For the Birds

You all know that I'm nuts about birds...


Tweet Tweet! (front)

(back)

The fun Tina Given's fabric I've been itching to try... love it!


Peach/ Pink Birds (front)

(back: Amy Butler Camel Full Moon Dot - don't you love when different designers match?!)

PS: No baby yet....

More Moda WONDERLAND Love :)

Last night was a bit rough.... lots of Braxton Hicks contractions - what a tease! To take my mind off it all, I finished up some more wet bags made with my latest obsession: Moda's WONDERLAND fabric:

Set made with fabrics from the JAM colorway:

Front of Large (14 x 14) bag (love the momma and baby bird!)

Back: Can you see the bunny in the tree?

Front of Medium (12 x 8) bag

Back of Medim bag (*sigh* I really like these butterflies!)

Set made with fabrics from the Tomato colorway:
Front of Large Bag:
Back of Large bag:

Front of Medium bag:

Back of Medium bag:

I just found that some of the fabrics come in a nice twill weight.... hmmmmm.... :)

Black and White

I love cows, so I couldn't resist trying this print for this bag:

FRONT

BACK

And this one is just FUN! (it's made with a twill fabric, so it's a bit more durable too)

Will be making some more bags (sets) tonight with different WONDERLAND fabrics :)

Growin' and Sewin'

What the heck can a 9 1/2 month pregnant momma buy to feel good?

Shoes? No way...
Clothes? HECK NO!
Fabric? You betcha!!!!

Just got in some new cuts of fabric and hopefully baby will wait for me to get to them :) The postman delivered some fun prints from Moda's new WONDERLAND collection on Sat. and I'm in love... SO CUTE! Finally a Japanese-inspired line that is affordable and fantastic. Made a bag with the TEA TIME and METAMORPHOSIS fabric this weekend and have a few other bags cut out to make this week. You can find the bag here. There are butterflies and birds and mushrooms... so much cuteness!

FRONT

BACK

Today brought the arrival of this random collection of fabrics I've been eyeing for a bit...


More birds (of course!) and an adorable large-scale print by IKEA. My sister-in-law bought the kids some placemats with these critters on them, and I'm planing to make some cloth napkins to match. Would also make some cute small wet bags (for snack bags). Kind of an eclectic collection, but that's the joy of buying fat quarters and half yards - pretty non-committal :)

Psst...... (March Coupon Code!)

Get 10% off your whole order (free shipping too with orders over $50!) with coupon code

monkey10

at www.monkeyfootdesigns.com

through the end of March. Woo Woo!

Jungle Jam

A new cute one just added to the shop - a cousin of Pod Posey :)

More Pod Posey Love :)

Soon to be added to the shop! My new favorite nursing cover :)



What do you think of a nursing cover & medium (9" x 11") wet bag set?
Good gift idea for mom's-to-be? Would love to hear feedback - thanks!

Hey - where'd my toes go?!

Yep - it's nearing that time (again...)! We're in the final countdown - baby is due 4/4, so it's time to start getting clothes washed, the co-sleeper set up, and the bags packed. Here's the view from above:

And the side:

I feel like a house.

So what else is new? Geez... it's been ages! The kids are really keeping me busy, and all of this white stuff has had us pretty entertained this winter:

We'll have most of it until the beginning of May - seriously. We call it perma-snow up here, but we're used to it, so there's no sense of complaining about it :)

Aside from mommy duties, I've been working hard to stock up on wet bags so I can take some time off when baby comes. I've been sorting through my stash and making some new bags out of random yardage that never made it into their intended purpose. Here's a few favorites that I have listed in my Etsy shop:








I've got a ton more to sew up - hopefully baby will wait a bit to let me get this creative surge out of my system :) Andalucia is next on the list.... finally get to play with that gorgeous fabric (just in time for spring!).

Hope you all are well! Have a great weekend! :) Kris

If you have a couple of minutes...

This is NEAT! (I'm liking the song too...)
http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/OrenLavie/Her-Morning-Elegance--205809176

Will write more later :) Kris

Please Help Change the CPSIA!

Hi folks! We're getting down to the final month or so before thousands and thousands of talented small business owners and crafters are going to have to close their shops and start filling landfills with their goods. If you haven't been following this awful act that will go into effect on 2/10/09, please read my post from 12/31/08. Please help us to keep this from going into effect!

Here's some more informative links - the first is the most important so please check it out.

A link to a letter that is already written with all of the pertinent information, urging your Congressman and Senator to help - it takes about two seconds to send out, and you can pass the link along to friends as well!

http://capwiz.com/americanapparel/issues/alert/?alertid=12274476

An interesting take on the CPSIA:
http://cpsia-central.ning.com/video/save-handmade-toys-from-the

Impact on schools - and your taxes:
http://fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com/413898.html

Crafter featured on Martha Stewart:
http://cpsia-central.ning.com/video/martha-stewart-endangered

A stay at home mom and small business owner speaks her mind:
http://cpsia-central.ning.com/video/cpsc-video-a-moms-perspective

New Bird Fabric!

While looking up some fabric on Free Spirit, I just found this new fabric by Tina Givens - love the birds! I'd like to see this in person though to get a sense of the scale...









