Baby Quilt

I made this baby quilt for my friends who are having their first baby--I gave it to the mom-to-be at her shower yesterday, so now it's safe to post on my blog. They didn't find out the gender, so I made it gender-neutral. I think it turned out pretty cute! :)

My Beautiful Halloween Butterflies

Ava's Napper Quilt

Because I apparently like to have a TON of unfinished quilts lying around my house, I started and finished this quilt top on Saturday. Ava will use it for her "napper" when she goes to daycare after preschool one day a week. :) I adore the fabrics, which I purchased from a great website--Hawthorne Threads. If you click on the bottom picture, it will enlarge and you can see a closer view of the fabrics. :)

Getting there on Ava's Room!

Over the weekend, I bound, washed, and hung up the mini quilt that I made for Ava's room a couple of weeks ago...I LOVE it! :) Her room is so bright and cheerful...almost finished now...when I am finally done, I will post all of the pictures.

Mini Quilt Decoration

Okay, so yesterday I attached the 3" wide white borders to the edges of Ava's big quilt and then I started procrastinating, looking at the Flickr picture group "Fresh Modern Quilts." I did a search for "mini quilts" and THIS and THIS came up, so I decided to procrastinate further on the big quilt and whip up a mini to decorate Ava's room. :)

The little quilt on the clothesline came from scraps that I cut off of the edges of the big one in order to square it up...I just sewed four of those little scraps together into long rows, pressed it, and cut it to size. I cut the dress, heart, birds, and sun rays freehand and used my Sizzix for the sun's circle. The sun, heart, dress, and tiny quilt were all attached to the aqua dotted material BEFORE quilting...when the mini quilt is washed, the edges will curl and fray up a bit, as in THIS example. This technique is called "Raw Edge Applique."

I used Michael Miller's Ta Dot Aqua for the backgound, Jenean Morrison's California Dreamin' for the mini quilt and heart, Kona White for the birds, Legacy Fresh Fusion "Spring Plaid" for the dress, and Keepsake Calico "Gold QBQ11" fabric for the sun.

The quilting includes a straight stitch about a 1/2" in along all of the outer edges, the clothesline, and the birds (I decided I needed some quilting up in that right-hand corner, so I added the birds last--I think it adds a cute touch), so the back is kind of a mess, but you aren't going to see that anyway! LOL! :) Now, all I have to do is bind it and then I am finished!

Anyway, thanks so much for looking and for any comments..I am pretty pleased with it and am so grateful for the very talented people who created my inspiration pieces. :)

Halloween Album

I started this Halloween mini album (8x8) last time I went to the Scrapbooking B&B (last year) and finished the last two pages this past time I went. :) I have decided to just pick one picture of my kids on Halloween and make a costume-themed scrapbook page and just stick it in this album, rather than creating a Halloween LO each year in their regular scrapbooks. :) I like this method and it's working for me. If you click on the pictures, they will enlarge to show some of the detail. The last two are my favorites. I have decided that I am going to pick the best picture of the kid from now on rather than trying to get a full-length shot like I did for the first couple pages in the album--makes for much better scrapbook pages! LOL! :) Thanks for looking and for any comments!

Scrapbooking Retreat

I went on a scrapbooking retreat at a B&B with some good friends a couple of weekends ago and I got a LOT done by my standards! :) This one was my fastest-completed page...took me about 10 minutes. The other ones required at least two hours of pondering. LOL! I used my trusty Dymo Label Buddy for the title (I think I used this on almost every project I completed this weekend--definitely a must-have tool!) and the quote was a rub-on from DCWV that I got a couple of years ago in a big stack of rub-on quotes. I only looked through like three pages of the book, found it, and made the decision to just go with it! I love the colors of this LO and the pictures make me smile. The center of the page includes some adhesive tape from Basic Grey and a couple of Making Memories rhinestones. I believe the blue patterned paper is by Doodlebug--I got it from my friend. :) Thanks for looking and for any comments!

Long-overdue pictures! :)

Quick shot of Gracie today...you can kind of see her "princess" hearing aids! :)

The "birthday girl" from a couple of weeks ago...she's SIX!!! She is laughing in this picture, probably because I told her not to laugh. That always gets her! LOL! :)

Ava at Gracie's birthday dinner. :)

Quilt Top Mostly Complete

I just need to add white and/or aqua borders to round it out to twin-sized. :) Yay! We primed Ava's room today--it's going to be a light aqua color and I can't wait to see everything finished. I will post pictures, of course. :)

Bathroom Update

Just realized I never posted the "after" of our bathroom remodel. We gutted the entire thing down to the studs and changed the orientation so we had a bit more room. I am THRILLED with the way it turned out. :)

Pillowcase Dress and Quilt in Progress

I made this dress a couple of weeks ago for Gracie. I bought enough fabric to make one for Ava and my niece as well and had delusions of making all three of them in a few hours. Haha. :) I DO think that the other two will not take me as long as the first one (ahem, two hours!) LOL! Of course, I also had to whip up the hair clip really quickly to go with it. :)


This is what I am working on today. I have to sew those strips that are lying on the table together (two more of each fabric) and then that set of blocks will be done once I press them and cut them. The third set of fabrics (nine strips of each) will come next and then I will be DONE with the blocks for Ava's "big girl bed" quilt. :)

Banner posting day!

