Such beautiful colours. The flower was one picked out of the garden by my daughter, and it matches perfectly with a gorgeous fresh peach.

Things are going pretty well here. Time is flying by and much is being accomplished. I am finally seeing some progress on the decluttering front. I keep gathering bags of items for the thrift store, and some more items to sell, and after many weeks of doing so, I am beginning to think there is light at the end of the tunnel. Now instead of stacks of clutter in front of more stacks of clutter, there are only small stacks to deal with. I am beginning to feel my head slowly unclutter as well.

Our littlest one is now officially potty trained. Yipee! I can’t say that I’m sad to see diapers go (she is still in diapers at night), though now none of her little pants fit her cute little tushie. Those cloth diapers sure do add some bulk. I guess it’s a good thing that it’s summer and wearing nothing but sundresses and new undies will do just fine.

Oh, and she turned two, where does the time go?

This is what that fresh peach turned into, a scrumptious peach blueberry crumble. Yum! Sometimes there is nothing you need more than digging a spoon into a bowl of steaming, fruity crumble to make you feel better. Especially when there is some yummy ice cream melting into the crevices of fruit.

Hope everyone is doing well. I will be doing my best to post several times a week and see how that works out for now. It feels good to be back.

Hubby and the kids surprised me on Mother’s Day with a new 35mm lens for my camera. I am loving it, and having lots of fun playing around with it. I am not often completely surprised, but they completely floored me with this gift.

I plan on getting out here in the next few days and really giving it a go. We are now on the second leg of our journey, and after a day of driving, we are at Hubby’s parents’ house. The weather is much warmer, so I am looking forward to not having to wear a sweater, plus it will mean getting the kids out of the house more as well.

Well, it’s late, and I am bushed. The babe is pretty tired too, so it’s time to go to bed. Things will be calmer here than they were last week for the wedding, fewer people, more bathrooms (one for 15 people at one point), and some more outdoor space to play.

Hope you are all having a great week, with some cheery spring weather as well.

This is one of my go-to gift giving gifts. They are fun and easy to make and hugely practical. This is the tutorial I used. I modified a few things. I added a bit extra for the height of the pockets as some of the tea bags I use are a bit taller and I was having a few problems with them sticking out the top. Oh, and I didn’t use interfacing either, and I think it ended up thick enough, but if you were using really thin fabrics, you would probably want to add it. And lastly, I used one of the girl’s hair elastics instead of making a strip to hold the button in place.

Last year I made quite a few of these for Mother’s Day gifts, and I think they were really well liked. I always have one in my diaper bag, just in case. Now in a moment of desperation for a good cuppa, all I have to do is find a cup of hot water.

I really do love these, and as they use such little fabric, they are great stash busters as well. Have fun making some. I’d love to see them if you do try.

Recently I won a yarn giveaway over at Poppies and Milk. I just received the box, and look at all of the beautiful yarn. Those tweedy purples made my heart skip a beat.

My girls were in love with all these gorgeous pinks. The babe had a particular fondness for that extra soft and fluffy ball of white. You can see her moving in again.

Here are some more bright, fun colours. I have a few ideas for a few of the different colours, but I am going to have some real fun deciding what to do with it all. Good thing I’ll be stuck in the car for quite a while here in a couple of weeks, it’ll be perfect for having some time to crochet.

First I made a fabric covered button, from one of the sets I found at the thrift store.

Then I made some backs.

Added some crocheted flowers from this pattern (which is brilliant, and my favourite flower to crochet)….

and turned them into fun flower brooches.

I am loving these and with changing up your yarn and buttons, they can be made to be springy, wintry, for your clothing…

or to gussy up a string bag.

These flowers are gorgeous, the pattern is flawless, they are fairly quick to whip up and brilliant every time. They would make perfect gifts, and are fantastic for embellishing lots of things. Have a go, you won’t regret it.

I made this string bag a while ago, but promptly forgot about it in shuffle of everybody being so ill. I used this pattern, which was a breeze to crochet. I did add some extra rows in the middle as I wanted the bag to be a bit bigger, but otherwise it is the same pattern.

I had lots and lots of natural cotton, but I am thinking of dyeing it a brighter colour now that it is done and my stash is almost gone. This is the biggest bag (though it’s not huge) I’ve done and I really like it. I have intentions of getting one more bag done before the month is out, and I hope I’ll be able to get to it.

I love making my own bags, and this has been such a fun challenge as it is not something I’ve done before. Even though I have not had luck in finding a pattern to match what I need for big shops, these smaller bags will definitely have their place. For one, they’ll be easier for the kiddos to manage. They will be perfect for produce bags and also little gift bags. Several different little handmade string bags would also be perfect tied up with pretty ribbons for a gift.

