I tried to set Tuesday up to be my helper today while making some embellishments (this has been posted on my sidebar for a while, finally trying it out). She wanted to do her own thing:
Which ended like this:
hehehe I love toddlers.
In line with getting dirty… Bj decided to “help” me today by doing a load of laundry (me=laundry, him=dishes). He washed some car-washing towels with some of Tuesday’s clothes and our cloth napkins. They all have a petroleum like smell to them. Plus he used some weird soap (yes, I should have just tossed it). So I ran Charlies through (2 scoops in our front loader) with a few clean rags. I still have a strong smell in the machine, and I haven’t tackled the clothes/napkins yet. Right now I’m running it just with vinegar and the rags. Any other ideas? I want to get the machine really cleaned out before I try to get the smell out of the clothes, and before I do a new load of diapers (since diaper laundry has to be as residue free as possible).
Roxy love… and repeat
I love it when I get on a scrapbooking roll and have all my favorite things out… I don’t want to stop. Yesterday I didn’t know what to start scrapping and then I remembered, hey I have these pictures from Sarah, because we swapped photos!
(I kept calling her cat Winston, that’s how I came up with the title). I used grandpa’s typewriter, because it’s cursive, how cool is that? I also borrowed this donut punch one time and made myself a whole bunch of strips to have on hand… you’ll see that came in handy.
Gah! Look how fast they grow!
I decided to plop little embelishments all over the page. I see this look around everywhere and I love it, so fun.
Heheheh, I was sort of at a loss as to how to scrap these pictures. I was going to go with the, “you’ll be best friends thing” but I think I’ll have lots of sweet pictures of them later, this series from when we visited Carmen and her family last year are just so funny! I love how babies explore their world!
Then today I got lots of simple cards made. I needed to fill up my birthday and sympathy tabs in my card organizer.
This is a super simple design. You can make a ton of them from one sheet of patterned paper, or use a 6×6 pad, like I did (basic grey sultry line). The main piece is 3×6 inches. Glue that down. Then take a little scrap of paper, and embellishment (punched heart, star, or even a flower) and attach a saying (I typed out a bunch and hand cut them) with a brad or staples (I used the tiny attacher—I’m addicted). After the embellishment part is done stick it down (this way the back of the brads/staples will be covered up).
If you make some let me know!
Weekend
We had a lovely weekend—the sun came out! This coincided nicely with Bj’s parents going to the coast, so we joined them for a dinner:
Bayfront dinner with my two favorite people, yes please! And guess what? I ate fresh caught crab (for those of you who don’t know I normally don’t touch seafood). It was good, that butter helped 🙂 Tuesday got to run around:
Giggling at the wind picking up sticks, rocks and little flowers. We stopped quickly at the cheese factory:
I’ll admit this was mainly so I could get root beer ice cream, which is hard to find elsewhere. Mmm so tasty. Bj got to use the Ergo for the first time, he loved it.
Today saw us outside even more—and in our own backyard!
With sidewalk chalk, friends, and some squeaky cheese (cheese curds from the factory). In case you’re wondering the backyard looks like this now:
I hope the organic mulch dried out enough in one sunny day to be tilled with our soil so sod can be laid. That’s the next step. At the same time a deck (more like a little landing) is being built off of our dining room. I hope we will be planting in ten days or so! Bj finished all the electrical work (for outdoor lights, sprinkles, etc.) today and we are so proud of him for not getting electrocuted! Now he has to built the planter boxes; he’s putting his “staycation” to good use 🙂
I also got a little scrapping in, will share soon. Hope your weekend was fabulous, what did you do?
On the road again
Oh my it’s been so long since I’ve had a great morning of thrifting and I was able to get one today! Despite a sort of rough night with teething (or something) Tuesday I got up this morning and headed out with Sarah.
