Beautifuly Created

2010-06-07T02:33:00.000-05:00

Has moved to www.beautifullycreatedboutique.com

A New Bag

2010-02-15T11:18:00.002-06:00

Presidents day means a day off for my husband. We like to try to go do something fun on these days off but it was just too dang cold today and we are all to one degree or another getting over colds here so we didn't do much.

I made some homemade marshmallows, well attempted to I think they are going to get remelted for rice crispy treats as they seem to be a little too sticky this time around. I also made a big pot of spegetti sauce, this was all before 10 am.

We then made a run out to take my good sewing machine to the repair shop, again, the third time in 6 months :(.

Luckily I have a backup machine, not the greatest but it works. So when we got home from all the running I decided to do a little sewing for myself. I can't remember the last time I made something for me and not something for someone else or baby diapers. Well I made a diaper bag so it's not all for me.

I used this tutorial and adapted it to work with this old military blouse.
And made a nice bag that looks like this
And pockets on the back
and on the inside too
I'm going to give it a try, it's not quite as big as I was wanting it, I'm trying to go back to full time cloth diapering which means needing a pretty big bag to go out with. It was a nice simple and fun project to do on a relaxing "day off"

House Tour Part 2, The Master Bedroom

2010-02-10T04:23:00.003-06:00

I like to decorate, one of my favorite things about being a military family is that I get to move into new houses all the time and decorate them, we have lived in some that I just could not do much with but most I have been pretty happy about.

For this room you will have to use your imagination some (well you will in most rooms as I do not have them *just right* and probably never will LOL). This room is lacking a headboard which I intend to make soon, a mirror that I just ordered and art work, in other words the walls are a little bland.
So this is the view from the foot of the bed. This room is small for a master bedroom, at least by American standards, it's about 10x11 feet, this is a king size bed, there is literally just enough room for our bed a table on either side a large wardrobe and a small table all of which you will see latter. Like I said we are lacking a head board, I'm going to make a padded head board as soon as I can get downtown and buy the plywood and foam for it. I have an iridescent taffeta in brown that will go great with this set.
To the left of the bed, my jewelry cabinet makes a small bed side table, just the right size.
To the right of the bed, this is a wash stand I got from someone who was selling off extra stuff.
The main clothes storage area, I have the drawers and the double door of the wardrobe, Justin has the single door and the rolly carts.
This is my dressing table, the mirror I ordered is going above this, you can also see out the door down the hall that leads to the kitchen. The curtain is covering a french door that leads out to the patio/courtyard

Thats the master bedroom.

Proverbs 31:10

2010-02-02T09:16:00.002-06:00

OK so I don't know about all of you but I LOVE this woman, she fascinates me, I want to be this woman. I read every book I can on her, I read the chapter over and over again, I have print outs of it in various places in my house. I often times fail at my goal, rising while it is yet dark? Phewy, who wants to get up at 3 am in the summer to make that goal, she obviously lived where the sun does not wake up so early LOL, then on the other hand in the winter I can sleep till 7 and still be up while it is yet dark, HA!

So here is what I'm thinking, let talk about her, lets study her, I will post a verse everyday and we can talk about that verse and how it applies to us, how we can emulate this woman in this modern world. Many of us may have a pretty good idea about her, but there are some who may not of even heard of her.

So today

Proverbs 31 :10

An excellent wife, who can find?
For her worth is far above jewels.

What are your thoughts on this verse?

Post a comment or link to this post and make an entry on your blog.

Clean Sweep

2010-02-01T05:39:00.003-06:00

I have the itch to organize something big time right now. I just feel this NEED to get my house running as smoothly as possible and that means going through and getting rid of the extra things that are just taking up space. This could have something to do with the fact that I put some things in our storage room and now cannot get into it because some totes fell in front of the door thus blocking entry, it could be that when my husband brought up the possibility of staying at this base an additional 4 years and I asked him if he would want to move at that point and he said no that my mind is now going OK we are pretty comfortable here with our two children but we plan to add more and well it's going to get a little crowded.

Somethings need to be kept, I really do like to get my china out and use it, someday we will have long Sunday dinners with the table set with the best dishes, to be honest I want a second set that is English, I am living in England after all I should have a set of English china as a souvenir. I don't really want to buy all new Christmas decor, or other holidays for that matter, and one day like the Sunday dinners, I will have it together enough to decorate for the changing season. But do I really need to keep the toys that cost me $3 at the thrift shop, or the $20 high chair? Well the baby IS using th high chair right now but you get the point, I probably do not. I'm even wondering if I REALLY need that extra freezer in my kitchen, though it's not really in the way and it is a good place to feed the cat.

So now I'm off to continue to purge and organize my house.

Clearly I do not have enough hobbies already

2010-01-31T15:17:00.002-06:00

Because I got on Amazon.com the other day to check out candle making supplies, something I was interested in a long time ago but never started doing and not only ordered the supplies to make candles but a bath bomb kit. The candle making supplies have yet to arrive but the bath bomb stuff did so I made some up this afternoon.

Yummy baths are just a day a way.
I ordered this stuff last week and got it yesterday, I wish all my packages would get here that fast, I have fabric that has been on it's way for a month now.

Keeping busy

2010-01-29T13:32:00.001-06:00

These cute little baby shoes.I have been looking for a shoe pattern for baby boys and have finally found this one.
So cute and and in my shop now.

So what are you reading?

2010-01-22T07:12:00.003-06:00

This is the pile of books I'm currently reading. My mom wouldn't be surprised by this, she often said she wished she had not taught us to read because she could never get our noses out of books. So what's there?

Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon

Organize Now, a week-by-week guide to simplify your space and your life- Jennifer Ford Berry

One Year to an Organized Life-Regina Leeds

The Bible

a couple of catalogs because I need to order some clothing

The Coconut Oil Miracle-Bruce Fife

Civilization, A New History of the Western World- Roger Osborne

The Good News About Women's Hormones- Geoffrey Redmond MD

The Hormonally Vulnerable Woman-Geoffrey Redmond MD

Suppermom Has Left the Building (that book has moved since I took the pic and I do not remember who it is by)

So what are you reading right now?

A look into my home

2010-01-21T06:35:00.003-06:00

I want to get better at blogging, both as a creative outlet and a way to share my everyday live with others.

There have been a few people who have wanted to see what our new home looks like so bit by bit I will post photos. This is my work room, just one shot of it. It's one of two downstairs rooms in the flint cottage part of our house.

A crochet hat and four pairs of booties

2009-09-04T04:35:00.003-05:00

I am having so much fun making things, I wish there were more hours in the day!

This is a hat I made, I wanted to make if for Olivia but it turned out to be too small, it's still supper cute though and will look cute on some little girl who is about 1 or 2.
And here are the booties, I'm addicted to making these the are so simple and quick to put together. I got the patteren from My Sweet Little on Etsy. I plan to make these for my shop in the near future.
Well off to do some more creative work:)

Longgies and a photo prop cocoon

2009-08-31T06:01:00.004-05:00

Longgies I made yesterday, quick project and so fun. I need to find lanolin and waterproof them for diaper covers.
I made this cocoon and hat for my SIL to use as a photography prop. Erik does not appreciate being a model for me.

I couldn't wait to share

2009-08-26T07:21:00.003-05:00

This will be Olivia's good coat this winter. I have had it cut out for awhile but just found the pieces after our move. It's not quite done yet, putting the lining in and button holes/buttons are next on the list. I just think it's too cute, made from a vintage McCall pattern.

