I’ve been knitting, and knitting, and knitting.

Posted on January 20th, 2013 in blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

I know I’ve been knitting a little here and there for a while now. In the past few months I’ve really fallen in love though. I’ve gotten good enough that I don’t have to look at my hands constantly while knitting anymore, I’m comfortable knitting flat or in the round, I’ve even added a ton of new skills like  cables, short rows and even the provisional cast on. Sorry for all the pictures (I did mention I’ve been knitting lots right) I’ve been a busy girl. Clicking on the links after the photos you can read more about the patterns and yarns used.

Doesn’t this basket full of yarn make you want to knit?

It started back in October when I started knitting to make sure I had a jumpstart on the busy birthday/holiday season with this monster for Finn. Meet Maddox as you can see Finn loved his birthday monster.

Next up Lexi had requested a black cat ear hat. I was so excited to use my new stitch markers.

Isn’t Lexi so pretty with her ear flap cat hat?

When Lexi went up to Connecticut for the holidays my sister saw her hat and asked for me to make her one too. Rory modeled it for her.

I even made a striped version for my other sis (aka my little brother’s long time girlfriend Kristin) alas, I forgot to get a picture of it.

My very first cable project was a scarf for Lexi in hindsight I should have used a different yarn and my stitch markers much more because cabled rows are harder to count than I realized.

Then I started to panic. Aidan was leaving in Mid November to go to Baltimore for Thanksgiving and he had no hat and I only had 2 days so I had to use whatever yarn I could find at the local craft store at 8pm after a slight mishap with his first hat being accidentally felted in the washer. This slouchy hat was perfect and super quick to knit!

From October til about 10 days into December in between all projects I had a pair of these little mittens on needles.

A pregnant friend having a little boy needed a little baby shower gift. So onto the needles went this adorable little hat.

Isn’t it adorable? I still can’t get over just how small this newborn sized long tail hat is.

My mailbox had a happy, happy, joy, joy day when all this arrived one day.

And, I kept knitting mittens.

I started knitting Lexi a pair of gloves.

I finished one cat in the hat glove. Though currently I’ve also taken it back apart because the thumb was funny on it. Its a back burner project for now.

 I started Jack’s birthday present.

Loving monsters.

I love, love, love the super long arms on these monsters, and I can’t wait to get my hands on that colorway yarn again either.

I finally finished the mitten advent calendar garland.

I started a cable rimmed hat for my little brother in the same green yarn from his scarf I made him last Christmas.

Thankfully this cable hat it was also a pretty quick project and I will be making these for the whole family if we ever live where we need hats again.

Cast on Rory’s creeper. If you or your kids play the game minecraft you know what a creeper is. Rory loves/hates them and its the ONLY thing he wanted for Hannukkah/Christmas so it HAD to happen. Even if that means knitting til 2am on Christmas Eve to pull it off.

And, pull it off I did. Here is Rory dancing with his Creeper.

Finn requested a dinosaur vs. another monster so a dinosaur he would get. The yarn for this is even called dino-RAWR.

Spent some time playing with my Christmas gifts, my ball winder,

and, swift.

Took a quick dinosaur break to knit myself up a quick pair of slippers because we were having a cold front and my toes were cold.

Went back and finished Basil the Brontosaurus who loves to give Maddox rides.

Then my girlie was coming home after a month in Connecticut and I knit her a little soft kitty as part of her Christmas gift.

You get a bonus picture because I think Lexi looks so beautiful in this one.

I haven’t stopped knitting I’ve been knitting a pair of socks. Socks take a long time but they will get a separate post I’ve been documenting their progress via instagram quite a bit.

Do you knit? Whats on your needles right now?

It happened in May

Posted on June 24th, 2012 in blog, family, Lana Bella by jenni

Look now I’m on posts that are only a month behind. My goal is to get caught up on posts this week you know before July then give you an update at least once a week. Fun right?  One day Finn and I were at the grocery store and instead of a treat at the end he just wanted to ride this plane. He was so good he got to ride twice even!