I found my all time favorite towels; yummy, yummy green. And the pink floral ones I thought would be fun for Tuesday. The vintage sheets will go well with some sheets I got in a vintage sheet swap I participated in:
That picture is of my favorites—see the rest on my flickr. Back to today:
I’m so excited about this light up santa! How cute is he, so jolly! I’m always looking for cool Christmas stuff, but it’s usually so expensive, he was only five bucks, and the perfectly colored green oranaments two dollars. The little shaker I’ll fill up with cinnimon and sugar. The lided measuring cup and metal coasters are new “toys” for Tuesday, she loves stuff like that. The step stool she’s still a ways off from being able to use. Question: what did you use before your kids were tall enough to use one of these, I think she needs to grow about a foot to get to the sink with this, and that’s going to take a while! I might have Bj build something… ideas?
The other thing I’ve been doing is getting excited about a new community on Big Picture. I signed up for the Library of Memories community, which is going to be full of prompts, ideas, and chat about using Stacy’s system (these two books talk about it). I worked on organizing my albums:
Updating the label holders and workign on title pages for albums/sections:
They are all this basic design. I think I made ten or so in the last few days:
So fun to look at pictures like that. And because my supplies were out…
A layout about missing doing fine art stuff.
And a layout about how much I love my little sparkle pants, or course. I finally used one of the fun half circle stitched pages Sarah and I made.
Sarah’s mom made me some of these crocheted hearts. Yes, you can all be jealous she is my friend now 🙂 Actually it’s funny because we were going through my albums and she saw this layout. She said, “Oh I wanted those socks so badly” (I gave them away on here because they were too big for me) and I replied, “well why didn’t I give them to you?” And she said because we didn’t really know each other then. Sometimes it seems crazy I met a good friend like that online! Thank goodness she commented (hint hint) 🙂
Also if the person is out there who got those socks… where are they? I never got pictures… I miss them!
Creating and Organizing
Ok so we had one sunny day and I freaked my freak out and didn’t know what to do with myself. Totally neglecting the blog in the process. Don’t be too worried though, it just started raining again. 🙂 That sunny day I had a total burst of energy. Bj and I have been reading this and it really made me want to get organized and purge/rotate some of our things, including Tuesday’s toys. I happened upon an antique mall while trying to get around Portland last weekend and found this little gem:
I’m sure who ever was selling it found it for much less than the $32 I paid for it, but I could not resist. I have been wanting to get something like this for Tuesday, and the book sealed the deal on my thinking that her toys should be out of the big bin and into something a little more organized. The top will hold a little tray for nature bits we find, when we venture out again. This is in our dining room:
That I cleaned up after this picture and managed to squeeze in space for a family art cabinet:
Tuesday was just a bit excited when I showed it to her the next morning (after staying up until 12:45 baking, cleaning, organizing, and doing laundry… I could not help myself!). Knowing she was going to want to explore the cabinet I had to dress her in this shirt made by her Aunt Sciarrino:
I bought her fancy fabric paints for Christmas and I am totally reaping the rewards, yeah!
I love that Tuesday can pull what she wants out of here (the cabinet has a baby lock on it, so it’s only open when she is supervised):
coloring, a favorite:
Mark on one page, then flip to the next! Notice the crayons…
She decided the paper on them was just too annoying. I’m thinking we’re going to have to get a booster soon for one of the seats because having the arms come on to the table is the one draw back of her “high chair” (we got rid of the wooden one after she started trying to climb it).
A good start, but I’ve got lots more ideas for the house…
Playing anyway
DId you know it’s raining here? Now it’s nothing really more than an inconvenience for me, and I don’t like to dwell on things. But good golly miss molly I”m getting sick of it! And I like rain, I love it! So I haven’t let us stop us (that and the prospect of staying inside all day with a toddler, not fun).
Our yard is coming together, behind schedule because of the rain, of course. It’s a nice big pit of sand and mud for Tuesday, and oh she loves it (these pictures are on a semi dry day… the ones I lost were truly messy, mud everywhere).
