Hem Your Day in Prayer

Another Crafty Day! : )
I started this morning, making more thank you cards.  I stamped, and punched, and made tags with ribbons:

Next, I mounted them on the cards:

Then, I had to fill a couple in-we are so blessed that our friends are giving to our team, Mary Claire's Friends Who Care-even online! : )  They get super-expensive, and I'd much rather make them-so cute!
This morning, I made copies at the school, didn't even get to see my kiddos : ( then went by the church to get started on the books/envelopes.  And what to my wondering eyes did appear...but my long-lost friends!  They were up front getting ready to say the rosary together.  Sweet Becky came back to invite me to pray with them-I couldn't even tell who they were up there.  The church is dark in the afternoons, but I don't need much light-there's plenty coming through the stained glass.  ..Anyway!  I went up, and they had already gone through their prayer intentions, and they made me laugh (if that's not wrong?)!  They had prayed for everything-so they said I was covered!  Then (since there were five of us), we gave thanks between each decade-and they pray FAST!  Whew-I thought I was fast, but they were tongue-twisting me!  It was good to pray together-there is always strength in numbers. : )


So, then I finished the books, got some lunch, and went back to Hobby Lobby today after seeing how amazingly sewing occupied my kids-they LoVeD it!  I got a few more colors of embroidery thread, more needles (with bigger eyes!), and a sewing kit for Mary Claire-I was planning to buy the little things, but it was just easier (and cheaper!) to get a little sewing kit (and it came in PiNk!).  So..we used it all again today!  I was most surprised how Clay got into it.  We just all sat in my bedroom floor, listened to music, and sewed.  Even Ethan sewed stitches!

Here is Ethan and his "pillow".  He did the green stitches on the white felt, then asked me to sew on pom-poms: The green is him, the orange is Clay, and Mary Claire is blue (so sweet!), then he wanted me to make a pillow so he could stuff it!  He plans to use it for his beanie baby Elephant to sleep on (yes, he decided this on his own!):

(This was later, he was over in the corner, cutting up fabric with Mary Claire's new scissors)

This is Clay's pillow he made for Mary Claire's Polly Pockets-so sweet of him, and he made the pillow, stuffed it, closed it, made the blue lines, then wove the green in-so detailed!  I only helped him thread his needle once, and helped him tie a couple knots.  (This tells me Mary Claire will be so advanced in a year!):

(Don't you love how you get all these close-up looks at my carpet??) heehee
So, then we had dinner, Ches took Clay to baseball practice (first game tomorrow!), and I watched Ethan swim, while I closed up Mary Claire's next cupcake.  She's decided to give the Practice Cupcake to her teacher, so she wanted to get hers done. She did everything else, but asked me to close up the brown cakey top to the cupcake wrapper:

I forgot to tell you that Clay lost a tooth today-a Big Boy tooth!  He told me it was loose last night, but since he's my oldest, I wasn't sure it was a tooth that was supposed to come out.  I told him to leave it alone!  Well, he pulled it at school.  He learned at GT yesterday all about stock, and told me he wants to save his money and buy Wal-Mart stock!  That is an expense I can get behind. : )  So, all this evening was about the Tooth Fairy. (!)  We've totally covered this, but he figures he'll get more this way (I think).  He made her a new wand, magnets to carry metal teeth (!), a string with handle (to slide down from lamps), and wrote her a letter:

Then, he stayed up (since it was Friday), and made her a pillow, bed, and blanket, and sewed them all together:

Can you see the tiny bed?  He said she's only the size of a nickel, and Mary Claire argued she's Polly Pocket size, then they argued over how she carries money. Clay says she uses her magic wand to shrink things down.  He had this pile of stuff to put under his pillow (what a job for me!), so I had him put the "kit" in a Ziploc, just so she doesn't "forget" anything!  And since our tooth fairy is Super Forgetful, I have a huge document on my computer that *hopefully* will remind me!


