Interesting this is my first attempt at blogging with Zementa we'll see how it goes.

Well I am totally excited for my cake decorating class tonight. I finally get to drill my teacher for the answers to the questions that I have been accumulating through out the week. I used mt frosting that I made Sunday night (though it doesn't taste like hers) to do some practicing of stars shells and backwards C's and everything else I've learned so far. Conclusion? I need more practice on backward C's, I'll get about 6 that are looking nice and then suddenly I mess up and go the wrong way or something. Oh well I had a good time. I wont be practicing today though because I have lots of sewing, at least cutting out to do!

Emily has really inspired me with her obsessive cutting done yesterday. I have built up quite a few football fabrics for scripture cases and need to get down and dirty with cutting them out and sewing!

I also need to send in our Bella Vista applications. Oy. I think I'll go turn over the laundry and do that now.

al-..." style="border:none;display:block" width="150" height="92">Image by Getty Images via Daylife

This is what Zementa generated thinking it related to my article....

Walmart, Thou Hast Failed Me.

I am sad. I went out to Walmart this morning on a mission and was woefully disappointed. Our original Walmart has been having a make over and is twist turned all around and half of the fabric has disappeared. They did not have the orange with dark blue polka dots or dark blue with orange polka dots that my heart so greatly desires, and the ribbon! I could have sneezed and hit all of the ribbon that they had. It was shameful to say the least. So I wandered over to the cake section which is also pretty sparse and bought a cake leveler, some clear vanilla, and some dyes!



Don't they look so nice?

Oh BTW! I'm so excited, I got two scripture case orders yesterday! Haha. One is a second time buyer. I made one case for her daughter for her baptism and now her older daughter needs a new one aaaaannd this is the really exciting part!! Wait for it wait for it....... Someone followed my link on facebook saw and liked the scripture case in our shop and was wondering if I make boy cases. Heck yes I do! Both customers are going to pick out their desired fabrics and hand them over for sewing! So while its exciting I can't get on it yet because I've got to wait for the fabric. But I'm excited, can you tell?

I finished the quilt for my friend but never posted it so here it is!

Nice? Whatever you say, I like them. I have more ideas for better wipe containers luckily Em scored me some more :D Love it.

And for your viewing pleasure, cute baby picture for the day...

(Lorelai & Brett @ Nights Ferry 6/25/09)

Enjoy!

Can You Believe It?

Still no sales! Its a bit painful. My wild purse was at 30 views and is now at 116. That's great and some people marked it as a favorite but come on already! Give in and buy something! I swear! Oh well. I guess we'll just keep persevering and plodding on.

I've got a load of football scripture cases to make, still have to figure out how to draw in the LDS crowd from that one, but in the mean time I'll start sewing up a bunch. Plus I have some cute new fabric to make Lorelai another of those wickedly cute blouses. Sure I could figure out other styles but I'm still really in love with this one.

I'm reading a good book right now. Its My Sisters Keeper (just came out in theatres) and its great I just wish there weren't so many f bombs dropping. I don't see the need for any of those in spoken language even more so in literature! I mean each one just slaps you in the face. But that aside the story is very captivating.

Another random thought. I can't wait to go to my cake class on Tues. After making my cake the other day I have a load of questions for my teacher. Plus I'm really looking forward to lily making!! In a few weeks we'll be doing roses she said that will take the entire session to work on I can't wait for that either. Happiness.

Alright. I have a few minutes before breakfast and before Brett gets back from work so I am going to go read my book.

By the Way, Desmond just can't leave these alone. Lol, its going to be a long 9 days.

