The kind of project I’m not so good at.

So when my hubby came home and pulled up the floor we were faced with a disaster, well to us it sort of was since we’re not equipped for this sort of thing.

That side of the kitchen used to be seperated by a wall so the one side was slightly lower. They had levelled it with some sort of cement like material and so some of it peeled up on the back of the linoleum. Helpfully. So we were facing this uneven mess along with a project we knew little about.

Nate brought me fairy wings, I think he thought they would help. Instead, we called on someone who knew what they were doing and got them to do it.

It was coming along well but since our handy friend has a real job he could only work on it in the evenings so it was slow going but perfect.

Finally on Thursday I was allowed to start moving things back in.

The kitchen was really nice and roomy without this buffet in it, but we really need it for storing items and it won’t fit anywhere else in our house so back it went.

I tried really hard to get the fridge back in myself but I just couldn’t get it up the little bit of a difference that’s there now because of the way they had to level the floor. I thought ‘I can do this, natural childbirth twice I’m strong’ but after having to put the fridge down quickly and close to the edge of the tile I chipped a small piece and decided to wait for help.

In the end 3 of us moving it later that evening still managed to put a small chip in it so I don’t feel so bad since I was all alone. It’s all hidden now with a nice piece of edging so all is well and more importantly I have my kitchen back!

Monday hexies, yes finally.

While this should be a Create Along reveal I can’t even bare to claim it as one it’s taken me so long to finish this project!

I had about 40 or so hexies all ready made but I needed 57 to get this project under way and I totally underestimated how long these things take! Perhaps if it was fall or winter and I was stuck inside watching shows or lazing about more, but with it being summer holidays the kids and I are keeping busy and I just found I didn’t have time for making hexies constantly.

The only thing that saved me was 2 Fridays ago my hubby came home and decided we were going to rip up the lineoleum and lay down the ceramic tiles we got on crazy discount. Did I mention he’s a programmer and I’m a teacher? It was apparent rather quickly we had no clue what we were doing. We had shipped the kids off for a Saturday night sleepover in some sort of dilluted ambitious hope we’d actually tile our floor ourselves. We gave up and called in reinforcements. So as Sunday evening approached and our fridge was in the livingroom and stove in the side yard I packed up some stuff and the kids and headed to the lovely home of my inlaws for a few days.

I camped out here and because their house is HUGE I barely saw the kids, they were happy to play with vintage Star Wars toys and visit with Grandma and Grandpa. Also, it’s a ridiculously bright sunny room and it was so awesome for crafting. One day a crazy thunderstorm moved in and it was awesome to watch it from this room since it has 3 sides of giant windows.

I took the kids to the park and tried to hexie but they were all over me.

I watched PanAm episodes and hexied away!

The kids played in the ‘carriage house’ construction mess.

Then last night I stayed up way to late assembling the pouch. The tutorial is fantastic, I love the finished edges on the openings for the frame. Sadly my frames are slightly larger than the one listed in the pattern, so mine sticks out a bit. I’ll go on a quest for a smaller frame soon because it totally bugs me like this.

Also, I have no clue how women made these things in the ‘old’ days, I get that they save scraps and use every little bit but my gosh they take oodles of time. It also pained me greatly to actually cut the big piece down a bit to make what I needed for the project, even those teeny scraps of hexies were painful to toss out!

I am no HTML expert, honest

Well I did a bunch of work tidying up my blog layout and some pages over the weekend but I also broke a whole bunch too. Luckily I have one of those computer programmer husband things so he was able to come to my rescue.

I now have all my DIY projects in a nice fun table on the DIY page.

I’ve got all the Create Along projects listed as well on the Create Along page.

I also made my social media icons smaller and much more subtle, they were bright crazy colours before. They were the colours from my blog palette but still too bright. If you want to find me I’m sure you can figure it out, they don’t have to hit you over the head.

I also wanted to take a moment to just say thanks for reading my blog. It’s coming up on 4 years of this wonderful thing and it’s been so much fun. What started as a personal journal of creativity for my eyes only has grown into so much more and I’m so happy that I can continue with it and that others are sharing in my fun.

Free patterns!

I’ve written about I Think Sew before, and I plan to again, but I just wanted to point out that not only do they have really great patterns they also give many away for free. Right now there’s a pile of them just free for the taking. Like these pouches!

And this tote! Oh my weakness for totes . . .

The ones you can purchase are also really reasonably priced.

