Bon Voyage

Forgive me the Lazy Blogger post. 

Zeal has been keeping me up late into the night and waking me early with ideas and excitement.

More on this another day...don't you worry.  

In other news...

The Lovely Hazel Mae enjoyed her first rice cereal the other day.

And I do believe she liked it.

 This girl was born to eat.

 She knew just what to do with the mushy good stuff.

 And she had a good time doing it.

In other, ridiculously exciting news...

Hazel and I are flying out this morning to LadyFest 2012. LadyFest is an annual tradition wherein I meet a bevy of lovely lady friends, most of whom I have known and loved for at least 10 years, some more than 20, in some clandestine location for days of lounging, crafting, laughing and catching up. This year we will rendezvous in a charming cabin in the smokey mountains in the shadows of Dollywood. Be jealous.

Today she is 5 months old and is embarking on her 9th flight. Quite the jet setter. 

I am so excited. LadyFest awaits!

Sock Basket Bingo

The sock basket has become a coveted object around here lately. 

The other morning I had the genius idea to have Eli play Sock Memory with the multitude of mismatched socks in the sock basket.

He was all over it. 

And, though no one was competing with him, when he finished I made a big to-do and gave him a prize - a Lightening McQueen bubble blower I had stashed away for just such an occasion. 

Now all he wants to do is match socks. Guess I need to get going on some laundry, or go un-match some socks.

Hazel likes it too...

And, never to be outdone, Amos piped up while I was clicking away at Hazey and exclaimed, "Take my picture Mama!"

Who could resist?

A Make Over Peek of the Week - January 13, 2012

Ikea...you make my dreams come true. 

I've been dreaming of a sewing room makeover. So this guy:

(The patented Ikea Two Cart Pull)

and I (and Hazel and Yaya (not pictured), and Dizzy in SmalLand) scurried over to IKEA with a $90 budget for sewing room shelving and storage. 

And of course, they had just the thing.

Here is the before:

(Actually this is the during. When we moved in to this house I had a plan to fence off half of the sewing room for a boy play area so I put the giant 8 ft. table on the middle-length wall. Well, the fence plan never panned out, so now to make better use of the space, I put the giant table on the biggest wall, the medium table on the medium wall, and the ironing board on the smallest wall. Sensible, no?). 

And the After:

The cutting table. That's right - a whole table just for cutting!! 

And check out my wood cabinet full of fabric and how it actually closes now!

And look at that beautiful LACK shelf! Perfect for all my loveliest lovelies. 

Hazel likes it too.

But wait. There's more.

Now with the big table on the big wall, Betty is situated right in front of the window. Perfect!

And I have some great inspiration on the new shelves - Photos of my honey, my sisters, and my lady lobster (Sunny B); the lovebirds made for us for our tenth anniversary by the lovely Melinda; the awesome owl plate from potter and Mama extraordinaire, Amy Sanders; and the spool drawing from my craft-sperational friend and ex-roomie Christa (who also painted the J and the "Chaos is Organic" mantra painting hanging on the clothesline in the top photo). She taught me to sew for teeny baby Eli. 

I am so inspired in this new space I have been sewing up a storm. I'll be revealing some of these new projects in the coming days...but this new look is enough for today's Peek of the Week. 

What's Peek of the Week, you ask? It's our regular Friday feature and it's all about you! I want to hear (and share with my readers) what wowed you this week. It could be a cool finished project, a work in progress, a personal accomplishment, a cute kid moment, or something that surprised you.

If we could peek into your week - what would you want to show us?

Each week I'll share my own Peek of the Week to get the ball rolling, and invite you to link to your blog post about your Peek of the Week. I know y'all are up to cool stuff - we wanna see it!

Ok! Your turn!

You could get peeking in three easy steps:
1. Blog about your Peek of the Week - whatever it is. Whatever happened that made you proud, laugh, smile, inspired, excited, or just plain happy - now that's worth sharing.
2. Include a link to this blog or put the Peek of the Week button (on the sidebar) in your post.
3. Link your blog post using the InLinkz button below.