I still have some of this amazing fabric to dig into (hopefully within the next week or two... it's beautiful!)




Happy New Year everyone! :) Kris

They are trying to make us do WHAT?!

Happy Holidays everyone! I'll get to the main subject of my post in a minute- just first want to say HAPPY NEW YEAR! a few hours early and to thank everyone who has stopped by to read my blog in the past year. I haven't posted as much as I'd like.... sorry about that. Things have been pretty busy here with the little ones, the business, and life in general :)

Christmas here was fun! The kitchen was a BIG hit with the kids and they love all of the fun accessories that Grandma, Grandpa, and my brother's family bought for them. I think the pizza and cookie sets are Sydney's favorites right now- she loves to serve us all day long! She also likes to make "zebra soup" - a little disturbing, but harmless (I think...).



Ben's favorite toy is the Cow Wheely Bug that Santa brought - check out how cute this thing is! I am tempted to get another one for Baby #3 coming in April... have to see though b/c 2 boys chasing eachother on wheeled wooden toys could get really ugly, really fast!



Speaking of toys... let's talk about the CPSIA... Have you heard of this fantastic (snicker) piece of legislature that Congress passed in August '08? If you haven't heard of it, I highly recommend that you google it and check out THIS LINK on cafemom. In a nutshell, all products that are intended to be used by kids under the age of 12 have to go through rigorous and EXPENSIVE lead testing, effective Feb 10, 2009. Sounds like something that would be good, right? I mean, we all want the best for our kids - remember the big scare last year from all of the lead found in paint on the toys from China? We all freaked out! But this law... this law has good intentions, but is not well thought out. It will make HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of home crafters have to shut down their businesses - I personally can't afford to have each fabric choice and size of my bags tested (~ $200-$500 per bag) and most small business owners like myself are in the same boat.

I honestly haven't figured out a plan of how to attack this yet - I am still in complete disbelief, even though it's a mere 40 days away. My optimistic side is holding out hope that small businesses will be excluded from this act, but from what I've read, that's not the plan. I don't mind showing proof that the components that I use are lead free (which is why I chose them...) - I get that. What I don't get is that they are requiring that the final products be tested - just can't do it. Unless of course they want to foot the bill :)

And what if you aren't someone who has a business making kids goodies? Well, you probably buy them now and again as gifts, or maybe you even have kids yourself. It is anticipated that prices could go up 50% after 2/10 due to the cost of the testing (for those companies that can afford it) and due to the increased demand of things (there will be a lot less available on the shelves - check out THIS LINK on National Bankruptcy Day, aka Feb 10, 2008). There will also be a lot less variety out there. Fun...

Please do read up on this and sign petitions, contact your congressman, ask questions.... WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Please have a save and Happy New Year's everyone!
~ Kris

Happy belated Turkey Day everyone! We had a really fun day - hope you all did too :) Leftovers are basically gone... back to cooking I guess!

I did some shopping over the weekend and of course had to pop into Joanne's - this trip was with purpose though (for once!). I needed to get some fabric to fix the stocking - ended up finding this:


And of course got sucked into a little bit more. Their corduroy's were 50% off, and with another coupon on top of that, it was hard to pass these cuties up! The magazines are also great reads - I'll write more about them later.


I finished up the stocking tonight and am pretty pleased with how it turned out - the red stuff was really stretchy, so I used double-sided fusible interfacing and fused it to some thick twill scraps. Worked pretty well :)



Off to bed now, but can you believe that we're already getting lots of this stuff?! I'm not ready!

November Greetings!

Hi all! Wow... it's been a while since my last post - sorry about that! I'll make this one short and sweet though :) Things are great here - just busy (as I am sure is the case with everyone this time of the year). I'm committed to not get stressed about the holidays this year and so far, so good! I just don't have the energy!

Just spent the better part of 2 hours (time flies...) looking at wooden kitchens online for the kids for x-mas. Boy there are a ton of options! Space is somewhat of an issue for us, so I think I'll have to opt for one without a hutch. This one is looking like the winner so far - just need to measure the spot that I want it to go in tomorrow. The company is also local-ish (~ a hour from us), so I like knowing that (1) we'd be supporting local folks and (2) we might be able to save some $ on shipping.




As for crafty stuff, last month saw a few kid's birthdays, so I made some odds and ends:

A Thomas Tote for my friend's son who loves trains as much as Sydney loves Nemo and penguins

A Ravens outfit for another little boy (born 18 hours after Ben!)

Another twirl skirt set (love the fall colors!!!!) for the daughter of a friend - hopefully I'll get to make a set for Sydney and Jordan (my niece) next week.


Also made a bunch of these shirts for a friend to give to her nieces and nephews - I love how the baseball ones turned out!

This week I'm hoping to get my wholesale wet bag orders all done and shipped, and figure out a good fix for this stocking, sent to me by a customer & friend in CA:


I drew a red line to show the damaged area - a critter got into their Christmas box and had a little snack :( Any creative ideas for a fix? We were thinking of making the whole toe area a red velvety fabric, or possibly just the damaged part. Her daughter loves this stocking, so it has to be saved!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! We're going to get snow at some point I think... My how I miss this already! It was gorgeous while it lasted!