pure joy

Posted on 2013/05/21 by daisyeyes

I can be a pretty serious person. I take things to close to heart and can become pretty defensive, pretty quickly. God brought a husband into my life that is crazy silly. And I’ve spent so many years not really appreciating that in him. I’ve spent too many years missing things because of this seriousness that leads to clenched hands trying to grasp control.

Last night I welcomed home my closest friend and her new little beauty from overseas. There is something about waiting for someone in an airport that you haven’t seen or talked to for weeks; added to the fact that you finally get to meet this little person that we’ve all been anxiously praying for for years and years. It was about as close to pure joy as you can get.

I’m reading Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe, by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson. It’s a super book so far, totally refreshing to read no matter what stage of parenting you are in, but it’s Sally Clarkson that reminds me that the seriousness in me is so smothering. It smothers the freedom and joy that I can have when I wake up every day anticipating life just as I kept looking through those glass doors last night for a glimpse of my friend.

Last night was a great reminder that despite what horribleness happens in the world (oh, how we are praying for Oklahoma) everyday is filled with anticipation. And we have a choice to take that anticipation with stoic seriousness or to open ourselves up to trust.

It’s a chance for us to shower our families, our callings, our anything with grace and joy. His grace and joy.

school’s out for the summer…almost

Posted on 2013/05/19 by daisyeyes

Now that I have the roaring head banging song in your head, I present to you our summer plans. I do a great job of making it look like I have it all together and this summer is no different. This is the last week of school and so I’m hurriedly trying to paste all my last minute ideas together so that next Tuesday (because Monday is a holiday) we are ready and going.

One thing we will do this week is have a “yes” day. I implemented this day as the first and last day of any vacation that we have. It’s a no holds bar kind of day where you can cram your head with as much technology and anything else (within reason) because after that we are on a schedule.

Last year we had this crazy magnet thing that I had come up with. While we kind of held it together in the beginning, it pretty much all fell apart after a few weeks. It was a little bit too lax and the follow through wasn’t happening.

After spending Christmas vacation with one child who seriously needs some sort of schedule and me realizing that I am going to have to still work on the shop this summer, I knew we would have to have some sort of framework.

So this is what I came up with. A loose schedule filled with assigned days for things and different themed hours in our house. One thing I know that could easily overtake us is technology, so we are going to be very rigorous on this one. Both of my kids are getting to the age where if they are bored they want a screen. Not gonna happen this summer. We also have this Apologia science book that we’ve been talking about doing for at least 2 years and I swear we are going to do some of it this summer. So this is the lay of the land.

1. We have a family calendar hanging up that we will mark off the days as we go. This gives everyone a heads up for what is coming up that is planned for.
2. We have assigned days for things: Monday mornings we will have a chore time. They will be assigned one weekly chore that they will do on Monday mornings. Wednesdays is movie afternoon. Hopefully this helps with the “I want to watch a movie” whines. Friday mornings we will hit the library.
3. We will be unplugged between 8:30 and 1:00. No questions asked. I’m also trying to get rid of the t.v. as soon as you wake up habit. If they do wake up before 8:30, then PBS is totally fine, but if you wake up later than that….too bad.
4. We will have a loose structure to our day: breakfast, school time, work time for me with play time for them, lunch and then the tech hour. During this hour they are free to have whatever screen they desire: Ipod, Ipad, computer, Leapster, Wii…whatever. And then quiet hour. My hope is to have 30 minutes of reading time for all of us and then 30 minutes of quiet time in their rooms. This is more for my sanity than theirs! Then we will hit the pool
5. Obviously there are days where this won’t happen and to be honest we only have 4 weeks this summer that are totally open (we go to school year round so we have a pretty short summer). But these weeks we are “down” I hope will be pretty routine.

The second thing I did was our bucket list. I have a bunch of things I’ve pinned on my Summer2013 board and many of these ideas came from there. The idea for the mock chemistry board came from here.

I did ours a little differently and color coded the post it notes for free activities (pink), those that involve money (yellow), those that involve planning (blue) and a couple of open spots (green).

I have a tendency to be too structured and then never follow through, so I tried really hard to make this whole thing be a system of guidelines for us. Giving us all space for summer life to happen, but also a little roadmap for those of us that crave that sort of thing.

being courageous

Posted on 2013/05/19 by daisyeyes

One of my favorite Psalms is the 27th one.
I have sweet memories of setting the first few verses to song with one of my closest friends in high school and I still sing it in my head.

But lately, I cling to the promise in the closing verses:

13 I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.

These are the verses running through my head as I stepped out yesterday. These are the verses that I claim for almost every step I take right now. When I walk on a path that seems to be crazy or unknown, I cling to the promise that God is good and I will see His goodness.

