2 Sisters Living the Dream

While I was in Madison, WI, this past weekend I stumbled across a very cool indie craft shop called Anthology. It was just opened by two crafty sisters in March. They have done an outstanding job with this. They feature the work of about 20 indie craft artists, or so I have read. You can read about all of the details at madison.com. If you are near State Street in Madison any time soon, I suggest you give them a visit. You will not be disappointed.

They had a table set up in back where you could try some veggie stamping.

And there were the yummiest looking softies!
These felted treats reminded me of the Warm Fuzzies book I just got by Betz White.
We went rummage saling and I was on the lookout for wool sweaters for my newly found craft of felting but I only found one drab black sweater for $5 and I couldn't get myself to pay that much for a sweater at a rummage sale, plus I was looking for bright colors for the cupcake pin cushions I want to make.

Car Art

Ken and I spent the weekend in Madison (capitol of WI, which is a state in the central U.S. -- New Yorkers often ask me where WI is and I find that funny).  I went for a Mac class and since my brother lives there we made a weekend of it.  During our outing on Saturday in the downtown area we came upon this car that I had to take a few shots of so that I could share with you.  Is this person artistic or what?!  We wonder what kind of glue they used.  You have to appreciate this person's artistic flair.  There is no lack of flair on this car.

Speed Queen to the Rescue

Warm Fuzzies by Betz White arrived today. So many CUTE projects in this book! After I read the section on how to felt wool sweaters, I hurried to my closet to see what I could find to felt. I found one 100% wool sweater that would never fit me in my life time since my husband already started the felting process on it! I would have continued with a second attempt to felt it but by quite a coincidence, my dryer broke today! I discovered this when I was about to put the second load of clothes in the dryer and found the first load was still wet and cold. Both loads ended up in the Speed Queens at the laundromat. We are heading to Madison tomorrow to visit my brother and we will be doing some rummage saling so I will be on the lookout for more wool sweaters--brightly colored ones for the cupcakes I plan to make from this book. I can hardly wait to make them, they are so cute and yummy looking!

First Quilt is Almost Ready for the Wall

Sewing is very relaxing for me and I can sew for hours and it seems like 15 minutes. I continued hand stitching the binding to the back of my first quilt this evening. I can probably finish it in one more sitting. I have no idea how to hang a small quilt on a wall so if anybody can give me any pointers on how to do that, I'd appreciate it very much. Here is the nearly finished quilt with 2.5 sides of the binding completed...
I haven't been talking much about my marathon training. That is because I am getting discouraged. I have been very tired on my runs lately. I had to split a 6 miler into 2 separate runs today. I am planning on doing a 1/2 marathon in May so things need to improve soon. I need the right mix of proteins and carbohydrates and much more water in my diet. If any of you are runners, I'd like to know if you ever get into these zones where you repeatedly hit a wall too early in a run and if you do, how do you deal with that?

On another subject, we are nearing the one year anniversary of my blog! Crazy. One year. Time could slow down and I would not complain for one second. I have been putting some thought into a give away to celebrate this anniversary so stay tuned for more information on that.

Scrapbooking 2 Days in a Row?!

I have this softies book, by Therese Laskey, checked out from our local library. There are several really cute projects in this book that I want to make, two of them being the tooth and the tree on the front cover. The cupcake inside looks good enough to eat as well. I may have to purchase this for my craft book library.

We were back to scrapbooking this evening. Scrapbooking, let alone two days in a row, is somewhat out of the ordinary for me these days but then again, it's been awhile since I've done any and I like to change things up a lot so in all actuality this is probably not so unordinary for me. Lydia created two of her own pages while I decided to finish this 7x7 album I've been working on for her. It contains pictures from last summer and every picture is of Lydia with either mom, dad, or the both of us. Two things prompted me to make this. One, I noticed that a very outdated picture of the three of us was very important to her and realized it was really the only picture she had handy of the three of us. (It's in a frame and she keeps it under her pillow and takes it with her on sleepovers too.) Two, she loves to look through other albums I have made for her. I thought she would like to have a entire album containing pictures of just the three of us spending time together and so now she does. This size album will pack nicely in an overnight bag for when she sleeps over at auntie's house.
I can focus on starting that Disney album now.

Scrapbooking & Butterfly Nets

Lydia helped me organize all of the photos we took while at Disneyland last month and I now have all the supplies I need to make an album of our trip, thanks to Sarah. I was going to get a start on it tonight but instead I helped Lydia create a page in her scrapbook and she did a great job as you can see! This was all after she rode her big girl bike with mom to the Little Plover River Park (which is a couple of blocks away) to do some "fishing" with her butterfly net (dad does not fish, can you tell?). She didn't have any luck catching fish with her butterfly net so she called Uncle Matt for some fishing pointers when we got home.

Crafty Books to Inspire

I ordered these books this weekend and can't wait for them to arrive! They have received great reviews on Amazon.com and several blogs I follow. I will be sure to post the projects I make from these. So excited!

Birthday Girl

Zoe is twelve today. We celebrated with a nice supper, peanut butter pup cups, spice cake with cream cheese frosting, and presents. Happy Birthday Zoe! We love you! Zoe is wearing her fancy shmancy bandanna that I embroidered especially for her last year.

Trashed Office

This is my home office and no, I don't throw trash around if I am having a bad day. This is what my dogs do if I forget to shut my office door. I don't know for sure why they do this. My dogs are not puppies any longer, they are twelve years old. Scout has an attitude. I used to think it was him who was doing this to annoy me but one time after I had left the house and returned within a minute to grab something I had forgotten, I caught Zoe in the act of digging through my garbage can.

This is Zoe, she will be twelve tomorrow. Her dad makes her get this haircut every summer. She normally looks like this.

And this is Scout. These pictures of the dogs were taken on a vacation we took last summer to the Porcupine Mountains in Upper Michigan.

Creepy Crawly

How do you like our new sunglasses?

Well, we had to give these glasses back after the movie. When we were at Disneyland we went to the It's a Bugs Life 3D show. It was pretty creepy because bugs were flying right at our faces. There was also something under our seats that when activated felt like bugs were crawling over our legs!

Look Mom No Training Wheels!

Lydia and I went to a stamping class tonight and we each made 4 cards. She was so interested in what we were doing and had so much fun. I really enjoyed doing this with her because she enjoyed it so much. She is very proud of her cards too. She already has one written out for dad when he comes home from work tonight.

Lydia rode her bike on Sunday for the first time without training wheels. It was so cute and she was so proud. Two of our neighbors were over and after we were all watching her for quite awhile she got off of her bike, brought it close to us and asked who wanted to see her bike. We had all been "seeing" it for quite awhile and now we were all within 3 feet of her bike and could see it quite well but she wanted each of us to touch her bike. Shortly thereafter she asked (quite seriously) if any of us would like her autograph. So sweet!

Sparkly Card Swap

I am part of a monthly card swap. The theme for this month is "sparkle". For this card I was inspired by a card in the latest issue of Paper Crafts (page 54). You can download the template for the bird and flourish from the Paper Crafts web site. Ken, Lydia, and I are going for a bike ride now to deliver these and they are ready to go...