The Handmade Dress

Don't ya just hate that word? It almost always means something bad! That's why I never came back after the Homeschool Planner post, my computer crashed. Today I will have to try and pull as much stuff off of it as possible so that Ben can get it up and running again. ugh. Thank you all so much for the great response to my Homeschool Planner! I was so nervous about it that I had that post written for over a week before I finally just let it out. I don't really know what I was so worried about now. I guess it was mostly that this was such a different type of project I didn't know how well it would be received. But you are all so sweet, I had so many good comments and emails! I really hope this will help other mamas with their homeschool adventures. It has really made my life so much easier to be organised AND made me feel like I am doing a better job of educating our children at home. When you can look back over the week all written down (in cute colors!) there is su...

Well this is a whole new game for me! I need testers of a different sort this time. I have been working on a Homeschool Planner. Surprised? Me too. It started out as an idea to get all of the forms I needed for recording our school work onto the computer to use with my Tablet PC, but it quickly grew so big that I decided to share it. This has been a crazy fun project to work on, and a good contrast to the usual writing and drafting projects that I am accustomed to. I wanted this planner to be user friendly for families of all ages and sizes, but not too fussy, AND fun and colorful. My weakness, of course, is that I have only younger children so there may be things missing that would be useful for older homeschooling families. So who's game? I need at least 10-15 families of all sizes, ages, and curriculum's. The following is the little introduction and index: Homeschool Planner Introduction As home teachers there are a lot of things that we need to kee...

Tricia : Winning the Miss Madeline- Big Girl Vanessa: Winning the Miss Madeline- Big Girl Jelaan: Winning Miss Madeline- Little Girl Linda B: Winning Miss Molly – I need your email address ;) Jjren: Winning Miss Madeline- Little Girl Congratulations Weekend Giveaway Winners! I had such a good time reading all of your funny jokes and stories! Now about that pitiful note I left yesterday: The second night we were there, Saturday night, I got food poisoning and was sick sick sick! I mean sick! So I spent a lot of time in the hotel bathroom. Yuck. Luckily we did get to visit Biltmore on Sunday and it was beautiful! I didn't feel all that well but I still had fun. I always have a hard time getting back to normal after that kind of sickness, it takes me a few days to eat and get my strength back, but now I am fine and ready for work! I will be back soon with pictures of my bag (no sunshine today), and something else that I'm a little nervous about, so stay tuned!

The Winners have been announced HERE ! Tuesday Night - Edited to add: I have been sick.....Yeah, we will talk about that later. Comments are still open. I will announce the winners on Wednesday. If you are reading this I am in the Great Smoky Mountains with my wonderful husband having the time of my life! I didn't want to leave you all behind with nothing fun to do around here, so I decided on a fun little giveaway. For every 10 comments I will give away 1 pattern from my shop . So if there are 50 comments I will giveaway 5 patterns, this way everyone has a good chance of winning if they enter. The more comments the more fun we will have! To enter all you have to do is make me smile or laugh. Yes! That's all! I had this idea of going on my trip and getting all of these funny happy emails from all of my favorite people when I check my iPhone. Then all of you could get a good laugh reading through the comments! It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a funny little someth...

La la la .....So maybe it's not a jet plane, maybe it's a Toyota Tacoma. But Mama is leaving with Daddy and I won't be back for a few days. Whoo hoo! So I should be packing but instead I'm working on this little quilted bag that will be just big enough to hold my phone and camera. I have been saving this thrifted pillowcase for about five years trying to find the perfect project, and today I cut it. It has the best colors and design! kind-of reminds me of some of the new Japanese fabrics. This bag will be made almost completely from recycled materials, the lining was thrifted, and the zipper was cut from an old worn out pair of jeans. I still have some quilting left to do and then I will add some small credit card sized slots to the lining. The strap is going to be extra long so that I can wear it across my chest- there is nothing worse than trying to keep a bag on your shoulders when you are bundled up walking outside! This bag will be perfect for all of those long w...

{Last night} Maddie: "Mama! I'm not scared to go in the washroom! God is in there! Did you know that God is in the dark Mama?" Mama: "Yes baby, I know." But sometimes we forget don't we.....

