How to Find My Craftiness

I have most definitely fell on my face in blog land, but I haven't let go of my craftiness! If you are looking for something you have seen or just browsing, I will send you in the right direction. I am MultitaskMommy on ETSY and on Facebook. I can also be found on Pinterest and TeachersPayTeachers! I love creating custom items! I am always up for a challenge! 

These sweet girls keep me busy! 

Fell Off the Wagon.....

I have really been focusing on creating......keeping up and coming up with new things! School is finally out and I would be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying it....just a little....OK....a lot! I have spent a lot of time coming up with new things to keep Etsy going and I have also ventured into a Facebook site for MultitaskMommy. It seems to be much easier to keep up with, since I can add stuff from my phone as I finish projects. It takes the whole sitting at the computer step out of it. I never meant to 'abandon' this adventure, but it was seemingly harder to get myself on here. I spent a ton of time planning Addi's birthday party and it was super awesome....and I really wanted to share it on here. Unfortunately, I was the queen of madness at the party and I wasn't able to get pictures of everything before everything started. I had one person that took some pics at the party, but they ended up being blurry and they didn't do my fabulosity justice! I will share the little bit that I have in a later post. 

Craftiness

 Hats have been huge....and a lot of fun because there is a ton of different options! 

I have been pretty excited seeing all of the new colors available for these! 

This might be one of my faves! I have made dresses like these before for the girls, so I was really excited when I saw them on another website for $38 each....knowing I could make them for a lot less! 

This was a first for me! I made 3 of them..... I think it turned out beautifully!

I discovered some cheap clothing pieces that can be easily personalized for the girls to make adorable outfits on a budget! 

Everyone needs a floppy sun hat....add a monogram and some chevron....just perfect! 

If I could make a list of a few of my favorite things.....these would be on it! I love these hair ties and I haven't used anything else since buying them. Just like everything else, I couldn't settle paying FULL price, so I had to make my own. I love them so much, I plan to throw one in with each hat order I get.

With two girls, boy stuff just isn't my thing. I have to admit, I could get used to this boy thing if everything was this stinking cute! 

If you know me......you know I love my chevron! Even my girls know what it is! I made this dress about a month ago and decided that Sofie needed something cute to match Addi. I think this quick little outfit turned out to be the perfect addition and it complimented the dress perfectly! 

Health Update

I know I had mentioned that I was having a few tests run to see why I always felt so tired....and why I haven't got pregnant yet. This whole fun scam has been going on for the last 3-4 months. I originally went in because I was super tired, my periods were absolutely ridiculous and we had not got pregnant. When I went in my labs showed that my thyroid was off and my iron was extremely low. My first appointment was with the gynecologist that delivered the girls. She put me on thyroid meds and told me to come back in a month. I went back a month later and she repeated labs.....thyroid was off, but better.....iron was even lower. She raised my thyroid medication and told me to see my primary care doctor about the iron. This is where the fun really started! My primary care doctor did more blood tests and decided that we needed to start ruling out things to figure out why my iron level was so low. I ended up getting sent for a colonoscopy (which I bailed on....will tell later) to rule out internal bleeding. When I went for the colonoscopy consult the doctor told me that if I was his wife he would send me home and tell me not to worry about it....but because if I was the 1 in 10,000 chance, I could sue him if he told me I didn't need it. When I heard that I would be paying $1800 for the whim, I quickly changed my mind. In the back of my head, I have thought the whole blood lose issue was HELLO....my ridiculous periods! I have thought there was an issue there, but it is like no one was listening. So I went to a new gynecologist to rule out fibroids....which I didn't have. He thinks if I can get pregnant that my blood lose issue will resolve itself. So....why the heck haven't I got pregnant already? With both girls, it happened within two months of 'trying'. Since starting the thyroid medication my cycle has been all over the place. One month I ovulate on day 16 and the next day 24! So instead of tracking for those 8 days, I will just have to track it for 15-20 days! That explains a lot! So hopefully, fingers crossed.....we have this figured out....maybe! 

