Easter

I hope everyone had a happy Easter!  I know I had a blast--my parents, sister, and future brother-in-law came out to Toledo for a visit.  Since we live in Ohio and they live in Wisconsin, we don't get to see our families as much as I know we'd like to so we definitely had lots of fun.  Peter got to go swimming at the hotel, Grandpa gave him his first soda (and said it was "orange juice" when he asked if I let Pete have soda and replied, "No.").

To prepare for Easter, I had sewn up a couple of toys to put in Pete's basket.  The first one was the "Eddie" doll from Hillary Lang's book, Wee Wonderfuls.

I made his little outfit out of the outfit we bought for Peter for his trip home from the hospital.  It has been hanging in his closet for over 2 years now, and I thought this would be a good way to appreciate it every day.

The other toy I whipped up was Peanut the Wee Elephant, another Hillary Lang creation.  This one, however, was in my Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts book by Joelle Hoverson.

I used some Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow, a little Heather Ross Mendocino, and, unfortunately, I don't know the designer or line the fabric in Peanuts little ears is.  I don't have the fabric selvage handy to look it up for you, either.

When it comes to gift giving, I am no better than a 5 year old on Christmas eve.  I was so flippin excited to get Peter's reaction to these handmades that I did not end up saving them for his basket.  He really loves his elephant, but the baby he could take or leave.  What can you do?

So....  To make up for my inability to actually save stuff for its intended purpose, I had to come up with something else to put with is Easter basket.  I settled on a giant jug of Miracle Bubbles to use in his automatic bubble machine and a container of sidewalk chalk.



Ok, so I know I'm biased, but really.  Is there any cuter little face on the planet?



I hope you all had a happy celebration, enjoyed a lot of delicious candy, and got a bit of spring weather over your Easter holidays.



Gnome Hat

From February 15th to March 15th, Made by Rae and Made blogs were celebrating the boy with fabulous boy posts full of adorable ideas of sewing and crafting projects especially for boys.  One of the tutorials they posted was for a crocheted gnome hat.  Sadly, I do not know how to crochet and every time I think I want to learn, I remind myself I have enough expensive hobbies already.  Fortunately, my amazing friend Emily of EmmmyLizzzy DOES know how to crochet and she's ridiculously generous to boot!

Thank you a million, Emily!  I can't imagine a cuter hat for this cute kid.

Cuddle Quilt

I recently finished a new quilt for my wonderful mother in law, Lynne.  She intends to use it in her office for the children she sees in her therapy practice, but if I were her, I'd be sorely tempted to keep this quilt all to myself.

The top of the quilt is made with a selection of Anna Maria Horner's Folksy Flannels line and the border and sashing are solid white flannel.  You may remember me starting this quilt back the day before Christmas.  I know I said at the time that I was going to keep it, but luckily I have enough fabric left over to make a whole 'nother one for me.

I backed the quilt using some fleece I bought at JoAnn's and since it's suppossed to be cuddly and soft (and because I wasn't sure how well hand-sewing a bias binding to fleece would go) I wrapped the fleece around to the front and sewed it down to finish the quilt.  Since the fleece won't fray, I left a narrow raw edge that will curl up and look cute when the quilt is washed.

The quality control department has given the cuddle quilt its official stamp of approval and I will be shipping it off to Wisconsin promptly.  And, I'll be adding "make another flannel and fleece quilt" to my ever-growing list of things to do.

Spring

About twice a year, I really get motivated to deep-clean our apartment.  I keep it reasonably clean year-round, but every spring and every fall, I really get it super-clean.  This spring, I took it a little further and de-cluttered all of our closets and rooms, repainted the living and dining/sewing areas, and made a few strategic furniture purchases at Ikea.

A few posts ago, I mentioned that my husband and I were in the housing market, but after reviewing our budget, we decided to wait a couple more years before committing ourselves to a home purchase.  When we decided to stay in our apartment, I decided that we needed to re-vamp a few things to make our 660 square feet a little more manageable for the next two years.

Believe it or not, this closet gets re-organized more often than any of our other ones.

First on the to-do list was going through all of our closets to find things we could donate or throw away.  I brought no fewer than 1000 bags of trash and donations out of the apartment.  Ok, maybe it wasn't 1000.  But it sure felt like at least that much.

Trash I found in the linen closet.

Peter kept bumping his head on the desk that the TV sits on whenever he would try to get to his toys.

My favorite part of our spring make over has got to be our living room.  I repainted and put up a new Expedit system from Ikea.  I changed out the artwork behind our couch.  I used to have photos up, but I took some paintings I had done in college, covered the canvases with a few favorite fabrics, and hung those instead.  I'm also in the process of recovering our throw pillows and will post pictures when they're done.

The paint color we decided on is Glidden Antique Silver.  It's a slightly blue-ish grey and I love how it changes with the light through the day.  We also freshened up the trim with bright white paint.  The fabrics on the wall are from Anna Maria Horner's Innocent Crush line and Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane.  The pillows will be re-done with mostly Nicey Jane, as well.  

And, of course, no living room would be complete without a cozy reading area for smart little guys.  He's telling me all about how Mr. Brown Can Moo.