v.2

So here is a little back story about this shirt. I was flipping through the Threadless book and saw this shirt, which I immediately thought was perfect for my friend Joy. I believe it was listed in the book as coming out in 2004 or thereabouts so I assumed (wrongly obviously) that it was no longer in print. And I knew my silhouette machine could do this. So I made it for her. I do feel a tang of guilt that I did not buy this in support of small time designers but at least I’m not selling it or anything!
These were for the Cure My Sad Mailbox swap. We had 5 partners to send to!

This was for Send Your Handmade Specialty. I used this pencil pouch tutorial from noodlehead (added an inch in height) and made a butterfly applique using a stencil and my ColorArtz. I love how it came out! Must make some more!

This is for the Something Scavenger Hunt. My partner lists 5 things and I pick two. I chose something handmade and something with stars.

This coin purse was using yet another tutorial from noodlehead. I totally screwed up on the tab. I had a snap but it was my first time using the snap applicator and I totally botched it up! So I ended up cutting it with my pinking shears so it wouldn’t fray and glued on velcro instead. I now have a snap stuck in the snap applicator! Not sure if it is salvageable!

And this last one is a gift for Sienna’s friend, Alexis. Sienna told me to maker her a Dora necklace and she picked this image. Her card is here!

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As if I don’t have enough things to keep me on the computer, I discovered something called pinterest! It’s like a virtual bulletin board or a visual bookmark. You create boards (categories) and while you are surfing around the ‘net and find something interesting, you can pin it onto one of your boards. I do a lot of bookmarking but most of the time I forget about them so having a virtual representation will most likely help me remember them. You can follow other people to see what they pinned too. Here’s my pinterest in case you are interested in what I pinned! I’m not surprised that my crafty and food boards have the most stuff! 🙂

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Yes, I must be crazy but when I found this challenge, I knew I had to do it! I have so many craft books with projects that I want to make in them but just haven’t gotten around to it. This challenge is one project a month from your craft books. Totally doable! I am also going to be participating in thing a day 2011 in February! With that and Iron Craft, I’ll be busy!

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As I mentioned in Miss Social Part 1, Sienna’s social calendar is better than mine! Part 2 consists of some playdates she had. The first was during Christmas break. I was so happy to get out of the house after the big snowstorm! We trekked over to Eli and Costas’ house and I was super surprised that I didn’t hear any whining from Sienna on the 10 block walk. I usually get a “I’m tiiiiiired of waaaaaalking” after 2 blocks! I think trudging through the snow made it fun for her. Antoinette and Frank were wonderful hosts. We ended up staying for several hours and had dinner there too! We all had a great day! Sienna fell asleep on the sofa when we got home.

(notice the yummy treats in the foreground? Frank is a chef at the Ritz!)

Milk break!

Sienna got an unexpected Friday off of school in early January so we went to another classmate’s house, Alexis! Alexis LOVES princesses! So Sienna was really delighted that she had princess outfits to dress up in. Alexis wore hers for 5 minutes and I had trouble getting Sienna to take off hers when we were leaving! Another great playdate!

Princesses sing Itsy Bitsy Spider from Lisa on Vimeo.

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Here are my creations for Iron Craft 2, which was to make a draft dodger and Iron Craft 3, which was just bunt!

I was really excited that challenge 2 was to make a draft dodger, it’s been something I’ve been meaning to do for the last couple winters! It is really so super easy to make. I didn’t even labor over the fabric! I just looked in my stash and picked this one for some reason. The hardest part was filling it with beans. I didn’t have enough beans so I mixed it with some polyfill. It now sits at the balcony door in the living room.

Challenge 3 I was lukewarm about. I’m not big on bunting so was thinking of bowing out but then I clicked on one of the links on the Iron Craft blog directing me to a birthday card with bunting. Cute and completely doable! Since the closest birthday coming up was for today (Happy Birthday Alexis!), I decided to make this card for one of Sienna’s classmates. I used fabric paint to hold the glitter and paint the string and letters.