So, then the kids went to bed, and I continued my next project: the matching hairbows!  I think I told you I ordered the ribbon last week, and now it's time to get down to business.  The JDRF Walk to Cure is next Saturday, so Chop-Chop!  We picked turquoise with zebra, so here's our bow:

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I usually make them bigger, but I've had a few girls register to walk since I ordered ribbon, so I've had to shorten them each a tiny bit so there's enough matching ribbon!  My goal is 20 bows, so let's see where I am in a week..  I think I've made three turquoise, and one zebra = that's a lot left to do!


 

Sewing Cupcakes

Wednesdays are the new Mondays-the night when Ches is gone to a training (used to be teaching on Monday nights, got out of that, and got himself right back into a night-gig!).
We're alone, and S-L-O-W!  Clay had baseball practice at Balls-n-Strikes (Very Cool place to practice batting, catching, etc. INDOORS!)  Wish I'd thought of it!  It's just a big warehouse.  That's it.  And some netting between each player/team, batting tees & helmets.  And a drink vending machine.  Uber cool.
All the boys were sweaty, and I got Clay a water, but I felt bad for all the other kids.  They may have had drinks, but next time I'll be taking a case of water.  They were working hard!

We had yummy dinner: Tomato Basil Bean soup (from Harry & David!), and grill cheese sandwiches (you must try this: two slices of Everything bread from Wal-Mart, butter the outsides, and pile in grated cheddar jack cheese, brown, and Voila-YUM!)-so good!  I sent some off with Ches to his training (in our professional-looking take away tubs from PF Changs!), and mom & dad came by (sick), so I sent some with them too!  And there was still some left. : )

After we took Clay to practice (and there's no room to sit around with two kids), Mary Claire, Ethan and I went to Hobby Lobby (which is super close) to shop a little.  My goal was to find some tie-dye fabric to match her new school shirt to make matching pants.  (I looked at Jo Ann's this morning-and I was overwhelmed! but no tie-dye.  I also checked the Fayetteville Hobby Lobby, but to no avail.)  We searched fabric, found tons of cute books (NOT on sale-so I have ordered one online-so much cheaper at Amazon.com!), and Mary Claire is begging to learn to sew, so she wants a sewing "kit".  I told her we'd just make one.  She needs some needles, pins, a pin cushion (and we are making custom ones!)

This one is kinda like our goal-we'll see how it looks when we're done!  We got pinks, browns, grays, and white.  And little pom-poms for our cherries.


.....Ok, this is how it played out.  We started by rolling our felt, but it didn't look thick enough, so when Mary Claire told me that's not how she was going to do it, I told her to show me her idea.  Much cuter! : )
First, we cut a circle out of the light pink (cupcake color), then she stitched on the white frosting:

Then, we cut out a hot pink cupcake wrapper (using the bottom of a can of Pam for the size).  We sewed the ends of the rectangle together, then whip-stitched on the bottom:

Next, we stuffed it, added the topper (pinned it on the four sides so it'd be equally gathered), and stitched the top to the bottom, the same way we did the bottom:

Then, Ta-Da!  Our final product!  We added a pom-pom cherry, and a few pins:

Isn't it just darling?  We had to hurry up-we worked till after nine tonight (bad mommy guilt!) since she had dance till 6:40, and she just wanted to keep going!  Clay came in for a little bit and wanted me to read to him (he read ALL of Maniac Magee today-181 pages!) and wanted me to read a couple chapters (ch. 40-42) to him while he sewed on my frosting.  (This one was actually our practice-she wants her real one to be chocolate with pink polka dot wrapper, and my real one is hot/light pink and gray)  They are all snuggled in bed now, so I'm next! : )


I hope you can understand my gobbledy-gook!  Maybe you can make one for yourself, daughter (for her first sewing kit?), or for your favorite seamstress!  (Ps-school boxes are only 25 cents at Wal-Mart right now, and the PeRfEcT size for a beginner's sewing box!)