A gift for Henry...

(From left to right: bunny,cat,bear).

I made these fun characters for a sweet little friend of ours named Henry who was turning 3 this weekend. The pattern was fun and fast, and addictive! I can't wait to make a bunch more for my own kiddos. The pattern is called "Anything Animals" and you can find it here.

reverse applique happy skirt

I contemplated this skirt for several weeks in my mind. Envisioned it like one would a new baby before it is born. Planned it out like a much needed vacation. The idea of it made me happy in the glummest of days. So I call it my happy skirt.
Made from thrifted material, it is loosely based on the reverse applique skirt in the Alabama Stitch Book(this book is located in my side bar if you would like more info).

This moment...

(A Friday ritual, a moment from our week, inspired by Soule mama's blog)

Potato stamp wall cards

I am very far behind in posting crafty stuff so I am going to try and catch up. I always take photos of the stuff I make but hardly ever follow through with posting them on the blog. Good old craft A.D.D. for ya.
Anyway I wanted to share the February's potato stamp project for the Craftalong I am participating in. (Please click on the link on my sidebar for more info and to see other Craftalong projects).
The kids and I were going to attempt to make a-z with the alphabet cards, but man, those five alone were a lot of work! I think we still will because we have many ideas for the rest of the letters( I just gotta make a mushroom for the M). But for the sake of the Craftalong...and the fact that I am practically a month behind already, we stopped at E for Easter egg.
I have a few potatoes starting to sprout eyes in the veggie basket... so I guess they are soon to be our next victims. But they are willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of art.

Celebrating Spring!

It was a glorious first day of spring! We hiked up to the park as a family and brought a picnic lunch. We spent a good part of the day lazing about under this beautiful tree, watching the bees and butterflies do their thing. I think they were celebrating too....

I squeezed a little knitting in too....

Wrote secret codes....

received precious gifts...

watched them explore...

and loved them....

so very much.

On this beautiful day.

Happy First Day of Spring!

This moment......

(A moment in our week. Inspired by Soule mama's blog)

Faerie Evidence.....

Sophie and I went on a hike the other day in the forest and spotted something odd up in a tree...Once we got a bit closer we could see that it was a tiny red table with a small object on it....

Sophie thought it looked like a book of spells, to me it looked like a tiny piece of pie.....

We tried to get a better view, but it was just to high up to tell for sure.
This is the third time we have found faerie evidence in the forests and parks around the city.

Magnolias and Leprechauns

The Magnolia trees are in full bloom now, they are just gorgeous. I can never take too many pictures of them. I also wanted to share this great picture Sophie painted inside a shoe box,perfect for the holiday(hard to photograph). She makes leprechaun traps each year inside the house and out in the yard,no luck catching any so far. Maybe this will be her LUCKY year!

coming out of the funk......

We have all been under the weather lately with some kind of flu. Solomon had it the worst and had a high fever for several days which left this mama feeling really helpless. But he is on the mend and acting like the happy energetic little guy we all love. Funny how he has been sick twice since weaning in February and wasn't sick even once this season before then. Nurse your babies as long as you can mamas!
To lighten our mood as we awaken from this funk I though I would post our ugly sweater family portrait and some of my favorite outtakes. These are the sweaters we wore for Sollie's ugly sweater Birthday party. Ben, Sollie and I are all wearing thrifted sweaters, Sophie's sweater was made by my paternal grandmother(It's a good ugly).
So what do you think? Who's is the worst?

Portland Yarn Crawl!

(click photo to enlarge)

Ok, so I attempted the Portland Yarn Crawl today.....I only made 6 out of the 16 yarn shops in the area, but hey, that's pretty good. I wanted to share my treasures. Starting on bottom left with that freaking adorable fuzzy wool sheep card...with the real tiny knitting needles found at Twisted. Then Plymouth Yarn CO. Happy Feet sock yarn in pretty variegated purples from The Yarn Garden. Next on top Cobblestone 100% merino wool...I could not pass up that fun and happy orange colorway found at The Naked Sheep. The green and blue variegated yarn peeking up behind the card is Cascade yarn Autunno from Happy Knits. The other items pictured were freebies....Unicorn Fibre wash and a little sock pattern with a little bit of yarn to make it with. I also got to fill out raffle tickets at each yarn shop to win a huge gift basket of yarn. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
The best part is I got to do it all by myself with my decaff americano and the station tuned to Public Radio. A good way to kill a sunny morning. I would imagine that this would have been a lot less fun with my kids in tow. I wouldn't have even tried. Maybe next year I will try to hit all 16!
I am such an old lady...hehe.

A big Thanks!

I just wanted to report that my shop has raised $100 dollars for Mercy Corps over the last two months to aid the people of Haiti who were devastated by the disaster. Thanks so much to the people who supported my Etsy shop, you have helped me and my family as well.
If you would still like to help, donating on-line is simple and easy click HERE.
I am planning on adding a few new items to my shop over the next few weeks so please check back often.
Many blessings.