On the Merry-Go-Round

Boy am I glad to see Spring Break! We have had lots of family in town over the past few weeks. It is so great to get to see everyone. The next few weeks will be a juggling act. I don't see how parents with 3-4 kids manage to get their children where they are supposed to be! With just a 3 and 4 year old, we are already having to divide and conquer. We have dance and soccer at the same times. I just imagine that the next 12 years will probably be just like this! 

A little side story......
On Thursday or Friday one, I can't remember....Addi and I went to Wal-Mart to buy her footie jammies. They didn't have those, so we got an outfit instead. As we were leaving Wal-Mart, there was an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair (he was an amputee). He was pushing a cart full of stuff and looked to be having a real tough time. So I asked him if I could help him get it to his car. He hesitated and then said yes. I told him just to lead the way and I had to explain to Addi that we were going to help him out. She was super patient while we were taking everything to his car and while I was loading it up. When we were done, the man handed Addi some money rolled up. I promptly handed it back to him and told him we were grateful to help him and money was not necessary. He asked me to please let her keep the money because that brought him joy. I was so heartbroken for him.....tons of people had watched as he struggled to get the cart all the way up to the door. It makes me sad that the employees didn't offer any help. Once Addi and I got in the car, she was asking me why we helped him. I tried to explain to her that it was important that you offered to help to people in need when you noticed things like that. As I was telling her this, I couldn't help but wonder if I should have told her that. What would I do if she offers to help someone one day that is trying to take advantage of her or harm her? This parenting thing is SO complicated. You want to raise children with a good heart that are willing to serve others.....but the world is a cruel place. I just hope my girls learn to enjoy doing things for others and can experience the joy that brings to them. 

Back to the doctor again....
I went back in today for another round of blood work. I have been on the medication for my thyroid for one month now. They are looking to make sure I am on the right dosage. My iron level has dropped again from 18 to 9. So these seems to be a bit perplexing. Hopefully, the labs will come back tomorrow with a big improvement. This quest for baby #3 is proving to be an adventure! One day....

My lab results came back today. They are doubling my thyroid meds and I have to see another doctor about my iron levels. My iron level has dropped yet again. I guess I am in for a lot more poking and prodding before this fun will end. 

Sewing Land

I just spoke with a friend online and she told me to check out Smart Needle for my thread. I went and was really surprised to see the deals they have available. She had great things to say about hers. I really liked how each color comes with a matching spool of bobbin thread that clips neatly onto the bottom of the spool. Did I mention that I NEVER change my bobbin thread?....you never see it, so who cares! It seems like a great idea though! I like how it has the special tip so the thread doesn't get caught on it. That is one of my current peeves with the thread I use now. I ordered 3 spools to try out. They have a deal with 50 spools (1,100 yds) each for $109. That is an amazing deal if my machine likes it. My hubby informed me to try it out before ordering 50 spools! It's a good thing I have a rational side in this house! 

Have you ever had this happen before? 

I have somehow managed to bust 2 bobbins completely apart in the last week! I have never had this happen before now. I had to retire one a day or two before this because it had started coming lose on one side and it wouldn't fit correctly into the bobbin casing on my machine. I would've never thought to check this. I was wondering why I kept having bobbin issues. I only wished I had figured it out before my machine started eating things! 

I am completely addicted to this spray adhesive now. 

 It makes little people clothes almost tolerable! Some stuff is next to impossible to get onto the hoop. It gets so frustrating pulling and tugging to get stuff on there. With this spray you just hoop your stabilizer like normal. Then coat the stabilizer with this spray and stick whatever you want to sew onto it. It will stay until you pull it back off. I often use a pin to mark the middle of my garment to help me center it. This will make your life soooo much easier! 

I did manage to get some cute stuff out this week. 

This is a mom and daughter(s) matching set. They turned out great! I sure hope they enjoy them! 

This is the first time I have had someone order this brown paisley. I love it! I wouldn't use the green font on it again, but I love it with this azalea pink shirt. I think if I had of matched the blue in this it would have been just perfect. 

