Some Christmas Stuff

I had hoped to have some Christmas outfits on my site this year, but after sewing myself silly and not seeing my family for about 3 weeks I decided to only offer them to people on Facebook or my Blog.  If you are interested in any of these please contact me.  It will take me 2-3 weeks to get them to you, just FYI. 

This one is my FAVORITE!  I am in love and of course Sam decided she wants a gingerbread girl applique instead, ugh!  But here is this one. 

I've made stuff with this adorable moose in the past.  I loved these two dresses my friend ordered.  Too cute!  I have one for Sam from last year that is without a monogram but after doing these I think I may put one on this year.  I also have this in lime green corduroy as well.  I will try to put some pics of that up soon. 

I'm doing another outfit and then a little boy outfit. You'll find I have a red theme!  I'm into the red and white this year!

Yay!!!!

Update!!  Found the fabric! I can now offer this at my store! 

I found it at Above All Fabric which happens to be the same store I have my "Mommy Messenger" through...you can go to her store and choose your fabric! See the listing for details on that one.

New Bag!!!!!

I now have a new bag style!  It started out because I saw something similar and already knew I was in LOVE with this fabric from Sweetwater.  I went and ordered the fabric and designed the bag and the voila! here it is! 

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It is super cute.  It looks like a drawstring, but it's actually elastic!!!  I put two cell phone and wallet friendly pockets inside as to not make it another "black hole" for these items.  I mean, it IS pretty big.  I was able to fit a binder, wallet, little shopping bag, and magazine in it and it STILL had ample room for more.  It's SO going to travel with me!!!  It would be a perfect PERFECT diaper bag.  The coolest (and not-designed-on-purpose) feature is that it's REVERSIBLE!!!  The ties on the side are for looks, so those would go inside, but it could totally be reversible if you wanted it to be.  The little pockets would be on the outside, but to each his own!

 

See! Look how CUTE!  

Alright, so here's the hinky part.  I went to go order copious amounts of this fabric because I wanted to get it started on my site...well....the polka dots are GONE!!! I mean I can't find them ANYWHERE!!!  I'm finding the flowers, but not the dots.  I'm so depressed.   My neighbor wants this bag so badly and I feel like it's so cute that I want to offer it, but we'll see.  Maybe one day.

In the meantime, I also designed this in another fabric for my dear friend who just had a precious little boy. You'll notice the applique for the monogram instead of just stitching.  I'm totally happy with this look right now.  I'm thinking it may pop up again!!!

I hope she loves it too.  It's a fun fabric!

 Well the colorful one is available on my site now.  I'm hoping to eventually find the fabric for the other bag.  But don't hold your breath.  I'm not.

Chuck Smith 10K Race Report

Today Mike and I ran in the Chuck Smith 10K in Beckley, WV.  Everyday this week has been sunny and 70's, naturally it was 50's and drizzling today.  I'll be honest, I think that's why I did so well.  You see, I lived in Alabama for 7 years and HATE the heat...almost as much as I HATE open water swimming!  Give me a ski resort and keep your beach!  I need the cold weather.  Well...I need it,but I could have done without the drizzle. 

So we started off and I watched the Garmin to make sure I didn't sprint out of the gate (my downfall).  There weren't too many 10K women runners, but it's nice to have competition!  So I kept my pace between 8 and 9 minute miles and watched my back and ended up coming in first overall female!  Kinda rocked!  It was my longest running race every and I am just happy I did so well.  I wanted to hit 54:00 and ended up with 51:42!!!  There really are no words for how you feel during an actual race!!

I did have some violent knee trouble about mile 3 and worried I'd have to drop the race, but I prayed and ran and prayed and ran and then before I knew it, I was done!  I'm feeling like crud now, but hopefully some ibuprofen, ice, and rest will help.  Guess I won't be doing my 11 mile run tomorrow...grrr. 

I am also so proud of my spin class chica's who rocked the 5K!! They are working so incredibly hard and I'm so incredibly proud.  They hung back and watched me get my trophy....despite the freezing cold rain trying to run us off.  What a good race!

