The Little's Rooms Got Some Love

Last week I was thinking about how much creating I do for custom orders or for volunteer jobs. I spend a lot of creative energy on people outside of my family and so I suggested to David that it would nice to spend some creative energy on the littles. I had some ideas brewing and when he gave me the thumbs up, I went into full design mode. We settled on a gallery wall for each room plus curtains, hooks for their towels, shelves for each bedside and an art hanger for each little. I made a list of elements I wanted to include in each room.

1. something sewn/fabric element
2. woodcut element
3. string art
4. monograms
5. photograph
6. printable art/quote
7. scripture verse

Then I narrowed down to specifics as to what that looked like. So for the girls' room it ended up like:

1. kite
2. heart (inspired by HEart by CC)
3. crown
4. cut out of foam board
5. siblings picture
6. "Dream Big" (source)
7. I will add a verse to the heart woodcut at a later time

The boys room:

1. deer head
2. arrow
3. sword
4. cut out of foam board
5. siblings picture
6. fox
7. I will add a verse to their arrow art later

David shopped, cut and stained wood during the daytime. He was in charge of the woodcuts, string art, shelves, towel hooks and art hangers. I painted the clothes pins (for the art hangers) and the frames plus rough cut out the fabric elements during the day. The rest of the projects were done in the evenings after the littles went to bed. That meant late bleary eyed nights, but I'm really happy with the results. Last night I planned the gallery walls, but putting them on the floor. I took pictures to give to David for hanging and while I took the children out on a playdate, David re-arranged the girls' room and hung all the elements we crafted. What a thrill it was to reveal it all to the littles!

The deer head was made from a pattern found here. I found the wood plaque at the thrift store and a with a bit of paint it made a great mount.

David cut this based on a few pictures I showed him on Pinterest. I didn't want to tell him exactly what to make, but I knew I wanted an arrow. It turned out great. His favourite piece.

Again, I asked for the sword, but I left David to do the style he wanted. He found a sword image on google, added a cross in the middle and enlarged it to make the template. Screws were an easier choice and he just went with it. I like it a lot!

The monogram "M"s I printed out on the computer, taped to foam board and cut out. I painted them and that's it! Super easy and a great and cheap monogram! We enlarged a photograph from our last family pictures in 2014. The same picture for both bedrooms. 

I thrifted and painted this cute frame and got the printable from here. 

Here's Malachi's art hanger in action (sorry for the dark picture). Just clothespins painted and glued to a board. Each little has one, though we haven't hung Hannah's yet. We are saving it until she is a bit older.

Michaels had these cutlery clothespins in a bin and I simply glued them onto this little board, also from Michaels. Cheap and funny, considering the boys are always thinking about food. This wasn't planned for, but added on a whim.

I found this wood pineapple at the thrift store. It was varnished and worn, but I saw its potential and snapped it up. I painted it and glued an oversized clothespin on it and it's adorable! My favourite piece in the girls' room!

David did the crown the same way as the sword and he did a great job!

The girls' monograms were done the same as the boys. I found the birdhouse and bird at Michaels and threw it in. 

The kite I made up as I went. I drew a pattern and did a basic quilting pattern on it. Then simply tied jersey bows onto a ribbon tail.

Each little got a shelf on their bed. They all needed a place to put water bottles and treasures etc. Here's Abby's in action. David made simply with two boards, painted white and attached right to the bed frames.

David made this based on a picture I showed him. Abby thinks it looks like a minecraft heart.

I used flat sheets from two of the littles' bed sets to make quick curtains. Not too difficult as I cut them in half, finished the two cut edges and voila! Curtains! I hate sewing curtains, but this wasn't too bad. We are exhausted, but happy with the results!

My Sewing Journey

I have a friend who recently asked me to help her make her children a couple of presents. She wants to sew them and just needs someone to help her along. I am honoured to help and last night we got together for the first session. "How long have you been sewing?", she asked. I had to really think about it, because it was kind of gradual, but there was definately a time where I became interested to really learn and not just fake it anymore. It isn't my mom's fault that I didn't sew until so much later. She tried to teach me, but I didn't want to learn. I would rather just know then put in the effort to learn. Isn't there something you'd love to just know and not have to learn? Piano? Guitar? Art? It was sewing for me. I first dabbled when I was about 17 or 18. I'd use a cut off leg from blue jeans to make a purse or hack together a bag from some random bit of fabric. It wasn't until I discovered online tutorials (the same year we bought our first Mac) that I decided I wanted to know bad enough to learn. I borrowed my MIL's machine (I called her Helga) so that I could learn. I didn't want to invest in a machine if I hated sewing, so I strong armed Helga onto our tiny apartment table and worked through my first tutorial. Thank you Melissa, you have no idea what your tutorial sparked in me! I asked my pastor's wife to walk me through my first pattern and the rest is history.  Rather than bore you all with the details, we'll do an overview through pictures of my progression. This is about 9 years of sewing....

