What Moms Really Need for Mother's Day

I want to be totally honest.

I am not Super Mom.

Things are not always sunshine and roses around here. Yes, I squeeze in a lot of crafty things, but there are a lot of things I don't do.

When it comes to school, I am one of those slacker moms.

I don't check my kids' school folders. Yes, I know that I should. The first kid or two I was all over that. Now, not so much. If I get to it once or twice a week that is pretty good for me.

I don't do the homework thing. They need to learn to be responsible. I might as well start them young. Kindergarten homework is the worst. It is really homework for me. We are supposed to read X number of books during the month. I don't even know where April's calendar is. My brain is still back in March and now the calendar says May!?!

I don't keep a very clean house. Now, it isn't something that could be reported to the authorities, but there are cobwebs and dust bunnies and please, oh, please, don't ever look under the couch cushions. The kids have there own methods of "cleaning" so just don't look. Things get cluttered up. That is an ongoing battle around here. I mop, but clean floors never last, and it even gets me locked out of the house in my nightie if I am not careful! (See that story here.)

I don't weed my flower beds. OK, I do weed them sometimes, but I am losing the battle here. I have to do some major work in those. Every other year I seem to find myself pregnant or having a young baby and that one in between year there was a yellow jacket nest... Excuses, I know. I like flowers, but you will only ever see me taking pictures of the pretty flowers up close- there are too many weeds underneath them.

I don't keep up on the mending, even though I sew. I reserve the iron for quilting and sewing- clothes go in the dryer or you are on your own. My husband knows how to starch his own shirts if he so chooses. I am happy if the clothes are washed. Line drying and/or folding earns me bonus points.

I don't keep my temper in check. I yell at the kids, at my husband, at other people when I am driving (although I have now scaled that back to calling them names that my Kindergartener might use and, yes, I called someone a "stupid stoopeyhead" and a "dummy" yesterday.) I even throw a tantrum sometimes.

But, I am doing the best that I can. And you know what? I bet you are, too.

C.S. Lewis said that Motherhood is the Ultimate Career. Well, I think it is also the Ultimate Challenge.

Mother's Day is coming up this month and everyone makes a big deal about getting Mom a nice gift- maybe flowers or a card or chocolate (hint, hint). I think what a mom really needs is some grace, compassion, encouragement, appreciation,...

And maybe some sleep. Oh, wait. Sleep? What is that? How did that get in there?

But, seriously, let's try to encourage each other and build each other up. Us moms can either criticize and judge (I am guilty right here) or we can  recognize that we may do things differently but we all love our children.

And while we are at it, let's cut ourselves some slack, too. Yes, we mess up. I mess up A LOT. This is the toughest job there is, after all. I can either dwell on it, or I can learn from it, ask for forgiveness, hope that my kids don't need counseling, and move on. They say the days are long, but the years are short. Yes, they are much too short for this negativity junk. In the words of Elsa, "Let it go!"

Happy Mother's Day!

Vintage Easter Dresses

Oooh- the word "vintage" has become oh, so trendy.

Yes, I am jumping on the bandwagon.

It started out with this...

...two flat vintage sheets that my nana bought maybe in the 1970s and vintage trims, notions, and buttons given to me by some friends. The colors matched perfectly. There are 5 colors in the sheets (other than white) and I have 5 girls, so they each got their own accent color.

So, after 6 days of wild sewing, early Easter morning my girls were wearing new dresses from the vintage sheets that belonged to their great-great-grandmother.

I am so blessed to be able to do something special like this for my girls.

Tutorials coming soon(ish)...

***UPDATE*** Here are the tutorials and full posts for each dress!

vintage-sheet-easter-dresses

Sunrise Dress Tutorial

Blushing Izzy Dress Tutorial

Lydia’s Sweetheart Dress Tutorial

Gracie Dress Tutorial

Vintage Baby Collar Tutorial

Grace's Quiet Book ~ Purse Page

Last one! I think this might be Grace's favorite page. She likes little purses and apparently she likes makeup a whole lot, too. I thought she just loved eating chapstick, but this isn't edible, so that is not the case.

Again, purse quiet book pages are pretty common. I bet you can find a bunch of them on Pinterest. I kept mine simple and in line with the "shabby chic" theme of this book with the fabrics.

The handle is just fused on the background with heat'n'bond and a satin stitch holds it down.

The purse bottom was made out of three pieces. The front was cut and sewn onto the zipper, then the front and back were sewn right sides together and flipped through the handy zipper opening. I stitched the whole thing to the background very carefully about 1/8" from the edge.

Hmmm... I am having problems getting that pic to load on here, but hopefully you can see what I mean. In hindsight, I wish I had sewn the back with the right side facing in. Lots of "I should have done it that way" moments in this book. If you make one you can fix it, OK?

I didn't know what else to put inside the purse besides makeup. The extra flower from the flower page gets tucked inside and I have found a few small items laying around to toss in there, too. But she LOVES the pretend makeup!

The lipstick and compact are made from scraps of fabric and the little pad thingy is made of felt. Velcro on the compact would have been a nice touch. I may try to make eye shadow one day, but she insists on putting her pretend makeup on me during church and I don't want her to poke me in the eye.

So, that is it! I hope you enjoyed this series and maybe found a little inspiration. If you would like to see the rest of them you can click HERE. I put them all on one handy page.

Now, back to the Easter baskets!

Grace's Quiet Book- Button Flower Page

OK. So the button flower page idea is pretty common. I have seen many examples on Pinterest so I am not gonna' cite just one. I did change it up just a bit for mine, though. Look closely...

See? The flowers are reversible! All I did was fuse two scraps of fabric together (some of them are truly vintage fabrics!) Then, I traced a flower and sewed along the line I traced. Very carefully, I trimmed about 1/8" away from the seam all around the flower shape. A quick buttonhole in the center and - TADA! - reversible flowers.

The stems are just green ric-rac and the leaves are made of felt. I used a contrasting fabric for the bottom to represent grass. I stitched some bright yellow buttons at the top of the "stems" to hold the flowers. Now I wish I would have used something a little more "vintage" or even plain white. This was one of the first pages I made, so I hadn't gotten carried away with the "shabby-chic-vintagey" look yet.

Grace hasn't quite mastered the whole button skill thing yet, but this is good practice. She can make patterns with the flowers and work on her colors, too. So, it is educational and cute. :)

I keep updating THIS page with links and pics of all of the quiet book pages in this little series so click HERE if you would like to see more.

If I get a moment or two, I will try to link up at these parties:

Sew Can Do, Motivate Me Monday, Take a Look Tuesday, Naptime Creations, Carolyn's Homework, Handmade Tuesdays, Inspire Me Wednesday, We Did It Wednesday, Adorned From Above, Your Whims Wednesday, Not Just a Housewife, Weekly Homemaking Party, Create It Thursday, The 36th Party, Friday Favs Party, Think Pink Sunday, and Threading Your Way.