by Sherri Sylvester | Jul 30, 2015
We’re headed on a long weekend vacation in about an hour. The last week has been filled with birthday party planning, partying and packing for said vacation! We now have an (almost) newly-minted 5 year old. Amazing how fast time flies. We definitely don’t have babies anymore over here!
She got her birthday gift from us a little early, and I was so excited when she wanted to have her own sewing machine. I did a bit of research and took a recommendation from Amy of Peek-A-Boo Pattern Shop and bought a Janome New Home 1/2 size machine for her, in “Turbo Teal” no less! It’s smaller which is nice, it’s a lot slower than my Janome and it has a really great shaped presser foot that is built so it is really hard to get your fingers under the needle. (Sorry for the quick phone pictures – we were in the middle of packing when she got it!)
She is so excited to play with it and loves that it has “up to J” different stitches! Including her favorite, a scalloped zig-zag. It’s really simple to use and she’s been sewing lots of lines to test out the stitches. Of course I am over the moon that she loves sewing. And she seems to be intuitive about keeping her fingers safe, thank goodness! I was a bit worried since this machine does not have a speed control – but she got the hang of the foot pedal really quickly.
I will be able to give you a better review after we’ve got a few projects to show off. I love my Janome machines – so I’m sure it won’t disappoint. Now we are a 4-Janome family – lucky us!
It’s been so nice to spend the last few days with my kids, and we are looking forward to getting away for some friends and family time. Away from wifi and electricity even – though the cottage does have some solar power. We need a break, some swimming, sitting by the dock, fishing, canoeing… ahhh…. good thing we leave soon! I can’t wait!
I’ll be back late next week. Have a wonderful weekend!
by Sherri Sylvester | Jul 8, 2015
Before I get started today, I’m super happy to be able to spill the beans on something I’ve been planning for over a month… drum roll please? Mark your calendars – the most amazing 8 days in Thread Riding Hood history are coming up next week! Hint… It involves giveaways and discounts from more than 13 Canadian Online Fabric stores! (Not Canadian? Don’t worry! Most of the giveaways and discounts apply internationally!)
Ok… now on to our regular programming! (Eeek! I’m so excited about next week!)
Summer is here! Of course, our summer has been a bit rainy and not so warm – but school is out and we’re enjoying our more laid-back mornings. Oh, and my favorite – not making lunches everyday! In the process, somehow my kids have managed to get a whole year older.
Of course summer means juggling what I normally do here with making sure the kids have something to do. A tad scary for me really. The 6 hours I usually have while the kids are at school are gone – I think there’s going to be a lot less sewing happening in the next two months!
I’m so glad there has been a movement with bloggers recently to unapologetically slow down in the summer. Not be a super mom, not post at the same rate – because it’s impossible to do without a lot of prep. I wrote to a blogger friend yesterday that creative people tend to have a genetic predisposition to procrastination. Having experienced a me-made insanely crazy and stressful summer last year, I fit that so well. (Argh) I used my prior knowledge to make this year’s survival kit.
Sherri’s Top 5 Summer Survival Tips!
Tip #1: Things are Better when they are Planned!
Last year we put up a large weekly calendar in our front hallway. It worked so well – the kids love knowing when certain things will happen. It helps to get them excited and to be able to anticipate special events. It’s not gorgeous – not even remotely interior-design-approved, but it helps us to get through the summer in a more organized fashion. We write our major events in first, then we add to the calendar daily/weekly as needed. At the end of the summer it is a really fun record of what we did.
Tip #2: Pre-think about it.
If I travel through the summer without a plan, we won’t do anything! I really dislike leaving my house, so we stay in all day. If I try to plan the day before every time I don’t have great ideas and we put 4 or 5 ideas on repeat all summer.
This year I decided to print out a whole bunch of low-cost and special occasion ideas on label paper – ready to stick to our large calendar from Tip #1. I plan to have them all in one place along with the coupons and gift cards we’ve accumulated. A 4×6 piece of paper FULL of ideas took me about an hour. (The amortized value on that is amazing!) Then I typed them all out and they are now ready to go – complete with multiple copies of labels we’ll use more than once.
