An Apology, Pt. 2

If you are still hanging in there, despite my dismal record of blogging in 2014, I'd like to offer explanation #2...

A few short days after the baby shower, my husband and I took off for NC to celebrate our oldest granddaughter's birthday.  She is the proud, new owner of an American Girl doll.  As a doting grandma, I became quite focused on providing a wardrobe for her doll.  Do you know how expensive American Girl doll clothes are?!?!?!

Enter Etsy!  I found lots of really cute doll clothes that were very well made. Of course, I whiled away many, many hours perusing the more than 29,000 offerings.

When we returned from NC, it was time to start planning for the next granddaughter's birthday.  As she, too, has an American Girl doll, I found myself on an instant replay, until...


I had an epiphany!  I used to sew a lot, still have a sewing machine, even have quite a few remnants still in the sewing basket.  And just like that, a new passion was born.  It's really fun making doll clothes!  Here are a few of my creations:

The red and blue outfit is completely reversible with each piece flipping to the other fabric.

    




These are mix and match outfits.  The white crop top is reversible, as you can see.  Notice the necklace on the tunic?  What kind of grandma would I be if I didn't include jewelry for the dolls?  And thus, yet another passion was born...

The sewing machine is still out and my husband wants to know when I will stop.  Hmmmm. Good question.

There are still more explanations to come.  All in good time.

An Apology

  

A lot of TIME has passed with very few new posts.  I apologize, but I can also explain...

In late January, my son and daughter-in-law surprised us by planning a somewhat spontaneous trip from their home in CA to ours in IL.  As she was expecting their 1st child, and my sister, sister-in-law, and daughter had been asking how we could throw a baby shower for her from a distance, I sprang into action planning a shower for her here, in just 3 weeks.  Invitations were the top priority and with the wonders of desktop publishing, this is what I created:  

Cupcakes were the theme, so the next order of business was trying out cupcake recipes and learning to decorate them. Thank goodness for YouTube tutorials!  The greatest compliment came from my cousin who asked what bakery supplied the cupcakes.

Again, thanks to YouTube, I learned how to make a diaper cake, although my version had only 1 layer of diapers.  The majority of the cake was onesies and hooded towels.  The cupcakes sur-rounding it were made from socks and baby washcloths.

And, of course, there were shower games.  I love making these things on my computer!  The bingo game was made up of things on the baby registries.

Each grandchild receives a crocheted baby blanket from me.  This is the one I made for the baby shower:

The shower was wonderful!  It did, however, consume a great deal of my time.  

By the way, I do know that it is against the rules of etiquette for the prospective grandmother to throw the shower.  Hence, my name did not appear on the invitation.  But, as a matter of practicality, the shower had to be at my home and all of the listed hostesses live out of state.  So, I had tons of fun spoiling my daughter-in-law and soon to be granddaughter.

That's my 1st excuse explanation.  There are more to come!