Attention, Attention

I have not yet heard from the winner of my giveaway and the purpose of having the drawing when I did was to get the prize to someone before December. Well that will likely not be possible now but if I have not heard anything by tomorrow afternoon (November 30th) I am drawing again for a new winner so stay tuned people and if it is you let me know your contact info ASAP and hopefully you will be able to get some use out of the countdown book.

And the winner is.....

Sweet pea and I got up extra early this morning to pick the winner of this giveaway (okay, lying-we are always up at 6am). Thanks to all who entered-wish I could make all of you one of these books. Small fry is still in bed so she missed out on picking our winner today. But hopefully you have seen enough of my giveaways to know that it is totally fair and unbiased (unlike every jr. high and high school election I was a part of-no bitterness there).
Here are all the entries
Here they are ready to be picked-sweet pea waiting patiently in the background

And the winner is.....

ABZ- you are the winner!!!! Congrats to you. Please send me an e-mail at thecanuck8athotmaildotcom or leave a comment with your e-mail so I can get your address. If you can get it to me today that would be great and I will put your book in the mail.

Thanks again to everyone for entering. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

A giveway just in time for Christmas- now closed

I wanted to get in one last giveaway before Christmas. I started these in Jan of this year after my Sister in Law Jenny gave me the idea last Christmas. I was really gung-ho in the beginning but soon lost the energy and creativity to finish. But I got them out again this fall and got them done. It is a Countdown to Christmas envelope book. It starts with December 1st and has an activity to do each day of the month of December until Christmas Eve. Here is a little look.

I thought it would be super simple to come up with 24 different Christmas related activities but it was not as easy as I thought. Who ever wins this giveaway can easily change some of the activities to suit your family better. There is also lots of room on each page to embellish if this is not crafty enough for you. If you look close you will definitely see the flaws. I admit it people, I create things with flaws. That's life.

If you would like to be the lucky winner of this countdown book leave a comment. I will accept giveaway entries until Midnight Tuesday November 24th. I want to get this sent out so that the lucky winner can have it before Christmas. Good luck to everyone. With such a short entry time, you probably stand a really good chance of winning.

Stay Tuned

I hit the 200th post mark and beyond and I love celebrating these little blogging moments so I am doing one more giveaway for the year. Tune in next week to see what is up for grabs. I will only be accepting enteries for a couple of days as I want to get this sent out to the lucky winner before the 1st of December. So check back okay!!!

Thanksgiving Paper Bag Ideas

Yep, I am still crazy about paper bag craft projects. Here are a couple I came up with for Thanksgiving. I came across this style of paper bag purse while blog surfing after sweet pea was born. I apologize to the original creator of these. I can't remember where I saw it. If it was you please leave a comment and let me know so I can give you the credit.
Instead of cutting the paper bag off like I have done with previous purses, you just fold it down to make a flap. Then you decorate the flap.
Wouldn't these be cute for a take home gift after Thanksgiving dinner, or at a children's table with goodies inside?

This turkey pattern is from an old issue of Paper Crafts Magazine.

I decided to use a piece of my otherwise useless self-adhesive velcro (which I hate) to secure the flap. This velcro works great for paper projects but not for sewing.

Here is how to fold your bag.

No cutting necessary unless you want to make it smaller.

Here's another one using a Snip-it's pattern from Pebbles in my Pocket.

Birth Announcement

Since sweet pea was born on Halloween I thought it would only be fitting to have a Halloweeny birth announcement. I found a cute Halloween tag on One Pretty Thing under her printables catergory. The picture I got done with Snapfish. Can I just say I love Snapfish. Do you know about Snapfish? They have so many great things you can do with photos. I know there are lots of sites out there but I haven't looked for any others because I find this one so easy to use. I make their photo books at least twice a year. They are really easy to create and it is much faster than scrapbooking. I order all my digital prints from there as well. Anyway I digress. Here are the finished announcements. Nothing fancy...like I have time for that anyway.

Future Bakerella

I asked Small Fry to get out a muffin pan for me so I could get us some muffins in the oven the other morning. That she did. And she did this as well. Who said the pans were only for cooking. I think she was dreaming up all kinds of new recipes while sitting in her cake pan....
with her baby sisters dirty pajamas on her head.

Bakerella probaby started this way too don't you think?

Dirty pajamas are like a chef's hat right?

Or an apron. This little girl was born to cook.