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I know I mentioned that Sienna’s social calendar is better than mine and I don’t mind! I’m very happy that she has activities with kids her age or thereabouts. That being said, she’s been very busy this last month and I’m going to break it up into 2 parts. Part 1 is the 2 birthday parties she’s been to in December.
Birthday girl Samantha

Sienna Slides

Sienna concentrates on crafts

Sienna and Emma

Daniel’s showing off his balls

Leah showing her lady side

Daniel’s birthday!

Sienna getting her faced painted!

Sienna and the 2 Emma’s

Her hands painted too!

Balloon animals too

Balloon Animal Chase

Look who showed up! An attempt at a group photo:

Sienna and Emma with Minnie, Sienna was so happy!

Blow out the candles!

Pull!

Grab!

This video is a tad long but if you stick with it, you’ll catch Sienna looking up Minnie’s skirt near the end! She also kissed the back of Minnie’s leg (??) but I didn’t catch that on video! Can’t wait to show this to a future boyfriend! HA!

Mickey and Minnie do the Chicken Dance from Lisa on Vimeo.

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We rang out 2010 with a big feast and welcomed 2011 with a big feast!

My friends Jana and Allen invited us over for a 5 course dinner on New Year’s Eve. It was nice to get together without the kids around (they are the parents of Emma and Leah seen here) I haven’t eaten that late or stayed up past midnight in awhile! Allen did all the cooking and he did a great job. I do regret not taking a photo of our wonderful hosts but hey, here’s the food (priorities!)

1st course!

I believe Allen might have said these were veal meatballs but honestly, I wasn’t listening to him because I was so hungry. LOL
2nd course!

Because of Allen, I now add sliced almonds and avocados to our salad! MMMM
3rd course!

I think this speaks for itself!
4th course!

Juicy, tender pork! MMMMM
Dessert!

I’m sure the brownie on the left is great on it’s own but totally got overshadowed by the awesome apple cake on the right!
I also forgot to take a photo of the sparkling wine we brought over to toast in the new year. Allen and Jana don’t drink so it was fun to see Jana get a little tipsy after a few sips. We should have opened the wine earlier! LOL

My dad stayed over to watch Sienna (although there wasn’t any watching since he came over when she went to bed) so we took him and my mom to dim sum on New Year’s day. We usually go to East Harbor for dim sum but decided to check out Bamboo Garden for a change (we’ve been there before but not in awhile.) It’s not as good as East Harbor but they have some different things that East Harbor doesn’t have. I was pleasantly surprised that they serve Shanghai soup dumplings! MMMM! I’ve been craving them since the big blizzard put the kabosh on our Chinatown soup dumpling outing! The meat part of the dumpling tasted good but sadly there was no soup in the soup dumpling! (I still ate like 6 of them!)

soup dumpling

Veggie dumping (the skin was too thick and chewy)

Sienna’s favorite, Shumai

Taro Dumpling

Har Gow aka shrimp dumplings

I’m not sure what this is really called but I call it chow fun rolls. I’ve only seen it here and it’s quite tasty. I think we got this twice!

Dumpling soup, it was just eh but it’s something I don’t usually see so I wanted to try it.

The bill. $37 for 4 and a half people. Pretty good! There was more we ate that I didn’t take photos of. After a certain point, I just forgot and just stuffed myself!

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Now that Sienna is a bit older and understands what goes on with Christmas, it really is a lot of fun (last year every time we handed her a present, she would ask if she could open it. This year she knew what to do!) It is also nice to start our own family traditions like going to see the Rockefeller Tree and the Dyker Heights lights. I also feel like this Christmas was a little less stressful than in the past and didn’t get upset when I didn’t make all the cookies I wanted to or make a gingerbread house with Sienna like I wanted to. There’s always next year! I didn’t overly stress about what we were doing for Christmas dinner (we ended up going out to eat with my parents) or worry that we didn’t get enough or got too many presents for Sienna. I just wanted to enjoy the time with my family. And I did!

We opened our stockings on the eve and Sienna pretty much woke up normal time on Christmas. I made a french toast casserole in the oven (which came out so so but I think I used too much bread or not enough eggs. There’s always next year!) It was a big year for Little People, board games for family game night, Tag books and Super Why!

