Life with my three year old is always interesting. I never know what kind of mood he might be in from one minute to the next. At times he can be stubborn, loud, crazy, and demanding but when he flashes his big smile, it melts my heart. I wanted to share some of the funny things he has said lately.

3yr old: "What is gofurmint? (also pronounced government for those of you who don't speak 3 year old) Oh I know, it is those guys that do all that argue!"
Did I say he is smart???

13 yr old boy says to 3 year old: "I come in peace."
3 year old's reply: "I come in handy."
Isn't he quick with a comeback!

One afternoon 3 year old comes to me with a sad face. He says, "I have diss-wex-see-UH." I said, "Honey why do you think you have dyslexia?" His reply, "I can't weed." (read)

The best thing I heard this week was my 6 year old saying, "Mommy, we have a happy life don't we." Yes buddy, we sure do.

What will your garden grow? Gardening? In early April?

Yesterday was another beautiful day here in Chicagoland. I don't remember a Spring this warm and bright in my life. Yesterday was actually one of many warm days we've had so far. Warm weather moved in around the end of March. On our first 70 degree day, the weather guy said it had only been 4 months since the last 70 degree day. That is just crazy! Don't get me wrong, a four month winter is divine and life is so much happier in the sun and warm breeze. It's just strange to be out in the balmy weather with the warm sun shining down on me and yet there isn't a green leaf on a tree anywhere in site. The warm bright weather had me thinking of my vegetable garden which in turn had me feeling panicky like summer is here and that I had missed my chance to start my plants. I have never started plants from seed before and I have no idea how long it takes but I know you need time to get the plants mature enough to go into the ground. I keep having to tell myself it is only April. Just April. I have time. So, today the boys and I got a start on our vegetable garden and planted the seeds in the starter trays. I am hoping it works. Even if it doesn't work, the boys had fun and learned about planting seeds.

Doesn't my 3 year old look like he knows what to do with the seeds?

If you have ever started your garden from seed and have any advice, I am very much open to hearing it. If you compost, I'd love to hear about that also. We started composting a year ago and it looks like we have some good rich dirt waiting to be put in our garden and flower pots.

Here are some great gardening items from my fellow sellers on Etsy. I just love the garden plant markers:1. Vintage Tin Watering Can by CampHobachee

2. Vintage Galvanized Bucket Pail Metal No. 8 with Handle by prettyfarmprimitives

3. Lavender Antique Spoon Garden Marker by Hammerman

4. Vintage Handmade Wooden Garden Tray by fridayfindsmama

This needs to find its way to my garden. It makes me so happy just to see this frog. He would be perfect in a water garden. Go to this shop Mudstuff for more awesome garden statues.

What a brave girl I am!

I took this picture. Me. See the tops of the buildings, those are skyscrapers. Skyscrapers in Chicago. The the little dots at the bottom of the photo. Those are cars. That is what being 103 stories above the ground looks like.I am brave. Facing a fear is the definition of being brave in my book. I am terrified of heights. Absolutely terrified. Usually it makes me all wobbly feeling and shaky. So, no, I didn't jump out of an "aero" plane or anything, but I did stand 103 stories up over the city of Chicago in a clear box......And, I looked down! They kept telling me not to look down, but I did. Admittedly, I freaked out. Only on the inside, because when you are the mom you can't do a full on freak out. So, being that my kids were right there, I didn't start screaming hysterically or anything. But I could have, very easily. Yay me for not peeing in my pants. Did I say I am terrified of heights? Did I say that a while back when I saw this new feature at Sears (Willis) Tower on the news I said there would be no freakin' way I would ever go in that glass box 103 stories above the city? When I was actually standing in line to do this, I thought, "Self, why were you so freaked out by the thought of doing this. Self, the tv made it look so much scarier" I really believed that too. Until, it was my turn and I actually had to walk up to the clear box and could see 103 stories below me. Right there, nothing under neath but yellow taxis that looked like the size of ants. It literally looked like I was stepping off the side of a building. My husband, he got in there and jumped up and down. I suppose when you are someone who has actually jumped out of a plane, not once, not twice, but three times, this was not much of a thrill. He's hardcore like that. Anyway, I plan on facing all my fears. Next, on the list, snakes? Nah, boring, I think it will have to be something truly exciting, like bungee jumping!

It is official. I am doing a teal, white, black/gray color combo in the craft room. I am hoping I won't regret doing the teal rather than the lemon/lime combo I first had my heart set on. I am hoping this won't take very long because I don't do good in disorder, and right now I am sitting in the middle of a huge amount of disorder. I do prefer an organized area very much to sitting in the middle of a disaster area. My darling husband (I am not saying that sarcastically at all this time), is sanding my new (old) cabinets and getting them primed for a new coat of paint. I really got lucky with this man! Hey, ya gotta give props where they are deserved, and he deserves them.
I am not going to go very decor crazy with this room. I am hoping to find vintage pieces along the way rather than go buy all new things. I am trying to figure out what kind of curtains I should choose. I found some on Etsy I adore. They are handmade with a collection of vintage fabrics. Everyone one of the curtains she makes is different. Hmmmm....decisions, decisions......