Then my custom tag for my infinity necklace arrived from Erika. Isn’t it lovely. The inspiration was I remember when I was a little girl my grandmother had a necklace my grandfather had given her and it had a little tag on the back of it with his initial stamped into it. 

Rory lost his first tooth. 

I planned the menu for my birthday party. 

My birthday present to myself arrived. Some Ruby & Vintage Modern Charm Squares. I’m planning 3 in my head Bonnie & Camille quilts using Bliss, Vintage Modern & Ruby all together! 

Then I cooked all day! I totally forgot to take a picture of the chicken before I served everyone. I really need to make this more often it is always a family favorite. The roasted red peppers are hands down always my favorite part.

I couldn’t decide what kind of cupcakes I wanted to I made two. I also thought to pair one of my favorite color combos I’d make tiffany blue icing for the red velvet cupcakes. Then I made Vanilla icing with just a bit of cherry for the vanilla bean cupcakes.

I used my new ice shaving blender from my mom to make my favorite blue margaritas.

As a thank you for coming to my party and celebrating with me I made this strawberry vanilla bean jam I found over on pinterest. I actually need to make more I think the kids have eaten all I made. Guess I’ll grab more berries when I go to the store tomorrow.

I organized my quilting fabrics onto a couple of the shelves in the living room specifically so they would taunt me and I’d think to pull them out more and make some more awesome. I was also inspired after seeing this (scroll down to the sewing room)  post from Camille, in my mind I like to aspire to having  my home filled with lovely quilts like I imagine hers to be. So in the left cube I put all my Bonnie & Camille lovelies. I really can’t believe how far I’ve made them stretch so far with all the projects I’ve made so far.

In the right cube I put the “extra” fabrics from the boys Quilts. If you remember back in January I had cut out most of their quilts already though a few changes were made and adjustments to my math.

Having all those fabrics front and center and after the day at the zoo with my boring uncomfortable camera strap I was inspired to make my own and used this tutorial I found on pinterest of course. I used a little of my bliss and some orange from Jack’s upcoming quilt, and my straps hardware. I still have a great love for orange and aqua together.

While I was working on another project  Finn started painting. He LOVES muppets and he painted us a picture of Kermit.

 So a couple days later we ventured to the mall (gasp) and to Build a Bear Workshop and made him is very own Kermie! Even though the build a bear version has big giant sausage like arms & legs Finn doesn’t care and loves him. As an extra because  Finn had recently noticed that his people & pets have heart beats I gave Kermie a heart beat too.

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Lexi’s Hunger Games Inspired Birthday Party

Posted on June 11th, 2012 in blog, family, Handmade MIami, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

 It was a busy week around here baking, baking and more baking for Lexi’s Hunger Games inspired party. I have never seen my girlie this excited about anything. I really loved being able to surprise her with this. I think one of the biggest surprises for her was our dear friend Diana also dressed up as Effie Trinket as Lexi dressed like Katniss on reaping day. Don’t they look wonderful?

If you have read the books you know that foods especially breads are discussed so much and play such an important part of the story so that is what I tried to recreate. With the help of pinterest and Fictional Food I found so much food inspiration.

Peeta’s Burnt Fruit & Nut Bread (left) and of course District 11′s crescent rolls.

Goat Cheese and Apple Tarts. Which were probably my personal favorite food.

I also made (and forgot to take  a picture of) the Lamb and Dried Plum Stew. I did just use beed but it was pretty awesome.

The first gifts Lexi opened were wonderfully planned because we can’t eat those wonderful Capitol foods and it still be reaping day.

A dress for the transformation into the girl on fire.

A dress for the transformation into the girl on fire purchased on Etsy.

Some makeup to complete the transformation.

The coal inspired necklace were from the ever lovely Lauren. you may notice there is no makeup on in this picture, well thats because I didn’t get a single standing picture of this dress during the party so I made  asked  her put it on the following day for this post of course.

We served food after this and with five kids I put down the camera which means there are no pictured of the orange juice with their cute paper straws and bottles or of the stew.

