My friend Marie Ynami puts on a cool event for Mom’s every year - Mommy Fest! This year is the fifth year she is putting this together and to celebrate she is holding a High 5 contest for chocolate. All you need to do is take a picture of five of something - you can see my five crafts over at Crafter Cast - and here I have five hands. These are mine (obviously the biggest hand), then going clockwise we have my daughter, my son, the younger of the nephews I watch, and then the second youngest one. They loved taking the picture and we have a few because they wanted to try standing close to the chair, leaning far away, hands all touching, not touching, etc.

Mommy Fest is being held May 12-16 and will have more contests, freebies, exhibitors and more.

Head on over to the Crafter Cast and listen to this weeks show! I am talking about making your own beauty products - I was inspired by my friend Carrie at Natural Moms Talk Radio and her free beauty guide (which I linked to in my show notes!). I have complained about my skin before and look forward to using some natural products and making some with the kids! First on our list are bath bombs and lip balm.

My current crafty space is so much smaller then I am used to! As you can see from my picture yesterday we have student desks set up and my boxes of card making supplies around it. This set up is in the living room and the student desks are what the kids use when they want to sit and do school work. My Dad bought them for the kids and I have to say, they love them. I’ve been sitting at the biggest desk and making cards. It is a small work area so I have to be careful what I work on and how many tools I have out. I have perfected working in an assembly line fashion and that does help.

The supplies have been out for a week and they are getting put away today. We are starting a family dinner night and since that is Thursdays, I need the stuff out of the way so my nephews little hands don’t get into my things! Of course the kids will either all want to play outside or play the Wii and I doubt my crafty stuff will even be of interest to them.

National Craft Month is over - did you craft all you wanted to? Did you finish projects or just start new ones?

Did you branch out to something new? Take advantage of any sales craft stores held?

I didn’t finish any of the projects I am working on. I still have a few things I really need to finish, but for some reason finding the motivation to do so is hard! I did finally get my card making supplies out and made cards for the swap I am in - which felt really good considering I took the past few months off since the supplies were with my Dad while I was in another state.

My one yarn needle broke and I have yet to replace it which means the fingerless gloves I was so happy to make for Alice still aren’t finished.

Since I didn’t buy a yarn needle that proves I didn’t get to a craft store. I admit it - it is hard to walk into a Joann that is so small. I don’t think I’ve seen a Joann store as small as the one here! I can’t even think of what to compare it to since stores are so oversized now. I haven’t found Michaels yet - but it seems like every store is on the other side of town! I rarely complain about having to drive somewhere for something - I grew up in a town where you had to drive two hours to the mall, one hour to the movies, etc. But seriously, all of the stores I enjoy (Joann, Barnes & Noble, Michaels, the mall, Hobby Lobby) are at least 15-20 minutes away, longer unless I can hit green lights. And driving over there not knowing what I want will be there, not fun. In fact I’m looking for a  punch and am going to call the stores before I leave. I’d rather order online then drive across town just to see - the price of gas seems to be going up a few cents every three days!

Maybe some of my lack of crafting motivation has come from my serious motivation to work out - check out my baby weight blog at Losing My Baby Weight. I’ve been working hard the past week!

We went to the library again and I managed to find quite a few books I had saved on my list. I took another glance in the craft section and I have to say I’m disappointed in they are so old - the covers sort of give it away but opening the book definitely does. I love finding quilting patterns but it seems they are only stocking quilting for babies from the 70s and 80s! I suppose that’s fun to look at and the colors could be changed, but I managed to find others to bring home instead.

They do have one shelf dedicated to embroidery and I need to take a few minutes to look at that closer. I didn’t bring many crafts to do with me but I did manage to throw in a set of pillow cases. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure I brought thread! Ah well just another reason to go craft item shopping.

Head on over to Average Jane Crafter and read the review on the Sublime Stitching Craft Pad. This is the Sublime Stitching book being published March 13! Rachel has done a review and it will make you want to run to your bookstore and wait for that day to come. Luckily for us all, it’s just a week away. The Craft Pad looks like it has so many awesome embroidery patterns! I can’t wait to try them out. I usually stick to pillows for my embroidery and figure it’s time to branch out to other items. I have a few ideas and wrote them down so I don’t forget.

