Sewing Inspirations

Some inspirations today:
I love the simplicity of Japanese craft found from Angry chicken
And also found more and more from Wise craft.
I love the Heather's studio, beautiful, inspiring, colorful, tasteful.
I'm thinking about my next project. Maybe Bitty Booties™. The possibilities are unlimited.
A pincushion is much needed, Martha's or Heather's?
And I know I now loving shopping fabric stores.

Some shopping and making

This weekend was quite short because I was busy.
I had a happy shopping on Saturday morning at Target and got lots of stuff. I got a beautiful rug for our basement. It's warm colored strip, exactly what I wanted, :). I got some beddings for Sophia, pink snowman flannel sheet set is my favorite, she loves it, too. I got six book shelves for Sophia's toy storage, yes, I got six of them because they look so organized covering the whole wall.
I also made something really nice, a sea side print canvas tote. It's the first thing I made with my new Brother sewing machine, I made it from scratch without using any pattern. It turned out way better than I thought. Now I'm more confident with my capability. My next project will be a little more creative, not as traditional as this one.

Outside

Inside

Parenthood

A corner of our house (7)

Here is a corner of Sophia's playroom on Chinese new year's day morning.

A corner of our house - (6)

Something cute in kitchen

Another paper bag album is done today

I was quite productive today. In addition to V day card and cake, I also finished the Baltimore trip paper bag album. It has been sitting in the to do list for more than two months, I couldn't stand it more and decided to cut it to 3 bags and finished today.
Three bags mean 3x4 =12 pages. It's already pretty bulky. I don't want to make a paper bag album weighs 10 lbs.
After finishing this alum I decided not to make any paper bag album anymore. Because it doesn't worth the time, it doesn't look like a scrapbook at all. Maybe I'm not good at it.
Here is the cover and my favorite page.

Cake and card for V day

Since the snow storm, we can't go out for diner, at least not worth the risk. However we're all home whole day, which is a great V day gift for both of us.
We didn't go out to buy anything fancy (flower) or pricey (diamond) either. I did old fashioned way, made a card and a cake.
I used some left over scraps, new heart brads and my favorite white ribbon for the card, it turned out not very sharp but pretty sweet.
For the cake, I used a heart cake pan from williams-sonoma and apple cinnamon cake mix. Since this the first time I use such a delicate pan, I didn't get a perfect shape but learned some lessons. The cake tastes terrific. I will definitely buy those cake mix boxes again.

Snow Storm

This winter has been extremely cold, especially last week. This week is a snow storm week. It has been snowing since Monday night, hasn't stopped for more than two days. So we all stay at home today. It's so much fun to watch it snowing without having to go out.

A corner of our house - (5)

Book shelves, homemade, almost exactly the same as those made by Ethan Allen. Ethan Allen must copied us because ours was finished one year before Ethan Allen starts to carry them.

A corner of our house - (4)

This is a messy one. Who can have a spotless house with a toddler living in it?

Feburary -> favorite month

When thinking about favorite time of the year, I always think about summer, never thought about February. But this year, I realized a lot of good things about February.
First, day light gets longer, I can see day light before and after work, this makes my day cheerful. February has my favorite holiday, Chinese new year. February means lots of snow, we had lots of fun with snow. February means spring is coming.
February is still not my favorite month of the year, but I'm getting to like it more.

Preshooting

Before heading out to Picture people we had a couple preshoots yesterday morning. It turned out way better than the real shooting at studio.
Sophia insisted picking an outfit by herself. She chose a summer dress with lady bugs and a pair of white pump. They don't match at all, they look so strange in a winter day. But she looked perfect with anything (in my eyes).
She even knew that she should pose in front of the camera, she said numerous "cheese".

More fun stuff

Today was truly a fun day for me and Sophia. I went shopping with girl friend and got lots of great finds. I found sth. for Sophia of course, favorite one was the snowman robe, the most adorable robe I've ever seen. I also found sth. for myself, haven't shopped for myself for a long time. And a small thing for Valentine's day. Finally we had Sophia's second birthday picture taken at Picture People. I'm not very happy with the result, but feel better after have job done as a mom.

