What do cupcakes and soap have in common?

I've been a busy bee working away in the studio making cupcake pin cushions (with handmade resin specialty pins) and some fun LEGO and Space Invader soap! What brought this on you ask? My good friend Linda (the one who used to smuggle and swap quilt and garden magazines into animation class for me) for a number of years has been hosting a craft fair at her house in North Vancouver. She is having another one this weekend, Friday, November 12th from 7-9pm and Saturday, November 13th from 1-4pm. She always does such a wonderful job of putting it all together, she's such a brave soul! I'll be there with my stash and my Mission buddy, Cynthia, will be there with her goodies too!. I'm looking forward seeing Marie with her Frost Collection and Lesley with her Smidgebox purses (I think she is doing some stockings too!).

If  you want in on the action send me a comment and I will forward the address to you, all has Linda requested is that you introduce yourself as someone who knows me and that you don't bounce a cheque! =)

I'm proud to announce, "I am no longer a virgin!"

I've been a peeping tom for quite some time, I even go so far as to say a lurker! However, I finally took the plunge! Don't get me wrong it wasn't peer pressure or anything like that. I just took my time until the moment was right!

Deep breath I finally made my first online Esty purchase-tee hee! A clock for my studio from uncommon and a little change purse from Oktak, just because!

Then I was feeling really brave so I went and did it again and made my first online fabric purchase!
Starting in the back, I bought check-a-dot in Aqua and Red (designer Cosmo cricket., one of my favourites for paper too!) Next in my totem pole of fabric I bought  Full Moon Polka Dot in Lime (designer Amy Buttler). Both I bought through Hawthorne Threads.

The bottom three are fabric test swatches from Spoonflower a very cool online shop that prints fabric that you design. However, you can also buy other peoples designs too, like  I did!

The tattoo one (which I love) is a design by my friend Cynthiafrenette . Seriously, if I had the guts (which I don't!) I would totally get this tattooed on my arm!

The other samples are called spot the BIG bug and Christmas_quarter.


So there you go! I am no longer a virgin and it wasn't as nearly as painful one might have thought!

Lookie, Lookie what I made!

This past Sunday I took a Resin Pendant workshop at the Fraser Valley Bead Show from Mikel Lefler. I'm pretty tickled with the results, tee hee hee!

Mikel provided lots of great photos and doodads for the class and she also encouraged us to bring anything else we wanted to use. I recently inherited my grandfather's watchmaking bench, stuffed full of teeny tiny treasures! I randomly brought a small case full of watch parts and used them in combination with Mikel's photos of birds.

For this one I used a watch back for the bezel and I also used a watch part for the finding.

For this pendent I used a pewter bezel. I picked it from a local Maple Ridge store, Kellie's Beads Boutique.

This was the bezel that was provided for the class. It's much larger than the other two above which meant it took me double the time to layout the design...decisions, decisions!

I know which one is my favourite, which one is yours? I'm curious to see if it's the same!

Oh and they're having another Fraser Valley Bead Show in the Spring; March 25, 26 and 27th. Maybe I'll see you there?

Whoa there little doggies, hold your horses!

Our kid's growth chart: an ongoing project since... they keep growing! I've painted this on the inside of a narrow closet door, I thought I'd be sensitive to their teen years. On the right of the sunflower is our eldest son's growth chart, on the left is our youngest. It started off with just bugs but as both my boys have gotten older they've delved into fictional critters too. For example, our eldest son was really into Spiderwick when he was 8; actually that series is still a staple in his reading list.

SIDE NOTE: the Spiderwick books are GREAT! The movie not so much :(

As our boys grow, I try to represent each phase with a bug or creature that will remind us of what they were like at that age. Our eldest son loved slugs when he was 2. He used to collect them up in the yard. For some reason he would name every slug Pippy or Poppy? Slugs... yuck, I know, but at least we learned that salt helps remove slug slime!

It's been really fun watching how much they grow each year!

Our youngest son just turned 7 in September and he decided he wanted something from Aurthur and the Invisibles: the creature the king sits on, which kind of looks like a miniature yeti!

He also loves that he is taller than his brother at  7!

















For his 2 year mark  I painted a fuzzy bee since he had the hair to match and he's the only one of us that's blond!

Which leads me to the end of the stalk, where you can see I've painted our son's names in orange. I also used orange to mark dots for the official heights up the sunflower.

When they were babies everyone told me they would grow up fast! I have tried to document and seize every moment and I realize they aren't done growing yet...now if they could only slow down a little so I could catch up!

Shakes your hips like battleships!

