B is for Bear...

I've been on an embroidery kick for the past year. Last year around this time, I started on a very special project for the newest little one in my life, my beautiful nephew Braydon. This project took me a long, long time... to be exact, the length of the entire first three seasons of Heroes streaming from netflix! I must say, the first two seasons were definitely the best, the show seemed to go downhill after that....

Anyway... the time spent was well worth it just to see the look on his parents faces when they opened the gift at Christmas.

Without further ado...

To make the project even more of a challenge, my nephew just had to have the letters "y" and "n" in his name. Actually, the "y" panel presented much less of a challenge then "n" did. Just try finding an animal that starts with the letter "n" that a small child will recognize... I dare you.

The panels were constructed entirely of felt. Each piece was drawn by hand, then cut, and hand-sewn onto the panel. I added some touch & feel components to each panel too, including a silky fabric for the fish and the carrot, a fluffy fabric for the cloud, buttons in the shapes of airplanes, a duck, and apples, and some plastic under the alligator and the moon to give them a crunchy sound when touched. All of the panels were then bound into a book. The binding was also stitched by hand. I was a bit tired by that point, and I think it might have even been Christmas Eve, so a picture was never snapped of the book after binding.

The project was inspired by a post I read on Craftster.org, one of the best crafting websites around.

xoxoxo

You've gotta have goals...

In May of this year, my husband and I bought our first house. We bought a house so that we could have somewhere we loved to live and raise a family... but most importantly so that we could adopt a dog!

We adopted Barlow, a chocolate lab-mix, from a rescue in Chester County, PA... La Mancha Animal Rescue (lamanchaanimalrescue.20megsfree.com). La Mancha is a "no-kill" rescue that has so many adorable dogs, cats, and horses to adopt. Although our hearts were breaking for an older dog, we adopted a puppy. We have a lot of time right now to care for one and knew that it was probably the only time in our lives we would have the patience, energy, and time needed to raise a puppy. Barlow's beautiful colors, sweet personality, and gorgeous brown eyes won us over the minute we saw her. So, home she came.

My husband wanted to put her into obedience classes. I vehemently argued against it, not because I didn't want a well behaved dog, but because I knew that I could do it myself! My Master's is in Applied Behavior Analysis, the science that is the foundation for animal training. I was not going to pay someone my hard earned cash to teach me what I learned in my first class at school!

So, we embarked on training this sweet little pup. So, far we have her sitting, lying down, giving "high fives", and shaking paw. Peeing and pooping outside of the house, well, that is another story...hey, you have to have priorities, right?

So, I set a goal for this weekend and that goal has been achieved...

Enjoy Barlow's new trick!

xoxoxo

If you can't find it, make it yourself!

I've been searching and searching for a a bulletin board/key hang combo that was pretty and matched my kitchen decor. Today, I got so tired of looking (shopping is certainly not one of my favorite activities) that I decided to make one myself....

Here is the finished product:

And here's how I did it:

1. Bought an 8.5 x 11 picture frame at Michael's, some cute hooks at Target, and attached them with a little help from a drill, a screwdriver, and my husband!

2. Bought some beautiful scrap-booking paper (again at Michael's - my fav) and cut it to the size of the frame backing...

3. Bought a 5-pack of thin, 8.5 x 11 sheets of cork-board...

4. Removed the glass and placed the scrap-booking paper into the frame...

5. Placed 3 sheets of the cork-board into the frame and on-top of the paper...

6. Added the frame backing...

7. And here it is complete...

I no longer have to waste my time shopping when I could be playing with my puppy!

xoxoxo