Apartment Purge

In anticipation of our upcoming (yet still not finalized) move, and also just because it needs to be done, we're slowly clearing out and cleaning up our apartment.

Last week I went through the kids' room hoping to toss a bunch of old toys while they were out for the day. While I did manage to gather a trash bag full of stuff, it turns out it was all actual trash and not too many toys. I suppose the good news in this is that they DON'T have an over-abundance of toys they aren't playing with. Sure I got rid of some of the cheap stuff they got from well meaning relatives during the holidays, as well the little 'treats' that come in kids meals, but really their toy boxes (which my awesome B-I-L made, and are about the size of a milk crate) aren't full. The oldest has the emptiest box (perhaps because he has a separate box up high for legos), while the two girls with their babies and barbies and accessories have the most full boxes. All in all I'm please with the state of the kids' room.

Which leads me to...

Our room.

oy.

Admittedly in an apartment with almost no storage and a bunch of people the master bedroom becomes a dumping ground. A place for things to go and die. Or just sit on the floor forever. The rowdy nature of the kids made us put their dresser in our room (or run the risk of them dumping their clothes and having to rewash it all), and since all of the dressers are there might as well fold laundry in there, and since the clean laundry is there might as well put the dirty laundry in a corner...You get the idea. Add on that the kids still manage to dump all their clothes on the floor (just not their floor) and the bedroom is a nightmare. I'm a packrat and a crafty person, so I have a bunch of yarn and odds and ends that might be useful, or that I want to do something with. So today I'm trying to tackle the master bedroom. It's slow going, but it is going. I already got rid of yet another bag of clothes we don't need. A lot of it was old baby clothes I've been holding onto...we've been strapped for cash too long not to cringe about getting rid of some of this stuff, but it is worth the monetary cost of replacing it (should we need it!) if it gives us some breathing room and peace of mind.

Plus I really really don't want to move a ton of crap in the summer.

of toddlers and markers

I've reached the point in my parenting life (I have five kids, the oldest is 8 and the youngest is 1) where I can safely say I roll with most of the punches. Dominic (age 4) came into my room where I was reading to the older kids and asked if I gave Lily (age 3) some tattoos. The kids have gotten a bunch of temporary tattoos in treat bag recently, so while I didn't really like the idea of my 3 year old taking it upon herself to apply them, the news that she had wasn't completely shocking.

Except that it was a sharpie, not temporary tattoos.

sigh.

But you know what? I don't even care. Well, except that she had the sharpie without permission...
I'll scrub her down as best I can, but if it doesn't come off I'm not going to sweat it. The only place she's going this week is to the baby sitter, and our sitter has dealt with our kids since the oldest was 2, so *she* knows how to roll with the punches right there with me.

Bad Blogger pt. 2

Ha! Isn't it great to have two posts in a row about how bad I am at blogging? Yeah, I know, super annoying.
 I see the last post I did was in August...wow. What's been going on since then? I revamped my Teacup Dolls pattern. They are now called Teacup Cuties and I'm really happy with their look now. Most obvious is MUCH better pictures. While I really love the original Boy, the Person and Pink Princess No-No (that's what my kids named those first two dolls) my photography skills have definitely improved since then.

Life is still just as busy. The scheduling at my day job has gone semi-computerized...I say semi because most weeks my boss goes in and fixes it so it's not stupid, but he went on vacation and the computer has some weird ideas as to what constitutes coverage.

This school year is coming close to wrapping up and I'm really looking forward to summer. We never got into a good groove this year and it's been such a pain in the mornings getting all 7 of us out the door on time.

I *am* (finally) working on some new crochet patterns, currently in the works are some Barbie clothes (because let's face it, I have two little girls, what else am I going to make?) and I've re-imagined an unpublished doll pattern of mine and I'm super excited about how it should turn out (once I sit down and work on it!).

