Randomness On A Tuesday

Life has been a bit crazy of late. TaeKwonDo tournaments, birthdays, flag football practices and games, baby showers....

Sharing a little of my adoption heart over HERE

Working on new items and getting some ready to restock in the shop.

Making cupcakes {more later on that}

And playing with some fun new felt!

Over the weekend I made this fun new coffee cuff for myself to test out:

Lurve it. I needed a new Russia one to reflect my littlest little's personality. This does it. :)

It's a new eco friendly wool blend I am thinking of adding to the mix of my felt items in the shop. Recently, I tried out another new and fabulous felt, but not sure it's going to make the cut {haha}. I lurve it as well, but after a few weeks of testing it out compared to the eco friendly felt I've been using, it's just not quite what I was expecting. However, I could totally see it being used in some other crafty applications in the future, just not my coffee cuffs.

{I see a blog post dedicated to felt in my future...}

Happy Mail!

I love getting happy little packages in the mail and yesterday?! My mail person brought this:

I ordered the sampler pack from The Twinery. I love it. I couldn't decide on just one color, so I thought this would be a good choice to check out and see which I would like best.

Ha! I still cannot decide! And whats more? They have added another fabulous sampler pack in new colors to their shop. Sigh...love...just cannot choose my favorite.

What I will decide? Is to use the contents of this happy little package on happy little packages sent to lovely  Little Bird customers!

Happy happy.

Almost Got Caught!

Funny little story...

The other day I was busily sewing away in the Little Bird studio when time quickly got away and it was time to go get my boy from school!

I started to walk out the door and did one last check in the mirror before walking out....

Hehe...good thing I did! This is what I was about to walk out the door wearing. Can you see what items should probably not join me?

One would be my rosette pincushion ring...and the other my measuring tape! Ha! I cannot tell you how many times I have almost done this.

Funny thing is...I still had felt pieces clinging to my jeans anyway....

Yeah, I am sure the other moms at school think I am a dork. I am OK with that. :)

My Very Favoritest Pair

My sun glasses. My favorite sunglasses suddenly bit the dust the other day.

I am sad. My very favoritest (I know, not really word, but let's go with it...) pair that took me forever to find (at Target) and the same pair that traveled to Russia with me when I met Songbird.

Broken. Not fixable. Boo.

Just to give you a little history on me and sunglasses...I have one pair that I LOVED and wore forever that I got on sale. They were Fossil and they were perfect in every way for me...AND they were plum color! I'm not kidding when I say I bought them when I was 17years old and wore them until I was 25.

Yes, yes I did.

I would probably still be wearing them had they not fallen off my head, while I was carrying my huge baby in his carrier to the car, and crashed to the garage floor. They stayed intact just fine, but the lenses were all scratched up. Boo.

SO, I went to my old stand-by ones. Ya know, that extra pair one stashes in case of such things. Ones I bought for a ridiculous $4 when I was the ripe old age of 14. Oh yes, I still had those and wore those until about two years ago.

It sometimes is a little embarrassing...especially when people comment and want to know where I got them...

How to you tell people you've had them over 10 (plus, plus, plus) years and when you do tell them such a thing, guess what?! They look at you like you're a little silly...OR they think it's awesome...

Yeah, Oh well....

So, clearly, when I needed to go in search of new sunglasses, this next pair had to have some serious wow effect with me. Okay, really, comfy. I need comfy and something that helps when evil migraines occur.

Also? I seem to do best with the not really expensive brands, because I am certain! certain, that I would lose or sit on them or something within three seconds. Because, did you read? $4...and lasted almost forever.

SO, when my son saw my broken sunglasses on the kitchen counter, he picked them up, gave me a "oh mom, so sad"face and then said, "I will take a look at them and see if I can fix them for you, mom!".

Ack! I love that kid. He truly gets the importance of mom's sunglasses. Which I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not....

However, this weekend I will go in search of another pair of sunglasses. And when I find them, I am getting TWO pair, because it seems that they only last a year with me now instead of over a decade....

Do you have a favorite pair of sunglasses that have lasted way longer than expected? Surely I cannot be the only one...

The Name Game

What's in a name?!

Oh, the name game of naming one's child. Songbird (obviously not her real name, but for adoption related purposes will remain Songbird until we can officially reveal her actual name).

For our boy, naming was totally not an issue. We both agreed and that was that.

With our first referral? We loved her Russian name and decided we'd keep it.

With Songbird? We also really like her name, but no one in the States can pronounce it correctly....and it's not even that difficult really! However, my hubs LOVES her name. So does our boy. I like it...it just drives me nuts trying to explain how to correctly say it to those that ask (in person) what her name is.

So, we have compromised a little and given her a middle name that she can also go by. I love her middle name, but we also very much wanted to keep her Russian heritage with her first name. Although, oddly enough, it's not a traditional Russian name....our translator had not yet heard her name until we met her.

Anyhoo......names. I decided to post a list of girl names I like. None of which are Songbirds name, but thought I'd share some of my faves for any possible future children we might have/bring home. :)

Here they are, in no particular order:

-Heidi

-Maeve

-Lily

-Ruby

-Eva

-Larkin (I know, not technically a girl name...)

-Grace

These are just a sampling. I tend to lean towards gender specific names for boys/girls. Not because I think there is anything wrong with gender neutral names, but I have one and it has been a hassle to deal with during my lifetime! However, if people want to name their kiddos gender neutral names...go for it!