Don’t let this picture fool you, she gets into it.
Tuesday the destroyer! Hehehe. It’s really fun when halfway through she starts to sign hat and gets it all over her head.
Today we opted for a little more clean fun, since we had our pal William and his mama over.
This was not my original idea. I either found it on a blog or read it in one of my toddler busy books. I just hacked up magazines and catalogs to get colorful shapes, then stuck contact paper on the wall backwards. After they had their fill I stuck them on the outside of the slider.
I know when it comes to toddler art you should not care at all about the results, but I love it! Later I remembered I thought maybe it was supposed to be done with tissue and maybe that was why I bought four packs when it was on sale at Old Navy.
Yes, it makes more sense this way because you can put the art on the INSIDE of the house.
Thinking about the future
Oh I kept meaning to blog and then I was feeling all tired and blah.
Guess what? Today I got my period, that two year break was NOT LONG ENOUGH. Boo.
But enough about that. Let's talk about something even more depressing, the future of our food! 🙂 Bj and I watched two documentaries this weekend: The Future of Food and Food Inc. (and then happened to read this). If you just watch one I would go with Food Inc, just for production value, but Future of Food delves into the Monsanto/GMO issue more. It's very interesting, and I admit I was really turing a blind eye to what I've been eating, know things were bad but eating it anyway. I took it more as a "bad for me" thing, and didn't really think about the earth/future generations. Even before I got pregnant we were trying to eat better, and I have slowly come around from my nearly 100% candy diet (I like candy way too much). But with summer close (so they say, you'd never know it if you came over to rainland) and the first CSA box picked up I'm getting into the kitchen and taking over! No more fast food, no more corn syrup, no more GMOs! Of course I don't think I'll be able to be perfect, just trying to do my best. And I'm not sure what do about that severe diet coke addiction….
Anyway I started my cooking off with an easy curry rice soup, and made a lot so I could freeze some portions for when I'm feeling overwhelmed and lazy. Last night I made some dough and today I baked this:
Oh yes, it is just as delicious as it looks. I am totally in love with my new book. And they are serious, 5 minutes a day really is all it takes! My mom asked me for the recipe, but I'm all, "It's a system mom, a system!" This is just the basic, you-must-learn-this-first bread, but there are so many yummy looking ones I can't wait to try. I had to make a little investment in the book, a pizza peel, and oven thermometer (we already had a stone and I'm using a big stockpot for storing dough for now), but besides that I think a loaf works out to be ridiculously cheap, like fifty cents.
We also used up some of our produce from our CSA box. The bok choy and green garlic went into a simple vegetarian stir fry we did over rice for dinner.
Tuesday was so excited about it she figured out how to use her spoon! She's been aiming at her mouth for a while, but at the last minute she'd tip it over and most would end up in her lap. Halfway through dinner she did get tired and started shoving things in with her left hand, maybe she'll be ambidextrous!
Also:
Playing, but being distracted by:
The big machine tearing up our driveway. We were going to have grass by this weekend, but did I mention the rain WON'T STOP?
Our poor backyard looks so naked.
p.s. You may want to check out the picture of the day. Yesterday Tuesday and I got to watch a dance class… full of preschoolers.
Do the mash
Tuesday has been getting into my mini album stash and, no surprise, she wins and the mini albums loose. I wanted to create something a little more durable and while flipping through my photo storage albums I came across the moster pictures from my shower. And made this:
I tried to put lots of textures and things on there, but in a way that Tuesday couldn’t destroy.
Ribbon, check!
Eyelets and snaps, check! Also Bj did point out that this happened in 2008, NOT 2009. And I actually argueed with him over that… man time goes quickly!
I used my Crop-a-Dile that I only had out because I was listing it on Craig’s list. I’d never used the thing (it was a gift)… then Sarah brought hers over and now I’m addicted! It’s so quite, it’s so easy. Ok, sure the reach isn’t the best, but still, fun. And I don’t even know when the last time I used an eyelet was.