Then she opened the rest of her gifts.

Diana even brilliantly disguised her gift as as a tribute gift.

A Katniss inspired charm bracelet.

With extra charms inspired by her favorite characters & events also found on Etsy. You also get a glimpse of her new girl on fire inspired glitter ring also from Lauren of Jersey Girl Design.

I attempted to make Cupcakes on Fire from THIS tutorial. As you can see the fact that my kitchen was 84,000 degrees the odds were not ever in my favor for this one. They were still super yummy though and Lexi loved the idea.

She blew out the candles and made her wish. I hope it comes true for her.

At the end of the day we wished our friends well with some little treats to munch on the train their way home.

She is growing up

Posted on June 6th, 2012 in blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

I can hardly believe as I sit here and type this that my little girl is now a teenager. It seems like it was just yesterday that she was scurrying off in the store to hid under clothing racks, or climbing into my bed during the night. For a few weeks I’ve been planning a Hunger Games inspired surprise party for her, no easy task to do when she is my helper and home 24/7 but it was slowly happening. Unfortunately some plans fell through and she wasn’t going to have a sleepover where I could transform everything so I had to rethink my plan. That is when I had a brilliant idea. So this morning when my late sleeper girlie was awake before I was I sat her down at the table and gave her some very simply wrapped gifts. If you are a fan of the movies at all the twine used on the package was a mix of black, red & orange.

The first of the three gifts to be opened was the invitation that was sent to everyone else already. I had seen a few invitations on both pinterest and etsy however I only needed 1 to be printed and I was on a budget for this party so I designed my own.

Now my girl is in love with all things Hunger Games. I have never seen her this excited about something before she reads and rereads the books has seen the movie twice so far and references people and things in the book as much as she can work them into conversation. Add to that her love of vintage clothing and light blue being her signature color as she told me proudly when she was three and I knew I had to find her a “reaping day” dress. I lucked out on etsy of course.

Last but not least was the gift I’ve been teasing her about. She has been asking for weeks about her birthday and her gifts asking what she was getting if she was getting a mocking jay. I’ve been smiling and saying yes and that it was a real live mocking jay and hidden in my desk drawer.

Happy Thirteenth Birthday Girlie! May all your wishes come true!

Lexi being the amazing kid she is said I should use her birthday and have a sale. So use code CATNIP for 13% off and every order places until her birthday will receive FREE either a Pretty in Pink lip balm (originally created as party favors for her 10th birthday) or a small bag of Pretty in Pink Tea (made with my girl in the same year). Please let me know which you would prefer or it will be Lexi’s choice!

It’s Party Time!!!

Posted on May 2nd, 2012 in blog, family, Lana Bella by jenni

That’s right its that time of the year again where I celebrate MY birthday with SAVINGS for you! And its a big birthday so we are talking HUGE savings!!!

Yes I know its the same cupcake from last year what can I say I REALLY like red velvet!

Oh right you want to know about the sale, use code HAPPYBDAY2ME for 36% OFF thats right I’m old HUGE savings until the 20th (5/20)  (lets face it on the 19th I’m taking the day off) to CELEBRATE! Available in ALL shops! Now you go shop away I’m going to pack some orders that need packing. Yes I will accept cupcake mail for my birthday!

Artfire

Etsy

I made another Quilt.

Posted on March 24th, 2012 in 101 in 1001, blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

I’ll admit it I caught the big. The quilting bug. Honestly though I made a quilt for Lexi what kind of a mom would I be if I didn’t make quilts for the rest of the kids too. I started back in January cutting out pieces for the boys quilts. Then because his birthday was coming I decided to complete Rory’s quilt first. Now remember back to Christmas Stockings in the December Recap, you see there was some reason to my madness of the different stocking styles.

I was lucky on this one because I had a couple pieces still left over from to get started. I used THIS Moda Bake Shop  tutorial from Amanda Jean over at crazy mom quilts for the Cartwheel Quilt. Of course I forgot to take any more middle pictures of the construction (because I don’t think like a quilt blogger…yet), so you will have to just take a little jump with me to the layout pictures when I was pinning his mini quilt.

