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! :)