Coming Soon to a Blog Near You!

This is a project that I've been working on now for a few weeks.  Or, more to the point, I haven't been working on it. So here is the sneak preview:

And these lovelies are soon going to find themselves made into purses.  When, exactly?  Oh, I have no idea.  But the ideas are there, rolling around in my head, and they will not give me peace until I bring them to fruition.

These last few days of sunshine have imbued me with new energy.  It's so much easier to get up in the morning when there is sunlight streaming in through my windows, rather than the insipid, watery light of an overcast sky.  Really, it's amazing how much better I feel.  (Brandon, bless his heart, told me that I have it backwards.  I don't feel better because it's sunny, it's sunny because I feel better.)  I've actually been getting up with Elora, rather than changing her, giving her milk and putting her back in her crib so that I can go and crawl back under the covers. I've been getting things done around the house, getting a head start on dinner, and taking her out to play.  

I got my first flowers from my little girl. She just kept bringing them to me yesterday!

All except the ones she tried to eat.

She's doing a lot more exploring now that she can get around on two feet.  I kept having to get up and bring her back to our blanket, and most of my pictures are of her walking away from me. 

I have a feeling that I am going to be seeing this side of her a lot more from now on.

We went outside again today, but I didn't bother with the blanket.  I just followed her around with the camera so she could explore to her heart's content.  I made the mistake of doing it without sunscreen, though, and since I was wearing a cami tank, I'm pretty sure that my back and shoulders are a bit burned.  We weren't out very long; hopefully it won't be too bad.  Those pictures are still in my camera,  so they'll be going in my next post.

Jumping on the Mushroom Bandwagon

First of all, thank you to everyone who voted for one of my Snow Days LOs.  It was a pretty close race from start to finish, but the Penguin stayed just a nose ahead the whole time.  So, the Penguin it is.

I still haven't sent out any Mother's Day goodies.  I've had pretty much everything here for months, but with all of the hullabaloo in my life last month, it got pushed to the back burner.  However, the delay did give me a chance to fill my mother-in-law's request for some personalized address labels.  She gave me free reign, so I pretty much did whatever I wanted.  I think she will like them, but we will have to see.  If not, then I get to have the fun of putting something else together.

The name and address are, of course, entirely made up.  (Do you see what I did there??)  And even though I tacked my initials on them, I can't take credit for the 'shrooms themselves.  I knew I wanted to do some cute little mushrooms, but I also knew I wouldn't be able to actually create them myself.  So I hopped on over to dafont, browsed through their selection of "nature" dingbats, and came up with this lovely little Shrooms font.  After downloading and installing (so easy!) I went through and chose the ones I wanted, I made them dark brown and then colored them in.  For the grass, I used Stacy's New Doodles from kevinandamanda's Fonts For Peas website.

I have Jennifer and Jessica to thank for my mushrooms inspiration.  :)  Now that I have my little grouped mushrooms .psd and .png, I want to do more with it/them.  Maybe on an upcoming digi LO?  We'll see.

Which One?

Ok, I added a bit to my Snow Days LO.  Which do you like better, the "original", or the "original + penguin and snow"?

the original

the original + penguin and snow

Clicking on the picture will enlarge it.  I put up a poll to the left.  Please vote!

Another Mermaid Purse

Note: I was going to postdate this entry, you know, to keep things spread out.  It makes my OCD happy to keep it even.  But I was scolded for such shenanigans, and so I will postdate no more.  If I get lazy and put off posting, I will just have to deal with the gap in my dates.  So there, OCD.

Ok, I know you've all seen The Little Mermaid.  And I know you know the part at the beginning where she's exploring the sunken ship for human treasures, and putting them in her pretty little coral colored bag.  Well, I have always loved that bag. Many of my purses bear a suspicious resemblance to Ariel's treasure bag.  Well, when I made a second bag from that purse I took apart, it came out a bit more narrow than the original, and it reminds me a lot of Ariel's bag.  I'm in love with it.  It was accidental, but I'm going to keep the changes, and from now on, I will call it the Mermaid Purse.

This one was made with some fabulous green corduroy-ish fabric that Jennifer gave me ages ago.  I used a lighter interfacing in it, and I like the way this one drapes better.  I also used the magnetic closure from the original bag on this one, instead of a zipper, so I think that helps as well.  On the other hand, the strap needs more interfacing.  I think that I will be redoing the straps on both these bags, because they are too wide, and too floppy.

There's still a neat little zippered pouch inside, though, and this one came out even better than the first.  I love, love, love this bag.  Thank you so much for the fabric, Jennifer!  And thank you to Lizy, Corinnea, Katelyn, and Jennifer for the inspiration and motivation to do it.  ^_^