And yes – I spent way too much time perfecting making the labels – I’m pretty sure I will be able to use the list next year too!
Tip #3: Re-think your spaces, especially the ones outdoors.
It really helps to have a few great spaces you can move yourself to so you can be with your kids, even if you have work to do. Our backyard got cleaned up this past week so I feel better about moving out there to do some sewing handwork or idea drawings.
I also have plans to clear out our garage so it can be an outdoor play space – with a table I can sit at while they paint, draw with chalk on the driveway or ride their scooter. Then we can be outside when it rains too!
Tip #4: Get the kids to do some of the work.
This past week I already got tired of hearing – Can I please play my tablet now? Can we watch TV now? and Can we play video games now? So I decided to make a points system so the kids can earn their screen time. They do some other stuff, they get screen time. Amazingly it’s working really well! I have to tweak the list, move the reading up to the daily slot and adjust the points for a few things. But I plan not to print out more than two weeks in advance to allow for the list to change as needed.
The kids really like it. Now they know when they can watch something, and I’m happy because I don’t get asked all the time – perfect! I’m also really happy that they are accomplishing important tasks and helping keep our house in order. Good skills for them to learn too.
Tip #5:) Make a Plan B (or 5)
When I am caught between an unexpected deadline and bored kids I usually react badly. Either I ignore the kids, which is impossible – or I ignore the work – hint: very bad idea! I also can’t think straight and end up getting frustrated and making really bad decisions.
This year I have come up a pre-thought-out Plan B to get the kids occupied quickly so I can get the work done and get back to them. It does involve screen time – but I’d rather they do that for a short while than deal with the alternate reality! I also try not to plan as much work during the summer and to work in the evening so I can avoid having to use my Plan B too much.
My go-to Plan B this year? Pop some popcorn, pull out the fancy bowls and healthy drinks and start a movie – oh, and cut up fruit. (To make it more healthy and make me feel better about the additional screen time!)
I want to hear from you! What plans do you have for the summer?
Disclaimer: Photos used in labels might be under copyright and are for my personal use only. All other photos are my own.
by Sherri Sylvester | Jun 30, 2015
Hello again! I just realized I’ve taken an unintentional week off. My parents are visiting with us for a few weeks and we are so excited to have them. As a result, though, I haven’t been as eager to get on the computer! I do have a super summery project tutorial coming up later this week, and today I’m posting a bit about our vacation.
Before all that I realized that I have not as yet posted the winners of the last two giveaways. Shame on me… here they are:
Seam Allowance Fabrics gave away a $30 Shop Credit to Kathy D. I hope you are enjoying it Kathy! {interview here}
Fabric Please! gave away a Thread Riding Hood Blogger Bundle to Pam P. Amazingly, we sent Pam her congratulatory email on her actual birthday! What are the odds?! {interview here} You can purchase your own Blogger Bundle from Fabric Please! and you can still get 15% off your purchases with the code THREAD15 until July 1, 2015!
We recently got back from Florida after a much needed 10 days away from our home. I find that since we are all in our home all the time – save business meetings and school – that we go a bit home-crazy every once in a while. We were so fortunate to get away, even if we did work a bit while we were there.
I love that owning our own businesses allows my husband and I work from anywhere in the world – as long as we have wifi! A chance of scenery is so good for us and we come home ready to work again.
On the last leg of the 19 hour drive home, I realized that I was surrounded by handmade. Literally! I packed in it, my kids and I were dressed in it and we stored the stuff in our bags in it too! When we got home I tried to photograph every handmade item as we unpacked. I was curious and wanted to know how much we really had with us and what we used everything for.
Since also love roundups of “things on white backgrounds” – here are the photographs. (Linked to their respective blog posts if applicable of course!) These are some of our most-used handmade items, since only the most useful things are deemed good enough to come on vacation with us! It is also fun to go through some of these older posts, the kids are so little, especially the pink and yellow Tennis Skort post below!
by Sherri Sylvester | May 18, 2015
I can’t be ready for these life posts, they have to just be written as they flow out of my brain.