New Diapers

2009-08-25T09:00:00.002-05:00

The next size up from new born, Erik is growing fast and will be in these soon! This is the one I have done, a fitted diaper with a cute tractor print flannel on the outside. This diaper has a layer of bamboo french terry on the side that touches the bottom, inside I put a layer of Zorb sandwiched between two layers of diaper flannel. This should be one heavy duty diaper, can't wait to try it out when I get a cover made, or maybe I will try out the wool soakers I made :).

My latest creations

2009-08-24T07:38:00.006-05:00

I haven't blogged in a long time, I feel like I have done so much more than I have pictures to post, and I have I just don't have the pictures. I have been a diaper making machine getting new born diapers done just before our new baby arrived, then burp cloths also as I realized that we did not have any that were not pink LOL. I don't have pictures of the new diapers (well very used now) and burb cloths but here is what I have done in the last few weeks.

This is a baby quilt (or lap quilt) made from squares of denim and DCU's with a flannel backing that has John Deer tractor camo pattern.
The next two are some dish towel sets I made up by crochet, I have taken a liking to crochet and have found I can do it while nursing the baby.

And finaly here is our beautiful baby boy, Erik, born June 15 after a fairly uneventful pregnancy. He is 9 weeks old in this picuter.

Back, maybe....

2009-03-25T02:09:00.003-05:00

So I logged on to blogger for the first time in months. I have had update my blog on my to-do list for a while now but find more "important" things to do. In the last few months I havn't been all that createive. Blame the gloomy English winter or pregnancy but I just have not had the will to do more than what had to be done. I have done a few things and I am working on getting photos of them to put up.

I am in the midst of making newborn diapers and covers, I have much of them cut I'm just waiting on supplies to come that I have ordered and most likely will not get them done until the end of May since I want to put bamboo velor on the indside of them and well I special ordered a bunch of it, so lets hope my new born diapers get done before I have a new born, LOL.

Here is a picture of one diaper I did make while exprimenting with diaper making. I made several proto types and eventualy drafted my own patteren because most of the patterens I printed off the internet wound up way too small and now Livi has a few diapers for her dolls. This diaper I made from an old polo shirt that Justin no loger wanted.

I made a Mai Tia carrier a couple of months ago and think I will really like it, unfortualty I have not been able to try it out because Olivia runs and hides every time I get it out. I would love to try it and take some pics but I don't think it's going to happen unless I put it on the dress manaquine and put a doll in it.

I also recently made a pair of pajamas and a dress for Olivia but I have not taken photos because Olivia loves these and also has learned to use the camera so wants to be the photographer instead of having the picture taken of her. Eventualy I will sneak photos of these things.

I have lots of other projects on the list and am working through them along with looking for a new house and preparing for baby to come. I hope I can keep up on this blog, but I'm not making promises.

43Things

2008-09-09T04:06:00.003-05:00

I like list so I think this site is just neat. Baicaly you make a life list, things you want to do. They can be basic goals like make a grocery list or long term over the top travle the world and see the seven wonders and everything in between. I have come across this site at times when I have done google searches for various things and I'm giving it a shot just for the fun of it, I think it will be fun to track what I have accomplished.

Life Update

2008-08-27T06:13:00.001-05:00

We took Olivia to the Linton Zoo on Monday, it was an OK trip but really I wish we had gone to the bigger zoo. I had been there before when I worked with youth services and so I knew it wasn't a big zoo and that there were not a lot of animals there but I was disappointed really this time, many of the cages were so overgrown you couldn't see anything. Olivia did enjoy it though and we saw lions, tigers, owls, parrots, zebras, turtles, giant tortoises, and many other animals I can't remember all the names.

We have some more trips planned in the next few weeks as my DH has some extra time off, we plan to see some castles and go to some towns we havn't been to yet

I know some of you would like to see pictures from here, I would love to share and hope to but my computer is a pain to upload and edit them, not good when you are trying to do an online store. I think I'm going to start looking at the mac books at the BX, I'm not impressed with VISTA can't use the word processor that came with my computer without a product key and there is no SD card reader on this thing (I bought it in February!!!!). Also we have not gotten back into the grove of taking pictures, so far what we have done has pretty much been going to the High Street and that is pretty much mundane for us though I know some of you it is knew and exciting.

I had to move the cat food today

2008-08-08T03:44:00.004-05:00

It's not a new thing to keep the cat food up off the floor, we have to do that to keep the dogs out of it. We have kept if various places over the years, on top of the refrigerator, in a room with a kitty door, on the dryer..... Our last house we had a little room that served as an office and pantry we kept a baby gate on the door way and put the cat food in there, here we just do not have that luxury there are three rooms down stairs kitchen, living room, and office. We don't have a full sized refrigerator and I was trying to avoid having the cat on the counters. My solution was to put the cat bowl in a window since he comes in and out of them all day anyway. Well today that plan was taken out of commission as Olivia discovered where the cat food was and started playing in it. So now the bowl is on my laundry counter, the cat may just start eating in the garage.

Oh how I love Ebay

2008-08-07T04:54:00.003-05:00

In the last week I have bought four different fabrics that will become something. I have one now it's a plaid upholstrey weight about two yards and pretty wide in green. Part of it is going to become a bean bag chair for Olivia's room I think, it's not quite the color that I thought it was going to be. If not I'm thinking a coat, handbag, hat, I think I could get more out of it. On the way I have 7 yards of some kitchen themed fabric; I'm thinking shopping bags, table cloth/napkins, play linens for the little kitchen, aprons. For clothing I have coming 7 yards of yellow cotton/ploy and 4 yards of a brown with white polka dots, I plan to make some dresses for me and Olivia and hopefully some tops too. I was on my way to bidding on some denim, I need some for skirts and pants, when I was firmly told by Justin that I was to get no more fabric until I get my sewing room organized which will involve acquiring some organizing type furniture and a desk for our computers so the table they are on can go into the sewing room. Fair deal since you can't really walk into the room, but really he has NEVER told me I can't have something before and is usually telling me that if I want it I should go ahead and buy it. That remindes me I really should stop buying fabric and get on some auctions for notions, I could really use some fun stuff to do up projects.

Oh yeah, and after years of looking, shopping, almost buying I got 28 cloth napkins for around $20 including shipping which is not a bad price at all. I'm going to keep looking for more as most of them were dinner size and I would like more of other sizes. I'm also looking for table cloths and such too. And a cabinet to put this stuff in before I get banned from bying them too. I have a place to put the cabinet, not a place to put all the linnens with out a cabinet.

I have been enjoyin Ebay UK too. I have found what would be great deals and would solve some of my storage delimas if not for having to drive 5 or 6 hours one way to get some of it *sigh*. I have found some things a bit closer just don't want to eat our weekends up driving all over the country picing up finds and don't want to drive all over the country by myself with a child.

Swimming!

2008-07-24T13:12:00.006-05:00

What started out as an attempt to teach Olivia about pouring liquids into containers turned into a fun afternoon of swimming. She's still small enough to fit in a wash basin :).

This is our back yard, the smallest we have had yet, and a postage stamp to our last one.

She spent a lot of time just lounging like this. We are going to buy a wading pool this weekend!

Home Tour

2008-07-21T14:43:00.015-05:00

So here it is the promised post with pictures of my house!! There are things that are very normal for a British house in our home and there are things that are not for example it's pretty open feeling even though it's not really all that large it's laid out so that there are windows on both sides of the living room and kitchen which help to give light all day and let them feel larger.

So onto the tour....

This first picture is the entry and our downstairs cloak room (half bath). To the right there is a small room that is either a study or small bed room, it's my sewing room but due to lack of furniture its a mess so I'm not showing that room today, sorry.

This is looking into our lounge (living room)/dinning room from the entry. We use this area for living room/play room/office, and we will have a dining table there in front of the fireplace once we find one, the one we had didn't fit.

Here is looking at it from the other side by the fire place.