I know it's October but my head is still processing September! My birthday falls at the beginning of September and often it was the first day of school - ugh! (woe is me!). Since this is my show and tell place I gotta just tell you about some really cool presents I received from some really cool people!

I love books! The Book of Awesome was given to me by my good friend Cori... and yes, IT IS AWESOME! It talks about noticing all the little things to feel good about, for example, when you put on warm underwear straight out of the dryer. Okay, I haven't ever done that (yet!), but I do yell out "WARM LAUNDRY!" when to the kids are home. They flop on our bed like fish out of water as I dump all the warm laundry on them. Really, is there anything better than someone pouring warm laundry on you?

This book has lots of awesome things in it... like finding forgotten money in your pocket or popping bubble wrap! Here's a little tidbit, this books concept came from the author's blog! That's (say it with me) awesome!

I have to admit I'm always a little perplexed when I'm at people's houses when they don't have any bookshelves. Guess what else I received...

You guessed it, another book, The Art of Toy Story 3, from my kids. Lots of colours and inspiration! I would even say it would go under the category of AWESOME! I thought it went perfectly at home on our shelf of toys...(clearing of the throat) my toys. Thus, I can no longer complain about my husband's action figures or snow globe collection and you can see why I was particularly drawn to a movie about toys!

Now! Cue the choir, let the heavens open up and "Ahhhhh. Oooooo!" Isn't beautiful! This gift was given to me by my husband! True, I love books but I all so adore records! (I inherited my Grandfather's record collection and have been making my way through it while I work in my studio. Old grandpa had some good tunes!) This particular album is by The Dead Weather, Jack White's latest band, and is appropriately titled "Black and Blue".  It was a belated gift but but it was totally worth it the wait, there were only a limited number pressed! (in a high pitched voice) Awesome!

Which brings me around to the title of this post, best line off the album "shake your hips like battleships!"

AWESOME!

All together now: Happy birthday to...

September is a very busy month for our family. I imagine everyone is busy in September, but with school starting, many birthdays and some new projects beginning our month has been crazy busy.

Beautifully displayed (as usual!)

School is back in! Oh, how I long for the days when the kids were little and September was just another month. It's taken a while but we are all slowly getting into the swing of things.

Speaking of new projects beginning, last Thursday was the first meeting of the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild held at Quilt Essentials. It was a lovely, rainy evening of meeting new fellow sewing folk, good conversations (I especially loved hearing the different sewing methods people use: meticulous vs. the sprawlers) and there were some tasty treats too!  

Not edible but Yum!

Funny I don't mind seeing Christmas stuff (even though it's September) when it's fabric!

Some flowers to brighten the rainy evening!

A work in progress!

I didn't get a chance to take a photo of everyone's quilts but they  were photographed and posted on the FVMQG site

Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday to us (oh and Theresa from Quilt Essentials too! She opened the store for our meeting even though it was her birthday day-Thank you!)

Out of the closet!

I love sewing and fabric. I learned from my mom at an early age. I've been hooked ever since. In fact I would even go as so far to say it was one of most important classes I took in high school (believe me trigonometry hasn't done that much for me even though I was told it was a necessity). Growing up sewing was a real"girl-y" thing to do, not at all cool like playing volleyball (my versions of what hell is) so I did it in secret. When I studied art, sewing (aka textiles) was a little more acceptable but when I studied animation luckily, I had a friend, Linda who had  the same affliction and secret as me. We used to smuggle quilting (and the odd gardening) magazine between our desks, covertly, so that no one would see, God forbid!

Lately I've started noticing all these creative and crafty  people coming out of wood work and  they are organized, loud and proud...and so they should be! None of them treat craft as something only retired "grandmas" do. Don't get me wrong, grandmas know stuff, lots of great stuff but when you're sitting in a class and you're the youngest by 20 years, you start to question if you were born in the right era.  Most of these blogging, creative women are young, fresh and inspired stay at home moms like: Lesley of Smidge box, Christine of  From an Igloo or the luvinthemommyhood blog (I never did catch her name). The last two have  recently been  sponsored by the the Plum Project (a new organic fabric store in Deep Cove).

This growing community is why I was so excited when the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild popped up. People like me- yes! Instantly I joined and via the Vancouver group I met Cynthia another creative person living, way, way, way out here in the Fraser Valley (could it be possible?). Cynthia and I became instant friends and schemers of a Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild way, way, way out here. Since then Cynthia has built a beautiful site and we are looking forward to our first meeting this month... I'll keep you posted... oh and your grandma's invited because she's cool too!