But we have to know that His goodness isn’t worldly prosperity.
His goodness isn’t the amount of money we have in the bank.

His goodness is the courage to step out in faith.
His goodness is manna…all the grace we need right at that moment.
He gives me grace to mother my children when I’m all out.
He gives me grace to talk to a stranger.
He gives me grace to share my gifts and talents with others.
He gives me grace to be a wife full of respect for her husband.

All is grace.
And we will see His goodness.

stepping out

Posted on 2013/05/18 by daisyeyes

Today was a lesson in stepping out, bravery, humility and ignoring the voices of doubt.
I’ve participated in group sales a few times previously, but this weekend was the first time I had participated in a large event. Like a bring your own tent, set it up and make it look nice and then watch people come in and look over your stuff.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been furiously building up stock, figuring out what to sell and how much to price things. I’ve been figuring out things like sales tax and what to say to people when the ask about certain things and how to “sell” yourself. But nothing, nothing preps you for how to handle the barrage of people who might walk into your booth, glance at your stuff and then walk out.

Today was a lesson in being free and courageous. My personality loves etsy. I have time to respond to people’s requests. I will more than likely never have to see the person that I might have rolled my eyes at. And I don’t have to sell myself with my personality…I just have to do it with photos and the words I write.
So.much.safer.

So, today was successful in an emotional way (sadly not a monetary way). It forced me to see something through. To keep climbing this crazy trying to start a business learning curve that never stops. It forced me to step waaaay out of my comfort zone and to stop listening to the voices of doubt. Because my worth is not in how many people bought (or didn’t) stuff. Whether I’m “doing the right thing” with this path I’m on isn’t dictated by how many people walked into my booth.

I’m proud of what I’m doing. I’m convinced that I’m doing what our gracious God would have me do and I’m thankful. I’m thankful for opportunities to stretch myself, but also beyond thankful for the security of my home.

learning to sew

Posted on 2013/05/15 by daisyeyes

Once upon a time I had a vision of these great little embroidery kit’s for kids. I would use my felt scraps and my sewing machine to create a eco-friendly, washable and reusable set of sewing “cards”. They were pretty good sellers and as whole I got some good feedback on them. But they were crazy labor intensive, I wasn’t too excited about the felt bag and I knew that I could make them a little easier for me to put together and a lot more fun.

I’m excited to finally share my new children’s learn to sew/embroider kits!

They still come in two different versions: a girly pink and an anything goes blue. But now they come with a little tote style bag with these amazing hand drawn instructions that are sewn into the bag with a ribbon…so you will always have them with you. A huge thanks goes to my friend Caryn for her amazing drawing (and she has a super awesome blog that you need to check out!)

Each starter kit comes with a tote bag with instructions, yarn, a blunt tip needle and a set of shape sewing cards.

Each felt “card” is pre-basted and pre-punched for your child (or you!) to sew up through the holes and practice following a pattern and get the rhythm of up and down. The biggest hurdle for anyone learning to sew is merely achieving the up from the bottom and down through the top motion. These cards provide that practice in a fun and easy way.

In addition to the starter kits, there are two other add-on kits that can be ordered: a set of animals and a set of holiday themed cards.

For now, these sets will only be available locally at the farmer’s market in Knoxville and the art market in Maryville. They will be available on etsy during my grand “reopening” at the end of July.

from my kitchen: spiced chai

Posted on 2013/05/12 by daisyeyes

I have a habit of needing a cup of tea in the afternoon. I absolutely love Yogi tea’s black chai. But it’s not convenient for me to buy and it can get pricey if I drink it every day. I’ve … Continue reading →

more looking back

Posted on 2013/05/08 by daisyeyes

Looking back through the archives again is so thrilling and fun. I remember all the things I was making when I started this little adventure into sewing and business making.

This post reminded me of how much I love these bibs and it has been forever since I made any of them. I remember there was one with a lion that was probably one of my favorite things ever I have stitched. Then these nursery rhyme themed t-shirts were fun too!

Then there was the time that I was mentioned on Sew Mama Sew’s blog for this awesome outfit by Children’s Corner. Funny, I don’t even remember this!

Here was my first try at writing a tutorial for a Leapster Bag that I designed. It had some major flaws (math is not my strong suit) but served both my children well for the years since.

One of my most popular posts has been our Easter Tomb tradition. I have to admit that as my children have grown older, we aren’t so effective at really taking the time and effort to do this. We did do it this year, but our sweet tomb was lacking in the key element of the Crosses. But it was still a great tradition and reminder of traditions that we have in our family.

And then I started the huge quilt project. I’m walking through the archives of the years 2008-09 and in 2009, I started to make a quilt for my daughter’s room. It’s still held together and I hope it’s something that she’ll take off to college with her.