So, last month we had a couple of visitors. We had some mourning doves build a nest up on one of the support posts for our deck's roof. Two eggs were laid, two babies hatched. As a funny "aside" story, Sean built this roof over our deck (attached to the house) a couple of years ago and we put shingles on top that match our regular roof. As you can see in the top picture (if you click on it to enlarge it), the nails are just poking through the plywood. We intend to put some beadboard or something up there at some point, but in the meantime we have always teased my mother-in-law about the nails because every time she sees them she cautions us to be careful with the kids and the nails (i.e. not to throw them up in the air under the roof and hit their heads on the nails.)

So, anyway, these babies hatched and about a week after that they left the nest. Over the weekend, we were pretty busy, but we intended to remove the nest because, though the birds are cute, they make quite the mess on the deck. I had researched mourning doves on the internet after the babies hatched and learned that they can have up to six sets of babies in a mating period. I told Sean to double check before removing the nest that no more eggs were laid, so he got a chair to peer in the nest--you guessed it, he forgot about the nails and got a minor puncture wound right at his hairline! He didn't get much sympathy from me (I was too busy laughing), OR from his mother, who got her "I told you so" moment. LOL! :D




These pictures aren't specific to anything, I just thought they were cute. :)

Up, Up and Away Clip

My friend Vickie asked me a while back to make her some hair clips for her daughter's crazy, beautiful hair. It was right around the time of the last PTI blog hop and I had just gotten PaperTreyInk's Up, Up and Away stamp set and coordinating dies and was itching to use them. The theme was Fabulous Felt and I decided to use shrink plastic to make a "charm" for the first hair clip, so first I sanded the shrink plastic, then used the balloon die to cut it out and stamped the balloon with black ink onto the plastic. I used Copics to color in the segments and then heated the charm with my heat gun until it was shrunken down to size. Three coordinating circles of felt (cut with my Sizzix with the SU! circle die) glued onto the alligator clip was the perfect simple accompaniment. I think it turned out really cute! I didn't end up submitting it for the hop because I haven't yet (operative word: YET) purchased any of PTIs wool felt and didn't know if it had to be their felt or not for the hop, so here it is, just on my regular blog at a random time. LOL! :)

Thanks for looking and for any comments!

Rejected Submission

Can't get into CARDS magazine to save my life. Made this for their "sewing" call for their September issue and the calls went out yesterday. Oh well. I used some new Making Memories Flutter patterned paper and used some scraps of Bazzill and SU! to round it out. I used a 1 1/4" square punch to punch out the bigger squares and then cut some of the squares in half for the alternating rows. Used my sewing machine for the "quilting." Thanks for looking and any comments. :)

I Have Crafting ADD

I think it might be this way with a lot of crafty people, but I can't just focus on one craft project at a time. I currently have two sewing projects going on right now and three more waiting for me. I discovered the wonders of Charm Packs (basically pre-cut fabric squares from an entire designer line of fabric) and have purchased five charm packs since then. I have started the sewing on only two of the projects so far. This one pictured is going to be a throw quilt for Gracie. I also have the top sewn for a quilted bed runner for my mother-in-law in yellows and blues. I have another charm pack waiting for a throw quilt for Ava as well as 16 fat quarters that I need to cut for a twin-sized quilt for Ava's big girl room in really fun, bright colors. I even made a mock-up in Photoshop on how I am going to place the squares for her twin quilt.

Why can't I just finish one project before moving on to the next one? I have always been this way and I just can't explain it. Oh well, as long as they get finished eventually! :) Back to this throw quilt for Gracie, all I have to do is join the nine rows together and add some off-white borders and the quilt top is finished. I think I am going to practice free-motion quilting on this little throw. I LOVE the look of free-motion quilting (stippling, in particular) and I haven't attempted it yet, but it will be quite an accomplishment if I can pull it off. I have been watching a ton of tutorials on YouTube (WONDERFUL resource--I have learned 95% of my quilting skills from YouTube!) and it doesn't look as complicated as I always thought it was.

Anyway, better wrap this up. Thanks so much for looking and, as always, thank you for any comments! :)

Clean Heart Punch Card

I went to a 12-hour crop on Saturday and created this card out of the scraps that were lying on my table after finishing a scrapbook LO. I first punched the small heart out of a small square of embossed crocodile patterned paper and then centered a circle punch around the negative space left by the heart punch. The other two punches are pretty self-explanatory. :) The greeting is by Hero Arts and all of the cardstock is SU! except for the green and blue pieces. I popped the whole white panel up for a little bit of visual interest. Thanks so much for looking and for any comments! :)

According to Ava....