I haven't listed boy names simply because I don't really have too many of those.

So, tell me....what are some of your fave names? Boy or girl...feel free to share!

Don't Sneeze!!!

See these those little brownish green squiggly things up in this tree with the new brighter green leaves growing?


Those little things and the stuff it brings causes quite a bit of craziness with allergies around here. Pollen. Oak pollen. Ick.


It leaves a film of green and yellow all over everything. Kinda like this. See the coating of the stuff? That is not a dirty grill, it's just been coated with green ick from the trees. You could sweep and clean all day and it's just gonna be there again the next day.

And those squiggly things fall off the trees and all over EVERYTHING too, like the patio, the car, in the pool. Oh, and ones hair.

Yes, it is ever so lovely to be sitting at Starbucks with some girlfriends and one of them point out that there is something in your hair. And it's not your new hairband or anything relatively pretty. Nope, it's the oak stuff.

What's worse, my sister and I were out cycling the other day and as we were loading the bikes back on the bike rack, we turned to see a cloud of green ick blowing off the tops of the trees. For fellow LOST fans, I am serious when I say it looked like smokie, just green.

I am not sure why it has caught my attention so much this year. We have it every year, but this year just seems to be worse somehow. When I was pregnant, it was awful. I certainly noticed it then because I could not go outside without sneezing.

This year, it is not causing so much sneezing, but the allergies are causing some headache issues it seems with my boy. Makes me sad.

I love Spring and all, but I could sure do without the green smokie and brown squiggly things. Yuck.

Anything in your neck of the woods that causes major allergies? If not, where do you live, I want to come visit!

A Little Crazy Bit of Weather

SO, those not in Texas might laugh, especially those from much colder climates that get buckets of snow, but here? Here snow like this hasn't happened in our part of the state since I was (literally) my son's age.

You might hear that TX weather can be strange and change rapidly, but let's just take a tour of this weeks weather to show just how crazy it can be:

Sunday:

it was in the 70's and we were wearing flip flops!

By Tuesday this started happening:

And it kept coming....big fluffy white snow flakes....almost all day long.

We had lotza' fun and built a pitiful snowman:

See? pitiful. I have no snowman building skilz...I blame it on being a native Central Texan. Truthfully, snow like this? It just does not happen often. Clearly.


So, not but two days later? It's sunny and in the 60's and the snow is almost a distant memory. Well, except for the snowman our neighbors built in their front yard, with dead grass included and all! Making it a true Texas snowman. Because, you see, we don't get that much snow and the grass just rolls on into the snow as one tries to make a snowman. Now, too bad I don't have a picture of that darn snowman! It's just down the street...it's still there too! Maybe tomorrow....


So you can see, weather here is a bit nuts. There is the saying "if you don't like the weather, wait a minute, it'll change". How true it is....

Tell me, what is super crazy weather where you are from?

Shake It Photo

So, the past two days my boy has been home sick with both strep and some asthma issues we are trying to get under control. Not too much fun that's for sure.

However, apparently the meds started to kick in and he has started feeling much, much better, thankfully. Meanwhile, we decided to play with my new iPhone app called shaktitphoto. Ya know, the old polaroids?! Yeah....fun times! I think what was more fun than taking the pics and letting him shake them, was trying to explain what a polaroid camera was....


(the one I took of him....you'd never know he was sick would ya?! )

He then quickly decided he really, really wanted a camera like that and could we look for one?! So, we checked out ebay and actually found some in great shape and at a price we could actually consider. Then, I looked up the film and what it would cost....holy moly! The one deal I found cost over $30 for about 20 photos. Well, anyone with kids that has let them use their camera once or twice knows how fast 20 flashes of the camera can go!!!


(one the boy took of me....with no make-up. Keepin' it real here.)

Sooo, we decided to let that go and just continue to use the app.

I love my phone. Now, if Apple could just make a kid-friendly and affordable version for younger kids, so that my phone doesn't take a chance of getting tossed across the room when someone is "shaking it"!

Do you have a favorite app? Have you used this one? Or, do you have an old polaroid you just LOVE?!

A Bit of Random and Fun...

So, let's lighten the mood after my last super emotional post, shall we?! I know this is supposed to be my "happy little craft" blog , but I also like to keep it real, as happy and blessed as my life truly is, sometimes we (meaning me here) need to be a little more transparent. I think it's all apart of my WORD this year too....another way to grow. :)


Anyhoo.....

I went to IKEA tonight with the hubby and son. Right after we went to Fuddruckers where my son got to have a free kids meal because he earned it by reading six books. Fun stuff. I had a buffalo burger and I have to say it wasn't all that great. And I have actually had buffalo burgers before and rather enjoyed them, just something wasn't quite right with this one. However, it was a fun family time.

Then we trekked over to IKEA where the boy LOVES to go just so he can go play while we browse....it's almost like a mini one hour date I tell ya!

It was funny and frustrating. What I went there for was NOT there. NO where to be found. But, the other two things I wanted to look at were, one I bought (spent a whopping $5) and the other I liked seeing in person to purchase at a later date for the Chickadee.

Then, when we arrived home, tucked the boy into bed and settled in for a little blog reading, I found this:




I cannot remember which blog it was now, but I thought it was pretty funny since I had JUST been to IKEA. Fun I say.

So, check it out! What's your IKEA name?! Go here to find out.