Tuesday loved it! Just kidding, I had to pose that shot. Well she did love it, but of course, this side:
What? And of course it did not occur to me to make it double sided. I’m not giving up though I plan on doing a bunch more of these types of albums that are Tuesday friendly so she can look at photos of herself, her friend, our family, her things, as often as she wants.
I also scrapped a bunch of pre-blog photos:
That have been sitting around bugging me for a while. I debated posting it, because it’s simple and a little boring. But I don’t post on 2 peas any more and I like having them up as a back up (nightmares about fire, etc.). Of course I don’t post all my layouts, but do you guys like looking at them on here, maybe I should switch to putting them on flickr? Thoughts?
Take Two
This is the good stuff I wanted to post yesterday. First off a layout I did that I love:
Maybe because I love the quilt so much. I’ve been wanting to try these strips of punches I’ve seen all around (definitely not my original idea), and I love how it turned out layered over fabric scraps.
I also used fabric in the title:
To punch “quilt”. I did this before a long time ago, but forgot about the technique. It works best if you run a strip of fabric through a xyron first (I use this little guy) and punch with a lot of pressure.
Side note about Quickutz. I love mine and got the revolution on a whim right before I had Tuesday. Needless to say I haven’t had a chance to use it much, and it sits there giving me guilt. I thought I would get more big dies to punch, but I only got one, some cool branches, so I really just need my squeeze, not both. So if you want it (with the case, branch die and everything it came with) I’m asking $60 plus shipping (email me: [email protected]).
And now for some fun stuff I didn’t make.
A few weeks ago I bought some cards off of Sarah’s shop because 1. when you make things people expect homemade cards, 2. I’d rather give her the $3 over Hallmark, and 3. they are awesome. Then I had her do a custom order of a set of five “t” cards for me to send “from” Tuesday. Didn’t they turn out sweet? Now I can scrapbook away and not feel like I should be making cards. My box is nice and full:
Thanks Sarah!
Oh I also wanted to say I updated my Amber Love’s list on the sidebar with some really cute links. The book list is slightly updated (not as much reading time as I’d like!) and I finally managed to update the dailies (I don’t know if anyone looks at these, but I love looking back on the year like this, so I maintain it… usually!). Also there is a link to my twitter over there (you’ll have to hop out of google reader if you’re in there). Check it out.
Get your photos off that card!
That title is my PSA for today. I never have photos lingering on the memory card of my camera unless it has already been downloaded on the computer, but alas my time to loose a few (luckily not too precious) photos was today. Today was a crazy busy, long day and I started by taking pictures of all the things I was going to blog about. Later Tuesday and I played for over an hour in our muddy muddy yard (good times). Bj took a bunch of photos and went to put them on his computer—poof! They were gone. Not sure why or how, the cards seem to be working fine now. But I know people who have like a years worth of photos on their cards, not backed up, so beware! And download them like it’s hot! I also get prints, like in the stone ages, I do not want to loose my photos. Anyway…I do have some iPhone pictures for you:
From a few days ago. Now the whole yard is getting trenched for sprinklers. The trenches are full of water, so we are a bit behind. It is raining like it’s March, crazy wet. I went with the “if you can’t beat them” mentality today and took Tuesday out in the mud. About 15 minutes in she “got it” and started stomping in puddles and really getting dirt under her nails, so sweet.
Last night we went to meet Sarah and have dinner and sort out the swap stuff.
I’m not sure how else we could have done it, but we sure got ourselves confused! We decided NOT to do it random, but we didn’t want to know who was who so Bj kindly numbered the players for us. Sarah is the designated secret keeper/match send-outer. I think matching like this will make it more fun than just random, because you will at least have one craft in common, usually more. So check your (e)mail boxes!
Ok, hopefully back tomorrow with some actual content… and a little sleep (Tuesday = up before seven, 2 hr nap, sleep at almost 11, NOT COOL!).
