It's official

I'm going back to school! I should be starting web design classes next week. I originally just wanted to take a few classes here and there to learn a few things I've been curious about but it looks like I'll be going for a diploma - not a degree but if I feel I want to start a career in web design and I feel a degree will help, then I can always do that later. For now though I'd like to test the waters before jumping in. I'm scared but it should be fun and very rewarding.

It isn't even October yet but I'm already hunting down the perfect Halloween costumes for my girls. Jocelyn decided on Ariel (Hannah Montana was a close second). Alysa wanted to be Dance rescue Dora but while I was on eBay trying to score a good deal on a mermaid costume, I ended up bidding on a Dora mermaid costume thinking it would be good for Jocelyn (last minute decision with only seconds before the auction ended and a bidding war going on - mermaids must be a popular choice this year!). Well after the auction ended, I realized it was a size 2-4 and Jocelyn is a little big for 4 so it would probably end up being too small. Plus, when I showed it to her, she reminded me that she wanted to be ARIEL not DORA - I should have known better. SO I had to convince Alysa that she wanted to be Dora mermaid instead of Dora dance to the rescue by popping in the Dora mermaid DVD and saying "Look Alysa, it's Dora mermaid! Don't you want to be her for Halloween? Mermaids are SOOOO cool!". She agreed =) I then decided that I needed to stay away from eBay and check out Target - what do you know? they have an Ariel costume for $20! (same costume selling for $40 on eBay). Now Jocelyn's only demand is a red wig....oh, and a tiara of corse.

Oh, and....

Here is the banner I made for my zipeez shop

Definately the opposite of my bright colored Haute Bebe shop theme! The fabrics I'll be using for these zipeez will be pretty funky. The first one I made for the shop has green leopard print mixed with pink and cream toile and a retro apple print for the lining. With so many people selling zippy pouches on etsy, I've got to make sure mine stand out - It's going to be fun =)

Busy

I finally got an order today! It's been a couple weeks and I was starting to freak out about money so I'm happy to finally get some business. I started putting the word out that I'm back to work and was expecting a huge response since I've received so many emails from people the past few months asking when I was going to start taking orders again. I didn't get any orders right away so I started listing a bunch of custom covers on etsy and ebay (even though I told myself I wasn't going to take custom orders - but hey, that's what sells!). I seemed to have fixed my machine though so it's running smoothly and that's one less thing to worry about. I also bought Jocelyn a new car seat so I need to work on a new cover for her. Here is the fabric she picked out:

She said she wants Hannah Montana fabric because she's going to be a rock star! lol she cracks me up. I also offered to make my neighbors a cover for thier daughter. They have a high back booster seat so I'm a little worried about how I'm going to make that work with the seat belt guides but it I should be able to figure it out. I just hope I'm not making too much work for myself.

I've also decided I'm going to go to school for web design and maybe graphic design. I found an online corse through the art institute. They offer a web design diploma program which sounds perfect for me. I don't really need a degree since I'm not looking for a career, I just want to learn for myself. If I end up really liking it and if I am confident doing it, then maybe I'll start a small web design business selling premade templates to other mommy boutiques.

Well, that's what's been going on lately! I've only got a few more months of this deployment left and we need to save some money for our move to CA in May so I've just got to stay modivated and get some work done!

...bored...

I have no idea why this is uploading sideways...wierd!

So this is what I'm doing today...making picture frames for my product pictures. It took all morning to figure out but I really like how they look!

Not much going on

I'm a little annoyed at this long weekend. Weekends already annoy me and having one more day of no preschool or daycare makes it so I can't get much work done. Plus the stores are going to be crowded from all the people that don't have to work so I need to avoid any shopping. Aren't weekends supposed to be fun? I'll have to think of something to do with the girls today. Jocelyn usually has some pretty good ideas =)

Back to blogging!

Alright, I know it's been a few months but I'm back! Things have slowed down a bit and I'm in better spirits so I'm going to give this blog thing another shot.