Here is my kitchen this is the side that has all the cooking stuff. The stove is 21" wide by the way. All of my baking stuff fits in it except for on pampered chef pizza stone that I just bought last year :(

This is my kitchen from the other side, basically a view of my laundry area, allot of people have a hard time with the *small* washers here. I must have been given a larger one by the base because I don't have an issue with it, I can't wash blankets like my king sized washer in the states but it gets my clothes clean and that's what matters.

Here is the breakfast bar and drink station. The cabinet with the lock on it is the snack cabinet and it's the only one I have to keep locked or Olivia will tend to pour cereal all over LOL.

Here is the upstairs cloakroom and bathroom. The cloakroom has a toilet and sink, the bathroom has a bathtub and sink.

This is Olivia's Room.

This is the guest room, this is the only room in the house that is completely decorated (with the exception of needing a bed frame) mainly because Justin couldn't take most of his military stuff to work at this office so we had a surplus of things that just really did not fit in the rest of the house. If you ask him this is his room LOL, it's where he comes to get away and play his video games.

This is the hallway entering into the wing of the house we use for the Master suite. One of the minor drawbacks to this house is that it doesn't have a proper master bedroom and the bathroom with the shower and such is next to the two smallest bedrooms which are coming up. We decided to cope with it by using the whole section of the house as one large room cut into different sections. What you can see here is the dressing area, which is a very nice feature to have since you can't plug anything in in a bathroom here, there are no electric outlets in them (sometimes there is one for electric shavers). I think it was a law thought up by a man who was tired of all his wife's stuff on the bathroom vanity LOL. Anyway in this area is a vanity, a very small built in closet (one of three the other two are in Olivia and the guest rooms) a dresser and a built in cupboard with shelves (linen closet).

This is the big bathroom in the house. It's called a family bath. to the right and back a little is a large shower. The floors are radiant heat and we found out the radiant heat can be uncomfortable if turned up too high and you have wet feet :)

This is the fourth and smallest bedroom, right now it's kinda a catch all room-like my sewing room but neater. It has a wardrobe for my hangup clothes because the other closet is not big enough. We would like to make this a full on dressing room and/or use it as a nursery if/when we have another little one.

And this is the bedroom, nothing fancy literally a bed in a room. Not much room for anything else. We were hoping to be able to get a king bed when we moved so that our guest could have a queen bed to sleep on but there is no way that a king bed is going to fit in this room so if you come visit I will promise to make you a comfortable as possible.

And that's our house. Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Bibs

2008-07-15T03:40:00.003-05:00

One is in my shop now, more to come. I made a couple for Olivia and thought they were too cute not to share. Enjoy!

Under the Sink

2008-07-09T07:49:00.003-05:00

Retro Housewife has issued a challenge to show her what is under our sinks, or what we use for cleaning for those of us who do not keep cleaning supplies under the sink so here it is. Since we have moved and I had to start from the beginning I have made an effort to go as simple as possible with my supplies I have:

Seventh Generation: dish soap, dishwasher detergent, and all purpose cleaner

baking soda

vinegar

Charlies Soap

shout

Febreez allergen reducer

borax

sea salt

liquid starch

and I need to buy rubbing alcohol

That it I use a combination of these to make various cleaning products like window washer, floor cleaner, shower spray, and scouring powder.

To take the challenge head on over to Retro Housewife and follow the instructions.

Incase she is ever a tomboy

2008-07-08T07:05:00.005-05:00

This last weekend we went to the Fourth of July celebration at the Air Force Base here. They had a carnival and all the fun stuff you do at a summer fair including the games. Of all the stuffed animals that could have been won by her Daddy Olivia just had to have this

They came in this small size, medium, and very large. She wanted the large one but loves this one just the same. All I could think of is...Whats that saying...Ignoring the pink elephant in the room.

Sorry I don't have pictures from the carnival, I left the camera in the van. Don't worry though there were no important first like carnival rides, or ice cream cones and we did not stay long enough to see the fireworks as we forgot to bring warm clothing and got too cold.

What I have been doing

2008-07-08T06:45:00.004-05:00

The last couple of weeks have been up and down. I'm pretty sure I got everything I ordered a the beginning/middle of June so if I can make myself sit down down and do them I should have some projects going and done this month. Then on the other hand July is one of the nicest months of the year here in England and if it's not raining I sure would rather be out taking walks with Olivia or playing in the garden. Speaking of which we have a greenhouse and I have taken to growing things in there and it's not going half bad, if I can keep it up I think I can grow a good portion of produce right in our back yard.

I have completed one project. Part of my big shopping spree was an order of diaper kits from Diaperkits.com I spent an entire weekend and a little bit putting together a dozen all in one diapers but the results were great and the order was well worth it since I could not have bought the materials to cut them myself for what I paid per diaper. Justin told me when he put one on that if we got 50 more of them he would be perfectly happy. We don't need 50 but another dozen in this size and three dozen or so in smaller sizes should do us along with some sleeping diapers.

Up next, the ruffling foot for my sewing machine FINALLY came in so I will be working on the pettiskirt I started for Devan while we were home and send that to her. I have 30 yards of chiffon so I'm going to make one for Olivia for play clothes and put at least one in my ESTY shop. I also got in two yards of oil cloth to make bibs with, I will be making a couple for us because we are in desperate need of bibs and putting the rest in my shop. I also have a shirt cut out for myself if I ever get to it and I would love to get to my fabric stash and make myself and Olivia some new clothes since I have lost a couple of dress sizes since moving here and Olivia is growing like a weed.

It must have been very hungry

2008-06-27T06:02:00.006-05:00

Meet our dinosaurHe is a very cool toy if you are under 3 ft tall, you take the balls which you can see in the turtle (another cool toy) and put them into the holes on the top and they come tumbling or rolling out of different places on his body. OK I admit this can be a fun toy if you are a bit taller than 3 ft also. All that rolling and tumbling makes a Dino very hungry and what better snack than........

Crayola coloring crayons. You can see here that we have a very well balanced diet as we have a whole rainbow to choose from.

And yes he was very, very hungry.

The talented cook.

Bowl of Blossoms

2008-06-22T10:44:00.002-05:00

Fresh out of my garden.

Newborn Jumper

2008-06-20T06:56:00.003-05:00

Catching up on the few things I have made in the past few months. This jumper is in the shop .

I made ten jumpers a while back and am still working on them. Olivia wears one and it is a favorite outfit the others are in various stages of completion, waiting for the prefect embellishment to call their name.....

Tutu

2008-06-20T05:41:00.004-05:00

I put this together when we first got over here. I'm hoping to add some to my shop at some point when I can orders some more tulle. As it is I have ordered a whole load of things in the last week and will need to wait until the next pay check to have some more spending money ;).

These make wonderful dress up clothes for little girls and Olivia has a ball wearing what she called "Twinkle, Twinkle" the first time she put it on.

My SIL Devan uses them for props in her photography and they come out sooo cute.

Well that's all for now Olivia is down for a nap and I'm going to get some work done. Have a great day everyone.

What, I have a blog?

2008-06-19T02:43:00.007-05:00

OK so I know it's been forever since I updated here and I have a whole long list of excuses, really. To start with my old computer died a very sudden and tragic death. The video card and hard drive both went at the same time. I was very attached to that computer, I also had not back anything up on it so I lost a lot. Luckily Justin had transferred the pictures we had taken of Olivia over to his computer so we did not loose those, but everything else was gone. We bought a new computer right away but I do not like this one the primary reason being that it does not have an SD card reader which makes blogging and posting things for sale on ETSY rather inconvenient. I have found the cord for my camera however I don't like that process as well as I like popping the SD card into the computer and getting the pictures that I needed.

