Keeping crafty...

We tried to enjoy the decent weather this weekend. It was in the 40's, so it was a little chilly, but not to bad. I had gotten some clay pots and some paints, so the kids could have some crafts to do.

Actually, I wanted to keep them busy while I was painting GBs dresser. This dresser has been around, it was in Rick's bedroom when he was growing up (painted a lovely shade of advacado green). We painted it beige and dark green and used it for the past few years, but since GB has wanted a racecar room I decided to paint it again. I painted it a bright, shiny cherry red and added new handles so it looks like a toolbox. The handles are just a length of pipe I got in the plumbing section of Home Depot (another of my favorite stores) and Rick made some brackets to fit the pipe. He used 1X2 and drilled a 5/8-inch hole. It worked very well. The boy thinks it is very cool.

I also covered his headboard; he already had a wood headboard we had gotten from a neighbor. I just covered it in foam and batting, then stapled flame fabric on it. Very easy, very cute. In the picture you can see the shelf I made last week. It is just a 1X3 with 1/4 round trim. I painted it white then used 2" tape every 2", then spray painted it black -hence the checker board pattern. I left the top of the shelf solid black and put on little white lines so it looks like a road. It is perfect for his cars. My favorite comment the boy made was when I had put all of his cars on the shelf and he looked at me and said "Look at all the traffic!!". Too funny.

Some things I am grateful for…

The 45-minute pj pants. I found this adorable flannel fabric in the remnant bin at the fabric store; I ended up paying 88cents for 1 yard. Quick and cheap - (I am afraid that is becoming my motto).


But, I realize that the 45 minutes only works for me because I am very lucky to have a permanent set up for my sewing machine. There would be no way I would ever do anything if I had to pick everything up when I was done.

Here is a picture of my "sewing room". It is actually a part of our family room that consists of: computer, TV, kids toys, treadmill, etc.


I have a regular sewing/embroidery machine (Pfaff 7560) and a serger (White 2000ats). A few years ago for Christmas, Rick made me a table; this is not your ordinary sewing table. It is 5ft X 8ft, and I covered it in a waterproof, heat resistant, heavy-duty fabric (actually I got it from a boat shop) so I can iron on it and the steam from the iron won't make the padding on the table mildew. There is a ton of storage under the table for fabric. As you can see in the picture I am not the most organized person. I have great expectations that I will get the fabric organized, but I just don't seem to have the time. Maybe when the boy starts kindergarten next year.

We have survived....

...our first emergency room visit!!

(note to dad Hansen: don't panic everything turned out just fine, read with caution)

This past Sunday, GB fell over in his chair (insert annoying parenting voice: "How many times have I told you NOT to lean back in your chair!!??!!"). He probably would have been fine if his skateboard wasn't lying in the middle of the floor (again: "How many times have I told you to pick up your toys??!!??). So his head hit the edge of his skateboard and he got a small cut. The only thing with a small cut is you don't realize how small the cut is because of the amount of blood. (Insert Monty Python voice: "It's just a flesh wound!") Of course I wasn't in the room when this happened, so I walk calmly (reality check: fly into the room almost breaking the door in the process) into the room to find a screaming child with blood dripping off his head. I do believe that a mother can perform amazing acts of strength when her child is hurt (insert line from The Incredible Hulk "I was lifting up the car!!") I scoop him up and carry him upstairs and try to calm him down so I can assess the damage, of course he won't let me get near him. I figure with the amount of blood and the way he is screaming it has to be terrible. So I drop DQ off at a friends house and take the boy to the emergency room. Rick was at work so I was keeping him informed (I have a love/hate relationship with cell phones, that day it was a love thing). Of course by the time we get to the ER the bleeding has stopped and the boy has calmed down. But since we are there I figure the doctor can at least take a look. All of the nurses thought that GB was adorable, he kept telling everyone his life story and how brave he is. Truly he was very brave (I on the other hand was calm on the outside and a basket case on the inside). Once the doctor (Has anyone noticed how much younger they're getting?) cleaned the wound we could see how tiny it was. It did require 1 staple, but they didn't even need to numb the area first. Kind of anticlimatical (is that a word?), although I am very glad that things were not worse. Through it all the boy was wonderful, talking up a storm and telling everyone about the new hole in his head(insert laugh track). He was very excited to get his own pair of "doctor (latex) gloves" and a hospital bracelet. He definitely had the best "show and tell" at school the next day!! When we got home I was completely exhausted so we all took a nap (reality check: the kids watched a movie while I laid down. One of the many bad parenting skills I have picked up over the years.) So, all in all things worked out, we have a new story to add to our list, the boy learned he was very brave, and well, I hope we never have to do that again.

Great minds think alike..

If you read the comments on my last post you will see that the next craft I want to do is a "book purse". Kelly suggested using a Readers Digest condensed book, well little did she know that I had already raided the local Salvation Army (one of my favorite stores) and completed my "book purse".

I used some old fabric that I had from my mother-in-law, it is green check with fuzzy Donald and Daisy Ducks. The orange bias binding holds on the handles and forms a loop and knot closure. It was fun to make, and I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

Kellys' Dancing Stars...

I have been obsessing about quilt blocks recently. What I mean by obsessing is that I go to the library and take out about dozen or so books at a time. I have been doing this for the past month, just waiting until I had some "free" time to get started on a quilt. What I look at in the quilt books are all the different type of blocks, one of the books I got had over 5,500 different quilt blocks. That is quite a bit, but even with all the books that I looked at I decided on what I have termed "Kellys' dancing star". Kelly is my sister-in-law-in-law and I have been lurking on her blog for a while now. One of the first posts I read on her blog had a quilt block that she had designed. I remember really liking it because it wasn't like all the other quilt star blocks that I had seen; this one actually had 5 points. So over the past few days I have been piecing a quilt top together (I had to wait until I didn't have any jobs, so my table was clear). The finished size will be 102" X102" which is a king size. I still have a couple of borders to put on, so what is pictured is 68" X 68".