When I write about me and what I’m feeling I have to pretend you are not there or I will feel self-conscious and just stop! I’m banking on the fact that most of you feel the same way as me. That’s at least what I’m telling myself so I keep typing.
Our houses are not perfect. Laundry and dishes list a LONG way down the “To Do’s” of daily life – somewhere way below Sew, Craft and Quilt!
“Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.” ~ Victor Kiam
I have been thinking about this post for 2 months now. March was 6-months since the “Be Intentional” post I wrote last September when both of my kids started back to school full-time. Jody commented that I should re-visit the post and do an update. I thought that was a great idea and I put it in my calendar. Problem was, when March came around I wasn’t ready to write it yet.
“What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be.” ~ Unknown
Truth is, I’m not sure if I want to write it. Part of me wants to hold back and pretend to be amazing. Have you believe that the carefully set-up photo-shoots are my real life. That sounds nice and safe… but I’m sure (or I hope so anyhow!) you know that reality is NOT the case.
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” ~ J.K. Rowling
I’ve realized lately that being “safe” is not my goal, I want to share my mistakes more often. (Though I will not likely show many messy photos. They’re just not pretty!) I’m not sure I’ve come very far since my “Be Intentional” pep talk. Though, it’s possible I’ve come farther than I think.
Here are a few things that have changed and my goal to work on for the next 6 months.
Change #1: I spent a month deep-tidying almost every corner and closet in our house. ~ Result: It’s easier to find things, and put them away. Helps us to be cleaner, faster, and helps me stay sane.
We got rid of so many things (literally our SUV full + lots more to the curb) and I find it is freeing to know where something goes when I need to put it away. I can tidy our main floor in 15 minutes – without a random box of things going “out to the garage” or “hiding in the laundry room” before company arrives like it did before! #reallife Amazingly, we have tons of storage space – I just needed to get rid of about half of our stored things to find it!
Change #2: I try to remember to “Be Us” when planning something. ~ Result: A reality-based beginning to a plan gives us a fighting chance when we try to carry them out!
Instead of (unfairly) comparing us to my impression of everything good I think we should be, I try to remember to plan our life around how we really are. Here is a list of some practical things we have done to help. (As I read through the list I realize we sound super lazy and petty – but, honestly, these things have really made a difference.)
- We are really not morning people – so we have put all of the kid dishes and breakfast things in a lower cupboard and taught them to get ready by themselves. Once they are both ready, they watch TV while they eat. Usually only about 15-20 minutes before school. Now they are ready before we wake up! #incentives are everything.
- We hate doing the dishes, so we have “paper plate night” once a week. I know it’s not environmentally sound, but it helps us to deal with doing them the other 6 days. (We do try to buy the biodegradable plates.)
- We don’t like opening doors around our house to put things away, so large piles sit by said doors for weeks. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true! Now that we’ve removed the “offending”basement and laundry room doors, things get tidied up a lot faster. I’m working on making the front hall closet tidy so I can do it next.
- We didn’t put our food away in the cold cellar because there were 3 doors in the way. (Again, being honest!) So I moved all of our food storage into another cupboard – newly found space from Change #1! It’s still in the basement, but there aren’t any doors in the way.
- The kitchen cupboards were really messy and things were constantly lost and unorganized. I took everything out and re-worked all of the cupboards. In the process I realized that we had 2 large boxes of things in there that we didn’t need. And to save more space we now store more of our pantry items in our new “not through a door” super easy-access basement cupboard area.
Change #3: I’ve taken extra time to intentionally teach my kids to clean up. ~ Result: Less work for me and my husband, and less arguing plus a nicer space for them!
