Secrets Revealed and Another Win for Me....

The secret has been revealed....wasn't what I guessed but just as good!!

Kim of YCMT and Kris of JesseKate Designs and YCMT have started a new DIY site....

how awesome for all of us!

The DIY Dish.....creativity served

I can't wait to see what they have planned-I know it's going to be great!!




They will be "dishing out” brand new DIY projects in sewing, crafting, scrapbooking, home decor, kid projects, machine embroidery, hand embroidery, and more! It’s going to be all videos......for free .....can't get much better than that!! Again I say, how awesome for us!!!

To celebrate the launch of their new show, they are giving away not one but two Janome machines...one sewing, one embroidery. Oh, how I would love an embroidery machine. Check out their new site for all the details!!

Luck is with me again.....I won another blog contest-yeah!! My husband keeps asking how come I've been so lucky, I just tell him they picked my name and leave out the details about how many contests I've entered! Katie of Katie's Nesting Spot

had a giveaway for 5 Olive Kids placemats and we received them yesterday.

My son (it's so hard not to still say my baby, sniff) loves his placemats. Here is looking at the Heroes placemat. He loves trucks, trains, anything that moves so this is perfect for him. I also got him the trucks and trains one and a dinosaur one. I got my two youngest girls the mermaid one. They are all personalized and very brightly colored. He's been carrying his around since I gave it to him and loves pointing at all the pictures. Thanks Katie and Olive Kids.

They've got a secret....can you guess what it is????

youcanmakethis.com has a secret they've been keeping from us........

it will be revealed soon......hopefully, real soon,

can you guess what it is??

All the these pictures are clues to the big secret.....

any guesses????

Visit the YCMT blog and comment on what your guess is and you'll be entered into a random drawing to win a bag of all kinds of DIY goodies including fabric....

what an awesome prize and I can't wait to find out what the secret is!

My Love, Love, Love Heart

Let the Valentine decorating begin.....

(yes, hanging my head, I did just take down my Christmas card garland and put my nativity set away yesterday)

I started this last week but just put it together yesterday and I can feel the love! It looks so cute in the entryway.

It took a little while to make the heart but it wasn't difficult. I did it in Microsoft Word and just played around with the spacing so it would look like a heart. I used all different fonts and tried to space out the ones that were bolder. I started off with 20 for a font size because I had an 8x10 frame that I was planning on using. The heart by itself looked really lost and blah in the 8X10 though and since I couldn't get out to check out any scrapbook paper or embellishments - my 4 year old has been down with a stomach bug all week - I made do with what I had. I changed the font to 16 and went with the 5x7 frame and some cute Valentine Day fabric.

I can't take credit for this idea-wish I could, but I know I saw something like this on another blog. I'm pretty sure it was on one of the blogs that lets you link up your projects every week (love those link ups) - but I've tried to look for it and I can't find it anywhere. This is why I really need to put a notebook by my computer so I can jot ideas down. That or I really need to start marking my favorites more often. I always think oh I'll remember that.......yeah, right! I have no memory after 5 children. The project I saw had 3 small frames with I love you each in a different frame. The love part of the saying was a heart like I made-I'm not sure how it was made, I just saw the picture and thought it was cute. If this is your project or you know whose blog it is, please let me know so I can link up and give you/them credit.

Edited to add.....I found where I saw the heart to begin with.....it was at The Stories of A to Z. Beth has been having a mantel party on her blog every week and I saw the heart when she showed us her Valentine's Day Mantel. Her mantel parties are every Friday and another great place to get some wonderful, creative ideas. She did print her heart out and it's way cute! She just tweaked her mantel for the holiday and you can see it here. Glad I finally found it so I can give credit where credit is due. Thank you to all who share their creativity with all of us daily.

In honor of Valentine's Day and love and sharing (both of which my children are having trouble with this week!), if anyone is interested, I'd love to send this file to you. Right now, it's saved in the size 16 font but it's easy to change to make smaller or bigger. Send me your email address or leave a comment here and I'll send it out as soon as I can. If you do use it, I'd love for you to leave a comment with a link or send me a picture so I can see what you've done and we can share all the projects.

I linked up to Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple,

Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog,

Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design

and

Show Off Your Stuff at Fireflies and Jellybeans.

