In preparation for homeschooling, I’ve been cleaning up the craft area. I need to do this often otherwise it just get too out of control! LOL I found a small box of already cut quilting squares (embarrassingly enough, I actually bought them off of eBay a little more then five years ago….and never used them!) and a sack with already cut material and a pattern.

I love this material - the colors go perfect with each other and they are bright and vibrant. I think it is a wall hanging? Just according to the pattern I found with it and if I remember right, my Mom and I bought the material together as we were both going to make one. I think this will be next on my sewing list of to-dos ~ after a few doll pillows and blankets my daughter has requested.

Really, it’s the cutting that always slows me down. I admit I’ve usually had my Mom around to help me with the cutting of material - or she does it for me and mails it to me. I’m spoiled like that. But now that we are across the counry from each other, at least I’m finally doing all of these projects I was supposed to do!

I even found material for a skirt for my daughter. I know it was for a skirt, now to just find the pattern for that.

I whipped that baby blanket up in no time flat right - only to be stuck on the binding! The binding is always the hardest for me. I think it’s partly because I make it hard. Once I get started I know it will be easy to finish.

So far here is what I have done:

See those three pins? I think I have a total of seven pins in there. I know! It’s barely inches on that thing. *sigh* I know I need to just sit and get it done, but I just feel stuck. I almost feel like putting it away and coming back to it after I do a few other things. But my girlfriends baby is due in two months (from today!) so I know I can’t put it away for too long.

Maybe I’ll just put it away until the end of August. Then I can finish it in a couple of days and still get it in the mail to her in time. Hhmmm, there’s an idea….

What does it take for you to post a comment on someone’s blog? Does their writing just naturally want to you join in and post? What if there are already a bunch of comments? What if there are 60+? I often wonder about posting to blogs that have that many comments, and admit to not reading all of the comments and not wanting to repeat someone else. How dumb to worry of such a thing!

I’ve recently started coming out of my shell - posting when someone puts up a cool project or shared a birthday with my child. There are lots of others I’ve posted on too, but I think those were the latest. I’ve been reading these blogs for way too long to just now start posting! How embarrassing.

Oh well, I will comment away now.

Today is my daughter’s fifth birthday. She is happy and excited when you talk to her about her birthday. She was most happy about picking out what food we all ate today - a fun treat I plan to continue forever.

Her brother was having a sort of hard time because his birthday is next week and he wanted it to be today. It’s hard to have their birthdays so close together as everyone says “oh a combined birthday party will be easy” - and granted I have been doing combined parties the past few years, but I know that won’t last too long.

This is her first birthday away from friends and family. I consider the neighbor kids to be her friends, but since we don’t really talk to their parents, I admit I feel wierd inviting them to something. My plan at this point is to have a cake and a bunch of snacks and eat outside and have the kids invite the other kids. Then again, I better talk to the parents so the kids actually come over!

It sucks being away from friends and family, especially on birthdays!

But she is 5! I am amazed that she was this tiny baby who was too small to fit into her coming home outfit, but now she is a tall five year old. Strong willed, chatterbox, loves to craft (yay!), first born girl. The baby that her dad would call a smidgen of a person, he nicknamed her smidge for a while, but it never stuck. The little girl who I wonder if I am doing a good job parenting and I wonder who she will grow up to be.

In all her dancing glory, being a techie child and listening to Mom’s iPod.

In Make It’s blog dump the other day, she linked to this blog which referenced Flickr’s guidelines about using linking commercially.

Flickr says (taken from their guidelines linked to above):

DON’T: Use Flickr for Commercial Purposes
Flickr is for personal use only. If you sell products, services or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account.

I haven’t used my flickr pictures commercially and I actually have to say I’m not sure I have seen others either. I’m sure some of the other crafty blogs that I visit do use Flickr - it’s cheap (or free) and easy to use - but I can’t recall any right now.

At any rate, be careful! You don’t want to get shut down.

What’s one more challenge right?

I’m joining the pincushion challenge! I’m excited - the only pincushion I have is one that Helen sent me in our swap, and the one that is on top of my sewing box.

The pictures from past challenges are so beautiful! I remember pincushions - my Mom’s was a tomato and it had a long’ish green stem, but the stem connected to a small red thing. It wasn’t another tomato, it was sort of the shape of a strawberry if I remember right. But my Mom had that same pincushion for years - I know since I was a little kid and I’m pretty sure she still has it. That’s a long time to have a pincushion!

The them for August and September for the pincushion challege is

I immediately thought of the box or two of baby clothes I have packed away in my garage. I’m sure one box is stuff that I really want to keep - but I know there are some in the other box that, for lack of better term, aren’t that special to keep.

~ Sidenote on baby clothes: I have a brown dress with light flowers that was mine when I was a baby. My Mom saved it all these years (I just turned 28 back in June) and gave it to me not too long ago. My daughter was too big to wear it, so maybe my grand daughter will. I digress - my Mom saved the dress because back then she said everything for little girls was pastel. And that was one of the first, if not the first, store bought dress she saw that wasn’t. (We lived in a really small town, so maybe that was also part of it?) And so I have a hard time keeping an outfit or something because I bought it as a mass produced store like Target. End sidenote. ~

And so this week while I go through the clothes, I am going to see if there are a couple of items that would make lovely pincushions. I’m thinking I’ll make one for myself and one for my Mom. It’s about time to retire hers I’m sure.

Helen has a great post about neighbors - which got me thinking (again) about my neighbors. We live in a new development with construction going on behind the people across the street from us. When we moved in, there were still a handful of houses being finished or just getting started, but now everything is done and from what I can tell, there are people living in all of them.

I grew up surrounded by family: Grandma next door, Aunt next door to her, etc. The rest of my family lived in the same town or another town 10 minutes away. Having great neighbors was just a given - and I wonder if that’s because of being in a small town?

Here, not so small townish. When we moved in, one side of our neighbors was also moving in - the same day! We said hi and that was about it. Until summer came and our kids started playing together. But an 8 year old (neighbor) doesn’t always like playing with toddlers (mine) - so that didn’t last too long.

On the other side of us we have neighbors with kids. And the kids are our age! But they aren’t the most social people. When they moved in, they happened to be outside one of the times when I was leaving - so I stopped, introduced myself and said welcome to the neighborhood. We’ve talked to a handful of others, but not everyday.

Considering we live on a street that ends in a cul-de-sac, I was so excited to think of the neighborhood parties, the kids playing in the street together, the in general fun times to be had by all.

And so I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed that the people taking walks at night don’t glance at us while we are cleaning the garage or watching our kids ride bike. I’m disappointed that neighbors don’t stop by to welcome you to the neighborhood. I’m disappointed that there are not whole flocks of kids running around together, going house to house because they are all friends and hey that’s what kids do. Granted, we aren’t out there going up to everyone and trying to get them involved so I wonder, is it true that it just takes one person?

It’s the south and it’s hot - we are generally inside with the ac blasting. Sitting out front yesterday, I debated putting a fan out there to hit me. LOL Plus my chairs are too low for anyone to really see me sitting there! Ruins the point of visiting with neighbors.

And tying this into crafting I remember when I was crafting as a child, living next door to my grandma, I could run 40 feet and ask her a question about it. I long to find a crafty partner here!

I have a lot more thoughts on this, but Helen’s post spurned that.