If you don't get a chance to get here on Friday, feel free to link your post up later.
The InLinkz button will be active for 5 days.

Guest Photographer

This is turning into Lazy Blogger week. First there was Monday's post from Guest Blogger, Sarah - thanks so much! 

And today we have a guest photographer who goes by the singular moniker, Dizzy.

Eli has taken up the camera. I haven't re-touched these photos at all and I think they have a lot to say. 

 

He's off to a great start. He has a keen eye and a curiosity about how things will photograph from different perspectives. He likes to play with scale and composition and I can't wait to see where this might take him. 

Compliments of...the Even Lazier Blogger. And Dizzy.

Guest What? It's Something New!

Without even noticing, I became a stalker. I have begun to stalk my friends as potential guest bloggers. Anyone who posts something cool on facebook is immediately inundated with comments from me about guest blogging on Happily Home Sewn. 

Here is an example of such an exchange that JUST happened...helping me realize that I might have crossed over into annoying:

Friend X (soon to be HHS guest blogger hopefully) mentions that she's trying to start a blog to share recipes and health stuff.


Jessa (that's me) pipes in: sweet! Happily Home Sewn needs a guest blogger for such a topic. Wanna guest blog sometime???

Jessa (instantly realizing her annoying-ness) comments: See how I just made that all about me? Sorry about that. That is going to be an awesome blog and I can't wait to read it and get inspired.

Friend X graciously courtesy LOLs. 

That was the actual exchange.  Sad. 

BUT!

A similar exchange occurred a few days ago and happily resulted in our first Guest Blog by one of my crafty or otherwise fabulous friends! 

So, without further ado...check out these Post-Christmas-Dead-of-Baltimore-Winter crafty musings (and a warning about goats) from my friend Sarah:  

Since Christmas is over and Valentine's Day and Mardi Gras are more than a month away, and I needed to find something artistically inspiring about the start of real WINTER in Baltimore to inform my aesthetic.  Even more, with the big Christmas wreath gone, some very ugly cracks in the wall paint of our vestibule were once again exposed (this is honestly what inspired one of my first wreath-making endeavors about a year ago--laziness--I'd painted the vestibule no more than 5 (Okay, maybe it was more) years ago and I didn't want to do it again anytime soon.

While walking the dogs last week in our city neighborhood, I came across a tree whose trunk was surrounded by perfectly-formed acorns. Most had lost their caps, although the caps were also scattered on the ground (and you can make stuff with those as well). I picked up as many of the acorns as I could find, some I had to sort of dig out of the ground.  Surprisingly (or maybe not for Baltimore) nobody asked me what in the world I was doing as I sat there on the sidewalk with my Tupperware container full of acorns. I took them home and washed them well with soap and water and let them dry for a few days on paper towels in a bowl. I didn't have enough acorns to make a whole wreath (I cased the sidewalk trees of the neighborhood to no avail) so I decided to go with a "shades of brown/squirrel-food" themed wreath and bought a big bag of mixed in-shell nuts at the grocery store. I used a flat light wood-colored wreath form from Michael's craft store and hot-glued my nuts and acorns to the form.

When Googling "acorns" and " acorn crafts" I came across the factoid that only types of Oak trees produce acorns. Oak leaves and acorns are poisonous to horses, goats, sheep, and some other animals, so leave your goat behind when you go gathering acorns. I was reminded by the photos on Google of how pretty the shapes of oak leaves are, so instead of a bow to accent the wreath, I decided to draw some oak leaf shapes on cream and brown felt and cut those out and hot-glue them to the wreath. I bought adhesive-back felt for the interior leaf of the design. That is just about the greatest thing; sticky-backed-felt.

A nut/acorn wreath could be a crafty way to memorialize a favorite tree.  Gathering pecans is a memorable activity in the American South and a wreath made with the pecans from a special tree or location seems like a swell idea. My next Dead of Winter craft projects include: a Mardi Gras wreath made from hot-glued Mardi Gras beads and plastic King Cake babies, and 3 small bare winter tree black ink/brown watercolor drawings framed in three differently-shaped small white frames (say, an oval and a rectangle and a circle or square). The latter will cover those wall cracks nicely and match the colors in the nearby Acorn/Nut Wreath.

