best use of $10

what a weekend...

transformers are cool

and right now they are the end all be all for eliot. when we started talking about making a shirt, i realized quickly that i wouldnt be able to get away with some cool artsy thing that mom likes. oh well. next time maybe? hot weekend in kc, lots of good kiddie pool pictures coming your way later, right now david needs to work on a proposal. which means i have to relinquish the computer because that makes money. phooey.

mellow

can you tell i am settling into this summer thing? i thoroughly enjoyed the evening, just to enjoy it. you know what i mean? it kind of goes along the lines of leslie's post or melissa's post. i have a list of projects that i could be working on, but instead i just sat and enjoyed the weather, took pictures of my kids and had a strawberry shake. so good. the fruits of my labor are over here. i hope every one enjoys this long holiday weekend. i say put on a dress and go twirl in the grass for a bit. it does wonders.

ps. thank you kerry, collette put her dress to the twirl test and i think it passed with flying colors.

hand cramp

no matter how conscious i am of how i hold scissors, i always end up getting hand cramps. i grip too tight, my hands are too small and lets face it, these guns of mine pack a lot of heat... but it was all completely worth it to get these thank you cards done for collettes birthday party gifts. it felt good to actually MAKE something since i wussed out and used evite for the actual party invites. the specs folks: a scanned richard scarry illustration printed on plain old paper with text of my choosing added, scallop cut by yours truly and stitched onto a beet postcards from the source. i hate glue sticks, or i should say, i end up making a terrible gloppy mess with glue sticks. so i say from now on, if it calls for glue and i can substitute sewing im there baby. it just seems so much faster and easier. not to mention stinking cute.

and onto stinking cute, now that i have my camera back in operation i will inundate you with pictures of my kids. ok? ok.

this one of eliot i particularly love. he usually watches me set up self portrait shots, and has started asking me to take pictures of him in specific poses, this being one of them. i love it. how sweet. ok, one more picture. indulge me folks, im so happy my camera is working. so there is a man at work who has a farm and raises a few chickens on said farm. i just found out last week that he sells these beautiful farm fresh eggs for ONE DOLLAR a dozen. can you tell i am freaking out? we eat lots and lots of eggs at our house, and the thought of being able to get organic free range lovelies at work for a dollar just thrills me to no end. so much so that i took pictures of them. thats right. pictures.

arent they gorgeous??? the one on top is a pale green and the one in front is the faintest bluish white. oh man. i love them so much. we had a delicious quiche last night for dinner, and i almost didnt want to crack them they were so pretty. but i did, and then i ate three pieces of quiche. oh baby. and yes, i did take my eggs out to the front yard and put them in the grass and take pictures of them. and yes, im pretty sure my neighbors think im crazy, but hey the guy across the street is building a $50K garage, so really who is the idiot now? besides, eliot thought it was cool...

spt - a little more

about me. i love summer. i know its not summer yet, but i love warm weather, going barefoot on sun-warmed concrete, sitting on the porch, drinking smoothies and just general relaxation. i love the lazy twilight of summer, listening to the birds chatter at each other as they settle in for the night, watching the fireflies make their drunken way across the yard, and the ever so mild breeze that barely has the strength to flutter the wisps of hair tucked behind my ears. oh yes. i am a child of summer.

so good

im having one of those surges of goodness. everything just seems wonderful and beautiful and lovely right now. which is good. instead of stressing about life and work and money (oh money...) im just feeling good. thank you so much for your kind comments on my spt post. i know i talk about friends all the time, but they really are so vital and i have really been blessed with good ones. you dont really know you have good friends until you get abandoned by bad ones, and then you realize you didnt really need those friends because the ones you have now are just so much better. you know? im very excited too that a dear friend will be home in a matter of weeks! so excited. porch sits, grill and rummi is definitely in order. kerry? you in?

im looking forward to getting away this weekend with david and arlo. thank you so much eireann for the tips on minneapolis. i totally spaced the paper source. i called my regional manager for some tips as well. i was sad that i wont be able to visit cia's palette new store front. she also was kind enough to send me some great info, but said that the store would not be ready yet. bummer. i still havent had a chance to get my hands on some of that flea market fancy goodness. on a bloggie note, i had a chance to make two new friends. i had coffee with alicia and laura last night. it was great to connect faces their lives and stories. thank you ladies! so enjoy the weekend everyone!


oh and ps. miracle of miracles, my camera fixed itself. if left alone long enough, who knows what can happen! this shot however is from kerry, more uploaded to flickr.

friends

i love this picture of collette and kerry. they are such good friends. huffmania is thrilled that the eddys will be moving back to kc in july. cant wait. kerry is a dear friend to me too, and i wanted to make her a little something. since her birthday was in february, the time period for claiming something as a belated gift is pretty much over, so it was more a just because kind of thing.

one of the first things i remember about kerry is walking into her house and seeing pictures everywhere and a shelf with some lovely little chairs sitting on it. she loves chairs, so they always make me think of her. freezer paper stenciled of course on some vintage fabric that was begging to be used. and oh my goodness, speaking of fabric. sarah brought some fabric back from uganda for me, and i LOVE it. i cant stop looking at it. i dont know if i will ever be able to cut it or find the perfect project for it, but for now thats ok because i just keep staring at it.

yes i took ten million pictures of it, and yes i fought the urge to upload every single one to flickr. only two, or three, or four i think. i also uploaded some more party pictures courtesy of donna since i forgot to take ANY! what??? yeah. nice one. kerry took some too, and just recently joined flickr, so thank you very much ladies!

