Year of No Yarn Update....and overall update.

No, I have not fallen into a pile of yarn and cannot get up. I'm here! Alive! Busy as a bee, but alive!

I'm doing very well on my no buying yarn diet. We took a summer trip to Nashville, Tn and I did find one beautiful yarn store and bought two beautiful skeins of yarn....that turned out to be VERY tangly and horrid to work with. So now they're pretty decorations to remind me to stick to things!

I did cave and purchase some Knit Pick Felici because they released it again. I bought just enough to have someone knit me some socks (because I hate knitting socks!).She did and they're beautiful! 

The beautiful Crochetnanigans knit them for me!! :) I love them! Totally worth breaking the fast!

Other than a skein here or there for a custom order request, I haven't bought any else. The really scary part.....

It didn't even make a dent in my yarn stash. Now life has been busy and I've not been creating daily like I used to, but still, I have SO MUCH YARN. I could go ANOTHER year without yarn and be fine! (But I won't. I'm not insane.)

So what else is new? Well we are still homeschooling! I'm woefully behind blogging updates for myself and a couple of other bloggers, I'm sorry ladies!! One of these days!

The kids are doing great and we are having fun. There are plenty of days where I wish to curl up and hide, but doesn't every mom? (They do, and if they say they don't they're lying to themselves and you should probably buy them a box of chocolate or wine, hug them and affirm its okay!)

So here's a smidge of what's been up lately!



We enjoyed Star Wars day back in May at the Audubon Aquarium. Divers donned costumes and had a light saber battle in the tunnel! Albeit a slow motion battle, but it was fun!!

We visited Nashville, TN after a quick trip to Huntsville, AL to meet up with a the great Steph of The Eli Monster! We've been online buds for years and our two Eli's finally got to meet :) 

We enjoyed a day in downtown Nashville checking out the awesome globe you can push with your hands, The Parthenon and much more!

We also fostered three kittens over the summer and ended up adopting one, this ol guy, Thor. His siblings Loki and Natasha got adopted shortly after we returned them from fostering but he hung around. Guess he needed us as his FurEver home! :)

I've crocheted and knitted a good big as well, this big project was for Eli. Yes, I made the giant shark blanket. No, I will not make it again. Word of advice...be careful with shaping of the top fin....and placement. Trust me.

So we're fully into Autumn according to the calendar, though the temps say different in good ol' Louisiana. But I'm falling it up anyway. I love fall, it's my favorite season. We've actually been able to open windows and get outside! I made this playdough sensory art area for the boys (okay, and me...). We've even done some schoolwork laying on a blanket outside that I took a super adorable pic of, but Eli doesn't want me to share it. Sigh....my babies are growing up.

Will I blog again before the end of the year? Hopefully! I come off my Yarn diet on Black Friday! WATCH OUT WORLD!

Until then loves, may your yarn not tangle, your coffee be strong and your pants be loose!
~~Amy

The Home School Month Ahead: August 2014

If you find homeschool organization boring and don't want to know what other homeschool moms do, you can skip this post, you won't hurt my feelings. I for one, enjoy seeing what others do so I can get great ideas for our own school day!

August will be a light month for us, we will only be doing 2 days a week of school to ease back into the school year. This frees up days for us to enjoy the rest of the month! The public school children return to school around the 7th, so that's when homeschoolers take back the park, pools, museums, etc. It's ok, we don't mind sharing the world with all the children, but it is nice to have less busy places to take our children too. It makes kid counting a lot easier at the park.....

So what's up for our family in August!? Well, I finally got to sit down with my nifty Well Planned Day planner and get to organizing!

We will only do school on Mondays/Wednesdays and not every subject. We do not go in any particular order of school work, I ask the kids what they want to work on first. Some people like to get started early in the morning, get math done and out of the way. For us, we are still working on that "magic method.". I do have subjects we do together and some we do separate. Remember H is going into 4th grade and E is going into 1st. So we cannot do EVERYTHING together. Math, Grammar and some electives are separate. So here's our basic August Monday/Wednesday 'to do' list. (I don't say schedule because I do not schedule out block of time in any particular order.)

