My fairy princess.

Olivia is going to be a fairy for Halloween. Yesterday she wanted to wear her "fairy crown" so naturally I felt it was a perfect opportunity for a photo op. I thought these turned out really sweet and interesting. The fact that I think my daughter is the most beautiful girl in the world may have something to do with my attraction to these photos :).

Elsa Mora

I've always been intrigued by paper cuts and these are particularly beautiful. Each of her works are intricately detailed. I find the pieces with designs within figures to be the most interesting. I found her beautiful work through a post at mmmcrafts blogspot. Check out more of Elsa's work at her blog devoted to paper cutting. She had also made resources available for learning the art for yourself.

Jackson's birthday.

Thank you Christopher McLaughlin for taking such beautiful photos! You can view more of his photography at TenfoldImages.com.

GROSGRAIN MINI STORE OPENING NOVEMBER 6!!!! AND BIG PREVIEW GIVEAWAY!!!!

GROSGRAIN MINI STORE OPENING NOVEMBER 6!!!! AND BIG PREVIEW GIVEAWAY!!!!

Party decorations!

We had a party for our little guy over the weekend and it was great! It was the first party that I've ever hosted (with guests other than my immediate family) so it was a lot of  fun planning and decorating for. I couldn't manage being the host, at least a social one, and being the photographer. Fortunately I had a friend who is a great photographer at the party who happened to bring his great camera who took some shots of the birthday boy for me. I'll share some of those when I get them. Here's a few shots (that I took the next morning) of the decorations. The tissue paper pom-poms were a MarthaStewart.com idea. They were really easy to make and looked really neat. I got the directions to make those here. My frog prince blow-outs were inspired by these barnyard blow-outs also at MarthaStewart.com. I made the keepsake candle holder for Jackson by painting a little wooden boy peg and a wooden wheel (you can find that stuff in the wooden toy craft section of a store like Hobby Lobby). I was inspired by the wonderful cake toppers at The Small Object. Josh drilled the hole for the candle for me, I was afraid I'd end up drilling a hole in my finger. I used some scrapbook paper and stickers that I already had to make the paper flag garland and banner. I think I ended up spending a whopping 6 dollars on decorations and it all looked great together. The only thing about making the decor myself was that it's hard to just throw it away afterwards. The pom-poms did find their way to the trash but the flag garland is now hanging up on the ceiling of the kids playroom in the basement.

I love Fall!

This post is a bit tardy but I still wanted to share. Fall is my favorite season, for several reasons. I love the colors, the crisp air, the smell of the leaves, and the food! All of those spices and warm colors and flavors and something about the change in the weather is exciting. The fact that you have three fun holidays jammed up right after one another helps too. It's just the best. In celebration of Fall I brightened up our front stoop. I had mentioned that Olivia and I picked quite a bit of Indian corn at Miller Farms and that I had made a swag out of it all. It graced the pantry door for over a week on an over-the-door hook I stole from my bathroom. I finally got out and picked up a wreath hook so that it could grace our front door the day of Jackson's birthday party, and stop swishing and swaying every time I opened our pantry door :). The corn looks really pretty against the blue of our front door. I grouped together some of the gourds and pumpkins we also picked at the farm and found a door mat on clearance at Target to finish the look. My mom also found a great bench for us at a thrift store. It needs some love but it'll look really nice once we retreat the wood. It's been handy spot for dumping playground sand out of little shoes and watching the rain.

One year of wonderful!

My baby boy is one today and I just had to post in honor of the milestone. He was born twelve months ago weighing not quite seven and a half pounds. Its been amazing to watch him grow and see his personality begin to shine through his little person. He is such a sweet little boy always full of smiles, my little ball of sunshine. I truly believe that children are God's most precious gifts to us. I'm reminded of the innocence that we all begin with. Children are so beautifully pure. I'm honored to have such beautiful gifts as my own, thankful that God has shared them with me. I pray that I can keep the beauty of their world intact for as long as possible. Happy birthday Jackson, thank you for blessing my life each day.

Happy Birthday Dad!

I made this desktop caddy for my father's birthday, he turned 50 on the 2nd. He's going to be commuting to his new job and staying there Monday-Thursday then commuting back home for Friday and the weekend. He'll have two offices for a while and my thought was that this organizer would help him stay, well organized. Plus it can be portable. He didn't receive it until last night, better late than never as they say. I blame my tardiness on two small children that constantly run (or crawl) around my house all day. This is another pattern from the fabulous Amy Butler In Stitches book. This project ended up much more difficult than I anticipated. I was thinking "ok a box, how hard can that be?". Well let me tell ya. The stabilizer was difficult to work with and the lining ended up all bunchy. I wasn't satisfied with the sturdiness of the finished project (the longer sides bowed out and didn't keep there shape even after repeated ironing and creasing), so I made a make-shift divider to give it more stability. I have to admit, as much as I love Amy Butler and her books, I didn't enjoy making this project very much and this will probably be the last little caddy I'll attempt. So here it is in it's limited glory. I hope it will be useful to my dad and that he enjoys it.

Not so slim pickin's!

Last weekend I took the kids and my mom (Josh had to work :( ) to Miller Farms. It's a farm in Platteville, CO. I went with a group and paid 10 bucks to get in. We went on a hay ride through the fields and picked our own vegetables. There's also big tractors for the kids to sit on and loads of other things to climb around and play on. We had such a great time! You get to take home EVERYTHING you pick! I'm talking pounds and pounds of produce! We ended up with corn, red potatoes, yellow onions, beets, green beans, carrots, peppers, acorn squash, butternut squash, pie pumpkins, decorative gourds, and Indian corn. The gourds are gracing our front step and I've made an Indian corn swag I guess I'll call it for the front door. We've eaten some of the corn, potatoes and onions. I made a wonderful pasta with a butternut squash and will be making a soup this weekend. I can't tell you how awesome I think it is to have all of this wonderful food in my fridge and pantry that my daughter and I picked ourselves. I think this will become an annual family tradition!

Fabric Beach Ball

My son will be one on the 20th, I can't hardly believe it! His first year went by so fast! I made this ball for his birthday, though I already gave it to him. I don't do well waiting sometimes :). We've already had some great fun with it. I used a tutorial from The Purl Bee. They have a huge list of fantastic tutorials if you're ever looking for a fun project. The printed fabric you might recognize as leftovers from the duvet cover and the wonderful warm red I paired with it came from some scraps given to me by my grandmother. Jackson really likes his ball. The only problem is that Olivia does too. Oh well, it'll give me another tool for future lessons in sharing :).

Pillow Shams!

We have completely new bedding now! Well except for sheets, and no I'm not planning on making those myself. Josh picked out the fabric for the shams and I think everything looks just lovely together. No one can say we're afraid of color. That's about as bold as it gets. The walls are going to be the warm grey found in some of the fabric which will give a nice neutral backdrop for all the color going on in the bedding. I have lots of fun decor ideas for the rest of the room, I'll just have to do a little at a time. Half the fun is in the planning anyway :).