Add into that finishing up with our move and well that just made life a little more stressed, but we are done with that for a while now and settled into our new house for the most part. Sometime I will post pictures as I know there are some out here who want to see it.

Before we left the States we spent three weeks with our family in Illinois we had a wonderful time and got to spend a lot of time with my brothers and their wives. I love having sisters after having had only my brothers for so long its so nice to have sisters to hang out with and do fun girl type stuff with. My youngest brothers wife and I went off a couple of times and did girl things like searching Joann's for the prefect fabric for a pettieskirt (I'm getting a foot in the mail to make it Devan I haven't forgotten) or going to a tea house to eat. We also all went out to a local pub for dinner and some drinks, it was so nice to be together too bad we are all over the world.

Devan also took some awesome family pictures of us.

When we got here we pretty much focused on finding a house and settling in. Well that's done now and I finally have a room that I can sew in so you can look for postings hopefully to be more frequent both on here and in my shop.

Now to leave you with the latest item in my shop this clothes pin apron.

Because a girl just can't have too many bags

2008-02-09T19:23:00.000-06:00

I was purging old clothes to put away new ones that I purchased today so Olivia played in my room (because playing with Mommies things are so much better than playing with her toys). She decided to take out all of my purses and apparently couldn't decide which one was better, or she had a lot of things she wanted to carry :). This isn't the only thing she played with, I put away several drawers and shelves that were emptied before I got my job done :).

How Cute is this

2008-01-29T18:16:00.000-06:00

Olivia is growing so much, physically and cognitively. She is really starting to do some cute things.
This morning I wasn't feeling well, DH gave me a quick back rub before he left for work (too much floor scrubbing yesterday). As he was giving me the back rub Olivia came up and rubbed my feet, just like I do when she is feeling icky.
This afternoon DH was doing some grooming on our Persian cat. The cat does not like to be groomed and was whining. The whole time Olivia sat at the gate into the kitchen and stared and whined right along with the cat.
She has also started patting our back when she wants her back patted, and letting us know that she needs a diaper change.
So much fun!

Additions

2008-01-29T11:07:00.000-06:00

I added some items to my side bar.
The first being a link to my sister-in-law's web page. She does awesome photography. The portiates of Olivia I have posted here were done by her, she also did our family picture.
I also added some of the blogs that I read.
Enjoy!

Hat and Scarf

2008-01-09T16:00:00.000-06:00

I taught myself to knit several years ago to help get through a winter deployment. That first project was a sweater, it's still sitting in my knitting basket just about done. I lost track of where I was at on the last sleeve, someday I will attempt to figure out where I was at.

I did finish this project though, I made she scarf in a garter stitch, it's OK, it has some holes from dropping stitches and it's wider at one end because of the dropped stitches. The hat was so simple and other than taking time to finding the proper needles it only took me a few hours to make.

House Hunting

2008-01-09T11:31:00.000-06:00

One of the perks of being a military family is that we get to move every few years.
One of the down sides of being a military family is that we move every few years.
I guess it depends on how you look at it. Our move is getting closer and as it does I am looking more at the options for houses that await us at the other side of the "Pond".

We have two main options Government housing which can be on or off base (as far away as 45 min) and very small (650 sq ft-1200 sq ft) or living "on the economy" meaning that we live in town in a British house and get a housing allowance. The first option, because of DH's rank and our family size, will put us in a two bedroom house where ever they have room until our family grows then we will be moved up until 4 bedroom housing (because that's as big as they get). The second option we are given a set amount of money to shop for housing and get something that will work for us size, location, amenities. Since we have lived in a 3 bedroom house or the equivalent for the last six years and do not really want to down grade and then move one or more times we are choosing door number two. I had my choice made with some out of pocket expense and a little longer commute than DH would have liked but it looked like it would fit us well and give us room to grow. Then with the new year came a higher housing allowance meaning we can afford to live closer to the bases and possible get most of my wish list for housing which include

Recent build or remodel 4-5 bedroom (I have been living in a remodel for the last four years I would like my home to look clean with minimal effort and older homes just don't have that)
A study for a sewing room (if it's a five bedroom it does not need this)
A master bathroom (this is an upgrade from the one bath we have now and would hopefully allow Olivia to sleep longer in the morning since we would not be making noise right next to her door)
Half bath downstairs (because I don't want to be stuck upstairs when I get pregnant again)
A dryer inside and/or a utility room (Many of the houses I have looked at online do not look like there is a vent for the dryer in the house, here in the states I cannot line dry clothes because of allergies, I'm not sure about there)
A gas cook top (I just prefer this)
Fenced Yard so the puppies do not get out.
Some storage space
I think a conservatory would be cool but it's not a must.

So that's my list for some it may sound like a large house but it doesn't come up to much more than the average American split level, the bedrooms are small, were talking 8X6 or smaller in most cases for the 3rd and 4th rooms and the biggest master I have seen in our price range is about 12x11 slightly larger than the bedroom we have now.

I'm glad for two things in this process. The Internet, which allows me to get a feel for what is available before we even move over there, and the fact that we are moving to an area that we are familiar with. With any luck I'm just a couple of moves away from my dream home.

Helping a grieving Mother

2008-01-05T10:51:00.000-06:00

~Courteous people are empathetic-able to relate emotionally to the feelings of others. They listen closely to what people say. They observe what is going on around them and register what they see. A self centered person might say ,"I know exactly how you feel" to someone in a traumatic situation and then immediately start describing his own experiences. An empathetic person is more likely to say something like, "I can't know how you feel right now, but I can understand your grief [or anger or sadness]. And if you want to talk about it I'm here to listen." -Emily Post Etiquette 17th Edition, Peggy Post~

When a pregnancy loss occurs the stories of others losses often come out of the wood work. While there is nothing wrong with sharing your personal story of grief and recovery with a mother whose world has just fallen apart there are some ways to go about it that are better than others.

In my own experience I had many people who approached me and told me how sorry they were to hear of my loss and that they knew how I felt, they had loss a pregnancy also. While I smiled and listened to their condolences I really wanted to tell them they had know way of knowing how I felt. They could understand part of they sadness, the anger, the longing in my heart but their experiences were not the same as mine. Except online I did not encounter a woman who had lost a child due to my condition (a cervix that is too week to hold a baby to term). Most of the women that told me their stories had miscarried very early and after having had one or two children. I do not discount their grief, however, that is a very different experience from your first and second children being carried almost to a point that they could have survived, and holding them in your arms.

The best condolence I received was after my first loss when a neighbor of mine who had experience seven early miscarriages had stopped at my house for something. During the course of our conversation she told me that she didn't know how I did it (dealt with the grief of losing a baby at nearly five months along), all the while I could not imagine being her losing one baby after another and having no idea why my body would not hold a pregnancy for more than a few weeks.

God gives us special graces to deal with our individual circumstances and will never allow us to go through more than we can handle at one time, even if it seems we are 10 inches over our head at the time. That is a grace for our life and our trial though and does not mean we can know what the person next to us is feeling, experiences such as these even effect spouses in profoundly different ways. If you find yourself giving condolences to someone who has just lost a pregnancy a shoulder to cry on is the best first offer, let them talk about their grief, and if they are open to it you can use your experience to help them to work through their grief.

My own response to pregnancy loss veries at this time. I will often gauge it on how well I know the person. Most people who know me know my story so I do not even have to tell them my experience. I do offer condolences, a shoulder to cry on (or a in-box to vent to). I also offer ideas to memorialize the pregnancy and/or books to read that can be helpful. From there I allow the other person to take the lead.

