I'm not entirely sure what to do with myself today. I had a pretty stressful week last week, with lot's of appointments, 4 sewing orders, and kids who just wanted some mommy time. This week so far I don't have any sewing orders, only one appointment and NOTHING ELSE scheduled! I don't know what to do with myself!

Granted my house could use some cleaning, the laundry needs to be done, there are still lot's of Christmas presents to be made, and I desperately need groceries but I'm gonna ignore most of that and just spend some time with these little monkeys:

This Kid and His Faces

Brayer has always been the king of faces. He pulls the funniest ones several times a day and makes us all crack up.

Today we decided to make some Christmas crafts to get ready for setting up the tree tomorrow and when I asked Brayer to show me his crafts for the camera he was ready to show us both his crafts and his faces.

Favorite Tutorial Sites

My friend Elizabeth and I have been messaging on facebook recently about our favorite inspiration sites so I thought I'd share mine with you. I won't share all my favorite blogs because well, that list is really long, but here's my list of favorite sites that either list the latest tutorials that are in the blog world, or have a bunch of great tutorials themselves.

Sew, Mama, Sew
One Pretty Thing
Craftzine Blog
Living Creatively
Craft Gossip

Those are my top 5. I check all these blogs every single day and tons of my inspiration comes from them. If you're looking for Christmas presents to make, these are the sites to go to for ideas. One Pretty Thing even has a section at the top where you can browse through all their different categories of tutorials.

The Dog Bed, as Requested

So here's the new bed I made Fable. It is quite literally made with scraps. The top fleecy part? That was a vest someone had cut out and started to sew together. I took it all apart and sewed pieces together till it formed a square, then I took that "lovely" floral upholstery fabric and cut it to the same size and sewed them together leaving a pocket opening on one side. Then I put an old sleeping bag and an old blanket in there. Works perfect! You can't see the "pretty" floral fabric so no worries there, plus it's tough enough to be able to handle camping and stuff so I'm happy. This was basically a trial bed for a custom order I'm making for someone else. I didn't have enough fabric to make it exactly how I would make the order but at least it gave me some practice and Fable a much needed new bed.

So here's just one more project to file under November Sew Something Month!

Random

• Tonight I realized that if I had to choose between chocolate and mashed potatoes I don't know what I would choose.
• I've been getting so many sewing orders lately I'm a bit overwhelmed... and to be honest completely stoked!
• There's nothing like a fresh from the oven zucchini chocolate chip muffin to keep my kids quiet for 5 minutes
• My house is a complete disaster and today was laundry day and I did none.
• I abhor taking my kids to the fabric store
• I'm already having middle of the night pregnancy insomnia and oddly enough Kaed seems to be awake at the same time every night
• Kaed just opened a "ahem" poop filled cloth diaper I had neglected to rinse out yet, the joys of cloth diapering mixed with in the moment laziness
• I cannot wait for Christmas and for the first time ever I've had urgings to set up the Christmas Tree before Dec. 1st.
• I love my new sewing machine
• As soon as Christmas is over I'm making myself a new bag... and I definitely don't need one
• I made my dog a new bed today and I don't know who likes it more, her or my kids

And there you have it... my random musings this afternoon

A Few Things

My computer was busted for a few days unfortunately but while that was broken UPS dropped this off for me:

My new baby! Wow I love this machine.... it's a great sewing machine and it's also an embroidery machine! I haven't touched any of the embroidery stuff yet but I hope to tackle that after Christmas.

Today I got fed up with all my little spools of thread being stolen by the kids and played with so I quick made up a thread holder. It's not great but it'll do. I just took a piece of cork board I had, and a scrap piece of fabric and pinned it on. I didn't trim the fabric or staple it or anything because I want to be able to use the fabric again if I so desire or so I can change the fabric up whenever I want. Then I took some regular pins and put them up and put the spools on them. I hung it high up on the wall so the kids can't reach. Sorry for the poor quality pictures, it was in my basement where the lighting is terrible and I haven't installed my photoshop yet since the computer has been fixed.

the back.

Monkey

Meet Monkey. Monkey was lovingly made for my youngest son Brayer for his 1st Birthday. Monkey has since been lovingly taken over by my oldest son Kaed. Kaed takes Monkey with him all over the house. Monkey goes to bed with him, Monkey sits in his little foam chair, Monkey sits and eats in the highchair. Monkey is very well loved. Thank you Auntie Shelly for making Monkey.

