ac/db

My dear friend and co-worker was complaining that our office looked so bare for the holiday season. As I was reading one of my favourite blogs, I found the perfect idea! These little guys are pretty darn cute! Check out ours:



Thank you Makula! See the Makula website to make your own!

This is the 4th year that my friend and I attended a wreath making class. I always love how my wreath's have turned out and this year is no exception!

Here is my wreath:



Here is my friend's wreath:


Click here to see our wreath's from last year... so different!

Oooohhhhh Halloween was great this year! I carved my pumpkin in a pretty simple design compared to previous years. I loved my sister's pumpkin! It's awesome! I wish she would send me pictures of it in the dark!

My pumpkin for 2009

My sister's pumpkin

Then a bunch of us went to the local bomb fire and fireworks party down at the ball fields. The fire seemed really big this year - but I think it is because we got there early. Great fireworks display too!

I found this awesome tutorial to make some fun Halloween decorations on Forty-two Roads blog. They look so fun! I want to make them!

I already bought my pumpkin and am excited to carve it!

I know that Thanksgiving has just passed and Halloween isn't even here yet, but I can't help but thinking of things I want to make for X-Mas! So, I did some searching around and here are some great tutorials that I found:

1. Ribbon Wreath

Picture from The Long Thread

2. Advent Calendar

Picture from Sew Mama Sew

3. How to Make a Paper Finnish Star

Picture is from Craft Ideas

4. Quilled Snowflake Ornament

Picture is from Reese Dixon

I am starting to get more energy and I decided to go to the market this weekend. There was lots of fresh fruits and veggies and I ended up spending about an hour there. The local berries looked amazing and it is getting to the end of the season, so I had to get some! I ended up making a beautiful berry crisp with them and it turned out wonderful (see picture above - nummy eh?). db is really enjoying it with ice cream. The crisp was super simple to make and took about 20 minutes (mostly because I couldn't find the brown sugar!) to put together and I baked it for about 45 minutes.

I got the recipe here. I made a couple changes:

- I used margarine instead of butter (I had no butter in the fridge)
- I used blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries - approximately 2 cups each
- I baked mine in a 8 x 13 glass dish - wouldn't do this again! I would use a deeper dish and not as long of a dish.
- Next time I make this, I am going to cut out some sugar - even though it was really really nummmy - I don't know if it needs all that sugar!

This week's tutorial is going to be a little different. When I wasn't feeling well, I only could drink smoothies for breakfast and I thought I would share the recipe that I found that worked the best:

Strawberry-Banana Smoothie (Try other fruits too!)
1 cup of milk
8 ice cubes
1/4 cup of vanilla yogurt
1 - 2 bananas
1/4 - 1/2 cup strawberries

Put everything in a blender and mix! Makes about 2 pint sized glasses of smoothie.

Anybody else have a favourite smootie recipe?

Hopefully I am on the mend - I have been sick for a couple weeks and I have had no energy to do anything. Today I am still feeling queesy, but am fighting it. I have been to the doctor and I think we have figured out what is wrong and she has prescribed some antibiotics which I pick up today. I am hoping that will make for a fast recovery!

Okay, now on to fun stuff! I have a couple of beautiful nieces birthday parties to go to in September and I wanted to make them something really special. I have been flipping slowly through blogs, when I found this amazing blog by this nice lady Dana called Made. She has tonnes of tutorials and links to fun kids clothing tutorials. I am digging this blog for sure!

The first tutorial I think I will try from her collection is this market skirt. It looks fairly simple to make, but has some funkiness to it. I have some cute fabric that should work perfectly. Hopefully if I am feeling better in the next couple days I can get to work!



This cute market skirt tutorial can be found by clicking here.

These past couple weeks have been a bit crazy... we had 3 sets of visitors! I promise to post something fun this week! I PROMISE!

I have a little time in between ball games today, so I thought I would share a bag I recently made.

A good friend of mine asked me to make her a bag similar to the pink bag I made for the Book Lovers Craft Swap. We talked a little about what she wanted and I made a new pattern. This bag I made was bigger, had 2 different sized pockets, and a magnetic clasp. I used the MoMo Wonderland Twill fabric - which I LOVED! It was really nice! I wish I would have boughten more of it! Overall, I really liked how this bag turned out.

The inside of the bag - 2 different sized pockets.

This bag turned out to be 18" wide by 14" tall (finished). I used the same tutorials to create this bag as the previous one:
Mama's Pocket Book - Free Tote
Lazy Girl's Instructions on how to do boxed corners

If you are wanting to make yourself a nice bag this summer - I recommend starting with these tutorials. This bag probably took me 2 hours to make. Most of the time was spent on cutting out the material as I used interfacing on all the pieces to ensure the bag kept it shape. I also used fusible fleece to interface the handle - this will make it comfortable on the shoulders.