Little Bird Peasant Top

The first of 14 Black Hole projects it completed. I'm proud of myself.

 She wasn't thrilled about modelling but tolerated it well enough since I was making funny noises to entertain her.

 She does however like the shirt and pointed to almost every bird on the front and said "Chirp Bird."

Reclaiming UFOs (un-finished objects, that is) from the Black Hole.

Remember I told you about my black hole drawer last post?  

 

Here's a picture of it in case you forgot how terrible it was.

And here is is all laid out, minus a few things that never even belonged in there in the first place.

 

 Want to know what all that stuff is supposed to be?

Diaper inserts, a skirt for my aunt, a hooded cape, an owl pillow, a tutu dress, a peasant top, mobile pieces, Junebug remix sew along challenge, a pillow for the nursery, a sweatshirt for my nephew, a poofy sleeve shrug, a wet bag & 2 American Girl doll tops.

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Yeah, I have a really bad habit of starting stuff and not finishing it. 

That's why my word of the year is COMPLETION!

Speaking of which,

 here is something I actually completed!

 Okay it wasn't in the drawer but it is finished. The secret is I crochet in the car while the hubby is driving. We had a 45 minute drive to the in-laws place to watch the 49er's beat the Saints on Saturday. ( GO NINERS!) It's for my cousin's new little girl, Molly. I made her a little (key word here) camo hat as a baby shower gift totally forgetting that the dad's head is twice the size of a normal person's head and that baby might (did) inherit this trait. So I had to make a bigger one that will actually fit! And now that we know she's a girl, I got to add the cute bow.  I think the hat turned out cute & girly even though it's camouflage & safety orange.  Besides having a huge head (love ya Dan!), Dad is also a little bit of a gun nut.

 And because I refuse the buy those bubble envelopes, I cut up a paper bag, addressed it, stitched it up leaving one side open, inserted the cute hat and finished stitching it closed. Then I did a second seam, careful not to catch the hat, to make it extra secure. Yeah I'm kind of awesome. ^-^

Destashing project

I have scraps. Tons of scraps. I don't know why I save them all. I just can't help myself. So one of my goals this year is to use up my scarps & improve my quilting. Confused on how these 2 things go together?

Scrappy baby doll quilts!

                                                                  (source)

Ta-da, two birds with one stone. This way I get back some storage space, improve my skills and have a stash of cute handmade gifts for the little girls in my life when every I should need them. (So I don't have to stay up until 2am the day before the gift is to be given. Sleep, sweet precious sleep!)

My other goal is this drawer.

 

This is the drawer where I hide all my unfinished projects. Which wouldn't really be a problem if I ever took them back out and worked on them. But no this drawer is kind of a black hole, once it goes in it doesn't come out.

 

So this afternoon during quiet time I'm going to take everything out and make a list of what's in there, post the list on my side bar & work towards FINISHING them!

Wish me luck!

The nesting has begun

 Despite being bone tired 90% of the time, things are slowly getting done around here. Mostly a lot of little things, like cleaning out & organizing.

Like the center drawer of my craft desk

Before nesting

After nesting

And under my bathroom sink

There isn't a before pic but let's just say this is a HUGE improvement.

 If you want to imagine the before think a bunch of gallon ZipLoc bags filled with random stuff tossed under there. Yeah it was bad.

Fresh squeezed oj & orange vinegar.

The first of every month is my super cleaning day. The coffee pot is one of the things that gets super clean. I brew 10 cups of vinegar (followed by two 10 cup pots of water) to keep my coffee tasting fresh. And I just can't justify dumping out 10 cups of vinegar so, I end up making more orange vinegar, which I use for everything from wiping counters to mopping the floor to cleaning the potty chairs. But making orange vinegar means I need the peels from about 15 oranges. So we pick and juice and peel oranges for what seems like hours. Did I mention I don't have a fancy juicer? Or any official juicer for that matter? No I'm kind of ghetto and use the bottom of a cup over a big bowl. Fun. But the end results are pretty satisfying. A clean coffee maker, a little over 3 pints of fresh orange juice and 10 cups of orange vinegar.

And finally I'm motivated to work on the nursery! 

Here are some before shots when it was my craft room/guest room.

Crap piled on my desk, ghetto blanket curtain, guest bed without a mattress because it we used it for Caetlin's big girl bed.

Unorganized fabric, extra blankets, the hubby's guitars, random crap up on the shelf.

 And now

A crib, a mattress, real curtains.

 I love the curtains. They took me about 5 months to finish and I'm kind of pissed off about it because they are so pretty I wish I'd just buckled down back in September and finished them then!

Ruffle-y deliciousness.

This morning I hung some Ikea curtains for the closet doors.

 I've still got a little more cleaning to do but most of the junk has been moved out.
Baby's dresser, which is a work in progress, is tucked in the closet and will double as the changing table.

 And last but definitely not least, our new brick walkway!

 

This is what the area looked like when we moved in back in April.

 

Here it is in October after baby girl tripped on the uneven broken cement chunks and busted her lip open twice in under an hour. I got a little crazy and decided it was coming out, NOW!

Day 2 of me ripping up the cement.

After I marked off the new walkway and started digging.

And today.

 I love it. The hubby did all of the brick work by himself. I supervised from a patio chair with my feet up. ; ) The entire project cost us under $200. I think it adds so much more to the backyard than the old "path" ever did and the girls can run and ride their bikes and scooter over it without breaking their faces.

 We also moved over a garden bed so we can have our herbs closer to the back door and kitchen & I can't wait until spring so I can plant some pretty flowers down the right side next to the house.

Oh, yeah.
 

It's now the home to my fabulous little compost bin.

 I built it at the beginning of December out of a bunch of scrap wood. The hubby was surprised and so was I! Because he actually liked it!

 And just a little update of how I'm looking now-a-days.

Yeah, there's a lot of baby packed in there now.

Things I did in 2011.

Went to Disneyland.
Bought a house.
Got knocked up.
Learned to crochet.
Finally got up the courage to go to the doctor and take happy pills.
Sewed up a storm.
Refinished some furniture.
Figured out what I really like in decor.
Got greener.
Discovered I'm an organized person & channeled my power to tame a lot of the clutter around my house.
Figured out what I want from life & what I'm willing to give-up to obtain the life I want.
Embraced my curls.

What did you do?