Welcome back to Fantastic Fridays! I honestly feel like it was just yesterday that I was compiling last weeks fantastic finds from around the web-o-sphere. If this is your first time joining, welcome! On Fridays I wrap out my week sharing some things that caught my eye around the web.

great Fabric: I’m trying to come up with some fabric collections to start working on some embroidery hoop wall collections. Here are a few that have caught my eye lately: Reunion by Sweetwater, this bella butterfly collection is to die for and Riley Blake’s new collection, Go Fly a Kite is super sweet.

to whet your Appetite: I made this for dinner on Wednesday and we all gobbled it up in seconds! It was awesome and super easy.

be Natural: this is stretching the “natural” a bit, but at least it cuts down on consumerism…a host of valentine ideas instead of the silly ones you can buy at Walmart.

a Tutorial to do: this skirt is super, super cute!

on Aimee’s to do list (that’s me by the way): putting together some embroidery kits for these patterns

something to Sew: longing to sew something for me…I’ve had this pattern out and some awesome dark denim for months

oh, to Travel: where one of my sweet friends is hopefully going next week to pick up her baby girl. Say a prayer with me that all goes well and they travel asap!

Inspirational: this quote I came across today when I was blog hopping (aka…ignoring the things I should have been doing!)

Cute: snow white paper dolls!!!

An etsy order of this Irish Blessing. This is by far my most popular item on etsy!

a creation of my own, hopefully in the shop in time for valentine’s day or really for any sort of day you want to express your love!

My immediate thought was to do some sort of applique for the “love you” in the background, but I couldn’t get it to lay out right. I ended up deciding to stitch them in white…you’ll have to check back to see how the rest of it turns out!

I’ve also been on the hunt for some sort of bag or something to carry my supplies around with me. I’ve been using a big ziploc bag and bought this red container for my scissors and floss a while back. I still needed something better than a plastic bag for my hoops and embroideries. Wandering around Michael’s Arts and Crafts yesterday I found this envelope in the scrapbooking section. It is absolutely perfect…and the price of $1.59 wasn’t so bad either!

And finally my January Stitch-a-long from Feeling Stitchy. I am challenging myself to do these every month, even if the theme isn’t really my favorite. This was one of those. But I am SO GLAD I did! I absolutely love how this turned out! The stitch is called couching and you basically take yarn or any other thick thread and stitch it down in any sort of design your heart desires. This was really easy to do and I love the folk-artsy, kind of Anthropologie looking style of it!

I’ve been wanting to try other methods of “framing” my embroideries and this time around I bought an empty frame and then stapled the embroidery to the back of it. It makes me so happy every time I walk past it!

Here’s the whole wall in action:

I’m thinking of offering these in the shop…what do you think? Is this something you would want in your home?

I was introduced to these Encyclopedias of… books a year or so ago. I ended up buying the craft one first (oh Borders and your 40% off coupons…how I miss you!) and quickly realized that the one I had really wanted was the sewing/fabric version. My sweet hubbie got it for me this past Christmas. It’s awesome (you can tell by all the tagged pages!). But, once I started working on a project I realized that this is a Martha Stewart project and it requires some sort of special crafting/creating fairy godmother to appear. Ha!

But, this is the year I’m going to tackle my fear, anxiety and frustration with the Queen of Craft. I’m committing myself to choose one project each month to create or learn from one of these Encyclopedias and post the results here. We will call them my “Martha of the Month” entries. I can’t promise these will come on any specific day of the month, but if you haven’t become a subscriber to daisyeyes, maybe this will be your incentive!

January’s project comes from the Sewing and Fabric Encyclopedia. It is a cloth doll and honestly was a booger to make. I can’t blame this solely on Martha though. Every time I go to create some sort of stuffed doll or softie, I become more and more amazed at the talent of so many on the www. Hillary Lang probably being my favorite. That said, this was for a precious friend who is bringing home a sweet baby girl from Africa and was requested by her. How could I resist?

I pretty much only changed a few things from the pattern instructions. I actually used my machine to make a stitch around the arms, legs and neck to pull tightly (she says to hand stitch). I ended up cutting the squares for her feet and hands about 3×3″ instead of her recommended 1×1″. Overall, she came together pretty well. There is really only one snafu on her, but I’m not going to tell you where! It is a ton of hand stitching (which for as much as I love to embroider; hand sewing and sewing on buttons are my least favorite!) but sometimes that is more forgiving than a machine.

The best thing about this doll though is her hair. I found this tutorial and it was AWESOME! Super easy, made perfect sense and came together just like the tutorial said! The only thing different that I did was I actually stitched down the middle of the hair-line/part to add some extra oomf.

Here is the complete gift. Sweet little doll baby and a onesie made just for her.

In the meantime, I’ve started to do some kindergarten work with the Chick. She is in a preschool program, but it’s a blended program with students who are considered at-risk, learning English as a second language and typical preschoolers. That said, she is ready to start doing some Kindergarten work and while she gets some at school, I wanted more. So when the Rooster works on his homework after school, we do her “homework” together.

I’ve been struggling with how and what to teach her with and finally decided to use these three things:

Explode the Code: book 1. I love, love, love this series and it was one of our favorite things to do when we were homeschooling. She passed the pretest with flying colors, so we are starting with book 1. We’ll go slow and not push it, but I’m super excited. For someone who doesn’t have a clue about teaching phonics, this is a lifesaver for me.

