aloha hawaii

A few nights ago I booked our flights for a trip to Hawaii this spring.

I am so beyond excited, even though this will be my fourth time to Hawaii 

and the second time Leif and I have been as a couple.

I need a vacation people.  

A serious, lay around in the sun, do-nothing type of 

vacation.

Leif and I love Hawaii.

We got engaged at Waimea Bay.  

We took this photo right after Leif proposed.  Who are those young kids?

That was March 2006.

I went back to visit a friend in January 2010.  

This time we are going to Maui and Kauai.  

I've never been to either island.  

On Maui I will be attending a conference for three days.

Which means that my job is paying for my plane ticket and part of our hotel.  

Yay job.  Thanks.

Of course, I upgraded my plane ticket to economy plus since I am not paying for it.  

I'm not sure what that means but it does have the word PLUS, which has to mean

something good.

Would have done first class but they don't let babies up there.

Meanies.

I'm really excited to take Clio to the beach.  I already bought her a bathing suit weeks ago.

Only $8.

But I kind of want to get her another one.  Something like these maybe.

Because is there anything cuter than an old-timey bathing suit on a baby?

Maybe only this,

I have no idea what these little buggers are but I'll take three, thank you very much.

The hard part is going to find myself a bathing suit that doesn't make me feel 

totally uncomfortable

in this post baby body.

I'm thinking of going with a one-piece.  

modcloth

Not usually my style but, well, 

I'm not one of those lucky women

who lose a ton of weight while breastfeeding.

Nope.  Not me.

So until we go I will be daydreaming about beaches and fruity cocktails.

Anyone ever been to Maui or Kauai?

I'm looking for tips.

felt coasters

I like easy projects.

It has something to do with the fact that I don't have 

enough time or the skill set yet to accomplish

anything much more than EASY.

Which is why when I saw on Pinterest a pin for felt coasters

I was all over it.  

I followed this tutorial, from purl soho (love this blog, BTW),

and it took me about twenty minutes.

The great thing about felt projects is that there is little to no sewing

involved.

Which means you can whip something up in no time.  

Like during a certain baby's power naps that only last twenty minutes,

and that time includes the ten minutes it takes to snuggle her to slumber.

I liked these felt circles because you could use them for a number of things.

You could use them as garlands. 

But maybe not so great on cribs thanks to grabby hands

and inquisitive mouths.

Or even a mobile

if you make a few strands and hang them

at different lengths from an embroidery hook.

Yes, I took these photos while holding the strand up.  

I wasn't lazy.

I had an awake baby.

See those pleading eyes. They are either saying,

"Get me out" or

"Get in my mouth."

I'm not sure which.  Possibly both.

And, of course, they can be used for their intended purpose.

As coasters.

Learn From My Mistakes

Gold, grey and white is a great color palette.

Until you notice that the small gold on top of the larger white circle

looks like a fried egg.

But if you like fried eggs then go for it.

shoreline

The weather this last week has been extraordinarily warm, even for Los Angeles.  

Christmas was a balmy 78 degrees, which is just plain unnatural.  

Last weekend we decided, because of the unseasonably warm temperatures, that it would be a good time to take Clio to see the ocean for the first time.  Of course, we weren't expecting much enthusiasm from her as she is only 4 1/2 months old but it was an excuse to take a ridiculous amount of photos.

Oh man, I love my family.

bibs and pillows or things I made to deal with baby drool

Clio has reached an age where she almost constantly has a big string of drool pouring out of her mouth.  It doesn't really bother me that she gets everything she wears wet but it does the lovely women at her daycare, where she goes three days a week.  

They will change her multiple times a day due to her geyser of secretions and so I figured I should send her with some bibs more often to help make their lives a bit easier.  

But have you ever seen most baby bibs that are readily available for purchase?  Not so cute most of the time and I almost across the board refuse to put Clio in anything that has things written on it like, "Diva,"Princess," or "Daddy's Little Angel."  Just not something I am into.

So I made my own.

Here they are in all their novice glory, sans the snaps.  Look pretty good right?

Look closer.
.
.
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Still, how awesome is a faux bois bib?  Even if it is kind of sloppily done. 

I was going to make a tutorial on how to make these but I realized that the one I followed here, at purl soho, was much better than I would do.  Plus they are all done in Liberty Prints which are nice to look at.  

On to my next project...

Last week I bought two yards of River Shine from Amy Butler's line Lark and decided to make some pillows for the Brown Beast (our large and very brown couch).  

I don't have a zipper foot for the machine I've been using and I wanted to make sure these cases were easily removed so they could be tossed in the washer due to the very drooly above-mentioned baby so I made an envelope cover.  

This, "10 Minute Envelope Back Pillow Tutorial" was what I used and it was nearly as easy as was claimed.  Only, "10 minutes" was a fat lie.

This is how they turned out.

But if I am being honest, this is how it really looks...

Laundry hanging around all over, a coffee mug on the dining room table
and that dark cord in the back is to my breast pump.

Overall not bad but the second one turned out better, which means it will drive me cah-ray-zee that they don't look exactly the same and I will eventually cave to my neuroses and remake the first one.

See what I mean?  The one on the left side is much baggier.
I prefer the one on the right.

Brown Beast, thou hast been made less brown.

If I can do these projects with a fair degree of success anybody with a sewing machine could do them.  Seriously.  

Learn From My Mistakes:

When making the pillow cases it is not necessary to cut out pieces quite as big as are done in the tutorial I linked to.  My pillows were 20x20 and I should have cut the piece as 20 x 44 not as 21 x 46.
It is better to make it a bit smaller than the actual dimensions of the pillow so that the form fills out the cover more fully.  

our 2011 christmas video

Made by Leif, my most awesomely talented husband.

Oh yeah, and all those boogers in Clio's nose, well, she was sick with croup and brochiolitis that week.  The battle against her snot was lost early on in the war.  We could only remove it about half as fast as it came speeding out her nose.