Wallpaper, Friendship, and Peace Not Necessarily In that Order

When I started this post I wanted to keep it light and touch on how the word peace has been important to me lately. That is the truth, I have been looking to become a peaceful person. What I was not going to say is that this has been on my mind all week because of the current political climate. I have been seeing so much anger lately. While I try to keep my mind focused on being peaceful, and not engaging in anger, I have been watching the anger around me just grow and grow. I don't like this. I don't like what anger has been doing to my community, country, and world. It truly makes me sad and I am beginning to lose hope that one day the world will be free of hatred. So, I thought I would do a light post about peace and let that be my statement, but then I realized that kind of post was not authentic. That kind of post would be a cowardly way to say something but not really saying it. So, I decided to say it the best way I can.

When I started to think about this whole peace post, I was thinking about friends and how I have heard people wanting to end friendships over political differences. If there is one thing I have realized, when it comes to friendship, it isn't the big things people do, it is the very small things that make a difference. It is the day to day interactions that build strong relationships. I hope that people think of this before ending their friendship over politics. I hope they think about how that person treats them everyday, and not concentrate only on the differences they have politically. I am very thankful for the good friends I have in my life. I am thankful for those who allowed me to make a mistake and yet still call me a friend. Is politics really worth losing a good friend over? I don't think it is. A while back, I read the book The Art of Happiness by His Holiness The Dali Lama, he spoke about peace being a radical idea. The thought blew me away, especially when I realized he was right. At least in America, peace is radical. We are so quick to get angry and react. I know I have done that time and time again. I am learning to stop, think, and be patience. Peace. It is what I say to myself now when I feel myself getting angry. I think the world needs more peace in it and all I can do, is find peace within myself. I am sure I will work at this for my entire life.

Here are a few quotes I found about peace. I hope one of them inspires you to think peacefully when you start to feel angry or hateful:

We can never obtain peace in the outer world till we make peace with ourselves. His Holiness DL

Where ignorance is our real master there is no possibility of real peace. His Holiness DL

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, there would be peace. John Lennon

Peace begins when the hungry are fed. Anonymous

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. Matthew 18

If we have no peace it is because we have forgotten we belong to one another. Mother Theresa
Thank you to my fellow Etsy shops for allowing me to use these images. On a side note to my husband, any of the above items would make a great birthday present for me...... *smile, hint, smile*

1. Peace Sign 2 inch circles digital collage by Room29'sshop

2. Peace, Love, and Bike Organic short sleeve tee by Loftymornings

3. Peace by mishmishmarket

4. Peace long sleeve green tee shirt by Loftymornings

5. Vintage Red peace tote burlap by panbeth
6. Steampunk Peace necklace by IM Girl

7. World Peace necklace by jewelsbyn

8. Peace Origami Crane poster by fieldtrip
9. Take A Deep Breath Love and Peace Art Print by myzoetrope

10. Imagine All the people screen print art poster by BluLima

11. Get your word on wood in five letters or less by kelseyhenke

12. Peace Love and Passion Brooch by editionbw

13. 8x8 Imagine all the people living life in peace single print by suzannanna

If you have any other quotes about peace, I would love to hear them.

I did find some cabinets for my craft room! I am so excited to get this project done. I think I might do wallpaper on one wall. Have you looked at wallpaper lately? The options are practically infinite! I am thinking of doing either a black, white, and yellow or a black, white, and teal......now if I can only find a wallpaper I love that will cost me less than $100 per wall! Uh huh. Crazy expensive!

Pile O' Fabric....and "I See Sick People"

I started this post before the week got crazy so this whole post seems totally discombobulated. I apologize in advance.......in the end it will all make sense. I hope.

I have had this pile of fabric sitting on the table in my crafty room for a looong time. I keep it there because if I put it away, I will never finish it. When I started on this project, I had a vision of the end results. I am afraid I have forgotten what it was. I think if I sit down with all the supplies I have there and look at the pieces I cut, it will all come back to me. I am certain it will be different than what I planned on doing with it months ago. Anyway, sort of related to the pile o' fabric but not really, I feel like this room is out of control right now. I am in desperate need of more storage in here. I have tried shelves, the Ikea Expedit, and drawers. None are working. I have decided I am going to have to put in some wall cabinets. I need things hidden, which shelves don't do. When I have cabinets I won't have to stare at a mess. My biggest peeve in here is staring at my fabric falling off the shelf. I am not good at folding it, so if I pull one out, they all start tumbling down. Then I spend more time cleaning up than being creative. It is a crazy cycle of madness that will stop when I install kitchen cabinets in here. Finding used cabinets, easy peasy, right?? Wrong!.....Obviously I know if I went and spent a whole lot of money on new ones I could walk into a store and get the exact thing I need. However, my wallet isn't that fat (I did price them and it was around $1500). Call me crazy, but I can't justify having nicer cabinets in my craft space than in my kitchen (sidenote: can't justify in this case means I can't convince my husband of it). So, I need to score on Craigslist, fast. I had no idea it would be so difficult to find some used cabinets. Meanwhile, I am stalking Craigslist to find the set with the right measurements. Patience. Right. Keep your fingers crossed for me. And really, it is so much more fun to hunt for the right ones than just go buy the perfectly beautiful new ones. Uh huh......good thing I love vintage! I did find one set of white metal kitchen cabinets with, swoon, pink counter tops. Can you imagine?!?! They were a bit more than I'd be allowed to spend. Bummer. I will wait. They will come along.

