My Birthday Present!!!

I am so tickled!!!! They got me just what I wanted!!!! I was so sad when my camera broke and I kept hinting around that this would be a great idea. But everyone told me not yet it's to $$ and wait until you learn more about cameras. But it's in my hands and it's soooo beautiful!!!

It has been a rainy start to the weekend, but the moment the rain stopped and the sun peeked through the clouds for a brief moment I went to learning how to use this baby..........

More great pictures to come, THANKS to my sweetheart hubby and wonderful son.

New Diet Addiction

A great free resource for getting or staying healthy is SparkPeople.com . It's 100% free and they have a nutrition tracker, fitness tracker, message board, blogging, advice, articles, and more. I had heard about this site years ago and never visited, but last week I got hooked. I am over-weight, and like many people needed a little push in the right direction.

I love the nutrition tracker, it's do easy - enter the foods that you have eaten and it totals at the end of the day all the calories, and nutritional values. They have foods listed you can choose from or enter your own food and its nutrition information. At the end of the day you can see a report that shows how you daily intake was, and from this report I have learned that I do not get my daily % of calcium.

The fitness tracker is so cool, fill in the exercises for the day and it totals up the day calories burned, and you can also set up goals for the week and use this to get motivated to reach them. I learned that the 4 hours I spent digging up the yard and planting some flowers and shrubs I burned 805 calories Sunday.

You can set up a personal home page and write a blog about you healthy adventure. They even have active teams you can join with other members are similar as you or your interests. The message boards are alive with people asking question, telling their stories and replying with advice and motivation.

With SparkRecipes.com you can print, import into you nutrition tracker, and organize a cook book all online. I have already found 4 recipes, tried them and rated them.

This site is a great help to keeping people motivated to get and stay healthy.

Fashion Color Trends Spring '09

If you love color as much as I do or are interested in how color forecasting affects fashion, then you might have visited Fashion Trendsetter . It's agreat site with loads of information on color and fashion.

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I always head strait to the color trends page and check out the latest in color forecasting. Pantone is one I love! The Pantone's color report for spring 2009 has been out for a while (since Sept 08), but some of us really don't get into the swing of spring until it's peeking around the corner.

Pantone Fashion Color Report 2009

With Pantone's color report there are 24 designers and thier inspirations for spring 2009, 'Must Haves' and outlook on products for spring. It's 29 pages of colorful motivation for me, I usually download the PFD and print it in color (you can down load it here Color Report ). Then I drool over it while using the information to crank up my sewing mojo.

If your ready for color forcasting for Fall '09 it's also at Pantone.com.

Happy St. Patty's Day!!

St Patty's Day 2009 - by la bella colori on Polyvore.com

We could all use a little green in our wardrobe!!

Early birthday present for me

I finally did it, I subscribed to Burda World of Fashion magazine. It's around $80.00, and with the economy the way it is that's a lot of money. BUT for the price of a years worth of patterns, you just can't beat it.

If your not familiar with Burda, it's a magazine that is published out of Germany. They publish the magazine in English, Dutch, Spanish, Italian and Russian. In each magazine you will find plenty of patterns to keep you busy. The patterns come in five different sizes and sometimes they include plus, men and children's patterns. You have to trace and add seam allowances and the instructions are sometimes a little vague but if you have a handy sewing reference book around it's not a big deal.

When we lived in Italy I would buy them at the Coop (a large grocery store) every month. I loved using the patterns and learning the Italian language at the same time. I also purchased some when we lived in Holland, and at a rummel markt (Dutch for flea market) I scored some vintage 1970 Burda issues.

When sewing with Burda patterns I noticed right away that they draft the patterns differently than the Big-4 (McCalls, Butterick, Vogue and Simplicity). The major difference is the Burda is drafted for a C cup as the Big-4 drafts for a B cup. I love the Burda pants patterns, the drafting of the crotch curve seems to fit me better than most of the Big-4 pants. Now don't get me wrong I like the Big-4 patterns too and have had some success with them as well. I just love getting a magazine in the mail full of inspirations and patterns to add to my collection.

Daylight Savings Time

Every year when we change the clocks it takes me about a week to start to function normal again (what I call normal for me). I have never been a morning person, and on the weekend I have been known to sleep in all day. Daylight savings time is like a mini jet-lag, is it like this for you?

If you want to learn more about Daylight Savings Time

Just call me a Lurker

Yes - I am some what of a lurker these days. I am out here in the land of the living but haven't blogged much lately. I could not get to my computer. Why you ask? Ahhh the saga continues - the remodeling of the master suite took longer than expected. Kind of like those programs on HGTV that show how when doing a remodel and it takes longer and cost more than the person expects. Well at least I can say we are nearing the end, and did not find any bad things we had to fix. All of the walk in closet was placed into the sewing room and in front of the computer so that we could paint and lay tile . The tile is down and it is sooooo lovely!! The wood floors are down and gorgeous!! BUT the house is still in shambles and the closet is yet to be put back to use.

I am so sad, my camera broke. I loved my Fuji 3800, it wasn't anything special but I knew how to use it and it took great pictures until the lens locked. So now I have to use my husbands little camera, and it feels a toy to me as small as it is. Maybe if I whine to my hubby he will get me a new camera for my birthday.