under the sun

Welcome to Under The Sun, a new shop in downtown Shelbyville!  It also just so happens to be the first store to carry my MamaBird line of baby merchandise!

Under The Sun is an ADORABLE shop that not only sells GREAT gift ideas, but really wonderful, affordable, accents for your home.  They also provide custom faux floral and fruit arrangements, courtesy of Kim Robarts, one of the wonderful and creative store owners.

Seriously, her arrangements are exquisite, and if you are anything like me, I wouldn't even begin to know how to do that myself, so why not let Kim help you out?  I'm thinking something for the fall or Christmas season?

These ladies have been so wonderful and generous to carry my products, as well as products from other local artists and vendors.

Here are some shots from the store:

Right now you can find Under The Sun here at the Highlands Marketplace at the annual Bellarmine Designers Show House.

You can find some MamaBird stuff there too.

You can also always stop by the permanent location on Main Street in Shelbyville, right next to the upholstry shop with the cute polka dot furniture in the window.

So.  Pop in and check this shop out.  Not just for my sake.  But don't buy the beautiful coordinating turquoise and rust pottery vases.  They. Are. Mine.  Just as soon as I save up some money.

Action Kivu Fundraiser

I don't usually do this, but this fundraiser just touched my heart.  Check out handmadebyalissa to see how she is raising money to help women in the Congo learn to sew.  These women are victims of rape and and other horrible war crimes that I can't even begin to imagine.  It just reminds me how blessed I am to live in the United States.

Take a minute to look at this blog, and more importantly, say a prayer for the Congo.

coming soon...

I've been really bad about posting lately, for several reasons.  We had a 2 year birthday party, some really great stuff going on at church, and just the business of life to keep me crazy.  However, the main reason I've been away is that my sewing machine has been in overdrive...

It's probably hard to see from the photos, but I've been sewing about a bajillion burpies, nursing covers, wipes cases, etc. to put in a new store here in Shelbyville!!!

Under The Sun is a great new shop that opened a few weeks ago downtown.  If you live in the Shelbyville area, stop by and check it out.  They have lots of great, affordable gifts and items for the home.

AND the best part for me is that as of yesterday, they carry my products!

More on this to come...

Have a great weekend!

logo

With the help of my Mom (thanks Mom!) I developed a little logo for myself.  The top part is actually the logo.  My blog address is there because I've been using these as hangtags when I sell something.

You'll have to use your imagination to remove the bottom line.

Here's another view:

I am NOT a professional graphic designer.  I repeat.

If anyone has any suggestions, PLEASE let me know!  I just really cannot afford to pay someone to design something right now.

Also, if anyone can tell me how to get the Mama Bird part on my blog header, I'd appreciate that too.

What do you think?

two

Wow.

It's really hard for me to believe that two years ago we were doing this:

Or, actually, 2 years ago, I was getting ready to push out a baby, but no big deal or anything.

And now, we have this:

Or actually, lately, we've had a lot of this:

and this:

I guess we need to get used to this, right?

I got a babycenter.com update today entitled "your 2 year old, handling big emotions."  This could get interesting.

To be honest though, Mama Bird has big emotions today, too!

Happy birthday to my baby big boy!

aunt neva's strawberry cake

My Grandma (Ma) is one of 10 kids.  She's the only sibling living now.  One of her sisters, Neva, never married, and lived nearby Ma, and was like a second Grandma to me.  She passed away just a couple of days before I graduated from college.

If you've ever been to my home, lots of things you'll see were Aunt Neva's.  Our big tall bed that I have to use a stool to get into was hers (that was fun when I was pregnant).  I also have a couple of dish cabinets that were in her house.  But the thing I treasure the most, by FAR is her collection of cookbooks and recipes.  Aunt Neva and I shared a love of cooking.  We even had a similar cooking style - make a huge mess and get every dish in the kitchen dirty! 

I don't have all her cookbooks, but I have most of them, and they are jam packed with handwritten recipes that she wrote on scraps of paper.  Someday I'll organize all those....

I came upon probably my favorite recipe several years ago - Aunt Neva's Strawberry Cake!  Yummy!  She made this for my mom's birthday a lot, and sometimes on other occasions.

It is so easy and great! 

And super, super rich. 

As in, you have to brew a pot of coffee to go with this.

The baby bird and I made it to celebrate my Mom's birthday a few days ago.

I'll tell you right now I double the frosting recipe.  One just isn't enough!

Here's the recipe:

Aunt Neva's Strawberry Cake

For the cake:

1 pkg white cake mix

1 pkg strawberry gelatin

3 eggs

1/2 C water

1/2 C salad oil (I use canola)

1-10 oz pkg frozen strawberries, thawed and drained, but RESERVE the juice

preheat oven to 350

grease and flour 2 round cake pans (8 inch)

Mix together the cake mix and gelatin. 

Add water and oil and beat well with your mixer.  Beat in eggs.

Fold in strawberries.

Pour into your prepared pans and bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

Cool completely before icing.

I cool the cakes in the pans on wire racks for 10  min. and then invert them directly onto the racks to cool the rest of the way.

for the icing:

1 stick of margarine or butter, softened

1 box 16 oz powdered sugar

1/4 C juice drained from the strawberries

Cream the butter in your mixer.  Add sugar and juice alternately, ending with juice.

Frost your cake!

I double this frosting recipe.

The result is fabulous!  Let me know if you try it!

another shirt

I made this shirt a LONG time ago, but I kept forgetting to write a post about it, until now!  Similar to the purple ruffled shirt I made a while back, this one used 2 T-shirts of the same color.  I found mine at Wally World - my least favorite place to shop.  But, they were $4 each!  Can't beat that, right?  I followed a this tutorial but I made a couple of changes.  One big difference was that I made quite a few more of the flowers to go around the neck, to give it a fuller look.

Here's the shirt:

This was a super easy and fun project.  It literally took me just a few hours one evening.  The best part is that I saw a similar shirt from J Crew that cost something like $40!

WooHoo!