Well, it’s supposed to snow again today and tomorrow, I am thankful that we are having days of springyness in between the cold, grey weather, but I will definitely be glad when it is more consistently warm. No real sign of spring here in the form of buds or anything green, but I am keeping a keen eye out.

What are your favourite signs of spring?

Here is my second string bag, and in a much more cheerful colour as well. I used this pattern, and though I followed the directions precisely, I don’t really see the resemblance to the picture. I do like it, and though it is a pretty small bag, I think it will be very useful.

So this is my dilemma, see this bag? My mom brought it home for me from Marks & Sparks last summer after her trip to England. I absolutely love this bag, it is the perfect size, it holds tons of stuff, and the opening is really big. I love the dual handles as it is perfect to throw over my shoulder, or carry in my hands, and using the short handles, the kids can handle it really well as well.

I am having a very difficult time finding a pattern to match this type of bag. Each bag I have made has a fairly narrow opening and I think it wouldn’t be such a problem if I hadn’t been spoiled with my green bag. The big issue is that for the same style and size, I can buy one cheaper than I could make one, assuming that I could even figure out a pattern that was similar.

I’m all for making my own, but it is slightly frustrating to know that I am paying more to make one that doesn’t match the ease of use as the one I really love. I think what I might do is make more smallish bags like this red one as they would come in handy for produce, or the kids carrying them etc. and then just buy some of the bigger ones which I really do love for bigger shops, or plants etc. that need more space and a much bigger opening.

On a side note, Hubby and I had a good giggle while watching Did You Hear About the Morgans? It is about a New York City couple who are sent to Wyoming while in the witness protection program. There were some really funny parts, and though we don’t have bears in our back yard, they absolutely nailed it when they said the sky out here is like nowhere else.

I’m feeling much better after the receptionist episode yesterday, but we’ll see how it goes today. After 2 1/2 years of having these braces on, and the fact that they were supposed to come off last September, I’ll believe it when I see it. Wish me luck!

Oh, and the kiddos are doing much better now, there are a few slightly runny noses, but the awful coughing is over and the ear infections are gone. It has been so nice here these last two days, with the temp in the 60′s, that we have spent most of our days outside, which has really helped with the cabin fever.

Well, I’ve rambled on long enough. Once I get a little more energy back I’ve got lots of projects on my to do list, can’t wait to show you.

Isn’t this piece beautiful? It was a gift from my mom after we found it on one of our Saturday morning thrift store runs a couple of weeks ago. I have no idea what it was originally intended for…..

but now it is sitting beside my couch, holding lots of scrumptious wool.

Recently I won a little giveaway over at jennyflower, and it arrived yesterday. Look at all those goodies. I knew about the book and the card, isn’t it gorgeous? I will have lots of fun going through the book and trying my hand at ribbon embroidery, and look at the extras.

My two girls love the hair pretties. The babe grabbed them all in her chubby little hands and started patting her head (what she does when she wants something in her hair). They are all hand crocheted or stitched and they are gorgeous, what a lovely little surprise. Also the fact that the book was wrapped in fabric was so exciting to me. Now I have some pretty new fabrics to work with and I think I know just what they will end up as.

Thanks Jennyflower, it was such a treat. If you aren’t familiar with Jennyflower,you should definitely pop on over, she is such a sweet gal and does beautiful work.

On a side note, my brother leaves today, we had a really nice time with him, and will miss him. The rest of our week should be fairly normal and back to our routine, though I’m hoping for some better weather as it would be really nice to have the kids play outside some. The problem with winter here is that it gets really windy. The cold wouldn’t be so bad by itself, but the wind can be brutal. Most of the time it is too much for the kids to go out, or dry clothes on the line, they just get whipped off, so I am really looking forward to warmer, less windy days.

I am making good progress on my crochet project and hope to have it finished next week. Also, I am trying to decide on what our one small change for March will be. Oh, and we have to take our eldest to the dentist again as he needs another repair on his braces (second one in one week), which is a bit of a pain as it is so far away. So maybe it won’t be such a normal week after all.

Much of this past weekend was enjoying a wedding and all that it involved. My brother flew into town and we are very much enjoying his company as well. I was thrilled to be asked to do the flowers for the wedding so I thought I would share some pictures of them with you all.

All four of my kiddos were in the wedding, and the girls each carried one of these. The brides bouquet above went perfectly with her gorgeous bronze dress. It’s been a while since I’ve done flowers for any type of event, but it was a lot of fun. All of the flowers were faux, as they were done in advance, but nowadays there are such pretty, convincing faux flowers that it was near impossible to tell.

We had a great weekend, hope you all did too.