New Clothes!

So, I'm super excited about the new shirts I inherited from my friend Katie and some new shirts I found at the mall. Summer is getting into gear in Sunny Central FL and it is time to make a decision: To wear shorts, or to not wear shorts...

Now, I'm a firm believer in the evils of denim in summertime, but I'm also against seeing my legs in shorts. So, what to do? I have settled this dilemma by hidden option number 3, wear neither. That's right. I'm going to dress like 50's housewife. It's all dresses and skirts this summer. Well, except in my house, where athletic shorts reign. To meet the missing need in my life for cute skirts, I am working on sewing up a couple styles.

The first I made was a simple double-layered, cranberry, knit, knee-length skirt with an elastic waistband. The second is resting on my sewing table waiting for the addition of elastic to the waist. I found the second skirt in the clearance section at Ross and it was much to big with a broken zipper, but it was baby pink with dark brown and black floral pattern and a few white flowers around the bottom. It is a lightweight cotton with a thin lining and it is a twirly skirt! That was the selling point for me. It has triangle panels sewn in to give it the twirlyness and an A-line cut. It came down to my ankles so I shortened it from the waist to just below my knees and zig-zag sewed the invisible zipper closed after removing the zipper part. I'm not sure if I want to fold the waist band twice and run the elastic through the casing or if I want to sew the elastic directly to the inside of the skirt. There's pro's and con's with each, so I'm still up in the air. I'll decide tomorrow when I go to sew it.

Tomorrow will be full of Biscotti making for the mothers in my life and giving the house a final go over before my in-laws come in to town for supper. It will be very nice to see them and for them to get to spend time with Redding.

Alan starts his new job on Monday after being at home in the transition phase for two weeks. Redding has so enjoyed spending time with him during the day and Alan has been wonderful to have at home to keep me company and have around the house. He is truly my best friend. We are looking forward to this change and are excited about the changes and the challenges and interest a new job will present.

I have been very busy with Etsy lately as I have sold 8 Fuzzy Wuzzy Bear Hats and One pom pom hat in the last three wks which has been very fun. I'm so thankful that God is providing me with business and that I can offer a product that buyers like.

Gonna get back to watching Justified with my friends now and catch up on the last two weeks episodes.

Nite!

News from my Etsy Store

CrosStitching Moving Sale!!!
40% OFF

In an effort to expand my shops and make shopping easier for the customer, I will be discontinuing all my sewing and miscellaneous items out of the inventory from my CrosStitching Etsy Shop or moving it over to CrossRowDesigns Etsy Shop. To make this transition hopefully easier on myself, I will be offering ALL THE SEWING ITEMS in the CrosStitching Shop at 40% off their current price (not including shipping). This will help me to Clearance out old inventory and allow me to not have to remake listings for every item in my shop.

The only section not to be included in this Clearance is the Crochet and Photography Props.

Once you make your purchases, I will send you a Paypal invoice for the final discounted total.

Thanks for Shopping!!!!!

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Please check out the other shops I work with:
http://www.CrossRowDesigns.etsy.com/
http://www.DesignsbyKandL.etsy.com/

Chore Time!

So my favorite new way of cleaning is blaring good tempo music with catchy lyrics. Dishes are so much less of a chore when you are singing and dancing while holding a sponge. Day 1 of this involved a collection of favorite Country songs and some hardcore pots and pans scrubbing. I found something buried in the pile that can only be described as an evil science experiment gone wrong. Day 2's soundtrack was Kings of Leon's "Only by the Night." There is no foreseeable end in sight for this record currently. I attacked my kitchen again and it is a thing of beauty. Me and my spray bottle of bleach went to town on every surface in the kitchen. Now it's pretty again :)
I also got outside today and moved some plants around and have planted two more antique rose bushes from cuttings off my grandma's rose bush and mine. Hopefully they survive and fill up the front of my house with sweet roses.
This evening was spent with friends and some shopping! After 6 sales on etsy (thank you Lord) in the last 3 weeks I was able to pick up a couple new shirts that are super cute and will be the basis for reviving my flagging summer wardrobe. I'm working on losing the extra weight that I have. I'm a little too fluffy right now. 20-30lbs lighter and I will be very happy. That would put me in my 'healthy weight range' and at the thinnest I've been since junior high. I really want to get thin to feel great this summer and to be healthy before possibly having another baby in the next 2yrs or so.
How is it that sleep can be so elusive? I would really like to go to bed and sleep, but I can't capture sleep. I had the same problem last night. I only got about 4hrs last night and I am a 10hrs of sleep needed kinda gal. Hmmm... thundering outside again. We got rain and a light thunderstorm last night. It's really good for my gardens which are doing pretty well. My little tomatoes are starting to flower which is very exciting because Alan has really been craving tomatoes.
Other random stuff:
I like the shows Justified and Legend of the Seeker. I like Legend for it's medieval type setting and storyline. I like Justified because of the main character, plots, snarky scripting and the main character.
I want to learn to play electric guitar. I play acoustic, or rather once played regularly. Now, It is more a fading knowledge. I think I'm going to really pick it up again and work on learning theory and notes, not just chords.
My oh so pretty, takedown style greattree archery bow should be arriving in a few short weeks. I'm super excited about that and can't wait to begin practicing and learning the sport. My very awesome hubby bought the bow for me almost a month ago and it was out of stock so we were put on a waiting list. It is going to be such a fun sport and one that will also build my arm muscles. I hate weight lifting so that is a large bonus.
Projects this week:
Cleaning out the office/craft room... again.
It seems like everytime we get one of the rooms clean the crap gets moved into another one. So the solution is quite simple--get rid of the crap. Alan and I attacked our bedroom a couple days ago so it is now very pretty and decorated in a minimalist fashion. We just need to paint. And fix out ceiling fan; 2 of the 3 have gotten the pull cords messed up and we may have to replace the entire fan(s) because of it.
We will be having a garage sale this weekend with our good friends. It will be work, but fun.

