Swaps and Thank Yous

It's been more than a week since I posted and we've had quite a few swap goodies waiting to be shared with you. I'll warn you now this is a long post. But hang on till the end for a fun swap announcement.I won a give away over at Life is a Musical. The talented Beth created what she calls "ugly bags" using fabric she got at a yard sale. I was thrilled to win one and I don't think it's the least bit ugly! Beth created this ugly bag to be used as a reusable shopping bag but I've been using it as a tote for all of my IEPs and special ed paperwork that I'm lugging around now that I'm teaching again. It's a big bag and I've filled it with paperwork. Beth was kind enough to send along a surprise for Nature Girl. She created a Nemo crayon roll with an elastic closure. It's perfect for Nature Girl who can't tie yet. Thank you Beth! Nature Girl has been enjoying drawing and coloring pictures this week.


I've been back at school but it was nice to come home to swap mail this week. When we received our August Mini Quilt package there was a sticker of a bird on the card. Nature Girl thought the sticker was for her and peeled it off the card and included it in this drawing.


It's a flower family. I'm the biggest flower, Nature Girl is the middle flower and her dad is the littlest flower. This picture is so cute . . . it just makes me smile!


This is the mini quilt that Ros made for me. Isn't it cute! The August mini quilt theme was hand stitched. She printed the picture on a special fabric using an inkjet printer then hand stitched the quilt. It turned out great! It's such a sweet picture and I love the stitched frame around the picture. Thanks Ros!
My mini quilts are temporarily hanging on my quilt line which is too full at the moment. I'm awaiting the arrival of my mini quilts from the Miniature Booty Swap 2 and DQS4 and then will find a permanent home for all of my mini quilts.

This is the mini quilt I made for Ros. It's all hand stitched and quilted minus the worm. I hand stitched one worm but I lost him and needed to make a second one so I cheated and machine stitched the second worm. I still haven't found the first little lost wormy. He must be crawling around here someplace. This is the back of the mini quilt. I made a pocket for the worm so Ros could take the worm out if she doesn't like wormy apples. Lol! I think he's cute!


Tracy sent us these goodies for the Russian Doll Swap. The doll is so sweet and she has three little dollies in her pocket that are actually finger puppets. Nature Girl claimed the pink one as her own. Tracy also included some lovely ribbons for me and goodies for Nature Girl. Tracy has a great blog sharing her animals, crafts and construction of her environmentally friendly home in Scotland. It's very interesting so go take a peek.


Nature Girl took this photo of her goodies. The cat in the basket wasn't part of the swap but she got it on a trip to a carnival with her Grandma and Papa this week so it had to be included in the photo. Notice the pink russian doll finger puppet tucked in the basket behind the cat. I love the little pouch with her name stitched on it. It came stuffed with beads for making a necklace or bracelet. Thank you Tracy!

This is the quilt I made for Lisa in the Miniature Booty Swap 2. I was so excited about this because for the first time I actually had mitered corners. I think I'm finally catching on to the binding thing. Yeah for me!
Lastly I wanted let you know I'm going to be hosting my first swap. I've had several people ask me about the swaps Nature Girl has participated in so I decided to host a swap for kids. More details to follow later this week so make sure you come back to check it out and sign up.

For the LOVE of Strawberries!

Our good friend Val from Yarni Gras sent us a wonderful strawberry package this week! We LOVED our strawberry goodies!


This was a swap was hosted by my friend Susan at Chickenfoot. It was a swap for me but Val being such a wonderful friend sent along some goodies for Nature Girl including a cute Strawberry Shortcake tote and a sun catcher kit that Nature Girl insisted we make right away. Here's Nature Girl with her finished sun catcher.


We were fortunate to receive an original Curly Girl Arts piece. It's a sketch book and with strawberries on it. We were very excited about this! If you haven't seen Curly Girl's blog check it out. She is a very talented young girl!! She has a tutorial for the strawberry sketchbook Nature Girl and I are holding. The sketchbook tutorial is here.

I was just saying I needed a tote bag for school and look what Val sent for me...a strawberry tote bag! I was a little upset on Friday when I was half way to work and realized I had forgotten it! But no worries it's stuffed with items for school and is ready to go with me tomorrow!