Pulling an Emily

Tuesday I pulled an Emily an didn't get to bed until 3:30 AM!!! My husband has been super anticipating the next Transformers like crazy so he actually got Wednesday off so that we could go to the Midnight show of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Great stuff! The movie was every bit as awesome as the first. Brett is debating with himself about weather or not it was better than the first. At 10 PM we were let into the theatre and were "entertained" by the other movie goers around us. We had to go to Brenden as they were the only ones that had any tickets left, and I just feel that a lower class of people frequents Brenden. I much prefer Regal. Worse than the people were the millions of advertisements trying to sell advertising space before the move. Even worse than that? The excruciating amount of pictures of Johnny Brendan CEO. In searching for a picture to demonstrate the awefulness I discovered that the pics in the theatre ads about himself are insanely photo shopped! He is all wrinkly and old looking in the link. Yuck, can't stand it. Any way here are the before and after pics of people much less wrinkly and way more attractive!

Before the movie Brett wishing he had taken a nap.

After the movie Brett hyped up from the excitement of the show.

Me? I really enjoyed it in spite of the increase in B & A words and sexual innuendos, I just ignored those. Ha

Well to satisfy the curiosity of Emily, these pics were all taken on the grandma camera. I am totally lovin' on that lil' thing. All the pics in this post have been taken my that camera.

Any how back to everyday life, Tuesday was a day packed full of fun for me! First of all Emily came down and we hung out all day. She had to endure some house buying nonsense but fortunately that didn't overwhelm our day and we were able to get these done...

Our labels! Should you go here and buy something said item will contain one of these labels letting you know which awesome company and person they came from!

Another fun thing that happened esp. for Em was the Lorelai silliness. Lorelai is a momma's girl (fine by me!) but she's very picky about who can pick her up and play with her when we go out. However Em came to us and Lorelai had lots of fun playing with her.

Cute isn't it?

Also had my cake class Tuesday night. I'm really enjoying that class. The teacher is doggone hilarious any way we made these

Pretty neat huh? I made a load of them and really only started to get the hang of it towards the end. They are on top of the cabinets hardening. Next week we are going to make Lilies. It has inspired me to start making cakes and practicing, so yesterday I made this.

It looks pretty OK. I tried my teachers slow bake cake method and it did not turn out well. Very hard edges and dry insides. I must have missed some cooking tip that she had said but didn't actually type up for us. I also made the butter cream icing from her recipe and it turned out all right, pretty good consistency but it didn't taste at all like the stuff she brings to class. I persevered any way since my goal was to decorate an actual cake.

I used tips 33 and 4. Shell border on the bottom and star border on the top with 33 and a simple drape around the cake with 4. I was going to get a little more intense with the drape but I was running out of time before having to clean up dinner and I wanted to get my stars on. Not my favorite cake I've ever seen but I am still learning. It will be fun to compare this one with one I make after my class is over.

Good times, good times.

My baby is grouchy this morning so I'm sorry if this post seemed all over the place but you get what you get! See you soon.

Weekend Stuffs

Well it has been an interesting weekend. Saturday morning was a mix of irritation and relief.

Irritation: I would have been done with the baby quilt I've been working on for my friend if it weren't for crazy bobbin tension flipping out of whack. I'm not sure what the problem is but it was being very stupid and well, the quilt has yet to be finished.

Relief. Brett and I bought a couch a several weeks ago because it was such a steal of a deal! Well we were suppose to pick it up a few weeks ago and haven't been able to get a hold of a truck to move it. Well yesterday I had enough and decided we would just take the seats out of the van and make it work! Turns out when we got there each half of the couch on its own fit in the back of the van, with the back closed even! It took two trips but heck, we got it done!! It was very exciting to stick it in storage.

Saturday evening we got babysitters and Brett and I went to dinner with my parentals. It was pretty fun. I like when we get dad out of the house and away from the kiddos, he really relaxes and lets his more humorous side come out. He was telling us about his idea for his next short story challenge and it sounds really great. We went to dinner at Olive Garden and it was delicious and scary but I feel I handled it like a champ!

