Where Women Create

Over the past year I've met and read about so many talented women that create handmade goods either for themselves, friends, family or sell their handmade creations. It's just amazing what talent is out there. And the internet has been a great avenue for all of these women to 'meet' one another and learn from one another. My inspirations mainly come from seeing what these women are capable of the creating. So I've become a total internet junkie.. reading blogs, tweeting, facebooking, etc. But now and again I really like to sit down and hold a magazine in my hands and read articles and gaze at pictures and flip pages back and forth and not have to worry about bookmarking a link on my computer so I can find my way back. There's something to be said about holding a magazine or book in your hands. It really is satisfying. Last year a creative friend of mine introduced me this wonderful magazine called Where Women Create... wow !! ... I look forward to each and every issue. Each issue is filled with total inspiration . The magazine will introduce to you so many talented women and what they create, what inspires them, tips and tricks and best of all you get take a look inside their amazing studios. You really need to buy this magazine!!

You can find Where Women Create on twitter, facebook, and their blog. They are very active on the internet so there's always something to read that will inspire you!

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Halloween Night

I'm not sure exactly why, but we all love Halloween in our family. The decorating, the food preparation, the costume ideas & creations ... it's all fun!

My daughter is still at the age where she loves to trick-or-treat. My son wasn't so sure if he was too old/too cool to trick-or-treat so he decided to have a party at our house and the boys could all decide if they wanted to trick-or-treat or not... of course... why wouldn't they wont to go door to door to fill up their enormous bags with candy!?! At one point during the night we had 25 kids gathered in our house. It really was a fun night for everyone!

As I said before I love to decorate for Halloween and make spooky foods. Here are some photos and recipes from our Halloween Night...

Our Haunted House...

Spooky Party Foods...

Swamp Punch:

Ingredients:

* 2 quarts lime sherbet
* 1 (12 ounce) can frozen limeade concentrate, thawed
* 2 liters carbonated lemon-lime beverage, chilled
* 1 1/4 cups cold water

Directions:

1. Spoon sherbet by tablespoonfuls into a punch bowl.
2. Mix 1.25 cups cold water with the lemonade concentrate; add to sherbet.
3. Slowly pour soda down side of the bowl; stir gently to mix.

Watermelon Brain:

Ingredients:

1 Watermelon cut in half lengthwise or purchase 1/2 watermelon

Directions:

1. Slice off bottom of watermelon so it won't roll around.
2. Peel green skin off of the watermelon.
3. Score brainy folds in white flesh.
4. With a sharp paring knife, carve channels out of melon to resemble cortical folds.

Finger Foods:
Ingredients:

* 1 can refrigerated breadstick dough
* 1 package sliced pepperoni

Directions:

1. Separate breadsticks and place on greased cookie sheet.
2. Cut pepperoni into fingernail shapes and press into dough.
3. Cut knuckle marks into "fingers" and sprinkle with rosemary to create a hairy-knuckle look. (I ran out of time to do this part)
4. Bake according to package directions.

Treats for my daughters class at school:

I made these treat bags from orange fabric and green polka ribbons. Real easy to make and the kids really enjoyed them (at least they acted like they did). Since the kids get so much candy at Halloween, I decided to fill the treat bags with somewhat healthy snacks, such as, gold fish, fruit roll ups, etc.


Here are the bags before I filled them...
Jack-O-Lantern Rice Krispy Treats...

Pumpkin Carving...

* *Happy Halloween!*

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I Love Fall

I love this time of year. The days are cooling done, the kids are back in school, waves of color ... I just love it!

I thoroughly enjoy decorating for fall and Halloween, probably more than decorating at Christmas (I like that too). My kids still like to help with the decorating, playing in the leaves and carving pumpkins... Although my son tries to act like he doesn't enjoy it but he does... he would just rather make everything look scary. My daughter LOVES getting ready for Halloween.. she's had her carving tools and pumpkin face drawings ready for weeks. I'll show you the pumpkin carvings, her artwork, and small crafty things we've created later this week. In the meantime here are a few fall photos from last year...
Lightweight All Season Scarves:

The cool crisp air has inspired to make some fall scarves for those chilly mornings or evenings. These are lightweight made from 100% cotton and look great with a sweater or a vest. The can be worn any time of year. Here is one of the scarves made from brilliant blue peacock feather and daisy fabrics. This and a few other scarves are in my shop.

