Oh, I am so s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g for it today.

My parents are coming this weekend, so instead of crafting and doing crafty stuff…I’m trying to get our household in order. (Please, you know how that is…I’m not the only one who cleans like a maniac before family comes, right?)

So my cute dresses are still pinned together, but not sewn up. However…I did do some painting yesterday.

Of course it was spray paint,  on my patio set.  Surely not very artistic, but it sure does make a difference on the patio furniture. Instead of white, dirty and a bit rusty…it is sleek, polished and black! I think it looks really nice against our wrought iron gates.

And we have been doing a little more gardening, but I did not get pics of that. Plus, until our plants grow…there isn’t much excitement there.

We are however growing some other fun stuff that I do have photos of…

We’ve got bugs! Addie got a caterpillar and a ladybug habitat for Emma for her birthday. And the eggs/larvae came this week. So we are babysitting the baby bugs and watching them grow until we can release them into our garden.

I told you it was a stretch today…how about all of you? Any good stuff to show?

Just barely squeaking a CT in today.

I have not had a lot of time to craft fun stuff this week…again. I did put together some thank you notes for Em, but they look very similar to the invites and the other party stuff.

Maybe you sent Em something for her birthday, but you haven’t received one of these little thank yous? Aye…it is coming. I am trying to instill the importance of writing thoughtful thank you notes into Em. So she is writing all of her notes herself, under some guidance from me. And remember even though she is a superstar, she has an incredibly short attention span. So we have been doing a few thank yous each night. By summer break we should have everyone done! Ha.

And when not trying to do thank you notes, we have moved our craftiness outside since the weather is getting so nice. We had a flower bed next to the courtyard that has always aggravated me. It had three big, nearly dead, plants that I think must have been in the allium family since they were so very stinky. And they were clearly old and needed to be divided – probably 5 or 6 years ago.

So we ripped them out last weekend. And instead, finally got some new citrus trees. J. has been wanting an orange tree for awhile, and I’ve been wanting a lime tree. So we got one of each and another tree that is a cross between a tangerine and lime too. We got dwarf trees – so we can keep them in pots for awhile and then Addie and I went looking for some pretty plants to put around them.

This is so not a very good photo since I ran out at the very last minute last night to take it…and our avocado tree is shedding all of its’ flowers right now, so the bed looks messy. But once all of our plants fill in a bit, we’ll take some better photos to share. All I know is that it smells heavenly in our courtyard right now. All citrus-y and orange blossom-y. Mmmmm….

We also finished planting our herb garden, and just one tomato plant this year and strawberries. We still have our cucumbers and Em’s bean plant from school to find a spots for. I have a feeling that will be our task for later in the week when it cools down a little bit.

What about all of you? Any goodies to share this week?

I only have one wee thing to show again today. And…I’m sure you are thinking, “hmmm….doesn’t it look very similar to last week’s invitation?”

And, yes, it does. I made up these little notes for Em’s party favor bags for her birthday lunch that we had today.

We found some little plant-your-own-tree pots, some butterfly attracting flower seeds, the mandatory bottle of bubbles, and some little butterflies, ladybugs, and dragonflies. So we carried on the little “garden theme” in our favor bags. They were fun.

But that is really the only thing I’ve been able to do this week. I’ve got sundresses cut out and ready to be sewn for the girls, but my sister is here (in case you’ve forgotten!) so perhaps we’ll get to them next week.

I’ll have more pics from the lunchdate tomorrow – in the meantime, show me your crafts!

Oh, hallelujah! I actually have stuff to show today! I’m so excited – so let’s get to it.

And, if you might be expecting a bag from me…ahem, say if your name might be Blueberry or Aunt Laura…and you might want to be surprised as to what your bag might look like, you might want to stop reading right now. I’m just saying.

So, here we go.

First up, Addie has been asking me to make her a “kitty purse” ever since I made Em’s dance bag. She visited the fabric store with me the other day and I just followed her around and giggled at her pure delight and her exclamations of “Ohhhh, look at this pretty one Mama!” I think she may have inherited my love for perusing aisles and aisles of fabric.

She actually found this fabric and declared it the one for her kitty bag. So I put a little one together for her. And what do you put in a kitty bag? Lots and lots of kitties, of course!

I maybe should have made the bag a little smaller. I think at one point she had six cats in there while she lugged it to the gym. I do love the coordinating fabrics we found, the gingham, the striped, and the inside fabric.

Addie was all smiles, and Marie seems to be enjoying it, too!

And, like I mentioned above, I had a couple of other bags that I desperately wanted to finish and get out to my very patient friends. I found a fun green tomatoes fabric that I thought was kind of spring-like and earthy and decided to use it for these two bags.

Plus, I think I finally got the proportions right for a reusable shopping style bag. It seems like a good usable size, although when my two, lovely models hold them – they do look like they might be a little large and unwieldy.

Ladies, you’ll have to let me know what you think when they arrive in your hot, little hands!

Anyone else have some crafties to show today?

I have been spending all of my free time in my craft room for the past two weeks.

Not that I have any crafts to show today…but I ask you to behold the awesome-ness that is my new and improved scrap/craft area. Clean, organized, ready and waiting.

It is a Type A’s dream, let me tell you.

A few months ago, we bought a more practical and useful desk, so my scrap cubes got condensed over into the corner and they have been languishing over there, ever so unhappily with my infrequent visits. Then I went in search of some ribbon to make a collar for a stuffed animal and realized – the amount of ribbon I have is…riDICuLOUS!

So, I broke down and bought the clip-it-up ribbon organizer. I figured there was no way I was going to get the time, supplies and gumption together all at the same time in order to fashion some sort of ribbon holder, so I spent the money, and just look at it there on the wall!

And once I had organized all the ribbon, it started a snowball effect. Now I had an empty drawer and an empty box, so I started organizing the other drawers and pretty soon…every brad, every piece of paper, every embellishment had a new home.

And I started finding little trays, jars, and cans and re-purposing them. The tall can here is from my mocha powder, and the shorter, fatter one used to have Zingerman’s macaroons in it. (Mmmm…Zingerman’s. Macaroons.) I just covered them with some pretty paper and now I have some cool new storage tins.

I am on a roll. If I were a closet or a drawer in my house, I would be a little scared right now – or maybe excited, I’m not sure which! One thing is for sure, it makes me so anxious to get in there and create something. Now!