Bible Study: We do YES Lessons just like I did as a kid in my church. You can find them for free if you are interested here: http://www.coghomeschool.org/site/cog_archives/yes_lessons/COG_Library_YES_Lessons.htm

Along with the YES Lesson we work on Character Studies from Confessions of a Homeschooler. If you haven't bookmarked her blog already, you should open a new tab right now and save it! (Come back here though...) AMAZING resource.

Math: H is still catching up on Teaching Textbooks 3 as we started it late last year. So he's got to finish that up and then move on to Teaching Textbooks 4. Eli does worksheets and Life of Fred. We love Fred, he's great. I highly reccommend it as a math program.


History: We wouldn't normally do History in this part time summer month, but we have a few chapters left to finish up before we are done with Story of the World Volume One. Since we are excited to get started on Volume 2, the Middle Ages to Medieval Times, we need to get done with Volume One! I really cannot speak highly enough about this book series. Reasonably priced, well done, a good history program for elementary students.


ELA: English Language Arts, I don't even like calling it ELA, since that's not we grew up calling English, but I do use it to mean any and all English, Grammar, Spelling, etc. I am VERY literature based and believe children learn best through stories and books, not textbooks and boring technical information. So, we are currently reading Chronicles of Narnia. We are just reading it as we go although I did find several lapbooks and unit studies on it. Surprisingly it was not listed on Teach With Movies, but we will be watching the movie version.
Also in ELA we use a program called Five in a Row. I love, love, LOVE this program. It is similar to how I taught literature based lesson plans when I taught early childhood. We are currently on Volume Two, even though it's suggested you start Volume One in the fall. I decided there were more books I wanted to try in Volume 2 for now.

I love the fact that FIAR is pretty much all you need for a young child other than Math and Phonics! I pick and choose the stories we want to do based on time of year, interests, availability, etc.

Phonics: E is still wrapping up his Saxon Phonics K book from last year. He is doing so good in reading, I could likely just skip the rest of it and he'd be fine, but I do want to cement a good understanding of Phonics since I feel H missed out on that in public school. E goes through his lesson and worksheet in less than 10 minutes.


Electives: We will add more electives in September but for now the only true electives we do is H does a Typing Instructor program on the computer.

He seems to really enjoy this and it reminds me of the typing tutor programs I used as a kid. (On my rocking Commodore 64 mind you....)
In September we pick up more electives like American Sign Language, Handwriting, Music, Creative Writing and Art. I look forward to all of these!

So I hope this helps you see a little bit of just one fraction of what one can do in the area of curriculum!

What are some of your favorite curriculum? Free resources?

~~Amy

**This post contains affiliate and non-affiliate links. All affiliate programs are listed on my Disclosure Page.

Summer 2014 Review

I've been a bad blogger! Summer time and homeschooling keeps one very busy! We've had a fun but busy summer swimming, hanging with friends, NOT doing official school! I had plans to do more school over the summer but we were enjoying being lazy! :) And they seem to always be learning, so it works out.

I hope you've had a wonderful summer. I cannot believe it's almost August! Here's a little bit of what we've done this summer so far.

 Throwing water balloons at minecraft drawings.

 Gummy bears in sprite popsicles. (They didn't like it, they said the gummy bears were too hard.)

 Pitiful attempt as a garden. This year I tried an heirloom, organic garden and NOTHING grew except green beans. Sigh. I'm ready to throw in the green thumb towel. We got a few conventional strawberries.

 We watched clouds and let the sunshine warm our faces!

 We picked blueberries finally again. We LOVE doing this. Okay, so maybe more so me than them because it means more Blueberry Vodka Lemonade. (Recipe here.) But they do have fun too and it's a gorgeous place to take photos.

 Fishing at Uncle Marc's. This kid loves fishing. He's dying to go out on the lake and fish. Thank God for Uncle Marc because neither my husband nor I like fishing.

 We fulfilled a long time goal and yarn bombed Aunt Denise's mailbox. Crochet for the win.

