Craft Tuesday

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CT has been postponed today due to a very late night on Monday. I am in a I-drank-too-much-wine-and-did-not-get-enough-sleep fog today.

I’m a little bit bummed since I have been trying to fit some fun crafts in, but I haven’t taken any photos of any of them yet anyhow. So I guess even if I wasn’t still hurting from last night’s friend’s birthday dinner, I would have to come up with some other excuse.

Next week, I’ll be back with goodies and our Two Birdies Workshop new logo. I *heart* it and am trying to make fabric labels with it for our stuff. In the meantime, I hope to have a bit of time to catch up on my fave blogs this afternoon, so show us your craftiness this lovely Tuesday.

This & That Thursday

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I realize it is only Thursday for another 90 minutes. On the west coast. But I’m going to just squeak a little post in here under the wire.

I feel like I need to just write a few things that are making me happy because I am fighting a very bad mood today. Two girls who have not had their listening ears on.  A newsletter that keeps getting pushed into my crafting time due to other people not getting their stuff to me on time. Driving. Kids. EVERYWHERE.  Grrr….

So let’s just remember those things that really make me happy, shall we?

  • Chili Night on chilly nights.
  • Being productive and crafty while watching good Thursday TV shows.
  • GOOD Thursday TV shows.
  • Naughty monkeys who stop right in front of you when you are about to lose it and say, “Ah…I love you Mommy.”
  • A nice, hot cup of coffee and two hours of peace and quiet mid-afternoon.
  • A house that smells amazingly clean and doesn’t need the walk through clean-up in each room.
  • The promise of Friday…

Crafty Tuesday (& Other Bewitching Halloween Treats!)

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So last week all the craftiness was about Halloween costumes. We actually had two versions of Em’s bat costume. Her school had a costume parade and it was apparent that our first version of bat wings were not very practical or comfortable.

I had repurposed some angel wings, covered them and tried to make our little bat fly…

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Since Addie wasn’t allowed to dress up at her school, we had a little costume party with her friends on Friday afternoon so they could show-off their costumes. The little girl to the left of Addie is E.J., Addie’s new BFF. Everything is about E.J. Apparently E.J. is quite taken with Addie, too. When I went to pick up Addie on Friday her teacher said, “Ahh…so E.J. is coming to your house this afternoon? Because I think between the two of the girls they told the class at least 50 times that E.J. is coming over!”

The best friend love is very sweet, and her mom is very awesome too – so I’m looking forward to lots of playtime with them. (Obviously the wee ones and big ones are siblings of Addie’s crew. Like Emma, she has aligned herself with some great friends, I am very happy to say. And they are all just so darn cute, too!)Addie's Halloween Party

So back to the problematic bat costume. My engineering genius of a husband made a suggestion, and Friday night I executed his much smarter plan. Version 2.0 bat wings – sewn onto her black turtleneck. Worked much better for the actual Halloween and trick o’ treatin!

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And we also put her hair up and Nena worked her makeup magic…she was definitely much more bat-like.

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And when little Addikins finally settled on being a witch, I was thrilled. I pulled out the old costume from when Em was a witch and Addie just took one look at it and said, “Um, it isn’t very fancy enough. I want to be a fancy witch.”

Girl. You have to be kidding me.

So, Mama “fancied up” the witch costume. The black dress is the original costume. I made her a cape and the very fancy black cat skirt to go over it. Stripey stockings and the witch’s hat and she was one fancy witch!

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Emmy’s friend Audrey came and joined us for some candy collecting…the terrible threesome.

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Mere hours before the trick o’ treats, we managed to carve the pumpkins. I didn’t have to scoop any guts this year. A task I gladly let the girls help Daddy with.

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I think my favorite pumpkin was Em’s. Her very own creation. I especially love the Es for ears! Although the unibrow donated by Uncle Jeff clearly adds to its’ charm.

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And Addie, of course, requested the black cat. This is what she got. Close enough for the three hours it was used.

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I’m positive that there are some fabulous costumes and creative Halloween crafts to show off today, so let us see ’em!

Hallowitchy ~ Best Shot Monday

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Can I have a “ride” Daddy? (And was before all the Halloween festivities started.)

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A costume parade. School goodies. An afterschool party with friends. Trick o’ treating. Passing out candy. Eating candy. A time change. And a fun weekend.

Is it any wonder my little witchy is now sick? I’ll be back with photos and stories of our Halloween escapades, but now I need to go wipe a snotty nose and pour some apple juice.

This & That Thursday

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I know.

I have been a horrible blogger and practically non-existent as a photographer. And I have been even worse at visiting and seeing what all my bloggy friends are up to. I am trying very hard to get back into some sort of routine but instead of getting easier, it seems more and more impossible. Maybe our routine, that “normal,” just doesn’t exist any more.

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Anyhow, this week we are back to bullet points because despite my attempt to carve out some time for this, I have about five minutes to try to document everything from the past week. So bullets it is…

  • All of our October commitments are finally finished. The Pumpkin Patch at Addie’s school – The Fall Carnival at Em’s school. The past few weeks have been crazy with obligations (mostly mine because I cannot say no) for both of them. But they are done. Bring on November, I say.

