A Mother's Day I Can Believe In

I guess I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to holidays like Mother's Day. I appreciate them for their intentions, but kind of take them with a grain of salt because they are so commercial. I rarely remember to send the appropriate cards and make the appropriate phone calls, I guess I just feel like those mean more when I do it on unscheduled days when the inspiration comes from within.

That said, there's this blog I've been enjoying lately. It's beautiful, she's beautiful, and the things she writes are always beautiful. But today she really moved me and made me so proud to be a Mother.

One love indeed. Check it out here.

Pioneer Woman's Super Cool Roll-Over Photo Trick Demystified!

Please note the pics at left have nothing to do with the trick I'm linking you to and discussing in this post - no rollover fun here - they have more to to with my general opinion that a post is not a post without pictures and my desire to mess around with photobucket editing tools, oh and the fact that my goat is just stinkin' cute.

Not a ton to post about today, I'm preparing for a banner weekend what with Mother's Day and Little Big Man's birthday party, the arrival of my Mother in Law and Sister in Law this afternoon...so I'll have lots to say on Monday I'm sure.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a photo trick with my fellow bloggers, in case you missed Pioneer Woman's post this morning.

It's her "Butterfly Trick" that allows you to roll over a photo and have and element of the photo change. In her case she had a picture of her dog about to eat a castrated calf testicle, and she thought perhaps not all her readers would like to see said calf testicle. Having eaten freshly cut calf testicles I myself was not averse....but I digress. She did some conjuring which made it so the picture you see has a big ol' Butterfly covering the calf nut, but when you roll your cursor over the butterfly it disappears, revealing the offending reproductive organ.

If you are interested in harnessing this particular bit of blog how-to ephemera

(here's the definition for that word in case you, like me, weren't sure if it fit this context and thought you might look it up: 2.ephemera, items designed to be useful or important for only a short time, esp. pamphlets, notices, tickets, etc. - so I guess it fits the context if you only plan on using the technique for a short time. or not. I'm not sure..)

check her post out here. It's just a bit of cut and paste code you add to your post. Doing that code manipulating always makes me feel so grown up and tech savy - I'll be looking for something gross to post just to try it out soon...Oh! Fat Baxter has a particularly ugly wound on his leg from apparently being attacked by another dog whilst galavanting around the neighborhood last week. Some of you may be interested...some not. I think I've found my very own butterfly-trick application!

Etsy Is In The Water - Hank And Hunt

Hank and Hunt

So it's awesome to have a neighbor with kids the same age as you. It's awesome when you also like said neighbor. It's awesome when said neighbor loans you great books that get you going on embroidery, and really really really awesome when your dear neighbor will watch your littlest baby at the last minute b/c Mr. Mom got a last second phone call about a local construction company looking for blade operators.

It's fun to have neighbors that let their kiddos come over, play cowboy, and play in the sandbox...in the rain...with your kids...

...that trust your husband to conduct goat rodeos with their children in the vicinity:

And a cherry to top it all off is when your neighbor has loads more taste than you and opens a store on etsy to showcase just one little tiny corner of her creativity to the world!

Yep, my neighbor and crafting accomplice from next door, Jenny over at Hank and Hunt opened herself an etsy store selling some of her gorgeous garland/bunting beauties, one of which is pictured at the top of this post. They're awesome b/c they're a thousand times prettier than the paper stuff at walmart, plus reusable equals easier on the environment, plus they pretty much have endless applications - not all girly either. And she takes custom orders so if you really wanted to boy-ify it, you can get them with a boyish print.

Check her out, buy a garland, have a party, and invite the neighbors! Much sun and happiness to you all...

Embroidery Fun on Etsy and An Amazing Quilt Block Listing

So I've actually been really good lately about not spending money like a wild woman. I've been downright frugal. I haven't even visited Goodwill in a couple of weeks. But, as I predicted, the embroidery bug has caught. And I had to just take a quick peek and search embroidery hoops on Etsy. And I found this:

MyraMelinda

It was $7.50 including shipping. And there's that beautiful lace, and that old funky broke down quilt block. And the buttons - my etsy search turned up some amazing emroidery hoop art with buttons, so I'm inspired to give that a try. So it's mine now. As are these:

LemonTorte

...which are nothin' fancy, but I think they'll do for wall hangings and my goodness all 8 of them were a buck, well 3 including shipping, but that beats the heck out of the ones at Joanns. EDIT: Well file that under "too good to be true" - the seller just emailed me to ask which one I wanted. Guess "8 embroidery hoops 1 dollar" means 1 dollar each. Oh well, she refunded me my money right away, so I have $3 of my frugality back.

