First Day at Market

Every experience in life is a learning opportunity.  No matter what the experience is, there is always something you can learn from it.  After many long nights, we pulled together a decent showing of items to sell and at 1am the morning before market, the quilt was completed. 

 There were baskets of candles, a small assortment of soaps and a few beautiful beaded golf counters my mom put together for us to sell. 

Lessons were learned on the logistics of loading up all the gear we needed to take, what gear we needed, how to set up and tear down the canopy, etc.  The main missing ingredient was customers.  The weather was less than perfect, but was dry.  It was the first day of market.  Schools are still in session.  There were many reasons the turn out was light, but it was still dissapointing to a 13 year old that has large ambitions of making money to attend national Jamboree next summer.  Many times thru the evening I reasurred him that things will pick up when school is out, the weather turns around, etc.  It was still a bit dissapointing to make a grand total of 9 dollars in 4 hours. 


Other lessons were learned around what we have to offer and how it showed.  There were two other vendors with candles and one other with soaps. 

The raffle quilt certainly set us apart and was the main draw of attention, so this weekend I will start working on a few other items that will be unique to other vendors.  Patterns have been poured thru and printed from the web to make some table runners and placemats to add to our inventory.  If nothing else, everyone will be receiving homemade candles, soaps and table runners for the holidays this year.

T-minus 1 Day

Candles, tags, quilts, signage, displays, soaps, oh my!!  The house has been bustling with activity for our first farmers market for the past several days.  The quilt needs it's binding sewn around the edge.  Tags need to be attached to the candles.  The soap base and molds just arrived.  Display baskets need to be found around the house.  Just a few things still to do before our first farmers market on Wednesday.

Boy, the lengths we go to for our children.  To teach the value of a dollar and working hard for something you want.  Who's learning these lessons...him?  Or us?

Quilt Day - Giving Back

There have been many quilts and projects completed in my sewing room thru the years.  Quilts to celebrate weddings, new babies, special milestones, and some just because I felt the urge to sew something.  There truly isn't anything that compares to making something in service of others.  In my sewing career I haven't experienced many of these projects.  There always seemed to be a birth, wedding, etc. that took priority, and frankly, comes with a deadline.  This past weekend two projects were started in service of others.  My bestie has begun a quilting journey I'm not sure she ever thought she would take.  A very close friend of hers passed away recently that was quite sudden.  I believe this has weighed heavily on her heart.  In her friend's memory and honor she has begun a quilt project that captures the heart of her dear friend.  She is enlisting other quilters to join her on the journey to create Hawaiian quilt works of art that will be shown and sold to benefit the Brain Aneurysm Foundation http://www.bafound.org/.  Take a moment to visit her blog where she captures the journey of the project and provides details for others to join her.
Taking on the challenge of making a Hawaiian quilt is not for the faint of heart.  It takes precise workmanship, a steady hand, and a leap of faith...or maybe the naivete of not having a clue what you are getting yourself in to.  I blindly jumped into the realm of Hawaiian quilting years ago when I made one for my mother-in-law.  After several years of hard work, putting it away for a year at a time, I swore I would never make another one.  Well, you know I can't let my bestie embark on this amazing project without me!  I will be joining her in a few weeks with my own creation to be donated to the cause.

My quilt day wasn't spent entirely helping my bestie with her project.  There was another service project happening this past weekend.  Thing 1 has been accepted to attend the national boy scout jamboree next summer.  You would be right to ask what this has to do with quilting.  Thing 1 has the daunting task of funding as much of the costs as possible to attend.  One of the grand ideas he had to raise funds was to set up a table at a local farmers market for the summer to raffle off a hand-made quilt and possibly some hand-made candles and soaps as well.  This was quite a lofty idea.  In an effort to not automatically shoot down his idea, I reached out to a local farmers market about doing this.  Certainly this idea wouldn't be accepted.  About two weeks ago we received the call.  Low and behold they LOVE the idea!  They love the community effect this will have.  Needless to say, our house has been full of frenetic activity trying to pull everything together for opening day.  Thing 1 has very limited sewing experience so there was a lot of education at each and every step of making the quilt.  I seemed to spend quilt day floating between advising on the Hawaiian quilt and teaching Thing 1 how to operate my machine and sew a straight line.  Although I did very little sewing myself, there was great progress made on both projects. 

The feeling of doing for others is truly a wonderful feeling and one I plan on repeating.

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

Cupcake Royale

I don't necessarily enjoy giving people gift cards as gifts, but sometimes it's the best sort of gift.  When giving a gift card you want to make it special.  Dress it up a bit.  A few years ago I found THIS online tutorial on how to make a cupcake gift card.  My oh my, this is perfect!  I've made several for teacher gifts at the end of the school year and they have always been well received. 

The gift card slides right down into the slit you create in the foam ball.  The binder clip holds onto the card so you can easily pull it out of the cupcake.  I had to use a larger binder clip than in the tutorial because it was the only size I could find in the house.  Always make do with what you have.

My mother-in-law's birthday was a few weeks ago.  What do you give someone who has everything, and is currently downsizing to a smaller house/condo?  A spa gift card of course!  I had a cupcake holder almost completed from the previous school year so I put the final touches on and voila!!  She loved it!

Of course, Mor Mor always needs new picture for her birthday.

Teen Years Here We Come

I've been dreading this moment for some time now.  Being the parent of a newborn baby is definately challenging, the toddler years bring an entirely different set of parenting skills, young boys are certainly challenging but a teenager?  I don't feel prepared for this next stage of parenting at all. 

I'm in complete denial.

It's one thing to realize I'm actually old enough to have a teenager.  That brings it's own set of issues with it, but that's not what this is about.  It's about the frightening realization that I need to have the parenting skills to handle a teenage boy!  I grew up with an older brother and watched the relationship between my parents and brother during those years.  I also dated hubby and remember what he was like as a teenager.  Needless to say, I'm a bit freaked out.

To celebrate this milestone of officially becoming a teenager, and all that comes with it, it was a several day celebration.  Last Friday night we had a few of his friends over for a video game fest with pizza and cake.  How fun to see these guys hanging out playing Xbox.  The pinacle of the evening was at the end when they broke out Rock Band and started singing terribly off-key with the windows open for all the neighborhood to "enjoy".

Okay the cake.  Let me explain.  Thing 1 and his friends play this computer game called Portal 2.  It's the current "thing". In the game you have this machine that shoots portals into locations.  One portal (the blue one) is the "in", and the second portan (the orange one) is the "out" where you can use these portals to navigate around the game.  There is also this chocolate cake that has little mounds of whip creme with cherries on top.  The cake shows the chocolate cake from the game going 1/2 way into one portal and 1/2 way out another.  It looks pretty rediculous unless you understand the game...which I don't.  But I managed to pull off the cake!

On Saturday Hubby, Thing 1, his best friend and his dad, all went to a shooting range.  If you know me, you know how hard this was for me to let him go.  I paced in the house nervously until they came home...in one piece...with bullet holes only in the targets.  The family came over for BBQ that evening and enjoyed more of the funky cake.

It was a great weekend.  Bring on the teen years!!!  I'm ready!!  Okay, not really.