And this is by far one of my most favorite things I’ve sewn ever.

That’s about all the looking back time I’ve got for today. I’m doing my first vendor experience at the local farmer’s market in less than 2 weeks so I have to get busy…like seriously nose to the grindstone busy.

little bit of stitching

Posted on 2013/05/07 by daisyeyes

One major change I’ve made in my schedule the last few months is to dedicate at least an hour in the afternoon to embroidery. It has been my hour of quiet (well kind of quiet as I’ve been sucked into watching the old tv show Alias) before I go bring the kiddos home from school. The question is how will I manage this time when they are at home this summer!?

Anyhow, it’s been a huge gift to myself and in that I’ve been able to accomplish so much more embroidery than previously. Here are a few glimpses of some things I’ve been able to finish the last few weeks…

Our elementary school has themes for their classrooms for grades preschool through second and my chick shares a class with two teachers (and subsequently two themes). They are the Cliffords and Nemos. I made these banners for their end of the year teacher gifts.

It was fun to stitch something so different than the traditional banners I’ve been making.

Next up I’m making some smaller embroideries for some pendants, ornaments and more to sell at the Farmer’s Market this season. Here is a glimpse at the little ballerinas

I love stitching small, detailed things like this. It stretches me as an embroiderer and also is as close to painting a picture as I’ll ever get!

I finished another version of the THINK before you speak pattern. This is an aqua version, custom designed for a client.

I made a new version of my French themed banners. This time the client requested the words “joyeux anniversaire” in black and white. I really love how it turned out.

That’s about it for now. I’m rolling out a new Scripture themed embroidery hopefully soon with all the fruits of the Spirit, a smaller version of the Sarah Williams quote from The Astronomer poem and a couple of new custom embroideries too.

Happy Tuesday and happy stitching!

big dreams

Posted on 2013/05/01 by daisyeyes

I feel like I constantly come to this place and say over and again how amazed and overwhelmed I am.

This embroidery pretty much sums it up.
Every month I sit down and do our budget.
Every Spring rolls around and I question the rationality of me continuing to build this business.
And every time I do it seems crazy.
But every time I do the budget we meet our needs.
Every time I start to think I need to find a “real” job the Spirit convicts me.
I hear the words
“trust me”,
“do not fear”
and “in all things He is good.”

Like this post I read this morning, I am reminded of all the ways I think we are lacking or will lack.
But when I look back at the past year; when I look back at even yesterday I see where He has done nothing short of supply more than our needs.

I feel like everywhere I look lately I see post after post reminding us as Believers to the realization that God longs deeply for us to follow our hearts. He longs for us to walk His path. And His path often times doesn’t make sense to anyone but us…and many times not even us!
He longs to fulfill our dreams and so often our dreams are tiny compared to how He will fulfill them.

There are so many things I don’t know as I walk through this day. There are so many things in the future that are unknown. The learning curve I’ve been on as I walk this path has been so crazy steep and fraught with so many fears and worries. Yet, the joy that I’ve felt as I’ve walked has been nothing short of amazing. I have walked through so many days overwhelmed with the list in front of me, yet also overjoyed at the gift that the Lord has given me. It’s a small piece, a small reminder, that He does give bountifully and richly and fully.

In His time and in His way.

I am living a God-sized dream.

Random shots

Posted on 2013/04/24 by daisyeyes

I’ve slowly been working on our master bathroom. Here’s the before post and here is a sneak peek after I exchanged a few mirrors in the house and finally got it painted.

I’m learning the hard way that it’s all about the right tools. Being married to a carpenter, woodworking handyman you think I would just know this but alas I don’t. Today I was introduced to the Clover version of a water soluble tracing pen for embroidery. It. Is. The. Bomb. Like totally amazing; I don’t know where this pen has been all my life kind of amazing. Go buy one fast. I got mine at Michaels and I think I’m going to go buy some more.

This silly wedding cake topper is stretching my brain cells. Nothing like messing with a few hours worth of embroidery and hoping that you can salvage something out of it. This is where I’m at with it as of today. Still not a finished product. Ugg.

My yoga teacher has this sticky note in her bathroom that drives me crazy. It points people to the trash can where people should throw their reusable drying washcloths. Every time I sit in there doing my business I have this great embroidery design in my head. Yesterday I finally sat down and made it. I love it.

Sometimes the color requests just don’t work out and we go back to the drawing board. This was the case for this turquoise version of the THINK embroidery. Look for it this summer at the local farmer’s market and maybe an option on etsy soon.

That’s about it for right now. I’ve been crazy busy this month with orders…more in a month than I’ve ever had before. I’m truly blessed and every day humbled by how the Lord has gifted me with the ability to follow a dream.