The biggest news, which is also the most terrifying, is that we're buying a house!!! We're currently crammed into a MUCH too small apartment that offers no outlet for the kids to run off energy and of course we just have too many people and too much stuff for it to be a practical living space. My grandmother has decided to move to live with my aunt and is going to be selling us her house. I'm really excited because it means that the house my mother grew up in, and the house my siblings and I played in as kids (not to mention where I lived when I first started college) will still be in the family for us to enjoy. There are still details and banking to work out, so it still might all fall through (eek!) so keep us in your thoughts and prayers in the coming months, because we *really* need this to work out.

And shameless plug here: Check out my Etsy shop! With the impending move we're gonna need all the financial oomph we can muster, so why not pop on over and buy a pattern or two? or some baby shoes! Also keep a look out for a big sale when I decide I really really don't want to move all my stock. :-) OH! Also Etsy related: They've added INSTANT DOWNLOADS for digital items like PDF patterns, so no more waiting for me to check my email and send stuff! It's awesome and I love it!

Whoa, this was a long one! I hope it makes up for the internet silence over the (eep) months!

whoops

Okay, I've been a bad blogger. You know how it goes, all the usual excuses.

This summer *has* been super busy. We of course finally got used to the older kiddos going to school, only for summer to hit and have to adjust to everyone being home. Right around that same time my maternity leave ended (sadface!) and I had to go back to my day job. Most recently I've been working quite a bit there, and still trying to find time for family and crafting.

School starts again soon, so maybe my days will be more organized (a girl can dream, right?) and I'll be more consistent with EVERYTHING, including blogging.

White Rock Local Market!

Okay! It's my first market sale, and I'm anxious/super excited!

The details:

White Rock Local Market Saturday May 12th.

702 N. Buckner at Northcliff, Dallas. 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

as I've said before I personally won't be able to be there, but my dad and sister will be selling out of the Alpha Omega Acres booth. My dad will also be selling organic produce and pasture raised eggs, and my sister will have her handmade ceramics.

Here's some of what I made for the market:

Baby loafers 0-3 months size.

Uglies! Toy monsters

Baby sweater 3-6 months

Baby sweater with mother of pearl buttons 0-3 months

Rainbow spin ball

Ruffled diaper covers (great photography props!) 0-6 months

Galaxy spiral balls

 There will also be several sets of my Little Finger Friends finger puppets, a few Carefree Caterpillars, and some other great stuff. You'll also be able to purchase vouchers to redeem in my Ravelry Store for patterns.

So anyone in the Dallas TX area should come check us out and give my dad and sister some love!

Fun stuff!

I've been crocheting a bunch gearing up for my very first market coming up May 12th. I'll be joining my sister in selling our awesome crafty goodness (she creates beautiful ceramics; I think she said she'll be featuring small jars and pots this time around) and our dad who will be selling produce from his farm at a Farmers' Market in the Dallas area.

Sadly I don't have many more details on it than that, since I don't have the means to travel and coordinate with them on this. I'll be sending them a box of crocheted goodies in a week or so, hopefully I'll have a nice assortment of stuff. Wish us luck!



Now here's a fun time waster! another blog mentioned the site tagxedo.com for making those word cloud graphics. Well I spent a good hour or two messing around with it yesterday. I mostly made clouds with the names of my family on it, but really quickly this morning I did this one:

It amuses me.

Careful though, as I warned my sister, you can spend HOURS doing nothing but changing the colors on the cloud.

Easter project aftermath

I was super ambitious for my girls' Easter outfits this year. I decided the sew (!) them some pillowcase style dresses *and* crochet them some cardigans. All this on top of dealing with an infant, my own lack of sewing expertise, and just trying to gain balance in life in general.

