Love Fridays

I'm really loving this Friday cuz I actually got stuff done. Normally, I wake up on Fridays telling myself that since this is my day off I'm going to work on some projects, get some stuff done. 6 out of 10 times it doesn't happen. There's all sorts of reasons why, the biggest one being that I'm LAZY.

Today, though, I got a bunch of projects done. The only one I took pictures of, so far, was my felt Make-Along project....

It's a bag for taking aand bringing home the Valentines that kids pass out at school. It didn't start out as that. It actually didn't start out as anything. I started cutting up the pink felt and this is what it told me it wanted to be. Now I have to find a child to give it to.

If you want to see all the very amazing things people have been making with felt this month, check out the flickr group. And if you want more reasons to love Fridays, go over to Tinniegirl and check 'em out.

Lent

It’s that time of year again…Lent. Technically, Lent (or Lenten) is a Catholic practice, and I, though not Catholic, think that fundamentally, Lent is a worthy practice. I say fundamentally because the form of observance that the Catholic church has officially chosen, I have some issue with. Here’s a snippet from the American Catholic Church’s website about Lent…

”Catholics between the ages of 18 and 59 are obliged to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. In addition, all Catholics 14 years old and older must abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and all the Fridays of Lent.

Fasting as explained by the U.S. bishops means partaking of only one full meal. Some food (not equaling another full meal) is permitted at breakfast and around midday or in the evening—depending on when a person chooses to eat the main or full meal.”

To me this seems a bit tame or wishy washy, even. They say fast on those two important days but here’s our definition of “fasting”, some food is ok, just not too much. And then abstain from meat, but only on Fridays. It’s contradictory to me. Here’s another snippet from the same website about the reason behind giving things up for Lent…

“Lent is about conversion, turning our lives more completely over to Christ and his way of life. That always involves giving up sin in some form. The goal is not just to abstain from sin for the duration of Lent but to root sin out of our lives forever. Conversion means leaving behind an old way of living and acting in order to embrace new life in Christ. For catechumens, Lent is a period intended to bring their initial conversion to completion.”

So, if that’s the case, why give up meat only on one day a week? That’s not exactly “rooting” something out.

My view of Lent, and please remember it’s strictly my view and I’m not Catholic, is that it should be about sacrifice. The Bible tells us that Jesus fasted and was tempted but didn’t take the bait and that He is the ultimate sacrifice, having given his life. So asking people to give up meat once a week seems very pale in comparison.

Having said all this, I come to my point. I do practice Lent (everyday not one day a week) because I believe that sacrifice is a very good way to not only “root” out certain behaviors or bad habits but it’s also a way to instill good behaviors and habits. Last year I went veggie for all of Lent and that introduced me to a lot of different foods and recipes that I normally wouldn’t ever try that I still eat now. About 3 years ago I gave up French fries because I ate them with at least one meal a day and up until about 6 months ago I ate French fries maybe once every 3 or 4 months. In the last 6 months, though, I’ve had a huge fry fixation.

Soooo, for this Lent, fries are on the list of sacrifices along with breakfast on the run, ignoring my household chore duties, Starbucks and places like it and buying fabric for no reason. But the biggie is sugar. I once tried to give up sugar completely for Lent but everything has sugar in it when it’s the thing you’re giving up. So, I’m giving up sweets and adding sugar to things (like coffee). Let me tell ya, that is huge for me cuz I have THE biggest sweet tooth. But I’m also Ms. Wilhelmina Power so I know I can do it.

I'm a lucky girl!

I recently participated in an apron swap on swap-bot. The requirements were a) half apron, b) tea themed 3) throw in a couple of bags of tea. Here’s what my partner sent me…

How freakin’ lucky am I? My partner, LibrarianLee, sent me a full apron, a super cute full apron, a teabag holder, a small zippered pouch and a credit card holder. Then I got a card in the mail yesterday and she apologized (apologized!) for making the wrong type of apron and said she’d make another (the half apron it was supposed to be) if I wanted. I was so tempted to email her and say yes but that would just be wrong. (she says, trying to convince herself) I just feel very lucky to have been her partner. I mean, really, look at the pocket…

You probably can’t tell from the picture but the little polka dotty fabric is actually not dots at all, they’re little hearts!!! Have I mentioned that I LOVE this apron…I wasn’t sure if you picked up on that or not.

p.s....

