have i mentioned how much i love summer?

Really, I am LOVING this free time. Or at least the free time that I do have with this little Chunk of mine. I almost forgot what it was like to do so many Amanda Things. Especially craft-related Amanda Things. I'm very slowly getting back into making greeting cards (When I say slowly I mean sloooo....oooo..wwly.). Haven't done any sewing yet but I have a few projects in mind should I ever pull the machine back out.

Anyway, over the past week or so I've been getting back into making jewelry. (Another random craft fact about me: I used to make almost all of my own earrings and bracelets back in the day. I liked things to be simple and cutesie without all the "I BOUGHT THIS ON MEGA-CLEARANCE AT CLAIRE'S" non-appeal. And if I was just feeling real crazy, sometimes I would make earrings for friends if there was a holiday.) I had been toying with some ideas in my head for a while but mostly it was one of my co-workers who actually inspired me to get back into doing it. So, while I was at Hobby Lobby scoping out 50% off card-making supplies I mozied on over to the beads and behold, they too were 50% off! And then it was all over for me.

I got beads of all kinds... glass, ceramics, jade, turquoise, seed beads, "naturals"... picked up some stretch cord and wire and I was good to go. I held off on the metals (jump rings, clasps, fish hooks, flat posts, crimp beads, etc.) because, if you don't know this already, everything in Hobby Lobby goes on sale pretty frequently. I figured since beads were on sale last week that metal beads and jewelry supplies would probably be on sale this week, and I was right. (I love the Hob Lob but what I'm saying is you should probably never buy anything at Hobby Lobby unless it is 50% off... if it's not on sale this week, chances are it will be in the next few.)

So ANYWAY... I'll just stop talking and get to the pictures.


Here is what I made with some of my haul...

A couple of bracelets -- I made them both with stretch cord so that (hopefully) G won't break them when he pulls a little bit.

"Natural" flat ovals alternating with limey-yellow turquoise stones.





A few sets of earrings...

Mustardy-yellow ceramic donuts with teal glass bead in center.


And some danglies...


I want to make these with large purple stones next time so they'll look like eggplants.



Okay, I'm spent.

Tomorrow, I go to Emory for my pre-op work-up and to meet with the radiologist who will be doing the embolization (a week from today). If I know anything after that of course I'll report.

just wondering...

not me!

First let me say that I do not like mess. I hate clutter. And I hate grime. But mostly clutter. And then let me say that even though I do, really, hate clutter... our house is, a lot of the time and especially recently, messy. But would I ever dream of letting my office become a dumping ground for all of our miscellaneous odds and ends? No way! Not me! ;) And I certainly would not let said doodads accumulate to create a mountain of disastrous mess. Once I was officially done with work for the summer and happily realized I had two weeks before my surgery to tackle this horrible, no good, very bad condition of my office, I jumped right on it! I mean, I would never let that snowball keep rolling for yet another week!

Okay, so maybe I did. But maybe today is a Not Me! Monday party and I can cry deny it if I want to. Or I could just let you see it. (I will probably regret this.)



For what seems like forever I've been wanting to get into my office and purge, clean, re-arrange, decorate and set it up so that I can use it more productively to organize bills/important papers and to, what else?, craft somewhere that is NOT my dining room table. After one big day and a few days of crafting to test out the new arrangement (Of course it was only for official and productive purposes. Never would I ever spend half a day craft-shopping and then crafting upstairs when there is so much laundry to be folded and put away. Definitely not.) I am mostly done. It could use a new bookshelf and splash of color (seriously, all of the walls in this house were this color when I moved in... what the fresca is that about?). And maybe, cough, a table whole space station especially for crafting but that is another project for another day and for now, I am pretty happy with it. So, without further ado, here is a visual progression of my office:








And finally some sanity (although I've already done more rearranging since this picture yesterday... the point is that it is much cleaner):




The armchair is still filled with pictures and frames that need to be filled and hung. And don't worry, that box under the table isn't a dumping ground, it's just slowly accumulating things I'm taking to my classroom in the fall.