Look its Ginger approved.

I was so proud of myself for attempting to quilt the mini all on my own! My first big project and I attempt to freehand stipple. Ignore the bad lighting it was night time.

I was so excited when the package arrived from the wonderful Tarabu with the finished twin size quilt. I ran right outside grabbing my camera along the way and tossed that baby over my lawn furniture and got snapping!

I LOVE how the quilting really brings it alive! Unfortunately someone noticed me snapping pictures and got a sneak peek.

Don’t you worry I still put it away for his birthday. I love that he was just as excited to open it as he was getting that first glimpse!

Later that night he talked me into putting it in the playroom and letting him sleep there for the night. Its so big and fluffy it nearly fits a full size bed!

Rory’s Rainbow Spectacular

Posted on March 16th, 2012 in blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

The planning for this party seemed to start forever ago! I asked Rory what kind of birthday he wanted this year and he excitedly told me a rainbow and unicorn party. I think easy enough and plan on a few decorations and to make the same strawberry cupcakes (note: I alter the recipe to have 1c pamela’s gf pancake & baking flour & 1/2c pamela’s gf bread flour) I made him last year because they were delicious. Then one day I start thinking about the decorations I saw on Facebook a while back of OhMeaghan’s Rainbow + Rollerskate party and dropped her an email which led to her rainbow pinterest board  and me following the links that really excited me and repining and adding to to make my own rainbow party pinterest board.

It started with a trip to the fabric store to get some fabric to make a little bunting. On the way home we stopped at michael’s craft just to peek and came home with the amazing rainbow ribbon and the flowers I later used as a center piece on one of the tables. On the way home from this trip we were talking about food for the party and he said “I hope you have enough cake stands for this.” cake stands really?!?!? who is this child so a discussion about the type of cake stands he wanted happened.

We continued to collect items and narrowed down the menu and ideas. This is when things get really interesting if you know me and know about all of my food “rules”. There have been no, none , zero zilch food dyes allowed in our home to the best of my abilities since 2003. We eat very naturally, organic as often as possible, few preservatives, even fewer “processed” foods, very little soy, at times gluten & dairy free and for three ish years now corn free after realizing many of Rory’s behavior and sensory problems were from him detoxing off high fructose corn syrup. I’ve been known to call it nightmarish because for me it is. I’ve been limiting, over bearing and controlling of what food comes in our home and more preachy than sharing and partnering with my children, This was blatantly pointed out to me not very long ago by Sandra Dodd I had mixed feelings about it but I listened, and thought why not?

The Invitations were ordered. Actually I fell in love with the whole set from the TomKat Studio that I ordered the entire rainbow party pack!

Preparing for the big day involved a ton of butter and baking and excitement by me for rocking a red velvet cupcake.

The day before the big party was Rory’s actual birthday. He started the say off with a mini birthday cake breakfast out on the patio. Rode his bike like Pee Wee Herman in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure his current favorite movie. We finished off the afternoon painting a a rainbow sign for the big day.

Then I put the kids to bed and the frosting started. Who knew frosting a 6 layer cake would be as both easy and difficult as it was. Each layer brought new excitement and fear. In the end it was slightly crooked but I am not a professional baker or cake decorator just a mom of a 6 year old rainbow and unicorn loving boy so this was good enough for me. By the time I finished frosting the cake and the 3 dozen cupcakes Steve was finished making the sandwich skewers so it was off to bed with us as well.

The big day was upon us. I put Rory’s rainbow sign by the front door and hung the Welcome sign and some rainbows from my TomKat Studio Rainbow printables.

I hung one of the buntings and the TomKat birthday banner on the wall behind where I set up the food table. I loved seeing the excitement on Rory’s face when I pulled out the rainbow unicorn table cover which was actually a little too narrow for my 8 foot table.

 I had standard fruit and veggie platters only I arranged them in rainbows as I had seen on pinterest.

I made a quickie tortellini chicken pasta salad and the sandwich sticks I fell in love with.