Val sent lots of goodies as she always spoils us! We got two pincushions, two tote bags, a strawberry note book, lots of yummy strawberry recipes and the strawberry sketchbook(I just realized the sketch book isn't in this picture!) Thank you Val and Curly Girl for all of the lovely goodies! Your goodies are still in my head waiting to be translated into swap goodies. I hope to make them a reality later this week!

Swapping Updates and Thank yous!

We've had a great summer when it comes to swaps! I've been busy finishing up swap goodies and sending them off. We participated in the Mee Crafty kid swap this summer. We were partnered with Ali and her boys for the swap. The boys are dinosaur fans so we put together dinosaur themed goodies for them. We sent tee shirts, felt dino finger puppets, dino eggs, dino softies and cherry Twizzlers because they're Nature Girl's favorite! I used Clair Garland's pattern to create a stencil for the dino tee shirts but opted to design and create my own dino softies. I like the stegosaurus softie the best! Ali and Boys blogged about their goodies here. The pictures they took are very cute! Thanks to Ali and boys for a great swap! We had a lot of fun with this swap and it was our first international package. We blogged about the goodies from the swap here.

After a summer of fun adventures with us Adventure Bunny was sent off wearing her new costume and accessories. You can see Adventure Bunny at her new home here.

When you send a swap package out you get one in return. Adventure Bunny arrived at her new home the same day Nature Girl's new swap friend arrived here. Daffodil the bunny has since been renamed Daffodil Love Bunny and is seen here enjoying some ice tea. Nature Girl isn't usually allowed to sit on our table so she was excited that she could for the picture!


Daffodil arrived with a photo scrapbook detailing her summer adventures before arriving at our house. Daffodil has enjoyed lots of snuggles, ice tea and a trip to daycare since she came to live with us. You can see more about Daffodil in this blog post. This swap was through the Little People Swap blog. Thank you to Karah and kids!


I participate in the Miniature Quilt Swap. Each month you sign up and create a miniature quilt between 6 and 12 inches for your partner. I made this one for my July partner Solihubb. I received this beautiful mini quilt this week from her. Thank you Solidia, I love it!!! It's going to be hung up next to my desk at school.
This is the back of the quilt. The fabric is soooo cute! Nature Girl was trying to steal my mini quilt because she loved the fabric! No such luck, I'm keeping it!!

A Recipe Treasure

My summer is ending so I'm doing some summer cooking while I can. Tonight I was shredding zucchini, peppers and onions to make zucchini relish. I had some extra zucchini so I decided to make zucchini bread using my mom's recipe. Several years ago my mom took the time to handwrite and illustrate individual cookbooks for my siblings and I. As I searched for the zucchini bread recipe tonight this apple crisp recipe fell out of my cookbook.

This was the recipe my classmates and I made in kindergarten 31 years ago! See my signature. Since there's a jumble of letters and names, I highlighted it with an arrow. It's neat to have this recipe sheet as a reminder of my younger days and my first school experience.
I'll have to try this recipe with Nature Girl this fall. I think I'll send home a recipe sheet like this with my preschool students this year so maybe they'll look back in 10 or 20 years and remember cooking in preschool. I think my kindergarten teacher would be happy to know this recipe is still floating around and in use again!
As I post this I smell delicious zucchini bread cooling in the kitchen. It smells so yummy!!! Tomorrow the house will smell like pickles as I can the zucchini relish. It's a little stinky but worth it to have a stash of zucchini relish all year!

Going to School

On Friday I spent a few hours at school. I got to see my teaching space for the first time. I'm in a room shared with two other teachers. The room is divided into three sections with folding walls so that three teachers can work in the room at the same time. I'll be teaching special ed and this is often the set up for a special ed room or resource room.