I’m pulling alphabet review stuff from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Her stuff is amazing! For now, we are working on the A-Z Beginning Sounds Game.

I actually printed these at half size (I’m a stickler on making my colored ink last). Looking at the little letter dots I realized they would fit perfectly under these clear glass gems I had in my craft stash.  A little modge podge later and voila! Fun little letter gems.

We are also starting very slowly on learning our kindergarten sight words. I found this awesome group of printables from 1+1+1 (which is also a phenomenal blog) and made a special reading notebook for the chick. She has about a 5-10 minute tolerance for this, but I really didn’t expect more than that. Each list of 4 words has a great variety of activities and is easy for a momma to get together.

As we get into our science work, I’ll be sure to post some updates of the fun things we do.

Welcome back to Fantastic Fridays!

On Friday’s I round out the week sharing fantastic things I’ve come across on the web.

great Fabric: I’ve got 3 collections I would love to order: 1. rashida coleman,  Jessica Swift, and Sparky & Marie, but what I really want is this pack from Aneela Hoey. It would make the most awesome quilt!

to whet your Appetite: a few things I have on the docket to try next week: pita bread from the bread machine, crumpets and these muffins.

be Natural: our favorite place lately…Tremont. If you live anywhere around the Smokies, this is a fabulous place to get involved. I’m forever amazed and impressed at the work they do and the work they do in educating youngsters about the great outdoors.

a Tutorial to do: I made a little rag doll for a friend this week and this is the tutorial I used for the yarn hair. It was super easy. More on the doll next week.

on Aimee’s to do list (that’s me by the way): Organizing my fabric and craft area…ugg! I would LOVE to make these baskets!

something to Sew: on the table right now is this embroidery for a client…always fun, but always daunting

oh, to Travel: we are celebrating our 15th this year and hoping to spend it here…

Inspirational: the book my mom keeps getting me to read

Cute: a fishy hairbow tutorial. If only my daughter would actually wear them, I would try to make them. Alas…

This week was a week filled with an order still undone, “fun” sewing for a sweet friend and her daughter soon to be and even for my chickadee, a fun bag to add to the school’s silent auction baskets, designing for Valentine’s Day (please don’t tell me it’s next month) and now another huge order that makes me realize that He is good and He’s got me under His wings.
Wise words.

a few glimpses into my week…

Here is my chalkboard wall and corner shelving before:

and here it is today:

The baker’s rack in the corner was the very first piece of furniture that we ever bought after being married…almost 15 years ago! It was at my parents for a while, but I stole it back when I saw this perfect corner for it! This used to house pretty much all my fabric and everything else. I finally got a new shelf (see below) so now this corner is for my current inventory, projects that I need to start on, items ready to be cut and sewn etc. Basically things I don’t really get into on a constant basis.

The biggest issue before were all the tubs in the corner. Here is the corner with all the tubs before…ugg!

and here it is today:

The shelf in the corner has been a.ma.zing. It’s a cheapy from Ikea, but it gets the job done. I’m still working out how to store and organize different things, but this shelf has been great to have to be able to just grab what I need when I’m ironing or working at my tablespace. The worktable used to be our dining room table which was left in our house when we bought it. I was wanting to bust out all the tiles in the middle of the table and repaint it, but we ended up finding a great antique table for $80 quickly brought this one downstairs for me to use. It’s been perfect…all it needs is a giant cutting mat and I’ll be over the moon.

I ended up going through all my tubs of fabric and used these four smaller bins from Ikea to sort scraps and then bigger scraps. So far it has worked great. I’m still tweaking how to store my smaller scraps and those fabrics I use in repeated etsy orders. I still have two tubs (hidden under the table) for storing larger fabrics and home dec fabric that I couldn’t part with but don’t use often. We also hung up a coat rack as extra storage and places to hang items in process or just other stuff.

We still need to put down baseboards (a winter project) and fix the stairs (which you thankfully can’t see in these pictures) and our basement craft/play room will be complete!

I’m daily thankful and excited for this space as it continues to grow and change!

After stitching so many flowery and girly sort of things, I must say that stitching a gun was pretty odd but oddly liberating and fun.

I was really pleased with how it turned out and thankfully he was too.
Happy Birthday Daddy!

and by the way…these are now for sale in the shop if you want one of your own!

Welcome to Fantastic Fridays! Come back and visit every Friday (well honestly, I want you to visit everyday!) and see what fantastic things I’ve come across on the web (are you as annoyed with the word fantastic yet?)

great Fabric: I am so going to make a blazer out of this velveteen from Anna Maria Horner

to whet your Appetite: a cinnamon roll cake…who can go wrong here?

be Natural: on my list of natural things to try…although I think I’ll let my bff try it first

a Tutorial to do: super fun checkers set

on Aimee’s to do list (that’s me by the way): a special doll for a special little girl from this book

something to Sew: a funny bookmark for my dad’s birthday

oh, to Travel: oh…in honor of my love of the British Isles

Inspirational: a book on my list to read, recommended by a dear friend

Cute: not sure if something you might hang in your 8 year old son’s room could be labeled as “cute” but this is

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