gone crunchy

Sort of....

We've been making some changes in our lives - mainly in our eating habits and exercise.  Now, don't misunderstand me.  I have yet to banish chocolate, sweets and carbs from our pantry.  I would have an all out mutiny on my hands if I did that.  There are so many alternatives out there these days, though,  we decided, 'Why not choose better food and living for our family?'.  And, take baby steps to get it done.  Main meals aren't really hard for me to prepare.  {I'll share more on that as time goes on.}  It's the snacks and cravings that really trip me up.  Who doesn't like a few (dozen) Oreo cookies and a tall glass of milk?!  Unfortunately, a paleo diet doesn't include this favorite snack of mine.

time's a tickin'

Are you starting to panic?  Only 22 days left!

snowflakes

We have yet to have any of the white stuff grace our local landscape, but I know before long everything around here will be covered.  It's beautiful, but cold.

{Little secret - I LOVE Christmas, but HATE the cold.  I just have so much trouble keeping warm during this time of year.  Unfortunately, there is a limit to the amount of coffee and hot cocoa a girl can drink.  And I refuse to wear one of these around for 4 to 5 months.  Although, I may not hold out much longer.}

We are staying home this year for Thanksgiving and I'm hoping we'll be able to decorate the house for Christmas as a family during the long weekend.  Now.  I know my kids well.   Within hours of their first day off from school, they will be complaining about being BORED.  I've got to have something in mind to help occupy them without all of them finding solace in an electronic of some sort or pestering each other to the point of tears.  Arts and Crafts are great for them; but, without any direction, my home can quickly look like a paper shredder went on a rampage.  Paper snowflakes could be just the thing!  Allows us all to be creative and we can use the creations as decoration around the house instead of just having an extra bag of trash to the landfill.

Most of us know the basic instructions.  If not, I found this below.

Kinderart.com

While this is great, my older kids need a little more of a challenge.  We'll be taking things to the next level by going 3D.

Twirly Paper Snowflake

Simply Modern Mom

Finnish Paper Star

Craft Ideas

Need a little more of a challenge?  Look at these!

3D Snowflake

Cosmo Cricket

Paper Ballerina Snowflake

krokotak

Finally - for the nerd in all of us.  (Love this!)

Star Wars Snowflakes

If Its Hip Its Here

I have several others pinned on my Snowflake Board.  Feel free to check them out.  Do you have any favorites?  I'd love to have some other ideas!

christmas is coming

So?  Have you started getting things ready for Christmas?  You know - making lists, shopping, planning menus, putting up the tree, lighting the inside and outside of your home.  Time is quickly ticking away!

I'm not doing too much homemade this year.  I know, I know.  It just doesn't seem to be the year for it, unfortunately.  I do have a couple of projects planned for myself, but nothing huge.  I seem to be in more of a baking mood this year.  (At least, that's the mood right now.)

Larissa has a beautiful felt bookmark she made for a friend at mmmcrafts.  Beautiful!  And it got my gears turning in the direction of Christmas ornaments.  I mean, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination and your Google searching abilities.

BenziDesign has a great selection of colors, sizes and packages.  Renae, the owner, has pre-picked packages, or you can choose your own.  I went the choose your own in the 12x18 size.

I can't wait to get started!  I have so many ideas written down, I won't know where to start when all this wonderful felt arrives.  Fortunately, I have a few days before the felt arrives to find that paper with all my great ideas written on it.  Yep.  Typical me.

quick and easy mask

Halloween is only a couple days away.  Are you ready?

I must confess, at this point, I'm usually scrambling around trying to get costumes completed and the candy bought.  This year, at least the costumes are done.  That's the most important part anyway, right?

This year we have a zombie, a vampire-sort-of-thing (this one is still confusing me, but she is happy), a witch, Batgirl and Spiderman.  The costume that has required the most work is Batgirl.  This is a hard one to find on the shelf at the store, so I went into 'I can make that!' mode.  (Nope.  I haven't changed that much over the past year.)

The  Batman symbol was easy.  A Google search brought up this template.  Craft felt and Tacky Spray worked great as my materials. Then I just pinned it on the front of a black shirt. Very easy.

The mask was a little more difficult to figure out.  I wanted something that would stay in place, be easy to see out, and not have to be tied.  Ever tried tying something around a little girl's head and not getting hair tangled in the string?  Close to impossible.

An easy alternative came about while playing with some recently purchased knit headbands.  I believe these were found at Walmart, but I'm sure they can be found at many different stores or online.

So.  Let's get started.

Take your headband and put it on the face/person who will be wearing it.

As you can see above, once the headband is in place, you can trace for the eye holes.  (The white showed this better in a picture than the black.)  On lighter colors you can use a Mark-Be-Gone or similar fabric pen.  I used chalk on the black to outline the eyes.  Remember you are wanting to be able to see out of this mask easily, so make the eye holes a little bigger than the actual eye.