This is the view from my desk. The blue wall is the folding wall. And the wood door heads to the hallway.
This is the view from the hall way door into my room. The open doorway heads to an OT(occupational therapy) room. I'm hoping it isn't used as a pass through since that will be disruptive. In my little space I have two boxes of materials, a desk, computer, table, chairs, 2 filing cabinets-one is broken and a computer for a student. I'm planning to head back on Monday morning to add a little bit of personality and to bring in my own materials as I know I'll need them!!!!
The little fake window above my desk is going to be turned into a cork board and will have things that inspire me like family pictures, favorite things and a sign that says "Progress not perfection." To remind me that everyday I should make a little more progress but not to strive for perfection. It's a lesson I need to learn! Finding a balance between home and work will be my biggest challenge this year.
In the afternoon I'm teaching a preschool class that will be held in a different classroom. I haven't seen that space yet and haven't talked to the administrators or other preschool teacher about what that program will look like. Good thing I have some experience and can fly by the seat of my pants because I think that's what I'll be doing for the first little bit! Of course eventually it will all come together, it always does.
I start teacher workshops this Wednesday. Nature Girl is excited and can't wait for me to go to work so she can go play with her friends next door! That's not the reaction I expected but I'll take it!!! It seems I'm the last one who was ready for me to go back to work but here I go. Wish me luck!

International Swap Mail

You know the saying when it rains it pours? Well it certainly has been raining and pouring in New England! The yucky weather means playing indoors but that's ok because when it rains it pours has also applied to our swap mail. Nature Girl is downright giddy about another international swap package arriving on our door step!

This photo is a bit dark and blurry but I just loved her reaction to discovering the koala sewing bag that Beth and her granddaughter sent her for the kids sewing kit swap hosted by One Crafty Mumma. Her reaction was so cute in a high squeeky and excited voice she said something like "Oh my God! It's a koala!" And yes that's my fault I say it too! We have to start working on saying oh my goodness, not oh my God!
Beth included lots of goodies for sewing and crafting together. Best of all she included two post cards of Australia and lots of Australian animals in the sewing kits! I went to my bookshelf and pulled out Wombat Divine and Possum Magic by Mem Fox and we read those. She was excited to see a wombat in a book. We sewed the little orange wombat included in the package, then we checked out Wikipedia for information on wombats and koalas . I printed some pictures and basic information about each animal. It was very interesting and Nature girl soaked up all of the information like a little sponge. After sewing the wombat together she showed her dad what we made and got him to play with her and the wombat. She pulled out her guitar and sang songs to the wombat and even told a story about the Three little Wombats and The Big Bad Wolf. Which was then turned into the Three Little Wombats and the Big Bad Tasmanian Devil since Tasmanian Devils eat wombats. It was so cute to listen to her use her imagination and incorporate in all of the information she had learned! This swap was such a great way to learn about another part of the world! Thanks Beth for putting together such a great package for us. It was way more than a sewing kit, it's been hours of learning and fun imaginative play, so thank you!


A second international swap package arrived yesterday. This one was from Katy at imagingermonkey. Katy was kind enough to swap one of her gorgeous dolls for a mini kite quilt.

Here is Nature Girl the doll and Nature Girl the girl! Check Katy's blog here for more pictures of Nature Girl the doll. I love Katy's creations so to have her make one for my daughter was very exciting!!!! Want your own imagingermonkey creation? Check out the imagingermonkey etsy shop.

Mee Crafty Swap

Nature Girl got swap mail on Friday. Ali and her boys were our partners for the Mee Crafty kid swap. Nature Girl was very excited to get a package. This is her first international package. We're starting to keep track of where all of our swap packages come from so we can learn more about the world around us. Opening the package. The goodies were wrapped in lovely paper with leaves embedded in it.

This is the ooooo!


The squeeze!

And it's love! Introducing Eboo the owl. Eboo came with a sweet little note introducing himself to Nature Girl and asking to be her friend. She was so cute taking him around the house on a tour and introducing him to everyone and everything!

She also received these beautiful hair clips,

and this pretty flower tote bag. Nature Girl took her tote bag to our favorite thrift store to carry her treasures home in. She's already learning to utilize reusable bags. Yeah for her, now her mom needs to work on that!

After the package was opened she discovered the card and picked it up saying "I'm going to read the card." She opened the card and looked at it. She realized she had a it upside down and flipped it the right way before looking up at me and saying."I remembered I can't read, can you read it?" I had to laugh!
Thank you Ali and boys for a wonderful swap!


I also got swap mail on Friday too. This wool felt came from Tanaya. I traded some batik fabric for wool felt. I can't wait to start creating with this great stash. Thanks for trading Tanaya!