Spring cleaning and still sewing daily....

Day 146

I am so happy to finally be enjoying the cool mornings and warm SLIGHTLY breezy days (not persistent 40mph sand storms) that make me love New Mexico this is the best time of year for me as everything is budding, its not too hot to go out, we can open the windows and throw off the cloak and dust of winter ONLY IF you are fully medicated against Cedar/Juniper allergies lol

FYI if you ever visit New Mexico no matter how hard we dust there is ALWAYS a fine layer of sand and dust on everything it is just impossible to keep up with....seriously its a desert around here LOTS of sand

So this Spring Break I laid out my plans to clean the house top to bottom, every nook and cranny and as of today I can say the upstairs is finished.....the loft where I fully expect my preteens to be bringing home friends in the Summer to hang out, watch movies, play games, sleepovers...it needs to be a fun place where they can just be themselves

Really hoping to get to the painting this Summer...one of these blues on the wall....I want this loft to be relaxed and reminiscent of my dream life growing up in Florida and my time spent on the beach like an old Florida cracker beach house of which I wish I had grown up in but while we had the Florida floor plan and windows of one of these houses it was a half hour drive to the beach.

This couch has been in our family since the oldest was born and has definitely seen better days but since it's bones are still good I am going to get some blue mattress ticking and recover it...for now I just recovered the many pillows in random fabric scraps I had laying around

I had one small piece of vintage red strip mattress ticking...

the girls insisted on this soft wool plaid piece....

both girls being born in Texas they loved finding this handkerchief so I threw it on a squishy pillow-not that Texans are squishy by any means lol-they just knew they would be using it a lot and wanted to put it on a comfy pillow

2 pillows that were already recovered, this wool felt 'Liberty and Freedom' and in the back a silky blue stripe

this vintage hand embroidered pillowcase written in German (if you speak German and know what it says can you let me know? ya know so I can impress people who come over lol)

UPDATE TRANSLATION: The early bird catches the worm <--thanks Mel, very cool

This one little scrap I had that actually had Florida and California on it-both places I have lived--one day I hope to find a real touristy handkerchief like this in my thrifting adventures

And that quilt in the back is from the girl's great (great?) grandmother and they use it all the time so it is perfect here...won't this room look great with the couch recovered and the walls painted and (fingers crossed) some faux wood floors eventually......like a room in my imaginary beach house that is my Summer home lol

Here is the cabinet under the TV which used to be open, exposed, ugly, jumbled....games, controllers, movies, wires every which way.....so I covered it with the only scrap of blue stripe mattress ticking I had (this is what will be used to cover the couch) and I hot glued vintage ric rac across the top over the staples (I totally luv my staple gun)

btw those are some of my huge collection of fossilized (over 1million years old) and modern shells collected in my years on the beach and in my pre-life as a budding paleontologist/geologist/archaeologist

Art on the stairs and beach on the stair rail-hub plans on building some more book shelves for the books along these walls this Summer-we love books in this house

random shell groupings

in an effort to decorate with what we have I dug these 2 aquariums out of the garage and filled them will most of my shell collection--the shelf on the left my hub built for some of our collection of favorite books

Today we plan on starting the downstairs Spring cleaning efforts...making homemade applesauce....the girls are creating their own Pokemon felt creatures (more on that tomorrow)...and I have 3 curtains to sew......what will you create today?

Vintage Dolly Dresses & Manga Collaging....

Day 68

Did you know that homeschooling and trying to run a business as well as all the rest of life can be tough? LOL betcha didn't know that?! Huh didja now?! Yea well who's complaining cause its certainly NOT me....anyway Wednesdays are tough for creating in my lair because I am running the girls to classes and errands.

At least we did have a few moments today to run to my favorite thrift store to get some goodies for Easter. And Saturday I hope to hit a few garage sales for a couple of surprises that I can put in their baskets or things that the Easter bunny can leave for them...yes they sort of still believe or at least they like to keep pretending and that is ok with me time enough to grow up and read depressing world news I figure rabbits leaving candy and gifts is harmless fun.

Here are some things that I found in a bag tucked away in a corner of the store...some vintage doll clothes for G2's lovey that she plays dress up with still...sadly the baby dolls have all been nekked and abandoned in favor of their clothes going on her favorite stuffed animal she has had since she was a baby. So I did dolly laundry today and these are ready to be worn...check out some of the vintage fabrics...

I swear my parents dressed me in an outfit out of the same material when I was a kid

the lovey will be ready for football this Fall (he/she does dress appropriately for the season ya know)

and some fancy vintage barrettes just adorable--accessories are a must!

or even a pair of crocheted roller skates for summer fun! I am going to make G2 a little Easter bag to put all these into if I have a few moments tomorrow. That will be one well dressed lovey even if he/she doesn't come out of the house or car any more as she gets older.

I love finding gifts for the girls at thrift stores and garage sales....it is cheaper and I can usually find some really awesome surprises that have more meaning and less packaging than stuff we buy in the store.

So while I did not get to sew today we all created manga (Japanese comic book) collages

There is my girl who has been studying Japanese language half her life already--reading, writing, speaking--she has been teaching herself (with various online resources and texts) at first I thought it wasn't working but now she watches anime in Japanese with no subtitles, writes goofy jokes in Japanese (at least I hope they are goofy jokes) she still has a lot to learn but I am amazed at what she has accomplished this far. She says she wants to go to a Japanese University to do genetics, we'll see what the future brings won't we?! I am supportive of my girls' dreams but I also try to teach them that it is ok if your dream changes or does not turn out exactly how you imagined.