You see, a little over a week ago I went to the Dr and he said that if I want to get pregnant again I'm gonna have to get less chubbers. Thanks, as if losing 60 some odd pounds means nothing. Well he says it does a little. He didn't want me to get discouraged he says I have lost the pregnancy weight which so many women never accomplish I just need to go a little further. The funny thing with women pregnancy and weight is there is an invisible line, different for every woman if you are one pound over it no preggo one pound under you'll multiplying like rabbits. Dr man says I must be hovering right near it and if I can just break through that plateau it will be baby city. He says women of short stature have to be particularly careful because there is absolutely no place for any weight gain to go.

So last week I was very conscious about my snacking. I run 3-6miles every morning so I know exercise wasn't holding me back. Even after my Olive garden scare I still lost 3lbs in one week. Go me. Hopefully I can keep it up just to get all chubbs again with the next baby. lol

Oh well. I've got a bit of laundry and cleaning and organizing to get done before the Emster comes and I'd like to finish my friends gifts as well so I better stop blogging.. hasta

Show the Love Comments are Back!

Alright everyone happy news! You can comment again. There was a hiccup of retardedness but all is well again!

I Feel Better Now

Here is my finishing touch for the zebra scripture case. Two nights ago I made the layers of the flower and set them out nicely to work on yesterday morning. So, yesterday when I got back from my run I looked at the two pieces and showed my mom so she could admire them. I went and took a shower and when I came back out they flower pieces were gone! Bum bum bum... I looked on the floor and found the pink piece but could not find the stripes!. I was so mad I couldn't bring myself to be crafty on anything else. This morning I took my dads car to meet my friends for our run and lo and behold there on the passenger seat was the striped piece! We have no idea how it got there but I am just glad I was able to find it and finish of my case!

This

+ This

+These

=

Viola!
I said I wasn't able to do anything else crafty but that was until just before SYTYCD came on I noticed Bekah's field trip shirt and how super plain boring it was and inspiration washed over me and I couldn't resist cute-ing it up! Now for the rest of summer whenever she goes on a field trip she can wear this!

I told Em last night as I was working on it that I don't understand why I always forget that I hate wonder under and this is why, because it looks so stinking awesome when it is done! Bekah thought it was so cute this morning when she saw it and I just have to agree. I am in love :D

Everything was made by me :D So exciting.
I was playing with the Nikkon the other day and practicing my photog skills and wanted to share them with you! For your viewing pleasure...

I Enjoy Me Some Butter Cream Frosting

Well, when I was getting married to the awesome Brett my mom and I went to make some final decisions about my wedding cake. When I asked if I wanted butter cream frosting I said, sure. My mom said, ew really? and I said whatever. I knew I was going to maybe get to eat a bite of cake so as long as it looked like what I wanted and was funfetti I really didn't care what kind of frosting was on it.Now I know my mom is crazy. I took my first cake decorating class last night and I am now a huge fan of butter cream! I'm not going to lie, I licked my fingers quite a bit! Our instructor went over types of cake and frosting and then talked a bit about each tip then we got to work!

We used tip 30 and learned to make stars, shells, backwards c's, and a simple basket weave. I found the shells fairly difficult but after about 80 I began to feel like if I were to keep practicing the should looks pretty nice lol. I had a really good time and can't wait to practice here at home and learn some more stuff! 'Til next Tuesday!

The Mystery of the Incomplete Cases

Well it's not a mystery at all. Last night I made a scripture case and this morning I made another. While both seem to be done, they are not.
This is going to be my scripture case to love and to use. Its quite nearly done mut I am going to sew up a decorative flower (inspired by Lorelai's hair clip flowers) to place on the pocket.

Here are some more angles










(I love my serger!!)

This is the case I made last night. I decided to go with an experimental pocket and I quite like how it turned out except there is a defect I need to fix. The defect fortunatly isn't visable in these pictures but I'm not going to post it for sale until I fix it and place the final touch! Intrigued? Well its kind of a suprise! Ha

Angles

Alright, Thats all for now :D

**Update**

The Lady Bug is complete!

