Willow Lane

Weird

I've been reading all the "6 Weird things" on different blogs, some of the cracked me up, and some I didn't think were weird....maybe it's because those things related to me to.

I wish I had lots of crafting to share, but I just haven't been feeling it this week. It's been cold, and our electric bill tripled (yikes) so I turned down the thermostat and I just feeling like sitting under a blanket and hibernating. 

Maybe tomorrow I'll work on something. Maybe I'll hide under a blanket.... we're supposed to have snow, wind, and thunder?? 

Gas was down to 2.09 today woohoo! How much are you paying?

Hey wait, here's a picture of Madyson. I've been playing around with a free trial of Paint Shop pro...does this count as crafting??

Super Thrifting

First let me say thanks to all the comments to my pricing post. I really appreciate all you thoughts and ideas on this subject.

Last week I went to Goodwill, I was hoping to find some zippers...the sell them for 10cents.  No zippers this time but I found some other things. I got the girls some books, they were buy one get one free. I got Stephen a book, he's our resident genius, and already knew everything in the book, oh well, I tried, LOL!. I got some sewing patterns. Marley is waiting for the day she can have her own room, she has it all planned out. She'll have her bed, a couch, and a sewing table. She wants the sewing part of her room wallpapered with sewing patterns. She saw tissue paper being used as wallpaper on Trading Spaces, and has declared her idea of using sewing patterns for wallpaper as the best idea of the year (of course it's only January).  She has some good ideas, unfortunately we're short one room in the house. A girl can dream though. Oh yeah, total for my Goodwill purchases, .85cents!

Pricing

I've re-written this post three times.  For some reason I just can't "make a long story short". So, here's a purse, and accessories I made for a lady. I charged her 10.00, basically she was driving me crazy and I gave her price without thinking.  I've made her 2 more and charged her 15.00. She's a teacher at my son's school, and was my daughter's teacher in CCD last year, so I didn't mind doing it for her. Now she's giving my name and number to people and I don't want to be stuck making these 15.00 purses (with embroidery and accessories). So, how do you crafty ladies price your things?  This picture is her purse, the others she bought were the same, but I used magnetic snaps. The bag is about 15w x13h.

Ralphie's House

Starting on Thanksgiving we begin watching Christmas movies. The first one we watch is Christmas Vacation. We don't watch anything like Frosty or Rudolph at our house. It's a long running joke in our family, I can remember watching these movies with my cousins and sobbing. I just broke my heart when Frosty melted, etc...  Now, every year my Uncle calls to remind me when they're on, and I drop the kids off at his house to watch them with him. OK, I'm getting off track here. Anyway, we also watch Elf and The Santa Claus. Our favorite though is A Christmas Story, we keep one TV on for the 24 hour marathon, and we always watch the first and last airing. It's such a silly tradition, but I think it's probably something my kids will do with their kids.  This year we took the kids for a little surprise day trip. We packed some snacks, our gps(for some geocaching along the way) and our Christmas Story DVD. We arrived at our destination and the kids were asking where we were. We got out of the car and a car pulled up and asked "Is this Ralphie's house?".  Then the kids figured out where we were. We were at The Christmas Story House.  There was a huge crowd, it was really unbelievable that so many people were there. The kids thought it was the greatest thing ever, even though I they were a little disappointed that we didn't get a leg lamp...we got decoder pins though. Here are some pictures from our adventure. The kids keep saying they can't wait to go back next year. (It's a 3 hour trip, one way) It was a long day, but lot's of fun.

 

 

Happy New Year

2006 was probably one of the most challenging years I've been through in a long time. I'm not going to dwell on it though (well, not too much) but I am hopeful that 2007 will be better. For most of 2006 I felt like there was a black cloud hovering over me, I hope it's blown over now.

I don't make resolutions because I never keep them. I have set some goals though. These are a few.

1. Finish our family redo. The room is half finished after being wrecked by Hurricane Ivan.

2. Learn to use our new camera.

3. Learn to use my new serger.

4. Visit my Grandma more.

5. Paint my bathroom, the paint chips have been hanging up for 18months.

6. Get some stuff in my Etsy shop.

7.  Stick to Weight Watchers.

8. Take a picture every day.

9. Pay the bills on time.

10. Take Lola for more walks.

I should be able to do all this, right?

Happy New Year!

Christmas 2006

Is it really over?? I can't believe another Christmas has come and gone so quickly. We had a nice holiday. I was so ready for Christmas break with the kids. I hate to admit it, but I get tired of the daily routine of the school year.  We have a holiday baking tradition that I really love.  We pick out some recipes, and I sit at the kitchen counter and read them to hubby, and he makes it all. It's really fun if I have a friend over, then we make my husband bake....and fix us drinks and snacks, while we read the recipes (and magazines), LOL!. My husband actually looks forward to this. This year we he made fudge and pizelles. The kids helped out quite a bit. Marley made turtles this year...they didn't last long.

 

Christmas Angel

Christmas Eve we went to Mass, and my "baby" Madyson had the lead in the children's musical with her best friend Billy. They were so cute.  My mom took her shopping and she picked out the this dress. She said it was the dress of her dreams, LOL! She was so happy to finally wear it, and kept telling me how perfect it was for her part as a shining star. Madyson is definitely our little star. She is constantly performing. She sings, dances, tells jokes, it doesn't matter as long as she can put on a show. 

Christmas Crafting

I'm so behind on posts. I had several posts started, but something always seemed to interupt me. So, now I'll try to play catch up.

I did not have to do any sewing Christmas Eve! I was going to make myself a purse, but after finishing making gifts I just wanted to be clean the mess up.

Here are some things I made. First are a couple of drawing cases. I got the instructions from the super talented Craft Apple. These were fun to make and the kids loved them....now everyone wants one, LOL!

Here's the drawing case and purse set. I used Autum's tutorial for the purse.

Here are the shoes, burp cloths and taggie blanket for my new nephew. The shoes were made from Stardust shoes tutorial. I love the little shoes!

And here are the towels I embellished for my friend.

So thank you generous bloggers for all the wonderful tutorials you share!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!