Happy - peaceful - holidays

I have had a wonderful couple of days with my little family - and I hope you did as well. Nick and I have been working so much we have hardly connected for the past couple of weeks so I took a little break from everything else (except laundry, cooking, and writing an exam) to soak in the joy of my beautiful babies and my wonderful husband.

I also indulged in a little reading time. I was gifted a copy of Quilting for Peace by Katherine Bell and I have to say I loved every inch of it. I am feeling so completely inspired, I am regretting packing up my sewing machine (it is just temporary - as an incentive for me to finish writing my exam). Not only are the projects lovely, but the way this book is written speaks to me and just sets something off inside of me. I especially love reading about the various grassroots charities that are features in this book. Pure Heaven!

That being said I am going to go enjoy my own little peace of heaven and spend a few more days with my lovely family while we still have some time off together.

Celebrating... again

Today is another day for celebration in our home. First and foremost this is the wonderful day that gave us this man

Photo credit SC Photography

He is a husband, son, father, best friend, and the kindest soul that I know. Happy birthday hun! We had a lovely evening with most of our family last night and tonight will be a much quieter (ha! with 2 babies?) evening spent with our wee family of four. Chocolate pie is on the menu as per his request, I suppose he is tired of birthday cake already? Its only been one week!

Also on the menu are a few projects for the girls that I hope to have finished and under the tree by Friday.

Sweet Pea

I am preparing for the launch of the Sweet Pea Collection over at beebee buttercup and here is a little sneak peak at some of the tutu's that will be featured. Unfortunately by the time I can get them out to take pictures, my models are in bed! I expect the Sweet Pea Collection to be available January 2010, and by that time there will be pictures with models!

26 and 2

Today we are celebrating 2 birthdays. 2 years ago today I went into the hospital being 23 years old and left at 24 with a daughter.... our beautiful Sweet Pea. She is officially no longer a baby, but a full on climbing, talking, attitude giving, beautiful, creative, caring, kind and loving two year old. How does that happen? It gives me so much joy to watch her grown and explore the world around her, she truly is a blessing and I thank the heavens for her every day.



This is her birthday table that she woke up to today. A handmade birthday crown (I used this tutorial and loved it), an embroidered backpack for all those trips to grandma's that an independent two year old can make (grandma only lives 1 km away), and an colouring book made by mama (its really just a pretty cover with a bunch of blank paper that I had bound at the local print shop. On a side note, if I knew that binding was so dirt cheap I would have been making myself books ages ago!).






And while I am on the topic of 2's and things with 2 in them... this is my 200th post! Fitting isn't it? I guess that is also something to celebrate.

Birthday Crafting and some links

I am having a lovely morning, Nick has the littles downstairs playing in front of the fireplace and I am doing some crafting in anticipation of a very special birthday around here.

First on my list is a birthday crown using Refugee Crafter's tutorial here. Aren't they the sweetest crowns? I just LOVE them.

In other news did you see that Nicole aka GardenMama is hosting another fabulous giveaway on her blog? You simply MUST check it out!

I'm off to get back to work and enjoy my Chai Latte compliments of Stephanie - how would I ever get my Starbucks fix if she didn't drive 45 min (both way) once a week to bring it to me? Oh, somedays I do think that my little town could benefit from an Sbucks!

Holiday Baking

Last weekend my mom and I undertook one of our largest holiday projects... the great Christmas cookie bake. This is a baking marathon (and I mean MARATHON - we should start training for it) in which we literally bake hundreds of cookies to give (and eat) over the holidays. On the menu this year were gingersnaps, oatmeal, chocolate chip, peanut butter and chocolate freezer cookies. YUM! Usually we do this in a single weekend but its a little hard to find a chunk of uninterrupted time that big these days so we stretched it out over the week.

Sweetpea helped by testing and Baby S stayed close to her mama in the Ergo to make sure I knew what I was doing. What would I do without those two girls?

For Giving

I just finished this set of holiday potholders using my absolute favourite snowman fabric. I just love the colours. I used this tutorial and tried machine binding again. I was a bit nervous because with this method your stitches are visible on both sides of the binding which is completely new to me and I have to admit a little hard to get used to. Great method, but I think that I need more practice.



All in all they turned out well but the I have decided that I am a hand-binding kind of girl going forwards. It takes a lot longer for sure but its how I was taught and I really appreciate the look of it. Maybe I'll make a compromise on smaller projects and on non 'traditional' quilting projects I may attempt to machine bind again... I'll have to see. Machine binding controversy aside I think they look pretty darn nice! They are a gift and I hope the recipient thinks so as well.



I am hoping that I will be able to pop into this space a little more often in the next few weeks, goodness knows I will have a lot to share - if only I could find the time to take pictures of all of it before it leaves my home!