The lady bug is to sell. Here is my dillema. How do I draw in the LDS crowd? Because honestly I believe these would go like hot cakes! Esp. my football teams. But how do I target them? How do I draw them in to see my stuff? Ariana, are you working on our business cards? lol

I kinda have an intended client for this one but I'm not sure how to go about it. :]

And Monday Starts With a Bang

And totally not a good bang!

I was txting Em last night and telling her how I was completely look forward to morning because I would go for my run! and before Lorelai woke up I would get to sew! and then she would wake up and we'd get to play! and then it would be nap time! which as you enlightened few know is sew time! I love love love my every day life. After a great 3 day weekend with my husband I was really looking forward to my regular day.

This morning I got up and did my run, as planned.

I came home and did pilates, as planned.

I took a shower, as planned.

I got out my sewing machine, as planned.

BUT just as I was about to start sewing I hear over the baby monitor "hi baby!"

Excuse me? Desmond! Why are you in babies room?

That's right. Desmond wandered in and woke Lorelai up an hour early. You've got to be kidding me.

So, I made her breakfast and started sewing, a little later than planned.

Then we cuddled and watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, as planned.

When the phone rings, you can't really plan for that.

"Hello, Jan? Janna can you hear me?" Says a deep, British voice.

"This is Lisa speaking"

Now I'm thinking "This sounds like Uncle Colin but not nearly goofy enough it must be..."

"Oh, hello lovey, this is Darryl"

"Ha! I was right! But Uncle Darryl never calls, just not the chatty type, I wonder whats wrong?"

"Is your mom gone to work already"

"Not so much, let me find her"

So I hand off the phone still wondering what is going on.

Apparently my Annie (grandma to normal people) suffered two heart attacks earlier today and was being rushed to the ER for immediate surgery.

We know now that she is fine and will pull through it. That couple of hours while we waited was pretty rough. She will be getting a permanent pace maker put in on Wednesday and the goal is to get her healthy and hopping in time for her trip to America as planned for this fall. We are praying praying praying. Its been 9 years since we last saw her. She has never met my Husband, Baby or even Bekah or Desmond. If we don't see her this fall Darryl thinks it is unlikely we will see her again this side of the veil. heavy.

But for now its all good, so onto business for today.

We had another showcase this past Saturday and still no sales but the views keep coming. I've made a chart to show the progress!

_______Friday Sunday

Dino-------17------23

Scissors----12-----13

Wild-------15------19

Bekah------17-----32

Claire------45-----52

Lorelai-----25-----27

Pink-------18------20

Beatles-----N/A---11

We've got some good numbers here! Everyone had an increase in views with our showcase item nearly doubling its numbers. This was another Holiday showcase. This Saturday we've got a Clothing showcase and the clothing showcase is much more popular and sells out very quickly. We shall see what that does for our stats and maybe sales? Lol one can hope. We are doing good :)

Well I've got some work cut out for me. Quite literally. Yesterday I cut fabric out for a shirt for Lorelai and two scripture cases, one for me and one to sell. Lol, I'll tell you more about that later haa haa. I've already finished Lorelai's shirt this morning I'll snap a pic once a wrangle it on her. I used up her allotted amount patience for picture taking this morning in my effort to get this pic!

Thanks Em! She loves it!

**Update**

Lorelais new shirt :D

Yesterday

I'm just going to write off yesterday and move on. It was just a downer of a day.

But today is a new day! I'm trying to organize my craft stuff because it is starting to take over the front room. Fabric, fabric everywhere. I love it but its probably going to start bugging others pretty soon :) Only problem is there aren't many other places for it all to go. I can't wait until I have an entire room devoted to all of this stuff and can set up a wonderful storage system. If we get the ugly house 1 of our 6 rooms will be devoted soley to sewing and scraping. Wooo!

Know what we are thinking of for our rooms?

