Pillowcase Maxi Dress

I am slowly decluttering my craft supplies by actually making stuff. I still have a lot of fabric to go through but I managed to sew up this cute dress for Aria. Its the same concept as a pillowcase dress for little girls but with a ruffle added at the bottom and I added a single-fold bias hem to the arm holes.

I measured the dress to be a little on the long side so she can grow into it.

She seems to like it as she's tried to swing it around with standing twirls a few times.

Updates, Kits, Ornaments

Blogging just has not been my forte' this year. Which doesn't mean that I haven't been creative in some form or another; life has been very busy.

A few updates. I finally graduated from Arizona State. That took up a lot of my time from February to May. My son, Cassius, graduated Kindergarten and I enrolled him in summer school to help him retain all of his literacy skills. He worked so hard to catch up to CA standards after having transferring into Menlo Park schools mid-school year.  It was a big change for him because Montana's requirements were a little more relaxed for Kinders. He had a small break this month (July) but has now returned to his studies with a new teacher who tutors him for reading. His tutoring will last until school starts in September. So, as you can see, very busy.

Anyway, in between these busy moments, I have tried to squeeze in some crafting time with either layouts , altered projects, or sewing. I have come to the realization that I have too much crafting stuff that it is overwhelming and when I want to start a new project, I see all these endless possibilities and then get stuck and never start anything! So, I've decided to purge a lot of my things. It was hard to come to this decision because I think I'm a closet craft hoarder. I could probably prove this by taking a photo of my desk and closet.. but I won't because its really embarrassing (lol).

Anyway, I'm not sure how I'm going to go about this. I think I will first try to sell the kits via facebook and see how that goes for a week and then maybe moving everything to my etsy store. So, if you're not a friend on facebook, add me: www.facebook.com/celestewyrick

I'm also putting up for sale "custom" ornaments which were a favorite among some of my crafting friends awhile ago. These will likely follow suit w/ the scrapbook kits that I'm going to list. There is going to be A LOT of items up for grabs. My goal is to get my craft stash to at least 1/3 of what it currently is so I can have some sense of organization and the ability to complete more projects.

Sorry for all the grey matter (text) in this blog post. Give your eyes a break and check out some of the layouts I've completed since my last entry.

Glacier National Park: Lake Mary at sunset.

Kindergarten 2012 Valentine's layout.

Aria at Whitefish City Beach.

Newborn Aria, nicknamed Baby Miss.

Happiest day - Finding out we were officially pregnant (lol).

Cassius: Slaying monsters and taking names.

Thanks for stopping by!

Valentine's Day Projects

Its been a long while since I gave this little blog some love.. but thats not to say that I haven't been crafting.

Since my last update, my family moved from Montana to California and its taken awhile to get settled.

Anyway, I'm working on photographing my scrapbook layouts but to fill the gap for now, here are some projects that I completed this week.

The first a is a Pinterest inspired project that I did for my son so he could pass out Valentine's in his class' Valentine's Party. We spent a gloomy afternoon setting up my white seamless and working with my studio lights to get a variety of shots. We had a lot of fun doing this. The second image, I used for his teacher's Valentine's card. I hope she likes it. He spent a good 20 or so minutes looking at paper designs before picking this paper for her.

Anyway, here it is:

Crinkle Teething Cloth

Aria is a teething machine. She will gnaw on anything and everything to satiate her teething urges. Tonight, she made a break for some shoes... luckily, her big brother intervened in time and put the shoes out of her reach.

I call her my little meow-meow also.. because she has a tendency to kitty scratch everything. We call it her scratch test before she attemps to put something in her mouth.... not so great for our leather couch :-/

Well, I was looking around online for tutorials on how to make a crinkle cloth. I've seen them in department stores but, call me cheap, I didn't want to fork over $15 for a 5"x5" piece of fabric with ribbon. I had enough supplies at home that I could make it myself. The thing is, I didn't know what to use as the crinkle 'material.'

I came across a great tutorial while searching some blogs (Crinkle Square Tutorial) and made it tonight.

Here's my take:

I can't wait to let Aria play with it tomorrow. She fell asleep for the night before I was able to complete it.

Also, I want to add.. I recommend using a teflon presser foot on the sewing machine because the plastic gets stuck under a metal presser foot.. as well as increasing your stitch length.

Dusted Off The Sewing Machine...

