Greg Sczebel

Lately I've been looking for some new music to listen to and today my church really helped me out! We had Greg Sczebel come and sing for us this morning and he was really good. His music style isn't really what I usually listen too, but it was still really great to listen to him in a small setting and a couple of the slower songs he sang I really liked. I couldn't find any of those songs on youtube at all because I think they are from his new cd, that releases on Tuesday but here's another one he sang..



Greg is currently on tour with Paul Brandt, who I really do love, so I thought that was pretty cool.

Here's another song he sang this morning

more etsy love

Just a few more things I've favorited on etsy lately...

Winter Rainbows Fingerless Gloves from OffTheHook

I can't help but think how awesome these would be for getting in and out of the vehicle with little kids... doing up carseat buckles and putting shoes back one, etc.

Hunter Print by eekdesign

I don't know what it is about this print, but I just love it.

Sherpa Toasty Tundra Boots by GollyGeeBaby

These little boots are fantastic! Look how warm they look! I'm definately planning on buying a pair for new baby when he/she arrives. There's so many cute patterns of these boots in this shop!

Both Golly Gee Baby and Off the Hook are members of the Alberta Street Team on Etsy which I recently joined. What a great group, and what a great way to ensure you're not only buying handmade but also locally!!

Minor Improvements

I've been nesting the last couple of weeks and the results have been great. I keep finding new areas that need to be reorganized so to keep from burning myself out I've been doing one small project a day, if I feel up to it. This was my most recent project. This area used to just be open on the bottom and it drove me crazy because it was a major dust collector and I could never store anything under there because it just looked messy. So I made some curtains! At first I put the boys' board games and puzzles in behind the curtains but after they decided to take all 4 games out at once and dump them on the floor I realized they needed to go back up high to be only played with supervised. That's what's in the yellow crate. One of these days I'll get something that looks a little nicer but for now it will do. Under the curtains now are our extra stools and the recycling bin. Works great and I love how it looks!

Another Gift

My sister in law Shelly made this adorable felt robot for Kaed for Christmas. It's so soft and cute and the boys love to "push" the buttons and say "beep beep". Just one more great softie she's made for them!

Photos by Shelly McGown

New Towels

Trav had a bunch of hand towels attached to his golf bag from various work tournaments that all had his work logo embroidered on to them. I noticed one day that the towels were actually really nice and I knew we really needed some new towels for our bathrooms so I asked him if I could have a few of them. Turns out there were five attached to the bag so I took three of them and decided to hide the logos with some fabric strips. I picked a different fabric for each towel seeing as I didn't need them to match and sewed it on over top of the logos. It worked great! Now I have three new hand towels that look pretty and didn't cost me a dime.

Here's how I did it:

• I measured out a strip of fabric in the width I liked and to the length of the towel around both sides.
• Then I folded the raw edges in a 1/2 inch all the way around and pressed them flat.
• Folding it around the towel I pinned where the two ends met up and then sewed just that part together.
• Placing the piece of fabric back on the towel, over top of the logo, I pinned it all in place and sewed all the way around.
• That's it!

Tricky Little Baby

Baby gave us a bit of a scare yesterday as he/she decided to stop moving for a few hours. I'm at the point now where if I don't feel those 6 movements in 2 hours it's off to the hospital to make sure everything is okay. This is especially important for me because both my other two pregnancies ended with me getting induced due to my placenta cutting out. Thankfully with the other two this didn't happen until right at the end so both my boys were born at good sizes and not premature but I sure was scared that this baby would have to be delivered early when I went into the hospital yesterday. Thankfully though baby seems to be doing fine! As soon as they put the monitors on my belly for the non stress test, baby started to kick them off. Needless to say after not feeling baby move all day it was a very good feeling! The lack of movement could be because I'm just not getting enough calories right now. Between my last two appointments I ended up losing half a kilo when I should have gained at least 2 pounds so I've been put on a high calorie diet till my weight starts coming up again.

I figure there's no better place to find deliciously high cal dinners than on Pioneer Woman, so I'm off to scour some recipes before heading to the grocery store!

Seriously though, I can't wait to add a new teeny tiny baby to the family considering my boys are all grown up and ready for college already...

photos by Shelly McGown

I Won!

Do you remember a while ago I mentioned a won one of the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day giveaways? Well I did and a couple weeks ago I got the little package in the mail! It came all the way from Singapore, from Pauline at fat-connection. It's 4 different fat quarters and they are all sooooo cute. I already have something in mind for the little cars print and a couple other ideas for the other pieces. So thanks again Pauline!

