Paper Experiments!

Hey guys!
The hubby took the sicky out for some fresh air, (I still can't get used to the weather here!) so I'm going to try to finish this darn post!

This project is super easy, and super fun. It started as an experiment, just for funsies, but when I saw the beautiful swirl of colors I thought I would try to "capture" it on a piece of paper. We have been "making" paper ever since.

What you'll need:
Spray bottle
Vinegar
Baking Soda
Food coloring (we love the neon!)
Dish and/or tray
Paper (cut to fit in your dish)

All you have to do is mix some vinegar and water in your spray bottle. I usually don't measure... maybe 2 parts water, 1 part vinegar?
•tip: make sure your bottle has an adjustable nozzle, not just the mist, or you'll be spraying all day...

Grab your dish and set it on your tray. You want something with a flat bottom, I like to use a glass pie pan for my dish because you can use bigger pieces of paper. The tray is just to help catch some of the mess, I use a big ol' cookie sheet.

Take your food coloring and drop it all over your dish.  It will all eventually run together, so if you are anal like me, avoid using red and green together or you will end up with brown... It drives me nuts!

Use your Baking Soda and cover the bottom of the dish. You don't want to see the dish, but you don't want it super thick either.

Now for the fun part! Take the squirt bottle and Go. To. Town! Let your Squish squirt away at the Baking Soda. They will LOVE watching the color come through as the Baking Soda fizzes!

When it's nice and fizzy, or completely SOAKED in our case, lay a piece of paper on top and peel it back off.

TA-DA! You have just done a science experiment with your Squish, and made fun marbled paper at the same time! Don't you rock?! If your kids are older you could discuss the science-y stuff that's happening, but right now Grace just loves the "magic."

I usually just keep a little stack of the marbled paper in with Grace's crafty stuff. Yeah... She has her own craty cabinet. She likes to color on it and cover it in "decorates," also known as foam stickers by the rest of the world.

This time I thought it would make for some fun valentines. I just cut a bunch of hearts for her to dip, and let her glue them onto cards after they dried.

  
I also made some "grown-up" cards, and a fun garland on my sewing machine. Just feed it through like you would fabric! For the garland I just made several stitches between the hearts.
•Remember: the paper will dull the heck out of your needle, so be sure you change it when you are done!

Thats it! Super easy, super fun! :)

Oh! Remember that "Top Secret Project?" Here it is; an adorable baby Narwhal! He is on his way to my sister right now, along with a fresh batch of Unicorn Poop!(it's an inside joke.)

Well, that's all I got. Have a great weekend!

not dead, just un-dead

Hey there. Just thought I should let you know Im still alive! Well kind of... are zombies alive? They aren't dead, and they do still eat and breath... Yes, I will go with Im still alive, just "zombie-ish." 

It has been a crazy few weeks. I can't believe Tiny is already a month old! Where has the time gone?! I am definately not sleeping it away... She really likes to eat, alot, and at just the right time to mess up any possibility of sleeping. I do manage to catch a few Zs in the recliner, or rather they knock me upside the head... I tend to fall asleep there alot. It is not so great for my neck and back, but at least it is sleep right?

Grace is an awesome big sister! Most of the time, that is... She definitely feels a bit left out at times. I am trying to sure I do things with just Grace, but it is still a bit of a struggle. For now she settles for the occasional double snuggle with little sister, or getting tucked in for bed if I'm not feeding Emma.

 I haven't done any projects yet. I feel so lazy! I also feel like, from a business perspective, I am missing out big time on the holiday season. I had planned to send a ton of wreaths and hair pieces to Unglued for the holiday, but at this point I don't think I will get much done in time. I picked up some more Christmas-y ribbon for clippies and hope to get those put together one evening. I also have a ton of ideas that I really want to try and put together, so hopefully we will hit our stride soon and I can get back to work. 

I know I promised pictures of Grace's Busy Book, (it is anything but quiet, she gets all excited and tells you all about what she is doing) and I haven't forgotten. I will still try to get them up at some point.

I hope you all enjoy your family on Thanksgiving!

PS:Thanks again for your understanding, and if there is something that you would like me to make, please do not hesitate to ask! I would be glad to do it, I just may need a little more time than usual.

So, we moved to Montana...

In case you are new, or just missed the memo, we have recently relocated to Montana for Cory's work. 

No, he is not a mountaineer... I just really like this picture...

After about 3 months in a hotel we are finally in our house! Boy, is it nice to be out of the hotel... Cory's parents came up for a long weekend and helped us unpack. Everything. We don't even have that one last box hiding in a corner... it is ALL unpacked. 

We managed to sneak off for an afternoon and take his parents up the Beartooth Pass.  