 July Fourth again at Aunt Denise and Uncle Marc's. Fun! Hope to make it a yearly tradition! Yummy food, fireworks, playing with the dog, good times!

We also had a Frozen party for some friends, no one's birthday, just because! I didn't take any pics during the party because we were having too much fun!!

So we are wrapping up July and heading into August. That means 2 days a week of school and 3 days to finish enjoying summer. Public school kids start school here around August 7th, so we head out to the parks, pools, museums, etc and enjoy the space! Of course we spend the month praying for no hurricanes also, which is another reason I don't start major school until after Labor Day. It's ridiculous that August is our hottest month, most active hurricane month and we start school here in the beginning of it! Why? So they can have more days to prep for spring tests. Yes, indeed that is an honest answer I received from someone in the know. Sad. But that's another blog post....

So we will ease into school in August, get our feet wet again, brushing up on old skills before we dive head on in September. I sit here in total astonishment that the year is over half over. Seriously. Time dragged as a child...why does it fly by now!?

So here's to an awesome summer and what will be an excellent school year!
~Amy

2013 Wrap Up

Wow, December 31, 2013. Well, we really don't do the "new year" thing since our calendar year actually goes from Spring to Fall in our faith, but it is yet another year marked off on man's calendar. 2013 has been an interesting year for me, I became a bigger advocate in education than I planned to by my becoming active in the Stop Common Core community. I took up knitting and still crocheted my behind off. I continued to build a thriving handmade business until a sudden change of events shut me down the week before Thanksgiving. I've come to terms with that and embrace 2014 without any major desire to get back to business for now. (for now.) I started homeschooling in April and haven't looked back. That has been a bumpy, crazy, wild road but it's a good one.

So 2013 has been up and down for me and many, I look forward to a boring, simple, easy 2014.

~~Amy

End of an Etsy Era....

So, if you follow me on Facebook, you know already that my Etsy shops have been shut down. I have been an Etsy seller in one form or another since 2008. I went from being in the hole for 2 years to making what I considered a decent income for a mom who just likes to make things! I was a totally legal seller with my LLC, Tax ID's, a CPA, the whole she-bang. I founded and run the Etsy team Handmade Louisiana. I've made a tremendous amount of friends from being on Etsy and that I will never regret.

But my time on Etsy is over. Over the years, I have had a couple of 'trademark infringements' filed against me by a couple of companies like Hello Kitty and Eric Carle. I was new and unaware I could fight back with the first sale doctrine concerning licensed fabrics. So they sat as hits on my Etsy account and I thought nothing of it as my business grew to be one of the top badge reel shops on Etsy with the most badge reels available at one point of 900 listings.

A couple of years back the battle over the local phrase "Who Dat" raged here as the man who claims to own the trademark fought local stores over use of the word. Long story short, for you non-locals, Who Dat is a battle cry for our beloved New Orleans Saints but also a general greeting, salute, joyful shout and more, used a lot in life in southern Louisiana. Who Dat dates back to the 1700s and possibly earlier. But this man trademarked the phrase in the 80s when he was involved in a song (a horrible song) about the Saints. Decades passed and he never gave a care about his trademark until the Saints won the Superbowl in 2009. Suddenly, he cared about his trademark.

I thought the matter had been laid to rest when the parties he sued settled in 2012 and a judge said, "Who Dat belongs to the people." It never even dawned on me this was still an issue. So I was surprised (and ticked) when I found he had filed a complaint against several of my items. Honestly, I'd forgotten about several of them, (did I mention the 900 listings?) So I sent "the man" a not so pleasant email, but I fixed the listings and thought the matter was over.

Nope. He apparently found more listings on my shop, this time, he claimed you could not even use the words "who dat" in a TAG on Etsy. (Tags are descriptive words you use to help people find your items.) He's even gone so far as to say you cannot use just "dat" or "who" in a Saints related item!?? So if your item was a black and gold fleur de lis, I couldn't use any form of "who dat" in a tag, even if it didn't appear on the listing or item. I should have checked all my items for Who Dat, and I thought I got them all, but apparently I missed a couple out of the 900 listings.

