a return to blogging...with a slight format change!

Hi to anyone who still checks up on this blog!  Over the last several months, I've come to miss this part of my life and I want to get back into regular blogging again.  However, I can't deny that my life is always changing.  When I started this crafting blog, I was the mother of a toddler who took one long nap every afternoon (thus leaving me with a lot of time on my hands).  I had my sewing machine and lots of ideas.  Now, I'm the mother of two boys.  My now four-year-old still has an established "quiet time" every afternoon, but my four-month-old's schedule remains unpredictable.  I still have my sewing machine and lots of ideas, but I also have an Etsy shop.  And we're putting a theoretical toe into the vast ocean that is homeschooling.  No official curriculum yet, but it's coming.  And in the meantime, I've tried to keep my preschooler busy with endless activities (usually inspired by Pinterest).

So I thought, why not include all of it?  I know there are many other moms out there in the same boat as me.  We all have a creative itch that needs to be scratched, but we also have many more outlets where we can express it now.  My crafting time used to just be for me; now oftentimes I have to include my kids in it as well.  And that's okay.  I want to encourage my boys to be creative as well!

So now I'm going to blog not just about random crafting endeavours of my own (which lately have been few and far between!), but also homeschool activities, recipe successes and fails, and any other remotely creative thing that we do around here.  And keeping with this more eclectic, all-inclusive theme, I've changed the title of the blog to "The Pretty Life."  I kept "pretty" in the title to remain true to my roots.  And of course, my Etsy shop (and this blog's URL) will remain "Pretty Lady Designs" out of necessity.  Enjoy!!