last bits on the round journal

One of my gifts from Tim at Christmas was a black sweatshirt with the above thought in white gothic letters. I love it. I personalized it for my friend and on the back of the library card, I printed a bunch of quotes about books.

The two sides of this puzzle piece page are perhaps my favorites of the book.

The cover of the book includes an embroidered interpretation of one of my favorite quotes - one I've tossed around here frequently. It looks all squashy and funny - like my hand-writing and it should because I simply wrote it on the denim and then embroidered it.

The frayed bit has the following quote "A stitch in time saves nine." I think the two quotes play nicely off each other. I just wish the nine didn't look like  q. ;)

Here is the journal fitted together.

Top Secret

My nephew on Tim's side has a birthday on Saturday. Today we dropped a little gift in the mail for him (I bet it arrives late). It is a little Build-A-Disguise Kit from an idea I got at the Giver's Log.

I had the girls model disguise combinations to enclose as 'sample cards.'

The total weight of his gift came to eight-ounces.

Super Duper Cool Mail

It all started near the end of March, I wanted a craft that would give me almost instant gratification. I noticed an old 2007 LOTR movie calendar that my husband had got from his sister and I knew what I was going to do - little did I know how addictive it would be.

I made a set of ten. My husband couldn't believe that I meant to use them in the mail. So I immediately dropped a letter in the mail to a friend using my Arawen envelope. I've used several more of the envelopes since then but I wanted particular to share the two where I fancied them up even further with stamps, stickers, and printed seals.

 

I also tried my hand at using a combination of stamps and doodles on an envelope for my Dad's birthday card.

 

Do you remember the purse I made out of my husband's grandmother's purse? I finally got it sent out on its round robin journey. The first stop is to Tim's oldest aunt. Five years ago, we had a party out in California where we played the party gift game (where you can steal gifts from others). I had made several Howard-themed gifts for the party. One was a little photo collage of Red and Viva. Tim's oldest aunt had genuinely wanted the collage but it was stolen from her at the end of the game. I always meant to make her another one so I decided to send it as an enclosure in the package.

The box I made for the round robin is below. The printed paper is from the book Heidi by Joanna Spyri and the pictures are from an old copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I printed out quotes from both books/authors to decorate the boxes with and used stickers. 

Tim gets me an Ansel Adams calendar every year for Christmas. I must have at least ten old calendars. Since Little Brown (Adams' publisher) tends to recycle pictures from year to year there is no reason to keep them. So I made this set of envelopes. Then I made the cards you see above. I used Tagxedo to make a heart-shaped word cloud based on Philippians 1:3. I thought it would be fun for the cards inside such graphic, and 'plain' black and white envelopes to be colorful so I printed them on some of the bubble paper that I made with the girls. I put it together as a gift package for my friend with return address and stamps included.

It was so much fun that I made another set for my sister, except this time, I printed the word cloud on blue card stock and layered it over map paper and made map paper envelopes. I also made stickers to seal the envelopes that said "Thank you for walking with us on this difficult journey." I thought it would be nice because then all A needs to do is write a short Thank You note to people that have helped them during this journey with the babies and she wouldn't have to do much more than stick it in envelope and find an address.

The Twins (mostly Bryson)

On Wednesday, I went to visit my sister. The girls went to play with K at the Ronald McDonald house. They hung out in the room because K had a cold. A didn't want to infect any of the children who stay at the Ronald McDonald house that have auto-immune disorders.

I got to go visit the babies with A. She got to do Kangaroo care with Bryson so most of the photos are of him - there are a few photos of Bennett in his isolette at the end. The shots above and below are of Bryson in his isolette.

Bryson startles as they take him out for A to hold. I think they are soooo cute - they look just like their Daddy (except they are cute and he is just an old person like me). ;)

Doesn't he look like he is smiling? So happy to be held by Mom. We are thrilled to bits as of today, the babies have strung almost ten stable days in a row - they are gaining weight steadily.

The above shot of A is perhaps my favorite shot I took of them. I wish I couldn't have taken prettier photos but the lights were low and I didn't use a flash so we wouldn't hurt their little eyes (they do have some retinopathy but it is relatively slight and the doctors are not concerned but they will keep an eye on it). So these shots are with maximum ISO and wides aperture.

I am fascinated by his little hand - notice all the fingers but his thumb are almost exactly the same length. Does anyone know, is that typical in preemies or is it a characteristic of Bryson?

The shot above and below are from the few pictures I took of Bennett in his isolette.

God is good - the babies grow and are strong.