So there I got my little fix for $10.50 $7.50 and am stocked to the ears with emroidery hoops and other embellishments. Can't wait to get my paws on them and start stitching away. I have had plans for birthday presents, belated Mother's Day gifts, little man bedroom decorations...darn it, all this crossing out is making me sad that I'm not getting all those hoops after all :-(

Inspired by that first purchase I also did a quick search for quilt blocks - nothing in my price range (free) that I could get, but were I less monetarily challenged, my finger would have punched "add to cart" on this listing before my brain ever knew what happened:

roryunraveled


Evidently the shop owner found these at an estate sale in Wisconsin. If ever there were a reason to live in the midwest, folks, I'd say this is it. I just love that top block in the picture on the left - that white and aqua and green paisley/floral pattern? And she says they're from vintage feedsack fabric. Really, they made feedsacks from this stuff? Talk about the good old days. How lovely. Anyway, I wish I knew the person that ultimately buys this lot, b/c I would LOVE to take a gander at the finished product.

A Few Posts Rolled Into One

Here's a pretty little bitty tiny flower brought to me by my big boy this weekend. Him and his dad picked it for me on their way back from visiting the neighbors I think. He had it very carefully pinched between his little fingers so as not to crush it. I think it's the most beautiful flower I've ever been given!

I sat it on top of my sewing machine and was struck by how it looked when backlit. Dreamy. The one with the spool of yarn is for size comparison. Please don't judge me by the dust on my machine.

I FINALLY tested out my serger. Guess what? It worked a treat! It was even quiet and smooth! It was so much better than I expected! I had cut out a square of linen to practice-embroider, and I figured it was a perfect practic-serger project as well, since that linen is dying to fray all over the place - voila:

super!

Then I practice-embroidered! The project was inpsired by the sampler pattern in that book that I just inserted a link over there and can't figure out how to get rid of, sorry. Anyway, in hers it says "Stitches I Know" but I got the first word started and realized I needed to stop at "stitch" or I was going to be off balance, so I rolled with it and changed it to "Stich in Time". It has no special conscious meaning. I'm sure I could come up with something deep if pressed. Anyway, then I just free-wheeled and tried out a bunch of stitches she explains in the book. I can see that achieving symmetry is going to be my biggest challenge...

 I'm totally hooked. The colors you get to choose from are amazing, the project is tiny and portable, and quick. The texture is so nubbly and fun to touch...I can see going completely overboard with this new hobby. Everything must be embroidered!!

Then, inspired by the crown Maureen Cracknell made for her son's birthday party (which was in turn inspired by one in this book: The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections) I set to work on a crown for Willie's birthday next weekend. If I ever do get really good at sewing, I will keep this puppy around to humble me:

I didn't use a pattern, I just sorta measured his head and did some figuring in my head and some scissor cutting and five tons of winging it. It isn't as tall as I envisioned, and I didn't have the forethought (well, I did but then said screw it) to make the appliques first so there wouldn't be all that visible stitching, but whatevs...It was me, a 4 year old, an 8 month old, and a hot iron all in the same small room - I was more than a little distracted. All in all I'm impressed it turned out at all, and I like the cowboy theme with the cowboy print covering the elastic, the old striped fabric - a shirt from his dad's cowboy days, and the stars which I don't know, may not be cowboy, but they are blue and that was Willie's biggest request. He likes it too:

Happy almost birthday Willie Man. Mommy loves ya. Now go wash that face!!

Excuse My Dust - I'm Trying To Make A Button

And my tutorial tells me I must post it first. :-)

Makeover

So perhaps it's the beauty of a blog that when one cannot afford a trip to the Aveda salon for themselves - to remedy a few particularly bad hair weeks, nevermind days - with just a few clicks and no money spent their blog can get some new highlights here and there, a little freshening up for the change of seasons.

I pulled all of the changes from the spectacularly Summery photo above. It makes me feel cheery.

Anyway, not a lot to jabber about today, much sunshine and cheeriness to you all this weekend!