So Many Projects, So little Time!

Growing up I was surrounded by arts & crafts. My mother and grandmother were both very crafty, hands on, project type ladies... So it's only natural I follow in their footsteps. My grandma (my mom's mom) only lived a block away so I would walk to her house almost every day growing up to go paint ceramics. She had the whole setup, tons of paints and brushes, and even a kiln to fire the finished pieces in. It was so fun and year after year we would paint different little decorations for all the holidays. She was SUPER into holidays, but more on that in another post ;)

My mom was always into sewing projects. She too made everything under the sun holiday related. Stuffed life sized skeletons, reindeer wall hangings, and quilts for every season decorated our house year round. It was always cool to see what she would come up with next, and still is. So now that I have a "reason" to finally jump on the crafting bandwagon I can't stop it! I am in the middle of at least three projects excluding all the orders I fulfill at work.

The first project is a baby quilt I'm making out of blue, green, black, brown, and white patterned materials. It is my first quilt and I think it is coming along quite nicely. So far I have it all sewn together and have the sides evened up, I just need to buy some backing material and sew on a border and stitch it all together. I thought it up after not loving anything on the market as far as baby bedding goes, so I thought I'd do it myself.

Another cool project I'm working on is to embroider some blank baby onsies. I've hand embellished stuff before but never with any fancy stitches so I've been doing some research. I came across this cool site called Sublime Stitching and they have tons of patterns and designs you can order off there site. But being the I-want-it-right-now and I-don't-want-to-pay kind of person I decided to make my own patterns. After much thought on what would look cute on my little boy I've decided on doing an alphabet design across the front with a different color for each letter. First I hand drew the alphabet and then I scanned it in and traced it in Illustrator. Now I have to figure out how to reverse it and iron it onto the onsie to get a guide for my stitches. I'll post more pictures as the project nears completion.

Carlsbad Flower Fields

Mom and I visited the Carlsbad Flower Fields on Easter yesterday morning. I had always wanted to check it out, but it's one of those "girl" things that I would never be able to drag Ricky to. It was much larger than I had anticipated, 50 acres in total, of ranunculus flowers. We decided to go ahead and pay the $10 extra so we could ride the wagon around the entire field and get the total effect. It was a beautiful way to spend Easter Morning. We also enjoyed some shopping at the Carlsbad Outlet Mall right next to it, Score!

Baby Shopping

It's a BOY!!! So I was a little off, oh well, we are super stoked! Since mom is in town we've been shopping everyday (thanks Mom & Dad) and I've picked up some super cute stuff. She brought out these little baby Christmas and Halloween outfits with her before we knew which gender to buy for. The little Christmas outfits also came with a Santa and a reindeer puppet that I'm sure will get lots of "personality" when the time comes.

Of course I am a bargain shopper and have to do plenty of research before I purchase anything, it HAS to be a good deal! The first item I bought was a stroller online for a discount of around $40. I will go and pick it up at the store next week.

Then I purchased this brand new infant car seat with base on craigslist from a couple who had received two as gifts. It was the brand I was interested in, and I got it for half of what you would pay in the store, SCORE!

Doing some garage sale shopping we picked out these little boy outfits for size 0-3 months from a cool couple who live a few blocks over.

Shopping for baby stuff can be SO overwhelming, especially if it's your first. I've been doing plenty of online research and asking friends and family what there recommendations are but you just never know. So to date, i've only spent $200 and I can't wait to see what bargains are coming up next.

Easter Bacon Basket

With Easter on the way I thought I'd post a little treat I made last year for our Easter Brunch. I am actually not a red meat eater myself, but loved the idea of making a festive bacon basket for my friends. They turned out perfect and everyone was really impressed. I used arugula and grape tomatoes from our friends garden. If you'd like to make bacon baskets to impress your loved ones this year you can find the instructions here.