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  • And I have a very good start on Halloween costumes. What? I have nearly 24 hours before Em needs hers for school! Plenty of time. We are having a little Halloween party for Addie and a few of her friends because they do not get to dress up at school. So I have at least 30-ish hours for hers. I’m mostly re-purposing old costumes for them, so really it should be easy.
  • Despite all of my complaining about craziness, we have been able to have a little fun this past week. J’s mom and friend are here and have afforded us cheap babysitters for two different evenings out in the past four days. (Thanks, Debby & Barb!)
  • First up, gotta give props to U2 and Sunday night’s concert. Incredible. They are one band who can pull off a huge stadium crammed with 95,000+ fans and still put on a great show. And the Black Eyed Peas opened for them and I didn’t realize how much I liked them until after I saw them either. Great show!
  • And we got to be totally spontaneous this week, too! J. called me (very) last minute on Tuesday because he had scored tix to the Lakers season opener. That was pretty fun, too. I liked people watching (trying to spy celebrities) and um…watching the Lakers win too, of course.
  • Addie has decided she is going to be a veterinarian when she grows up. But she doesn’t want to help snakes. When we asked her if she wanted to work with small animals like cats and dogs (knowing full well this was probably the case) or big animals, like elephants and other animals at the zoo, she said, “only little animals like bunnies, kitties and baby elephants!”

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  • We have pumpkins to carve still. Blech. I hate the pumpkin guts.
  • 55 days til Christmas, just in case you were unaware and haven’t visited the Hallomas (or Christoween) decorations at Target.  Addie was very concerned when we were in Target one day and she thought she had missed Halloween. “Mama? Did Halloween already go by? Is it Christmas now?” I had to stop and reassure myself that it was indeed a few weeks BEFORE Halloween, and yes, there are Christmas decorations out already. Poor Thanksgiving. It really does get the shaft.
  • I have, however, started Christmas shopping and craft planning for gifts. So I feel a little smug and cocky.
  • Ah, don’t worry. I’ll be behind again by the time next week rolls around.

Happy Thursday, everyone.

Crafty Tuesday

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I knew I could depend on all of you to offer us your advice, suggestions, and encouragement on our new endeavor! Thanks so very much, we took all of it in and are working it out. The logo is going through round 2 right now, and Jamie (friend/business partner Jamie, not hubby Jamie!) and I had our first business meeting this week where we changed the name to Two Birdies Workshop. Jamie suggested it, and I love it! We couldn’t just use Two Birdies since twobirdies.com is already taken, so that is why I was trying to add something to it. Two Birdies Design seemed too limiting. And I wasn’t completely sold on Two Birdies Creations, but when Jamie said ‘Workshop‘ I knew that was it. It is versatile, we can pull it off and use it for many projects.

And we decided that we are going to see what we can get made in time for the Holiday Boutique at Ad’s school – which is December 4th. So, we have one month to get it all together. And then we’ll see what we can put up in Etsy and maybe shop it around to some little boutiques.

We have also created our “menu.” We aer going to make aprons, pillowcase dresses, reusable tote bags, and bags for kids, stationery and SuperCapes.

Lounge pants we decided are hard to “size” and also take a lot of fabric, so the profit margin is kinda high on those. And the birthday banners, are pretty time consuming as well. I may make some for our Etsy store at a later date, but we are not going to make any for the first round here.

I’ll tell you what else I will not be making. Any of these &$#*! Japanese felt animals. The only reason I finally finished these was they were taking up my endtable in the living room and I was sick of looking at them. That and the girls kept asking “when will the deer be done, Mama?”

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So they are gladly done, and we are moving on. Bigger and better things!

Crafty Tuesday

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Hello, my crafty gurus.

I don’t have any new creations to show this week. I have been creating flyers and signage for one of the school’s Pumpkin Patch (last weekend), signs for the Carnival (this weekend) at the other school, Daisy troop posters and handouts, and lots of bake sale goods for everything…and I just haven’t been able to *craft* anything for myself, or for gifts. I keep thinking as soon as October is over, I’ll have plenty of time. Right? Riiight.

I have been throwing around the idea of opening a little etsy shop with personalized stationery, announcements, cards, etc. But then I figured out that what I really like doing is the tactile stuff – the sewing – the big projects – not the stuff behind a computer. So I was thinking up names and ideas the other day (in case I ever might want to really sell something) and I kept going back to my favorite little Birdies. And then it became Two Birdies (in honor of my own two little birdies!). And then I played with the logo a bit. And then I got busy and promptly forgot about all of it.

Until today. Some friends who are putting on the Holiday Boutique at Ad’s school planted the seed that I should put some pillowcase dresses in the Boutique and try to make some money, they think they would really sell. And then we started talking about other crafts that we I could put together.

And this is where you come in, my crafty gurus.  I need some help. I do think I want to try to get some stuff together. But what do you think I should concentrate or focus on? Here’s the laundry list. If you were Christmas shopping – which of these things might you buy?

Aprons
Lounge pants
Birthday banners
Reusable bags
Kids tote bags / ballet bags
Super capes!
Or what about personalized stationery, cute thank you notes, etc?

But, wait…two-part question, here.

What do you think of the name “Two Birdies Creations?” Too long? Too much? Two cutesy?

Well, actually I lied. Three-part question. Do any of these logos strike your fancy? I’m not quite sure about any of them yet, but I have a leaning. I’ll see what you think.

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Okay. That is your assignment. Discuss. I expect your answers on my desktop by the end of day.

(Just kidding…but I do appreciate all of your artistic eyes and any thoughts!)