So, last Saturday I met up with my friend Diana. We shopped and had a great time. I have a feeling her and I will have a few adventures in our days that will end in a lot of fits of laughter and a few P.I.M.P. moments. While we were out tearing up Fullerton Avenue I found a great bag of vintage broken jewelry. I have a few project ideas for this treasury of vintage but I think I am just going to put them in a pretty crystal bowl for awhile to look at.

This week was crazy. It was another one of those weeks where the house was full of sick people all week long. We did have one seven day stretch of all of us healthy, but then it fell apart last week. Only this time, my husband ended up in the hospital for a couple of days. He had an infection in his face from the cold he had. It is a rare complication from the flu virus. He literally looked like he walked off the set of Avatar because of how his face swelled up. He wasn't blue, althought that could have been fun. My 6 year old was also sick with the same virus. I thought about making tee shirts that say "I See Sick People" but then I realized it could be taken so many ways and some of them not so nice.

Anyhow, I am going to redo my craft space and I am thinking of a pink, black, and white color scheme. I don't want to change it up too much because I am too lazy to do that, I just want it to look nice and be a space that is functional for what I need. I also don't want to spend an arm and a leg on it. My thought right now is damask. Black and white damask with hot pink accents. Possibly a chandelier would be worked into the decor plan. Off to hunt down some cabinets...................

Made From Scratch

Here it is. My vacation album from our Sanibel Island vacation. I am finally finished with this. It was a labor of love. I loved making every single part of it from the memory making vacation to the last stitch in the album. I handmade each page with the sewing machine.

The front cover was something I visualized doing a long time ago. It was a perfect look for this beach vacation album. My favorite part of this album is the handmade glass seahorse. It was a found vintage item. I found it in a huge stash of vintage jewelry I purchased at a garage sale this summer. When I saw it I thought I'd never use it. Isn't it perfect for this album. It actually reminds me of a part of our trip when Cole saw a seahorse and was completely intrigued by the seahorse. I love that I was able to use it on this album.

I purposely left spaces for my sons to put their memories into this album. I didn't want to hand write on this before I took pictures. I am a big chicken like that.

I also used items from our vacation in this album. I like having these items incorporated into the album because I think years to come it gives a sense of the times. I also think they provide information that you might not think of incorporating. One of the pages I used a tide chart from the days we were there. The tides were important to us because when the tide is low is the best time to go looking for shells. We made sure to get out to the beach at low tide so we could hunt for the best shells and so the boys could walk out to the sand bar.

This album took a lot of time but the great part was that I didn't get overwhelmed by it. I didn't post all of it. The album is quite a few pages long. To prepare to make this I took all the bits and pieces I wanted to use a long with the papers that matched my color scheme and made a kit for myself. This saved me a lot of time searching through stuff. I used what was in the kit I made for myself. I took everything from my stash and bought next to nothing new (only a few journaling tags). I am actually really excited to make more of these albums and am starting to feel like I am learning what my style is as a scrapbooker. I owe a large part of this to Donna Downy because she rocks and she was an amazing teacher.

Reasons to be happy even though you are going to get slammed by a winter storm and are totally ready for spring......

We are currently slated to get 10 inches of snow. This does not make me happy, but what can you do? Nada. Nothin'. Zilch. However, while we were out and about today, I found an estate sale. For me, that is pretty damn exciting and it turned this dreary weekend into a much better weekend and Traci into a much happier girl. I scored too! I found another Royal DeLuxe Typewriter from the 1940s, very odd barkcloth, a couple of great vintage cookbooks and hundreds of vintage postcards from all over the world. I can't wait to look through all of them to see what we have. If you are looking for any particular postcard, let me know, I think I have it. Do you see that purse? 1950s goodness and a suitcase from around the same time.

On the agenda for the rest of the day:

Finish this project! I am getting really excited to see it all come together. I am hoping by Monday I will have it all done. It is a matter of time management. I have to decide between listing the fab estate sale finds in my Etsy shop or being creative with my scrappy stuff.........decisions...decisions.In other news.....It has been an exciting weekend. The 6 year old lost a tooth. He was a little freaked out at first but when he realized the tooth fairy would be coming, he perked up. Oddly enough, we just went and saw the movie "Tooth Fairy" starring the Rock and Ashley Judd. It was a cute movie and perfect timing for us. Maybe I will wait up for the tooth fairy tonight in hopes he looks like Dwayne Johnson.