Summer Lovin'

Um...yes, it's been Summer for over six weeks now. Better late than never, right? My four kids and I have been having fun swimming, picnicking, visiting the park, beach and museums, swimming, having play dates and swimming some more.  My sanity saver this Summer was to keep my freezer stocked with meat, vegetables and popsicles so I wouldn't have to run to the grocery store as often with four kids in tow.

After a few weeks of my kids reminding me, "It's not Spring anymore, Mom, it's Summer!", I found the motivation to change out the seasonal banner we hang on our mantle.  The design changed a lot from the original plan I had for it, but such is life.  This was cut from cardstock on my Silhouette and the letters were attached with adhesive foam dots.

I also found a bit of time to make some little girl gifts. I saw a super cute dress-shaped hair bow holder in a catalog and thought I could make my own personalized version.  I used scrap fabric with interfacing to attach it to stiff felt and another piece of regular felt for the back. For the skirt I glued tulle and ribbon between the felt with Aleene's tacky glue and then stitched it all in place.  The name was cut from my Silhouette and ironed on after the sewing.

The first one came out nice, but I thought it needed sleeves.  So I added puffy sleeves made from tulle for the next one.  Much better!  The whole project took less than 2 hours.  Not too bad for a simple and useful gift.

Although I feel very busy with all the kids home 24-7, I will miss them when they go back to school.  I will not miss their fighting and little spats.  I will miss their peaceful playtime babble and unstructured days of fun.  And my two little ones at home will still be around to keep me company.  Time for focused learning, time for my own Bible study group to start again, time to pray for my kids at school.

"There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens"
Ecclesiastes 3:1

Spring things

I’m loving the perfect California Spring weather, blooming Amaryllis and little hummingbirds that visit our yard.  Last week I put up my new SPRING banner to welcome the season. It ended up a bit different than my original computer sketch. I wanted to use a new shape for the background and then I found a new font (Sancreek Regular) that reflected the budding life of Spring.

They were created in Adobe Illustrator and cut out using my Silhouette Studio software. Silhouette Studio can do a lot more than the older Craft Robo program, but I still prefer drawing everything out in Illustrator, since I know it like the back of my hand. The letters are popped out with foam tape to add dimension.

I also made these little cuties for my girls recently. I used a free pattern and tutorial, called Fluffy Stuffy Bunny, from a blog called Allsorts. My friend introduced me to this blog, and it’s so inspiring for someone like me, who once wanted to be a children’s book illustrator. I love how she makes everything so colorful and fun.  How nice it would be to have time to design cute projects like this! For now I am still busy changing diapers, wiping noses and sweeping under the kitchen table several times a day. But, yes, my kids are totally worth it!

I didn’t follow her instructions exactly. Not wanting to buy any new fabric, I used what I had – no fuzzy material, just cotton prints. The dresses are reversible and my kids have fun changing them every so often. I also wanted to make each one to fit the unique personalities of my girls (as much as a little stuffed animal can) so I added an embellishment to each head and let them choose the dress fabric.

For the face I didn’t want to embroider much, so I only stitched the mouth. I hole-punched a brown scrap of heat transfer for the eyes, and used a heart punch on pink heat transfer for the nose. No Silhouette needed for cutting this time! This was a great way to use scraps of heat transfer. My girls were excited to take these to school for Stuffed Animal Day. And my little one sleeps with hers every night. Priceless!

Today my kids and I were talking about all of our fun Easter traditions and how it wouldn’t mean much if we didn’t have faith in Jesus. Isn’t it nice to know that Easter is about more than just plastic eggs, Spring flowers, and fuzzy bunnies and chicks? It’s about the new everlasting life we can have in Jesus Christ. What hope! Here are some Bible verses I like to think about during this season:

“Come now, let us settle the matter,”says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” Isaiah 1:18

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:5-6

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

“He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.” Mathew 28:6a

If you want to know more about new life in Jesus Christ, click here. Happy Spring and Happy Easter!

