Introducing the Cousin Mint blog

Welcome to my new blog!  My name is Amanda and I have started this blog to share my love of art, crafts, my life as a mother of twins and my obsession with Pinterest.  I do not know exactly what direction Cousin Mint will take, but come with me on this journey as I begin an Etsy store, make many successful and unsuccessful projects, and hopefully organize and improve my home!

This is my second or maybe third attempt at a blog.  I have this problem being a creative person, where I get so many ideas, I want to do all of them!  But that is actually impossible!  Or maybe it's possible but I have trouble following through.  I lose focus!  Because there is some really cool idea that just came up instead.  So I am working on following through with some of my ideas.

Let me tell you a little about myself.  I have boy/girl twins who are 2 years old.  I watch a lot of tv.  My favorite shows right now are Gotham and Project Runway.  My entire household is obsessed with Batman!  The old tv show Batman - my kids can tell you all the characters!  Their favorite is Batgirl!  I love to make things.  Lately I have been experimenting with sugar scrubs and I just bought a really awesome Brother embroidery sewing machine.  I am trying to learn how to use it and what supplies I need for it.

This is just the start!  Any tips on blogging or ideas for post topics?  Any crafts you would like to see me attempt?  Leave a comment!

Check out what I like on Pinterest:

Visit Amanda's profile on Pinterest.

One and Two Year Celebrations

A lot can change in a year, and two years can blow your mind!  As Twin Talk Blog celebrates it's one year anniversary, I am taking their challenge to share my twins' first birthday celebration.  

But Carly and Max are 2 now, so I am going to take a look back on the last 2 birthdays!

Maxwell's smile lights up the room!

Carly's a cutie!

More pajama modeling:

Sparkly bow-ties, all the girls will be wearing them!

Carly and Max turned 2 in January.  Due to our totally normal household Batman obsession, we went with a Batman theme.  Here we model our Batman shirts and Batman blanket.

Awesome Batman cake made by my dear friend Allyson:

Opening gifts birthday morning:

Both of these parties were a small celebration with our immediate families.

When I look back a year, it's stunning how much these two have grown and learned.  At one year, they were just starting to get around.  Now they run, jump, dance, go up and down stairs, hop on the couch, climb up on things and can somersault!  They maybe said a word or two at one year, now they can say almost anything including Olaf and Sven (ok, so maybe it sounds like Ben).  They can string together sentences, they can color, they can count, they can sing Everything is Awesome.  Carly can do 50 piece puzzles by herself.  They can go potty sometimes.  It's freaking amazing!

At their first birthday, they cried during Happy Birthday.  This year they loved it and blew out their candles.  They opened all their presents themselves.  

Last year's birthday twins:

Cake faces:

While I was pregnant with these two, I was so worried about how to raise two babies!  I mean, just being pregnant was a little scary, I didn't know anything about babies.  I read every book about raising twins I could find.  Nothing can prepare you, but I wanted as much information as I could get. 

Yet...  despite their early arrival, despite their weeks in the NICU, despite just being twin babies in general, when their first birthday arrived, I realized - WE DID IT!  It was an accomplishment for us just to have children ( story for another day maybe), but we got these two to their first birthday.  Sure, it was hard and stuff, but like, not THAT hard!  I mean, we manage pretty good I think!

I'd like to give a shout out to Twin Talk Blog!  I have been following them since the beginning and wish I'd had that available when I was a nervous wreck and pregnant!  If you have twins or know someone about to have twins, it is a great community!

Batman obsession?  What Batman obsession?

Follow Amanda's board Batman on Pinterest.

Favorite Podcasts

I recently rediscovered podcasts.  Riding to and from work for the past couple months, I have really learned a lot just by listening to a podcast for my short 36 minute ride.  If I had to drive farther or ride public transportation, I would listen to soooo many more, but right now I have 3 that I really like.

My favorite is Brilliant Business Moms Podcast.  Sarah Korhnak and Beth Anne Schwamberger interview "mompreneurs" - mothers who have started their own businesses, and share TONS of great advice on everything from tips to sell on Etsy, to how to use Pinterest to get traffic to your blog.  They also focus on how to find balance when you are running your own business while raising a family.  

