Why I Haven't Posted in a While

Late last year I decided to make Mark a quiet book to take to church. My sister-in-law, Ashley, was coming to North Carolina for Christmas so I recruited her to make one too since I didn't have a sewing machine up here in Maryland and two is always better than one. Being ambitious, we figured we might as well each make an extra for a friend as well. We were delusioned enough to think that we could do 96 pages + cover in only a few days during the break. Needless to say, we didn't get them even close to done. Instead, it awoke a new and dangerous hobby for me: crafting/sewing. Whenever I get bored/frustrated with how slow the quiet book is coming, I take on a new and easier project. This has happened multiple times (3 already this year), but I am happy to say I have completed these projects and am now going to actually finish the quiet book! Every free moment I have when I'm not working, taking care of Mark, doing housework, doing church things, or spending time with Bryce has been filled with crafting. I used to think people were insane that crafted figuring I could work an hour more and buy what took them hours to make, but I must admit, there is something fulfilling in creating something great from scratch. So, here's what I've done:

First, I made crayon rolls. I took this idea from my sister who took it from this site. Mark has a lot of little friends with birthday parties out here so every kid in 2010 will get one of these. Making them in bulk also saved a lot of money! They only cost $4-5 each, including the crayons and are great for church since they protect the crayons from getting crushed in plastic bags.


Second, another sister-in-law, Erin, wanted to make I-spy bags for her kids, but figured the more people we got to do it, the cheaper we could do it for (since the little items inside often come in multiples.) She collected the items and vinyl; I picked up the poly pellets and fabric. I then made a key by individually taking pictures of all of the items, used Photoshop to remove the backgrounds, and then compiled all of the photos of the items in a Word document with the descriptions that I then printed and laminated. I used another blog post to make sure I didn't mess up the sewing, but added the little pocket on the back of my bags to house the laminated key. Mark's still a little young for this, but enjoys looking at and bending the key when he can.


Finally, my friend, Adrienne, did a post about an FHE board she created. It was a great idea (which she adapted from another friend, Krystel) since it was magnetic (sheet metal) on one side and then felt on the other. I have a variety of FHE materials from a group I did, and some visual aids have velcro while others have magnets. A board with dual functionality was just what we needed. I was chatting with Amy about it one day and she mentioned that she would be interested in doing one too. Great! Split the costs = cheaper and cooler (double the ideas). Michael's was having their bonus buys that week so we got a bunch of stuff for at least half off, but couldn't find any frames with sheet metal (Roberts in Utah has them, but we're a bit far from there). As we were brainstorming cheap or free ways to get sheet metal, Amy remembered that dry erase boards are often magnetic. How great is that?!? So now we have something to write on and use magnets. Amy's husband James made us frames that encased the dry erase board completely after having glued a piece of felt to the back of the dry erase board. Awesome. So then we painted the frames black while Mark and Caleb played. We then recruited Tara's Cricut machine to cut out cute letters, and mod podged them on the frames. I decided that I could use the dry erase board for more than FHE so I made that side more general and the felt more specific. Then I attached a wire to the top and covered it with some cute ribbon. I must say, I am very proud of this board. It was a group effort, for sure, but very worth it. Thanks everyone.

That's all. I'll post some pictures and an update of little Mark in the next day or two.