Been a long time gone...

I haven't felt in much of a blogging mood for the last 8? months, but our 3rd birthday "Mermaid" party needed to be discussed in a public forum... ;D

Mimsey Mermaid wore an adorable skirt that I whipped up from a tutorial I found here. So super easy and CUTE!!!

My sister-in-law is sporting some sea-shell pasties that I made her as part of her Christmas gift. Her outfit was the hit of the party, although I was pretty awesome in my blue and green jellyfish costume. And my Mom-in-law made the coolest mermaid posterboard costume ever. We had a good time.

Limeade + Sprite + blue food coloring = awesome mermaid punch!

Goldfish crackers + Goldfish pretzels + oyster crackers = yummy mermaid snack mix!

Thank you everyone who came to the party, braving a rain storm to get here! At least it didn't start hailing until afterwards!

xoxoxoxo Jaime

Mimsey is TWO!! and i'm tired...

My Mimsey is crazy.  Her current favorite toy, and I use that in the very loosest definition possible, is a rock she found outside about 2 weeks ago.  She calls it Baby Rock, and she feeds it, gives it baths, and puts her socks on it to keep it warm... when it's not snuggling in her pocket.

Today as we were getting ready for her birthday party, she insisted that we had to dress up Baby Rock as well.  At least you can see her adorable skirt that I made.  I based it, roughly, on Anna Maria Horner's Bo Peep Skirt, but alas, as I have not yet been given her book (hint, hint, husband) I had to just sort of wing it from a picture.  I like it, it would be cute a little fuller, but it matched the party decorations.  And her rock...

This is Mimsey's princess cake.  I made it in the Williams-Sonoma Great Pumpkin cake pan, and made the wheels out of pink melting chocolate that I poured into jumbo muffin tin cups.  It was the hit of the party (besides Mims!), but what can I say, my family is easily impressed.  Honestly, I will just be happy if I don't see it on Cake Wrecks...  isn't that sad?!  :D

She got some awesome gifts from her grandparents, Aunties, Uncles, and Cousins, so she spent the rest of the day busy with her toys.  And I re-discovered my love of the Smurfs (thanks Auntie Nandy and Uncle Doob!)...  Oh yeah, and the balloons are all still up and look great!

Need a break? Buy balloons!

For Valentine's Day, Jake and I got Mimsey a Dora the Explorer mylar balloon.  We picked it up when we were grocery shopping about a week before Valentine's day, because the store had a whole aisle filled with balloons and Mims just went crazy for them.  I probably walked up and down that aisle 10 times before we could leave.  Anyway, the thing is still floating.  It looks brand new.  Mims is still crazy for it.  

So today we were beginning preparations for her party, and since she loved her Dora balloon, I went to the Dollar Tree and got her 10 more balloons.  It sounds so silly, but she literally spent 2 hours playing with them.  She ran around the house with them.  She took them one by one into the kitchen, and then she came in to get me to show me that they were in the kitchen.  Then she wanted to dance in the kitchen, because the curling ribbon hanging from the balloons looked like a party.  So we danced.  

Best present ever!!  (and she's enjoying them too!)

I have had a marvelous weekend.  I know, it's super duper early Tuesday morning, but that's how we roll around here.  Okay, so really it's because Jake has Sun-Mon off, so that's when we celebrate the end of our week.  Tuesdays suck in our world, so it's not all lazy Mondays... 

This is Mimsey's house that I've been working on.  It still needs buttons, but I am very happy with it.  I think she will like it.  She's seen it several times, but she thinks it's mine and calls it Mommy's house.  Oh, my poor little one is going to grow up so confused...  

I had thought that I would make the inside all cutesy too, but honestly, it was tricky figuring out which fabrics went where, and I ended up with an all blue interior.  Oh well, next time will be crazy fun on the inside too.  Still, I want to keep it, so I think that's a good sign... Thank you UK Lass for such an awesome project...

I found a couple of other awesome projects here at Cthulhu Crochet.  I am finishing up a Tiny Cthulhu for Jake, who has requested claw feet on his, and I think I'm going to make a Nibbler for Mimsey.  She won't know who he is (yet) but he's so cute, and it will make me and the Mr. laugh.

Baby Cthulhu is almost done, just a tiny bit left, so more pictures are on their way.  In the meantime...

Gratuitous pic of cute kid... Who will be TWO in 3 days!!!  

Welcome to my brain!!

I have never been good about keeping a journal.  I know, I know, I’m verbose, wordy, and could chat your ear off in person, but I’m no good at talking to myself.  At least not on a consistant, neatly filled books of musings sort of way.  So, please forgive me if my whim of “blogging” (ugh, does that term gross anyone else out too?! ) comes and goes in spurts.  I hope that I will have interesting things to say that will bring you back, but at this point, it’s all speculation.  In the meantime, I am getting ready for Mimsey’s  big Oh-Two birthday (that’s 2 for you normal folks) and while I still have to get through Valentine’s day, I couldn’t help myself, and I whipped these up for decorations.  My birthday’s 2 weeks after Mimsey’s, so I get to leave them up for the next month.  Yippee!!  Yum, cupcakes… 

Anyhow, they were super simple to make.  I bought some cotton fabric in 6 different colors (You could get by easily with just 1 or 2 colors, it would still be cute) and some medium weight fusible interfacing.  I just followed the directions to fuse the interfacing onto the fabric, and then cut out my triangles.  I used the scraps to make the little cupcake appliqué pieces.  I stitched the cupcake pieces on with a zigzag, and then sewed two triangles together, right sides out, leaving ½ inch allowance for trimming.  I pinked the two long edges of the triangle, to straighten them, and make them cute.  Then I took a package (3 yards) of ½ inch bias tape and sewed the flags in, using the packaging creases as a way to keep the flags spaced evenly.  I think all together, my 2 sets of flags took me about 3 hours, including cupcake appliqué time.  Easy peasy, and they look so festive, Mimsey carried one set around for about 20 minutes, showing off “her flags” to anyone who would listen, which was mostly our dog, Kelsey.  I still have enough fabric to make another set, which would look good across the archway to the dining room.  I will have to take pictures of the process, so that I can post a proper tutorial for these. 

I hope that we’re done with the rain soon.  I hate being cooped up in the house all day, but it does give me a good excuse to dress Mims in this when we go out.  

Awww.  She’s cute.