Zoo Dates and Due Dates

I'm finding it harder and harder lately to get out of the house. I don't do well for long periods of time on my feet anymore due to the extra weight of baby #3 so I generally just prefer to stay home. Unfortunately my little kidlets don't feel the same way so I've been trying to find extra fun things to do to motivate myself. Last week we went to the zoo, just the 3 of us and had a great time. I was really sore that night and the next day but I must think it's worth it because we are going back this afternoon with a friend.

I'll be 30 weeks preggo this Saturday! I can't believe it. This pregnancy has flown by so much faster than the other two but at the same time I'm really getting ready to have it over.

Last night I dreamt that I only had 2.5 weeks left and I suddenly had to have a c-section. We were late making it to our appointment and the nurse got mad and asked why we were late. I told her because we had to line up care for other kids and pack a hospital bag and stuff. She wasn't impressed that with only 2.5 weeks left with my third child I didn't have that stuff taken care of yet. So then of course when I woke up I was all in a panic that I'm not ready for the hospital! It took me a couple minutes before I realized that I still have plenty of time. I am so glad this dream wasn't the real deal because I am not at all prepared for the possibility of a c-section. In fact it would have to be some pretty serious circumstances before I would consent to one so it's kinda funny that I would have dreamt that.

Anyway in the spirit of baby coming in the not to far future, when do you think baby will come? His/her due date is April 2nd and Kaed was born the day after his due date and Brayer on his due date. And will baby be a girl or a boy? How much will he/she weigh?

Can't wait to hear what you think!

Etsy Favorites

So I've been spending a lot of time browsing Etsy lately, and seeing as most of the things I have in my favorites are things I probably won't actually buy because I just can't afford/need them, I thought I'd share them with you. I love it when other people share the things they've seen on Etsy lately that they love so here I am, doing the same.

I love this wallet. I really do need a new wallet and I love how this one is big enough to hold everything I need. I'm seriously debating asking for this instead of a new/working dishwasher for my birthday.... but I'm pretty sure I'll appreciate the dishwasher more.

I definitely plan to buy these little loafers when the new baby is born, or maybe even before. The best part about them is that they come from a shop where I live so hurray for shopping locally!

Okay so there are a few more things I have in my favorites on etsy but I'll stick with sharing these ones with you for now.

Little Monkeys Growth Chart

Another one of my favorite handmade gifts this year is this awesome growth chart my sister in law Kara made. The boys love it and looks so great hanging in their room. I can't wait for the next birthday so I can do some measuring and marking.

just some thoughts...

Last week I wanted to do about 2 posts a day and this week I haven't even thought about blogging till now... I'm a little scatterbrained lately.

It's really starting to hit me that there are just over 2 months left till baby #3 joins us and I haven't gotten even remotely prepared. Brayer needs to go into a big boy bed and last weekend I went out to buy the same mattress for him we bought for Kaed but when I got home Trav told me I got the wrong one so it's sitting in our stairwell waiting to be returned. I would have returned it this week, but how do you return a twin sized mattress when you're pregnant and have 2 kids under 3 years old to "help" you out? Guess that return will be a family affair with daddy this weekend! (seriously how annoying is it that even if you have a JOINT credit card account with your husband he can't return something that you bought with your card, it has to be returned on your card. It's the same account!!!)

Anyway, the nursery is still a disaster, filled with boxes and garbage bags full of clothes that are either too big or too small for Kaed and Brayer. The once nursery dresser has been moved to the boys' room so now we need a dresser/change table for the nursery. Although I think I've only ever used my change table maybe 10 times? I'm all about the changing baby on the floor in whatever room of the house is closest to where a clean diaper may be lying.

So in light of getting things ready (aka mentally preparing myself for being a mother of THREE) for the baby I started sewing a new diaper bag yesterday. So far it seems to be turning out great but I've already put a good 3 hours of work into it and I'm about half way I'm guessing so I'm really hoping to have one seriously nice diaper bag after this. Although, if you think about the ridiculously over inflated price of diaper bags in the store I could probably put 24 hours of labour into it and still have it be cheaper than one of those!

And just so this post isn't void of photos, here's a couple of my little dudes playing out in our lately beautiful weather! (please don't go away warmness!)

Keepin' Busy!

We've had some really great weather here the past couple of days which means that the boys are outside all. the. time. It's great because they play much better together out there and it's even been warm enough to leave my sliding back door cracked so I can see and hear them even better if I'm inside. So with all this "free" time I've been updating my shop and getting some sewing done. Yesterday I picked up a couple of new fabrics for slings so I thought I'd share them with you.