This is the early years. Not the very beginning. I wish I had pictures of my first projects - they were so bad! Hahaha. These are from the first year. As you can see it started with my love of bags and that love has not diminished.

These are from a couple of years into sewing. I loved tutorials and patterns by this point and was happy as a clam to sew bags, bags and more bags!

I even started to feel confident enough to alter patterns or design my own bags.

Zipper pouches and wallets are still a favourite go-to gift for me.

Dolls. My first doll (top middle) has been my most loved doll and I am so honoured that she was the favoured cuddle toy for my friend's daughter. My boys' super dolls were a huge hit and are still played with regularily. 

Baby presents for my babies and friend's babies. How I love to give handmade treasures.

I've tried my hand at some children's clothing and with my mom's help sewed cloth diapers that I loved!

Did I mention bags? Yup, I have sewn a LOT of bags.

Notebook covers in large and small sizes. Gifts and sold in fundraisers. 

I've had the privilege and honour of teaching some beginning sewists.

I've been stretched and challenged by commissioned orders. Things I had never made before and were trusted to do and afterward so proud of finishing.

I've challenged myself with projects that I wanted the finished product of and again, through the challenge and perseverance of it I was very proud of the results.

I've started and finished (most) several mass producing kind of projects. (I still have a partial picnic blanket in my WIP bin)

I love the creative process of sewing things from a flat piece of material into a work of function and/or art. Thanks for walking this journey with me. I plan on continuing on for many years to come.

Happy Mail!!!

I just got a package that was a great surprise. Months before my art gathering, I wrote to Shanna from Illustrated Faith and asked if she might have a little printable that she would like to send for the ladies at my event. I thought even a little "hello" would be nice. Well, today I received a large package with the "Bloom" devotional by Stephanie Ackerman (Documented Faith founder) and stickers and pocket scripture cards!

Thank you so much, Shanna!

Art Gathering (supplies update added)

Well, this past Tuesday I hosted an art gathering for locals (Winnipeg and surrounding areas) involved in Documented Faith and Illustrated Faith. I love a good party and I think it turned out fairly well. There are always things I would go back and change or adjust, but that's my event management training and since I haven't decided to go into the event industry, I can take it a bit easy on myself, right? I will spare you all the thought processes and ideas that I sifted through and show you where I landed.

My first event weakness if food. I quickly solved this by asking people to bring snacks and thank you ladies, they were great. I made our traditional Christmas cider drink. I figured since it was cooler outside, it would be a nice cozy thing to sip. My next party weakness: pictures. Ugh! I really need to delegate picture taking to other people. I'm usually too involved in the event to think about pictures, and then when I do, I'm in such a fluster or hurry that they're not great. Sorry. This would be so much better to share with good pictures.

Probably my favourite thing about hosting events is making my guests feel a little spoiled. I could easily spend a fortune on giving gifts, but I try my best to have parties on a small budget so as to not stress out my dear David who works so hard to provide for our family. This means I get to exercise my creative gifts. If you're ever curious just how creative you can be, limit your resources. It's fun and surprising to see what comes out! In the end I made fabric cuff bracelets with "made to create" stamped on them.

Each bracelet was slightly different and imperfect.

I printed out free embellishments and quotes etc. from various blogs I found through Pinterest. I made little bags filled with fun post-it flags, shaped paper clips, hand painted star cutouts and other embellishments that could be used in everyone's Bibles and/or journals. Candy, of course. One of my guests brought bookmarks that she carefully stamped for us and another guest sent Illustrated Faith goodies to share. All to be put into cute decorated bags. I also made lanyard style name tags.

The evening itself included sharing our journaling stories. I asked everyone to share what kind of journaling they do (Documented Faith and/or Bible journaling), how they heard about it or began, what it means to them and anything else they'd like to share. This is a great ice breaker for those of us who hate icebreakers. It gave us each a chance to talk about something we all had in common.

We shared a group art project experiment and laughed our way through our insecurities. We started with a blank canvas and had about ten minutes to apply our base, then we rotated the canvases and added to each one as we continued passing them around ten minutes at a time. I'm not sure it was completely a success, but it was a fun experiment and a great opportunity to create and visit. Then we pulled out our Bibles and journals creating and sharing our favourite pages. 

These ladies are all lovely and I hope to get to create with them again. (boo! blurry! )

In the event invitation, I asked each person to bring a favourite art supply (under $10) to swap with another person. We drew names to see who got whose supplies. I shared a bottle of Martha Stewart acrylic paint and a Staedtler pigment liner in my favourite size.  I received a whole package of favourites including number paper clips, washi tape, alpha stickers, clips to hold the pages during the creative process and ribbon - spoiled, I know! Other items shared were watercolour pencils, washi tape and Illustrated Faith pens (I was slightly jealous over that one). 