There were the red velvet cupcakes and strawberry cupcakes both gluten free.

This rainbow cake was all about me being outside my comfort zone first it was SIX layers, called for a TON of food coloring something I haven’t cooked with before this week since 2003 when I eliminated them from our diets at least from home, and I used fondant for the very first time that included corn syrup and yet even more dye for the decorations.  I pulled out my x-acto knife and freehand cut out the letters for Rory’s name ever thankful while doing so that he has a short name.

COOKIES! We had some kid decorated lemon sugar cookies (I used lots of lemon zest instead of orange), cinnamon sugar butter cookies, and RAINBOW shortbread style cookies!

To drink I made our family standard fruit punch (equal parts cranberry pomegranate juice and sierra mist you know because its corn syrup free and a splash of pineapple juice) and pink lemonade I don’t know why the color was so dark on mine but it tasted AMAZING! I supplied ice with a scoop in a rainbowish striped bucket and my favorite thing was the colorful striped paper straws. I put out mason jars in both pints and half pints to drink out of and its a good thing I have a lot of both.

The rainbow bunting and the pom pom & yarn garland were both hung on the back fence for a splash of rainbow color.

The balloons tied to rainbow yarn were brought out with extra pink for my pink loving boy!

With the arrival of our first guests (thank you Julie, Diana & Frances) we were able to get a picture of our rainbow dressed family I even got to have our unicorn leader sit on my lap! I really wish Finn wasn’t holding that balloon and you could really see his green shirt though.

We ate some food & opened some gifts.

Then it was time to sing happy birthday and blow out the candles. If you look closely or even not too closely you will see how butter creme, fondant and hot Miami weather may not be the best of friends as the polka dots were sliding a little bit. I also didn’t realize until about now that I forgot to put the little mini felt cake bunting on the skewers that were more structural than decorative.

I cut the cake and sadly realized the cake slices were too big for the adorable rainbow unicorn plates I had purchased for the party so we just used some boring non matching paper plates I had.

These amazing brilliant colors were totally worth the insane amount of food coloring needed to get them to see the smiles on not only my rainbow boy’s face but the faces of every other person child and adult alike.

At the end of the day the party goers were able to grab a gift bag filled with temporary tattoos & a stained glass mini coloring book (either unicorn or dragon themed), a unicorn swirled lollipop, a pack of crayons, a rainbow crayon & colored pencil and a sandwich size ziploc bag to fill with candy from the candy bar. I had filled jars with skittles, m&m’s, sunkist fruit chews, and little mike & ikes.

What surprised and saddened me the most at the end of the day was the little girl who didn’t fill her bag with candy but filled it with the leftover fruit from the fruit platter. I don’t know if it was dietary or if fruit was that big of a treat to her and I didn’t ask mostly because I didn’t want to embarrass her either way but I will now make sure when she is over to bring out some fruit.

It was a busy day because in addition to my own 5 kids there were about 15 added kids from the neighborhood at any given time (they just all started dropping in and at one point I panicked that we wouldn’t have enough food) in addition to 8 or so adults. I just love that I am STILL hearing from my own kids and party attendees how awesome the party was. Totally makes all the broken food rules totally worth it and not such a big deal at all in the grand scheme of things. When asked what he liked the most about his party he said everything he only wished that Brenna was there for it too because he really misses her.

I’ll update later on with links for all the recipes and inspiration posts and suppliers but for now I’m  going to have a cup of tea and watch my kids play in the pool because this post took much longer to write than I had anticipated.

December Recap

Posted on March 13th, 2012 in blog, family, Handmade MIami, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

For as busy as November was December was even busier! I hope you enjoy pictures! 

December started with a revamp of all the body butter packaging.

Then came my last show of the year with the West Elm + Etsy event. I had a blast stepping outside my box display wise and using props from the store.

Then because Rory had gotten his cast off he was ready to start riding his bike. Finn couldn’t be out done so was happy to play on Jack’s scooter.