So what does Etsy do? Not contact me about it, not say, "Hey, you have one more shot and we close you down" or "Check your items please", etc. Nope. I go to ship my orders and I find a closed shop. I got an email of legal-ease and a closed shop. Not just one closed shop, but TWO closed shops. I also had SeauxComfy on Etsy, a crochet shop that NEVER had any infringements against it, SHUT DOWN.

Needless to say, I was very upset. At the jerk trying to steal Who Dat from the people, at Etsy for their lack of support. At myself for fighting back, because I'm thinking if I'd not fought back to Sal, he'd have maybe left me be. I scoffed at his offer of licensing with him and made it clear I NEVER want to do business with him. (He didn't offer me a nifty form to fill out to turn into Etsy to show I won't use Who Dat as a tag, yet he offered it to other sellers. Hmmm I wonder why? Oh right, I stood up to him.)

I quickly let go of my anger at Sal because it became clear he is a desperate man clinging to the last little business he has left. Apparently in the 30 years he's owned this trademark he's made 350k on it, and spent a lot of that on court. That is NOT a great record of business, for those not familiar with sales. It's incredibly sad.

But I was more mad at Etsy. For having spent 5 years putting up with their total lack of seller support, their continuing to allow foreign resellers while shutting down true handmade shops (like mine.), and for putting up with their muting of people who dare speak out in forums. Etsy is a shell of what it started out as. Greed took over the true love and purpose of handmade for them, I fear. Just in my badge reels shops alone since 2010 I have paid Etsy almost 3k in fees. Now, I made my sales, but paid them roughly 20% of my sales for years. I'm not even counting the other Etsy shops I had over the years until I found my niche with the badge reels. So apparently $3,000 isn't enough to warrant a real discussion to see if I truly was at fault.

Apparently Etsy has no spine and cannot even remotely defend their sellers and will cave to threats, no questions asked. So I am done. I am done spending any more money with them. I will pay up my fees and then be gone. Unfortunately this also means I will no longer be buying on Etsy. So if you are an Etsy seller, I will find another way to purchase from you, but I will not purchase on Etsy.

I'm sad to see this part of my life end, as it's been such a HUGE part for the past five years. But creativity need not be confined to a little piece of the interwebs....I am still going to create. I am not getting rid of my badge reel making supplies. In good time I will reorganize and start over on another site.

I had been toying with the idea of taking a break for a little while now. I am now homeschooling my children, much earlier than I had ever planned to. It really had become difficult to homeschool, run a home, run a business, spend time on bible study, with friends, and sleep! Life had gotten too hectic. I had been in angst trying to make a decision about my business, so I suppose God decided to help me make the decision!!

I'm sad it's over, I recognize how awesome my customers have been over the years and how fun it has been to share my work with others, hopefully bringing a little smile to their face during their work day. But my babies will only be little for awhile, and when they're bigger and more self sufficient in their schooling, I can reexamine my game plan and perhaps start a new.

In the meantime, you can contact me via the Facebook page or badgereels@gmail.com if you need a badge reel or two. It'll take time to get my photos back in order, but I will do that in time. If you need crochet items, you can also contact me there. I am taking custom crochet orders via email or facebook for now. This situation will not crush my dreams of running my own business, but it does delay them some. In the end however, it's for the benefit of my children AND my sanity! If that's not worth it....I don't know what is!!

I thank you all, my friends, customers, colleagues, and most importantly my family and God for sticking with me all this time, being there through the ups and downs, and for supporting handmade! You are NOT forgotten!

Much love,
Amy

October Wrap Up

October has been BEAUTIFUL and we've been outside a LOT! 

 Sky gazing on a beautiful clear blue sky day!

 First fall leaf!

 Watering our new yellow mums.

 Climbing trees at the park.

 Pumpkin sight word smash!

 This beauty popped up while we read Charlotte's Web.

 Growing our own lettuce!

 Giving the guinea pigs some outdoors time, which they LOVE!

Yoshi...because he's always fun!

I hope you all had a great October! This is my favorite time of year! Fall, football, cool weather!