And speaking of Bakerella I made my first attempt at making cake pops tonight. The basketball team that my husband coaches has their first game this weekend and I had grand plans to give them all 2 cake pops decorated like basketballs with their number on them. YA RIGHT!!!! I think my cake/icing mixture was too moist, my edible ink pen was too dry, my kitchen was too warm, my cake balls were not ball like at all, and the sticks didn't stay in very well. So I got half covered in candy coating, and none decorated and gave up. They taste delicious-just what to do with 15 orange, semi ball like cake pops. And what to do with the others with sticks in them that I managed to squeeze back into our over crowded freezer. I thought it was going to be so easy. Guess I will whip up sugar cookies now or something. GARBAGE!!

La La La La Life goes on

Yep, I have discovered that life just keeps going even after the addition of second tiny, sweet little angel. Meals still have to be made, laundry done, small fry's diapers changed, beds made, dishes, etc etc. I never expected that it would halt for me and I am glad it hasn't. I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I have just had to jump back into my routine (somewhat-I did go a whole week without vacuuming-that never happens. I almost went crazy with all the crumbs on the floor but I kept telling myself to just let them be). And life is going really well. We are getting well adjusted and I am feeling good and discovering that I can do this and I think I can do it well.
We popped outside on afternoon for a family photo.

This is a standard position for small fry: watching baby sister very closely.

She looks so much older to me all of a sudden.

And she has a bit more attitude too.

One of the highlights of having my two girls at home: saying good bye to those stupid maternity jeans and hello to my pre-pregnancy jeans. Oh how I love you normal jeans. Thank you for still fitting even after all these months.

Little Sweet pea update

First off, I am test driving some nicknames for our newest addition so bare with me.
We are doing well as a family of 4. Small fry is a great big sister; better than I could have ever expected. Sweet pea is a wonderful baby too. She doesn't cry very much, she sleeps a lot and even at night. I feel like I have been in a whirlwind since we came home from the hospital but we are adjusting slowly. I can definitely say I have no trouble falling asleep at night.

Here are the invitations I made for sweet pea's blessing.

Look at how tiny her little 1 week old foot is. I know that it is going to grow big way too fast. Seems like small fry got so much bigger while I was in the hospital. Oh how I love my girls.

Gifts for the twins

My younger brother and his wife are expecting twin boys (identical twin boys) in about 4-5 weeks. There is no history of twins in either family so it is obviously just how Heavenly Father wanted it to be. If they are anything like my brother they will be super cute, full of mischief, and funny. Here are a few onesie sets I made for them.
1st: My maiden name is Konopelski. It is Ukrainian, nobody can say it or spell it. It keeps life interesting having a long, hard last name. So I thought this would be a fun way to display their great last name.
2nd: Gido is Ukrainian for Grandpa. Funny thing about this set. When making the first one I was careful to pin the saying on perfectly straight and then when I sewed it, it came out crooked. So the second one I purposely pinned crooked and after sewing it, I somehow managed to have it perfectly straight. Oh well.

3rd: Yep the classic tie onesie with a missionary twist. I did a post about how to make these here. I made a set for a friend and one of them I did exactly like the tutorial. The other one I ironed onto a piece of white fabric first and then sewed it to the onesie. My friend said this one held up much better and didn't stretch out of shape when getting her son dressed. So I recomend that method with iron on patches for onesies. Iron them to a piece of fabric and then sew the fabric to the onesie (if that makes any sense).

If these two go on missions and are missionaries anything at all like my brother they will do amazing things.

Looking forward to being the aunt to two rugged, handsome, sweet Konopelski boys.

Giant Lollipop

My husband's Aunt (bless her heart) sent this: as a gift for Small fry when her baby sister was born. I am sorry but I wasn't about to let her just have the whole thing so I tried to figure out another use for it. I decided to crush the whole thing up like this:

and then sprinkle it on some sugar cookie dough slices (these were from some frozen slice and bake cookie dough I made earlier on).

then I baked them as normal and they came out like this:

They make me think of Uniqua on the Backyardagains (or Backama's Show as small fry would say). Nothing fancy I know, but it is a good way to use up candy you otherwise wouldn't think of letting your children have. Thanks Aunt Jodi. Small fry loved eating the sucker this way.

A little Halloween Treat

I have had a feeling it would happen for the last 2 months and not that I mind because Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Now doubly so because it is also the birthday of our sweet little baby Brailie Ann. She was born Oct 31st at 7:30 am. And she is sweeter than a barrel of candy. She weighed 6 lb's 13 oz and is 20 inches long.

Small fry is doing okay with a new baby in the house. She was so excited to see her for the first time. She goes between loving her and wanting to kiss her and not wanting anything to do with her. But that is to be expected so we are just adjusting the best we can. Will be absent from the blogging scene for a bit while we get used to things. Gotta pick a nick name now for sure.