It's a Candice thing

more Lil' Wabi-Sabi Bags

2010-09-23T15:20:00.001-07:00

Lil' Wabi-Sabi BagsLil' Wabi-Sabi Bags

2010-09-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

Just is case you are wondering why I named these funny little bags Lil' Wabi-Sabi Bags.

I have been making little loom knitted bags for my kids, nieces and nephews. I made over 15 of them before Easter to hold some goodies for their Easter baskets. I decided to make up a bunch so I could open an Etsy shop.

I had a wonderful lot of vintage wool crewel yarn that a friend had given to me. The colors were fantastic. But most of the yarn was in 12-18 inch pieces. I really wanted to use the yarn for my Lil' Bags. I tied some pieces together and started to knit.I had the knots on the inside of the bag to 'hide' them. I was not happy with the results. I was pretty disappointed that it wasn't working out. Then it hit me.....wabi-sabi. I had read about the concept in a magazine and then more about on the internet.

“The concept originated in 16th-century Japan with the tea ceremony, a ritual that provided a way to step out of the chaos of daily life and reconnect with that which was simple and tranquil,” says Diane Durston, author of Wabi Sabi: The Art of Everyday Life

The short and long of Wabi-Sabi is celebrating imperfections.

I decided to not hide the knots and fringe but to "celebrate it" and put in out the outside of the bag. The bags turned out great and I love the effect. I hope to be able to sell these not just as a fun little bag to carry your stuff but as a reminder for us to accept our own flaws as well.

Bag 6

2009-02-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

Bag 5

2009-02-16T13:04:00.001-08:00

Bag 4

2009-02-16T13:01:00.001-08:00

Bag 3

2009-02-16T12:56:00.001-08:00

I added a button closer to this one.

Another one

2009-02-16T12:54:00.001-08:00

Bag one, mine all mine

2009-02-16T12:51:00.001-08:00

bags, bags and more bags

2009-02-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

I have missed sewing. I haven't done it in months. Here is some of the bags I have sewn for Joanie's sisters and others.

2009-01-24T20:49:00.001-08:00

My wonderful hubby

2009-01-24T20:46:00.000-08:00

Sylvia age 7

2009-01-24T20:45:00.000-08:00

Skyler age 9

2008-12-19T15:22:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time. It has been a hard few months. I am trying to pull myself back from a depression that is slowly overtaking me. It is hard work to fight against something that you feel like you can't control but I am doing it.

I just had to post a picture of Sage. We lucked out on freecycle and recieved a HUGE bag of girl clothing. My favorite in the bag...this home -sewn outfit. Sage loves it. I so love her adventurous style.

New camera, Yahoo!

2008-09-12T14:37:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! I am back :-) I got an early birthday present from Luis. A new camera! It is an EasyShare Kodak like my last one was, but way nicer!

I am excited to take some more pictures of my crafts. If in fact I have time to do crafting. Homeschool has started and I am back to playing teacher as well as the many other shirts I wear. Today I am wearing a shirt of a hormonal crazy person, migraine headache suffer, teacher, referee, prison warden, Judge jury and executioner!

I did manage to make my dad a quick bookmark to send with a book. My dad was here for two weeks and I caught him to start reading Inkspell. Want to borrow mine he wanted to go home and jest buy one. Well I decided to order him one when I rejoined a children's book club. I'm glad he's reading the book, it is a fabulous book! I don't care that it was meant for 14-year-olds, it is still one of the best books I have ever read. My dad, even after reading just two chapters describe it as a Book Lover's Book! I look forward, tentatively, to the movie coming out. They better do it justice.

the magician's nephew

2008-08-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

I've started crafting like mad again. I have until the end of the month to finish my swap packages.

One package is for a little boy who is three. It is a dress ups package. It is a very fun package to put together. I lost a dress ups! I love Halloween I love theater I love any excuse to dress up into something else. I also love fantasy, and reading book's. So I guess that means I love fantasy books.

I just got finished reading the magician's nephew to my girls. What a great book! It took me two weeks to figure out how to incorporate what was in the book with the swap package. But I figured it out.

In the book, the uncle makes magic rings. Touching the yellow one will take you to the Woods Between World's. A portal of sorts. It is full of trees and ponds. Each pond is a doorway to another world. To enter another world you put on the green ring and jump into the pond. Don't worry you won't get wet. :-) If ever you want to go home just touch the yellow ring and you will be transported back to the Woods between Worlds where you can just jump into the pond to take you home.

