Two new tutorials - snacks and skirts

My kids are at school today! Honestly, I can't believe it, but that's how it goes EVERY YEAR! I like to make them new things to start the year and this year I made Harry a new snack bag with a paper airplane stitched on front.  If you are interested in reading about it and making one like it, head over to this new place I am writing a monthly blog post for - a site called The Bubble Blog. The blog has a number of different writers, writing about a number of different topics - food, crafts, parenting, finances, and organization.  This post should be up over there in the next week.  I just didn't want you to think I left Harry out when you see what I made Ava!

Ava wanted a full skirt made out of great fabric and that is what she got.  I blogged about it over on my other blog Improv Diary and there is a tutorial as well, so you can make one too. I had a simpler plan, but she had a vision and I figured I would try to figure out how to achieve it.  I might do things differently next time, but it worked out great and she looks great and she wore it today ONE HER FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

Happy almost autumn! xo

UPDATE: The tutorial is now live on the bubble blog! Do show me what you make!

Skating without winter

I sorta feel like my other blog, Improv Diary, is like, my BFF and this blog is being snubbed.  Now I feel bad.  I don't mean to be such a fair weather friend. However, having said that, if you like this blog and want more tutorials and things, do head over to Improv Diary because it is all happening over there on a pretty regular basis.  We have several Valentine craft tutorials, to start, and news about our forthcoming book.  Debra is fun to read and because there is two of us, there is just more on offer.
                      

But One Golden Apple.  I do have something to write about today and it happened up in the apple orchard, where the golden apples grow.  If you are a New Englander, you are well aware of the very oddball winter we are having.  My plans to ski a lot haven't been realized, but I have been running much more (skiing is WAY more fun). We only got one gorgeous skating day on the pond out back before it turned 50 degrees and melted the ice- sad.  BUT, my friend Jill was walking up on the orchard the other day and informed us that the pond at the very top was solid as can be, so yesterday we hiked up there and had a blast until it got too dark.  Glorious!

Ollie the dog has a weird "chase Jonathan" need that is very funny and a little annoying, what with all the barking and snorting.

It really felt like winter.

You would never know how tired and grumpy this little boy was.  He alternated between crying and flopping on the ice, to laughing and chasing his sister around.  Kids can be so strange.  

It was a blast!