Yesterday she said to me, "You best my fwend." Awwww! Warms a mother's heart. :) Here she is from a couple of months ago after breakfast with her messy, slept-on hair. Love that little girl so much. She has been a total Mommy's girl lately, which is different. Will have to find a cute picture of Gracie soon to post--one that doesn't involve black gel pen!! LOL! :)

Enjoy Shower Card

I had to whip up a card last night for Sean's cousin's bridal shower and used some odds and ends that were lying on my scrap table, as usual. :) Cardstock SU! (whisper white, so saffron, kiwi kiss, and pink pirouette). I used two paper flowers from Making Memories and a SU! button tied with crochet thread to embellish it. Dimensionals give it a bit of interest as well as the pinked edge on the green piece. Thanks so much for looking and for any comments! :)

Fabric Baby Card

I made a bigger version of this simple card a few weeks ago to match the quilt that I made for my friend's baby. I used my little Xyron sticker maker to adhere the fabric to the chipboard squares and then cut the excess fabric off with my scissors. The flower was two layers of chipboard, fabric adhered on top, and then cut out with my Sizzix. A glittery American Crafts brad keeps the flower on the square securely and adds just that little something. The sentiment is from Nursery Necessities and I used Rose Red ink. Thanks so much for looking and for any comments! :)

Manly Thanks Trio

I had to make three thank you cards for Sean's uncle and two cousins, who helped a lot with the kitchen and bathroom projects. :)

Most supplies SU! The stamp set is a retired set from 2006 called Play on Words and I love it--wish it was still around.

The cards are all simple and the main image is obviously the same on all three, yet all three are pretty different due to the embellishments I chose for each card. I colored the main stamp on all three with an Old Olive Marker and a Ruby Red Marker for the "Many Thanks" portion down at the bottom. The card bases on the two blue cards are Taken With Teal and the green one is Certainly Celery. I stamped the "4 You" stamp in Ruby Red ink, punched it out, and popped it up on a dimensional. I used the Ticket Corner punch and a little strip of basic black to "underline" the Many Thanks to finish that card off. The Celery card is enhanced with a metal-rimmed tag (I took the paper out of the tag) and then applied an Apricot Appeal star that I had stamped in Versamark with the Canvas BG stamp (also retired) and clear embossed. Corner rounding the top edges added a bit of visual interest. The final card is simply finished with a strip of Kraft and a pinked strip of Kiwi Kiss. I rounded the top edges with the corner rounder.

5-Year-Old and a Gel Pen....

Okay, so let me set the scene here. After lunch, shortly before I was going to put Ava down for her nap, I gave the kids some paper and crayons and went to lie down with a book on my bed (not even 20 feet away from the kids--door open) for about 15 minutes. I heard the sound on the TV turn off and asked Grace what she was doing. She said she wanted to pause it and draw Foofa from Yo Gabba Gabba because Foofa was on the screen. What I didn't know at this point was that she got a black gel pen out of my pen cup on my desk to draw Foofa. She actually did draw a pretty good rendition of Foofa.

Here's Exhibit A:

Apparently Foofa was going to a luau. I can only assume at this point.

After that, I guess she decided she was lacking some excitement in her life. Ava in the meantime had stripped off her shirt and threw it on the floor. It's a regular occurrence in my house--I can barely keep the girl clothed. Hopefully it's just a phase. :)

TV volume resumed at this point and the girls started cracking up. I called for Gracie to leave Ava alone and at that point the girls got (now I realize) suspiciously quiet. Not sure who instigated the little endeavor I am about to divulge, but I can only guess. Here's what I discovered when I walked into the living room not five minutes later.

Exhibit B:


Let me just go ahead at this point and reveal exhibits C, D, and E.





Anybody want a couple of (usually) cute kids? Since I caught it so early, a lot of the ink wiped off with just a wet rag, but you can still see the remnants of it on Ava especially. Now I am wondering if this was all a secret plot to play in the bathtub. Gracie said she wanted them to have makeup on. NOT a good look, kid, NOT a good look. ;)

Another Quilt

Little brown-eyed assistant not included in gift. LOL! ;)

My friends had their baby (the ones who I made the little fox under the tree frame for) last week and she now is in the NICU for a diaphragmatic hernia--due to have surgery to repair the defect this week. I went to Hobby Lobby over the weekend and got the fabric to make this quilt. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. This one is also full of mistakes (especially on the binding), but the seams for the blocks lined up way better for this one than my doll quilt experiment from two weekends ago. :) I really love the fabrics (all from the same line except for the binding, which came from Wal-Mart).

Please pray and/or send out positive thoughts for baby Eva this week and through the next couple of months that her hernia is fixed easily and that she has no troubles with feeding and reflux.

As usual, thanks so much for looking and for any comments! :)