looky here...

Hey, recognize that girl?

Nancy Lubrano, a sweet student in my Happy Go Lucky Stitchalong, included ME in her happy sampler. Isn't that the sweetest thing ever? I'm so honored that she would want me there, among her happiest of things. And can you get over how incredible it is? I'm blown away by the talent.

We are having the best time over there! Such amazing people and incredible talent. I love it.

sampler class

I can't even begin to tell you how well this class is going. And the best part of all? The community! The most delightful, cheerful, helpful friends ever. Access to that forum alone is worth the cost of admission.

I want to share with you one student's sampler progress...and her story.

Sweet Jovita's twins were born in February early. If you have a moment, I encourage you to read more about her strength, love and courage. She decided to create a loving tribute to her little boy and little girl, including all the plans she and her husband had for their life together. It's a heartbreaking story, yes, but it's Jovita's tremendous love for her twins, and her incredible desire to honor their lives by remembering them with joy instead of pain, that makes it an incredible love story.

One of the blessings of this class is meeting this wonderful new friend. She inspires me.

stitching with Alfredo

Alfredo and I shared a project with Big Picture Classes...a kid's stitching project for your little ones to try while you do the Happy Go Lucky Stitchalong!

Click over to check out the fun and easy tutorial.

p.s. I'm having so much fun already with the Happy Go Lucky Stitchalong class...I love it. Hope to see you there!

get happy!

My Happy Go Lucky Stitchalong starts tomorrow over at Big Picture Classes and I'm so excited! I'm thrilled that so many of you have signed up. It's going to be so much fun.

The class starts tomorrow and runs a week. But even if you're not going to be around, you can still sign up and have access to all the materials forever. BUT you have to sign up before the workshop ends next week. Does that make sense?

Each day you'll gain access to 4 videos of me stitching squares. I'll tell you a little bit about the happy thing I'm stitching and then you'll be able to view a sped up video set to music. There's even one square where you'll see little Alfredo help me make a few stitches!

There's also a fun stop motion animation I made to inspire you to make your own happy list. It's just a fun, silly thing but I think you'll like it.

The class is still just $10 (half off the regular registration price) so hurry and grab your seat. And be sure to join me this Saturday for a live video chat!

See you there!

p.s. As a bonus, you'll get free access to the latest issue of Inspired Ideas (Spring 2012)!

lakeside...

In about a month, we'll join my family here for a relaxing week at Deep Creek Lake, a beautiful mountain lake in Maryland. Here's the house we rented. Isn't it lovely?

I can't wait...

 The average temperature in mid-July there is about 80 degrees...perfect. And the nights are just chilly enough to warrant firing up that lovely fireplace. (We're keeping our fingers crossed, anyway. The record highs in July are mid-90s so it might be a different story)

We've come to this lake many times with Rich's family, mostly camping. But this will be the first time my sisters and brother and their families, and my parents, have traveled here. I'm hoping they love it.

Since this is my first time planning our family vacation, I wanted to do something special. I made swag bags for each family...

I found these great striped bags at PaperMart.com...a steal at just over $6 each. I used Pam's doodle bundle to whip up fabulous tags identifying each bag. (These doodles are my go-to art when I need to make tags, labels, etc.! I use them all the time!)

It's always tricky filling multiple bags like this. Everything adds up quickly when it's multiplied by 8, but you don't want to make it all junk either, right? So I found this great great puzzle book and picked up one per family. I also had t-shirts and ball caps printed (cafepress) with a fun graphic. Oriental Trading is a great place to score cheap multiples, like water guns, fun pens, tiny flashlights, and flip-flop notepads. The dollar store had trial sizes of Colgate Optic White, so I threw those in too.

I picked up an assortment of peg games (a dozen for $14.50) there too...and put each one in a little muslin bag.

And since everyone in our family is a fabulous cook, I knew recipe cards would come in handy.

That way, when you want the recipe of some wonderful thing we had for dinner, you can just jot it down. (These super cute ones are from the dollar spot at Target, designed by Mary)

Alfredo helped me pack these up and we can't wait until it's time to go.

kidding around

The big question other pre-kindergarten mothers are asking is: What camps is Alfredo doing? And the answer I give? None. Zip. Nada.

And you want to know why? Here we are in the last summer before school and I just want to hang out with him, have fun, be silly, have playdates. Make stuff, go on little trips, hang out at the pool. Work on things like our fine motor skills, writing his name in initial cap only, reading...but in a fun, no pressure environment.

So when I saw the Kidding Around class over at Big Picture, I knew it would be just the thing for us to do this summer.

Alfredo is extra excited to have his very own Smash book to use as his art journal for the course. It'll be a fun thing for us to do together and we can't wait!

Before the course started, there was a pre-assignment to make a paper chain to countdown to the class's start. Since we didn't get a chance to do that (the workshop starts today and I've been busy getting ready for St. Louis) I adapted this idea to make a countdown to his first day of kindergarten. Alfredo is a little worried about it and suprises me with questions like "Am I going to kindergarten tomorrow?" He doesn't seem to understand how long summer is. So what better way to show him than to make a paper chain, one link per day, 75 links in all until our big day. Every night we'll cut off a link to make the extra long chain a bit shorter, until kindergarten.

To sign your guys up for Kidding Around 3 with Tami Morrison, click here. It'll be fun to see you there!