"I love fall! Fall is exciting.
It's apples and cider.
It's an airborne spider.
It's pumpkins in bins.
It's burrs on dog's chins.
It's wind blowing leaves.
It's chilly red knees.
It's nuts on the ground.
It's crisp dry sound.
It's green leavings turning.
And the smell of them burning.
It's clouds in the sky.
It's fall. That's why...
I love fall."
- Author Unkown

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What Have I Been Up To....

Wow, it's been almost a month since I have blogged! Again, life just keeps us busy and we need more time in each day. I'm getting bored of listening to myself say that .. Anyway, now that my kids are back in school and we are back to a regular routine I should be able to spend more time over here in blog world.

There's a few things I've worked on over the past few months but I haven't posted about them so I'm just going to give a run down here of what I have been working on. So this will be a rather lengthy post.

First, I've added some new items to my Etsy shop... The Carry-All Apron and Fabric Headbands.

Carry-All Apron

I tend to be the type of person that organizes by piling and gathering stuff. So I thought an apron that holds and carries all of my stuff while I'm working would be great. So I've been making Carry-All aprons and I totally love this style of apron for myself.

This apron has one large pocket where you can carry all of your necessities while working. It's much like a clothespin apron but with a modern twist in design.

Here's one made from Patty Young's Andalucia fabric collection ... I love her fabric!

You can find the Carry-All Aprons at my shop. Or you can make one yourself. you can see by the full view picture it's not hard to make.

And what to do with all the scraps of fabric...

Fabric Headbands

I have lots of hair and by the evening I can't stand it in my face .. so I'm a HUGE fan of headbands. I've tried various styles and my daughter and I find these to be the most comfortable, and they stay put on your head while being fashionable.



These headbands are available at my shop as well. So have a look.

Here are some other projects that I completed 'recently'.

Baby K's Activity Blanket and Jingle Balls

Back, way back, I posted that I was working on a project for Baby K. I finally finished and delivered this activity blanket and jingle balls to her.

It was so wonderful to hold Craylynn for the 1st time. Best of all my daughter was TOTALLY THRILLED to be able to hold her and spend some time with her cousin while being a mommy's helper.

The reverse side is made from soft minky fabricEach corner has ribbons securely sewn in so she can hang some linky links on them or just touch and feel.Each ball has a jingle bell inside so it's ring-a-ding's when you roll the ball or throw it. I also added various ribbons to one of the balls.

This was such a fun project!

IBOL .. Iraq Bundles of Love

Back in September I heard about this wonderful project, Iraq Bundles of Love (IBOL). This relief project was started by a US Soldier, Art La Flamme, to help familieis that were/are in desperate need for sewing supplies where soldier and his unit I came across this wonderful project a few days before the deadline. Art knows many of us have an over abundance of fabric, yarn and supplies. So he has reached to us for donations. All donations were to be sent to him by September 8th. He and his unit are currently delivering the bundles to where needed.

Bundles of Love ..

We got our bundle of love mailed just in the nick of time. I wish I had found this project earlier so I could have spent more time gathering items. But we did get a bundle sent and I hope it's helping someone that is in need. I can't imagine how life must be there for these families living in this chaos.

Our bundle was made of up large pieces fabric and yarns. The bundles were built to fit in a large flat rate box per Art's instructions ... (remember the deadline has been reached but thought you may want to see how the bundles were built).
Check out Art's blog to see updates on the delivery process and be sure to read through the blog to see how people contributed to this project. Saw Mama Sew did an amazing job at gathering bundles... so many volunteers, so many people participating. Check our her blog as well.

Thank you Art and his unit for doing this wonderful project!