So, while we are all unpacked, I don't think I would say we are settled. At least, I'm not. It is really hard for me to feel at "Home" here... we were so close with our family and friends in Fargo/Moorhead and now it is just us. It just isn't "Home" yet. I am pretty sure we can blame most of it on hormones and anxiety... We are rapidly approaching the arrival Tiny and I feel SO unprepared. I was super anxious with Grace too, but we had several people, and the hospital, within a few blocks. Now we are about 20 minutes out and have 1 friend who can watch Grace for us... I'm kind of freaking out. (Ok, I'm totally freaking out...) But once she gets here I am sure things will start to feel more settled and homey.

You may be wondering what I have been up to since we are all unpacked already.... Honestly, there has been alot of napping going on around here... I feel super guilty, but its the truth... I have been napping almost as much as Grace lately...

 

Unfortunately, I didn't get a ton done when I had energy because we were in the hotel, and now I have NO energy... I have been slowly working on a few things though, these are just a few of the projects I have finished lately:

 I made some cute fall clippies! I am in love with the stripe and the owls...

I made a couple pieces of wall art for the girls' room. I really like this one, the other one... not so much :/

 Painting with Grace! She loves to paint and create as much as I do. :) I gave her a blank board book I had bought to make a "family" book. Now it is her very own little art journal.

 First wreath of the season! I had visions of this in my head for months before I got around to completing it... I am kind of in love with how it came out.

 Supply runs! Grace loves to go to the "Crapt" store with me. Cory loves that she calls it the "Crapt" store because all he hears is "crap" and thinks its pretty fitting...

I had to make new throw pillows because I was too embarrassed to have Cory's co-worker see the old ones... Of all the things I have made int he last year and a half, Cory is most impressed by my ability to make pillows... go figure.

 I must have been nesting real bad, because I got up from a different project to go make her these little lounge pants... She pretty much loves them, so that is justification enough for me!

Wreath number 2!

I had toyed with the idea of the twig wreaths last year, and finally just went for it. I really like how it came out! 

 Christmas Clippies!

I just finished a small set of these clippies today. I hope to get them, and the wreaths, listed on Etsy later this week.

This is a really terrible picture, but here is a sneak peak at what I am working on for Unglued. I am absolutely LOVING yellow and grey right now...

I am working on getting a bunch of pieces made for Unglued before Tiny gets here, (which feels like, you know, tomorrow...) I am always open to suggestions or special requests, so please feel free to contact me!

One Week Down...

One to go! 

When we were doing the math it was going to be 3 weeks before Cory could come home and get us, somehow it only feels like two-ish now... He has actually been gone for 11 days already, but since he "reported" last Monday and it is only Tuesday now it only seems like a week? I don't really know, it is all kind of running together already... We have been so busy it is hard to keep it all straight. All I know is he will be home in 7 days, and that makes me happy!

We had our first appraisal today. I was super nervous and stressed out over it and it was just 20 minutes of two guys (he was training his nephew) stepping into each room, taking a picture and some notes, and looking at the yard. I don't really know what I was so stressed about! We have another one on Thursday. That one is earlier in the day, so I can enjoy the rest of the day and not freak out every time Grace tosses a toy on the floor or spills her juice.

With all of the cleaning, scrubbing, cooking for the helpers, FaceTiming with Daddy, and cleaning some more, I have been too exhausted to do anything crafty. It just felt wrong... So I busted out the sewing machine again tonight and started a couple projects, just don't tell my M-I-L... she would have my head! I have had several projects rolling around in my head for "when I get some time" and since that never happened, I decided to forgo the early bedtime and get some of them going.

Ever since someone gave Grace one of the little pillow pets I have wanted to make some little travel pillows for us grown-ups (mostly myself...) to take on the long ride. Since we are leaving in just over a week I thought I better get started... I had some flannel left over from other projects and decided that would be perfect for these.

I really just eyeballed what I thought would be a good size, cut, and sewed. I am pretty sure my seams are crooked, but once you stuff them you won't really notice. Plus, I don't really mind, it is just going to catch my drool for 9 hours, its nothing fancy!

The other project I started was kind of a test run, of sorts, for a dress I am thinking about making for myself. I found THIS really cute, and easy to make, maxi dress, and THIS super cute maternity dress that I really want to make. (I don't usually wear dresses or skirts, but for some reason I am all about it this year...) I have really only done small scale projects; kids clothes, small stuffies, and pillows, so to sew a women's-plus-sized-maternity dress is a little scary to me. OK, alot scary... So, I thought that I would test out a Grace sized version of the maxi dress first.

I grabbed an old T-shirt that we had donated to the Make-Grace-Awesome-Nerdy-Clothes pile, this time it was GOONIES! I laid a shirt that fit her well on top of it and cut it down to a rectangle about the width of her shirt (including the sleeves) and the length of the old shirt (from below the neck-line to the hem) and from there followed the instructions in Katy's tutorial.

