Summer's Coming To An End!

It's Labor Day weekend and that means, my husband goes back to school, my son goes back to school, and we get back to a routine.  I love Fall!  I love the crisp clean air, the cool nights, the fun fall things that we do, but I love having my husband home during the summer!

This summer we have had a pretty quiet, but fun summer.  Overall, the weather was really nice.  We had some days that were uncomfortable hot, but for the most part, the days were enjoyable!

Enjoy some pictures from our summer fun!

We celebrated 5 years of marriage

waiting for fireworks

waiting for fireworks

waiting for fireworks

me and my hubby

playing at the beach 4th of July

learning to swim

Ran our first 5K

playing at the park

playing in the sandbox

amaranth from our garden grown from seed

blueberry picking

Hanging in Newburyport

Museum of Science

The Basin Franconia Notch New Hampshire

Making soap

North Conway Railway

Family Portrait at The Basin

Flying airplanes

York Beach

The Park

Michael's granny square afghan

Poppy cat for Michael

Poppy cat for Michael

doll bed, quilt, mattress, pillow, and quilt, as well as a rag rug for Eva Rose's Doll

Rag quilt for Thomas and Eva Rose

We didn't do crazy things this summer, but we had a blast.  I loved being able to share time with our children and  not feeling like what we did had to be some crazy commercialized summer.  I love being able to look back at our pictures and remembering the fun times that we had.  We may not have a ton of money to do crazy expense  things, but we are able to spend good quality time and create loving lasting memories for our children.  I am so thankful that my husband is able to spend time with us.  I love being able to spend time creating things for my children and creating memories for our family!  As happy as I am to be getting back to a routine, I will miss our summer fun and lazy family days.  Here'd to next summer!

Amy

My Newest Crafting Experiment

I finally started to attempt to make soap.  I was a little fearful, partially from others telling me how dangerous it could be and partly because of my own crazy mind, though I think others remarks had helped to make my mind worry more than it would otherwise.  I also have this crazy fear of failure in anything and everything I do.  I like to be perfect in everything I do, and I have a hard time remembering that most of the time, it takes a lot of practice to get things perfect, even close to perfect.

I finally made the decision to go ahead and try it.  How hard could it be?  I definitely made sure that I researched and read up on making soap in a crock pot.   I watched many a youtube video on crockpot soap making and finally decided that I was comfortable attempting it.

I made sure that I had my iPad right next to me with a youtube video going.  I made sure that the kids were all in bed and fast asleep.  I made sure that I had gloves and vinegar in case I spilled the lye.  I didn't spill the lye.  Things went well and I had soap the next day.  I learned that there are better lye calculators than others, or at least there are many lye calculators and people have different feelings about the different ones that are out there.  Personally, I like http://soapcalc.net for all the info that I get and as a new soap maker, I really appreciate what it gives me.

I learned that there are many different oils that can be used and different outcomes.  My first soap was pretty soft and then once I found different oils, I found that you can make a harder soap right from the start.  My most recent soap consists of olive oil, coconut oil, and crisco, yes crisco.  I'm not really sure how I feel about crisco, but it seems to work well.  I now plan to try Walmart shortening and see how soap with that vs crisco is.  

I love making soap and plan to continue making it, experimenting with different oils and scents.  I may, at some point, attempt cold process, but that takes a little longer before the soap is ready.  I can't wait to learn more.

I have been pretty productive this summer.  I could always be more productive, but I am happy with what I've done.  I still plan to try to make some things for my twins group and hope that I can finish a few things to donate for them to sell at our national convention.  I also hope to start creating more for charity and maybe become part of a specific charity, Enchanted Makeovers.

A few picture of my soap and other projects from this summer!

First soap ever in the mold

first soap out of the mold cut and drying

rag quilts for the twins

doll bed, with quilt and rag rug

soap for Michael's teachers in the mold

soap for Michael's teachers cut waiting to be wrapped

my new pincushion

mixing my latest soap

latest soap at trace

soap cooking in the crockpot

soap almost finished cooking

soap molded and cooling. Can't wait to cut it tomorrow!

This is jut a few of the projects that I have completed and have been working on.  I have a few other things in process and can't wait to find time to finish them.  I can't what to get things organized so that I can have more time to craft rather than finding where to craft, a place to craft and then remembering to clean up!  Loving being creative!

Amy

My Latest Projects (and a couple of pics of the twins)

I am trying to spend some time being creative and also using up some of the huge crafting stash that I have accumulated.  When I was looking at some of the things I thought about getting rid of, I realized that they were actually completed projects (if I was just a little creative in how I saw them), they just needed the finishing touches.  I weaved in some ends, and Voila!!!!, a baby Belle granny square afghan and a granny square afghan for Eva Rose.  Now on to using up some yarn stash to make the boys an afghan.

Eva Rose with her new afghan

Eva Rose's Baby Belle's afghan

The twins!

Amy

Handmade Christmas Gifts

I am attempting to make a few handmade gifts for Christmas this year.  For my sisters and my sister in-law and their husbands, I am making a wine sack and thinking about adding a handmade bottle stopper to the gift as well as a store bought bottle of wine.  I think my mom is getting an album of the kids in 2010.  No idea for my husband.  But the kids are definitely getting some handmade felt food.  After I read a post from my friend over at http://firstcametwins.com, I was reminded that this was a project that I wanted to make for the kids.  She had a couple of post about a couple of handmade items that she made for her twins for Christmas.  She made the most adorable aprons, which I have to attempt as well as some fabric food.  After making my apron for my swap, I decided that I want to make the kids an apron also.  I had also seen a ton of felt food on multiple blogs that made me want to make some.  So far, I have made a few felt bow tie pasta.  When I asked my husband to tell me what I was making, he knew right away.  How awesome it that!  I also have a few egg shapes cut out that just need to be sewn.  The next step is to pick out a few more food items and make them to put under the tree for Christmas.  I figure, I can always make more after the holidays are over and there is less pressure to get things done!  My other goal is to make at least Eva Rose a baby doll.  I may even try to make the boys a doll also.  I did ask for both the play food and dolls for Christmas gifts, but you can never have too many dolls or play food right?  Now I just need to get my butt in gear and get moving so that these gifts actually get made and it is not just another idea that never comes to fruition.

Happy Holidays!
Amy