Don't these all look so great?!

Sadly, four ladies were unable to make it and two others had other plans, but it sounded like everyone would be interested in another gathering. Who wants to host, let's say in January?

UPDATE:

Hello, friends from Documented Faith. Thanks for stopping by. A question that I've been asked is how did I handle supplies. In the event invitation (I created a Facebook event - easy access to everyone) I asked everyone to bring their own favourite on-the-go supplies to use. I also put out my few paints, brushes, paper, ephemera and glue. I only put out items that I wasn't worried about being over or misused. Keep your best pens and markers to yourself if you want them to be in good condition by the end of the evening. Whatever supplies you do share, share with open hands and heart. If anyone has any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer either here or on Facebook. Again, thanks for stopping by.

P.S.  If you're curious about faith journaling, you can learn about Documented Faith here and Illustrated Faith here. You can also read about my DF story here and my IF story here and here. I post pictures of each week in my DF journal and all my Bible journaling pages on Instagram (user name: mrsgingras)

Checking In

Phew! What a crazy month April (and into early May) turned out to be. Let's get to it...

• April is my favourite month to throw a party! My birthday is as good of a reason as anything else, right? I knew that I wanted to have another My Favourite Things party and when I asked a few people what they thought, the resounding answer was "YES!" It's such a great party and it almost throws itself. You can read about the last party here and here. How it worked is I had everyone bring 4 of their same favourite item/s (under $10) and every one went home with four others' favourite items. My favourite items this year were a carton of Tazo Chai Latte mix, fun socks, a pen, a soap sample, straws, an essential oil sample and a couple of dishcloths (Compliments - microfibre - seriously the best dishcloth EVER). I had so much fun with this! By the way, if you didn't get invited, please don't be upset. I wanted to invite so many more of you, but my place can only hold so many. In my heart, you are all welcome!

My favourite things package

• Here's a list of what everyone brought.... Soy candles, journals, Starbucks gift card, jellybeans, pens, mugs, hairspray, lip balm, cuticle cutters, jar mugs, drink tumbler, napkins, chocolates (store bought and homemade), soaps, homemade laundry detergent, collapsible bins, zipper storage bags, a pansy plant, various stationary items, mesh laundry bag, socks and candy. I think that's everything. It was so great to hear things about the gals that I didn't know as each person had to answer a random question about something that was a favourite. I also had everyone bring a favourite drink or food to share and once again - the BEST party food!

London Fog cupcakes from my friend, Sugar Momma and her truffles, too!

• I chose to set up an Italian Soda Bar as my favourite beverage to share. David and I enjoyed testing these and David made the strawberry, orange and butter rum flavour syrups. I'm a big fan of "help yourself" so I doodled instructions and let everyone do just that.

Italian Soda Bar

• I could've easily spent a month on the plans and preparations for a party, but thankfully I didn't need to because I spent the month sewing and crafting for my first craft sale. Our church hosted a craft sale fundraiser for some missionaries who will be going out with Wycliffe. David and I spent every spare evening and weekend working on growth charts, (David did the bulk of the work on those. I just lettered them) scrap buntings, mini scrap buntings and cake toppers. I had a goal of 12 growth charts and 40 each of the other items. We spent many evenings late into the night making. It was fun and tiring and my poor house got pretty neglected. I met my goals! David's amazing growth charts sold really well. I came home with three and they're now all spoken for, too. I have most of the rest of the products still. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but I'm so relieved to have it all finished that I'm okay to just put it aside for now. Sadly, there wasn't a whole lot of customer traffic at the sale, but we recovered our costs and were able to make a small donation to the missionaries. 

Buntings!

Craft Sale Booth

• Michaels Arts and Crafts are moving into my neighbourhood! It's going to be nice not needing to drive across town to shop!

• Mothers' Day was a quiet and relaxing day finished off with my favourite family "date". We call it Pajama Van. It's usually a Saturday evening tradition, but I'm glad we saved it for last night it was perfect. (pajama van is where we load the littles up in the van in their pjs, put on a movie for them to watch, grab tea and timbits from Tim Hortons and go for a nice long drive).
• I got quite spoiled with mail lately! I love my dear pen friends!

Top pictures are my birthday package from dear Annemarie and the bottom two from dear Donna!

• I was crazy spoiled for my birthday, too.

L-R ink and pens from David's family, essential oils from my family (card signed by my Daddy - a big deal for a partial quadriplegic) flowers from friends and a drawing book from my David.

• And in case you needed a reminder of how adorable my David is...