I think I'm going to try to read some Jane Austen and chill the heck out so I can sleep.

Monday!

Good Day to You!

I've done a little writing over here today and hope to have regular "Seller of the Week" posts for FAM members.

Today will be spent cleaning house. My bedroom is the point of incursion today. If I can take that room and secure several loads of clean laundry, my day's campaign will be complete. :)
I'm also just getting into Jane Austen's Emma and will post a review once I finish it. I'm also going to try to get in a little sewing today. I have dreams of a twirly skirt in my fun vintage material that is inspiring my current Rosette Collection that is debuting this month on Etsy. I'm also being inspired by my antique Rosebush that is beginning to bloom. I have vases of fresh roses in my house every day :) Such a sweet fragrance.

Good news also is that thursday and friday were spent painting my bathroom walls and vanity. My wonderful hubby is going to tile the vanity top for me as the paint didn't want to stick very well. He is off tomorrow so I have hopes of window shopping at Lowes for tile ideas.

My parting thoughts for the day are this: What does your home say about you?
Is it clean and comfy? Is it well managed? Is it a place of refuge for your family? Is is a great place to be, but also a work in progress?
I am in the work in progress category. By no means perfect, but still pleasant and a place we can enjoy.
Embrace your apron!

And off to the Battle of Clean Bedroom (it'll show up in the history books soon. An epic battle between the Apron and the evil Dust Bunnies holed up under IKEA bed Mountain.)

Car Washing with Papa

Yesterday Alan got off a little early from work and needed to wash his Chevy Corvair. So Redding and I helped.

But Redding liked dropping the sponge in the bucket more than helping :)

Lots of Baby Hats!

I've recently been in touch with Tiffany Yates Photography on trading pics for some photo props. Her work is absolutely beautiful so I was very pleased to accept her offer. She requested a Brown Bear Hat, a Snuggly Sack and a few new (to me) types of hats. Thrilled with the challenge and the prospect of having professional photos for Etsy, I got to work right away. As I dislike buying patterns for things I should be able to figure out on my own, anything crochet really, I went with the good ole trial and error method. Severaly hours later, I had a pretty basic idea of how the pattern should go; I began working on different styles and colors. As it turned out, the hats were fairly simple to make and then I just couldn't stop. Six Stocking hats and three Pom-Pom hats later, I was so excited by my success that I tried out a pattern for a monkey hat that I found on a blog and was very pleased with the results. I was pleasantly surprised when the hat turned out quite a bit bigger than I initially expected and wound up with a hat that would fit 10-30mo.
I will post up the instructions for the pom-pom and stocking hats in a basic form soon. For now enjoy the few pics!

Handmade Valentines

So my wonderful hubby had the really good idea of giving handmade instead of bought gifts for valentines day. His gift to me was a Beautiful green living room which we enjoyed painting together and putting up new trim in :) It's soooo pretty and very relaxing! Who knew paint could make such a difference in a room? We sent the little guy to spend some time with the grandparents and his aunts and Alan and I enjoyed picking out paint and shared our first lunch at a tasty burger joint that's relatively new to our area called Five Guys where we discovered our new favorite burgers second only to, IN and Out which is a west coast chain.
I'll post pics soon of the work in progress and the sage green that adorns my walls. My wonderful hubby has the very best ideas :)

My One Year old Baby

I can't believe that my little man is already a year old! It has flown by so fast. He is almost walking now and chatters at me all day. He is such a wonderful little guy :)

For his birthday we gave him a little toy set and he just toted the tools all over the house. He is practicing hitting the pretend hammer on the plastic nails. It's so cute. Here are some pictures of him in his construction gear.

Psalm 62

"My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken." Psalm 62:1-2

We have just finished filling out a police report for another attempted burglary. Alan set up measures to ensure it would be very difficult for someone to break into the house and set specific obstacles that they would need to move before attempting to break in. The obstacles have been moved and there is a crack in the wood of the door from the garage to the back yard where it has been pulled on very hard. Alan made the decision to call the police and file a report in light of our having been robbed around the first of December. The officer agreed with us that there had definitely been an attempted break-in. We are beyond thankful to God again for His protection over our family and household. Please join with us in praying for the cessation of these events and attempts to steal from my family.

Busy Bee

I'm working on building my Etsy shop and trying hard to be dedicated to listing frequently, networking with other Etsy buyers/sellers and really finding the products and styles that sell. Any ideas would be fabulous.

Well, Ideas per se are not the biggest hurdle for me. I have lots of ideas for new designs and styles and projects... My difficulty is in following through with all my fabulous ideas and making them feasible options for my store.

I want to do quite a bit with infant/toddler clothing and accessories as well as crochet delights and ladies fashion. It's hard to hone my ideas into one mold. I have also done a bit of business with a friend in her shop specializing in fur hand muffs and fur wraps for weddings or special occasions.

As I meander through my thoughts via media I feel like I'm coming to the conclusion of keeping the crochet and random sewing projects as fun bonus items for the shop and specializing in infant/toddler clothing and accesories. I have also been handed the reins of the girls hair bows shop just for fun. I'm gonna list what I've got made already for that and slowly build up my inventory.