Then I had the kids paint some wood cut out birds as decorations for our tree as I didn’t think glass ornaments and hard tile floors would get along well. The kids decorated the tree and we were lucky to have Steve home to hang some lights on the outside. Even if the weather was 70+ it was beginning to feel a bit festive.

Lexi with all her culinary skills made us some fab chicken stir fry one night for dinner.

After the ornament painting the boys were on a painting kick.

As a special request I made some just plain scented bath salts.

My poor mail carrier this is what she saw on a pretty regular basis through November and December.

We decorated some gingerbread houses.

Jack turned 8! Can you believe it EIGHT!!! Pirate themed and an ice-cream cake!! All he wanted for weeks before was a cat so we searched for days on craigslist and scored this sweet little girl he aptly named Mason.

Then it was the first night of Chanukah  and Steve said the blessings for us over the phone and we had amazing sweet potato latkes which I forgot to get a picture of.

Then I decided to take on the insane task of making everyone in the family stockings. Not just any stockings stockings that would match their quilts to come in the future. So now just a week before Christmas while still packing and filling orders I had to nail down color schemes and actual quilt patterns for at least 5 people. Lexi’s actually used leftover pieces and an embroidery square from her quilt. Jack’s was actually easy I knew he wanted an orange zig zag.  Rory would want pink, Aidan blue, and Finn green, but to find patterns to match their personalities was hard.  In the end I think they came to great.

 My crafting actually inspired Aidan to get his craft on too!

On Christmas Eve we were invited over to a friends home to celebrate Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) the food was AMAZING!!! There was mojito pork, rice, beans, fried plantains,  Tres Leches Cake and great friends! We had so much fun and like we belonged! THANK YOU Frances, Julie & Families!!

Then we hurried home to unwrap our traditional Christmas pajamas and climb into bed! If you look closely Aidan & Steve have matching pants.

Then we woke up and opened up some fun presents. That apron Lexi is holding up and the bedside organizer Steve is holding up those were made by Aidan back when he got his craft on. That tshirt I got Steve was really an joke because at EVERY show I do I get asked at least once if when I make soap if it is like the scene in Fight Club.

Then one day I finally followed my kids out with my camera to catch some shots of them all riding their new bikes they got earlier in the month for St Nicholas Day.

We wound up both the month & year with a visit from my Dad and a little New Year’s Eve swimming.

Recap of November

Posted on March 12th, 2012 in blog, family, Handmade MIami, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

Remember when I was posting how thankful I was for my kids at the beginning of November because I got really sick. Yeah well STAYED really sick for about 3 weeks. During that time some of my children got sick thankfully not as bad off as I did. I got really behind on orders in Novemember too and I’m very sorry for that, things that should have gone out in a couple days were taking upwards of a week because I just couldn’t be upright that long and I grossly underestimated the time it would take.

We were also really excited to welcome my husband home for a while.

Ok so thats where I left off with this post I started you know 4 months ago.  So here is how we will play this now a picture tour. Be prepared this will be very picture heavy!

We Start with a little haircut by Rory notice how you can actually see scalp in places. Oh boys!

I was starting to feel better (or so I thought) just in time for the craft carnival  so off I went. I am soooooooo grateful to Brenna & Lexi who held down the fort and brought all unsold items safely home when I had to leave early because I didn’t feel good. I really couldn’t have made it through without you guys LOVE YOU!!!!

I left my iPad with the girls to use the square if they needed to a while later I found this little gem of a picture Brenna left me with (thanks kiddo).

In between much napping and trying to get orders packed I also started working on this little knitted Okapi for Finn’s 3rd birthday.

One night Lexi made us some AMAZING rice & beans and we got Aidan to try an olive.

We also Made some Charleston She-Crab Soup! YUM!!!

The Holiday Limited Edition Soaps came out in their Fancy new packaging!

After what seemed like forever to Rory his cast FINALLY came off.

Finn turned 3! Can you believe it THREE! We started with a birthday boy breakfast made by Aidan & Lexi. Later in the day we had some crafts and presents and cupcakes! Three SERIOUSLY!?!?!