Since I didn't think Grace would put up with a belt of any kind I added a piece of elastic just under the "sleeves" of the dress, so that it will still have a nice shape to it. I used some of the fold over elastic I had bought for headbands so it would be nice and soft on her tumm. Never one to measure first, I went ahead and sewed in the elastic without trying it on her, now I am a little nervous it wont hit her right... She seams to love anything Mommy makes for her though, and surprisingly, so does Cory, so I am not too worried about it. I still don't know if I am ready to tackle a project of MY proportions yet, but we will see...

I will try to post pictures of Grace modeling her sweet new Goonies dress, and the finished pillows in the next few days. If anyone has any questions on either project, please, feel free to ask!

Daddy is off to Montana

We sent Cory off to Montana this morning... It pretty much sucked. I made him caramel rolls from scratch (kinda) since they are his favorite, but he was too nervous to eat :( I felt bad since I know he was hanging around until they were ready. We were both pretty stressed. We ended up arguing over the best way to pack his cooler... earth shattering decision, I know! He won,... he is the one driving 9+ hours all by himself today...

Before he left he told me to go ahead and chop off Grace's hair. We had been talking about it, and she wasn't feeling well this past week and he thought it would help keep her cool.  I know it sounds silly, but that is the first thing I did after he left. I even sent him pictures on the road. I think he was happy I did though, he called after every picture (don't txt and drive!) to tell me what he thought. He also called about an hour into the trip to tell me that he couldn't hear his book on tape over the road noise... boo to that!

There is still alot to do around here... We have to fix up a few things around the house, little stuff like touch up paint or replace switch plate covers. We might have to add some back-fill all the way around the outside and possibly update some of the wiring. I am NOT looking forward to that! I am crossing my fingers that doesn't need to be done...

Luckily I have lots of family and friends in town to help me out while Cory is gone, and hopefully Grace and I will be able to join him in a few weeks. We had planned on going out there after my 5 month checkup on June 7th, but they have scheduled me for an additional visit to check my thyroid levels on the 28th of June... I thought that I would be fine if I had to stay back longer, but as soon as we got to the car I lost it ...  We are going to see if I can find doctors in Montana right away so we can still go up at the beginning of the month.

For now Grace just thinks daddy went to work... I think it will be a couple days before she starts to realize he isn't here and get upset. I am not looking forward to that... I get my iphone on Monday, I'm hoping face time and lots of pictures back and forth will help everyone handle the next few weeks a little better...

I should really be cleaning...

Wow, where to begin... a lot has happened in the last few months. I think the last time I posted anything was leading up to the Unglued: Craft Fest in February. It was a blast, we had lots of fun! There were so many talented vendors, I felt lucky to be a part of it!

The morning after the show we found out that I was once again squishy! Yay, Tiny squish #2 is on the way! So, with all the excitement, and resulting exhaustion, I decided to take a short break. Needless to say it turned into a long break... Turns out it was not the late nights prepping for the show that had me so exhausted. This time around pregnancy was kicking my ass! For the first few months Grace and I had the same bedtime... going to bed around 7:30 meant I was sleeping away prime crafting time, and frankly, I was too tired to care.

I was just starting to get some energy back this last couple weeks or so, but right when I was starting to feel crafty again we got more big news...

We were being transferred to Billings. Montana. So it just seemed kind of silly to get all involved and knee deep in fabric and buttons when I was going to have to pack it all up in a couple weeks anyway. Yeah, I said weeks. We found out on the first and he reports on the 21st... eeesh.  So rather than crafting, I will be cleaning and packing with my new found energy. Emphasis on the cleaning... I am not a very good housekeeper and I have to pre-clean before my mother-in-law can come help me clean. She will be here tomorrow. 

So, there it is. That is what I have been doing the last few months, growing a baby and more recently, stressing out majorly. Thanks for you understanding, I hope I haven't lost any fans with my absence. I will do my best to keep everyone up to date on the major happenings here in the Squish house. The one plus side to all of this is that Cory is finally willing to spend the money on smart phones! So once I get mine I can post pictures ( I miss my camera!) and updates on the go. I might be more excited than I really should be for my phone... Its the little things in life.

Busy busy busy!

Just taking a little break and thought I would share what I have been working on!

ARGYLE!

  My first attempt at argyle failed. Hard. But I really like the way this one came out. I want to make more but Cory says he hates it... what do you think, this is the only argyle one I have so far, should I make more for the show?

I also have a few fun springy ones to bring to the show. Lots of turquoise and grey in this group, I hope you guys like them!

My little helper, and "Doba." ( aka: Dora )

Bows! I don't know why I like them so much... I made a few little bracelet/ponytail holders and pins last night and I really how they came out.

And of course, more buttons!

Well, its back to work. Grace is sleeping so I am going to try and get some button headbands done. She loves buttons, probably more than me, so it is pretty much impossible to work with them when she is around.