What a great idea to encourage children to use their imagination.

So I need a green and yellow ring out of felt. I also made ponds. Well really, it's just blue cloth in a funny shape turned and top stitched to represent ponds. The dress-up costumes I have so far are the king, a peasant and a fairy. If I have time I will add an animal costume.

My children love the idea and love the costumes so much that they want to keep them. Sage especially loves the fairy wings. They were very easy to make. I will make her a pair for Halloween. Unless she changes her mind and decides once again to be Cinderella. She just said to me "I choose a fairy."

capes

2008-07-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

Bags for sale :)

2008-07-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

After swaping the bag I sewed for the MDC swap I have gotten a few interested people who would like to buy one. (the bag I posted about on July 11th) I am so beside myself. People really do like what I sew?!? That is pretty close to THE coolest thing ever.
I bought some cloth to sew up a few. If you are interested in buying one just let me know. Here are the cloth picks that I have so far. I only bought enough cloth to make one bag per cloth pattern so first who says "I want" is the first to get it. The store may or may not have more cloth just like

The flower one would look good with either pink or green as the other side.

The white and green, both of the cloths is lime'ish green.

2008-07-16T08:12:00.000-07:00

Doodle Stitching

2008-07-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

I finally got a book that
I have been 'eyeing' for
awhile now. It is called
"Doodle Stitching" By Amie Ray.

It is a great book. Just what I had wanted in an embroidery book. I googled and found that Amie has a flikr group and an etsy shop. She is one talented gal!
I tried my hand at a very small doodle stitching project. That is all it took, I am now addicted.

I am going larger and making each daughter a doodle stitching project. I am starting with Sylvia because her birthday is on the 16th. I doodled with a pencil right on the fabric. Sylvia helped me out by listing things that she loves (karate, grapes, pretty rocks, rainbows etc) I am exciedt to see how it turns out. And yes, I will be posting pictures.

For now I will post a picture of my first small one.

My latest craft project

2008-07-11T08:57:00.001-07:00

And yes, it is for a swap :-) I found the tutorial on another blog that someone posted on crafters.

Sage's hair

2008-07-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

Sage just wanted to be like her big sister. :) She really wanted a hair cut, and needed it too. About 4 months ago she decided to cut herself some bangs. It was a short, very short spot near her forehead. It was short enough that the rest of the hair around it, hid it. But it was now long enough to really show.

She really want to sit in the cool chair at the salon but I was NOT going to pay for a haircut that I had to fix myself when we got home. I just did what I did with Sylvia's hair and held my breath that it turned out. I had to cut her bangs pretty short to blend with her 'bangs' that she cut a few months ago. But all in all, it turned out ok.

This is for you Grace :-)

2008-07-06T12:38:00.000-07:00

Every time I join the MDC craft swap and swap a craft that I have never sewn before I get really nervous that the person on the receiving end will not think it is worth the $20 value set for each package. I tend to over do it in hopes of them saying that it was "for sure" wroth it. After the first or second of sewing the 'new' item I tend to scale it down. I guess I realize that it really was worth it and I don't need all the extras.
In this case I sewed some tiny little bags for a crafty friend. The bags ended up a little smaller than her request of 3x5. I think there is about 30 of them. I am still sending them and just crossing my fingers that they will work for her. But I had to add another something else to the lot. I saw that she wanted a clothespin bag. It looked like a ton of fun. So I sewed one up. The coth had been sitting in my cloth stash for a few years and in my mother's cloth stash for many many more before that. The trim I got from freecycle. The hanger was leftover from my eBay clothing. So here it is. It turned out so cute.

I really wish my hubby had left the clothesline that was in the back yard up. He really didn't think I would use it. But I really would have.

So Grace, I hope this is your "style" it is headed to your house with the "I hope they are not TOO small" bags.

Animal Bean Bags

2008-07-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

Another package for the MDC summer swap.

Sylvia's hair

2008-07-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

Sylvia has been begging me to get her hair cut. She is tired of it getting tangles up when she swims. Tired of it getting in the way during karate.