Passport Pictures

2007-12-21T11:46:00.001-06:00

We got them done yesterday. My husband made the appointment. He tries. The thing is that he made it on a Thursday at 2:30. Nap times in our house are 10 and 2, I think he knows this but being Dad it doesn't occur to him not to make appointments at these times. Thursdays at 2 are even worse because most times there is no morring nap due to play group and shopping. If there is one it's not a good one.
We went to the picture place early to see if they could get us in. I was afraid that we would have no luck. They got us in but all Olivia wanted to do was play. Sitting still on a pillow for a head shot was not happening. Her picture looks like someone pinched her :(. Mine turned out good on the other hand.
This morning we got the passport paperwork turned in. One more step down.

We are going to take Olivia to get pictures taken with Santa today after Justin gets off work. She met him a few weeks ago and in general does well with other people so we should get a good shot for this photo. In the mean time here is a picture that Devan took last time we were home,
Yep she is standing! She is trying to do it on her own now too. Only a few more weeks until she walks. I caught her the other day trying to climb the gate in front of the Christmas tree, I'm always on my toes.

The Long Absence

2007-12-18T09:14:00.000-06:00

Almost two months since my last post, wow I didn't realize it had been THAT long. I have done a couple of projects in the last few months but do not have pictures to show, I have been spending much of my time playing with my baby girl who is discovering new things everyday and attempting to get my house in order to sell and move. Last Saturday we got one step closer to getting our move done and got our house on the market. Now we are just waiting for a buyer, hopefully we get one before mid April, we should since we are in a good location and are not looking to make a ton of money.

Last night I made a wonderful dinner and wanted to share with everyone. We had Chicken Tikka Masala, Lentil and Rice Pilaf, Naan Bread, and Poached Pears. I took some pictures and will include those. This meal is a lot of work so make it when you have an afternoon to prepare it. Also many times I will make a very large batch of the chicken so that we can have this several times with out having to block out a day to cook. I will give directions for each dish one at a time but all of these dishes are cooking at the same time at one point or another in order to get them out on the table at the same temperature.

First the chicken. My recipe is based on this one from allrecipies.com. I took out the jalapeno pepper and cut back on the cayenne because other wise it is a very hot dish, we are talking take a bite and call the fire department. But if you can handle spice go ahead and try it with the extra pepper.

Cut three chicken breast into bite size pieces.

In a bowl combine:

1 cup plain yogurt
1 tablespoon lemon juice (I juice one half of a lemon)
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
dash of cayenne pepper (for us a little goes a long way)
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon salt

Stir the chicken into this mixture and allow to marinate for at least one hour in the refrigerator.

Heat a skillet (I use cast Iron as I find it gets the best heat) and lightly oil. drain off extra marinade, place chicken in skillet, cook until liquid has cooked off. Set Cooked chicken aside.

In a large skillet melt 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Saute 1 clove of garlic for one minute. Season with 2 teaspoons each cumin and paprika, and 1 tablespoon salt. Stir in 8 oz of tomato sauce and 1 cup whipping cream. Simmer on low heat until sauce thickens, about 20 minutes. Add cooked chicken and simmer for 10 minutes more.

For the rice:

My recipe for this comes from the Joy of Cooking cook book. My Grandmother bought me this cookbook the first Christmas after I was married simply because it has instructions on how to boil eggs in it and I had called my Mom asking her how to do this (something I had done many times as a teenager) because it had totally escaped my mind. My Mom spent more time laughing on the other end of the phone then it took to tell me how to do it. I don't call home and ask how to do things often any more.

Anyway the recipe is for Lentil and Rice Pilaf with Toasted Cumin Seeds. I cannot find cumin seeds where I'm at so I use cumin powder instead and it still taste great.

Stir into a medium saucepan of boiling water

1/2 cup lentils, picked over and rinsed.

Boil, uncovered, for 10 minutes; drain. Heat in an large saucepan or deep skillet over low heat:

2 table spoons vegetable oil (I use olive oil)

Add and cook just until sizzling, about 1 minute:

1 clove garlic, Finlay chopped

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

Add the lentils along with:

1 cup white basmati rice

Stir to combine. Add:

2 cups chicken stock

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt

Bring to a boil stir once, cover and cook over medium-low heat until the stock is absorbed and the rice and lentils are tender, about 15 minutes. Uncover and let stand for 5 minutes.

This is served with Naan bread. Sometimes I make it but most times I pick it up at the grocery store. When you are just about ready to serve your meal put a couple pieces in a 400 degree oven for 4-5 minutes to warm.

We had a friend over last night whose family is of Pakistani decent. She asked us how we eat this. Justin will typically put a bed of rice down then put the chicken over it and eat it with a fork tearing off bits of bread as he needs it. I attempt to use my bread as a utensil as I know that that is the traditional way of eating it. Also I find even with cutting out a lot of the pepper it's still a spicy dish for me so the bread and a little rice in every bite tones in down a bit. Our friend said she was raised to use the bread for the meat dish but that she uses a fork for her rice. Traditionally the rice would be eaten with the hand also.

For desert I made poached pears for the May 2007 Real Simple. Go to the sight for the recipe. They were good but I forgot to take pictures and it looks much better on the sight than I would have taken.

New Coat

2007-10-22T13:42:00.000-05:00

After about four conversations with my husband about the need for me to get a new coat that went some thing like this:

Me: I NEED to buy a winter coat.

DH: You have a coat, there is a whole closet full of coats in the extra bedroom.

Me: No I don't have a coat (we both walk into the bedroom to look at the coats in the closet which consist of two coats for Olivia, a Green Bay Packers coat of DH's, a leather jacket of DH's, a black parka of DH's, a poncho of DH's, DH's Letterman jacket from high school, a rain coat that belongs to me, a warm coat that belongs to me but is not for wearing to nice places, my FFA jacket from high school, and my winter coat that I bought last year which is a maternity)

DH: (pulling out maternity coat) see you have this one.

Me: It's a M-a-t-e-r-n-i-t-y coat. It will be way to big for me this year (I hope).

I got a new coat this weekend. And not a day too soon with the weather getting cool here, I will be wearing it soon. I got a great deal on it too. The in store price was $185, they were having a 50% off sale bringing it down to $92.50. I had $31 on a gift card so after taxes I paid $68 a 64% savings!

(picture from macys.com)

It's been awhile

2007-10-17T08:34:00.000-05:00

Wow! The last month has just flown. We have been very busy gearing up for our move and now I think we will be breathing a little easier for a few months.

We have a couple of very small projects to do and the house will be put up for sale, hopefully by the first of December.

I spent three weeks and three visits to vets trying to get our pets started on the import process into the UK. It's a complicated six month process that has to be done right or the go into a six month quarantine when we get there. We wound up driving two hours to Fort Leavenworth Kansas and the Army vet up there because the military vets are the only ones that have micro-chip readers that read European chips which two of our animals have. The processes is started now and they should be able to enter the country about the same time we fly over there. They may have a week or so of quarantine to Finnish up there but we will also have to find a house so that works for us.

In the mean time, I'm doing little bits of packing here and there in hopes that we sell our house right away and will move into a temp house. I have also gotten a creative streak, the stress has settled a bit. I cut 10 baby jumpers the other day, I'm going to give five of them away and keep the other five for our baby clothes stash. I also bought 20 some yards of fabric at Wal-Mart off the $1 rack. most of it will be pajama pants and dresses for Olivia. Some will be a shirt I have wanted to make for myself for a while and then I will have some for my fabric stash that I have a goal of building along with my pattern stash. Pictures will be coming soon.

Whats been going on here

2007-09-20T14:57:00.000-05:00

I eluded to some big news last week in my post, and while things are not set in stone yet I think now is the time to lay it all out.

My business is going to be on the very back burner for an indefinite period of time. The reason being that I need to focus on getting our home ready to put up for sale and then packing and moving. Yes we will be moving in the very near future, within the next six months.

