Monogrammed Baby Shoes, and...PIE!

I love custom work. I think I've said this about 300 times. I love when I can give a customer exactly what they want, and throw in a little challenge for me. This week it's not just a monogram, it's the whole 3 letter initials!

As I was chugging along I realized, wow, these letters are teeny. And I think I'm going blind. One stitch, two stitches...many done by manually turning the wheel because I have no idea where the needle will land, and it cannot ever land outside the applique! This is leather, it has no forgiveness.

When I'm finished sewing the letters on (they are spray mounted in place, no way I'd ever be able to hold them!), I always glue the thread ends down in the back. I don't ever want the threads to come up in the front.

Just a little KaBoogie tip I thought I'd share. One of those little things we do to go the extra mile as crafters, to give our customers the very best we can produce!

And in other news...
My 13 year old daughter made this most awesome lemon meringue pie tonight! It's her second one this week, and it came out even more beautiful than the first! When she brought me a nice warm piece, I discovered HER idea of going that extra step to give her very best. She added fresh cut lemon thyme to the lemon filling! It gave the pie such a nice gourmet flavor!

Isn't she great?

You can find the listing for custom monogrammed leather baby shoes here.

Homeschooling With a Business, Do I Still "Got" It?

July. It's July. I haven't started getting my books together to start homeschooling again. I'm still trying to make sure my oldest gets the math curriculum he needs in his school (he opted to stay in the school). We're trying to have as much fun as possible, there's 6 different camps being attended, and September is coming fast.

Am I procrastinating? I need to get my head back into educating my kids in less than 2 months. I'm SO happy to have them home, but in my year off I've gotten a bit lazy. I also worry that the kids will have a hard time reacclimating themselves to being self motivated.

So the question arises; how does a mom, who is determined to provide the best education her kids can get, structure the day so that the kids make the best use of their time, chores and household issues are attended to, and mom can get some work done and help contribute to the household?

It used to be that I'd let the day unfold on it's own. I'd require work to get done as early in the day as possible, but didn't set time limits, or keep a strict schedule. But that can't work with my etsy shop, which gets very busy during fall to winter.

Does strict scheduling work for you? Or does letting the kids work at things in their own time get the job done? I think I forgot how this is done! How do you work it all in?