Clear desk, clear mind. (Hopefully.)




If you follow me on Twitter, I may have promised to post a crafting entry about some handmade jewelry/craft madness, buuut that might just have to wait until tomorrow. :)

even G loves planners

I've barely been able to keep G occupied today but as soon as I pulled out the momAgenda things were just peachy for ohhh about 10 minutes. But can I blame him? I mean, who doesn't love planners?? This little boy just gets busier all the time, I'm gonna have to step up my game to keep up!

four months

Yesterday, we finally had G's four month well visit (even though he will soon be 5 months old). Just another reminder that our baby is, truthfully, the most perfect and cutest baby that ever existed. Oh, I'm sorry, did you just throw up in your mouth? Okay, then I guess I'll just get to the stats:

Height: 25 1/4 in. (50th percentile)
Head circumference: about 17 in. (50th percentile)
Weight: 16 lbs 10 oz (75th percentile.... last time he was in the 90th percentile for weight so this is good)

Developmentally, he's perfect and everything looks great. We also got the green light to start feeding him rice cereal in place of one bottle feeding but no other solids until 6 months. So... what did I do last night? Fed him cereal, of course! I just couldn't wait. At first, G just wasn't sure that was a rollercoaster he wanted to ride but he caught on pretty quickly and we both got some good laughs. I'll just let the pictures do the rest of the talking...

instant craftification

As promised, here are pictures of the baby invitations I made for the baby shower Kathy is hosting. There is a feeling I get after finishing a small project like this that I like to call "instant craftification." Finishing a craft-kind-of project is just so satisfying! Especially when it can be completed in a few hours or even a whole day. I'm an instant craftification girl all the way and this one definitely fit the bill. Kathy's first and only big request was that they be shaped like onesies. I inquired about colors (bright blues, greens...), embellishments (buttons and brads), size, envelopes and her choice of wording. I made them all a little bit different with the same overall feel, layout and color scheme. So without further ado...

(orange splotches compliments of the aybaybay address protection agency. or that i'm just too paranoid to post anyone's address on my little space in the interwebs)


The text is printed on vellum which I laid over varying printed papers.


For the onesie "snaps," I used solid brads on some and button brads on others. All of the upper buttons were random and different for each invitation. (EDIT: They are expecting a boy so I feel the need to point out that the text area is light red and NOT pink as it looks.)


That's all, folks. :)

a holiday picnic

I know this is late but I AM a procrastinator through and through...

On Sunday we went to my parents' for a Memorial Day picnic. Afterward we met up with some of our Athens friends for a dinnertime get together. Good food, good family, good friends, sweet baby, good times... and that's about it. Really... there isn't much more to say about it.

Pictures of our weekend picnic (at my parents')... (well... really, it's just a lot of pictures of G).

Another rare picture of the two of us.


Not much better than G-daddy lovin


For about a second I thought G's cheeks were getting smaller. Until I saw this picture.


Never wants to sit, only wants to stand.


Mama, where's MY turkey burger?!

bottle it up

Warning: this post will be horrendously boring unless you have a teeny ounce of interest in baby bottles.

Among all of the questions I get from expecting mamas in Target's baby aisle(s), "Which bottles do you use?" is one of the most frequent. (Um, why did I never think to ask questions in the baby aisle when I was pregnant??) I really don't know why people ask me this but somewhere along this mama journey I'm on, I actually have developed a few "thoughts" on bottles. I'll keep it simple, promise.