Here is my collage before my name...

and after....isn't every mom's name Mom? I love it and am going to hang it in my creative lair this weekend.

In case you were wondering we merely collaged the background pictures onto the paper then drew letters for our names and colored them onto separate manga pages, cut those out and pasted them on top. Simple and a little messy with the glue but FUN!

The pages were taken from the Shonen Jump manga which G1 gets monthly-all I can say is that I am very happy she is NOT into the manga for girls (blech)--violence, swords, dueling, vampires, blood...THAT I can handle...romantic interludes with hunks of burning comic love can wait till she is older.

Falling off the wagon....

Day 67

yes, yes apparently I have fallen off the blogging wagon and hard --->call the Whambulance I'm gonna white here buuut I have been Facebooking and some Twittering.....and and I just have not been taking lots of pictures lately! OK done whining now.

No excuses and in all reality I enjoy blogging way more than any other social networking method it just is so easy to get lazy and miss a couple of posts....so here is a bit of what we have been up to around here...

Finishing up the girls summer clothes....packaged and sent off seeds to friends and in a seed exchange...sent off my Cinderella slipper block...sketching things....homeschooling...running the girls to their classes...and just general life stuff...so here's some fun things...

.... got a package of bits and bobs and inspirational things from Blue Nickel --he is AMAZING

....don't yooooouuu throw stuff onto your work table just for inspiration? And yes those are washers that I am currently incorporating into a piece...

I am on the hunt for organza scraps for my flower craft during April's craft night

my girls are working on a latchhook rug that they acquired at a garage sale...

I am trying to re-use and think of ideas for found objects to be used in my creative lair...I cut salt cedar branches (an invasive species but such a beautiful red color) the branches at been dumped in the open space behind my house--so I cut them in small pieces and am going to use them for ribbons! Just gotta find a cool looking jar or vase....

These are my treasured paper (and some silk) flowers that I keep finding one by one in my various thrifting travels

Mom is great, making chocolate cake....

Day 57

Boy I have a lot of respect for those ladies who bead intricate designs because this shoe square is taking forever....I knew after I got a cell phone with texting ability that I had chubby thumbs but I feel like I am all thumbs lately sewing on these beads......BUT I carry on because I actually like texture in my works!

Wasn't it me who praised our one car from breaking down recently? Yes, yes it was! Well Friday afternoon hub calls me and says 'Car broke down, stalled but I got it off the interstate' so to the shop it goes and it is Monday now without a word SIGH LE HUGE SIGH.... lucky hub can take the bus to work and we have plenty to do here.

And what would life be like without the best friends in the world who have helped when we really needed rides somewhere!?

Because we are staying home I decided 'let them eat cake' home made cake, from scratch...my poor darlings have NEVER eaten homemade cake and at first G2 was a little leery but we carried on and came out with this.....

......UUUUUUMMMMMM even the frosting is from tscratch....now making a cake from scratch with G2 goes something like this (G1 just licks he frosting bowl, she says she prefers to eat instead of cook lol)---NO NO too much, aaa don't move the measuring cup, it's ok you can sweep it all up later, gently stir GENTLE, no no don't lift the mixer out of the bowl (as I wipe my glasses off) lol lol and MOOOOM I prefer to cook with dad or by myself

it was a blast and a good distraction from having to stay at home!

Tomorrow, homeschooling and working from home--along with all the other 12 million things moms do....

Snow, Snow Candy and Crystal Snowflakes...

Day 51

First it snowed here in Albuquerque-or I should say on the west mesa part of Albuquerque where it rarely precipitates at all....so all work and chores were out the window in favor of SNOW related activities

snow baseball...don't know why this picture is staying so small will work on fixing it later

Never seen snow before, he was not really that impressed

Yes this picture did end with a big ball of snow in G2's face

This was a cat rescue, she THOUGHT she would like the snow but once she was out in it she found out she was much more of an indoor cat

Molasses snow candy.....one cup of molasses and one cup of brown sugar boiled to bubbly

flat trays of clean fresh snow....

drizzle either directly from the pot or with a large spoon...does not matter shape or size

they will cool nearly instantly so eat them quickly....they also will get soggy so they can't be kept long so eat'em all up! Instant sugar high WOOHOO!

Crystal Snowflakes.....just for crystal shape comparison here are brown sugar crystals grown over a week or so....

Supplies--food coloring, 2 clean jars, pencils or sticks, pipe cleaners, scissors, borax....

while water is boiling drop food coloring (if desired) into your jars.....and cut and shape pipe cleaners into snowflakes--we also used pipe cleaners to hang them from the chopsticks but you can use string or yarn

fill the jars with water one cup at a time (water is boiling hot so watch little ones) and then dissolve 3tbs per one cup of water into the jars....swirl with a spoon until mostly dissolved (there will be sediment on the bottom of the jar) and Borax is not edible so wash hands and area after this experiment---put the snowflakes into the solution and try not to have them touch the bottoms or sides but really it is ok if they do!

the crystals start forming almost instantly and this is what our jars looked like afterwards...very pretty...like diamonds all over the inside....

Wait 24 hours and then remove, lay on a papertowel to dry.....Here are what they look like after they come out....the crystals grew so quick I had to gently pry them off the sides and bottom but it is just more sparkles

Secure them to a wire hook and hang them from a window for maximum sparkliness!

And that is how we do it....homeschooling style....not much sewing got done but LOTS of family time!