Being a military family we have become accustom to this and welcome the change. We have been in the house we currently call home for just over three years now. That is about six months longer than we have lived in any house in the eight years we have been married. This move is not yet set in stone, nothing is with the military until you are at your destination really but we feel that this is God timing. My husband filed for an extension so that we could have more time to sell our house and we are waiting to see if they approve it or cancel the orders all together. So where are you moving to? you ask, Well we are going to be moving back to England. We are so excited about this. We loved our time in England and there were many things we did not get to do before we left.

I ask for prayers for us. While we are ready for the transition and even anticipate it they are always difficult. In particular we need to get our house sold and in a timely manner at a decent selling price. If it sells quickly we have a couple of options, one being to rent a place until we move. This is not always easy as landlords around here like to have leases for one year though our orders would get us out of a lease we would hate to do that to a landlord. In addition many times the rent is more than what we are paid for housing cost, one of the reasons we bought in the first place, so it would cost us a lot of money to rent a house even for a few months especially with animals. Another less desirable option is for myself, the baby, and our pets to move home with my parents and for my husband to stay with some friends who have already said it would not be a problem, and then putting all of our belongings into storage until we move (or with any luck having orders cut and getting our goods shipped ahead of us). This would save us a lot of money even with helping people with utilities and food but our family would be separated by 5 hours for a few months and I would have little access to a vehicle to come visit. We are prepared for either situation.

I am in the process of attempting to do a fairly complete inventory of our house. Especially the items that will be going into long term storage. This is a daunting tasks to say the least but in the end will make the move that much smoother. I am also evaluating much of what we have and making very tough decisions about weather it is an item that we can live without for the next few years or not. Some things are a given, but somethings you just can't be sure about and since I know that we have almost no choice but to down size this move and will want to buy some more antiques while we are there I just have to make the choices.

Well the baby is awake and I'm off to do some more work.

I had to enter this one.....

2007-09-20T14:49:00.000-05:00

There are a ton of contest out there in blog land but this is one of the few that I actually take the time to enter. 5 Minutes for Mom is giving away a pink Dyson vacuum!!!!!!!!!!

When we were stationed at RAF Alconbury in England I had a friend who just raved about Dysons but would not pay 240 GBP for it just to move back to the states in a few years. I had not heard much about them, dh and I were relatively isolated from the British culture we lived on base and did not have British television. Well then I began to see ads for them on TV at friends houses and wanted one myself. Fast forward to moving back stateside. Y'all have no idea how much things change in three years unless you are not around fro those three years. Among those changes were Dyson vacuums in the states. I don't have one yet, right now we don't need one since our floors are mostly hard, but it would be awesome to win one.

Head on over to enter for yourself. DH uses one at work and says its the best vacuum ever.

All creative efforts on hold....

2007-09-15T15:37:00.000-05:00

Well maybe not totally but I have some things going on right now that demand immediate attention so I will have no time to do any sewing for at least two weeks.

We have news here but I'm holding off on telling. Some may already know but there are some people you have to tell face to face before blogging about it. Hopefully we will have final details in the next week and be able to let everyone know what is going on. Anyway because of this my free time is occupied with preparations.

I really do need to find some time to make Olivia some dresses though. I got out her 6-9 mo clothes and she only has one dress in the whole lot, if you don't count the Christmas dresses she has. There is a lot of girly stuff but I like to put her in dresses for church so I will have to carve some time somewhere for that. Hopefully things will settle a bit in the next couple of weeks. This is my life. Get used to one normal and another comes up.

Feeling Renewed

2007-09-05T11:36:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it was about this weekend but somehow I just feel a sense of renewal and re freshness. I *know* that everything is going to be OK and have a better clearer plan of action.

I sat down and worked on my Home Organization Journal this weekend. I have had them in the past and they have worked but never quite gotten past the basic daily chores and a weekly deep clean. For one reason or another I have not been able to find a way to get the more irregular task done. This weekend I devised a plan that I think will work for me. When I get things put together I will do a post about it.

I have not done any sewing in the last couple of weeks, mainly because I have decided that I need to get my home in order. So this month is organize the house and set good habits month. in October I hope to start making Christmas presents for our Friends and family.

I am also going to add a volunteer endeavor to my agenda and saw a need for people to help at the Airman's Attic on base so when I am doing my running tomorrow I will go by the Airman and Family Readiness Center and see what I need to do to help with that.

Now to work on my Homemakers Journal. I hope to share it soon.

Enjoying another little break

2007-09-01T19:43:00.000-05:00

Labor day weekend and the hubby has a four day weekend. He had to do some running yesterday and we went to Lowe's to look at some materials to put together a proper pantry in a little nook in our house that will work perfectly for that purpose, only to realise that if we bought the materials at that time we would have no way to get them to the house. We are still adjusting to having a baby seat in the back of our car. Pre-baby we would just put the back seats down and load the car up, we have hauled allot-including 42" doors in the trunk of our car. Could be one of the reasons we had to replace the strut mounts on it this summer....

Anyway since I got Olivia and I back into our routine this week and was able to keep up on my task, I was able to do some deep cleaning while DH went and got the materials and painted them up. Tomorrow I will have the shelves installed and have room to store my extra food and supplies!!!!

A return to normal

2007-08-26T21:30:00.000-05:00

What ever that is.....

After the last three weeks of DH being on leave in anticipation for a deployment that now is not happening, visiting family and spending time together here at home starting tomorrow I will be spending the better part of next week setting up a new routine and cleaning up this house. If I spend an hour in each area of the house everyday we should be golden by the weekend. I did not get anything done last week due to the work that DH was doing on the house but it was so worth it to get the projects that have been sitting done with.

I also have to sit down and finalize our budget. Since we will not be getting the extra pay and tax benefits we thought we would we are doing some major cutting back for a couple of months to see where we can get as far as financial goals. We would love to buy a piece of land and or a house near our parents to stay in when we go home to visit but we have a few other things to square away first, along with hoping to get orders overseas and needing to make sure we can afford to take our pets with us. We sat down the week and made a plan I just have to make the arrangements to finalize it, and take the time to write it out so that if DH has to take care of things he knows what to do.

I also want to start my household notebook this week. I have had one before but it got very outdated and/or complicated. It's time to get back in the groove.

Insomia

2007-08-22T00:06:00.001-05:00

It's after midnight on a "school night" and I'm still sooooooo wide awake. This is not like me at all, for anyone that knows me you know that I'm early to bed and early to rise. For some reason though I have excess energy right now and no real outlet for it.

I have not been able to do much around the house the past couple of days as DH has it turned inside out putting all of our moldings on the walls. I am so glad this is getting done and will be glad when it is done. I was hoping to get some sewing done but since I cannot pull out my cutting table I cannot cut the larger projects I had hoped to do. I have a few smaller projects that I hope to do Thursday or Friday after I buy some supplies tomorrow, that is if I can unburymy sewing machine :). Someday I hope to have a sewing studio like this, for now I share a small room off the kitchen with the pantry and our "office". It used to be a mud room, was the laundry room when we moved in, and would be very well suited to a half bath if it were not for the expense of putting pluming into a slab foundation. This however is much better than sharing with the dining table or having no space at all so I will take what I can get, I may very well be sewing on the floor in our next home :).

One of the projects I have going right now are some craft accessory holders (knitting needles, rulers, seam rippers, etc.) A few of them are going to be denim on the outside and I think instead of regular top stitching I will put decorative stitching around the edges for a little something extra.

2007-08-20T16:03:00.000-05:00

I have been around just not much time to blog, or if I have the time I just can't get the energy together to form complete thoughts.