I plan on making this next for my Create Along, provided I can muscle up enough hexies that is!

Friday Create Along

Oh hexies.

I’ve underestimated your power.

I’ve had this pile of hexies in progress for a while, and I really thought I’d have enough together to pull off the pouch.

But alas, I do not.

So perhaps next week?

Friday’s stop over in Watertown, NY

On my way to Ottawa this past weekend I left super early on Friday morning to make a pit stop across the border in Watertown, NY because there was a Target and a Joann’s. There was a big line up heading into the US and while I was waiting I saw the huge line to get back into Canada and was worried I’d be super stuck travelling back at about 5pm but all was good.

I thought getting through the border would be pretty easy, I’m a girl, you’re a girl, I’m going to Target, but I was asked a lot of questions and had to open my trunk and such . . . but then I was let into the US!

I picked up some fun fabrics in Joann’s.

I’m in love with this mustardy print.

I paired it up with this pretty grey fabric, no project in mind at all, just love the combo.

I also picked up some woodgrain, because you can always use more woodgrain fabrics!

And this vintage rose sort of print. I must be developing a thing for yellow recently.

Now what to make, what to make . .

Small business reading.

Ok so as I’m writing this post about all the craft business books I have piled up to read, physical and eformat, what do I do? Wander off to read an Etsy article and end up buying this! I’m insane. I’m like a craft book hoarder. Someone else please tell me you have this problem too.

Ok so here are some of what’s in my stash and hopefully I can get through them this summer and start implementing all my great learnings in the fall.

I have read Creative Inc, however I read it in my KOBO app and made notes there and since my app died on me a few times I’ve lost those notes. So a re-read is in order.

I’ve also read Handmade Marketplace, but I forget all the wisdom. Sheesh, for a teacher I’m apparently a terrible reader and retainer . . .

Mom Inc is a great read, I’m about half way through when a shiny object distracted me. What I like about this book is that it’s written by 2 Canadian ladies and since often it’s US authors writing small business books there’s entire parts that just don’t apply, mostly financial bits. It’s nice to read things from my own country since getting supplies and shipping costs and financials are so different from country to country.

Craft Business Handbook is yet another book I carry around in my bag and might maybe sort of look at from time to time . . . kinda. This book is written by a UK author but so far I haven’t found that too much info doesn’t apply.

Crafty Superstar is in progress . . . yeah I have a lot of those.

Mollie wrote about this book so of course it’s on my wish list now.

I know I’ve already got my work cut out for me here but if you know of a book I’ve missed, small business of creative type stuff, please leave a comment! Also, if you’ve actually finished any of these and have anything review-like to say you can do that too.

Friday Create Along.

Well once again thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway and congrats again to Rachel for winning the pattern. Here’s what I made.

I used a Heidi Grace print I picked up on one of my US trips, I haven’t seen her fun fabric here in Canada yet. I choose a green print for the inside with little flowers because it had a circular pattern like the outside print.

I loved seeing everyone’s ideas for how they would use their creations, of course most of them had to do with projects. I’m going to put my business reading in mine. I have a bunch of craft and small business books I’ve been meaning to get through. I thought I’d get to them over the summer but so far no such luck!

If you would like to make your own BLISSFULpatterns has created a coupon code, SEWTARA15, for 15% off any of her patterns until the end of July. You can also like her on that Facebook thing.

I may have to give this bin a try. Not that I need one, I just like to sew new stuff! Plus the picture is adorable!

Ok, next up is this flex frame pouch tutorial. I have a few of these frames lying around and I’ve managed to pull one off by fumbling through the instructions in a Japanese craft book I have. But I’m going to go on a hexie binge and this is up first.

There’s lots of hexie tutorials out there, I learned how from Zakka Style, but just Google it if you haven’t made some before. Start making them now if you want to play along in the next few weeks.

Giveaway winner!!

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway and spread the word about it. Thanks to the wonders of Random.org the lucky winner is . . . .

Rachel, look expect an email soon from BLISSFULpatterns. Oh and be sure to tell me all about your finished project!

I actually finished my project last night and photographed it just now, all while getting ready for a day at the beach today!

Brilliant packaging.

While I own a 1 inch button maker, my friend Joanna and I rented a slightly larger one for a weekend a while back and went crazy making larger magnets. I packaged mine into little zip locks, in sets of 2 or 4. Joanna had a great idea to create larger sets of her photography magnets and she packaged them in old CD cases.

They look great and it’s a great use of cases when you store your CDs in another way.