Fun Stuff

Since I moved all my scrapbooking stuff to the closet in basement I've never done any serious work. Maybe it's too cold in basement, too isolated in basement, the table is too high, the space isn't inspiring, okay, I admit I have been lazy.
All inspirations are from the new prints, got almost 500 of prints and the new purchase, lots of rubber stamps and a neat circle punch.
I made this layout with our pictures from a trip to Children's museum. Lots of fun stuff there for Sophia and lots fun stuff for my to play with in this layout.

Numbers and colors

It has been quite a while that Sophia stopped at three, number three. She only counts 1, 2, 3. It looks very hard for her to get over 3. I gave up and started to teach her colors.
I used the book "Brown brown bear what do you see?". She loves the book and repeats almost everything I read in the book. She is able to repeat all the colors I read to her but not able to recognize any of them except green. Whenever I ask her what color, she will say "Green!". Maybe everything is green in her eyes, who knows.
Today, when we were shopping in the store she played with my happy weekly planner. She showed off to everyone that passed by. Suddenly she said "yellow" and showed the yellow happy face sticker. Wow, she knows color now!

A corner of our house - (3)

The entry was very attractive to me when I first saw this house. It has beautiful hardwood floors, 9 feet ceiling. I still like it after living in the house for more than two years. But I had a hard time to choose artwork on the wall, first wall when you enter the house. I tried to use seasonal artworks, have used Christmas patchwork frame. Now I hang a wood frame that I got from Pottery Barn 3 years ago, insert some Asian style prints. It looks quite neutral and subtle, not very standout. I'm still searching.

A corner of our house - (2)

This picture is a corner of our formal dinning room. This room is the least used room but most with complete looking. The curtains of this room are just right color and style I wanted, it made the whole room warm, inviting yet elegant. Recently I added this cute snow man. I really love him because I got him from after Christmas sale but he can smile the whole winter. Sophia loves him because he is the same size as her and he never melts.

A corner of our house - (1)

This post is inspired by some craft bloggers.

I love our house more and more because we put efforts in every corner of our house. It reflects ourselves in some way.

This corner is a small wall of our newly finished basement - playroom. Since it's the smallest wall, I decided to handle it first as a test. I wanted to use those bright colors in the rug on the wall decor. I started with six simple white wood frames. I took out the mats inside the frame, used my bright color cardstock as mats. I printed out some cute computer wall paper on 6x4 photo paper, used them as art. My favorite picture is the super modern bridge, a bridge engineer's child's playroom decor! How cool is that?

Then wzg was not sure about hanging six frames perfectly. Our secret is the hook and loop. Yes we used that instead of nails and string to hang frames. It worked perfectly!

Imaginations

A two year old thinks the way that I could never understand.

日历->车
一次去中餐馆吃饭,送了一卷 日历. 从此,宁宁便象宝贝一样看着,不让我们碰.最令人不解的是,宁宁的玩法.通常宁宁把日历摊在地上,然后自己坐在上面,开始beep, beep,模仿大人开车.
椅子->火车
有一天,吃完饭,宁宁就开始摆椅子,把四把椅子都一个一个摆成前后一排.然后拉着爸爸坐在前面,自己坐后面,开始choo...choo...原来是学开火车.

打电话更是宁宁主要的娱乐项目,一定是:"Hello, @^*@^#(?{LE_)&@, Okay, byebye."

Sleep training day 6 is easy

Hope everyday is like tonight.
Sophia woke up at 5am this morning. Maybe I gave her too much pear juice before bed, she had two huge diapers in a row in the morning. Due to less sleep in the morning Sophia had a 3 hour nap today. As a result I let her play a little late tonight, a Friday night is OK to play late. I put her in bed around 10:04pm she cried less than 5 minutes. Hope this improvement keeps going.

Sleep training day 5 is not successful

Today is day 5, I put her in bed at 9:04pm, she cried before I turned off light (earlier than yesterday), she gave up crying at 9:16pm. Not too bad.
But she woke up and started to cry again when our neighbor made a very loud noise, finally fell asleep at 9:26pm.