get this...he said it could have been the Lorax.

I was going to add some new pictures today but unfortunately I can't find my camera. Why is it that when one tries to get organized and catch up on projects, it usually turns out that you end up with a bigger mess? I like the fact that I have had some long over due quiet time with school being back in session. It's actually been about 6 years since I have had more than one day at a time to run errands at leisure. I went on a Mom's retreat about 4 years ago with some really great friends and was only responsible for getting myself ready for 2 whole days. Don't get me wrong, I love my family but, a mom does need to have some time to unwind, too. I have been busy filling out applications for jobs so that I can contribute in some monetary way to the household. We will have to see how that all pans out but, for right now, I think that I will go and do a little more creating in the craft room until the kiddos get home from school. Now, where did I put that camera.

Mural for Little Man

Little Man wanted something to do with Tony Hawk. I found some neat skyline pictures with skater silhouettes when I searched online for ideas. Here is what we came up with...
He liked one of the skaters and a different skyline...so I asked him about having the Kansas City skyline...he liked that idea!

Shutterstock images...


So sketched it out as best I could and projected it onto the wall.

More Murals

So, these pics are a little behind the times but, I have them for you to see. About the only creative, crafty adventure the kids and I seemed to do this summer break was to paint a couple of murals in their rooms. Sissy wanted to have an American Girl Doll room. Well, the first thing I thought was that could be expensive. When running the idea by my sister and sister-in-law, the idea of trying to make the box somewhere in her room seemed to be something we could play around with. Thought about painting her door as the box...may still do that, not sure that Dad would like that idea though. Then the other idea was to make her bed look like the box and Sissy would be the doll. Well, Sissy and I went surfing the web because I didn't save the box her doll came in. OOPS! We actually found one on ebay to look at. Wow, did we luck out because her wall are already lilac like the box so we needed to find some red paint in our stash to make the banner.

We had a lot of fun painting on the wall!
We cut out posters from the catalogue and glued them to posterboard.

We are recycling...pictures from the catalogues glued onto pizza boxes = mini books.
Can you see some of the posters we made? On top of the green shelf is her pink locker that she decorated inside for her American Girl doll. It has pictures of her friends from the catalogues and the "mini books" on the shelf inside.



We added the doodles that are on the sides of the American Girl Doll box. She just loves her room!

Getting Creative Again

So the kids are back to school now and I have been surfing the web, updating pictures on Etsy, trying to "clean-up" the computer, completing mending jobs, trying to dig out my desk from all of the piles of endless towers of paper...so I can create again. So far there is enough space for my sketch book and the book I am reading, "Drawing With Children", by Mona Brookes. It is a wonderful book. I bought it quite a while ago so that I could brush up on my drawing skills and be more confident in drawing my own originals. I find that I feel more confident right now when I have something to look at to try to replicate. I want to be able to be confident in my own skills and talent. So I am reading and doodling. In the process, a thought came to mind that I should take the kids to the Nelson Atkins Art Museum and over to Kaleidoscope. When I went to look up their hours I ran across a few neat websites having to do with kaleidoscopes... Kaleidescope Painter, Zefrank, and PBS parents.

More Beautiful You

Ok, so I haven't posted anything in quite a while. I have been trying to enjoy the summer with my kids. They will both be in school full time in the fall and unsure what future job I will have other than being their Mom. Looking into substitute teaching and have not heard back from the state yet. Other options...my arts and crafts, Wal-mart, McDonalds, Cosco???????? Want to be able to be home with the kiddos and not worry about daycare. Here is a new favorite song of mine. More Beautiful You by Johnny Diaz. I have been looking for something to write on a mirror for Ciara that I have taking from trash to treasure for her. It has been in the making for about 3 years (wanting to make it just right for her.) Have been toying with the "mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all", or lyrics from Go Fish's Your My Little Girl but, I am thinking of using some of these lyrics now. (Will post pics when it is finished.) Here is a video and lyrics for it. Hope you like it.

1. More Beautiful You

Little girl fourteen flipping through a magazine
Says she wants to look that way
But her hair isn’t straight her body isn’t fake
And she’s always felt overweight

Well little girl fourteen I wish that you could see
That beauty is within your heart
And you were made with such care your skin your body and your hair
Are perfect just the way they are

There could never be a more beautiful you
Don’t buy the lies disguises and hoops they make you jump through
You were made to fill a purpose that only you could do
So there could never be a more beautiful you

Little girl twenty-one the things that you’ve already done
Anything to get ahead
And you say you’ve got a man but he’s got another plan
Only wants what you will do instead

Well little girl twenty-one you never thought that this would come
You starve yourself to play the part
But I can promise you there’s a man whose love is true
And he’ll treat you like the jewel you are

So turn around you’re not too far
To back away be who you are
To change your path go another way
It’s not too late you can be saved
If you feel depressed with past regrets
The shameful nights hope to forget
Can disappear they can all be washed away
By the one who’s strong can right your wrongs
Can rid your fears dry all your tears
And change the way you look at this big world
He will take your dark distorted view
And with His light He will show you truth
And again you’ll see through the eyes of a little girl

The redbuds don't last long but at least I got some pictures! They are so beautiful.

Four wheels is so boring, Mom.

Dad took off the training wheels and Little Man is doing great.
With Dad close, Little Man switched to a bigger bike.


Sissy decides to get into the action.
My friend helps Sissy so I can take pictures. Little Man says, "four wheels is so boring, Mom."