Lucky Day!

I consider myself a lucky person because I have all the things I need in life but when it comes to contests I don't usually win. Last week was an exception. I'd been drooling over Milicent the Vampiress over at Meridian Ariel's giveaway when low and behold I got an e-mail telling me that I won her. I can't tell you how excited and giddy I was!!!! Yes, I even did a dance in my kitchen when I read Apryl's e-mail. Milicent is coming to live at my house!!! I already have a spot picked out for her to sit when she comes. Of course I'm a little worried that she may get lonely but if that happens Apryl has more monster's in her Etsy shop.

As if winning Milicent wasn't enough, the same day I got a surprise package in the mail from Betty. I had answered some questions about our wonderful swap mama Val over at the Hot Mamas Apron Swap. I didn't know I was one of the winners until the package showed up. Betty sent some fat quarters, needles, thread, a thimble, warm and natural batting and some cute quilter's magnets. Thanks Betty this was a great surprise. I already have a project in mind for the fabrics but I have a few other things to finish up first.
Talk about a lucky day! I haven't won a blog giveaway in two and a half years, since I won Barb's wonder wallet and tissue cover(which are still in my purse.) Then in one day I won two giveaways, I can hardly believe it. Maybe it's time I share some of the luck!

Cat Lady

Someone LOVES cats, can you guess who? Nature Girl, of course! She has always loved cats and stuffed animals. We were cleaning up the playroom the other day and decided to separate all of the cats from the other stuffed animals to see just how many cats she has. Want to hazard a guess? In the picture their are eighteen stuffed cats and one little cat lover, however, we discovered three more stuffed cats afterward that were apparently a little camera shy. That brings the grand total to twenty one cats. So now my question is how many stuffed cats does it take to be a cat lady? I'm not sure but at least these kitties don't smell or ruin the furniture.

Delicious!

From this,

To this,

To this,

Then finally this . . . DELICIOUS!

Fairytales

As you know I signed up for the Fairytale swap. Our partner Victoria choose a Snow White theme. Based on my current apron obsession the wheels in my head started to turn and I thought about a way to make a Snow White apron. Victoria recently moved to her own flat. Every girl with her own place needs an apron so here's what I came up with.

Of course no one wants to dress like a princess all the time so I made the apron reversible.

I went with red with white polka dots because red is my favorite color and Victoria has red and pink appliances in her kitchen. I had fun creating this fairytale apron. I just love fairytales! Don't you?

Now that the Fairytale swap is finished it's time to move on to another fairytale. Val is hosting an Alice in Wonderland apron swap over at Hot Mama's Apron Swap. I've already got my ideas, the fabric and I just received my partner info so I'm off to work on an apron. Before I go I wanted to share a few pictures I painted to add as tuck-ins for the swap. Apryl at Meridian Ariel makes the most gorgeous pictures using old book pages and sheet music. I just love them so I thought I'd give it a try. Stop by Apryl's blog and etsy shop to see her creations. While you're there don't forget to check out her amazing vintage monsters. Lillian & her Slightly Sinister Strawberry and Dexter are my favorite monsters so far but they are all awesome! I love the unique little story that comes with each monster. I hesitate to tell you that she's doing a giveaway featuring one of her monsters, because I want to win. Now I'm acting like Dexter the imp, of course it's not very nice of me as I should spread the monster love and give you your chance to take one of these little cuties home. So hurry over to Apryl's blog and enter before July 23rd. I'd leave a comment everyday if it didn't seem like cheating!

Back to the painted pages . . . no project is complete without a little help from Nature Girl. She painted the caterpillar and mushroom and drew the Red Queen's soldier for me to paint. I love how they turned out! How cute is that Red Queen's soldier?!! Now I'm not sure what to do with them but something will come to mind.

Blueberries for Sal or Nature Girl

Blueberries for Sal is a classic book. We always pull it out when we go berry picking in the summer. What can I say it's the teacher in me, I have to included some type of educational link in each activity. As you can probably guess, we went blueberry picking this week. The berries were big, juicy and YUMMY! We planned to go early in the morning to beat the heat but didn't make it to the blueberry farm until noon. It got pretty hot standing under the sun picking berries. Nature Girl and her 4 year old cousin M. helped me pick. The two kids ate and picked before getting too hot to pick any longer. They ended up sitting under the blueberry bushes for a break. I picked as fast as I could trying to fill my bucket. Here's the tally of pounds picked by each of us; M. - 1/2 pound( I think he ate more than he picked,) Nature Girl - 1 1/2 pounds( she also ate a lot of berries as she picked) and me - 7 1/2 pounds. So what does one do with almost ten pounds of blueberries?

We made blueberry pancakes of course! They were so delicious!!! We also made a blueberry crisp which looked a little funny because the crisp part was blue but tasted wonderful with vanilla ice cream. Of course blueberry jam is in the works today. Let's hope it turns out.

Artful Moments

Here is a picture Nature Girl drew of Wall.e. She drew Wall.e then created a background for him. He's riding on Eve's spaceship. I love that part of the movie when he see's all of the stars and wonders of space for the first time. I love that she tried to capture that.
This dragonfly is a that Nature Girl painted. It's hanging on the wall in our entrance. I love dragonflies. I especially like the flowers on her dragonfly.
Lastly this is what a creative little girl makes while her mother is busy packing for a family vacation. She used a hamper, cowboy hat, slippers, barrettes, paper, makers, plastic bags and scissors to create this sculpture.

First Concert

We took Nature Girl to her first real concert this week. When my husband surprised me with tickets for John Mayer last winter Nature Girl's nose was a little out of joint that she wasn't invited along too. So when Jack Johnson tickets went on sale this spring my husband bought tickets for the three of us. We thought this would be the perfect concert for her as it's family friendly music and he runs a green tour which is an idea near and dear to Nature Girl.
She was funny when she saw all the trash and broken bottles in the parking lot outside of the concert. She kept commenting on how these people weren't taking care of the earth and that was bad. We got to the concert early and took our seats. Nature Girl and I began reading a book(Where the Mountain Meets the Moon) until the warm up bands came on. Jack Johnson didn't get on stage until 10pm. Nature Girl was excited but shortly into the concert she began to be bothered by a smell. I should note that Nature Girl has an especially sensitive nose and doesn't like smelly things. Not that I like that particular smell either and it's illegal. Anyway, we got through that just fine and she was thrilled when Jack Johnson played Bubble Toes, it's her favorite song. Overall it was a great concert. Jack Johnson is one of my favorites. I usually listen to his albums when I'm sewing. I find it to be very relaxing to listen to his music and sew. I told my husband I felt like I should have brought my sewing machine with me to the concert. Of course I didn't really bring it!!
We arrived back at the hotel at 12:30am. After eating a bunch of gummy bears she settled into bed and finally went to sleep at about 1:15am. Here she is snuggling with Puffy(her down blanket,) her new travel pillow(from Barb) and four stuffed animals.