Room One: Master bedroom, Mine and Bretts room (duh)

Room Two: Wee ones room

Room Three: Crafting room

Room Four: Storage

Room Five: Guest room

Room Six: Guest room

If we get pregnant and have a girl she can share with Lorelai or if we get pregnant with a boy we can convert one of the guest bedrooms. So fun huh?

Hmmm I'm kinda just musing right now. I'm waiting for my MIL to pick me up, she is carting me off to my Dr. appt today. Then its cleaning for the rest of the day for me! Thats not so bad. I've got a lot to look forward to in the next couple of days.

1. Tonight we've got SYTYCD results. Great opening show last night by the way! My faves?

The first lyrical hip hop by Tabitha and Napoleon

The crash test dummies by Wade Thompson (I'm a huge fan of his (T&N too really))

The contemporary by Mandy Moore

and

The BOLLYWOOD DANCE!!!

Love it. I'm so glad they've added Bollywood.

I can't wait to see the group dance tonight :D

2. Brett has Friday off!! At Bretts work they get one day of their birthday month off, which ever they choose. He couldn't get his actual birthday off so he picked tomorrow. Love. I'm excited.

3. Saturday (Fri. too) Is recital day! But I am going Saturday night and get to hang out with the Emily and Aileen while Brett stays home with midge and Salmon where he will be joined by Josh and posibly Markham for Man Date '09!!! Lol its just cracking me up. Lorelai and Des will go to bed at 7 and then it is party time till the break of dawn! Ha! Its too much. I can't handle it.

Ooop time to go.

I Love Sewing!

Oh my heck, story of my life, I am waiting for my mom to get ready. I could be sewing right now but not so much.

This is sounding like grouch time so I'm going to air a few other grievances as well.

I am sooo tired!

Monday night Emily tested me at about 8:30 PM, I got that. She then e-mailed me at 8:50 ish and I was asleep, didn't get it until morning.

Last night I was passed out by 8 o'clock and I couldn't get up this morning to go run and ended up sleeping in until 7:10 and I still feel tired. Crazy I know and I have to stay up and watch SYTYCD tonight. hee hee

Anyway. As I alluded to with my title, I love sewing! I've got some ideas to take my scripture cases to the next level and I can't wait to work on them (if only my mom would get ready already so I can dump her off at work so I can come home and get to work!).

ALSO, one of the blogs I follow, Portabello Pixie written by designer Sandi Henderson had an exciting update last night. She is writing some new patterns and has asked for volunteer sample sewers. SO I contacted her immediately! I'm sew sew sew excited!! (Dang I never realized how much I enjoy a good pun! lol) I hope I hear back, in case you couldn't tell I totally want to do that! Love!

From Grouching to Gushing, I've lost my mind. I'm tired. Its only 9 am. I've just gotta go while I'm ahead.

House Hunting

Saturday morning was soooooo tedious. Brett and I went and looked at 14 houses. I am sick of looking at houses!! Ugh! We saw some really nice houses that we are sure we will get out bid on some seriously yuck houses that we ran away from and one dingy fixer upper type house. Guess which one Brett wants?

The fixer upper.

I'd thought we were looking for sweet little starter home places where we could just move in and be a cute little family. I'm thinking its not going to work out that way. Not so much.

We will probably end up getting the fixer upper. It shouldn't take too much to fix it up. Its going to be like Beauty and the Beast and we will love the ugly away and we will be left with a prince of a house. Good times.

And wont it be fun blogging the before during and after pictures? I'm thinking maybe so!

Oh well. Time to cut out some fabric. I'm not sure if I'll be making any right now but I'm going to cut out some scripture case pieces. Go me.

Sew Here Are The Numbers

Dorky title huh? I know :)

Well as my readers know, not because I posted about this but because my one reader is Emily and she and I text like mad, any way as my readers know, yesterday was our first Showcase.

Showcase, on Etsy, is for you to show off a particular item in hopes of bringing more people to your site, more views and more sales. How did we do?