 Then I made some make your own Elderberry Syrup (I promise I will get better pictures and actually get them in the shops soon) kits.

 I took the picture for our holiday card which I might never have actually gotten printed OOPS.

Finn made his 1st pecan pie for Thanksgiving.

Rory moved on to pumpkin pie this year.

Jack moved on to apple pie.

Rory welcomed Lucy the cat into all of our lives.

November also saw us saying farewell to Brenna who moved back to CT. We miss you kid.

Hey Remember Me?

Posted on March 11th, 2012 in blog, family, Handmade MIami, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

Hi I’m Jenni remember me? I know just as I got into a good routine of blogging I all up and disappeared. I’ve been here I’ve just been extremely busy with the kids and life and making stuff and crafting. I’m going to do my best this week now that I have a moment in time to breathe to catch you up on all sorts of awesome but in the meantime I just wanted to drop in to give you a heads up that I’m still here.

A little glimpse of what I’ll be sharing this week

November saw birthdays,

new friends,

more new labels,

and lots of baking.

 December brought us another birthday,

holiday presents,

so many packages (thank you),

and lots of crafting.

January brought some fabric selections,

a soap making class,

and lots of cutting and planning for my second quilt.

February was all about making my second quilt and planning for March!
March brought Rory’s Rainbow Spectacular!

And all along a little of this has been happening.

So you see we have a ton of stuff to cover and I have yet to decide the order in which we go! I’m really really excited to share the birthday party with you but there are things that happened back in November that lead up to the birthday just know that somehow though multiple posts and an insane amount of pictures we will discuss all of the above and even more over at least the next week?

Have you ever gotten off track of something and wanted to get back on the horse? How did you go about it? What have you been up to all these months?

Happy Birthday… to me!

Posted on May 19th, 2011 in blog, family, Lana Bella by jenni

As a birthday present from me to you and to lighten our load on our move to Miami next week you can until tomorrow at 6pm  use code BDAY35 for 35% off your purchase in my etsy shop!

What I’m working on- A Quilt

Posted on April 11th, 2011 in 101 in 1001, blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

What I’m working on now is a little different than you might expect. About a year or so ago Lexi asked if we could make a quilt together. At the time I thought it was a little beyond what we had time for but she really wanted to make something so we made her a cute little wristlet.

I was really impressed with her attention to the project. She has even made a bunch more as gifts and wants to open her own etsy shop as a project for school next year.

Well this year she asked for a bedroom update, you know because at 11.5 she’s not a “kid” anymore. So away went the day bed she has slept in since she started climbing out of her crib at 18 months and in came the bed she picked from ikea in a “grown up” full size. So I started looking at bedding and then thought this was the perfect opportunity to make a quilt. We started with some embroidered squares that I fell in love with when seeing them on etsy one day. Aren’t these dresses delightful?

Lexi embroidering a dress

If you want to score these and the other 3 little designs stop on over to the a little sweetness etsy shop.

I can’t wait to share how the quilt progresses with you!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Posted on February 20th, 2010 in blog, family by jenni

Our return trip got a little sidetracked but we will go back someday! Hope you have an AMAZING birthday!

Frantically getting ready!

Posted on November 18th, 2009 in family, Lana Bella by jenni

Its a busy week at the Lana Bella HQ aka my house! Our youngest assistant is about to have a birthday turning ONE on Friday! Happy Birthday Finn!! Its been a great year!

We are also getting ready for our very first craft show. The elves they are busy cutting, wrapping, simmering, & decanting. Take glimpse behind the scenes images taken by 5yo Jack.

Get in the Holiday mood by attending Sophia’s 6th Annual Holiday Fair Saturday, November 21, 2009 Noon to 5 pm

Memorial Episcopal Church 1407 Bolton Street Baltimore, MD 410-669-0220

Begin your day by having a light lunch and beverage, then you can shop ’til you drop for Christmas gifts made by our very talented crafters, and before you leave purchase a home made dessert for your Thanksgiving feast!

TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS AND BRING A FRIEND!!