I finally made a cover for Alysa's car seat! I purchased her car seat in December '07 - I needed it for my business because it is too large for my standard covers and I needed a pattern. Here it is almost September and I just got around to working on my first draft. It's not bad for Alysa but I need to work on the design a bit more before I can start selling them.

I've also been working on my etsy shop lately. I'm doing a little re-arranging with my business to make it more manageable. I've decided to stop taking custom orders for a while until I get my life back in order but will be offering pre-made covers in my etsy shop. That will give me the freedom to work at my own pace which will help with my stress level. The only problem with that is less business because people want "custom" and I could potentially lose money if I make covers that end up not selling. The other plus though is that I get to be more creative. I don't have to purchase large amounts of the same fabric and can play with a wider variety of patterns in smaller quantities which means less materials to stock in my little sewing room.

I purchased some new graphics for my etsy shop and cover page on my website from mycreativepaper.etsy.com. I LOVE them and am excited about my new look.

I've also decided to make a separate shop for my zippy pouches. They are really fun to make and a good way to use up scrap fabrics but don't really fit into a baby boutique so I will be selling them under the name "zipeez" on etsy. I'm pretty excited about that too!

I can hear Jocelyn waking up so I should go but I'll be back with more updates soon!

The husband

This is the first time I've seen my husband in 5 months...and it's just a picture.

His Sargent sent it to me this morning and when I first opened it, I almost didn't recognize him for a split second and then immediately started crying. He does have a lot more hair then when he left but there's something else that is different. Something in his eyes or expression. I just miss him. You'd think if you've gotten through one deployment, the rest would get easier but this time is so much harder than the last. And those extra 3 months they added to it makes a HUGE difference. If he was still on a 12 month rotation, I could be happy that 5 months have gone by and we would be close to the half way mark but with a 15 month deployment, there's still close to a year left. It feels like he's been gone forever already. The girls have been talking about him more and more every day. Every time something breaks Jocelyn says "don't worry, daddy will fix it when he gets back" or "we're going to go do this and that when daddy gets back". The one she says the most though is "daddy's going to get sissy a dog when he gets home". I don't know where she got that one from but she seems to think that because mommy got her a kitty, daddy will get sissy a dog. I think she's just rethinking her decision to get a cat since I'm constantly telling her to leave him alone. Alysa has even started talking about him a lot. She sees men on TV and says "daddy!". I'm sure she doesn't think the men on TV are her daddy but she recognizes that they are a daddy to the kid on the show. Every time we go on base and see someone in uniform Alysa has to do a double take because her first reaction is always that it's daddy. They seem to be handling it pretty well though. They like to talk about him and think about all the fun stuff we'll do when he gets back. I just hope they can handle him coming home for mid-tour and having to leave again for another 6 months.

Well we've got a busy day today. I'm meeting with a customer who wants to see my products in person and then I"m dropping the girls off at daycare so I can try to get some work done before I have to pick Pat's mom up at the airport later tonight. Ugh, it's already 9am and I haven't even taken a shower yet. I'm just not motivated.

Oh yeah

Here is how much snow we got yesterday.

crrrraaaaaaaaaaaap! Alysa just threw her lunch on the floor! I'm gonna go cry now.

A look into my life

I just had to share this picture of Alysa. It is embarrassing but a perfect example of what I'm dealing with on a day-to-day basis.

From head to toe:

Hair - A MESS! No matter what I do, it will not stay out of her face. It has a rubber band holding it back and a clip that I have to readjust every 15 minutes to grab all of the loose hairs that fall down.

Face - snotty. I can't stand snotty-faced kids. It's just gross.

Clothes - don't match. She HAS to wear a onesie - ALWAYS! If she's not wearing a onesie, her diaper is off and she poops on my floor. So since it's hard to find onesies in 2T, we have a limited supply and I just have to grab whatever is clean. The red sweat pants I just threw on her to try and warm up her legs before she realizes she's wearing them and takes them off. Her feet are freezing because she won't wear socks. This kid would love to run around butt naked all day long which I wouldn't mind so much if she was potty trained but I'm getting tired of scrubbing poop and pee out of my carpets. Thank GOD she is almost ready for potty training!