~~Amy

Nikon Quality Time

Life has been busy with homeschooling, being out of town and life as usual. But my trusty Nikon is usually not too far away and I have been able to snag a few good shots!

 The sunsets in Gulf Shores, Alabama are AMAZING!

 

 Snapped this one while the hubs drove 45 mph over the bridge...not to shabby!

 

My deep thinker...

 8 years old!

 Our last sunset in Orange Beach!

Then we came home and enjoyed a quiet afternoon at Camp Salmen Nature Center. Beautiful!

 Tree bark.

 Finally snapped some bees working hard!

 Some pretty purple berries. No clue what they were.

 Beautiful yellow flowers perfect for fall!

Like my pics, follow me on Flickr.
Hope you enjoyed some of my little photos!! Happy Fall!
~~amy

October Home School Themes

Wow, it's almost October. Where does the time go?? We enjoyed an awesome trip to Alabama for 9 days, of which I am still unpacking from, editing pics of and getting back to 'home' life from! I sat down tonight to get this week's homeschool work planned and realized I didn't get any stuff ready for next month's theme!

October's Themes are: Fall Leaves and Pumpkins

So here are some activities I'd like to try for the month! Fall doesn't exactly come full on here in October but we can pretend!

Fall Bucket List: http://www.upsidedownhomeschooling.com/homeschool-fall-bucket-list/

Fall Tracing Sheets for Eli and his fine motor: http://sjthomeschool.blogspot.com/2013/09/fall-tracing-practice-package.html

Arts and Crafts: Paper Roll Pumpkin: http://www.littlefamilyfun.com/2012/10/paper-roll-pumpkin.html

Messy Sight Word Fun! http://schooltimesnippets.blogspot.com/2011/10/sight-word-pumpkin-smash.html

And I may make some of these or I may just crochet some pumpkins! http://www.domestifluff.com/2009/10/how-to-make-pom-pom-pumpkins/

Huge list of pumpkin activities here: http://www.123homeschool4me.com/2013/09/36-pumpkin-crafts-kids-activities.html

Huge list of Leaf Activities here:http://www.123homeschool4me.com/2013/08/36-leaf-crafts-kids-activities-for-fall.html

Pretty Fall Leaves: http://ourcraftsnthings.com/2009/10/pretty-fall-leaves/

Yarn Leaves: http://3dinosaurs.com/wordpress/index.php/red-leaf-yellow-leaf-yarn-tree/

Sticky Wall Leaves: http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/18717/early-learning-2

 Clay Leaf Bowls: http://www.redtedart.com/2010/10/01/how-to-make-autumn-leaf-bowls-guest-post/

There are a ton more activities to do, these are just some fun suggestions!

Happy Fall Y'all!

Roaches, Butterflies and Jelllyfish, Oh My!

We took our first homeschool field trip of the year last week! We are members of the Audubon Institute so we decided to do a field trip to the Insectarium since we are studying Insects this month in our Apologia Science lessons. We'd been there before but I was very happy to see H take his time and look at the exhibits. He genuinely wanted to learn about the bugs.

We were able to go with another family and it was great to see them again. Both the Insectarium and Aquarium were undergoing some modifications so I'm looking forward to seeing what new exhibits they are cooking up in there!

Both museums are doable in one day, and we enjoyed it immensely. We had lunch on the river in Woldenberg Park and the boys had a blast. As we walked back to the car, E said, "This was the most AWESOME field trip!"

If you're in the New Orleans area, take the time to check out everything the Audubon Institute has to offer, it's amazing!

Roach TV!! It's so creepy it's awesome! Check out this one and many more at www.apl.tv.

 It's hard to get these two to take a normal photo!

 The butterfly garden is awesome!

 The Crescent City really is an amazing city. I complain, but all it takes is one trip to the French Quarter and I'm in love again.

 Even Jedi's need to go on field trips.

 Trapped!!

The jellyfish are one of my favorite exhibits at the Aquarium.

I hope we can go on at least one field trip a month! We'll save the zoo for when the weather is a little cooler. If you go in the summer months the animals are just sad and hot!

~~~Amy