Little Ms. Owl...

Now that we have our sewing machine dusted off, oiled up, and in proper working order we decided to try our hand at making something else. In September of 2009 when we went to Texas to visit Jesse's sister and her family. While we were there Jesse got the idea to make his niece London her very own owl doll. Well obviously we never got around to actually doing it until now. But... This week Jesse drew up the owl, researched pattern making a little bit, and then turned his drawing into a big pattern. I went shopping in the scrap bins at several different stores and scored some great deals on fleece and corduroy. Then I cut out the fabric and sewed up our little birdie. The owl was quite a bit more complicated than her monster predecessor that's for sure. I definitely got frustrated and had to rip out stitches and re-sew parts several times, but I am proud to say that we finished her and she is awesome. We'll probably end up keeping her since she is our first, but we do intend on making more. We will surely have our pattern perfected and another finished before Ms. London's 3rd birthday this May. I know. I know... It's about time. Enjoy!

P.s. Her chubby little owl belly is my favorite.

 Original sketch.

Wings out!

Side View of her awesome belly.

Back view

Wings tucked in.

Better view of her tail.

Buddies

Moonlighting with Monsters...

In an effort to do something creative every weekend we are trying to come up with new crafts to challenge us, so this weekend we chose to make a stuffed animal. Bare in mind that I haven't sewn more than a small hole in a clothing item in years and Jesse has well never sewn. Oh, I take that back he told me tonight that the last time he sewed something was a wind sock in his middle school home ec class. Anyhow... We have a sewing machine, but no needle and no place to  put it really so we ended up sewing it all by hand. Jesse got the idea after drawing adorable little monsters on an envelope for his nephew's 2nd birthday. He drew up a rough pattern and we went to work. It wasn't until after he made the pattern and we cut the fabric that I realized we didn't really leave room for a seam allowance. Oops! I showed Jesse the basics of simple sewing and we haphazardly slapped together a Monster from his sketches. Lucky for Jesse that I'm still a bit of a pack rat, especially when it comes to craft supplies. I had random fabric from my days at Michaels and almost every color of thread imaginable from my great grandma's old sewing kit. Our poor monster turned out to be bow legged and scrawny armed, but he's still pretty cute if you ask me. Obviously we have more to learn about pattern making, but I think we did a pretty good job for our first attempt. You be the judge...

Sketch

Finished Product

Birthday Parties...

On my actual birthday Kayden and I went out for ice cream after he got out of school and that night some friends met up with us at the bowling alley  for quarter bowling to celebrate. I even shared the cupcakes that Kayden and I had made a day earlier.

Then on Friday Kayden and I picked up Jesse on our way to glow-in-the-dark mini-golf. We met our old neighbor Mary and her 4yr old son Christopher there. We golfed, the boys played air hockey, then we dropped Kayden off with his grandpa, and had a nice lunch. It was a good 2nd party. My birthday week was filled with so many celebrations. I definitely enjoyed my birthday this year far better than last year. Thanks to everyone for the Birthday cards, wishes, phone calls, and emails. They all really helped make my day special.

 

Air Hockey from Erin Wilson on Vimeo.

Babysitting...

Also while we were downtown we spent quite a bit of time hanging out with the Jeongs. They took us out for dinner and ice cream for my birthday and Jesse and I babysat the kids one night, so that Mark & Myrna could have a night out. As you can see from the pictures below Fiona is quite taken with Jesse now. She prefers that he hold her and she has even taken to babying him like one of her dolls. She cuddles up with him, reads stories with him, and even feeds him like any good mommy would. Denton is also quite taken with Jesse, because well... he is man. Denton and Jesse played Star Wars battle most of the night. Denton was Darth Mal, his favorite character, and well I'm not quite sure who Jesse was, but he definitely wasn't the winner whoever he was. We had a great time with them as we always do.

  

 

StarWars Book from Erin Wilson on Vimeo.

Feeding Jesse from Erin Wilson on Vimeo.

Epic Battle from Erin Wilson on Vimeo.

It's been a while...

Jesse and I have become the go to housesitting/petsitting couple for the Denver Capital Hill neighborhood. We have 3 houses under our belt as regular customers and another one on the books. This last stint we did was for 12days. It's been a little chaotic, but we made it work. The extra money, the free laundry, and the nice house to stay in are great perks. Plus we're downtown with in walking distance to almost everything. Too bad the weather dropped from nearly 70 degrees right after my birthday to -26 degrees with in 3days. Yikes! Those big old houses can be drafty and take forever to heat up. Brrrr.... Thank goodness for fire places, hot tea, snuggies, cuddling, animal snuggling, and space heaters. If not for all of that we might have froze. The only downside was having to scoop the walkway and the sidewalk multiple times. The last stint started on my birthday and ended on Monday of this week, hence the absence in posting.

While we were down town we went out to  eat at Potager a restaurant in the neighborhood that our friends the Jeong's gave us a gift certificate too. It's a really pricey place that we probably would have never been able to try without the gift certificate. Our meal with tip was over $100, but with the certificate we only payed $27. Well worth it. So yummy!

After dinner we headed downtown to the Performing Arts Complex to watch our friend Joel perform in the choir that was accompanying the Denver Symphony Orchestra as they performed Mozart's Requiem. This was all in celebration of my birthday. We got dolled up and made a fancy night of it. We had great seats and the performance was perfect. It was a wonderful birthday night out. The tickets to the show were Jesse's present to me. It's even more perfect that it was a Mozart show since he is my birthday buddy. I don't know many other people born on January 27th, but Mozart was so it was quite fitting. We had a great night.

Baby model...

You might remember that a few months back Jesse and I made some cute little onesies for his newest nephew Landon. We decided to make 6-9month size  since we were a little late in sending our gift. Good thing we did, because this kid is growing like a weed. Jesse's sister just posted some pictures of the "little" guy wearing our onesies. He's just over over 3months and he's already in 6-9 month clothes. Jeesh! When I saw the pictures I was so excited! Jesse was half asleep, but I woke him up squealing with delight at the adorableness of them. We both agreed that Landon makes a great baby model. Check it out for yourself.

Ok, so obviously this was our first attempt... Note to us: Next time use stretching print material, because babies tend to have little Buddha bellies. We hope to have a print press and to be able to start making more professional ones sometime in the near future. 

Thanks to Linsey for sharing these pictures! and Thanks to Landon for being our adorable guinea pig/ model!

Celebrating...

Last year for New Year's Eve we did a whole lot of nothing... in fact I think we were asleep before the ball dropped. December 2009 was rough and we did a lot of traveling right around that time, so we were pretty exhausted and generally not in the celebrating spirit. This year we decided we wanted to celebrate the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011... as Jesse would say "The Year of Us." Our old neighbors Mary & Chris, who we haven't seen in ages, invited us out to Lucky Strike for some bowling. Even though the service was below par and the free champagne at midnight was not so great we still had a good old time. We only had enough time to bowl 1 game through, but you will never guess who the winner was.... Yep! That's right me. I creamed them all, even Chris, who said he wasn't getting beat by a girl. I had 7points on him and no one else was anywhere close to touching me. I only bowled a 128, but I took it as a sign that this year is going to be a good year for me. It was nice to be out celebrating the new year with old friends and meeting new ones. I'm so glad Mary & Chris called us. I think we... I really needed that.

Hope you all had a good time ringing in the new year... 

However you chose to celebrate. Some years it's better to sleep in and others you just feel like celebrating.