Wow. What a whirlwind the past few weeks have been. I took Nina to the Cleveland Craft Coalition to sell some of my Bib Necklaces and Custom Baby Quilts and met some fantastic new crafty friends you have to check out! Clara of Embrace Imperfection had some fantastic woven and knitting wearables, my new favorite wall art desiger Stephanie Urban of Little Lion Designs with her amazing, earth friendly creations and Four Fish Ink with their fun and creative ink paintings were there. So proud to have been part of this event with all the creative people in my hometown of Cleveland!

Part of the preparation for this show was to help me get my creations on the market so I am very happy to announce I opened the Nina Store! That's right, now you can buy Nina products online. Keep your eye on the store as I am working on adding more products over the next few weeks. 

Our next adventure took us to CHA's Summer Supershow in Chicago. What an amazing place. I'm a big fan of paper crafting and have been making my own cards for years now. I'd like to scrapbook too, someday! I was so grateful to have my mom there as it was Liam's first airplane trip and my first official "working mom" assignment.

I got to share this time teaching with my super fabulous buddy Ellen March who was there teaching her t-shirt makeover and announced she will be hosting a new PBS series, Sew It All that begins airing early 2011! While teaching my Bib Necklace I had the awesome opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Beth Engelman wears many hats but one of them is running a super fun site called Mommy On A Shoe String. Great tips and tricks for doing fun things for and with your family on a tiny budget. I also met Christy Nelson and look forward to having some fun with her craft challenges! You never know when some Nina creativity is going to pop up so make sure to check the site out and join in the fun. We have the Summer Creative Challenge going on right now. Just post, vote and maybe you'll be the winner!

Besides his first plane trip, July was a big month for my Little Bug. Liam, after some rather frusterated attempts, rolled over, both directions, in one day. His first giggle was an amazing event too. He can be quite the chatter box and I am so looking forward to the months ahead as he keeps learning and changing almost everyday!

A lot changes when you become a mom. All you moms and grandmas are smiling, laughing or nodding your head now I'm sure! The littlest things like taking a whole shower, using the restroom and eating a warm meal become amazing blessings and things you don't take for granted. After a few weeks with a very unhappy little Liam we have determined that he may have a sensitivity to dairy protein. Fortunately this is not uncommon with infants and there are a variety of non-dairy alternatives these days. I can highly recommend the coconut ice cream now! Now that we have that in some realm of control Liam seems to be getting more happy and has even graced us with a few smiles! That also leaves me with a few moments while he is resting to show off some more of the amazing handmade gifts we got when he was born!

This AMAZING quilt was sent to us by my friend Ellen. We love it and I really do mean we. Liam has just started enjoying time on his belly and because he can not make out colors yet he really enjoys laying on this looking at the black and white. It is such a cute pattern and the fabrics are adorable. Maybe that's because I am partial to polka dots! To keep it all together, Ellen used this fantastic rocket embroidery that compliments the rocket patterns in the quilt.

As Liam grows (6 weeks tomorrow!) I'm searching everywhere for cute boys things to sew.  I would love to have some things ready to put him in this fall. If you have any good resources please pass them along in the comment section or visit the NINA fanpage!