Remembering ME

(Click picture to go to the source site!)

Sometimes I forget who I am.
I'm Mommy.
I'm the wife.
I'm the sister, daughter, neighbor, friend.

But I'm also me.

I forget me. I forget the strong, capable woman I am. The confident gal I can be (she doesn't show up often enough).

Most importantly, sometimes I forget I'm a daughter of God. He loves me, no matter how imperfect I am. He doesn't care about the weight I can't lose. My messy hair, my shirt stained with messy kisses and handprints. My sink full of dishes (next to the empty dishwasher. Ha!!).

He cares about my spirit. My loves. The way I treat others. How I teach me kids. What I teach my kiddos.

I don't share personal things on here very often. I don't share anything very often. Ha! But this is MY blog, and I can write about what ever I want, right?! Yes, I can. And so I will. I'm going to share my story. The things I love. Things other than sewing and crafting.

Maybe sharing ME will inspire someone the way I have been inspired lately. I'll share more about that too. :)

So, be nice to yourself!!!!

Recent Projects

I got my sewing machine repaired after I finished all my Christmas orders. I don't how long it's been off, but it's so nice to do zigzags and buttonholes again! Well, I don't enjoy buttonholes, but at least I can do them again if I want to. And I got a serger for Christmas, so sewing has been sooooo much easier now. Yay!

Here are some recent things I've made:

This gray and yellow chevron dress and tie were an order for a friend who is about the have a little boy. I can't wait to see pictures of he and his big sister wearing these!


Maycie has a serious cheeser face these days. The cherry bubble dress was an idea I had and had to try it. It's not perfect, but it was a good start!


Harry Potter shirts for my sister's Sweethearts dance at school. A little iron on vinyl magic!


Valentines day boys shirts and dresses. :) I'll have to do a full post in them when the computer and my pictures are back. And the green dress is one I made for Maycie in October. It's already too short to be worn as a dress!

Instagram!!!!

So, obviously my "doing" more this year hasn't included blogging, but I've found plenty more to do.

Instagram is pretty much my favorite thing ever. (Follow me @lilmellomama!) I post pictures of most of the projects I work on there. And since our computer is in the shop, you get some pictures from my phone. Goll, you're so lucky! (This is also my first time posting from my phone, so we'll see how it goes...)

This awesome navy and yellow knit fabric was $1 a yard and Walmart. I bought the whole bolt. Plus some. And sent some to my newest IG friend. :) Hi Annie!!! I can't wait to whip up a maxi skirt and whatever else my little heart desires. I have plenty of fabric after all.


The next few are just some random pictures from our Spring so far. Giant, delicious strawberries. Fires in the back yard. A trip to the zoo. The 3 bags of Cadbury eggs Dustin brought me when I asked him to get me one bag. Love that man. My hips don't though. And I had to speak in church last week. Easter Sunday. I survived, barely. Hopefully it really was a decent talk and all the nice things people said to me after weren't lies. ;)

Happy Spring!!! I'm so ready for it, though I'm sure we still have more snow in store. Gotta love the crazy Utah weather!

Word To Live By: DO

The last time I blogged was almost a year ago. A year! It’s so dumb, because every time I do a project, I think about how it would look in a blog post. How I would stage the pictures. What I would say about it. But it never happens.
Part of my extended leave was because I’m completely intimidated by blogging sometimes. My photography skills leave much to be desired. I do most of my crafting at night and the lights in our house are awful, so to take pictures while I’m making something drives me crazy. They never look right, no matter how much I mess with them in editing. I have a secret dream in my heart to be a good photographer. I don’t care about being great, but I do want to be decent (I’m working on this. I got an awesome new camera and even took a photography class!!!). And it has been hard for me to put mediocre pictures up for others to see.
Another thing that I tend to do is compare myself to other mama-bloggers. I know it’s dumb, and I try not to, but it still happens. Some ladies seem to have everything together, new projects every day, gorgeous pictures, gorgeous homes, the perfect words to say. It’s intimidating!
I had to take a major step back last year and realize that I have 2 little kids. They are my main concern, my job. My husband’s work hours are difficult on us, to say the least. He is gone a lot. We see him every day, but usually for only a couple hours (I’m not complaining. I’m incredibly grateful for his job and that I can stay home with our kids. But we miss him.). It’s hard to get much done beyond a bit of cleaning and cooking while keeping an eye on my munchkins.
The last reason I haven’t blogged or done much of anything beyond the necessary was because I have been sick. A lot. Like stomach aches almost every night for months. I didn’t quite realize how often I was sick until Dustin pointed it out to me. I went to the Dr. and we did way too many tests and tried a couple meds and determined it was my gall bladder (even though there were not really any definite signs that something was wrong. Irritating!). I just had surgery last week and I guess my gall bladder was all scarred up. The Dr. said it looked like it had been giving me problems for a while. Yeah.
SOOOOooooo, I’m back now. Feeling much better, thank goodness.
I’ve been really inspired by all the bloggers picking a word for the year instead of making a bunch of resolutions. One word to work on. Sounds easy enough. And so I introduce you to my word for 2013:
 
This year I want to DO! Do service. Do fun things for my kids. Do special things for my husband. Do the projects I think of instead of just thinking. Do good. Do my best. Do more. Do. DO. DO!
Dear Yoda said it best.

(Jayden is loving Star Wars right now. I’m not complaining one bit.)

I spend so much time thinking of things I want to do. I have things that keep me from doing sometimes, but this year, I’ll do my best to DO anyway.