This little dress (a Zulily find from my sis-in-law) turned out adorable with this sweet monogram. Side Note: If you haven't checkout out Zulily, you should! They have great deals that change daily and I absolutely love them! I have already knocked out some Christmas shopping on there and snagged some cute clothes for myself. 

I found this cute outfit somewhere on Facebook. Every time I see something I love, it is always attached to some contest. If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any. So with that said, I best just try to recreate this sweet little thing myself! I am posting this so I can be held accountable! My girls need this....and I can totally make this! 

This my be my most A.D.D. post yet. Sorry about that! I just have a lot to yap about. My sweet  baby girl, Addi, has a 5th birthday coming up in exactly one month. So you better believe, you will be hearing more from me! 

Butterfly Bow Tutorial

 I happened to have a family request for these cute little bows. They will actually be birthday party favors for a first birthday! 

Supplies you will need: 
              alligator clips
              1/8 in ribbon (for antennae)
              3/8 in ribbon (3 different colors- one for actual butterfly, one to cover clip
                                       in and one for the 'body')
              ModPodge or Glue
              Hot glue gun
              
The first thing I started with is the clips. Sometimes I don't even worry about covering the clips because you don't see them, but with these sweet little bows I knew it would be necessary. 

 I actually just put a dab of hot glue on the inside of the clip and started running the ribbon around it from there. If you want to skip this step, Hobby Lobby and Joann's have a 10 packs of these for less than $2. Just sayin'! 

I made the antennae next. I just poured out some ModPodge on wax paper and dipped about 1 1/2 in of the 1/8in ribbon into the glue. I used my fingers to roll the end into a tight circle. I scrambled around a few minutes to come up with somewhere to put these until they dried. 

I ended up sliding them onto the end of 2 clips for a few minutes. Within five minutes they were dry and ready to go onto the clip. I glued them onto the raised part of the clip (where you would press to open it). You need to put those on first before you put the butterfly body on there. 

Start the actual butterfly by forming a figure eight with the ribbon. I didn't worry about the ends at first, I just trimmed them later! After you get the initial figure eight, you will make 2 smaller loops for the bottom of the butterfly. 

 I fooled with the bottom part for a few minutes before I figured out the best way. I wanted the bottom part of the body to be straight and not twisted. So I found if I just folded it on the back and came back down it laid much prettier. 

Once I had it all pretty and together, I just sporadically hot glued everywhere that ribbon crossed over each other. Anywhere it appeared to be loose, it got more glue until it sat this way when I left it alone! 

After you have it all stuck together, then you will glue it onto the clip. Make sure you cover up the bottom of your antennae. 

The last step is putting the cute little body onto the butterfly. I put a dab of glue towards the bottom and stuck the end of the blue ribbon. Then I placed another dab about 1/8in away from the edge of the ribbon. Once I sat the glue gun down, I quickly twisted the blue ribbon and stuck it down. This gave it the cute spiral effect. 

 Here is my sweet butterfly creation!!! They turned out so precious! I then cut some cute scrapbook card stock, sliced a little line and used these to hold the bows. I added a sweet message, so they are ready to give for a birthday favor. 

 Hope you enjoy this and good luck!!!

Guest Post - Gender Reveal Party

I have a special treat for my fabulous readers today! When Lance and I started dating he lived in Suwanee in a neighborhood.....where the houses were really....no- really close together! It's a good thing he had fabulous neighbors.....because the Friend family is part of our adopted family. My guest blogger today is a girl I met when she was 15 and I have seen her learn to drive, graduate high school, start college (to become a teacher :), and will ONE day watch her graduate from college. Whenever she has a crafty project, she knows just who to call......me, of course! So this post is about one of our fabulous Saturdays together! I'm going to turn this over to Laurin.....

Hello! I am thrilled to be a guest blogger on the blog this week. I have been trying to convince Michelle to start a blog since she was pregnant with Addi, so I am sure you can all imagine my excitement when you finally gave me the go ahead to create her blog. :)

I’ll start by introducing myself. I am Laurin. Michelle and I have been friends since 2005 when her boyfriend (now husband) lived next door to my family. I wanted to be a teacher so I started helping out in her classroom. Since then, I have watched her get married, move an hour away from me, have two beautiful little girls and have even been honored with being her youngest, Sofia’s godmother. Now lets get to the fun part!