I make pouch style slings, similar to hotslings for a considerably lower price than the ones you can buy in the store. Slings are fairly inexpensive to make and because they aren't terribly time consuming either I like to offer them for a good price. Having several different styles of slings for my kids made my life so much easier and there are just so many benefits to wearing your baby... as long as you can afford to buy a sling or carrier! That's what first got me sewing slings, I knew I wanted one but I was not willing to pay $60 for something that obviously cost very little to make. I mostly only sell pouch style slings, but I have made the odd Mei Tai as well. You can see all my fabric options available for the pouch slings on my handmade therapy Facebook page. There are also a couple of them still available in my shop.

If you are ever interested in trying different types of slings, my friend Elizabeth makes beautiful wraps and Mei Tai's! You can see her stuff on her Bloggy Mama Creations Facebook page.

Some More Gifts

photo by Shelly McGown

My sister in law Kara made these amazing tea towels for me. She sewed them and then potato printed them and I LOVE them. They are beautiful and original and they dry well. What more could you ask for in a tea towel?

Also I just noticed that my last post was my 200th post. Woo hoo!

Calendar

Photos by Shelly McGown

Here's another amazing gift I got for Christmas. My sister in law Shelly made it for me and her hubby John picked out the words for each season. I believe they are lyrics from different songs he likes. It's such a beautiful calendar and exactly the kind of thing I've been eyeing on etsy lately to buy.

Tick Tock!

photo by Shelly McGown

Okay this happens to be one of my favorite gifts received in our family and it wasn't even for me! Travis' sister Shelly and her hubby John made this clock for him. I love it. It's so simple and pretty and totally the kind of thing Trav loves. It's currently hanging in our room where Trav put it but I have plans to display it somewhere a little more seen than there.

Photo by Shelly McGown

Measurements

I've noticed recently how much of what I do involves measurements. Measurements in inches, cups, litres, quarts, centimeters, etc. I've always been bad with numbers, no matter the context but I finally feel like maybe I'm getting the hang of those things called measurements. Don't get me wrong, I still have to google things all the time to find out how many cups are in a quart or how many inches are in a meter. The part I'm getting the hang of is eyeballing it. I find that the most commonly used measurement in sewing and baking is 1/4 of an inch. I never used to be able to just eyeball that thickness but lately it's starting to seem second nature to me. Most seam allowances are a 1/4 of an inch, biscuits and cookies should be rolled out to a 1/4 of an inch, potatoes should be cut into 1/4 inch cubes... you get the idea.

So what's the point of this? Nothing really, just that I'm proud that I've finally found one tiny area of numbers that finally make sense to me :)

my biscuits for dinner tonight, rolled out to 1/4 inch ;)

A New Rolling Pin

One of the gifts under the tree for me was this beautiful handmade rolling pin. Travis' grandpa made it for me and I love it. It is incredibly smooth and I love love love that he made it himself from a tree in their old yard. He made one for each of his granddaughters and I'm not positive how many that is, but it's a lot.

It never ceases to amaze me how much I treasure the gifts I receive that are handmade. They just mean so much more than something mass produced and not at all unique.

Leafs Pillow

While browsing through different blogs during the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway day I came across a great project on a blog called Sweet Limes. The project was a pillow with The Calgary Flames logo on it that she made for her brother in law. When I saw it I thought "awesome! I'm going to make one for my brother in law for Christmas!" Of course he happens to be a Toronto Maple Leafs Fan (and by fan I mean FAN) so I had to figure out how to go about making that logo instead. I emailed the author of Sweet Limes and asked her how she went about making hers and she gave me some great ideas! You can see her pillow here.
The pillow turned out pretty good especially considering it was my first pillow ever but it's definitely not perfect. I also wasn't able to put on the actually words Toronto Maple Leafs onto the logo but I'm pretty sure it still speaks for itself.

Back and Ready to Roll... I think!

So we're back home from all our Christmas and New Years activities, the Christmas decorations are packed away for another year and we're ready to get back into the swing of things. I think. I have very little motivation in the way of cooking and cleaning after getting to share those tasks with several other people for the last week and half. Hopefully that motivation kicks in again soon.

I'll be sharing some Christmas presents I made and received over the next while so here's the first! It's a fishing set I made for Kaed. The fish have magnets in the tip of them and the fishing rod just has a little piece of metal on the end of the string so it picks them up. I also made a felt mat to lay them on, and can I just say how much this gift was a hit?? Kaed plays with every day and he still gets excited every time he catches a fish. I never did get a good picture of him playing with it as he tends to spend most of his time just in underwear these days, but here's one shot I got with him with pants on!

I'm thinking I'll have to get a tutorial in the works for this little project...