Welcome to the Family, Twizzler!

We are so excited to welcome our new little grandson, Twizzler! He was born on Saturday, October 5 around 1:30 pm to Teach and Twiz (you probably guessed that...) and he weighed in at 8 lbs 7 oz and he was 20 inches long.

Teach was induced Friday evening, so we have been on pins and needles ever since. It was a long labor, but both of them were troopers and they did a great job. My sweetie and I took a trip over after the Women's Conference. We also took Drama Queen and Twizlet with us. She loved her little brother cautiously at first, but by the end of our visit, she was quite enamored.

But I will let you be the judge. Isn't this a cute little guy?

Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful Boy (**John Lennon)

Review: Homest Sewing Machine Carrying Case

You all know that Princess has a pretty successful crafting blog that is exploding on Instagram. In fact, she just won another amazing prize from the Cricut people. As part of all that, she has been doing quite a few reviews and when I commented about how much I liked her new sewing machine cover, she hooked me up with the awesome people from Homest.

They were looking for someone to review the Sewing Machine Carrying Case with Multiple Storage Pockets. I have a couple of extra sewing machines on the shelf in my craftroom. One belonged to my mother and one belonged to my grandmother. I don't use them often, but I can't bear to part with them either. I could use covers/carrying cases for both of them, but for now, we will just talk about this nice one we got from Homest.

The minute I pulled it out of the box, I could tell it was quality. The zipper slid easily and the seams were are carefully stitched.  I was pleased and surprised by all the pockets and I had a lot of fun stuffing them full of my sewing supplies.

At first I was worried that my patterns didn't fit in the plastic pockets, but then I discovered that I only needed one side-pocket for my foot pedal, so I could use the other one for patterns.

I love the long strap for shoulder carrying and the shorter ones in case I want to use my hands.

Things like thread and scissors are just swallowed up in the many pockets although if I were to find a flaw it would be in the fact that the pockets are almost all the same side and I would prefer a couple of bigger ones and maybe some smaller ones, but I suppose that is  personal preference.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this bag.

***I received one sewing machine carrying case in exchange for my honest review.***



HOMEST Sewing Machine Carrying Case with Multiple Storage Pockets, Universal Tote Bag with Shoulder Strap Compatible with Most Standard Singer, Brother, Janome, Purple (Patent Pending)

Guest Blogger: Reflections: 3D Art Activity by The Dog Walker

My Mom asked me to guest blog for her about this fun activity that I did with Scout, Curly, and Baby Doll on Sunday of this week. Remember the time I talked about the Troom Troom show when I showed you the homemade giant candy bars that I made for birthdays? Well, the show has shown me another fun thing that I could try doing and I also thought it would go perfect for the 3D Art activity that my family does for Reflections: making unique bars of soap.

I was watching some of the demonstrations of how the girls on the show were making bars of soap that were so unique that you can hardly find them at any store, but that you can make something like that at home. My mind went a bit blank, wondering where can you buy a brick of soap base that you can use to make some interesting bars of soap? When I kept thinking of it, I looked up online and saw that soap base can be bought at Hobby Lobby, and you can also buy different silicone molds that can be used for baking or molding projects.

I made a unique bar of soap that was blue colored, with a bit of white and yellow on it. I made it look like a little Book of Mormon and I gave it to Crafty as an early birthday gift. I thought it was the perfect gift that she can use for her mission. She's really excited to go on the mission. When Crafty and I showed it to the family, they were very impressed and wondered if that was the newest hobby/project I thought of making for people's birthdays, instead of making the high-calorie candy bars.

For the past few months, after learning that the Reflections theme this year was "Look Within," I thought it was the perfect choice of something that the kids can make for 3D Art. Baby Doll was excited to try making a bar of soap that has never been seen by anybody before, and Curly and Scout felt the exact same way.

I showed them the different kinds of flavorings and food colorings that they can use in their bars of soap. I even taught them that they need to use rubbing alcohol to spray the molds, just to make it easy to take the soap bars out when they're set, and to spray some on the melted soap base to avoid the air bubbles when stirring the soap, colorings, and flavorings together. I even told them that their own brick of soap base has to be chopped up into tiny squares and microwaved for 20 seconds so that the soap can melt.

It was quite a time-consuming, dirty, but yet fun activity for the kids. They never thought that soap bars can be made and used for an everyday hygiene routine. The kids really enjoyed coming up with different shapes, scents, and colors of soap that can be used. The hardest part that they ever had to face with the activity was to wait for almost an hour for the soap base to set. It was hard to wait for a very long time for one soap bar to set before doing the next step of their project. 

Baby Doll made hers with two flamingos, making a heart shape position, while standing on water that's on top of a white brick that says "Dance" Scout made hers on a giant heart-shape bar of soap with a blue soap volleyball that shows how much she loves volleyball. Curly wanted to make a scientific bar of soap like a geode, but he wasn't pleased with how it turned out, so Mom suggested that maybe it could be an oyster instead. He really liked that idea and after a few changes and another small molded pearl, it turned out great.

I'm so proud of you, Baby Doll, Curly, and Scout for trying out this activity. It sure was fun teaching you guys about this new technique. I hope the judges like your 3D Art projects.

We Just Need a Day Off

Remember the iconic movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Today my sweetie started texting me about 11:30... he needed to take a day off. It didn't take him long to convince me that maybe we both just needed to run away for a minute. Unfortunately for him, I had just finished making my errand list and was heading out the door. Fortunately for me, he didn't care, so I waited for him to get here and we both took off in my car (which is not quite as cool as the one Ferris drives) for an afternoon together.

Our stops weren't as exciting as Ferris took either. First we dropped off Crafty's information for her mission plaque and we stopped to close an old bank account. Then we picked up some prescriptions at CVS. Since we both missed lunch, my sweetie dropped me at the Zagg store before parking in the Red Robin lot. He got us a table while I got the screen protector replaced on my phone and then walked across the parking lot to join him afterward.

During lunch we had a chance to go over Crafty's last few things she needed for her mission then when we were finished with our bottomless fries, we drove over to Seagull Book and bought her a couple of journals and some rose earrings. (My sweetie is a sucker for the rose earrings...her middle name is Rose and he can't ever just walk on by.)

We dropped some papers off at the doctor's office and then my sweetie let me out at the DI so I could go inside and buy a used briefcase for Baby Doll. She needed one as a dance prop for her performing team... I know, weird, huh? My sweetie dropped off our extra unneeded clothing and then he picked me up so we could stop by Lowe's and check on the delivery date of our new fridge (not until October 18!) Then it was time to make a quick trip to the library drive through to drop off the Dog Walker's books.

While I dozed a little, my sweetie surprised me by taking me to the car wash so we could spruce up our ride... it was fun vacuuming together, him on one side and me on the other. Finally, we swung by the studio to pick up Baby Doll from dance, dropped some checks for the boys at the bank, and headed for home.

Not a pic from today, but I didn't take any, I was too busy spending time with my sweetie.

And just for you Ferris fans, my car arrived home all in one piece. Pretty sure both of us were feeling a little more peace as well.