First off I made the dresses using instructions in the book MAKING CHILDREN'S CLOTHES The dress on the cover is the one that I made. Overall very easy to make (the major factor when I decided to sew), but I'm baffled as to why they call it a toddler dress. It's a one size pattern, and they basically say to hem it to the desired length. Well. My kids are small for their ages, and yet I had to lengthen the dresses quite a bit to get them to be actual dress length. for my 2 year old (definitely toddler age) I had to add 5 inches to the pattern to make it long enough. As printed it made an adorable tunic length shirt for her, but NOT a dress. For my 5 year old (who I will admit is the right height, just WAY SKINNY) I had to add 9 inches to get it long enough. Okay, so she's a bit older than a toddler officially, but still.
It's not a big deal really, but to say that it's a toddler dress and it not even be dress length on my little for her age 2 year old sort of bugs me. An easy fix though (really easy if I could do it).

I made several practice dresses before the real deals, to make sure the adjustments I was planning would work. For the final dresses aside from adding the length I also altered the lining slightly. The bodice is fully lined and you fold over the double layers of fabric to make the casing for the shoulder ties. I found that folding over both layers of fabric made the casing a bit bulky and didn't gather as well as I would have liked. So I cut an inch off the top of the lining so when I sewing the casing I was only folding over the single layer of fabric. I actually should have trimmed at least an inch and a half, but the result was still a less bulky casing, so it turned out all right.
I've yet to get a picture of the girls in just the dresses, or even of just the dresses themselves, but oh well.

I cardigans I made using the Bella Rebekah Cardigan pattern by Elizabeth Alan. I happened across her patterns sometime before Christmas whilst looking for a good baby boot pattern and I must say I just want to be her. All of her patterns are adorable, not to mention well written and easy to understand and execute. The cardigans worked up super quick, the only reason it took me longer than an afternoon for each one was because life was happening and I had to do other things (like get over my first ever encounter with Strep Throat) for a few days. In general I like Lily's purple cardigan better....the yarn is lighter and I like the drape to it. When I made Arlen's pink cardigan I was thinking it was too bulky. It's a tad big (again, she's a skinny thing), but actually after I had to wash the Easter chocolate off of it it's softened up and the drape improved.

 Lastly, I drove down to Dallas with the kiddos for Easter and surprised my parents. I *wanted* to either arrive while they were all at church (but that failed because we didn't make it to Vigil saturday night and still needed to get to Easter mass that morning) OR 'sneak' in with my kids and yell SURPRISE because I knew my family would all be hanging out in the kitchen.
That didn't work either because my 7 year old decided he didn't want to yell anything, and instead of just staying quiet and walking in with the rest of us he just sort of wandered into my parents house while I was getting everyone else out of the van and nonchalantly ruined the surprise. But whatever.

While we were there my mom and sisters helped me try out the super nifty technique of using old silk ties to dye eggs. I saw THIS on Pinterest and knew I had to try it. I hit up the Salvation Army store and got some old ugly ties for fifty cents each (actually 49 cents each) and we tried it out. We actually used a more in depth set of instructions (which really only adds that you put 1/4 cup of vinegar in the water) though.
The eggs turned out super nifty! We found by trial and error that we should have actually gone by the image I found on Pinterest. It shows wrapping the eggs in string after you wrap the silk tie around them. We did this on a few eggs (the top right one in the collage) and it provided better contact between the egg and the silk and the colors transferred much clearer. We also found that you can re-use the silk pieces. Nothing on either of the instructions we looked at said one way or the other, so I'm happy to report that you can get multiple uses out of the scraps.
To recap:
♪Get some old ugly ties for cheap (reds, purples, and dark blues seem to transfer better. Maybe it's just the darker the better)
♪Cut the ties apart and wrap the silk around the eggs, the right side of the fabric against the eggs.
♪Wrap string around the fabric covered eggs like a mummy. (the second set of instructions we used said to wrap the silk covered eggs in another piece of scrap cloth, like an old pillowcase. We aren't sure why, as it wasn't explained, but we think maybe just so the dyes didn't muddle together. My sister put silk, string, scrap cloth, and more string around her egg and it turned out the best).
♪Add 1/4 cup (ish) of vinegar to your water and boil the eggs for 15 minutes. We always blow our eggs out and we found we needed to weigh them down with a lid (I think that's what my sister used) to keep the eggs under water.

Ta-da!

So cool!