The last few days have been spent recovering from our trip back home to visit family. My supervisor at my last job made a comment once on how we still call our hometowns back home, even after being gone for nearly ten years now and having lived around the world. I think it's because of being in the military. You never really put down roots and as soon as you do your uprooted and transplanted to a new home again. Home is where the heart is, but it's also where Grandma still insist on making you breakfast every morrining and you can go out on a date with your husband with no problem because there are about a million people that are biting at the bit to babysit your daughter.

Anyway, it was a very nice visit. We went back because my brother is deploying to Iraq and DH was to deploy to Afghanistan also (more on that later). We spent a few days with DH's family and then went to my family and spent the rest of the time there. We had a great time with everyone just hanging out and having all the siblings and spouses together at one time. I am the oldest of three with two younger brothers so I love having sisters-in-law. I made this bag for one SIL who lives in North Carolina with my brother who is a marine

So being a marine wife really has nothing to do with this bag....it has more to do with why she lives where she lives. The bag is a messenger type bag for a computer. Made of denim so that hopefully it is very durable. What is so special about it is that the lining is this great hippy themed fabric that I found on the clearance rack at Joann's. She loved the bag. I have another project in mind for her that involves old uniforms but that is all I'm going to say for now as she may read this blog some day.

My other SIL who lives in Illinois and is married to my youngest brother who farms is a wonderful photographer and getting into business for herself. She took pictures of Olivia for us. She has done all of Olivia's pictures but these are much better because they aren't at Seares in the studio but outside on my parents property. It was really hot thought so Olivia got tired of it really quick and we tried to get pictures of her next to the chicken coop. That did not go over well, my mom gave the birds some cucumbers to get them to gather close and a goose hissed at Olivia and that was the end of the chicken coop. Here are some pics...

You can see more of her work here.

Our trip was a very relaxed one with no real commitments or things we had to do which is unusual, but then we are normally back for only a few days not almost two weeks and it's normally an holiday so we are obligated to go to every relatives dinner (or so most people think even if we only get five minutes notice). This was very nice because we just kind of hung out for a few days here and there.

We got back and spent a couple of days just kind of winding down then DH went to go to a pre-deployment briefing only to find out that he is not deploying. We do not expect people to understand this but we were not happy when we found out. DH volunteered to deploy to help us out financially. I am very happy to have my husband home for the holidays and to spend time with him, I did not want for him to go. However at the same time we had made the mutual decision that if the opportunity presented itself the best thing for the family would be for him to go. We had spent three months preparing for deployment emotionally and made plans for me to go home to our family over the holidays. We also made financial goals based on him getting extra pay for the next four months and having less taxable income next year. The news took us from behind and made us reevaluate everything that we have on the table at the moment, time for a fresh look.

DH still has one more week of leave left so he is finishing up the inside remodel of our house that has been going on for three plus years. It won't be quite done but the base boarding and door molding will be on the walls rather than sitting in the garage :) and there will only be a few small things to do and a couple of maintenance issues and we will be ready to move :) If the Air Force will be that kind to us.

I have many projects that I will be getting to soon, and I may just get to posting more often also.

I did it.....

2007-07-29T20:46:00.000-05:00

I have the previously mentioned items listed in my shop. One handbag and three baby slings. I had a pretty productive afternoon. Not a normal thing for Sunday as I try to take a day of rest but since DH was in town giving away kittens and Olivia was sleeping a figured I would take advantage of the quite time. I listed the hand bag and then started pizza fro dinner. DH got home about that time and started finishing up some projects he had going...including putting a shelf back on the wall that had toppled down in the middle of the night and torn big holes in the drywall on the way down. We finally got the kitchen table cleared of the books that had come off that shelf. He then started cleaning the fridge which I finished because I wanted to make sure I could find everything when I needed it. My did it need to be done. It was embarrassing and I'm glad that when people come over they don't look in my appliances very much. After that was done DH spent time with Olivia and I went back to my sewing room. I finished the top stitching on two slings and got the lining put together on a bag I'm making for my sister-in-law. The lining is the same as the purse I posted in the last post, she is into anything hippy and when I saw the fabric I knew I had to make her something out of it so I bought what was left of it.

So for next week................I'm hoping to keep up on the house pretty well, I'm having company Friday night and really don't want to spend all day Friday cleaning. I'm still working on being routine enough that my house is pretty much always clean. I was there at one time, before we moved three years ago, I just have to get settled with my new life again and learn to balance all my task. I need to get the bag done for my sis-in-law as we are going to be seeing them in the next couple of weeks, and in all fairness I should come up with something for my other sis-in-law but I haven't gotten to know her well enough to know what she would love. I'm also hoping to at least get some christening dresses started to sell. I have allot of extra lace from the one I did for Olivia as well as extra fabric I figured I would give them a shot.

I havn't fallen off the face of the earth.

2007-07-29T13:59:00.000-05:00

I promise I haven't. I have been very busy sewing though. I did a denim skirt that is sitting in the wash pile and I will take pictures of soon (I hope) maybe even with me modeling it, but that I'm not sure. I also did a high chair pad cover since my little one is sitting and eating solids a bit now.

I have also done a couple of projects that will be listed in my store. Last night I did this purse

It's a simple tote but it has this great lining inside of it

It's a hippy themed fabric that I found on the remnant table at Joann's. Go on over to my store and take a look if you are interested.

I have also put together a couple of baby slings. They are reversible pouch style slings with denim on one side for durability and then a fun print on the other for style. Each sling is custom made for the person who it is intended to be worn by. I made several of these slings before Olivia was born and I LOVE them. I do not use them as much now as she would rather sit in her exersauser (AKA her Command Center) where she can supervise all that goes on in the house, but when she was tiny and always wanting to be held it was a life saver. I still use it when I go to the store because she does not like to sit in her car seat while I shop and I can't say that I blame her.

I hope to get these Items listed by the end of the day so come on over if you like.

Have a wonderful day.

I Would Die For That

2007-07-20T09:59:00.003-05:00

This video is so touching if you have had any experience with infertility or long for a child at all.

My husband and I often tell people that Olivia is our miracle baby or that she was a long time coming. Often times people do not really understand what we are saying. We started trying to conceive in December 1999, two years later I finally became pregnant. We were twenty at the time we started it was very frustrating to be told to be patient when our Friends were on birth control and getting pregnant. We were so happy to get the news that we were having a baby. Unfortunately at 19 weeks into the pregnancy I went to the bathroom to discover that I had bulging bag of waters. We rushed to the nearest hospital and found out that there was nothing that could be done the pregnancy was over. Our first baby girl Desiray was still-born 15 hours later.