It has been way too long! Amiright or amiright?

Well, a few updates since my last post. My family relocated to the peninsula (San Francisco Bay Area). We've been here a tad over a month and are enjoying it--traffic, fog and all.

It was my first full-time semester at ASU and I will be graduating next semester! Woo-woo! Big celebrations are in order!

As you can imagine, I have not had time to devote to crafting because of the hectic pace things have been moving.

Though, I got to do some scrap pages between my last post and now. Some of the pages need a few minor additions before I'll declare them complete. But I am pretty sure that will be done in the next week or so. And when that happens, I'll blog about that then.

But, I got a chance to break out my sewing machine which has been sitting dormant for about a year. My first project was making pajama pants for Cassius. I didn't get around to photographing that yet. And, I tried to make some pajama pants for Aria but didn't really do a good job in measuring for diaper allowance... Once I finish my pj pants for Aria round 2, I'll add those.  But, I did happen to make a cute pair of shoes for her.

I got the pattern online for free and it was actually on the Michael Miller website.

She seems to like them :) They're made out of faux suede with a fabric lining (I think the fabric is MM... I forget).

Anyway, without further ado...

Little Miss - 4 months old

Little Miss Aria turned 4 months on August 29th. She saw her, new, pediatrician on Friday (Sept. 2).

So, her stats are as follows:
Height: 24" (29th percentile)
Weight: 16 lbs 6 oz (88th percentile)

Basically, she's short and chubbs but we love her all the same.

Right now, she loves to kick and eat her hands. She's teething so there is a lot of drool just about every day. She also enjoys a little game we call "Super Miss" where we lift her in the air and sing a little silly song.. "Super Miss to save the dayyyy... Super Miss is on her wayyyy... " lol We get a lot of giggles from her when we play that game.

She's not so much a fan of hiking since she starts to fuss about a quarter way into our hikes.. I hope that she'll change her mind about that before it gets too cold.

Also, she seems to be "hongry" all the time and has been drinking about the max amount of milk intake daily and then some.... her new pediatrician said she can start on rice cereal to help keep her satiated. Normally, babies are supposed to wait until six months since studies show that starting solids early leads to an increased risk for diabetes or child obesity.. but since her brother was fine when he started early, she'll be ok too. So, we will probably start her on a little bit of rice later this week.

Aria's Laughing Party

Today, we had Aria's Laughing Party. I hosted the party since I was the person who really made her laugh or her first real laugh which happened on July 12.

The information that explains this came from my mom, who is a navajo language and culture teacher in New Mexico.

In my tribe (Navajo), its tradition to celebrate this occasion with an A’wee Chi’deedloh (Baby's first laugh ceremony). Traditionally taught, babies are from two worlds when they are born. From birth to their first laugh, they are a part of the "Holy People's" world and of ours, the "Earth People's" world. When a baby laughs, it means that they are ready to join the Earth People. In my tribe, we're taught that the baby inherits the qualities of the person who coaxes or makes the baby laugh. And the person who does this has to throw the party for them.

During this celebration, guests bring gifts for the baby.. and in turn, the baby hands out salt crystals from their right hand to symbolize the act of giving and being generous throughout their life. The salt is then consumed by the guest and their good qualities are said to be rejuvenated. According to tradition, Ashii Asdzaan (Salt Woman) set this example of giving and recieving salt as she is from the Grand Canyon salt mines.

Traditionally, the ceremony involves prayer. However, I'm not particularly religious or pray, so instead, we adapted the tradition to go as follows: baby hands out salt, guest speaks positivity into the baby's life and then the guest ingests the salt.

We invited our friends for this small party, Damon and Cortney. We all spoke positivity into Aria's life that she would be kind, funny, radiant, love life, be creative, successful, intelligent and be compassionate. As I was speaking goodness into her life, she looked at me with her sparkly eyes and big smile and I lost my train of thought. She is so easy to fall in love with, it melts your heart.

Anyway, I was caught up in the moment that I forgot to take photos. Thankfully, James popped out his phone and took some photos.

We got her some cute leggings and Damon & Cortney gave her the most adorable teddy bear. We all shared each other's company over a family recipe of spaghetti and meatballs with a side of proscuitto, wet mozzarella and tomatoes with salad and garlic bread. We finished off the evening with delicious canollis.

Big thanks to Damon and Cortney for sharing this special occassion with us!