Merry Christmas!!

We are enjoying some time off from work and school and are praying fervently that the stomach flu doesn't catch up with us tomorrow like it did last Christmas.  The boys are super excited for Christmas day and we have been doing some fun Christmas baking and projects.  It's so fun now that they can comprehend that Christmas isn't just about Santa, reindeer and presents but about the birth of Christ!  I think their favorite part of the Christmas season is definitely doing our advent/nativity calendar.  Each day Owen reads (or really he has it memorized) another part of the Christmas story and the boys add an animal or person to begin to complete the manger scene on their burlap calendar.  It has been a great way to keep our Christmas Christ-centered and has caused them to ask good questions about the gospel and Jesus! 

"And the angel said to them, 'Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.'"

Luke 2:10-11

Merry Christmas from our crazy family to yours!!!

Coasters and Travel Tissue Pouches

I recently made these coasters for a couple of different friends that got married and they seemed to be a big hit so I thought I would offer them as a product as well.  The coasters can be in any variety of colors or seasonal even.  I am hoping to make some Christmas ones to give as gifts!  But, I really like this print for every day because each one is a different color but still the same cute style.  They are made from tiles and have felt pads on the bottom to protect your table.  I am selling a set of 6 for $10.  

These travel tissue pouches are a super cute and practical stocking stuffer.  Each one is $3 and can be refilled when the tissues run out!

I am continuing to work on new products so please keep checking back for more in the next few days.  Also, if you want to place an order for Christmas, I will probably need it by the second week of December to have enough time to complete it!

Christmas Shopping, anyone?

 Two years ago, I began this blog with the intentions and hopes of
it leading into a small at-home business.  Well, then I got pregnant with our 4th son and homeschooling began to take on more of a full-time responsibility and I just didn't feel like I had the time to commit to it.  But I love to sew!  I love seeing something and trying to figure out how to make, or seeing a tutorial and working my way through it and having a completed project at the end!  Nothing that I make is perfect, but I do strive to make things that are cute, practical, durable, useful, and affordable for me and others.  So, I have still continued to sew small orders of products for friends and family which has been fun but I was thinking with the Christmas season upon us, it could be fun to try to sell a little more to a little wider audience.  I don't have the time or money to pre-make a bunch of products that might not sell or to try to do craft shows, so at this point I am taking orders via facebook or email.  So, all of my pictures are of products that I have previously made just for a visual.  Some of the fabric I could still have available to me and some I might not.

These are my covered journals.  The product that I started with.  I have made a lot of these because they are so practical!  Each one is made of a composition notebook covered with a lined fabric cover.  I have made "boy" ones with fun prints and "girl" ones with pretty fabric and ruffles.  The great thing about these is that when they run out they only cost $1 to replace the composition notebook and keep using it as opposed to the expensive journals in the stores.  Each one is $15 and comes with a composition notebook already in it and a handy pocket for pens or pencils.

A close-up of a ruffled journal.

These bags are super handy for kids to take to the library or for Sunday school/nursery or on car trips.  We have one for each of our boys that they pack full of activities/toys for them to play with trips to see the grandparents.  I have a ruffled version for girls with some rosette pins.

And for boys I've added a pocket and sewn on their names.  Each one is $15.

In this picture is a ruffled journal cover, a checkbook cover and a zippered pouch.  Each checkbook cover comes with 2 inner pockets for checks and a check register or receipts.  I've added interfacing to it so that it is somewhat stiff and not floppy!  Each checkbook cover is $6.

This is a very close-up of a zippered pouch.  These are perfect for keeping in your purse for all of those stray items that just tend to float around--receipts, chapstick, pens, band-aids, perhaps maybe even a match-box car or two.  They are interfaced as well so they hold their shape.  Each one is $8.

This is by far my most popular item--a crayon roll.  Each one holds (and comes with) 16 crayons.  They are so practical and helpful, perfect again for church, trips or just taking crayons on the go.  I see so many kids with crayons in a baggy at church that usually get spilled and start rolling away.  These are the perfect solution for taking crayons on the go and keeping them put.  There are "boy" ones pictured but I have made girly ones too.  Each one is $10.

So, add to the list of things I don't do--EDIT PICTURES.  As I was uploading this one, I realized that it needed some serious cropping, but since it has taken me over a week just to finish this post, cropping is not going to happen this time!  Here is what a crayon roll looks like all rolled up, cute and compact with an elastic/button closure.

I am hoping to post more products in the next days so stay tuned!  Also, please note that prices do not include shipping!  If you live outside of Louisville, KY, there will be a small shipping fee.  Thanks for reading!!!

The First of Many!