My biggest gripe? Medela's bottles. Or maybe I should say any bottle that is "made" to go with the pump. I fell into that trap big time with Medela. Stocked up on a whole bunch of Medela brand bottles thinking they were just the ones that would fit the pump or that they were just somehow more fit for storing breastmilk. Made perfect sense at the time. How wrong I was! If you are considering a Medela pump... any standard bottle will fit the shield. In a pinch (when my sink was totally full of empty Medela bottles) I've used other standard neck bottles such as Dr. Browns and even the glass Munchkin bottles. Don't get me wrong, I love Medela, but their bottles are expensive and are certainly not the only shoe that fits. And if you use or received some wide neck brand bottles like, say, Avent... they make a piece that adapts the Medela shield to the Avent bottle.

My second biggest gripe? ... leaking. I LOVE wide neck bottles. For nursing and pumping I don't care, but when I'm mixing formula, wide-neck is what I want. (It's cleaner, plain and simple.) BUT... the Avent bottles, though I do love their wide necks and all of their cuteness (if you can even call a bottle "cute," anyway) leak like crazy if the collar isn't screwed on just so. This drives me CRAZY. Any kind of leakage drives me crazy because, really, who likes a sticky mess?

My favorite? Born Free. Hands down. And if I had to pick a very close second, it would be Dr. Browns. Both have venting systems. Dr. Browns is great with the pump (standard neck) and Born free is wonderful for formula (wide neck, my favorite). If I had to pick a winner I'd pick Born Free, hands down, every time. Never once had a leak, clean-up is fine and they've always been BPA-free. If we had money to blow and didn't already have dozens of other bottles, I'd stock my whole cupboard with them, I love them so much.

Well, now that my interest factor just decreased 2910831 points, I'll leave it at that. So, to my two readers who have asked me about this in recent weeks, I hope this is helpful. If nothing else, at least you are now a few wasted minutes closer to meeting that sweet little baby!

shkoo's out

Well... technically school has been out but today was my last work day!

C'mon, sweet summertime, we're ready!

so many babies, so many reasons to craft

Remember way back when I was crafting? (You know, when I actually had time to craft. And by time I mean almost-no-time-at-all.) And how I was about to send out some gifts? Well, I finally did. And so now I can share.

It seems like everybody's havin' them some babies! The Scobeys are expecting a sweet little girl any time now so I thought maybe I should finally send her gift before she actually arrives. Also, Paul's cousin Betsy will be welcoming a baby boy in the next couple of months.

I know that all baby gifts are technically for the baby... but I'd rather give things that are helpful or provide a little sanity when the baby arrives. And, though you might initially think cutesie burp cloths to be excessive and silly, I can tell you right now that sometimes that was the one thing that made me not feel quite so bad when I was just a mere blob of sweatpants and spit up slumped in the corner of our couch. And if you have to wear the things on your shoulder for the next however-many months, you might as well look cute doing it, right? I received a few like this and I stand by my statement that they are one of my favorite baby gifts ever. Hence my decision to craft and let them take over my dining room table.

The Scobeys decided on a bird theme for their wee girl's nursery so in addition to paneled burp cloths, I appliqued a bird silhouette onto a 3-6 month onesie for little Evie (another one of my favorite baby things we received -- clothes bigger than 0-3 months). I made the stitching a little haphazard and left the cotton edges so that they will fray just a little bit with washing. (I guess the onesie really is for Evie after all.) Other sanity items for Ashley: LilyPadz (a real lifeshirt saver in those early weeks of nursing) and side-snap shirts for Evie (G was not a fan of clothes being forced over his floppy head so these were a must-have for us).



paneled burp cloths:





For Betsy, I sent three paneled burp cloths (two shown below) and since I'm not sure whether or not she intends to nurse, I got an Adiri nurser which is great for breast or bottlefeeding.





I'm getting better with the sewing machine and with summer upon me, I'll probably find a lot more time for it. But first, I am making baby shower invitations for Kathy's brother's baby who will be arriving at the end of the summer. (Random fact about me: I used to sell handmade greeting cards on Etsy and last summer I made 150 place cards and table cards for a wedding in New York City.) I'm a day behind on finishing the sample (I lost my vellum!) so I'll post when they're finished.

Who doesn't love babies??