I’m really excited about it. I mean, unless I sit on my bum all day every day, I can’t fail. I have to do things every day. I’ll do them. And sometimes I’ll do more, do extra things.

I started a board on Pinterest of all the “DO” quotes that inspire me. I plan to add to it every time I find one. You can find my “Do” board here.

If you made it all the way through this, thank you. Dustin was reading over my shoulder for a minute and commented on how I really go all out writing for my blog. It made me laugh because it’s entirely untrue, except for today. I had a lot to say, for me and to me. And way too many excuses. ;)

Here’s to a fantastic 2013!

Angry Birds Suckers

Jayden is borderline obsessed with Angry Birds. He talks about the game constantly and begs to play it about a million times a day. Luckily, Dustin is hooked on it too, so they play together. It’s so cute to hear Jayden say “Oh Dad, that was some good damage!”. Boys! {Insert eye roll here}
When we were at the grocery store about a month ago, Jayden saw the Angry Birds boxed valentines from like 100 feet away. I don’t know how he recognized it from so far away, but I knew there was no talking him out of them. I really wanted to make his valentines to take to preschool, so I came up with something to go with his Angry Birds cards:

(I finished them the night before his school party and the light in our living room is awful… Sorry the pictures are so sad!)
I was inspired by these suckers from Brassy Apple. Jayden loves the black birds, so I knew that just the red and yellow wouldn’t cut it. Instead of piecing their faces together, I used this template. It’s supposed to be for balloons, but I printed it at 3in x 5in and it was the perfect size for my birds.

I just folded some cardstock in half and traced my shapes (I free-handed the egg and triangle. I traced the inside of a roll of painters tape for the circles). I made sure to overlap my shape over the fold just a bit so that it could fold right over the sucker. After I cut them out, I put a little adhesive(I used my glue runner) on each side and put the suckers inside.
I used my glue runner to attach all the face pieces as well. After I had the suckers all finished, I just slid the sticks into the cards and stapled it so they didn’t slide off.
Jayden was so excited the next morning when he saw them. He gave me a big hug and said “Thanks for making my Angry Bird suckers, Mom!”. It’s nice to be appreciated. :)

Here they are, all finished. I think these could be great favors for a party, not just for Valentines. They were so easy but they look like they really took some time. I spent less than 2 hours on all of them, including figuring out the shapes and sizes that would work.
Thanks for reading!

Iris Wrap Dress

I recently ordered 5 new patterns from Sew Sweet Patterns. Their patterns are so cute, and I really had a hard time picking just 5. I’ll definitely be back for more.
The first one I’ve tried is the Iris Wrap Dress:

Isn’t it cute? I wish I could have gotten a better picture, but Maycie has been grumpy and sick with a cold and we were running around all day yesterday, so this was as good as it got. Oh! And it’s reversible! It has a super cute yellow floral on the other side. Hopefully I can get a decent picture of it. Sometime. Ha!
Thanks so much for reading!!!

Digital Scrapbooking & MyMemories Suite Giveaway!!!! {Giveaway closed}

 Congratulations to Kimberly from Free Family Fun! She is the winner of the My Memories Suite Giveaway!



I really enjoy scrabooking, but my craft space tends to be so full of fabric and thread that I don’t feel like pulling out all my paper and embellishments to add to the mess. I love the idea of digital scrapbooking, but the thought of buying so many papers, trying to keep it all organized, and trying to figure out how to actually do it has always been enough to stop me. Oh, but not any more!
I was contacted by MyMemories to do a giveaway about a month ago. I was so excited to try their software and downloaded it immediately (They gave me a free copy so I could tell you all how great it is!). It has been a crazy busy month, but I finally found some time to play around with the program. And let me tell you, it is so fun!
(I do have to give a quick little plug. MyMemories Suite is SO affordable! It’s only $39.97! I was definitely impressed with the price. And if you want an even better deal, keep reading!)
It took me a while to get used to where everything was and I deleted a finished page once (Arg! Wish I could blame that on something besides my own stupidity!), but it was surprisingly easy to use. They have a bunch of premade templates available, so I started with a couple of them and this is what I came up with:


Cute, right? All I really had to do was stick in my pictures and text and do a little resizing. All of the cute embellishments are all there, ready for you. I can’t get over how easy it was. I made a page using a different program a couple months ago for my grandpa’s 80th birthday and it took me hours to get it right, even with a template. MyMemories Suite is so organized and easy to use!
I decided to play around with the papers and embellishments and spent a long time just looking and checking it all out. I made this too, simple and sweet:

Maycie is almost 2, but I totally would have used this program to make a birth announcement if I had had it when she was born. I’m going to make some little 4x6 thank you cards with my kids pictures on them next. Between the pre-made templates and wide array of papers and embellishments available, the possibilities really are endless.
Now, the really exciting news is that MyMemories wants to give one of you a copy of their MyMemories Suite 3 software!
In order to win, you need to do 2 things:

1. You must be a follower of Little Mello Mama
2. Go to the MyMemories website and look at all the great digital scrapbooking kits. Come back and leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite!

The giveaway ends Monday, February 27, so head over to their site and start looking around!
MyMemories has also given me a code to share with you all to save you $10 on the MyMemories Suite 3 software! It also gives you $10 download credit to the online store, so that’s $20 off!  Just enter STMMMS73690 at the checkout to get your awesome discount.
I can’t say enough good things about MyMemories right now. I’m excited to share more projects with you in the future as I get to know the program even better. :)