Friday night was a big night in the Rairick household! Owen lost (well, Chris pulled) his first tooth! It all started about 3 weeks ago or so when I noticed that Owen had almost 2 full big, permanent teeth in on the bottom even though he hadn't lost any baby teeth yet! We called the dentist because his baby teeth were not even loose at all. The dentist looked and encouraged Owen to try to wiggle and pull them himself or otherwise he would have to do it in a month or so if they weren't out yet! So a couple of weeks ago, Owen was eating some chicken nuggets when he bit down kind of funny and immediately loosened one of his teeth. He had been faithfully wiggling it daily, but at the same time, he was also quite wary of biting with it. On Friday night after dinner, Chris asked him if he could just wiggle it some and before Owen even realized it, Chris had pulled it out. Owen didn't quite know what to think at first, but quickly got over that and got really excited! He wanted me to take a picture and send it to everyone he knows, including Uncle Jim (who lives about 2 minutes away!). It was so much fun, but I can't believe that we are already at the losing teeth stage of life! Time flies!

Happy Birthdays!!

Well, since I am in catch-up mode on this blog, I figured I would do it again! Both Elliot and Caeden have had birthdays that I haven't posted about yet! Elliot turned 3 on December 30th and Caeden turned 5 on February 2nd.

Elliot's birthday came in the midst of several rounds of a stomach bug so we had to cancel his initial party, but we were able to do a small belated party with his cousins! Elliot loves all things relating to cars, construction, tractors, etc... So for his cake I decided to make a digger cake. The pictures aren't real clear but it is supposed to look like the digger has dug a big hole in the cake!

We had a small party for Caeden as well. We have loved having Chris's brother and his family in the same town for the past five years to celebrate with us, especially since the rest of our family is not able to be here and the boys love playing and celebrating with their cousins! Caeden had requested a "swacker" dinosaur cake and this was my best attempt! I cut and frosted the cake and Owen and Caeden did the decorating with the M & M's and chocolate chips.

I love both of these "middle" boys so much! The Lord has and I am sure will continue to use them as a means of sanctification in my life and I struggle daily to be a faithful mom to my boys! Sometimes I just have to laugh at the fact that I am a mom of 4 boys! Ha! I was so intimidated by little boys when I used to babysit as a young woman. I had no idea what to do with them! And now here I am trying and failing to be a Godly, faithful example of a Biblical woman to them and learning how to love all things related to cars, dirt, worms, warriors, and sound effects!!!!

The Rairick kids!

Love the intensity of my son with his candles!!

Caeden's dinosaur cake!

Caeden opening his gifts!

We were singing Happy Birthday and the Doxology (a Rairick tradition) and he was being so shy and not wanting his picture taken but also loving every minute of his birthday!

Rejoicing in the new year!

When I started this blog, about a year and a half ago, my hope was to use it as a means to generate some business for my sewing projects as well as keeping family and friends that are out of town updated on our family. This was right before I got pregnant with our fourth child, and well, sewing has kind of fallen by the wayside except for the occasional project for myself or special order for a friend or family member that is actually aware of my products. The demands of homeschooling have increased. Life has been quite full with four young children and the time it takes to write posts and upload pictures has been more time than I was willing to put into it, but now I am feeling like our days are finally getting into routine with school and just the general maintenance of life. While I still don't have tons of time, I am hoping to get back into the swing of some sewing projects as well as updating this blog more than once ever three months. Specifically, I am hoping to add in some posts about the realities of my life--striving to be a faithful, Godly mother and wife to my sons and husband.

I have been struct more recently on how easy it is for my mind and heart to give in to complaining! Life is hard and my days are long and full of disobedient children whose hearts are full of sin and most often, my responses to their sin, are sinful too!! How I long to be a mom who has gracious, gospel-centered words to lavish on her children, instead of condemnation and anger! I am praying for much growth in this area over the next year and I am hoping to begin to journal (and blog) regularly on things that I am thankful for so as to cultivate a heart that is not quick to dwell on complaining and grumbling, but rather to praise God even in the midst of long and difficult days. That I might be a woman characterized by joy to the glory of God!

Merry (late) Christmas!

I feel like it is only fitting that I post our Christmas pictures a month late, because well, all of my good intentions just seem to not always work out quite how I hope, but hey, I'm posting them right? That has to count for something! We had this brilliant idea to only make and send a few select Christmas cards to family and friends that don't have facebook and then to just scan the card and post it to facebook so that it would get out to more people than we normally would send cards to anyway and save us a few bucks at the same time. Our good idea failed miserably. The scanned copy looked very poor and we couldn't get it to rotate so that it wasn't sideways. So here we are a month later and most of the people that normally would receive cards from us didn't! So sorry! So anyway, here are the pictures that were included in our card. They are not in a cute little collage but are still cute nonetheless!

Hudson, 8 months

Elliot, 3 as of December 30th.

Caeden, 5 next week.

Owen, 6 years old.

The whole fam!

Love these crazy, cute boys!