Stockings:

Christmas morning:

from Grandma and Grandpa in Jamaica

French toast casserole

from my parents

from my brother

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Here is Iron Craft’s first challenge! Lighting the Winter Gloom. I came across this tutorial for Epsom Salt Luminaries a day or two before reading about the Iron Craft challenge so when I saw what the first challenge was, I knew I wanted to do these!

I could only find 2 glasses that seemed good to use but only made 1 because I couldn’t get all the goo from the label off one just yet. I am definitely going to make more! I really love lighting candles in the autumn and winter months but put them all away when Sienna was first born. Easy to stay out of trouble that way. Then I just never pulled them out again. I will now!

Got all my supplies together. The Epsom Salt is to the right and did not make the photo. I could not find the food coloring (where did I put them??) so I used alcohol ink instead.

I ended up putting a couple of drops in and next time I will put even more drops in as the color is really subtle when it’s on the glass. I also added in lavender glitter although it’s hard to tell.

All covered up. See how subtle the color is? There is a bit of sparkle that is easier to see in real life

All lit up! I actually still have to spray some sealer on it but wanted to get my photo into the Iron Craft flickr pool today!

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Our holiday card this year. I used my Silhouette machine. Have I mentioned how much I dig that machine?

This was another holiday card I made for the Brooklyn Bride Christmas card swap. Also using my Silhouette. I realized after the fact that I should have made this a vertical card (I already wrote the sentiment inside for a horizontal card) as it has a hard time standing up.
As a graphic designer, I always used Quark as my layout program. I have used it for many years so obviously knew a lot of shortcuts so I was reluctant to make the switch over to Indesign. Learning that they have scripts may help me make the switch! They have a calendar script and made setting up this calendar so easy! I usually just make a calendar on one of those photo sites and get extras to give as presents to Sienna’s grandparents but not anymore!!

Spread out

All hung up! I perforated the top of each page so it would be easy to rip off.

Remember the advent calendar I made for Sienna? Well, one of the little presents was to make a Belle doll. As of right now, Belle is her favorite princess and the disney site has a few princess crafts and the 3D doll is one of them. I used my Silhouette again! They have a new auto trace feature and it cut everything out perfectly (way better than if I did it by hand!) Have I mentioned how much I dig that machine? Too bad I couldn’t get the machine to fold it up and glue it as that was a tad more challenging than I anticipated! Here she is posing with it (lately, she has been into posing with funny faces. Wonder where she learned that from?)

And Belle gets played with a lot. This was about the 3rd time I glued her top back (and she is currently on my craft table right now waiting to be fixed again!)

These next few things are Christmas presents I made for Sienna’s teachers. Mrs. D is the main teacher, Mrs. V is the assistant and Mrs. C is the helper when one of them is out. I made all 3 gift bags, tags and boxes with the Silhouette. Did I mention how much I dig that machine? 🙂

For Mrs. D., Sienna picked this butterfly.

I used Japanese chiyogami paper for the back (I love that paper especially the ones with metallic in it. I’m not sure if that is called something different.)

For Mrs. V.

For Mrs. C.

I made this bag for the winner of the Bingo game I hosted in a group on swap-bot. Her profile mentioned she wanted to learn embroidery so this is a starter kit. I included the first instruction booklet I got since I don’t need it anymore and also made her a zine of Alice in Wonderland freebies to embroider. Included inside the bag are needles, transfer pen, hoop, box of thread, tracing paper and floss bobbins. The pattern for the bag is from Sew What! Bags. I just mailed this off today so I hope she doesn’t see this!

A fabric bookmark from Pretty Little Presents.

I saw this tutorial online to make these cd rosettes and thought they were so pretty. I’m not sure about mine but it was fun.
And rounding off the creativeness, some birthday present shirts for Sienna’s friends (using the Silhouette!). This first two was actually made a bit ago but for some reason I just didn’t give it to Leah until recently and poor Sylvie still hasn’t gotten hers.

Samantha’s shirt

Daniel’s shirt and the first time I put something on the back!

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