I finally tracked down a hair collage. I did not want to pay full price for a quick cut. It ended up being $12. I wonder how much it would have cost at a real salon. I told the gal that I wanted it shoulder length. I guess she thought I was kidding or that dd would not want to take that much off. I was so busy taking care of the other two that I didn't have time to babysit the hairdresser. And boy oh boy my kids were crabby, it 9 too young for PMS??? When I did finally mention to the hairdresser that I wanted it shorter she mumbled about how it would look a lot shorter when it was dry. It was a darling cut, very cute just NOT what we wanted. 3 days later I did what I had wanted to avoid in the first place. I took my own scissors to her hair. I have NO talent what-so-ever when it comes to hair cutting. It brings back memories of when me and my best friends cut each others hair when we were about 17 years old. Yikes! But Sylvia gets what Sylvia wants. Her shoulder length hair.

Please tell me that it isn't that bad!

Library Bag for MDC swap

2008-07-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

When I first joined the summer craft swap I threw out a few of my ideas before finalizing my packages offered. I had thought about a library bag with a card holder. My kids use my cloth grocery bags as a library/book bag. They use the business card holders to hold their cards. I ended up taking that off my finalized list thinking that it was not worth the "$20 per package" value. But someone still picked it. I was excited but had to think of an idea to make it worth more. I thought of adding embroidery to it but after three days of struggling with the thread and my huge lack of embroidery talent I gave up. I just fancied up the bag to look better than the plain grocery style bags. It was not easy. I did not have a pattern and just made it up as I went along. In the end it looked great. I am excited about how it turned out. I hope the little girl I sewed it for will have many a'books grace it's insides. So here it is. The dangling pocket holds the little wallet for the library card.

More Grateful stuff

2008-06-21T11:16:00.000-07:00

Not an everyday thing ;-) But still......

I am grateful for

- craft swaps (lol, is it ok to use that for every grateful list?)
- that my kids got over the chicken pox without trouble
- for a hubby that does cherish me (even though he is bad at remembering Anniversaries)
-that I am able to stay at home and homeschool my girls
- chocolate

Flag/Party Banner craft

2008-06-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

Flag/party banner for the MDC craft swap. It was a lot of fun to make and turned out great.

2008-06-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

2008-06-18T12:15:00.001-07:00

More of my cloth stash, and choices for the MDC craft swap packages with the flag/banner idea in mind.

Oh No, they got me again!

2008-06-18T09:04:00.000-07:00

It worked yet again. The dang Joann's coupons pulled me into their store to spend and spend. My tiny paycheck should have gone to more practical things but NO I had to go by cloth. I just love the little bundles of matching cloth. They are meant for quilters but they work for generic crafters too.

More crafty stuff

2008-06-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

Did you ever watch Shirley Temple movies? I loved them as a kid. My latest craft project reminded me of one of her movies. She sews embroidery on a little pillow, all crocked and spelled wrong but very cute!
I started to fool around with some of my craft supplies and made some book markers. Just random style. Not any huge pre-planning on my part. Just grab and sew. The one with words on it "love to read" reminded me of the little pillow in the Shirley Temple movie.

More grateful stuff

2008-06-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

I am grateful for

-- the portable air condishner we added to our home
--craft swaps
--- that my feet don't hurt today
--for my sister-in-law Joanie and her huge faith! Thanks for the pep talk sis.

11 years

2008-06-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

I have been married for 11 years wow!

I celebrated yesterday by going to work where just about everything that COULD go wrong did. It was so nice when it was finally over.

And my sweet husband of 11 years totally forgot. Or is it that he just doesn't care. It might be a little bit of both.
He has NEVER been the type to celebrate much of anything so it really should not surprise me. And it really shouldn't hurt either should it? But it does.
Perhaps he took my advice last week to "save money we really should just save it so there is no need to buy me a present for our anniversary" as advice to "just pertend we were not married this day 11 years ago and lets just go about our day as if nothing happened"
Perhaps I should just making excuses and just go out there and kick his ass.
I don't know what I am going to say to him, if anything. No matter what I say he won't change. That much I have learned over the past 11 years. I love him, he loves me that is enough.

So now I will wish him a Happy Father's Day, let him know how blessed we are to have him in our family and then go hide in my room and cry pretending the entire time that it doesn't hurt.

daily gratitude

2008-06-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

A friend is doing a book study with a bunch of more friends. I did not take part in the book club but I thought I would take part in some of the advice ;)
A new daily gratitude practice. I don't know if I can do it daily but here is a start.

