Bunches of Burp cloths...

My new favorite thing to make for babies!

Made two for my friend Heidi's girl...

And two more for my sister's college roomate, Jenn. She recently had a sweet baby boy.

I just bought some fabric for our own little one on the way... I am thinking of trying a little different style burp cloth next :)

Oh, Torrington! What am I going to do with you?!

When I moved to Torrington I did not recycle. In fact, I did not recycle since living with my parents in Illinois. There we had a "recycle bin" in our garage, along side the trash can. The recycling got picked up on the curb. When I moved out of state, I had no idea what recycling would involve.

I started cloth diapering Ella when she was 6 months old. I lived in an apartment and had to drive my stinky diapers to a laundromat every 2-3 days to make sure my baby had fresh diapers. It was worth every minute, every penny. I knew at that time I had so many changes to make.

I didn't start making those changes until we moved into our current home, last July. I had it. I've seen enough stuff thrown out. It disgusted me. First of all, recycling in Torrington is a major pain in the ass. There are 3 moveable bins around town to put our recycling in. Yeah, that's right... we bring it there. Fine, whatever, it's worth it to help save our planet just a little. However, the more pregnant I get, the more frustrating it is.

The most frustrating part of recycling in Torrington isn't even that we don't have a place to recycle glass (which DOES frustrate me!).... it's that the dang plastic bin is always so full. Now, I'm thankful I'm not the only one who gives a crap... but c'mon, Torrington! We need one trailer for ONLY plastic, and then another seperated for paper, cardboard, aluminum and glass. The plastic always fills faster and then it ends up blowing all over in the wind.

I also wish we had more resources around here. Wyoming is a grand and beautiful state, and its residents are pathetic. They litter cigarette butts everywhere, and can't simply throw a dang coke can in a recycling bin. Put up recycling bins on Main street next to the trash cans! Fast Food joints need to do the same! Plastic straws and lids go into the trash EVERYDAY. WTF?!

Okay, that's the end of my rant. I'm just sick of this mainstream lifestyle in Torrington. I want more people here to understand the importance of reycling, cloth diapering... and using toxic-free products in their homes. If I could only open my own little green shop... this city would be a better place!

For A Meat Lovers Swap

I am totally addicted to 6X6 recipe pages. I joined a swap for meat dishes a while ago on SCS. I finished my pages for beef and pork today, I will wait to finish chicken til tomorrow. I used my From The Kitchen cricut cartridge again :) I just adore it! I have a few complaints... that it has the word poultry instead of seperating chicken and turkey... and then there is no crockpot graphic, and the tea kettle is not as fun as say... a tea pot and cup :) I could totally give them a list of a second cartridge I want...

January Iron Chef

I am so thrilled that we are back to swapping! This month's secret ingredient was CHEESE. mmmmm so I picked an amazing (and not that high in calories!!!) cheeseburger soup. We were to use paper from our scraps, and to stick with a snowy winter theme. Lucky for me, I had a few sheets of awesome snowflake paper that were half and 3/4 unused. I used all bazzil carstock except for printed the recipe on WW by SU. I found some cool silver cs scraps and cut the little pots from my "From the Kitchen" cricut cartridge. The silver cord is from SU. I am still debating on fulfilling the challenge to add brads...

The Holidays Kept me busy...

I painted all of these little dressers and decopauged them for my little cousins. The boys did not seem too thrilled, but, oh well... handmade gifts for tween boys are tough! Maybe I'll just give them the $5 next time haha...

My First Apron...

My mother-in-law and her husband spotted this old barn stamp in my collection last winter. It looks like his grandfather's barn, and they wanted something with it... just not sure what. It took me a LONG time to come up with something practical to make. It would not fit on a 4X4 tile, plus I already made her coasters with the Bucking Horse on it. Well... I decided to use a SU! craft ink pad and just stamp it on fabric and sew an apron to show it off on. And that I did. Now onto the matching potholders! (another first!)

Crayon Rolls!

I am excited with these. As soon as I got the hang of them, they weren't too much work. These two are for Nate's cousin's kids. I am pleased. I am thinking of making them each a matching tote bag to carry their coloring books in with them! Here is the tutorial I used... Crayon Roll