How are you my friends? Happy 2013 to everyone! I hope you guys have eased into the new year comfortably. 2013 is plugging along nicely for the Lyons’ Den. I have been focusing on long neglected house things. Things like the downstairs power room and my children’s bathroom:

Bathrooms: Downstairs Powder Room

Incremental Progress

Bathrooms: The Kids’ Jack and Jill

I am thrilled to report the powder room is 92% complete. I just need to find a suitable mirror and paint the switch plates with something wonderful like my friend Regina does for her line of switch plates (which look to be almost sold out at the moment!). The kids’ bathroom is 85% complete. Cabinets are painted and they look amazing if I do say so myself. Still need to wrap up a little more wall painting and then get towel racks and toilet paper holders back on the walls. Once the bathrooms are finished then I have some curtains to sew up for the dining room and one wall in our office loft to paint. Then comes the SUPER fun stuff:

Dream Studio Renovation!

A Couple Tweaks and a Price Tag

I don’t have the words to describe how truly excited I am about this studio renovation. The thought of having dedicated space for each of the areas of art I LOVE to work in and to be able to move from one to the next without having to stop everything to clean up and switch out gear and supplies is incredibly exciting. I can feel a huge creative surge coming! I cannot wait!!

or a housekeeper. No, a clone. Someone I could dump all my camp stuff on leaving me free to work on my own stuff that needs doing right now. Day Camp prep is taking over my life! TAKING. OVER. MY. LIFE. Weeeeeee.

Soccer has wound down, but school is ramping up with all the End of School Year Hoopla. Add in my market season starting this Saturday (with a whole of lot of my new work not ready for display just yet…) and Lynn’s new work schedule and I am left wondering what the hell I was thinking! Eight weeks to go and then my life will be back to normal.

Ugh.

Today is April 4th. April FOURTH, 2012. Do you know what that means? It means my baby girl has a birthday this month. In a couple weeks she turns five. FIVE!! It seems like yesterday she was but a few minutes old:

Today she is a clever and confident little girl:

And she still takes my breath away . Mom tangent over.

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This will come as no surprise, but it’s been a madhouse around here lately. It is all soccer all the time: all three kids play rec ball (Lynn coaches the boys’ teams and assists with Molly’s team), Caleb also plays academy soccer and Lynn plays on an indoor and an outdoor team as well. We love it, but it can be a beating some days. Add into the mix all the other household craziness and that I am part of this year’s cub scout day camp administration and you get one very tired momma at the end of the day some days.

After the Easter break I will finally be posting pictures of some new jewelry pieces and maybe even some new fiber stuff. I am gearing up with fresh stuff for the new market season!

I have to get back to completing my camp program budgets now…no more procrastination!

I suppose it’s time to dust the cobwebs off this joint once again. I am mildly stunned I didn’t manage a single post in January. It’s mostly because we’re super busy right now as a family, but it’s also because I haven’t really been inspired to do anything in particular. Winter blahs, maybe? Yes, I think so.

We’ve had plumbers and electricians here at the house for one thing or another and have several other projects that are *this* close to being completed, but yet they are not done and I’m letting those lingering repairs and projects clog me up for a metric ton of other stuff I need to be or want to be doing instead.

I’ve worked on a few things here and there like the community quilt square Molly designed and I stitched down:

I’ve also been making stacks and stacks of colorful recycled sari silk bracelets. I’m still working out how I’ll finish these bangles…do I add enameled charms and/or lampwork beads? I will definitely include some embroidery or stitching of some sort. I’ve been wearing the first one I made for a few weeks now paired with my sterling bangles that I wear all the time and have received far more compliments on it than I thought I would…I mean, I love it, yes, but I know the style is not for everyone. Anyway, should the sun ever return I will snap some pics to share. I need to sit down to the bench to get another set of my Magpie Bangles (a project featured in the upcoming 30 Minute Bracelets due out in June 2012!) made. The two styles will blend together perfectly since these newer bracelets branch off from the design of the Magpies.

Okay! I’m glad I made a point to sit down and write something here today. It’s pumping me up to get something new made! But first I HAVE TO GET SOME OF THESE HOUSE PROJECTS DONE. They are like cinder blocks hanging around my neck! Sheesh. Be back soon with less cinder blocks .

Is there a version of pregnancy brain for moms who are not currently pregnant and have not been pregnant in the last 4+ years? Because I think I have that. I committed to bake and send two dozen mini corn muffins for Caleb’s class today…emailed back and forth with his teacher about it, put it in my calendar on my phone AND ipad. YET I STILL FORGOT ALL ABOUT IT. Uh, until Caleb reminded me about it this afternoon after school. What a douchey thing to do, right? I’ve been beating myself up about it ever since. Sigh.

These last six weeks have been wildly busy. It started out with the usual (soccer x 3) + (cub scouts x 2) + (everything else we do) plus my brother’s wedding. Then I added in the “Make Frenzy” that comes before a show and then the actual show (Denton’s First Annual Day of the Dead Festival which was awesome) and a flash trip to Houston Quilt Market (that’s right, Market, and it was awesome too) the morning after that show. After that we did Wurstfest with family down in New Braunfels. And then another “Make Frenzy” and another show (Argyle High School’s Holiday Shopping Extravaganza which was not awesome). Yesterday I spent roughly ten hours banging out my LONG overdue website re-build. I am not 100% happy with it right now, but at least it’s up and operational! I will spiff it up over the weekend after I’ve had a chance to figure out some of the wonk. In the meantime I’m going to catch up on my den leader duties and house duties and momma duties. And maybe take a nap somewhere in there too .

Get yourself over to Sew, Mama, Sew! blog and read up on the awesome little contest they’ve put together with Lark Books and Cathy Gaubert featuring a treasure trove of lovely prizes.

⌂ 1st Prize: $100 of fabrics from Sew,Mama,Sew!, a handmade softie (a surprise from Cathy), and a signed copy of Pretty in Patchwork: Doll Quilts

⌂ 2nd Prize: Handmade dolly (a sister to the one featured in the book) and a signed copy of Pretty in Patchwork: Doll Quilts

⌂ 3rd Prize: Handmade softie (either a bunbun or a dragon) and a signed copy of Pretty in Patchwork: Doll Quilts

*P.S. That’s my quilt second from the top! So very exciting to have another project published along with so many fabulous folks! Here’s a terrible camera phone pic of the quilt and book together (I’ll replace it with a proper pic when the sun comes back):