I’ve finished the blanket from the last post. I am in love with the colors and am tempted to make one for myself even though it wouldn’t match anything. There are a couple of wonky spot but as far as I’m concerned they just add character. Anyway, here’s the finished product…

And the back of it…

I’m really not good at the whole pricing thing. Whenever we have a yard sale or do a booth at a craft fair I’m constantly underpricing things, at least according to friends and family. So before this little blanky is in the shop, I’ve gotta do some research on how much to charge. If anybody out there has any formulas for that kind of thing, please let me know.

quilt top

More than likely it's a "blanket top" cuz I don't know how to actually quilt other than by hand and that's just too much for me right now. But this is the first of some blankets I'm making for the shop that has been neglected for way too long. I'll let you know when the items get posted, I like to do them all at once rather than one at a time, makes me feel like I've accomplished something.

new addition / Love Fridays

On Friday, we brought home a new family member. He has brown eyes and gray hair. He's very sweet, hardly ever speaks. He's not too tall, let's say medium, yeah, he's of medium build.


Here's a picture of the little guy...

Isn't he cute? My sister has been wanting a dog of her own so when Petsmart announced their adoption weekend we decided to go. We both fell in love with this little mutt (part Schnauser, part who knows) instantly. He was so calm and quiet among all the chaos of other dogs barking and jumping and when we took him by the cats there was nary a peep outta him. So we adopted him right then and there. I'm guessing they thought he looks like the dog from Lady and the Tramp cuz they named him Tramp, plus they found him wandering the streets. It doesn't really flow off the tongue for me so I keep calling him Champ, which I like much better anyway.

He's super sweet and curious but has a propensity for chewing on power cords, which we're trying to train him out of. Since he was a stray he's not trained at all. He's managed to go...ahem...#2, exactly once outside. All other times have been in the house. But he has managed, each time, to make it on whatever we've put down as our "just in case" measure. So he actually has my dog beat. My dog who is too phobic to use a doggy door by himself and who can not seem to keep his little butt on the puppy pads I put down.

(gratuitous Jasper shot...)

Speaking of...I think Jasper is liking his new playpal but as soon as I'm home he's all "I'm too good for that mutt." and "How dare he think he can just play with me!" My dog is such a snob.

Sasha is not having anything to do with him, she's been holed up in a corner and only comes out when she knows for sure he's not in the room.

and tentatively at that. Poor girl.

Is this your sparkling moment?

I have something to tell you. I’ve been keeping it to myself because first I wanted to savor it then I felt there were more important things going on so I waited until now to tell you that I won something. I won a book from Alicia Paulson’s blog, Posie Gets Cozy. She had 4 books to give away, three titled Roots and Recollections: A Century of Rockywold-Deephaven Camps by Megan Thorn and one called Ordinary Sparkling Moments by Christine Mason Miller. I won the latter.

It just came today in the mail and, really, it's a beautiful book. Sorry about not having any pictures of the beautiful pages but here's the cover...

I was flipping through the pages, and one page really caught my attention. It had this paragraph that seemed to just sum up alot of what I've been thinking lately...

"There are times in life when we are called upon to give, and times when the world needs us to receive! We must offer ourselves in both arenas, knowing they each feed and inspire the world. We give. We take. We ask. We receive. And in all of these exchanges, we contribute."



There are so many Australian families in desperate need and ready to receive. Are you ready to give, to contribute? If you are, you can go here and find out the way to contribute that best fits you.

Australian Bush Fires and a Winner!

