Beads Galore!

One nice thing about jewelry making is I can get up in the morning and get dressed and then make a custom necklace to go with my outfit. Here is my white bead on clear elastic necklace I whipped up this morning while eating breakfast. Fun! It doubles really nicely too.

I am really excited because we are in the process of planning a craft club for late August or early September and I have been asked to do a jewelry making session. When I say we I mean my dear friend Alice is organizing it. In preparation I have been sorting thousands of beads that my Mother-in-law gave me years ago and my Mother stored in her house and recently mailed me. It looked like a big jumbled mess full of junk beads but once I started sorting the beads into groups I started noticing that there are actually lots of interesting beads in there. The colors are so pretty! Now I just need to design the project!

Shopping Bags

Another project I recently finished was to make some re-usable shopping bags. Last New Years we committed to using fewer plastic shopping bags in 2008. Usually this means I stuff them fuller at the store so I use less (this freaks out the baggers at Target for some reason) or I forgo them all together and just put the item in my purse, but at the grocery store it’s a different story. Those tactics just don’t cut it. It was time to get some re-usable shopping bags. I have several canvas bags but they are all different sizes (most pretty small) but I wanted something less bulky. While in Seattle last March I found a nylon bag I really liked at the packaging store. Problem was it was $20 and I needed at least 6 of them (we buy a lot of groceries at one time). It looked like a simple design so I decided to make some. I bought some rip-stop nylon while in town too and then waited for some free time to get started back in NY. First I took apart the store-bought bag. As I ripped out seams I took pictures and made notes on the construction. Once the seams were all out I traced the old bag onto some tissue paper to make a pattern.

Then I cut a bag out of the rip stop nylon and began sewing it in the reverse order that my notes stated. I referred to the photos when I had questions or got confused. It worked great! The bag was easy and turned out nice looking and sturdy! Once I knew it would work I cut and sewed the rest of the fabric. I have 6 bags for now but recently got some more nylon in gray to make a few more. Recently I tried them all out at the grocery store.
PERFECT! They held all the groceries, all fit in the cart and are strong enough to carry a lot of weight. Here is my bag on the left and the original template bag on the right. I just need to find a way to give mine a nice looking print too!

Bye Bye Baby!

I enjoyed a final day with baby Ewan yesterday. Such a cutie.
I will miss him but luckily Greg and I will be back next month for more baby love.
Today I am packing up, picking up photos at Costco and having dinner with my in-laws tonight before getting on the plane.
See, Ewan is sad to see me go! He is even cute when he cries! It has been a whirlwind visit but thanks Rachel for tolerating more visitors and thanks Mom and Dad for the free room and board!

More Baby Love

We met up with Rachel and Ewan for a little shopping and visit. Here is Grandma with little Ewan. Finally some awake time!
A big kiss from Auntie Lexie. He was being such a good baby at the mall and we will take every minute we can get!

Unexpected Trip

After pictures of my adorable nephew started rolling in I knew I couldn't wait until August to see him so I hopped a plane to Seattle and arrived on Sunday. Here are a couple photos of our introduction. He is even sweeter in person! Ewan is a very content baby (at least when I was there on Monday). Unfortunately he prefers sleeping to eating so mom and dad are working on keeping him awake long enough to get a good feeding. I was lucky enough to go with him to his first visit with the pediatrician who said he was doing very well. Mommy is doing well too.

Lets Go Mets!

New York City has at least 2 of everything, 2 airports, 2 island boroughs, and 2 baseball teams. I have been to a couple Yankees games during our time here but never a Mets games. We decided that our next home group outing should be to a Mets game at Shea stadium just a few subway stops from our neighborhood. Greg got us tickets online and we all met up at the game. Here are Greg, Grace, and JenPlus Matt and Heather.
I love my husband but these were the worst seats ever purchased. We were on the Loge level which was a great height but we ended up at the back of the section under the overhang. I can't blame him really since there was no info about the view online but this is how we watched the game:
Anytime the ball went in the air we lost sight of it. We had to bend down to see the scoreboard. It was terrible. Plus there was a leaky pipe over a couple of our seats which was kind of gross for the people sitting there. The game was OK. A little slow most of the time. We had one home run and ended up winning the game which was great. The saddest part was walking down to the bottom of our section after the game was over to see this:
The view we could have had! This experience made me want to take in another Yankees game. No matter how bad my seats were in that stadium, they were always better than the Mets!