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Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to my 'baby'.. she turned 10 today. If you've read my posts, you'd know she's my "Punkie Pie"... I still call her Punkie when nobody is around (shhh). She's growing up way too fast. The last few weeks she seems to have changed ... a bit more mature, liking clothes, hair gel, perfume and not the stuffed animals so much :( . She worked all summer cleaning out her room and donating toys and clothes. She even set aside some toys and what-nots for friends. Her birthday wish was to have her room repainted and she was to do all the picking of paint & decor. A bit frightening, she is only 10 and the visions can be wild. But we granted her wish (she did work quite hard and gave up way more than she was asked...). Green was her choice of color which surprised me because she's leaned towards oranges and reds for quite a long time and she's always been fond of blue so I couldn't gather why she chose green. She searched & searched online and had a vision so off we went to pick paint. She went right to the brightest colors where I went to the softest colors (now don't get me wrong, I love color and bright to boot, but man those bright paint scares me). I gave her the OK and said we'll try it.. hubby painted and cringed every brush stroke ... but low and behold .. it came out pretty darn cute if I say so myself...

Aqua Blue decor is what got her started on the green... so now I get why she went with green.. the pain color is called "Outrageous Green".


When she had her vision we went to Michaels and bought a wooden stand and she painted this night stand prior to picking out her paint color & bedding. Some how she found the bedding and window treatments at JcPenny to match the stand.Hanging Lanterns from Ikea ..

I made a lantern 'scrunchie" to cover to the lantern cords that were hanging down the back of her bed..We bought these pink shelves from Ikea last year and she really didn't want to keep them because they were pink. There was no way I was letting her replace them so we worked with the shelves by adding black storage containers and we made some coordinating accessories such as these fabric covered canvas boards on the top shelf.

She picked some fabric from Paula Prass' fabric collection to cover one of the canvas boards ...

Maybe she hasn't grown up too much... here she is playing with the doll house her Grammie gave her...

I think she had a great birthday. She was gitty and smiled all day!!Happy Birthday Punkie Pie!

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Ikea Conshohoken, PA

During our trip to Dorney Park in PA I was able to convince my family to go to the Ikea in Conshoken, PA for a few hours. The hubby & kids don't want to admit but they had fun looking.

Here we all sit and pose in Ikea .. some nice man offered to take our picture together (we don't have too many of these)


My son has picked out this room for his room-to-be some day:


My daughter would love have this bed.


We are in the process of re-decorating her room and we are going to set up something like this for her to do her hair, nails and (someday) makeup:


Now I much much would like to have this for my kitchen. This counter top extender would do wonders in my small kitchen:



We all would like this nice simple cozy room to relax in:



And this room to play in ..


Now for the fun part . FABRIC ... I came home with way too much (wait, you can't have too much fabric). Here are a few samples of what I picked up during my visit:

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Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom

We've been so busy this summer that it's been hard to keep up with the blogging and sewing. So all I have to blog for now are some fun things we did together over the summer.

A few weeks ago we did our annual trip to Allentown, PA to Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom. We've been going here every year since my kids were in diapers. I miss going to the kiddie waterpark and rides but now we can go on waterslides together and some of the amusement park rides (I'm not so big on rides. Any kind of motion makes me feel ill. I'm always the person that volunteers to hold everyone's stuff while the go on the rides. :) ).

This year we did several runs on Thunder Canyon. I can do this ride about 2 or 3 times and then it's time for a rest. But I think it's the only ride I can do multiple times. Everyone loves it!


We also enjoyed our traditional Gas Car Ride, Merry Go Round and Train rides (had to convince them that it was ok to still go on these rides even if the aren't 'cool')


Merry Go Round ...

Train...The only way to keep cool when it's mid 90's and humid is stay by the wave pool and share biggest shaved ice ever ... can you guess what flavor:


The kids made sure we stopped at the candy store to fill up on sour sugar:



When we take this trip each summer we try to visit some other places the next day, spend the night and then go back to Dorney for a second run to go on favorite rides and then head home. This year our "in between stop" was the Philadelphia Zoo and Ikea .. more on those places soon!

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