ps. david and i are taking a mini vacation to minneapolis this weekend, any crafty places, good restaurant or coffee shop recommendations are more than welcome! japanese book store anyone?

spt introduction

hello. my name is hannah. it has been a while since i have done a self portrait tuesday. so i thought i would take this opportunity to add myself to the fabulous new site and introduce myself. i am a wife, a mom of three, an archaeologist by day and a crafter by night when i have the energy. lately not so much, mostly due to the mom part. that sums it up. anything else you want to know ask me or take a look in my archives. if you know me, leave a comment, tell me what you think i am. i would like to know. seriously. except for you clark...

she's saying

two. my girl is two today. i couldnt ask for a better way to celebrate mothers day than enjoying collette's birthday. happy birthday my sweet girl. i cant believe that just two years ago you were a brand new wonder in our lives. you have charmed and delighted everyone, and have completely stolen our hearts. to know you is to love you collette and i think that will hold true for the rest of your life.

the jungle

is a great book by upton sinclair. speaking of books, i have been reading a great one, really wonderful. the winter of our discontent by steinbeck. steinbeck puts together these sentences that just make my jaw drop. sentences so good that i read them three or four times in a row. sentences so good that it makes me want to transcribed them in emails to david, but i know that if i started an excerpt i wouldnt be able to pick a stopping point. pick it up. you wont be able to put it down. i promise.



anyway, i find myself bored at work today, so i was browsing around flickr. i wont tell you how much i really do this, but trust me, it is a lot... i found this flickr group dedicated to handwriting memes. so i grabbed a pen, some paper at hand and set to work. got the digital camera out of the storeroom and there you go. easy peasy. maybe i got a little carried away...

my friend sariah...

my dear friend sarah is arriving home today from a three week trip to africa. she spent the majority of that time on a mission in uganda. she and two other ladies from our church went to help put on a womens bible study and retreat in kampala and nebi. afterwards sarah had the opportunity to go to nairobi and spend some time with toby, another close friend of mine who is on missions in africa. i can not wait to hear your stories sarah! but i promise to give you a few days rest before i come over and wring you for all the details!! i love you and i am glad you are back safe, cant wait to see you my friend! until then, enjoy these lovely pictures from tobys gallery.

watch out party people

i am working at habitat tonight for first fridays. for any fellow kc bloggers, come on in and say hi, get your groove on with the live dj and heck, buy a pair of shoes while your at it! this sweet little number is on my mothers day/birthday/buy it just because list... hint, hint david??

there is so much great stuff going on in the crossroads district right now, it makes me so excited for kc. i also plan on skipping over to hammerpress and picking up a few little goodies. youre jealous, arent you?

get a little, give a litte, find a little

get a little...

some goodness came in the mail the last few weeks. mav's lovely, lovely march card. i love this card. the color, the detail...it is beautiful. and my very own loop trouper from sarah! if you have never shopped at the small object, please go start. sarahs style is amazing, and her packaging is just fabulous, as my husband said "hmm...thats good copy". what an editor geek...

give a little...

today is teacher appreciation week at eliot's school. of course i didnt start making something until late last night, hence the dark and blurry pictures, but what the heck. inspired by amanda's holly go lightly bag, i thought it would be great to give the teachers a little bag with a borders gift certificate and implore them to go spend some time relaxing alone. which i would guess teachers of preschool aged children would really appreciate. su? of course i went down to the basement and got distracted by a new pile of thrifted zippers, and distracted by looking through the denyse schmidt book and grabbed some batting and just went crazy. many more hours later i emerged with these gigantic wallet (maybe a clutch?) like things all bleary eyed and ready for bed. eah... it felt good to sew something again, it didnt feel good to stick the bejesus out of my pinky finger with a straight pin. i seriously stuck it in there a quarter of an inch. does anyone else do this? it happens to me all the time. oh and i broke my second needle ever on the sewing machine, and it came flying at my FACE! is there a record of anyone loosing an eye while crafting? i hope not. freaked me out. luckily arlo woke up for a feeding and it gave me some time to muster up the courage to go back downstairs.

find a little...

last saturday i made my friend vikkie get up early and dragged her all over town to dig through estate sales. some of my favorites: bird salt & pepper shakers sitting on vintage sheets and pillow cases, a vintage tablecloth. i had to talk myself out of buying a cool vintage refrigerator (the kind with the rounded door and big old latch on the front) that i had visions of storing my craft supplies in. i like to keep them chilled. just kidding. why you might ask? well it was down this rickety, narrow little staircase in a basement, and the more i thought about it the more i realized that getting out would be a long process involving many hands and a truck i didnt have with time i couldnt spare. it was hard to pass up, but i had to let it go. always something, huh? next time i guess.

valley of the unicorns

we wont talk about how in the fifth grade i was so obsessed with unicorns that i wrote a story called valley of the unicorns. we wont talk about how i begged and pleaded with my dad until he took my story (written out on a loooong piece of parchment paper) and attached it to some dowel rods so that it would look like a scroll. we wont talk about how i won and award for the young authors contest with said illustrated scroll. mainly because david has heard that story ten million times (i particularly like to point out the part about the award to him as he is an author) and he is sick of it. i think its pretty freakin cool myself. which is why i made this shirt for just for my inner twelve year old.

moving on... just wanted to say thank you to eliot for being so patient with me while i do crazy things like take pictures of tshirts on the porch.

i spend so much time snapping pictures of the girls, that sometimes i forget just how sweet he really is. and silly, i mean come on, he is a four year old boy.