My Niece's Birthday Gift

So Paige (my niece) has been at the house a few times over the last couple of months, and keeps seeing all of the fun fabrics that I'm bringing home. When she asked if she could have something in one of the fabrics...a light bulb went off. Hello...her birthday is coming up! So I decided to make her a little skirt and top combo. I love applique! It is so quick and SIMPLE. You have to love it when you can take a $3 Walmart shirt and make it cute!

Then I thought about how much she loves to bring her "drawing stuff" to restaraunts and places. She is an amazing artist, who can draw better than me, and she is turning 7! Anyway, I think she needs a bag to carry her papers and crayons, don't you?

So I decided to applique some hearts onto a simple canvas bag. Not too elaborate...but I think it's cute. Plus...It's way cuter than a gift bag, right? Now off to buy her some things to go in the bag!

Some cute little t-shirts for come cute little girls...

My good friend has two adorable daughters (and an adorable son!), and she also has some brilliant ideas. For her youngest daughter's first birthday invitation, she thought of a picture with her daughter wearing a shirt with a "1" on it...with a title saying "Alex is turning...". Too cute, right? So I made these shirts for her two little ones...

I'll admit it...I cheated a little. Instead of buying a fabric and using the applique stuff...I bought a really large patch on clearance for a dollar at Hobby Lobby and used that. I was done in 5 minutes! Again, if you want a tutorial....just ask! Big brother has requested a blue rocket for his. :)

Felt Food

Oh my gosh...I am obsessed with making this stuff. I saw some on Etsy, and thought it would be a cute Christmas or Birthday gift for some little ones that I know. I was feeling inspired, so I started to make some. It is addicting! I cannot believe how much delight that I found in making lettuce that looks like lettuce. I spent half the day making silly little condiments for the bread/sandwich. Anyway...here is what I made. Actually, there are two sets of everything, because I have more than one child I am gifting to. :)

Here is a close-up of the desserts...

If you are wondering what the little white/pink/blue things are they are sugar cookies with frosting. Here is the sandwich. I was really happy with the lettuce. I know, it's silly. But it was one of those things that I thought was going to be difficult to tell what it was. Now I feel like there's no question. Oh, and that's cheese, silly. I know you can't tell that that pink circle is a piece of Ham, so let's just pretend. I thought that the tomatoes turned out pretty well too. :) Oh, and that's PB&J for those who are not a fan of a Ham Sandwich.

And some ravioli...
And last, but not least, Breakfast. I LOVE these pop tarts. The orange slices took some serious brain power, but I think they are cute. Haley says they look like lemons. Oh well. I am happy with pancakes and syrup. Simple, but cute.

If anyone wants a tutorial, just let me know. These were pretty easy, and most I think you could figure out just be looking at them. But if you need any help, I am happy to oblige. :)

Letterboxing

So you are probably thinking, "What? No mention of Father's Day?" Well, if my husband weren't a dork I'd have a decent picture of my children with him, and we would have an entire post. Only, he can't/won't take a decent picture. He sticks his finger up his nose...picks his son's nose (no, I missed that picture, unfortunately) and is generally pretty obnoxious come picture time. But he's an awesome dad, and it was Father's Day, so I guess I will forgive him. Happy Father's Day Hon!

So on to the topic at hand. My husband had to go out of town on business, and Davis felt a bit glum, so I decided to distract him. :) We went Letterboxing! Have you ever heard of it? Prepare to be AMAZED. My fellow Girl Scout friend/leader told me about it for camp last week, and we decided to try it out. Basically, some amazing person goes and hides a little box in a secret spot. Then leaves clues at http://www.letterboxing.org/ and you go on a treasure hunt to find it! When you get there, you have your little letterboxing journal, and use the stamp inside to mark your journal. We wrote next to the stamp whether it was easy, difficult, fun, awful, etc. So here is Haley at the first one, that we found in Hagar Park...

Haley found the first actual box. We all followed the directions and found the spot, but she found the box!

Haley is still amazed at this point that she found it. Davis is just feeling verile. Of course, he won't touch the box, because it's gross. Haley, of course, stuck her hand into a wierd hole to pull it out. Ahh, the joy of having children that are so different.

Victory! So let's do the next one, right? Oh my gosh, this one was so hard! In the first box, we found signatures that said they had to find the second box and backtrack...so I thought, hey, we found the difficult one! WRONG! lol. We looked and looked...then had to leave, change into real walking shoes (2-3 hours of walking in sandals was not my best decision) and get some water, and yes...Ice Cream! Just the booster we needed. So we headed back out...this time with a compass. We still walked around like idiots. What the heck does a Beech tree look like? Haley says it's white with black streaks. We don't find one. So we call Daddy. Daddy says the same thing. Turns out...that's a Birch Tree. So we call Papa. Ahh...good ol' Pappa...he gives us the right tree...and like 45 minutes later we find it.

At this point, Davis is VERY unhappy with how far into the woods we are. He might be smiling in this picture...but it's all for show. He gave up before we called Papa about the Beech tree. :) So he says..."Mom, can we go do the easy one?" Of course! My friend Mary Beth said that there was one in Grandville that was much more up Davis' league...so off we went.

And we are walking down the path, and here is this deer. I have never been this close to a deer, and it was so beautiful. I think this was the highlight of Haley's day. So I grab the camera and take a pic, and she bolts. We turn the corner and...

There's her friend! Even closer. Gorgeous.


Okay, on to the task at hand...

Now that we were out of the woods, Davis was happy again. So let's do the last one, right? "Mom, don't you think it's going to get dark soon?" "Davis, have some faith."...and on we went. :)

This one was the easiest one, and perfect for the last one of the evening. Davis was starting to get nervous we wouldn't get back to the car before dark. He was having fun, but he is my practical, nervous one, so he kept reminding us. We found the box, and it was full of water! So then we tried to replace the plastic bag and fix it up. Which of course, made Davis that much more nervous about time. But we got it fixed up, then went home had unhealthy snacks and went to bed. A perfect summer day. :)

Wow, What a Week!

This past week I ran a Girl Scout Camp. Whew! It was an absolutely amazing experience. The girls were awesome, the parents were awesome, and we had a blast! I even had girls hug me goodbye the last night. Can it get any better than that? I'd post a picture, but I'm not sure I'm allowed. Just trust me...it was awesome!

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So than on Saturday I had a Show in Saugatuck! What was I thinking, doing all that in one week? My goodness. But it was a GORGEOUS day, and I really lucked out on weather. I debuted my new gathered bag and got a good response. I met multiple people that asked me about Etsy...which is awesome! I even found out about an Etsy Team for West Michigan!

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The Saugatuck show was a lot of fun...I took my shoes off and enjoyed the day. You've gotta love getting a grassy spot. :) I was next to this awesome girl (don't know why I say girl, she was the same age as me) who sold natural soaps, deoderants, etc. It was so funny to me...she had brought her water in a glass jar to be "green" and here I was selling water bottle carriers for plastic water bottles. Needless to say, I didn't have a glass jar...