they're here!

I ordered some cards from vistaprint.com a few weeks ago, and the other day they arrived - and they are so much cuter in person than they were online!!!

fun new stuff!!!

I've been experimenting with making some paper garland, and I'm loving the results! This one is made of some baby blue and kraft colored cardstock, sprinkled with some red vintage wrapping paper.
I made a listingfor it over on Etsy - check it out!

a blanket for our little one

I made a blanket for Ian using the Scallop Blanket "pattern" (it's actually more like illustrated instructions than a traditional pattern) from Bend The Rules Sewing. If you haven't seen Bend The Rules yet, I highly recommend thumbing through a copy. My mother-in-law gave me the book for last Christmas and I am loving it!

Even though I didn't get an ultrasound during my pregnancy with Ian I was fairly sure that we were having a boy. So for his blanket I pulled out the yard of this airplane fabric that I had bought at Hancock when I was pregnant with Emma.
I already knew we were having a girl when I got it, but it was so sweet and classic, and, well, that ultrasound might have been wrong! Now it seems as if Hancock has discontinued the print, so I'm glad I went ahead and bought it instead of waiting until we had a boy.
The blanket has cotton flannel on the back to make it a bit more snugly. :)

Since I used a light color for the backing and the stitching was clearly visible (and since Ian was taking his time coming - he was a week overdue) I took the time to quilt four airplanes in the center squares. They are "flying" around the center in a circle and add a nice bit of detail.

making room - turning a corner into a nursery

Ian has been sleeping in our room since he was born on June 8. We have a two bedroom apartment, and, while Emma Grace has enough space in her room for a bassinet/playpen, she is still only 16 months and wakes up pretty easily.
I knew that we could easily take care of one crying baby at night, but wasn't so sure about two!

So, towards the end of my pregnancy I spent some time making a spot for our new little one along a wall in our master bedroom.
I wanted our new baby to have a special space just for him, but also wanted to avoid making our room look like a nursery!

Before I started rearranging the room the wall had a collection of frames with photos from our wedding and of Emma, some meaningful notes that John and I have written to each other, and a couple of shadow boxes with some flowers and a pair of my mom's baby shoes.

(after)

I took those down and moved them to the wall above the dresser, and, with this canopy idea that I had seen on design*sponge in mind, made up a wall hanging to define the space.

I really loved how the canopy made the other nursery looked, kind of tailored but not preppy, and could see it working really well in our room. So, I went to the fabric store looking for some fabric similar to the material that was used for the hanging in the article.
The only fabric that they had that was even close was pretty pricey and available by special order only. I am a huge cheapskate (if you've been reading the blog a while you might have picked up on that!) and was really hoping to get the project done without spending large amounts of $$$. So ............. I looked on the clearance table!
This fabric was $1.99 a yard (I bought 4 yards) and I already had the brown that I used to edge it on hand from an earlier project.

the banner I was working on

We have since moved the playpen into Emma's room and have a Moses basket that my mom gave us in ours. (Ian starts the nights in his basket, and John and I often move him into our bed part way through the night.)

I found that, because the playpen was up against the wall and it seems so far from the bed in the middle of the night, I was never using it.

We'll probably move it back once Ian grows out of the basket, but for now we have a few extra square feet of space. :)

 

growing ginger

I love the flavor of ginger. Something about it just seems so "homey" to me, and at the same time it can be fresh and a bit exotic, too.

the ginger tuber that I "harvested"

I have been wanting to use fresh ginger in recipes for a while now, but was hesitating to buy it because I knew I wouldn't use it all and the rest would go bad. And I couldn't stand the idea of buying something (that's not really in our food budget in the first place) knowing that I'd be throwing half of it out.

Last fall I finally took a few minutes to research (read, type it into Google) growing it myself. It's surprisingly easy! As I was doing that I found that you can store ginger in the freezer, and that frozen ginger is actually easier to grate (now, isn't that nice?). It also grows well in shady spots and indoors, quite handy since we don't get any sun through our windows.

So I splurged a little and bought some.

one of the ginger stalks (it looks like bamboo)

I found that ginger tubers grow in a similar fashion to potatoes: instead of planting seeds, you plant "eyes".
The article I liked the best was on eHow. The steps are simple and easy to follow.
Instead of planting the entire tuber, though, I cut it into inch size chunks and planted the ones with the most promising looking eyes on them and put the rest in the freezer to use in recipes.

10 months later, the stalks on the plant turned yellow and died off, just like the article said! I forgot that it was normal and that you are only supposed to harvest a little bit, so I dug it all up. But that's okay - I just replanted some eyes, and in another 10 months I'll harvest again! :)

just something pretty

These are some of the things I have for sale in the shop right now, and I decided to pull them out of their hiding places for a while, so that I could enjoy looking at them.

I love the colors in them: blue, crimson, spring green (they might be some of my favorites, come to think of it. they keep popping up around our home!).


So pretty.

international shipping!

I updated the shipping policies of the shop this morning - I now ship to Australia!
I also ship to other countries, so all you who live in Great Britain, Europe, and EVERYWHERE else, you can now place an order. :-D yay!!!

happy independence day!!!

May you have a wonderful day relaxing and celebrating our freedom with your family and friends. :)