Have you heard about the terrible fires that are tearing through Southern Australia? They're being called the worst bush fires in Australia's history. The death toll, at last update, was nearing 200. The news here had a 15 second blurb about the fires yesterday morning and I haven't really seen much else about them on our local news. Living in a state that is super prone to brush fires I would think that we'd be hearing more about these fires, but no. I did a quick search for how much land has been burned because here in California, whenever there are fires that's basically what they focus on, but with these fires, the number of lives lost is just devastating and unfathomable.

There is a way you can help. Actually, many ways. If you go on over to the Meet Me at Mikes blog and read her last 6 or so posts she has so much information on ways to help that I'm not going to repeat it here. But, really, there are tons of ways we can help from an ocean away. So please, pick one or ten and just do it. And for any of you Australian's that might read this, I'm praying hard for those who've lost homes and loved ones to these fires.


Now, for the winner of my little give away...



So, my dear, if you'll email me at snnglbuny2 (at) gmail (dot) com with your address and color preferences I'll get it to you tout de suite!

Have a heart

Quite a while ago, almost a year ago, I entered my first swap. It was for handmade hearts. The swap coordinator, Sheri, who no longer has a blog, made the deadline sometime in the beginning of december but the date got moved to the end of January. So, in my typical fashion, I procrastinated and put things off and finally got them done. That's what my daily projects were for Friday night and Saturday. I only had to make 14 so it wasn't a huge project just slightly tedious and a bit difficult to come up with 14 different ones.





Anyway, here they are...

and now they're off to the post office.

Love Fridays

One of these weeks I'm going to make this post on a Friday. Oh how I loved this Friday!! A friend and I decided that we are going to start visiting local museums because neither of us really ever have so yesterday we visited the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena. The museum doesn't actually open til noon so we made plans for lunch first. We picked Daisy Mint. A very cute little Thai bistro. My Chilies, Basil and Beef hit the spot. Doesn't it look yummy?! (mine is the one on the left, L's Green Curry on the right)

So, on to the museum...I remember the commercials for this museum from when I was a kid. It featured a very young Candace Bergen and flashes of lots of Degas sculptures. At least thats how I remember them. I've never been to it...after living in SoCal for 35 years this was my first time. It was amazing! I love art museums in general. To quote my friend, they make me feel so educated and cultured. This one, for such a small museum, has a collection that spans about 800 years. And the numbr of sculptures is astounding. I think my favorite pieces were Bird In Space by Brancusi and Little Dancer Aged Fourteen by Degas. But my favorite part of the museum was out back...

It was raining so their sculpture garden was actually closed so this is all we got to see which was our view from out cafe table where we had coffee and dessert.

I really wish the garden was open cuz I wanted to get a better look at the scultpures. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to go back for a better look.

You should definitely go over to Tinnigirl and check out all the other reasons to Love Fridays.
Only two more days left for the give away!

Paper craft and Little pouch

I said that I needed to find a non-sewing project which was fine. I came up with all sorts of things. One problem...I can't find any of my craft supplies. They're all in boxes somewhere. So I sat down and started tearing into a couple of magazines and made this little scene...

Which I'm not all that pleased with. I don't know if it's the fact that it's not what I wanted to be doing or because I'm just not happy how it turned out. Either way, it'll go in the drawer until I can come back to it.

Luckily, when my brilliant sister came home she reminded me to look in the little compartment in the sewing machine for extra needles....duh! And they were there, of course. So I got back to work on my little pouch. I thought it was turning out so well but once I started to work on the zipper, I figured there were a couple things I did wrong but this being a first time, that's alright. It's all about learning as I go. So here's how it turned out...

Cute, no? I'm having issues with finding things, as I've mentioned, white thread included. But no biggie. The fabric that I used is part of a fat quarter from a vintage sheet that was part of a vintage sheet fat quarter exchange I participated in a while back. The lining is from the same swap. I actually don't really like the lining fabric but the colors matched perfectly with the other fabric so I couldn't not use it.

The best part of the whole thing, I think, is the strap...

I'm really good at making straps and handles for some reason.

