Baby room preview number, like, 65.

Much of my crafting these days revolves around the baby room, naturally, so there will probably be 98 previews in total. Then get ready for years and years of crafts made for the child. If you're lucky - real lucky - I won't spend those years also posting every damn scribble the kid makes. We'll see.

Venturing once again into the world of sewing, I made this pillow out of remnants and one of the appliques that was on the crib bumper. I'm sure there are people who use crib bumpers because Carters keeps making bedding sets with them - but no one I know used one, what with everybody clucking about suffocation hazards. I'm getting a breathable one. Still, I paid for that padded bumper and I'm going to use it somehow!


Yellow gingham. It's what my blankie was made of, so I kind of love it. It will most definitely be used on another pillow.


The back is simply two fabrics that overlap for easy removal and cleaning. White with black polka dots and a scrap piece of green from the curtains. Very pleased, but here's a sewing machine question: why will my machine not thread a bobbin? I put the bobbin on there, loosen the wheely-thing, flip the bobbin winding lever over, and it still just tries to sew when I press the peddle. Bobbin does not turn. Boo.


I've also finished this ink drawing which will be part of a little wall collage. Hawaiian for "family," ohana* will be surrounded by photos of the baby's four first cousins: Laura, Sam, Max, and Finn.

COMING SOON! Lots of drawings.


*I do think Wikipedia's info is accurate, but it's funny that the first source listed is Lilo and Stitch.

"'Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten." -Lilo

Falling behind and catching up.

Well, we're at 33 weeks but I never got around to posting the pictures we took at 31 weeks or 32 weeks. This has inspired a frightening conclusion: I've spent my whole adult life running 10-15 minutes late, so once I have a kid it'll probably be more like 20-30. I really don't want to be that person. I really don't. Where do those minutes go? To last-minute bathroom breaks, running back to the cupboard because you forgot snacks, strapping the kid in the car seat and then having to take them out to change a diaper because you don't want them sitting in poo for a 45-minute car ride...


And where have these weeks gone? Mostly to planning showers, shopping for baby room goods, and putting my suddenly swollen feet up.


Meanwhile, I've accumulated several projects that various people have asked me to do and successfully let them stew on the shelf for...I'm embarrassed to say...months. I guess you don't stew things on a shelf. They were put on the back burner. There. But as birth looms nearer, some instinct is telling me I can't have obligations plaguing my conscience! I must scrape extraneous tasks off my plate! So I've matted three pictures, repaired four pieces of jewelry, and made two new necklaces I've been meaning to get to.


This one has large green jasper beads courtesy of my mom.

Next: repairing sweaters and making baby-room pillows (because, you know - they always tell you to give an infant plenty of pillows).

Photo collage for the bedroom

I did it! I didn't wait months or years to get this one done! It turned out to be way easier than the first; partly because there are only 25 pics instead of 49, and partly because I was already experienced in the limitations of my adhesives.


These are more scenic than the photos in the dining room collage. Because I don't want everyone I know staring at me while I'm in bed.


Penny did make the cut, though, because she's just too cute to exclude. Otherwise the pics are from our Lake Superior adventures, around our yard and neighborhood (the egret is in there!), and from our honeymoon in Hawaii.


THIS is the frame, probs one of my all-time favorites.

Finished projects I have previously neglected to share

Yay! We've lived in our house for almost four years and I'm almost done decorating it! When I am done, I'll surely want to REDO it, but we'll cross that bridge....

This project wins for Heaviest Thing I've Ever Made.


Also, I hope it's legal. Is Lake Superior considered a National Park or a Natural Reserve or anything like that? Because when my family drove to California and visited the Petrified Forest National Park when I was like 11, I definitely remember being told that taking pieces of petrified tree out of the park was BIG TROUBLE. Felony, probably. I don't remember the Grand Tetons, or basically anything of our zigzag between Utah and Iowa, because I was sleeping, but I remember not wanting to go to prison. The *funny* thing is that I think we bought a hunk of petrified tree in some gift shop.

Anyways, since we travel up to the "north shore" every summer and stay right on the lake, I've been....liberating....some of the small stones by bringing them home. Add one frame with a backing, some white paint, a small piece of driftwood, and lots of E6000 and you have a sweet Lake Superior homage. Or, at the very least, a weapon for when someone breaks in.

NEXT, I've hung this monstrosity in the dining room and it is a grand display of just some of our loved ones. And Justin Morneau.


It measures about 45" square and displays 49 of our own photos touched up and cropped. Each one is float-mounted and raised on a mat backing, which was not an easy feat considering it's heavy and I don't have my beloved professional supplies. Adhesive-wise, it would have been easier to cut openings for the pics, but I don't ever want to be responsible for making 196 cuts in a mat without making a mistake.


Plus, this way the photos have a nice shadowy look. The frame was purchased on the cheap long ago whilst I was still at the frame shop and it sat around the house waiting for a purpose in life until last fall when hubs had an epiphany. Thus was born the photo collage.


Between the frame, glass, mat, spacers, and photo prints I think I probably spent less than $70. If I had taken my pics to have them framed at a shop, I'm sure it would have been at least $250. Not that I'm saying you shouldn't give them business, because we love them and totally appreciate their knowledge and skills, but I enjoy doing this at home. Another collage is in the works for the bedroom, featuring more scenic pictures, but I'm slow on the uptake because these beasts are kind of, well, beasty.

Back to my framing roots

My mom brought me this cute card from her recent trip to brasil thinking I could frame it for the bathroom where I have a yellow duckie bath mat and coordinating toiletry accessories. It matches perfectly.


The quote is one of my favorites from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Here in Portuguese, it translates the same as it does from French, in which the book was originally written: "the essential is invisible to the eyes."


So I used my trusty Logan mat cutter to turn the card into an 8 x 10 with a yellow silk mat on top and a basic white mat below. Seriously good investment on the mat cutter. It doesn't do everything, but what it does do comes out just as nice as a mat cut on the $2000 cutter at the shop - I don't know that the 220 model is sold anymore, but I think it was about $100.


So here's my lovely mat. If I'd been thinking while I was at the store buying the frame I would've gotten different colors, but I wasn't. So this was the best combo I could get out of what I had. The yellow silk is almost exactly the same color as the walls. I may change it someday but I needed to hang something in there.


It almost makes me miss my old job...well, not really. I do miss the framing and my coworkers. Some of the customers. The odd job like this one is satisfying and just the other day I went to a knitting night with a couple of ladies from the store. It was at Crafty Planet, which is my new favorite LYS. Just a really good selection of yarn. Useable, you know; good blends, good wools and cottons, tons of sock yarn, all price ranges. Plus they have fun fabrics and other wares for the creataholic.

In other news, I'm on vacation next week! No posts! Blurg! See you on June 20 for North Shore recap.