Winter paper banner

It's February already? The months are flying by! I had to ignore my blog during the holiday season (as usual). We hosted Thanksgiving at our house, made lots of memories during Christmas, then had a birthday explosion and anniversary in January. Yes, there are 7 birthdays in our family (not including 2 other out-of-state family members). We quickly took down our Christmas decorations (some can be seen on my sweet friend, Janiene’s, blog) to decorate for all the birthdays and now we are ready for Valentine’s Day. This seasonal paper banner, from a previous post, was designed in Adobe Illustrator and cut with my Silhouette. I made sure to include some red with the cool winter blues because I LOVE RED. It’s such a beautiful color that never gets old.

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”  John 15:13
This is what Jesus did because He LOVES you! Happy Valentine’s Day and a warm winter to everyone!

pretend pumpkins for a faux Fall

It’s been a looooong summer, especially here in SoCal.  Yesterday it was 99 degrees in my area!  But with decorations, we can at least pretend that it’s Fall now, even if the hot weather doesn’t relent.  On my mantle I have six 3M Command hooks left from our Christmas stockings last year.  Well, I may as well use them throughout the rest of the year too.  It turns out that 6 is a great number for many reasons.  There are 6 people in our family.  And there are 6 letters in the words: AUTUMN, WINTER, SPRING and SUMMER.  How perfect!  I love it when a plan comes together!  After a few clicks on Adobe Illustrator and a few snips on my Silhouette (using left over scrapbook paper), here is the finished product for Autumn:

 

Here is my computer sketch for stringing the seasons on my mantle this year.  I will have to post the others later as the seasons change:

 

 

To get the letter cards to hang straight and even, I punched a ¼” hole on the top, cut a 6” piece of twine, folded the twine in half, knotted the ends and then slipped the folded side through the front of the card.

When the seasons change, I can just slip the twine out and use it for the next card.  To quote my 2nd grader, “Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!”

 

And I mustn’t forget my pretend pumpkins. This was a cute and simple craft we made at my last MOPs meeting.  It’s simply a toilet paper roll covered in fabric with a rolled up brown lunch bag stuffed in the middle.  What a great craft for kids too!  I was so inspired by this 2-minute craft that I also cut a roll of paper towels in half to make a bigger pumpkin.
 

 

The best part - everything is reusable and I didn’t buy anything new for these projects.  Yay!  It’s the “little things,” right?  Now I’m ready to light my cranberry candle, sip some hot apple cider and cuddle up in a blanket…as soon as the weather gets cooler.  Either way, I am reminded to be thankful to God for His blessings, with or without decorations or cool weather.  God is good, even if my circumstances aren’t.  This verse spoke to my heart this week:

Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food…
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.
 The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights.
Habbakkuk 3:17-19.

 

May you be refreshed by God’s strength today!

pennant pizzaz

Spring is here and with the warm weather we have gotten quite busy with fun events. It seems like the older my kids get, the more birthday parties they are invited to. So this year they wanted to have one of their own too. To keep things simple we had a 2-hour party, really limited the guest list, and enlisted help from family as much as possible. There were crafts, games, food, and cupcakes. Although it was fun, I'm hoping to have a 2 year break before the next party. It's already been a while and I'm still recovering!

In preparation for the celebration I discovered a cheap and easy way to make pennant banners by hand. I chose some papers from my plentiful stack of 12x12 scrapbook paper that matched my color palette. (I really need to use that up now that I'm doing digital scrapbooking.) Then I marked the paper at 3" and 9" on one side and 6" on the opposite side. I used my handy x-acto knife to make 4 cuts on each paper (shown in blue), which yielded 3 pennants per paper. The dotted lines are where I scored each pennant, folded them over simple curling ribbon and taped them securely. This made it easy to slide them around as needed.

I LOVE my x-acto knife! It does take some practice at first. Always make sure to use a cork-backed metal ruler to guide the x-acto when cutting and watch your fingers! Use a self-healing cutting mat to work on. It seems like a lot of money up front, but it's so worth it. I've used mine for 13 years now. (Which reminds me, it needs to be replaced. Time to clip my 40% off coupon and visit Joann's.) For scoring, I use a bone folder that I also LOVE and have had for years now. But for simple projects like this you can use a pointed chopstick or the back of a plastic knife.

I was happy with these cute pennant banners - one is still hanging outside on our patio surviving all the rain we've had lately. My husband was happy that we didn't spend much for decorations. The kids were happy to see their friends at the party. A win-win for all of us!

And many thanks to Auntie Lucy for her awesome cupcakes!