First item!

Yeah, um, I'm the WORST blogger EVER!  I have had the busiest summer and now I'm thrown into a wildly busy school year! Still no excuse...

Sam started Kindergarten!

I'm sad, happy, confused.  Ugh.  So many emotions.  Trust me, she's doing MUCH better than I am...MUCH.

Well I've got some new stuff coming this weekend to my store.  And here's the deal. I didn't think I'd do Halloween stuff and I waited until the eleventh hour to get it completed.  Part of that was because I just didn't know what to do!  So here's the first item.

I kept seeing black and white for Halloween.  I bucked it at first and thought it was irritating and something that just Martha Stewart was doing.  Well....I've changed my tune.  I've now embarrassed it and sort of love it.  I wanted to do something black and white in an A-line. I found a wildly adorable black and white pin dot fabric at Hobby Lobby and a precious little spider applique on Etsy. I already had the "Spooky" font and I just played and this little number was born!  Could you just die over this sweet little model I borrowed from my friend??!!  

I did the cutest spider in the world out of minky fabric, so it's almost like a 3D!  I'm actually LOVING this dress.  I had a lady in my spin class ask for one in an adult size, LOL!  I actually DO want to make it into a pillow for a throw, so that I can have a spider of my own!

Keep checking my store.  More to come!

Happy Halloween, or is it?

Well I'm stumped.  I received an email from a lady who purchased one of my Halloween dresses last year for her little girl.  She was looking to see if I am going to be listing dresses again this year.  I LOVE Halloween, I love the dresses, the outfits, the costumes, the decorations, the food, the fun, the everything!  This alone makes me want to do Halloween dresses, but I'm creatively blocked right now.  You can actually see the direct result of this on my stagnant Etsy store!  I haven't added anything new all summer!!!


Okay, so I want to do dresses, but they take a long time to do, they have to be done per order (like the bags) if they are to be monogrammed or personalized in any way.  And, oh yeah, I have no idea what to make!!!  I'm about sick of pillowcase dress and A-line's, however, these possess the best applique surfaces.  I need to browse some patterns or make one of my own.  I thought of doing skirts, but not everyone likes skirts and I hate HATE putting stuff on t-shirts.  So, ho hum, what to do, what to do. 

If anyone out there has any ideas, or anything they'd like, let me know!  If you come up with and idea and I use it I'll make your little one (or a friends, whatever) the spec dress!!!

Here's last years (and some previous years) little numbers:

My little girly girl

I really should have posted this weeks ago, but I have been really busy getting myself on track while my beautiful and VERY energetic daughter is home with me all day during the summer.

Well the night of her graduation I wanted to give her a very special gift of a new dress.  I first saw it on the blog for Above All Fabric and then it was offered as a kit! Score!  I had intended it to be a birthday gift (back in April), but I stay busy, so unfortunately I didn't get to it until May, but it was DEFINITELY worth the wait!  Samantha LOVED it! She loved it so much she begged me to wear it 2 more times in the same week!

This dress was definitely a bit of a challenge and not because of the yards and yards of ruffles, but because the directions were very general and the pattern layout does not include seam allowance, thereby creating a lot of extra work for Wendy!  There was a great blog post to help with this pattern.  Once I got the hang of it I now want to make MORE and MORE so I'm settling for making her a Christmas dress.  If anyone has any ideas for fabric I'm all ears b/c I'm stumped. 

The next step

It's amazing how quickly life passes and the ways we come to realize what is the most important to us.
I got the amazing pleasure of watching my little baby (b/c that's what she'll always be to me) graduate from preschool today.  She's gone to this school for 3 years and I LOVED it!  She enrolls in Kindergarten at another school in the fall.  I watched her tonight with her tiny, pink cap and gown and just cried.  I feel like the last 5 years have gone so very quickly, quicker than any other portion of my life.  The funny thing is, I didn't want these to go as quickly.  In college I wanted to "hurry up and graduate" same with high school, etc., but this time with my child is so incredibly fleeting and I'm so blessed with EVERY SINGLE MINUTE that the Lord gives me with her. 