Do you have a favorite embroidery pattern? I love birds (the tattoo swallows are my favorite) and flowers.

So I’ve been in Montana at my Dad’s house for a few weeks now!

1. Socks and blankets are good! Dad’s house is big and it’s just him, and he works all day. So while the heat is on when he’s home, it isn’t while he’s gone. I mean, before we got here it wasn’t on. Now it’s on but I realize how hard it is to heat a place this size. So the kids and I are making sure we wear socks and that the blankets are out! We stick to a few rooms during the day so it works out just fine.

2. The library is awesome! When we were in South Carolina, I didn’t care for the library all that much. It was too small, didn’t have newer things and seemed to never have what I was looking for. That didn’t stop me from checking out books and owing them a fine though. But this library here - two stories! Awesome kid section! The kid section has a huge rug that has hopscotch printed on it and they don’t mind if kids play. They also have legos and a few other toys. They have reading time every single day and tomorrow should be our first day of going to that. I’ve already reserved a few books and have quite a list going - the online system allows you to add books to a list, not requesting them, but merely saving them. I’m going to print it before I go then look at the books - I’d hate for someone to have to get them for me, only to realize I don’t want to read them.

3. The Visitors Center is cool. I got lost last week and ended up finding the visitors center. They put out weekly and monthly lists of what is going on in town! I planned on seeing Grease in the local theater, but Alice was sick so I didn’t. But Little Women is coming in April and I really want to see that! I’m going to get the book and read it to Alice and hopefully take her. Maybe she’s a little young, but that’s okay. I didn’t mind getting lost once I found that place.

4. I’m reading again. I didn’t bring many books - and what I did bring are craft books so it’s not like I could sit down and read a story when I wanted to. I started reading An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler -I really like this series. The sampler is the first three books in the series and I had already read the first so it was nice to skip ahead. I also put others on my list at the library.

5. Amazon Unbox rules! Let’s face it, the writers strike sucked. And with moving I was thinking I’d miss a few of my favorite shows. Thanks to Unbox and abc.com (they know how to show tv online - I’ve tried on nbc and cbs and it just doesn’t work for me - maybe I need to try again) I’ve kept up. Not that there has been a lot to keep up on, which is good for my wallet.

6. I finished Financial Peace University online. I have been talking about money for the past two weeks - being annoyed with people about it, wondering about it, doing a budget every other day, etc. I had to do a crash course of FPU because you are allowed so much time to finish it - and with moving I forgot about it. But now that I’m done I have a short list of things I need to check on and a renewed sense of money management.

7. Costco samples can fill you up. I finally got to shop at Costco again! It was great to go there. We went on Saturday when they have samples every other aisle. I shop much different then my Dad or brother - they both know what they are looking for, go in, find it, and leave. I like to walk around, browse the books, etc. I’m sure their way saves money though. I suppose not shopping at Costco would be good for my renewed sense of money management though.

9. Copy machines at home are so worth the money. Dad got a new printer and though it had to be replaced, I’ve been using the copy portion of it today. I borrowed a few craft books from the library just to bring them home to make a copy or ten. I found a really cute kids quilt idea and one book of handmade cards - Quick & Clever Instant Cards - that have either cute cards or good layouts that I’d like to try. I think if I need to make that many copies of a book I should just buy it!

10. My kids love having other kids to play with. One of my nephews is the same age as Alice and they have been having a good time together. Actually my nephews and my kids are all 8 years or younger, so they get along fairly well.

11. I think I lost weight. I say I think because I’m basing it on slightly looser jeans and my watch sliding down my wrist. I have yet to join the Y but I have all the paperwork so that will be very soon.

12. We have renters! I have a signed rental agreement! I’m so glad we were able to get the house rented out, I was worried because of the market and the reasons why people were opting for other places after looking at ours. If you ever need a real estate agent in South Carolina, I can tell you who to stay away from, and who to work with.

13. It’s snowing! yeah yeah, it’s winter in Montana. It is supposed to snow. But a few days ago it was in the high 40s and the sun was shining. After being away from snow for years, I’ll gladly take some now. Plus the kids really love it. They have snow pants, jackets, boots, gloves, hats, the whole works - and haven’t worn them since we got here.

All in all good things have been happening in just a few short weeks here.