I have two sisters, one older, one younger. I have a horrible case of middle child syndrome. Jokes. I don’t have it too bad. We all live in different places so it can only be SO bad. My younger sister is still in high school so she lives with my mom, I am in college so I live in the town I go to school in and my older sister is married and lives with her husband in a town about a half an hour away from me. I am the closest family member to my sister and brother-in-law, Jennifer and Jesse, so I was overly thrilled when they announced in February that they are having a baby in August! I adore entertaining at any level. My mom is the best party planner that I know, she throws the best parties. With her awesome parties in my head and Pinterest as my most commonly clicked shortcut on my computer, a gender reveal was a must in my head. I started at my sister Jennifer almost immediately. She was not totally sold on the idea. She said it was a new idea that was a bit weird. Not being one who gives up easily I kept at it, one night after work she said she has officially decided yes! I went to straight to her house and we planned almost everything that night, with the help of Michelle and my mom. I was out of town for almost two weeks leading up to the party so we really had to get our butts into gear. We went to Michelle’s that Sunday and spent the whole day making decorations. Jennifer did a great job of pulling most of the other details together while I was out of town.

Now for the rundown of all the fun stuff we did and pictures from the awesome party!

For the front door I made this adorable burlap pennant banner. It was a fun little project I whipped up in 30 minutes. That is the lovely pregnant lady on the left. And my non-pregnant self on the right.

We did a fun game of going through some Old Wives Tales, just to see which ones turned out to be ‘true’. Sitting on the fireplace on the bottom left side is a canvas that everyone who came filled in their finger prints with their guess on a girl or boy. One of our cousins is going to draw a box that looks like the one outside and then make the fingerprints look like balloons to match the party.

We used an old changing table to put desserts on. The added touch of the ‘flags’ on each cupcake is actually drink stirrers that were left over from their wedding in 2011. We knew they’d come in handy one day!

The pink and blue punch was my favorite part!

A- My mom always prewrapped the silverware, so of course, we did that as well. B- Michelle helped us make this fun banner for the fireplace. C- We had baby clothes hanging around the party. It was a nice touch. D- These adorable duckies kept watch over the punch.

This is the adorable set up outside! That box contains the colored balloons. Nana is responsible for the adorable banner.

The BIG reveal! Both Jennifer and Jesse were going to be overjoyed whether it was a girl or boy. There were so happy it was a girl! Let the pink overload begin in our family.

After the big reveal, we enjoyed hamburgers and hotdogs with some fun sides made by friends.

And Hershey candy bars for the road.

We had such a great time planning this gender reveal party in addition to it being just a wonderful party with family and friends. I hope everyone enjoyed this post and hopefully I will have a few more guest post in the future!

I'm so sad that I wasn't able to make it to the gender reveal party myself....due to my family have the 12th stomach virus of the year. No joke it really is the 5th. Everything turned out so precious! The picture when the balloons were released is just precious! I can't wait to meet this sweet baby girl...and most importantly I can't wait to make some goodies for her! Girls are so much fun! Thank you so much to Laurin for writing this post for me.....and thank you Jennifer for allowing us to share your story! 

Happy St. Pat's Day!

Top o' the morning to you! The girls were really excited when they went to bed last night......they were hoping a little leprechaun would visit the Burns' house. They would not be disappointed! 

That little rascal used our potty! 

He left a trail of shamrocks and gold through the house! 

That ol' leprechaun didn't disappoint! He left the girls crowns and stickers!

Dang that leprechaun! When we put milk in our cups it turned green! That leprechaun must've talked with Elfie! 

This is my favorite part about holidays...getting to surprise the girls and make them smile! 

Dreadful Stomach Bug

This is what I call puke patrol. I'm so over it! 