17 degrees outside :: Nice warm wood burning stove inside. A big feather bed where the coffee table usually sits :: An entire season of Little House 14 of my favorite children :: 4 of my favorite ladies Hot chocolate :: Coffee Popcorn :: Pizza :: Cupcakes Everybody in their PJ's :: Slippers too Old quilts :: Plenty of wood inside to last the day Now we are just waiting on everyone to show up. Wish you were all here! Have a cozy day!

EDITED TO ADD: It seems that some of you had trouble with the discount code, well we had some technical difficulties today. LOL! It was extremely irritating! But that is why I offered the discount to encourage people to use the new system so that we could iron out the kinks quickly and with happy customers :) Now that all of the kinks are ironed I am going to extend the sale until tomorrow, January 15th at 1PM, so that my peeps who had trouble will be able to take advantage of the sale. xoxox, Samantha Last night, or should I say very early this morning I changed the shop up a bit. I gave each item it's own page and now there is room for the size charts (with fabric requirements). I am so glad to finally have this done! I really feel like this will be less confusing for everyone. So as an incentive to get everyone over there to check it out and give me a little feedback about what you would like to see I am offering 40% off (entire purchase) for today only, just type in ...

My hook has been hot this Winter! Last night I made this little puppy hat for a very special little friend of ours. She's a bonafide puppy lover (I kill me!) so I think she will like having a puppy hat to keep her warm when she is out playing. Maybe she will like it so much that she won't mind it being over a week late for her Birthday! I made the hat with cotton worsted weight Sugar and Cream yarn so that her mama could machine wash the hat (hopefully she will need to wash it often!), and the little brown ears, nose and eye is cotton sport weight because that's what I had in my stash. The Sugar and Cream yarn is perfect for projects like this because this yarn is very soft and can hold up to repeated washings, in fact most people use this yarn to make dishcloths. And did I mention that you can buy this yarn at most Walmart stores? Almost everyone has a Walmart. We have a new Target close to home too. I wonder when they will start carrying yarn?? They need more craft st...

Ever think you would see knitting here? I didn't! Well the other day I got this wild notion that I would teach myself to knit (like I don't have enough to do already), so I made some knitting needles out of some things I already had at home and watched you tube videos until I got the hang of it. I think I like it. I am very slow and my stitches are pretty uneven, but I can knit and purl now. These knitting needles were super easy to make. I used a dowel rod that was a little smaller than a pencil. I chopped it in half (Using our little hatchet from the fireplace- What am I some kind of mountain woman? Shees!) then I sanded them down to a dull-ish point and use fine sand paper to get them really smooth all over so they wouldn't snag the yarn. I sharpened the other end with a pencil sharpener too and glued on these wooden beads that I had in my stash. Then I filled the other end of the bead with wood putty, when it was dry sanded it down smooth, and painted just the bead an...

I wanted to share lots more than this but the South is being slammed by storms this week, today we even had tornadoes because it has been so warm (like turn on the AC warm), so no pictures. Luckily, my sweet cousin Amy (you may remember her from HERE and HERE ) sent me these of the apron I made for her. She is seriously like the best cook in the world! Remember my Kitchen Aid lust ? Well it wasn't just for her mixer, I wish I could cook like her too! I really like the way this chef's style apron came out, and of course it had to be pink to match her mixer! I intended on adding some pretty crocheted flowers with little felt leaves, but when I laid them out it just didn't jive. I ended up going through my vintage button stash and these three little beauties did the trick. Ahhh..... now if only I could put on an apron and look that hot and cook that good....Life would be perfect. LOL! With my luck, if I could cook as good as Amy I would be as big as the side of the ...

Yep. Super slacker here checking in. This is my first official day back on the job after the holiday, and let me tell ya it's slow-goin, so I'm just saying hi and I will be back tomorrow with lots of handmade goodness and the sweetest holiday stories. For the rest of the day there is lots of serious work to be done, I have about a million emails to answer, homeschooling to be done, a doctors appointment to go to, and lots of laundry calling my name....and maybe one more go-cart ride with Tim...who knows? We can't be all seriousness on our first day back! I miss you all and I can't wait to hear about all of your most special holiday moments! This was our Christmas picture this year. Can you believe how big Lily and Iris are? (Just in case you are new around here they are my sister Rae's twins, my sweet little nieces) They are both walking now and they are going to be big sisters in just a few more months! Yep. In June Rae will be having another baby. We are all very ...