So, next time there are a few things that will be done differently but for the most part, I like it. Now what should I make tomorrow?

Don't forget five more days till the give away!

I'm in the crafting groove

Since I went so long without a sewing machine (from the end of August to the middle of January) I have been going a little crazy and coming up with all sorts of things that I want to try and make. I’ve been finding all sorts of tutorials all over the place and bookmarking them or I’ve downloaded the pdf versions of them and saved them in my “Projects to try” folder. Basically, I’ve been hording ideas like a mad woman.

So, now that I’ve got this borrowed machine I’m trying to do some of those projects. The lunch bag was one of them.

Then came the pencil roll. Actually, this was supposed to be a Christmas present for someone, but better late than never, right?

Notice there are no close up shots of the inside. This is very much on purpose because to be quite frank, I can not sew a straight line to save my life. So all those little pencil pockets are a little wobbly but they get the job done.

Then last night I started on a small zippered pouch. This was to be my first zipper ever, that is until I broke the needle on the sewing machine right at the point where I was ready to put the zipper in. Oops! And it was going so well too. I refused to take pictures until it was finished so there’s nothing to show of it but rest assured it was coming out better than I thought it would. When I’m able to go get new needles, probably tomorrow, I’ll finish it and show it to you.

Anyway, I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to do a project a day this week just to get myself back into the crafty swing of things. I guess tonight’s project will have to be a non-sewing one. Anybody got any ideas? All my horded ideas seem to have all been sewing projects. Guess I’m going to have to do some more digging. Off I go…

Don't forget to sign up for the give away if you haven't done so already!!

Eye-spy, a blogaversary and a give away

Eye-spy:
I struggled with this one for some reason. We don’t have a whole lot of small things around the house. Mostly cuz one of the critters with chew it up and leave the remains all over the house. So I decided to pick something from work…

My sister and I made these a while back for a craft fair booth and I really liked the lady-bugishness of this one. It’s made from a terracotta pot that is only 2” high and about 2” wide. It holds photos of Jasper and Sasha and my friend Gloria’s pets - Joshe, the cat, and Bear, a HUGE black lab. (Just a piece of trivia for you…three out of the four animals were brought home because they were strays or abandoned and showed up at our office. Bear is the only non-rescue)
For more small things, visit BugandPop and check out the players.

Part deux:
I was reading up on some favorite blogs when I came across CurlyPops’ Blogaversary post. She’s reached her one year mark and the dinger in my head went off cuz CurlyPops was one of the first blogs I came across after starting mine and I had noticed that she had just started hers too. So, not knowing the exact date I started blogging off the top of my head, I looked. Lo and behold it was the 28th of January 2008. That was this past Wednesday. I also have past my 200th post (I’m at 208 with this one). And, if you’ll remember I had talked about a give away way back at my 100th but never got around to it because of the Big Move. So what better time than this post to have a give away?!

I’ve been obsessing over lunch bags lately and have decided to finally make one for myself. My normal lunch bag is whichever plastic grocery bag I can find, not stylish, I know but very handy. After trying very hard to go green and take re-usable shopping bags to the grocery store, I’ve found that I’m plastic bag deficient. So making my own lunch tote just makes sense. I had bought one from a market stall a few years back but the handles started coming undone. I took it apart and used it as my basic starting point but with a few tweaks and twists to make it my own.

So for my give away, one special person will receive one of these lunch totes…

This one is made from fabric I got in my tin from Tinniegirl (thank you, you’re awesome!). They come in 2 sizes. This one is the small size, just big enough for maybe a sandwich and a yogurt and has little pockets inside for knife spoon and fork. The other size can hold one of those throwaway type left-overs containers, has the little pockets, and comes with a placemat. It will be filled with various bits and bobs, not sure what yet.

I’ll leave it open for one week from today. Just leave a comment telling me the size you want and your favorite color. Oh, and tell all your friends who, like me, are completely unstylish and take a plastic grocery bag to work for their lunch, that here is the perfect opportunity to gain some style street cred.