We have had this norovirus stomach bug in our house for almost 11 days. First Sofie had it, then Addi....just when we think it is over and done with, Lance and I both get it! Our bedroom looked like some kind of hospice room yesterday! It was so sad! We managed to get ourselves together enough to pull off ole St. Pat's fun before we went to bed for the night. It was totally worth it! I forgot to put a pick of our green fingernails! We painted all of our nails green with our 'Anti-Pinch' nail polish. Gosh mom....quit slacking! 

With all this sickness in our house, it sure was a good thing that I had a week off of work. I have managed to get a lot done...craft wise that is! I had lots of girls over Thursday night and got my beautiful Origami Owl locket. So excited! 

A Little Craftiness

Here is a few of my crafties that I have worked on over the break! 

Monogrammed running shorts. $16 on Etsy.

Beautiful summer pocket tees! How fun! 

Love this sweet brown tee with the coral and mint! What makes it even sweeter is that it's a size 2T! 

I'm totally smitten with these boy's pocket tees. There is nothing cuter than a little boy with blue/white seersucker! I think I need me a cute little boy to dress in all these preppy clothes! 

More cute running shorts.....I will have tank tops to match coming soon! 

I couldn't resist making some of these rainboots for myself! Cute, Cute, Cute! 

Kisses from Katie

My mother-in-law Alice gave me a book at Christmas and she has asked me twenty times if I have read it. So.....since I am on break and all, I decided to break it out! It is called Kisses from Katie. It is an amazingly beautiful story about a teenage girl that dreamed of doing mission work in Uganda. She quickly made her dream into reality and has pretty much been there ever since. This girl has an amazingly strong faith in Christ. It is truly a beautiful story. I don't want to spoil too much! She has a blog that you should definitely check out. If you manage to make it through the book without shedding a few tears or wanting to give your heart to them I will be very surprised! 

My Struggles

So Lance and I have been trying to have baby #3 for about 9 months now. This is unheard of in the world of babies for us! Addi and Sofie were both conceived within 1-2 months. So I had went in for my annual physical back in June and I had some sketchy blood work. My thyroid was a little off and my iron was extremely low. In the back of my head, I have thought about all of this being connected somehow. So I finally called my OB and make an appointment. I went in and had more blood work done. They called me Friday with the results. My thyroid was still off and they have put me on meds for that. There is so many different symptoms that I have been having as a result of this thyroid issue. With these new meds, I hope to see some changes....for the better! They did a lot of different hormone test that I expect back in the next few weeks. So maybe, just maybe we will be hearing more good news in the future! 

I hope you guys have had a great weekend! Hopefully I can sweet talk Laurin and Jennifer into sharing the Gender Reveal party with you guys! 

Trying Out Some New Ideas

The t-shirts have been such a huge success that I know that one day the fad will come to an end. I am trying to come up with a few new things that I can keep this train moving in the right direction. 

Invitations

I have always designed the girls invitations for birthdays throughout the last few years.....and I absolutely love doing graphic design type of work. I made this cute invite for a friend last weekend. 

If you happen to need some invitations, let me know! I need a reason to do a few more so I have samples to put on Etsy! My friend found a print shop to print these on a nice heavy card stock. Best of all, they only charges her $32 for 40 of them with envelopes! 

Rainboots

I know you have seen the monogrammed rainboots before, right? They are so adorable....and so expensive! They are $59.95 on Etsy and I would love to know how the heck you monogram those big 'ole things. I'm pretty sure my machine would disown me if I tried that! So....me being the creative cheapskate that I am....I found an alternative! It is just as cute! 

I love it! I used my Cricut to cut these on outdoor vinyl. I think I will list the stickers for these on Etsy this afternoon. $7 doesn't seem so bad compared to $60! I have most colors of the vinyl already, so why not! 

T-Shirt Land

I landed by biggest order yet.....18 shirts! That doesn't seem so huge, but I am not a 'for real' monogram shop and I don't have commercial machines! I am cutting and sewing these things with my momma's extra iron and a sewing machine older than me! My monogram machine is only a year and a half old, but this is still quite a project. Mission completed! These will ship out Monday morning, bright and early! 

While I have been working on this order, several more have been rolling in. So I better get my tail off of here and get busy! It looks like I have another 10 to go today! Let the blessings continue on! Life is good!