It took 18 months for us to conceive again. In that time there had been no confirmation as to what had caused my first pregnancy to end and I had about seven different doctors in that time frame (you gotta love the military). I was diagnosed with PCOS which is a condition where you do not ovulate on a regular basis. I was just about to start taking Clomid to help me ovulate when we found out I was pregnant for a second time. Since we had no idea what had gone wrong with the first pregnancy we were very scared about this one. I put my self on a modified bed rest and everything was going very well. I was sent to a high risk Dr who stated that losing a pregnancy at 19 wks was a one in a million chance and it would not happen again. That was at 14 wks, according to every Dr I have spoken to since my chances of wining the lottery are better. Seven weeks later at 21 wks I was in the hospital in pre-term labor. When the Dr checked me I was 75% effaced and 3-4 cm dilated. At that point there is still a chance if the Dr does the right stuff....my Dr did not. I was left sitting up in a hospital bed all night, the next morning our second daughter, Madilyn Rose, was born. She was with us for a while, I don't even know how long I just know that I cherish every minute that I held her in my arms. It was at this time that I was diagnosed as having a possible incompetent cervix. My cervix cannot hold the weight of a baby and carry it to term so it opens up early and without medical intervention I cannot carry a baby full term.
Eight weeks after Madilyn was born we moved from England back to the US. When we got settled in we applied to be foster parents because adoption is something that is really on our heart and we felt that going through foster care was the best way to do it. While adoption is still something we feel lead to do we have put it aside for now.
We also started doing fertility treatments. Metformin for treating PCOS and Clomid to help me ovulate. I lost count of how many cycles I did but we were at the end of the rope on that rout and insurance does not pay for any more that that so we had some decisions to makes. We were pretty sure my body just had its own timing for ovulating and I would be pregnant in Dec 05 Jan 06 but then my husband got orders to deploy to leave in Jan 06 and I did not get pregnant in Dec 05 so I was pretty sure I would not see a baby for years to come.
While my husband was deployed it was a healing time for both of us. All of the years of trying to have a baby and losing babies had really put a lot of stress on us and the time apart really did us some good. And DH was in a war zone so it put life into perspective for him as there were a couple of times he was not sure if he was coming home or not. He was suppose to be gone until Aug 06 but got sent home in May instead. When he returned we just enjoyed each other for a few weeks and then I went to the Dr to get a referral to the infertility Dr again so that we could start trying for our baby again. While I was there I asked her if she could do a pregnancy test on the off chance that I could be pregnant because there was no point in me making an appointment if I was just going to have to cancel it. She ran the test and the next morning she called me to tell me it was positive. I couldn't believe it, I wasn't even late yet for that cycle. We were thrilled and understandably very scared at the same time. We put our baby in Gods hands because it was by the grace of God that we were even having one considering that my husband was still suppose to be half way around the world at the time. I had a cerclage placed at 14 wks and had really an ideal pregnancy until about 30 wks when I started having some symptoms of pre-term labor. At that time I started working half days and went on modified bed rest (no house work, no extended shopping trips, no heavy lifting, ect.) and I had very little signs of per-term labor after that. At 38 wks my cerclage was removed and a week later I delivered our third baby girl Olivia Faith (bringer of peace and the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen) a healthy 7 lbs 1 oz and 19 inches long with no complications during the delivery.

Sailor Dress & Hat

2007-07-19T13:53:00.000-05:00

OK this isn't the best picture for showing the details of this dress but it is a cute picture isn't it?

I made this sailor dress out of a remnant piece of red and white seersucker that was just big enough for this dress and a matching hat. Olivia got to wear it for the first time to the picnic her daddy's squadron had last Friday and it's now sitting on my ironing board to be ironed thus the reason for no detail pictures.

Ah, and the picture.....she is sitting in the drivers seat of the car. DH had forgotten to put the stroller in the car before we headed out the door. I was still getting things in the house and instead of strapping her into her car seat he strapped her into the drivers seat. I don't think she quite knew what to make of it.

No pin solution to pre-fold dipers

2007-07-14T16:29:00.000-05:00

I have been facinated with cloth diapering for years. When we first began to think about having children I thought about the possibility of cloth diapering. For me it's more of a reduce, reuse than money saving. I believe that as christians we should be the bigest environmentalist on the planet. God put us on the planet and chared man kind to take care of it. I recycle when possible and do not feel comfortable throwing diapers into the trash week after week.

When I became pregnant with Olivia I began to research cloth diapers more and fell in love with the idea of all-in-one diapers. I didn't buy any however because I was unsure how big of a baby I would have so I settled for using disposables at first and then buy cloth diapers after we got settled a bit.

When it came time to by the cloth diapers I could not justify the cost of all-in-ones even if I made them myself because we were only spending about $20 a month on diapers (buying military storebrand diapers) so I went the "old fashiond" route pre-folds, pins, and plastic pants. The problem was that my huband who is wonderfull about helping with all of the aspects of parenting was not comfortable with the pins, I was talking to my Mom one day about it and she was like don't they make diapers with velcro? I said yes but they are expensive and more than I want to pay for diapers right now.

So today while driving home from my personal time shopping trip I came up with this idea.

I took a pre-fold diaper and folded it to the size Olivia is right now

I then put a piece of loop just below the line where the diaper folds over. I left the fold loose so that the diaper can grow with her. When she gets bigger I will put more loop at the bigger sizes and if God blesses us with another baby I will put loop at the smaller size also to make a one size fits all diaper.

I put hook on the top corners of the diaper and then put loop right next to it so that when I wash the diapers I can fold the hook over onto the loop and not get junk caught in the hook.

Here is the finished product.

Its all about self-dicsiplin

2007-07-11T11:07:00.000-05:00

And I'm horrible at it, absolutely horrible. Given the choice I like any other person will take the easy choice over the harder. An extra hour in bed is so much better than getting up and exercising, letting chores go in favor of reading a book or going out for the day is so much easier. On the other hand when we get used to the harder things they become second nature. Our bodies adjust to waking up at a certain hour and the exercise becomes less of an effort. When done consistently the chores do not build up as much and can be done in a manageable amount of time. You begin to do things and do not even realise that you did them, I find that I am doing this now. If I could just be consist ant.

I have a tendency to crash and burn. I'm gun-ho about a diet, exercise plan, or housekeeping schedule, follow it for a while and then something happens. I get out of the groove, I don't loose weight, I would rather sleep than do anything else (this is how I feel this week). And yet I know if I do the basics all will be OK.

I must take baby steps. Bring things together one thing at a time, and prioritize. I have so many goals both for our family and myself, I need to write them down discuss them with DH and prioritize them then make a plan to get them done.

I'm inspired now, I'm going to do a couple of task and then work on the list.

Blue Silk Dress

2007-06-25T14:33:00.000-05:00

Made from Left over dupioni silk from a ball gown I made a few years ago Olivia will be absolutly beautiful in this dress.

A Skirt

2007-06-21T09:46:00.001-05:00

I finished this yesterday and big yeah it fits!!!!!!! The last couple of things I have made for myself I have been in a bit of denial about my um, bit larger waist line. I'm doing something about the waist line though and in the mean time I'm sewing skirts like this that will be fairly simple to take in as I get smaller again.

Sundress

2007-06-20T10:59:00.000-05:00

This adorable sundress took me more time than I thought it would, but then every endeavor now days does :). I bought the pattern earlier this spring thinking I could make a cute summer play dress for Olivia, however this is made in the smallest size in the pattern and would be huge on her so it is going to go in my new ETSY shophttp://www.beautifulycreated.etsy.com/. Go on over and take a look. I will be adding things periodically as I create.

Christening Dress

2007-06-09T18:11:00.000-05:00

My first baby sewing project completed. Ilove this dress so sweet and delicate. I made it from muslin and lace and the results are just wonderful. We had Olivia's pictures taken in it and after DH was carring it around the mall and had ladies asking where we had purchased it from.

First picture is the dress with the Jacket.

Front view of dress

Back of the dress

The detail at the hem. I love the scallops with the lace underlay.

Busyness

2007-05-15T15:12:00.000-05:00

So my life tends to turn upside down at times, usually when I think it's all together. I am just about finished with the dress I am making for the Baby's dedication and my sewing machine broke. I just wrote the company to see about getting a replacement part for it and I'm going to take it apart and see if there is any thing I can do with it to get a couple of projects done. I'm trying to get a dress done for the Baby to where to my brothers wedding too, well see we leave in a week and a half for the wedding. Better get working on the machine.

First Post

2007-05-04T09:01:00.000-05:00

I'm new to this so stick with me while I'm learning. I'm not sure how much I will blog or what about exactly. I know I will be posting about the projects that I am working on. I love sewing and almost any other craft and want to share all the beautiful things that can be created.