I am grateful for
- cool easy mornings (coffee, an internet connection and a cool breeze)
-a husband who LOVES to spend time with his family
-a savings account that has money in it
-a sewing machine and a huge stash of cloth
-craft swaps

Chicken Pox

2008-06-11T08:32:00.000-07:00

Two of my three children have the Chicken Pox. I hate to see them covered from head to toe with spots but I am very glad that they are getting it over with when they are young. I wanted to cheer them up by sewing them something fun (and funny) A beanbag/pillow with Chicken AND spots. My youngest keeps calling it "Chicken Spots" instead of "Chicken Pox" she was inspiration for my latest craft.

Cloth grocery bags

2008-06-05T22:26:00.000-07:00

I I have to show off the grocery bags that I made for the MDC swap. :) SO MUCH FUN!!!

Silly Monsters

2008-06-05T22:06:00.001-07:00

I did some more sewing. I would rather sew right now than do just about anything. I am finding myself in a personal funk or sorts. I am feeling very 'down' I wouldn't call it depressed, it isn't quite that far. But yes, down is a good title for this chapter in my life.
Back to the subject of sewing. I am leaning on sewing as my way of cheering myself up. I keep the sewing machine on the kitchen table about 90% of the time. I have a huge basket with my current projects all piled in.
This weeks project is silly monsters. I got the idea for them by just surfing the web. My darling daughters really love it when I sew them stuff so I had to oblige right?
I doodled a few silly looking (right from the cover of a Jr. High schoolers notebook) monsters. Each of my three darlings picked one. It was not a surprise that my youngest had to copy one of her big sisters and pick the same one. Not a prob. We just picked different cloth. Picking the cloth was a lot of fun. I piled a huge pile of cloth on the floor and told them how many I wanted them to pick. Yes these are colorful silly monsters.
They turned out really cute. I did not have any cotton stuffing only bean bag polly fill. They kids didn't want to wait for the soft fluff so I used the bean bag fill.
So let me introduce you to the three silly (and colorful) monsters. The last one has a baby in a pocket that can come out.

2008-05-31T14:59:00.000-07:00

I bought some really fun cloth to sew some cloth grocery bags. I had enough left over to make myself an apron. It ended up a LOT longer that I thought it would but I still love it. Syl. took the picture :-)

2008-05-31T14:49:00.001-07:00

Wow it has been so long I forgot my password. It is a good thing my computer had a 'cookie' for that.
So....sew! I have been in a HUGE sewing mood. Not good on the pocket book. Have you seen the price of cloth? Almost as shocking as the price of gas. The Joanns 40% off coupon does not really help me at all. I end up going and buying at least $30 worth of stuff. I guess the coupon worked. Joanns wanted to lure people in.
I really would love a place to post pictures of my crafts. I find really fun blogs all over online with wonderful show off crafts. I am going to join them and show off mine as well. I know that my sweet hubby is getting sick of me parading myself in front of him with my newest creation.
So I am off to figure out how I can add pictures to my blog.

2007-09-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

It is hot! I know, I know, not a new flash. You can all feel it. But I am finding it very hard to handle. I start really squirming when the humidity level reaches anything above 20%. It is now 41%. Granted, it is only 89 degrees but it is going to get to 107. 30% chance of rain. I really do hope it rains!

Luis is gone deep sea fishing. The girls and I camped out in the living room overnight. It is cooler out there. Not by much but I will take everything I can get.

Our swamp cooler is about to die. When you have it on high you can barely feel it blowing. Room fans can only go so far.

Weatherman says it will cool off to low/mid 90's by Wednesday. Not a whole lot better but like I said, I will take what I can get.

The library is closed today of I would go there and hang out with the kids. Perhaps a trip to the mall. Yes, the mall, not my choice of a fun time but any place with air condish' is gonna be oh so nice.

Wow I have a blog

2007-09-02T16:39:00.000-07:00

I have caved to the pressure. First comes yahoogroups, then a myspace and now a blogt. Who knew.

There is a lot happening in my life and I would love a place to come to and vent and share. Be it homeschool, weight loss, sex and relationships or my crazy family. Getting it all out helps me to understand me. So if you don't find it interesting or entertaining then so be it. It is a Candice thing.