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EDITED TO ADD:
Guess what! The folks over at Big Picture Classes offered that I could host a giveaway for a pair of classes so that you and friend can take the class together with your kiddos! How fun is that! Leave a comment below with your name, where you live, and your email address and you might just win! (I'll pick a winner Friday June 15 at 5 PM EST)

Winner: Congratulations Lida M!

glitter spy jar

This idea started out as a "mind jar"...perhaps you've seen them on Pinterest here, here, and here...and while I like the idea of a meditation jar (it's meant to help a child calm her/himself as the glitter falls) I thought it might be fun to make it into more of a game. Our challenge this summer is more about competing with video games and television for entertainment.

So I combined the idea of the glitter jar with the game "ispy"!

Alfredo was involved in every part of making this project...and enjoyed it almost as much as the finished thing!

First, we went on a hunt for tiny things. Goodness knows we have a lot of them. Toys, charms, buttons, and even alpha-beads that spell out his name. We collected about 30 things. The more you collect and the smaller the things, the more challenging the game. Or wouldn't it be fun to fill it with a bunch of similar things, like dinosaurs, and then search for each one.

Next, we photographed each individual thing, or group of things (for instance, 3 purple beads together). I set those up to be printed 2 each on a 4" x 6" photo paper. Then I trimmed the cards to 4' x 3" oversized cards.

Our favorite part was putting together the jar. The mind jars all used clear glue but I thought I would use cooking oil  (I don't really cook with a lot of vegetable oil but I had a couple of bottles which had turned a bit rancid. You can tell by taking a whiff...rancid oil smells funny.) First we filled the jar 3/4 full with oil. I had this fun tall jar that had contained Looza fruit juice. The tall, skinny jar worked great for us but it will work with any size jar. If you're concerned about using a glass jar, plastic will work fine too. Perhaps you could even use the plastic jar the oil came in?

Next we dumped in some glitter...a combination of colors and sizes. We are glitter rich in this house so we had plenty to choose from.

Then, Alfredo's favorite part of all...he dropped each little toy in, one at a time, watching it drift slowly to the bottom. Some toys floated for a while on top and then took the dive. Fun, fun!

Fill to about a 1/4" from the top with more oil.

Finally, because the idea of an oil slick in my living room makes me crazy, I secured the top with a bit of strong glue. Simply run a bit of the glue around the inner rim of the lid and attach. Clear bathroom caulk would work great too.

For the game, we can play together or Alfredo can play by himself. I think this might be just the thing for him while I'm preparing meals. Choose a card and then see how quickly you can find what's pictured. Some things, bigger toys like the snake, will be easy to spot, while smaller items like the buttons, will be more challenging. Choosing the card with the alpha beads spelling ALFREDO is most challenging of all since we'll have to find the letters in order!

Good cheap fun...

 Have fun making your own...I'd love to see how it turns out!

charm sampler class

We switched gears on Sunday and worked on samplers. Above is Lucy's amazing VW bug sampler, all planned out and ready to stitch. Isn't it adorable?

It was so much fun to watch how the students' samplers took shape. Above is Brenda's...I love the Holly Hobbie charm!

Carol's is looking very "Mary"...so sweet!

Hillary had planned to make a red, white, and blue sampler but was so inspired by the kit and samples that she changed her mind...it's looking so lovely!

Jamie used a Sunbonnet Sue her mom had made and built a lovely sampler around it, using the quote "Grandmas are antique little girls" as the theme!

Jenn stitched a tiny little version of herself with dinosaur silhouettes. She plans on creating the grid beneath them and stitching bones...isn't that so clever?! She's an amazing dinosaur artist/pastry chef/brilliant girl. So much fun to have her in class!

Julie planned ahead with a little stitching journal filled with sketches and ideas to help her along...love the paddle ball!

The other Julie brought an amazing treasure trove of trinkets, charms, buttons, etc, including the most adorable original shrinky dinks that her children made when they were young.

I love the flag that Lori stitched...and she even made a little dress for her tiny naked baby.

And I love the real thimble charm she dangled onto the stitching square!

Margaret came prepared with a patchworked piece to use in place of the grid. Love!

Can you tell how much fun we were having?

p.s. If you're wishing you'd come, why not sign up for my Happy Go Lucky Stitchalong over at Big Picture Classes. For a limited time, it's only $10 (regularly $20). It's really going to be so much fun.

tiny worlds class

Here's my tiny worlds classroom, all set up and ready to begin...

We made so many lovely tiny worlds...

Each of them so very special...

Sweet Robin made this remarkable tiny world atop an hour glass in honor of her late mother, using bits of her mother's jewelry. So beautiful.

We painted our own figures, as well as using prepainted ones.

Tiny worlds everywhere!

Can you believe the loveliness?

(Below) I love how Beth placed a tiny goose in her little lady's arms...so precious!

We switched gears in the afternoon, making shadowboxes...

Robin made this amazing shadowbox as a loving tribute to her beautiful daughter.

Beth created this shadowbox with a bit of Parisian flair. Ooolala!

Lesha's shadowbox, made for her husband.

Another of Beth's creations, made with an itty bitty wizard her daughter made.

Robin made this tiny world using one of the vintage safety pin baskets she collects as the base.

Nancy's shadowbox, made in honor of her three pets.

It was so much fun to have Marigrace and her two daughters, Anna and Abbie, in the class.

Abbie altered her spice tin to make this adorable tiny world.

Last, but not least, Carol made this amazing tribute to Her Majesty...

Indeed!

Next up, I'll show you the fun samplers we created in Sunday's class.