First of all the Showcased Item---> This is Claire, Fri night she had 12 hits. This morning 33.

Lorelai! Had 13 views Friday night and 16 views this morning .

Bekah! Had 9 view Fri night and 13 this morning.

As for mine and Emily's bags

-----------------------------Fri-------Sun

Pink-------------------------13-------14

Wild-------------------------4---------6

Scissors---------------------N/A------6

Dinosaurs------------------ N/A------7

Total Sales: 0

My goal in this endeavor is to never be discouraged. Emily and I are living our dream and we are only just beginning. This was our first attempt at minor league advertising and it did get us some hits, and that's good. This was under the Holiday showcase. In a couple of weeks we will be putting on a Clothing showcase. Very exciting because we will have the opportunity to compare and contrast! lol.

See you around. I still have to tell you all about the house hunting adventures from yesterday.

And Again With The Updating and Posting!

Update

I've posted two more items for tomorrows showcase. Hopefully people are drawn into our site.
Here's one
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=26061477
Here's the other
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_2&listing_id=26061941
Go me! I'm afraidmy second bag wont be ready to be listed by tomorrow. Oh well. We'll see what comes of this all. So exciting :)

Its 9 am, how much have you done?

Good morning!

I think it is pretty wicked that SYTYCD on Thursdays is only one hour and waits to start until 9 to start. Twelve hours ago I was tracing sewing patterns onto wrapping saying "finally!" I should think that if the show starts @8 on Wednesdays for the 2 hrs it should start @8 on Thursday too!!. It forced me to stay up late again and boy was it hard to get up and run this morning! But I did it so, go me! I think the other members of team long tie would be proud of me :)

So I've been up since 5 (quarter to actually, Brett couldn't wait any longer before calling me) and what have I done?
5:15 Went run run run with my running buddies
5:45 Dawdled around talking before going home
6:15 Showered and ate pre breakfast (water and a granola bar)
6:30 Started sewing
7:30 Lorelai woke up so I removed her from bed and took time to snuggle my half asleep baby
7:45 Threw Desmond on the bus
7:50 Made and ate Breakfast with my favorite wee one
8:00 Went back to sewing
8:45 Finished super awesome sewing.
8:57 Started blogging :)

So here I am. Finished a shirt this morning, yeah I pretty much rock. For now I'm done sewing until Lorelai goes down to nap. I'm going to take the time to play with the midge and let her help me pick up the house a bit; good times. Then at 3 o'clock a photo shoot! One of my friends daughters is modeling the shirt I made this morning. Should be fun. I'll let you know how it goes.

SYTYCD

Go team long tie!

Its crazy!

Oh my goodness!

Seriously, it was as innocent as a text message.
Em Txts: Hey, if I find a craft fair would you be interested in sharing a booth?
Me: Heck yes!

Thats all it took, now I'm looking up all possible fairs and filling in a sellers permit form. That form is its own special breed of crazy but if we make it to the fair it should be tons of fun! I hope so!

The crazy thing is sewing up myself an inventory. This particular fair requires photos of your inventory 4 mos in advance, sooo intense.
What do I want to sell?
Purses
Scripture Cases
Throw Pillows(?)
Peasant Blouses and Skirts (kids&baby)
Onsie Dresses(?)
Baby Blankets
My brain is blanking. there may be more I just can't think of it.

What other stuff are we going to need?
Labels for all of our items
Ways to display them
Blanking again, it took me over an hour to fall asleep last night thinking about all this. I'm going to go play with my baby that should help me clear my head.

BTW:I've added a new item to mine and ems Etsy store you can view it here:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25992145
I should be adding one more item tonight :)

I did it!

Last night I posted my first item for sale on Etsy!
You can now find my hot pink zebra tote here:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25868618 !
Exciting I know, we'll have to see if it actually sells. :)
I'm quite excited to work on and post more stuff!