Sitting on the wall - she will NOT stop climbing over the wall from the living room to the kitchen! This drives me insane! Not only does she not care that I tell her not to do it but she will sit there and smile at me while I'm yelling at her to get down. This really drives me nuts. Pat started the counting to three thing with Jocelyn and it works great for her - as soon as you start with "ONE" she stops whatever she is doing. But Alysa on the other hand...she waits until you get to three and you start to get up before she even thinks of doing what you say. I've resorted to rearranging my furniture several times to try and avoid putting a couch there but there's just no other way to arrange it so right now, the couch is pulled out to the middle of the living room so I can get through writing this without having to get up 50 times to get her down. I'm still having to get up a bazillion times to get her out of the bathroom where she unrolls all of the toilet paper or grab whatever she can out of the cabinets (even with child locks, she manages to get in there). I've also had to get her out of my bedroom a couple of times because she likes to empty ALL of my drawers. And now she's torturing the cat. I just don't know how much more I can handle. I'm telling myself it's just her age but I don't remember Jocelyn ever being this hard to handle. Maybe it's just harder because there are two of them now or because I'm trying to do so much with my business or because I'm completely alone. I know it will get better eventually but right now, it's just hard.

Maybe it's not so bad that my child has messy hair and doesn't match and my house is a mess...should I just accept that I can't control everything? Or do I try harder to get things back in order? I just don't know what to do anymore.

Here are a couple more pictures

She's lucky she's cute.

They are both crying from throwing mega blocks at eachother. I should probly go separate them and then make lunch so Alysa can take a nap and Jocelyn can have her quiet time...and I can have my sanity for an hour =)

Snow...in March?

What is up with the weather here? It was 80 degrees in November and now it's snowing 8 inches in March. I don't get it. But then again, I guess it's better than gloomy clouds 9 months of the year. I enjoy the sunshine even if it is only 12 degrees outside.
Well, I'm tired and don't really have anything else to blog about right now sooooooo maybe later? I'm such a bad blogger.

Busy day

Girls have daycare today - YAY! I'm hoping after I go to the bank, post office and store, I'll still have time after finishing 2 orders to clean up the house a bit before having to pick them up....think I can do all of that in 4 and a half hours? Then we're going over to a friend's house....hopefully. It's been hard to get together lately - actually it's been hard to get together the past year but I'm crossing my fingers today! I realized yesterday that she is the only person that I talk to face-to-face here other than employees at check-out counters. sooooooooooooo sad.

I left the girls alone with yogurt in the kitchen and Jocelyn won't stop screaming about something so I should probly go see what they are doing.

Back to blogging

Ok, it has been FOREVER since I've blogged but as I was searching the internet today for some fun craft ideas, I ran into a bunch of bloggers blogging about crafts and crafting so I guess you could say I'm inspired...inspired to craft and blog.

I was proud of myself for finishing a big order today - only 3 days behind schedule - so I decided to take some time out to do something new instead of "work". I had been wanting to make some zippy pouches for a while now...not really sure how they will fit into my baby boutique but for some reason they just look fun and easy to make so I gave it a shot.

Don't look too close! I haven't mastered the zipper yet.

Super cute, huh? I love it!


Here's a picture of Joe getting in the way while I was taking pictures.

That project was over so fast that I felt the need to do some more crafting. I looked up some patterns for toy blocks and balls and here is the end result:

I can see myself making a TON of these! The girls love them too so I think I'm going to go get some bells to put in the middle and practice making them to sell on my website. I'll need to work on a couple orders tomorrow but once they are done, I plan to work on some matching cubes. I love new projects!


Here is half of the order I finished today:

The other half was a matching Britax Marathon cover. I'm proud of this one though because it was my first Britax Regent/Husky cover and it's a funky shape. I'm always nervous the first time I make a cover for a new model but they always turn out great =)


I really need to get off this computer - which is new by-the-way (yay tax return!) - I need to try to clean up a bit before hitting the sack. The girls went nuts today destroying the house while I was crafting.