Happy Birthday?

 Well I knew back in March that I wanted to make my mother and mother-in-law some aprons for their Mother's Day gifts this year.  I'm always torn on whether or not to "make" gifts because I usually only make bags and dresses, so craft projects are a bit scary.  But when I was in Hobby Lobby I walked by some super-cute fabric that screamed "make me into an apron", so I picked it up and proceeded to find the easiest apron pattern I could find.  You see, my mother and mother-in-law are NOT into "frills", so I had to find something that went totally against all the cutesy little ruffly apron patterns that are currently available and trying to turn us all back into June Cleaver.  Well I found something from Simplicity's Sewing for Dummies collection (don't judge).

I spent 2 evenings finishing these and deliberating with my daughter on whether to put their grandmother names (which we obviously decided to) or their initials.  So when they were finished I packaged them up neatly and put their cards together, etc, etc.  Well my mother calls me on Mother's Day after opening her new apron and proceeds to tell me how much she loves it and it's exactly what she would have chosen, but she then told me that I signed her Mother's Day card with "Happy Birthday".  Oh well, maybe I can call this her card for the year, LOL!  I guess next time I put this much effort into a gift I'll check the details too, haha!!

Smith Mountain Lake Sprint Triathlon 2010

This blog post is a bit of bragging on my husband.  He did the sprint triathlon at Smith Mountain Lake this weekend and since it was his first OUTDOOR triathlon (yes, we've both done quite a few indoor ones) he was automatically classified into the "novice" category.  Being in the "novice" category turned out to be a great motivation because he ended up coming in FIRST in his class!  It was amazing!  I didn't do this race because I wanted to watch one before I participated so that I would know what to expect when I actually do compete.

For those who do not know much about triathlons, it is a 3 part race that is done back to back.  The first part of the race is the swim.  This particular race was done in Smith Mountain Lake (in Virginia).  It is a gorgeous, clear, clean lake.  Sometimes they're done in the ocean and it will be a cold day in hell before I will do that :)  And other times they are done in the pool (my preference).  Occasionally they are done in rivers too!

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This swim leg of this particular race was 750meters which Mike completed in 15:04

The second part of the triathlon is the bike portion.  

In this race the bike portion was 20K (about 12 miles).  Mike completed it in 41 min 25 sec.

The final portion of the race is the run.

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In this race the running part was a 5K (3.1 miles).  Mike did it in 25 min and 13 sec.  That might not seem very fast to those of you who run competitively, but get off a 20K bike ride and go into a run and tell me how you feel! Mike normally is almost 4-5 minutes faster in a 5K, that's how much is taken out of you when you do these races.  Crazy, huh!?!

His overall time was 1 hour 24 min 38 sec.  He only won his class by TWO seconds! TWO!!!  For those of you doing the math you might say, "Wendy, those times don't add up", you're right!  That's because there are these pesky little times called "transitions".  A transition is the portion of the race where you rip off your wetsuit, throw on your helmet, socks, and bike shoes and tear madly down the road to the bike start and then after the bike you tear off your bike shoes and helmet and furiously throw on your running socks/shoes.  And, yes, it is ALL timed!  Some of the super athletes get this down to an art, ie. no socks when biking and running and having bike shoes already clipped into the bike, etc.  Remember, Mike only won by 2 seconds!  

This was a great inspiration to me.  I am excited and hoping to do my first outdoor one soon.  Please don't expect me to have these kinds of times.  I am MUCH slower, but at the end of the day I am just proud of us for doing them at all and for setting a good example for our 5 year old (can't get use to that) little girl!

Here are some links if you're interested.  I've mentioned some before, but here there are again!

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/
http://www.setupevents.com/index.cfm?
http://trisports.com/
http://www.caitsnow.com/

My Big Fat 5th Birthday

My baby is 5!!!! I can't believe it.  The night before she turned 5 she also lost her first tooth!  She is growing up waaayyyy too fast, where does this time go?!