How to make your mom feel old.....Part 2

With my daughter's birthday last week and my son's coming up, the girls and I were chatting over the weekend about birthdays, when they were all born and when I got married.

My 6 year old: I can't believe how young you was when you were married.

(I was 24, turned 25 on my honeymoon.....oh a birthday in Hawaii-how I'd love to do that again some day.!)

My 9 year old: Yeah, you were so much younger when you got married and had a baby.

Me: What, you think I'm old now.....

My 9 year old: No (slight pause)- not old, just not that much younger anymore.

Good way to try to make nice to mom!!

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I'm very honored and excited to be featured today on Somewhat Simple

Steph is highlighting Baby and Kid items and she featured some of the baby bibs I've made for gifts!

WOW!

Big Happenings at our House......

we've had a busy few-and emotional for mom-days at our house

On Monday, my youngest (I need to stop calling him the baby) got his haircut for the first time...sniff, sniff. I really resisted this and put it off for probably waaaaayyyy too long. Not probably, yes, way too long-oh boy, I had such a hard time with this. After he was called a girl again last week, I bit the bullet and while the girls had school off and my husband was home on Monday, we went to the hair salon. I had a knot in my stomach the whole time.

Before.....

During.....
After.....
He looks adorable but so different and of course, older. He was so good and the hair stylist was so fast. As you can see, she gave him a lollipop and he was happy as can be!

The girls loved their lollipops too-they were so excited to see him have his haircut-I'm glad we did it while they were home.
and as if the haircut wasn't enough for me.....my oldest daughter celebrated her 13th birthday yesterday-sniff, sniff, sniff!

13
Wow!! Aaahhh!
I'm still trying not to think about having a teenager!!

It's hard to believe that 13 years ago, I was just starting off with my first child, but what a wonderful 13 years it has been.

We went out to Red Robin after the haircut and had a fun dinner. The birthday person always gets to pick where they want to go for dinner. We celebrated again last night with some more ice cream sundaes-she doesn't really like cake/cupcakes-and presents.

Happy, Happy 13th Birthday!!


My thoughts and prayers are with all the people of Haiti and all those families who have relatives in Haiti. My girls' school is collecting money for the Red Cross. When you donate money, they are putting your name on a set of hands and posting it in the hallway to show the kids how much they can all do by working together. They went way above their desired goal the first day! and have collected way more than they ever thought. Although it's easy to feel helpless, it's wonderful to see our community and other communities across the United States doing whatever they can to help out.

We have a winner!!!

and the winner is #6!!!

Juliana from A Blond Walks Into a Blog.......

who can now say she has won her second ever giveaway-she's been very lucky lately!!

Thanks to all who entered-I love doing giveaways-I'll have to plan some more.

Juliana-send me your address and I'll get the notebook cover out to you.

I love tshirt re-purposing.......

Love, love, love it!

My 4 year old fell in love with this Princess shirt at Walmart.....on clearance-yeah!.....her present size-yeah!......short sleeves-boo! I knew it wouldn't fit her in the spring/summer.

Ashley from Make It and Love It to the rescue! I again used her tutorial on taking a shirt from short sleeves to long-easy, peasy, lemon squeezy!!

That's my 6 year old's favorite new saying but I'm not sure where she heard it!

The now long sleeve Princess shirt that my daughter wore on Sunday. I forgot to take some pictures of her so please excuse the wrinkles and possible stains. I used an older pink tshirt of hers that was too small for the sleeves and ruffles.

I decided to fancy the tshirt up and put a ruffle around the neck. I didn't have much time because my daughter was jumping around my sew maching waiting to put her shirt on, so I didn't pregather the ruffle, I did it just like this.
Very simple and quick!

Once my daughter wore the shirt for the day, I thought the sleeves were a little too short so yesterday, I cut a 2 inch strip from the same pink tshirt and sewed it around the bottom of the arm. I didn't gather it at all, I just stretched the arm of the shirt but did not stretch the strip of fabric and it kind of gathers on its own. I just realized looking at the picture that I need to trim those arm ruffles a bit to even them out. Someone has moved my sewing scissors again so I was just using regular craft scissors.

I'm linking up to Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design,

Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple,

Show Off Your Stuff at Fireflies and Jellybeans and

Today's Creative Blog Get Your Craft On

Check out these blogs for lots of great ideas!