ac/db

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.

Remember I promised to post some photo's of what I received in the 'Pimp My Office' craft swap? Well, here it is! My partner used some of my Wists to create some neat pieces:

1. Fun Comic Book Tray - Looks like she recycled a box and covered with Batman pictures. It is pretty cool - I probably won't take it to my work office, but leave it at home to put my sewing projects in.


2. A Desk Calendar - I love having a desk calendar to quickly look at dates. My craft partner made this cool desk calendar that can stand up. I love all the pretty paper she used to create this!


3. A pretty cool ring - I am not sure what this ring is made of, but she used wonderful colours and it is really funky


4. A vase which broke in the mail (boo hoo). But I think I can salvage the beads!

Happy Canada Day everybody! For readers outside of Canada - July 1st is Canada's Birthday (Wanna know more about Canada's Birthday? Check it out on Wikipedia).

Another item to celebrate is it our friend's little girl's first birthday! We will be attending a BBQ to celebrate both occasions. I been stressed to the max trying to decide what to get her for her birthday. Still not sure - but I will hit the mall and hope for some inspiration. I would have made her something, but we have been away at a baseball tournament and just got back this evening.