Sarah Ramirez Cross
http://www.etsy.com/shop/MaryBellesBirthday

Thanks so much Sarah! I'm heading out now to get me some sticky-backed-felt (never heard of it before! Thanks for tip!) and to gather some acorns. I'll leave our goat at home. 

Make sure to visit Sarah's etsy shop. I've known her since college where she was my R.A. freshman year. She's crafty and clever and was willing to turn a blind eye to the harmless silliness 18 year old girls. Best R.A. ever (except for perhaps, my husband, who bent more than a few rules sophomore year when I became his girlfriend. no comment).


 

Peek of the Week - January 6, 2012

What's Peek of the Week, you ask? It's our regular Friday feature and it's all about you! I want to hear (and share with my readers) what wowed you this week. It could be a cool finished project, a work in progress, a personal accomplishment, a cute kid moment, or something that surprised you.

If we could peek into your week - what would you want to show us?

Each week I'll share my own Peek of the Week to get the ball rolling, and invite you to link to your blog post about your Peek of the Week. I know y'all are up to cool stuff - we wanna see it! 

My Peek for today is a fun little oil cloth project I took on in a fit of 5 Minute Mania (what's that? See here.)

I've wanted to play around with oil cloth for years now. There are so many gorgeous oil cloths out there. So, when I was having a spree in Fabric Bliss a few days ago, I sprung for some oil cloth - two beautiful prints and some chalk cloth. 

Chalk cloth, incidentally, is genius. 

I also picked up a handy book full of oil and chalk cloth patterns which I haven't actually gotten to read yet. But in the shower I cooked up a grand plan for some pencil, scissor, and general utensil holders for my desk hutch area. I do my best cooking in the shower. 

That sounded dirty. 

So...a short tutorial. I totally winged it, but it worked. There's probably a real pattern for such a thing, but here's my winged way for what it's worth.

First, make sure you cure your chalk cloth before you begin. Lay a piece of chalk on the side and color all over then wipe off. Repeat. That way what you write first won't leave an eternal shadow.

Cut a circle for the bottom of you cylinder.

Here are the rest of the pieces. A rectangle of oil cloth about 6 inches tall by oh...18 inches or so. Winging it, remember? And a 2 inch wide strip of chalk cloth about 18 inches long.

 

I wanted to use a chalk cloth border so I could label the little cubbies! Clearly. 

Just fold it over the top edge of the oil cloth and zig zag the edge. 

 So then just sew the circle to the bottom edge of the rectangle right sides together. It takes some finagling because they don't really want to get sewn in a circle like that - but they can be convinced. 

Then stitch the two ends of the rectangle together where the meet. Trim off the excess and turn it right side out. 

And viola:

Ok! Your turn!

You could get peeking in three easy steps:
1. Blog about your Peek of the Week - whatever it is. Whatever happened that made you proud, laugh, smile, inspired, excited, or just plain happy - now that's worth sharing.
2. Include a link to this blog or put the Peek of the Week button (on the sidebar) in your post.
3. Link your blog post using the InLinkz button below.

If you don't get a chance to get here on Friday, feel free to link your post up later.
The InLinkz button will be active for 5 days.

Snuggle Love

A few things about this photo.

Number one - I love it. There is nothing better than a snuggle with these little yummies.

2 - Amos is wearing one of the first pair of pants I ever sewed. I even made a little stuffed bug on a string and sewed it in to the pocket. It's still attached.

3 - Look at little Hazel chubs. Yum. Mee.

4 - Check out that widow's peak. I've taken to calling her Hazey Munster.

5 - Man I love them.

6 - Man, do they love me.

7 - As one who hasn't always had glowing self esteem, I'm happy to say...I'm kind of a fox. 

8 - Linking this little gem up to Embrace the Camera.