I soon realized the mask fits better if you make an indentation for the bridge of the nose.  Yes, that is sidewalk chalk in the picture above.  I recommend using regular chalkboard chalk, but all of mine seems to have walked off.  All by itself, too, I'm sure.

Next, do a quick zig-zag stitch around the eye area and along the nose.

Get your scissors and start cutting the openings open and trim any strings once the stitching is done.

Now, it's ready to try on.

I've had requests from all the other kids for one in their favorite color just for fun.  I think the hardest part was getting my little model to lay still while I traced around her eyes.

Let me know what you think.  Or, if you are able to improve on this, share with us what you did.  I'm sure I'll be making more masks in my future.

hello again

Oh, how I've missed you!

The decision to see about coming back to the blogging world has been made.  And, amazingly enough, it was a unanimous vote of one.  That means it's official!

That being said, I still have a lot of obligations that have nothing to do with crafting and sewing.  BUT, I think if baby steps are taken, I can start sharing with everyone again.  The creative outlet will be great, too.

Since our little one started treatment, I really haven't been able to devote any time to crafting.  One of my daughters and I were talking the other day and figured it's been over a year since I've done any projects.  That's a LONG time!  No wonder I've got a hankerin' to do some stitchin'.

So, if no crafting has been done in over a year, what do I have to share?  There are several WIPs that have been sitting in a dark, little corner waiting patiently for me to notice them again.  There's a couple of recipes that are worthy of being shared.  Several helpful cooking and everyday tips have come about in this time of silence.  Plus, my life can have some pretty humorous moments.  (I'm always ready to give someone a laugh for the day.)  Maybe even some exciting new changes in my doings.  We'll see.

Baby steps.  That's my motto for now.  Hopefully, crafting can become a way of life for me once again.

**If you would like to see how things are going with my daughter's health, feel free to check out the blog I have devoted to that side of my life.  www.Madi'sMilestones.blogspot.com  ***

L is for....

School has started and we've been trying to get into the swing of things.  You know - waking up at a good time, getting dressed instead of wearing our pjs or swim clothes all day, keeping up on the laundry, signing papers that need to be returned and getting that nasty homework done on time.

I've been looking forward to having 3 (!) kids in school this year.  Hard to believe!  Do you know how easy 2 kids can be?!?  I have a list of projects that just keeps getting longer and longer.  Things like painting and rooms and presents and just miscellaneous fun 'stuff' to do.

With our third child in kindergarden this year, we've been getting to see all the 'new' things through her eyes.  She brings home her paper from school and shows us all the 'homework' she gets to do.  We get to hear about her teacher and all the new friends she gets to make.  We get to learn that L is for things like Lollipop, Letter, Light and Lemon.

On Tuesday Sept. 4th, my husband and I learned that L is also for Leukemia.

Madi - 1 week before diagnosis

Our beautiful little kindergardener had some blood work done that morning to find out the cause of the bruising and lethargy she was dealing with.  By 2 pm we had a call from our pediatrician telling us to go meet with a pediatric oncologist and be prepared to be admitted to the local hospital.

A whirlwind started as soon as we were finally admitted to the hospital.  Thankfully, we were blessed with some wonderful and understanding nurses.  One nurse in particular, Ms. Janet, became Madi's buddy and cared for her in more ways than just making sure medicine was taken on time and vitals were as they should be.

All these new, and somewhat scary, situations and experiences for our little girl to have to endure.  Being poked and prodded by complete strangers, being carted to different treatment/procedure rooms, having a port put in, having to take 'yucky' medicine and just feeling crummy overall really started to take a toll on her by Friday.  That morning she looked at me after taking her medicine and said, "I really don't want to do this anymore."

We have been home since Sunday and coming home never seemed sweeter.  Our lives are busy with one more thing added to the mix, but we have some wonderful friends, family and even strangers surrounding us with love and support.

The point of this post is not to make you feel sorry for us.  While this isn't the diagnosis we wanted, the prognosis is excellent.  We found through testing that Madi has ALL, a very common and treatable form of Leukemia.  Her age, gender and several other factors are in her favor.  She is responding well to treatment so far and is having few side effects.

The point of this post is to ask for prayers.  Many, many prayers.

We are keeping our minds on the positives and not dwelling on the negatives.  We really are okay.  While we know there are many rough days ahead, focusing only on the bad will make this whole experience even worse.  Kevin and I are taking any opportunity and making sure something is gained or learned by some or all of the kids.  Even Kevin and I are growing in many ways at this time.  Most importantly, Madi is learning at a very young age to let her light shine.

So, projects will come - eventually.  Once we get into our new 'normal', I'm hoping to still do projects and crafts to help keep me sane during this time.  (Kevin would tell you I lost 'it' a looonnggg time ago, though.)  I've got several in progress now and just need to finish up - my life's story.

Keep us in your prayers!

***We now have a blog just for Madi to keep everyone posted on her progress - Madi's Milestones ***