It’s been a work in progress, but 3 months later I’m excited that they are getting pretty good at it. And “good” is definitly not perfect, but I do get comments like “Ok, fine – lets get it over with” instead of 15 minutes of arguing and complaining. I also found out that they like it when their space is clean. And that they are learning how to clean, instead of standing in the middle of a messy space looking frustrated. Now we “put similar things together in piles”, then put each pile away where it goes.
Change #4: When my kids come home from school I stop working. ~ Result: Happier kids and a less frustrated me.
This was (and still is) not always the case. But I’m getting better! I really want to be intentional about spending time with them. Once I decided that was the goal and the plan for each weeknight it became much easier to actually make it happen each day. Of course there are many, many days when I invite them up to our (very full, tiny) office to draw or craft something while I finish a project. And there is at least one night a week we call “Screen Night” where the kids are allowed to have whatever screen they’d like (tv, computer, tablet) until dinner. Thankfully they don’t watch too much on other nights, so I don’t feel so bad about it!
Change #5: I’m trying to get more sleep. ~ Hopeful Result: Happier, more realistic, less stressed home.
This change is really in progress. I LOVE staying up late, and I’m having a very had time quitting when I know I should sleep. I still find myself running up to deadlines with very late nights, but those days are becoming less. Now when I stay up late I am generally not working, instead I’m taking time to play – read a book or watch TV with my husband.
“Do something today that your future self will thank you for.” ~ Unknown
The GOAL! Being realistic, and implementing my “Be Us” policy – I’ve only given myself one goal for the next 6 (to 9) months before the next update. It sounds crazy-difficult to me and I’m going to have to work super hard to find ways to work on it.
Goal #1: Be less frustrated and demote stressful things. I have realized that a lot of my frustration is due to my not knowing a good way to deal with stress. I put whatever is stressing me way up on my priority list – it needs to be demoted (perhaps fired?), if I can continue the analogy. Too many times I get unfairly angry at a family member because I’m frustrated with myself. And I want to loosen the hold on my need to be in control of everything. I think some of the changes are helping, but I’ve got a long way to go.
Mad Hatter: “Have I gone mad?” Alice: “I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.” ~ Tim Burton, Alice in Wonderland
Love that quote! Reminds me that I’m not sure how to conclude this post since there is no ending to this journey – we just continue this craziness and try to get better as we go along. I’ll see you at the next update!
I’d love to know are you doing? I’d love to know what you think – and any helpful things you’ve done to keep your home happier and less stressful!
P.S. Just in case you didn’t know, I’ve dyed my hair purple – feeling a bit crazy walking around like this helped me to finally write this post! Check it out on Instagram.
Photos are random from last year’s summer vacation so you can take mini breaks from all the text!
by Sherri Sylvester | Feb 24, 2015
See that pile. That’s my stack of things I’d like to properly photograph and share with you. Add that to the envelope full of ideas I’ve got written down and “in general” things to do this week and I’ve decided to take the week “off”! (Yup.)
I’ve been trying to plan a week to go through (absolutely) everything in our house since September. Sort, give away, throw out, re-organize… I’m so excited that the time has finally come! In fact, I’ve been trying to sew clothing for one entire week as well, but that hasn’t worked out as yet. We’ve been in our current home for just over 7 years now and we’ve done this once before – but not on such a large scale. Since it’s pretty quiet around here it seemed like a good week to do it.
I worked hard yesterday and now my basement is filling up with an ever-growing array of baskets and boxes full of “similar things“, and “things that go together” and “things that don’t go anywhere“. The plan is to go through the whole house this way. Empty every drawer, closet shelf and box in storage. Only keep what is most important – then put them away at the end. That’s going to be the hard part! I’m excited, though, that there is likely going to need to be a trip to IKEA for some organizational shelving and boxes when we are done – hooray! (Something, anything, to keep me going….)
