Happy May Day!

 May first, already?  Goodness, I've been gone from this little place for a long time.  Surely wasn't intentional but life has been busy and full!  Each May, my children have enjoyed delivering homemade goodies to our neighbors, no matter where we lived.  Some years it would be cookies, others handpicked flowers or weedy flowers in homemade paper baskets.  This year they made these adorable seed pot baskets filled with either Dove chocolates or a bird sitting on little eggs.  Our neighbors thought they were cute and enjoyed their homemade goodies.  Here's a link to the directions: Peat Pot Baskets

 Remember, I've been working on UFO's?  Well, here's a huge one that I finally finished!  This piece is called The Marriage of Minds by The Drawn Thread.  I started this project over ten years ago and hoped to complete it by our 20th wedding anniversary.  Well, we celebrated our 30th anniversary this past August.  It was a little overdue!  But I did finish it, so that's a plus, right?

 It's now on my living room wall and I couldn't be happier with it!  There are a lot of specialty stitches in it and it was a fun project.

 The wording is from Shakespeare.

 I picked up in the winter right where you see, "It is an ever..." and finished it up last month.  We were all sick for a good part of the winter this year so I spent a lot of time on the couch stitching.

On the original pattern, the wording at the end reads, Twenty tempestuous years.  I don't think our thirty years have really been tempestuous, even though we have had our share of ups and downs.  More fitting for us, I thought, was Thirty fruitful years!  With seven kiddoes I thought that fit us better!     

Pinecones and A Little Bitty Finish

The girls collected some pinecones from the back the other day and made some peanut butter birdseed feeders to hang on the trees. I read them a book, Francis The Poor Man of Assisi by Tomie De Paola and thought our little craft would be appropriate.

I started this little embroidery project a couple years ago and did indeed finish the embroidery, just never put the mini quilt together. It's certainly on my 'to-do' list. When I began the project it was a free BOM, but now I see there is a small charge. You can find it here.

Goodness, what a blurry picture. Sorry about that. This is a little scissor fob my daughter made several years ago when she was about 12 or so. I found it the other night in a box and decided to do the finishing on it. It's very sweet and more so because it was the work of her hands. It's called Lady Bug Scissor Fob by Lorri Birmingham Designs.

Spray Painted Pencil Case

I'm in the middle of packing and cleaning before we leave this afternoon, and what am I doing? Snapping a quick picture of one more little thing... In the midst of my packing, I nearly forgot to finish up this project for Cassidy. For another one of her gifts, I got her a Primsa Watercolor set. The outside tin is rather ugly; black with some colored pencils on it or something. I wanted to pretty it up for her. I got some pink spray paint and clear spray paint. It took two coats of the pink to cover the black, then I sprayed on the clear and shook on some Martha Stewart glitter. Oooo it's fit for a princess, now!
O.K., I gotta get crackin' before my hubby catches me loafin' on the computer!
Have a great week!

Little People Surprise

The two little ones have birthdays this week. We bought each one a new bike and helmet but I thought they still needed something small that their little hands could play with. So I had a bit of fun painting and fussing over the wooden boxes and people.

They'll each have a little family to play with...

and they will sleep in their little houses.
I think the girls will enjoy playing with these little treasure surprise boxes.

Simple Wreaths

I'm fighting off a little cold this weekend and decided to take it easy. Yesterday was spent getting in a day of school and simmering a pot of soup on the stove. Today, I really wanted to get out and enjoy the sunny weather. We took a drive to Mansfield as today was the first day of the flea market. Lots of people selling stuff. I came away with two wooden spoons. Not much... didn't find anything I was hoping to find. But, as we were driving down a back country road, I spotted this wreath hanging on a front door. It was so tackily cute that I had to stop at AC Moore on the way home and pick up those plastic Easter eggs and grapevine wreath to make my own. It now happily hangs on my front door!

Seeing I had the glue gun out and all, I took out the box of hydraneas I cut from my parent's bush late last summer. They dried very nicely. When I cut those blossoms I had in mind to make them a wreath for Christmas. That didn't happen, but I did manage to make it today. I will give it to them for their anniversary in April. It isn't perfect proportion wise, but I'm happy with it. My mom will love it, if for no other reason, that it came from her bushes!
I'm going to try to push myself for a little walk tonight, but other than that, I can be found lounging on the couch with a nice cup of hot tea and a knitting project in my hands.