The podcast I've been listening to the longest is The Chalene Show podcast.  Chalene Johnson is an entrepreneur and fitness expert who does just about everything.  She is so motivating, after listening to her podcast you feel like you can accomplish anything!  Chalene also focuses on starting your own business and is one of the reasons I am working on my Etsy shop and started this blog!  This YouTube Success podcast was really cool, if I ever get into YouTube I will listen to it again because it had such detailed advice, I am sure it will be extremely helpful! 

Oh So Pinteresting is the newest podcast I've found.  Between wanting to start an Etsy shop and my already cultivated Pinterest obsession, I find Cynthia Sanchez's podcast absolutely captivating!  I've only listened to a few of her episodes so far, but I enjoyed every minute.  It's amazing how a site like Pinterest can create massive traffic to your website.  I also love the idea that I could use a site that I already love and am familiar with to grow my blog and business.

I'd love to hear what you think about podcasts!  Leave a comment and tell me, do you listen to podcasts?  What are some other great podcasts you can recommend?

Starting a Machine Embroidery Project

I recently decided that I would like to open an Etsy store and make cute toddler bracelets for this store.  Since my sewing machine is going on 20 years old and does simple straight and zigzag stitch only, I thought it was time to update my machinery.

Upon getting my new Brother SE 400 embroidery sewing machine in the mail and out of the box, I quickly realized that machine embroidery is much more involved than I anticipated.  

First of all, my machine did come with some accessories, but in order to do a project, you need special thread for embroidery.  Also, you can't really just stick a piece of any old fabric in there and hit start.  You need to take into account what type of material you are embroidering on.  If it is a thin fabric, you need a thick piece of stabilizer behind it.  If it isn't that thin, you still need to use at least a tear-away stabilizer while you sew.

I went to my local sewing machine store to get supplies and advice.  The conversation I had with the store owner made my head spin a little.  I talked to her for half an hour and walked out with bobbins ( because of course you need SPECIAL bobbins for this machine) and a sample pack of stabilizers.  There were probably 15 different types of stabilizers in this pack.  This is much more complicated than I imagined! 

***One tidbit I learned it that if you use the wrong kind of stabilizer for your project, it may look beautiful when it prints out, but when you wash it the stitches can pull on the fabric and it can become all wonky and wrinkly and basically look terrible.***

The owner was very nice and sent me to Joann Fabrics because they were having a big sale.  I picked up a bunch of embroidery thread and 3 kinds of stabilizers, as well as a spray adhesive.  Now I was ready for business!

First, I used a flannel pillowcase for fabric.  I figure, it's for practice and this is just sitting in the spare bedroom closet.  It'll work.  I chose a medium weight stabilizer to try out underneath.

I cut a section of the pillowcase to be a bit larger than the embroidery hoop.

Next, I cut stabilizer the same size as my fabric.

The woman who cut my fabric at JoAnn's was super helpful!  She told me I'd need this temporary adhesive to attach the stabilizer to my fabric.  So I went in the basement and sprayed this on the stabilizer and attached it to the fabric.

Yay!  It's in the hoop.  Let's get started!

OK, if you just got one of these machines yourself - WARNING! Make sure when you attach the embroidery presser foot that you make sure it is REALLY TIGHT!  The first time I tried this I did not tighten it enough, it stitched maybe 5 stitches and then - SNAP!  Needle broken.  The presser foot vibrated out of place.  So make sure to tighten up that screw really good!

Hoop is on, embroidery foot is on, let's choose a pattern!

I decided to try a penguin design.  Unfortunately it is not too easy to see on the fabric I picked.  It is a small pattern that has only 3 colors.  I actually used 2 colors because I substituted white for the off white color it recommended.

When it stitched the final color, black, I could see there was a problem.  I stopped it 3 times and re-threaded the machine, but couldn't get it to work.  So I printed a second penguin design.  This time I looked over the directions for threading the machine.  I redid the bobbin.  I re-threaded the black thread several times before it seemed to be pulling through correctly.  Not sure what I was doing wrong, because it seemed I did it the same every time.  But - SUCCESS!  

Aw!  Look at the cute penguin and baby penguin!  Much better!

So that was my first attempt at using my Brother machine.  Does anyone else have one of these??  Any tips for beginners?  There seems to be so many things to know, it's kind of overwhelming.