I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. I’ll see you next week with the shweshwe winner (Last day to sign up is today – Feb 24, 2015) and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to post a new tutorial for a cute zippered-something I’ve been working on. (YAY!) If you want to follow along I’ll be posting on Instagram, and I’ll try not to scare you too much with crazy photos of piles of things everywhere!
by Sherri Sylvester | Sep 8, 2014
So, I’m still here! I am never quite sure if you miss me or not, since I know a lot of you follow many, many multiples of blogs across the interweb! As I said at the beginning of my last post, the past couple of weeks have been life changing – literally. I am exhausted, worn out and emotionally drained. So, I’m writing about it today and attempting to begin the fall season with a fresh perspective.
For the past few years the phrase “be intentional” has been floating around in my head. It sounds great and has come up in many conversations (mostly when I’m beating myself up for not being intentional!) I always talk about how great it would be to be intentional – to think about what is going on around me instead of always fighting fires or competing the most urgent task of the minute. But, in the end, it’s mostly talk – and I go back to my fires and my to do list, always feeling guilty when it isn’t finished… and forgetting to remember that it was me who added all of those “importantly urgent” (not really) and “must do, right away!” (nope…) things in the first place.
My brain doesn’t remember that I can’t finish all of those things and it forgets that they weren’t likely all that necessary in the first place. Because – when it’s an idea, it’s great and must be done – right? (Wrong!) Problem is, all of those urgent and so important things tend to drown out the really and actually important things going on around me. I’m just too busy to notice because those other things are quiet, they’re not calling for attention or asking for my time – at least not loud enough that I pay them much attention. I haven’t created space to have time to think about them.
It’s been really tough, now that both of my kids are in school – to actually face the space between drop-off and pick-up. It’s almost scary to me that I don’t have to fight any fires or constantly keep a little one busy and out of trouble/danger or the fridge! The busyness kept me going – now I have to think more about what I’m going to do with my day. Yes, of course there are appointments and to do lists, but I have more control over my time. I have to be intentional or I will just float through the next few years, look back and wonder where they have gone. Wonder why I didn’t do something useful with them. It’s forcing me to slow down.
The last four days especially have been super emotional. My purpose has changed and I don’t know what it is quite yet, so I feel a bit lost. I have things to do, but I feel there is a space now – a place that I need to sort out and fill up with “whatever it is” I am supposed to do with my life. I know my kids still need me in many ways – but with them both in school full-time, they are getting less dependant and I’m forced to sort it out. I’ve been home most of the last almost-7 years. And most of the almost-7 years I’ve fought with myself for “more time”. More space to create the never-ending ideas in my head, more space to spend doing the things I love to do. I’ve worked every evening for so long I almost don’t know what to do if I don’t have work after the kid’s bedtime. I have run out of energy – quite literally, and this past week my body decided it was time to stop. This post is not a big announcement, I just have a lingering cold – but I feel so tired… weary even, emotionally drained.
So… that is why I only blogged once last week. And, why I have decided to start talking about Being Intentional. I feel like I need a chart or a 10 step program or a clean house to begin. When I was younger I even got my family to wait for me Christmas morning while I showered and cleaned my room in anticipation of gifts that “might get lost in the mess” if I didn’t clean up. This time I’m going to ignore all of my organizational wants and start anyhow. I want to do realistic things with purpose. To finish each day happy with what I have done and not guilty that I didn’t finish my list. I want to take time to try to recognize what is really important – and choose to change course – cross things off my list that don’t matter and recognize that I will never be able to finish everything I dream up.
My husband graciously agreed to draw up part of the artwork for a “Be Intentional” printable, and I hope he doesn’t mind what I did with it! Since I’m putting a copy up on our fridge, I thought it would be fun to offer it to you all as a free printable – just in case you would like to print one out for yourself. I hope it inspires you. Click on the poster or this text to download the printable pdf – it has two pages in it, one with a white background and one as a chalkboard image, so you can choose which one you’d like.
Even as I write this I’m worried I will fail – which I’m sure I will – and multiple times at that! It’s even scarier knowing you are reading this. Not because I mind that you know, but because that is a lot of pressure! But, in the name of being realistic, that’s going to have to be ok. And thank you for reminding me to slow down whenever I sound like I’m letting it get out of hand again. I can take it, ready… set… GO!
