It's raining hearts!

Missy Moo is absolutely loving Valentines Day this year. Her energy is quite contagious, and I've been dreaming up lots of fun surprizes for this weekend.
We made her this shirt for the big pre-school Valentines shin-dig today. She told me exactly what she wanted and I brought it to fruition. I mostly used this method, and hand embroidered the letters on.

She wanted lots of pictures this morning of her Valentines shirt...:)

Her gifts to her classmates? Princess in the Frog cards (although she's never seen the movie), bubbles, a hershey kiss, and at the last minute, heart pencils. She's had these bags made for almost two weeks. Carries them around and has even been sleeping with them!

I love that she is so excited about giving all her friends something she really put her heart into. She even wrote all their names and signed them with hers.

Thanks to Ava, it's raining hearts over here!

Q and A

Happy Sunday Friends!
I've been getting a lot of emails lately regarding different questions. Arts and crafts questions, parenting questions, personal questions...:)
I thought I'd wrap it all up in a blog post, so if you have any questions too please feel free to leave a comment.
Okay, Saints or Colts tonite? For me, it's ALL about the food...!

What a week...Lots of WIP's

What a week!
With some minor health issues for the kids now resolved, I've got quite a few projects that are all considered works in progress. That is how I work...always have. When I get an idea I feel like I have to start it, (I think I'm afraid if I don't bring it to fruition I'll lose the idea!), so I usually have at least a couple going on at once.
Not pictured are quite a few Valentines Day projects with and for the kids, but I'll be sure to show them to you soon!
This is a mosaic for my beloved aunt. I have been working on this one forever, but I'm getting close to grouting it. I can't wait to show you the finished project.

I finally started Logan's quilt. He asked for black and white prints, and I threw the yellow in the mix so it wouldn't look to jumbly. I'm hoping it will turn out more gender neutral. I didn't realize it would start looking so feminine, but he says he likes it. I'm planning on binding it in a solid red...
The whole Kindergarden is celebrating one hundred days of school tomorrow, so I've been helping Ashton with this project all week. I think it's a very early lesson in learning how to break up projects so you don't wait until the last minute. He had a lot of fun scavenging through my paper collection.
Week two for this quilt was cutting the fabrics. Since the picture I've also cut the white fabrics and I can't wait until Monday to piece the top together. I'm loving the fabric combination.
Last but not least, a pretty big three-panel painting I've been working on since January for our living room. It is very colorful, full of glitter, painted and collaged, and very child-like. I'm totally working off all of the kids input and it's really fun.

I hope your creative juices are flowing too. The sun finally came out today and we've had beautiful weather. We've got a weekend full of track meets, baseball practice, and church activities. It should be a good one!:)

See you on Monday!

xo, Chrissie

Color

I have a feeling I'm not the only one feeling the grays today. The dreary weather is dragging on, and I think we all need a little sunshine! I thought this print I made a couple of years ago might bring a little smile to your face:) There is never a shortage of color online, is there? Here are some of my favorite images right now that might bring you some color inspiration too:

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I hope some of that brings you the promise of Spring! I've got two home from school sick today, so I'm hoping maybe I'll get a little quilting done while they are resting. Hopefully I'll have something to show you soon:)

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
Psalm 42:5-6

February

Hi! Happy February. It's gray and dreary in these parts so I thought I'd add a little color into my life today:)

Remember last month I told you about One Small Change? Every month we try to make an environmental change in our household. I decided to do two...The first one was to bring more plants into the house. Plants in the home are beneficial to your health. When they "breathe in", they absorb carbon dioxide and convert it to oxygen, and can also absorb other pollutants from the air.

Remember these paper whites we planted in January?

They grew very quickly! Every morning the kids woke up to see how much they had grown overnight. I wish we had actually measured them and made a lesson out of it. But it was nice to just see them enjoy the growth too. One morning we woke up and they were...done.

We cut the buds and enjoyed them in a vase for a few more days. I think another benefit of having house plants is that children relate to them. They want to take care of them and nurture them.

I definitely want to add more plants into our home. The top 9 air purifying plants are dragon trees, ivy, vicus, philodendrons, spider plants, peace lilies, ferns, chrysanthemums, and palms. I am going to continue to bring these into our house.

My other goal for the month was to make my own cloth pads for the month. I used the pattern from Amanda Soule's book Handmade Home. I only made four because I wanted to see how they worked, and I was very pleased with the results. I will be making more.

And my environmental change for February? To cut down on our use of paper towels. I cut up a bunch of rags from a couple of old towels and have talked to everyone about replacing our paper towel use with our recycled rags. This is such a habit that it may be a little difficult, so I'll let you know how it goes.

Have a great Monday friends!

Spring Quilt Along

I am starting a new quilt-along over at i have to say.
This week we had to choose our fabrics and on Monday we'll start cutting. It's not too late if you want to join along.

My fabric is an assortment of Kaffee Fassett and Amy Butler. I had a good time picking them out.

Have a great weekend friends.

xo,

Chrissie

Matryoshka Dolls

I love Matryoshka or Russian Nesting Dolls. I want a real set, but am waiting for the right set to find me. I had cut these out of wood a couple of weeks ago, and today I had the chance to play a little.
It was a nice, quiet hour. The older boys were at school, Jax was asleep, and Ava was playing in her room. I painted and glittered to my hearts content. Does anyone else have the Martha Stewart glitter? Yummy!
The little faces are cut out of plywood so the pieces are 3-D. They certainly aren't perfect, but cute, I think.
Good tunes, a nice hot cup of coffee, and an hour to craft. It was a nice afternoon.