Time flies... but I'm back!

Wow. Has it really been 4 months?? I'm sorry to have been gone for so long, and boy have I missed it!

Things have been a little hectic here. Ok, 'a little' is an understatement.  A lot has gone on. Not only did Ian enter our lives in March, but on top of adjusting to life with a little one we decided to pick up and move across country.  That's right, we moved from California to North Carolina. Whew!  We were ready for some change and wanted to do it while Ian was little so that he could grow up in this wonderful area.  Moving was hard. Not just because of the logistics of a baby, but my hubby and I were both born and raised in California.  The majority of our family was there and all of our friends except those who had left previously.  But I think we've been adjusting well to North Carolina. The people are friendly, the weather is beautiful (but toasty), and the scenery is incredible.  I'm really looking forward to settling down out here. Now to find the craft stores...

Recent family picture taken in our new home state of North Carolina. Recognize the dress?

So with all of these changes, we've finally been able to get Ian on to some sort of routine, and he's now sleeping in his crib which leaves a little more time to get organized and get crafting again!  I've been working on getting my new craft space in order. Oh it's beautiful! I can't wait to show you pics. Just a few final touches and I'll be ready.  It's a nice, bright space which will be perfect for all of the grand crafting plans that I have in store.

I've started small - just personalizing some cross stitch projects that I made for Ian. I'll post the final pictures of those as well.  But I do have some fun things in store.

This left me to wonder the direction of What's Up, Cupcake?

I don't want to make huge changes to the content - you're my readers for a reason and you seem to enjoy my sewing projects and recipes (I hope!). But I do want to keep it relevant to what's going on in my life.  So. Sweet Treats Saturday will remain, but a little less frequently for the moment.  I'm still working on losing baby weight (ok, in truth, the baby weight is done, now I'm just working on the weight that I wanted to get rid of before baby), so I'm trying to resist the temptation of sweets. But I would love to share some of the new recipes I have been trying - both sweet and savory.

In addition, I'm excited to start sewing clothes again! My shape has definitely changed so it'll be interesting seeing what patterns will still work and which I'll have to modify.  I would love to make clothes for Ian too but I find that the patterns for baby boy clothes are a little lacking. Prove me wrong, please! I'd love to see links to cute baby boy clothes that I can make myself! Until then, I'm going to make some crafts for him. I already have a little lovie security blanket planned and I'll share my process with you.  I'll be trying my hand at dying fabric and sharing some fun ideas I've seen on other mommy blogs and pinterest.  I promise not to inundate the blog with just baby posts though!

So, while I get my craft room in order and ready to share, here are some pics of one of my favorite rooms that is finished (for now) and that I love!  It's Ian's nursery...

It's hard to believe, but Ian has almost outgrown that playmat on the floor.  We keep it downstairs now, but he's on the verge of sitting up at which point I don't think it will be able to hold his interest anymore.

I love his bookcases - it's probably my favorite part of the room.  They're filled with books and toys that Ian received as gifts.  And the little panda bear plush in the top corner is mine from when I was a baby. The bottom of the bookcases are bins that contain all of his toys.  It's one of my favorite finds and I got it from Land of Nod.  Oh, and hanging in the corner is my Little Prince embroidery that I made several months back.

Craft Room Re-do

It was a big weekend for me.  Magic happened in my craft room.

Ok, well not that kind of magic.

You see, while I'm lucky enough to have a dedicated craft space, I was using a crappy, makeshift sewing table.  It's not just a regular card table, but a long table that folds in half, thus making it just slightly less stable.  That meant that while I was using my sewing machine, my craft table would be bouncing all over the place.  Literally, I had to hold my machine down with one hand just to make sure that it wouldn't be jiggling all over the place.  One fan of this was my cat, Simon, who would love to lay on my sewing table while I was using the machine.  I don't want to know why.

I started to wonder if there must be a better way to go about this.

My old craft table

I was shopping around on CraigsList when I remembered the affordable furniture mecca...  Ikea!  I needed something inexpensive, but functional.  I found the perfect set online and added it to 'one day' list.  That day came this weekend.

Voila! My new, beautiful craft table

My shelving didn't change much but it is a little tidier

We had a full weekend of dance competitions but mine was supposed to end pretty early on Sunday.  That would leave enough time to go by and pick one up.  What I didn't plan on? Another cold. Yeah, I managed to weasel my way out of the last one, only having the sniffles for a couple of days.  This one? Not so easy.  Especially after a morning of competing... I wasn't feeling so great.  So while we were in and out of Ikea in 10 minutes, I started to go downhill fast.  That's where my wonderful husband came in.  He put it together while I was knocked out on cold meds.  I woke up to find my wonderful new sewing table assembled and ready to be filled up.  Well, I'm still working on that last half, but I can tell you that sewing on it is wonderful! My machine no longer bounces around making tons of noise, and my sewing is so much less stressful! Simon did come by to check it out. I don't think he was impressed.  Though he did enjoy a nice nap on it while I was assembling my dress for the upcoming Pastille challenge.

Well, with the dance competition and work, I've been crazy busy, so sewing has been a bit limited.  I think I'm sitting out the Sew Weekly refashion challenge and just going to work on Pastille and the next couple of challenges.  I also have a fun trip planned for the end of March so I went to get some sewing in for that.  More on that later!