Well we ended up drawing this birthday thing out for about a week. 

We had friends over the weekend of her actual birthday and cooked on the grill and let her open her gifts from us.  She received a LOT of Zhu Zhu pets!

Since I wasn't going to make the cake for her big birthday party, I made her a little cupcake cake to celebrate with that night!  I LOVE pull apart cupcakes!  No "weirdness" in the cutting!

We ended up going to Charlottesville, VA (one of my favorite places) for part of the weekend to visit friends on her actual birthday!  So we didn't have a real party that day, but she got to stay in a hotel and she thinks that is so much fun!   So I guess it's the little things.  If you've read my previous blogs you'll notice that I did NOT have the dress on her that I was intending to make for her birthday, but it became so very very time consuming and tedious and I had a LOT of other orders so we decided (my husband and I) that she will have that dress for her preschool graduation.  I think it's a nice compromise and gives me a bit more time to complete it. 

So, now to her big birthday party (are you keeping up).  We had a giant bowling party with a bunch of the kids from her preschool! It was a blast.  It was a Hello Kitty theme, so I made her a pattern from Childrens Corner, but I forgot that the neckline on this pattern was a bit large and didn't cut it down for her, so I ended up putting the buttons all the way to one side, it looked really silly, but she didn't seem to mind and since I'm the queen of procrastination when it comes to my child, I let it go.  

I thought it was particularly cute with the bowling shoes :)  While this is NOT my favorite outfit, I think it was one of hers because it was Hello Kitty.  

Well

Well hopefully she'll look back on this birthday fondly, I know I will.  While it's heartbreaking to think about how quickly she is growing up, it is such a blessing to get to watch her do it.  

Pop's

I had an idea of grandeur after getting on the Bakerella website.  I saw her way-too-awesome cake pops done as Easter eggs and thought "oh, I could totally do that for the Easter party at Sam's preschool!"....ugh! The good news is that I had the foresight to do a run through about 2 weeks before the party.  I received help with this project from Samantha and my awesome sister!

Well after we did the run through I had learned a few things.  The first of which was that in the case of cake pops and 4 year olds, many hands do NOT make light work.  I also learned that I can't "paint" with corn syrup very well, so I used frosting on the new batch instead.  The last thing I learned was that the foam you put the pop's into should probably be floral foam and NOT regular packaging kind...too tough.
For the preschool I made over 100.  A ridiculous amount, I do NOT recommend this.  It took me 3 days to get them all done and painted and packaged, but everyone seemed to enjoy them.  I made these with strawberry cake...VERY delicious!   Here are some pic's of the preschool pops.  I also made some with out the stick (since I ran out) for the teachers and parents. I put them in mini muffin cups.

More Cakes

Well I was suppose to have a "down month", ha, yeah right!  I ended up having one of the busiest months EVER!  Mike and I have been busy wrapping up the indoor triathlon series and outfitting, planning, and registering for some summer races, that in itself took days. But I also finished up my cake decorating class, did a whole lot of sewing (still on that one), and planned the Easter party for my daughter's preschool. 

So, I guess these next blogs I'll be playing catch up the stuff I didn't record.  I'll start with pictures from the cake decorating class.  Lots and lots of fun!  I'm embarrassed to say that I made the purple cake with white flowers.  As it would turn out, making the frosting the right consistency is about 90% of the process, and mine was clearly too stiff on this day.  The little sports cupcakes were made by the 11 year old who took the class...she was doing a GREAT job! 

For our "Final Exam" we had to make those cute, but very irritating to make, roses you always see on cakes.  I personally don't know if I would put them on too many cakes, but I'll never say never!  I did the pink flowers.  They are actually HOT pink flowers, I may have used a bit too much pink, but now I know what to use if I ever want to make a Hannah Montana cake!  The other 2 cakes are by a mother and daughter...I can't wait to take my little Samantha to do this sort of thing!