Week in the Life 2016

This year I did Ali Edwards' Week in the Life project in my 12x12 project life album. I created either an entire two page spread for each day or I used inserts to create smaller spreads. 

I took more photos than usual each day and got to capture so many stories about the things we do every day that don't usually make it into my project life layouts.

And I loved this Week in the Life kit. It was one of the reasons why I was inspired to do this project. 

Working with this kit really got me out of my comfort zone because I don't usually use pocket pages for 4x6 photos. I almost exclusively take Instagram photos and print my husband's photos as 3x4s. But I loved the 4x6 days of the week title cards so I'm SO happy I could make it work.

I will likely do this project again next year if I can get caught back up in project life.

Moms, Tots, and in-beTweens Spring Consignment Sale

Today was a fun day!  It was the Moms, Tots, and in-beTweens spring consignment sale.  This consignment sale happens twice a year and has tons of toys and clothes for kids.  I signed up as a consignor and a volunteer for this sale so that I could go to the volunteer pre-sale before the sale officially opened.

It was a lot of work getting ready for the sale.  The hardest thing was sorting through my son's baby clothes.  They were hard to part with!  I remember when he was so tiny and wore those tiny clothes and now he's growing up so fast.  We consigned some of his baby toys too.

I ended up consigning 181 items and tagged them all.  So many tags!  

And it was worth it because I found some amazing deals during the pre-sale!  I got these Melissa & Doug stacking construction vehicles, a giant bag of wooden blocks, big wooden Melissa & Doug beads in different shapes to string on laces, and a new owl board book.  Oh, and some clothes!

My volunteer shift was today.  I found even more great deals and I got to talk with a lot of other moms.  I can't wait for the next sale!

Project Life!

I just got my first Project Life cards yesterday!  I picked up the Project Life Boy Themed Cards at Hobby Lobby.  So excited!

I am still deciding which Core Kit to get.  My first project is to make my son's baby book.  I'm leaning toward the Honey Edition or the Kraft Edition.  I'd really like to get both because I think they both have some great designs and colorful cards.  

I've been swooning over Project Life blog posts and Pinterest pins for a while now!  I love that Project Life has page protectors that are perfect for Instagram photos.  If you've been following my blog you know that I document so much of my life with Instagram.  I'm going to follow the advice of Shelley of The House of Smiths and use Persnickety Prints to print out my photos. 

I've ordered some page protectors, an album, and some Studio Calico Project Life Kits.  I'll share pictures when my happy mail arrives!

Trinkets

My toddler likes to pick up small things at the playground.  I take them and put them in my purse.

This is the first rock he brought home from the playground.  He walked it over to his stroller and put it in the basket.

Pink Knitting Kits

Tonight I wound up the pink yarn that I bought so I could make Las Cruces Knit Charm Operation Stay Warm 2014 knitting kits with the rest of the coral yarn that was donated to the project.  I was able to make seven more kits.  This brings the total number of kits to 71.  I finished knitting one kit yesterday and I'm working on weaving in the ends.  I will start knitting another kit tomorrow.  And I'll also start to call the retirement communities in town. 

Knitting Kits for Operation Stay Warm 2014

This past week my toddler outgrew his first pair of sneakers!  He's running and climbing and tackling little stairs.  So fast!

And this year I'm making knitting kits for Las Cruces Knit Charm again!  For Operation Stay Warm 2014, we are going to knit 5" by 5" afghan squares and sew them together to make afghans and lapghans for the Camp Hope tent city yarn bombing on October 19th.  If we get a lot of squares we can spell out messages within each blanket.  Like fair isle.  But with squares.

I bought someone's vintage acrylic destash on Ravelry.  

And I found a couple of vintage acrylic lots on ebay.  (Note: this fluffy frosted yarn is delicious to knit with!)

I wound the yarn up into mini cakes and sorted them by color.

And I made kits that include yarn and two free patterns for knitting 5" by 5" squares.  There is enough yarn in each kit to knit twelve or thirteen squares.  

The patterns I included are for mitered squares so you don't have to worry about gauge.  I'm almost finished knitting up my first kit.

I've given out over 30 kits so far and I have about that many left.  They are available locally in the Las Cruces, New Mexico area.

I'll be making more this week because I bought some more pink yarn to go with a donation of five skeins of coral acrylic.  I'm going to call the retirement communities in town to see if I can make presentations to their knitting groups to see if anyone would like to get involved in this project.

I'm so excited that we are going to have another big project this year!

My Rainbow of Books & Other Projects

I organized Rex's children's books by color order this week and it's super cute!  It's something I've always thought looked great on bookshelves but I usually arrange my books by author.  But I think it's a great way to organize children's books and it might help Rex learn his colors.  His books used to be on the lower shelves but he was pulling out my vintage cookbooks every day and carrying them around the house.  I thought he would carry his own books around and maybe look through them if I put them up on the second row of shelves where my vintage cookbooks used to be.  Nope!  I think the vintage cookbooks are his favorite no matter where I put them.  They are pretty cute.

 I've also been working on some fair isle beer can cozy designs.

I love incorporating words into my knitting and this is another new way to do that.  I currently have designs for the words SUPER and BEER, and I'll be working on more soon.  Stay tuned for pictures!

Since this post is about projects, I'm going to also get caught up on a few from Christmas vacation.  One of my projects over Christmas vacation was making pecan pancakes for Rex.  They were very tasty and freeze well and are now a daily snack that I can send with Rex to grandma's house.  I substitute whole wheat flour for half of the flour called for in the recipe.  The recipe is from the book Blender Baby Food.  I was super excited to order this book a few months ago but never ended up making anything from it until now.  I've made these pancakes twice already and will make them again as soon as we run out.  The recipe is actually called Nutty Waffles in case you are interested in trying them.  We don't have a waffle iron and the cookbook was right when it said that the batter makes awesome pancakes too.  I love when I find a recipe in a cookbook that I really like.

I also made mini-bunting for Rex's room out of felted wool that I had put aside.  It really complements the other decorations in his room, which include Charley Harper alphabet cards and the bunting that I made for his comic book super hero first birthday party.

I also made a mini-bunting for the door to his room.  It feels like a much more colorful and cozy environment for him now.

Have a great weekend everyone!