New Hobby

For my birthday my Mother-in-Law sent me a huge box of jewelry making supplies and beads. Jewelry making is her hobby and she thought she would share her love of playing with beads with me. She likes to experiment and learned all her skills through trial and error so she didn't send me any instructions of any kind. That isn't the way I tend to pick things up so I ran right out and bought a book to teach me the basics and give me some projects to get me started. While my mom was in town I dragged her to a bead store to pick up some supplies to make this: Here it is on me in the office. Mom got really interested in bead shopping when we went to the second bead store and she found a stone that perfectly matched the shirt she was wearing. We took it home and I made her a pendant necklace out of it. Those are some matching shell earrings too. I also made a necklace using some beads Marcia had sent me. It doesn't look like much here but it turned out cute too. I ended up making some little beads that matched that could slip onto a small hoop earring for a coordinated look. More items are in the works!

NYC Waterfalls

On my Mom's last day in town we decided to take in a quick tour of the NYC Waterfalls exhibit. This an art installation by Olafur Eliasson who likes to experiment with water. He has installed 4 waterfalls on the East River in various locations. We went down to the South Street Seaport to take a tour of the falls.
You can actually see all 4 waterfalls from the dock but what fun is that. For $10 we got to take a boat ride with Circline around the river to take a closer look at each one. The most impressive is the first photo, the waterfall under the Brooklyn Bridge. I think it is the widest waterfall. Next is the waterfall on the Brooklyn water front. The tallest I think of the 4.
Being on the boat was really as much fun as seeing the falls. It was so nice being on the water and getting a nice breeze as the boat raced around. We stood right in the front for the best view.
Here is the waterfall on Governor's Island. We had a really nice view of the Statue of Liberty from here as well as lower Manhattan. The water was choppy here because of a great deal of boat traffic which made our boat bounce around. We loved it!
This sad waterfall on Manhattan's waterfront was turned off. We heard it was because the wind was blowing the water onto land and flooding the area. Not sure if that was true. The boat tour was supposed to be 30 min long but there was a little congestion at our dock so we got a second trip over to the Brooklyn Bridge waterfall while we waited for the dock to empty. A nice little bonus. It was a quick trip but we had a great time.

Fun with Mom Part 2

Another fun thing Mom and I did during her visit was go to Mood. We spent one day mostly shopping and stopped in at the fabric store that the contestants on Project Runway shop at. If you watch the show you know what I am talking about. It was so cool to be at this store we see all the time on the show. It really is like they show it, rows and rows of fabric stacked floor to ceiling, 3 floors worth. Mom and I got a whole new appreciation for the contestants who often get only 30min or an hour to shop. This store is a huge jumble with very little rhyme or reason and the bolts are literally piled up. You can hardly see the fabrics without pulling things out to look at them which would take a long time. The people who work there are very helpful and eager to assist you which I also noticed on the show. We didn't buy anything this time but I got some good ideas for curtains and may go back to pick up some fabric. The photo below is from the home decor fabric area which they never visit on Project Runway but was still cool to check out.

Special Delivery

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. As you know my mom was in town for week and once she was gone I had to study for my Stern math competency test (which I took last night and passed with flying colors). But the biggest news right now is that I became an Auntie on Sunday night. The Bothwell's welcomed 8 pound 3 ounce

EWAN CHRISTOPHER

into the family after only 24 hours of labor. We are all delighted and I can't wait to meet him. My sister is doing well and tonight they introduce the dog to the newest pack member. We'll see how it goes!