Serving A Few Purposes

Travis had ordered something off of ebay a couple weeks ago and it all came wrapped up in ridiculous amounts of brown paper. I didn't really want to just recycle it so I spread it out on the floor and let the boys paint all over it. It kept them entertained for a good hour and now we will use it to wrap christmas presents. After all that it can still be recycled... I'm happy!

Refrigerator Bran Muffins

I've been making these Refrigerator Bran Muffins fairly often lately. My kids and husband LOVE muffins like no one else and I don't mind making them for them at all. The problem is that on a saturday morning, they can polish off an entire dozen and I get a little sick of making a whole batch every day of the weekend. That's why I love this recipe. One batch of batter makes about 4 dozen muffins and you can keep the batter in the fridge for up to 4 weeks! They are also low in sugar and quite healthy. Feel free to substitute some of the flour for whole wheat or add any fruit you want. Just only add the fruit to the batter you are about to bake.

The recipe is from my all time favorite cookbook, More With Less

Refrigerator Bran Muffins

2 cups ready to eat bran cereal
2 cups boiling water
2 cup butter
1 ½ cups sugar
4 eggs
1 liter buttermilk (or sour milk)
5 cups flour
5 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
4 cups additional dry bran cereal

Mix together 2 cups bran cereal with the boiling water. Set aside to let soak and cool.

Cream together butter, sugar, and eggs. Add buttermilk and soaked bran mixture.

Mix together flour, soda, and salt. Add to creamed mixture and fold in until flour is moistened. Fold in 4 cups additional dry bran cereal.

Store batter in covered container in the fridge. Keeps good for 3-4 weeks. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 and fill well greased (or lined) muffin tins 2/3rds full. Bake for approximately 15-20 mins.

That tray in the background of the picture of muffins? That would be my homemade granola, the recipe is here

Baby # 3

Well here he/she is!! Only 20 more weeks till we get to meet him/her!! Can't wait!

(and here's it's hand.. how cute??)

Shop Update!

I put a couple new bags in my shop today! Click on the link on the right side if you want to check them out...

Of course that also meant that I did some sewing today too! I finished up a Buttercup Bag (clutch style) in pretty much my most favorite fabric ever.

I also did some shopping this morning... Fabricland had a huge fabric sale so I stocked up a bit more than I probably should have. To be fair I really needed new cutting blades and it was way cheaper to buy 5 than just one so that was a huge expense. Here's some of the new fabric I bought today, the top two are available to be made into pouch slings, and the other three could be made into bags.

I'm thinking maybe a really pretty diaper bag or messenger bag for this one?

and for these two I'm thinking bigger versions of the Buttercup Bag with straps on them of course.

Creative Little Daisy's Sew Something Month

Creative Little Daisy has declared November Sew Something Month and I'm totally on board. Of course it helps that I plan to be sewing a tiny bit just about every day in order to get Christmas presents made but still! What a great idea!

Obviously I won't be able to share all my projects because well, I don't want those who they are for to see them before Christmas, but I'll share what I can.

Here's what I sewed today....

The pictures suck I know, and because Brayer still scoots everywhere he picks up all the lint, dog hair, and anything else that hasn't recently been swept up so the pants are covered in all that stuff, but anyway it's these little lounge pants I made him. I've been making lots of these lately and it now only takes me about 15 mins from start to finish, can't complain about that!

My Little Monkey

So this guy thinks he has us all fooled. He's 15 months and not walking yet but we're pretty sure if he could do it without us seeing him he would. He can stand up on his own just fine but as soon as we look at him he giggles and sits down. What a little monkey...

Family Photos

We've really been in need of some new family photos as the last set we had done was when Brayer was only 2 months old... 1 year ago! I realize that soon there will be another member of family so we will yet again have to take a new picture but there was a need for recent one for a gift my mother in law is making so we got my sister in law Rosie Numan to take some more pictures. We had these taken out at the archery range we frequent.

this one is definately my favorite!

Boo!

(picture by Rosella Numan)

Kaed was once again Robin Hood for Halloween which made my life very easy. He's very into shooting his bow and arrow lately so it was perfect for him.

I made Brayer a spider costume which was actually pretty easy too. I just took a bunch of Trav's old socks and stuffed them with filling, then sewed them onto a makeshift belt. Then I hot glue gunned pompoms all over them. I made him up some tights basically and same thing, glued pompoms on them. For his hat I just took a toque that fit him and traced around it, cut it out, and sewed it together, again glueing on the pompoms. I think he looked pretty cute but I never did get a really good pic.

Both boys had a good time trick or treating, we went out with their cousin just around to the neighbours and in our culdosac. It was a good evening!