My Swap Creation.

I have been wanting to develop a doll pattern of my own for a while, so what better time than for a Handmade Swap. Part of the swap was to take pictures of the process. It has been fun, however I have forgotten to take a few pics. It is hard to stop and grab the camera when you are on a creative roll. LOL

She is turning out smaller than I had wanted, and there are a few little imperfections. I may keep this prototype and make a new one for my swap partner. Do you think small imperfections give a handmade item more personality? (I am too much of a perfectionist I think to leave it.)

Save Handmade Swap

Bird and Little Bird is hosting a Save Handmade Swap. While there is still time to sign up, I have already received my swap package! Olivia is my swap partner and she is super quick. I think two days after I received her as my partner we got a package in the mail. Here are the lovely things she sent.

A gorgeous Pink and Brown apron for Gina (she let Gina pick an apron from her Etsy shop).

And these adorable bean bags. The front of the bags have the number sewn on them and the back has the same number of dots sewn on them. These bags have played with like crazy!!! Thank you so much Olivia! I have the fabric selected and ironed, ready to be sewn into my swap goodies.

Meet our New Family and their New Digs.

Gina loves "Arts and Crafts" (as she calls it). Kerry has not been working for the past month at his primary job, so we decided to take advantage of him. He gets to play with Adler while G and I do projects. Before Christmas I had bought some wooden peg people to maybe make for gifts. Well time completely got away from me and this was a project I put off. Good thing, because Gina loved painting these.

She had big plans for these people. I am second from left :) For the house we used an unfinished wood CD holder from Michael's (I had this for a Christmas gift too, yet another project that didn't get done).Gina's own bedroom is a very muted version of her dollhouse room. Purple with blue polka dots. She painted the walls, I added the dots. The downstairs she insisted be blue with red roses. It is lovely. Again she painted the walls, then she painted the red blobs for the roses and I outlined them in pink.She chose the color for the outside of the house too. Although I swayed her decision of painting the window panes green. And here we are! Adler, Gina, Mom, and Dad :) I love them! She did a fantastic job, don't you think?

We have furniture to sew still, so more to come.

My Sewing Space

My Sewing Space is really a work in progress. Maybe I should call it my Studio, since I do all kinds of crafting in it. I took over the loft in our house last fall. Once Adler was born I had to give up the room I was using. The kids each have their own rooms and a playroom (don't even get me started on how many playrooms they have, that's for another post.)

This is clean, Really. I have so many other things I want to do to this space. I still have boxes of craft supplies in the basement that I have no room for in this loft, not to mention fabric still in my sister's basement (sorry Nealie). I would love to get the wall painted that the window is on, but it is on the wall that the 2 story open entry is on. We need to get some fancy scaffolding or something in order to do it. Also I have some projects in mind for idea boards and things like that. I love seeing into other people's spaces (that is why I became a Real estate agent for a short time :) ).

Here is the view from my trusty old machine. I really would love a new machine, but it is not in the budget right now (I am not sure it ever will be in this economy). Gina decorated it with a few shiny stars. I used some fancy Lisa Frank bee tape to mark some seam allowances on it like 8 years ago. I do have a special relationship with this machine, it just doesn't do all that I wish it could. Well that is a little glimpse inside my world, I would love to see inside your "studio" too.

Project Improv

I set a few goals for myself for this new year. One of my goals is to make a quilt that is larger than a baby quilt. Jacquie is so motivating, she decided to start Project Improv. I am so excited to be a part of this. She is organizing a few quilts for charity and I signed up to make one quilt block in each colorway for the quilts. I have an embarrassingly huge stash of fabrics so I will only be using fabric that I already have. This is the first block I have made. It is for the Blue/Green quilt. I can't wait to see what these quilts look like finished :)

Ready for a change.

I am so ready for warm weather! Winter is really just starting here, so I think I am going to change my blog look a little bit. The header picture is just temporary. It is Gina in 2007. She has grown and changed so much. Time flies. I am still trying to organize my loft sewing area. I also have the kids playrooms to organize. I have no desire to organize, I just want it done! I am not letting myself sew until these areas are clean (you would think that would be motivation enough!)

Great gift!

My dad is a little hard to buy for at Christmas. He always says not to get him anything. My sister and I always want to get him something. We make him things usually.

This year we had a pretty good idea I think. We bought him a clock (similar to this one.)We took loads of pictures of the kids holding a blank sign. We then printed them off in black and white. We chose the best pics of the kids and wrote numbers 1 -12 on the signs (on the actual printed out picture) with a thin black sharpie. We then put them in the clock picture frames. It turned out so sweet! I only wish I remembered to take a picture of it finished. I may have to go to my dad's office and take a picture of it hanging on the wall :)

edited to add *Picture of the clock added Thanks to my Uncle Chuck :) He works at the same office*