Seattle Express

My mom is in town for a few days to visit us in the big apple. Unfortunately she has come in the middle of this rainy stint but luckily the humidity hasn't been too bad. She flew in on the 4th of July in the evening. After getting her settled in the guest room and having dinner we went for a walk around the neighborhood to stretch our legs. As we were walking back to the house we came across a whole bunch of families standing on a street corner staring off into the distance to a bank of trees (this corner is atop a small hill). We figured they knew something we didn't so we hung around and sure enough the Macy's fireworks show started and we could actually see the high flying works over the trees. We stayed for about 10 min but because of the rain we went home and watched the last 10 min on the tv. Who knew we had a fireworks view! On Saturday we went to Woodside to stroll through a street fair. Unfortunately it was a standard street fair and nothing special. Once again the rain started so we headed for the train. My mom had requested a visit to Grand Central Terminal after seeing a PBS special on the building so we spend the rest of the rainy afternoon there checking it out, shopping in the market and having lunch downstairs. Then it was home for homemade pizza (it was cool enough to run the big oven) and a movie. I great first couple days.

Freezer Paper Stenciling Part 2

My bird shirts turned out so great I instantly became addicted to freezer paper stenciling. I originally was going to stick with a bird theme but I found so many cute images online I had to branch out, literally.Loved this tree design and with printing this directly onto the paper with my printer, it was really easy and quick to do. I cut it out while watching tv and then quickly ironed on and painted it finishing the whole thing in under 30min. Then it was on to a squirrel and a robot. So cute. I am in love. To make the bird shirts more interesting I also machine embroidered a couple of them for variety. In the end I decided this detracted a bit from the painted designs and that I liked them better plain. I can't wait to do more!

Freezer Paper Stenciling Part 1

Listen up moms and nannies. This is an easy craft project that is totally awesome!

So my little sister is having a baby this month and I wanted to make something special for her. She didn't want anything knitted (plus I lent all my knitting stuff to a friend), my mom made scrapbooks so that was out, and I didn't have time for a big sewing project. She also told me she was sick of baby blue items. She got tons of that stuff at her shower. So last time I was up at the outlet mall I loaded up on American Apparel baby clothes in awesome colors like navy, red, hunter green, black, etc at outlet prices. Then I came up with an idea to decorate them. Freezer paper stenciling has been all over the internet for a long time and many blogs have covered the topic. I hate to repeat them but I was blown away by how easy and cute the results were so here is my tutorial.

Supplies:
Shirt (wash and dry to pre-shrink)
Freezer paper (This is at most grocery stores)
Fabric paint (I got mine at Michael's really cheap but there are nicer brands at art supply stores. Look for textile paint)
Stencil brush (I used a regular foam brush and it worked fine)
A hot dry iron
Pencil and exacto knife

First find a design you want to stencil. I went online and searched google images using the words "bird silhouette" or "bird stencil" to find my bird images. Print it out and use it to trace your design onto a piece of freezer paper tracing onto the matte side of the paper. You can also run freezer paper through an inkjet printer and print the design directly thus saving a step. I did this for every design after my bird design (it is awesome!).Carefully cut out the stencil with an exact-o knife (this is the adult part but for everything else kids can be involved, especially in drawing a design of their choice!). You will need to replace your blade every 2-3 images you cut out. The sharper the blade the easier this step will be.Then place the stencil on your shirt, shiny side down. Place another piece of plain freezer paper about the same size as the stencil inside the shirt, shiny side up. This will keep the paint from soaking through the entire shirt. Now iron the stencil onto the shirt with a hot dry iron. It will only take about 15-20 seconds to get it to stick.Paint carefully over the stencil with fabric paint. My paint was very wet and started to warp and pull up the freezer paper so be careful. Allow the paint to dry 4-12 hours depending on the instructions on your bottle of paint. Once dry, peal the freezer paper off the shirt. Heat set your paint as instructed on the bottle.
You are done! Here are my bird shirts once they were finished! So cute and so totally easy.