September Card Group

My card this month features art from a local artist…very local.  Miss K Designs!

We had a challenge to include an animal on our card.  We could choose to do the challenge, or not.  Right away I thought it would be fun to have my daughter draw me a cute animal.  She draws such cute people and animals.

She drew this cute winged dino, I scanned it in and cleaned it up a bit, and changed the color to match the paper I chose.

Check out everyone else’s cards this month:

Here’s a little detail:

Lots of us used orange this time:

There was also some pink and purple:

There were a couple cards that didn’t make it that night.  I’ll post those when I receive them!

Thanks Mom!

Unfortunately I don’t have a “before” picture.  This is the best I’ve got:

My Mom was so kind and gave her old sewing machine and cabinet to Miss K.  We’ve been giving it a new colorful life and today we reassembled it and put it to use!

Miss K is so excited!  She already made a drawstring glasses holder for her brother today and has big plans to sew a make-up bag for a friend, and a skirt for herself.

She even loves it all closed up as a desk.  She made herself a paper name plaque, she looks so official.  Her stack of lined paper and a pencil pouch are all ready to be used.  It’s not surprising, office supply stores are her favorite place to hang out!  (She’s a proud owner of her own Staples Rewards Card!)

A New Quilt

I feel like putting these trimmings (from squaring up my blocks) into a glass jar and putting them on the shelf. I’ve had that feeling before, but never followed through.  I just love the look of all those slivers of fabric.  I must have a sickness…ha ha!

These are the blocks I trimmed.  Ready to put them together into a quilt for Miss K’s bed.  She’s decided to redo her room in black, white and pink.  She picked out these fabrics.  I love her choices.  Polka dots are the best!

Trick or Treat…

Are you getting ready for Halloween at your house?  Miss K still loves to dress up, so she loves Halloween (not to mention loving the candy!)  This year she is dressing up as Wednesday Addams from the Addams family.  We won’t be trick or treating on Sunday, but we will celebrate Saturday night and hand out candy on Sunday.  She also gets to dress up at school, so that will be fun for her (the benefits of middle school)!

We decided to do a make-over on her bedroom door.  She (and the boys) have left her valentine hearts on their doors since February!

She’s got a cute little witch:

and a spooky old house and a spider web:

We just googled “halloween svg” on google images and found all these cute things for free that we could cut out on the Cricut. 

Happy Halloween!

Surprises Can Be Fun!

Well, we didn’t really get to see the sunset because of all the clouds, but it still was beautiful!

Just Miss K and I went to enjoy the sunset and read her book together, but she and Dad were being a bit sneaky and she brought along the GPS and the geocoin and travel bug from Canada.  So we got to do a little geocaching and find new homes for the trackables.

And what a lovely spot we found for them!

I didn’t really appreciate the cliff we had to walk along to find them!  But we survived.  I had to be the brave one and walk closest to the drop-off for Miss K.  The things we do for our kids!!!

This was the container for the geocoin.  Perfect fit.  And the second one worked out great for the larger travel bug with attached shell from the east coast!

I’ve got the quilt layered for my Grandma.  The simple pattern of rectangles went together quickly.  Better get back to it.  Gotta have it all done by Wednesday.  Be back with pictures hopefully soon!

Harry Potter Birthday Party

(I'm finally reporting on the birthday!)

Miss K loves everything Harry Potter.  So we had a HP birthday party this year.  How appropriate, since she is turning 11 and that's the age when all young wizards start attending Hogwarts.

Here's what we did just in case you have someone in your household who loves Harry Potter too:

Setting:  The girls were coming as young wizards to check out the school and go through a sample day at Hogwarts to see what it is like.  We gave them a class schedule when they arrived:

We started with Muggle Languages class which was basically Mad Libs.  We made up some Mad Libs that we used later in Divination class. So the girls provided the nouns, verbs, etc. for their "fortunes" later.  But they didn't know that!

Next for Potions Class the girls helped make some "Butterbeer" Homemade rootbeer.  We colored some sugar and called it things like:  "star dust" and "troll ear wax."

The Potions class was a big hit!

And it made the house smell really good!

Next we had Transfigurations Class where the girls changed some fleece into Gryffindor scarves. 

And then we took a class picture:

And had Quidditch practice.   

They had to bounce the balloon on their broom and then pass it to the next player through the hoop.

After Quidditch we had Divination Class.  We took the mad libs from the beginning of the party and cut them into strips and put them on the back of paper leaves.  They took turns picking a tea leaf and having their fortune told.  (they were pretty funny!)

Then the girls got to taste the Bertie Botts Every Flavor beans.  After they chose one and tasted it, they had to guess the flavor (they tried to avoid the flavors like dirt and earwax!).  We checked the chart to see if they got it right.

Finally we had the Feast (lunch)

Miss K wanted "breadstick wands".

And End of the Year Party (gifts and cake).

Then for the Yule Ball the girls played freeze dance until their parents came to pick them up.

It turned out to be a very fun party, the girls seemed to have a great time!  They went home with their Gryffindor scarf and a bag of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans. 

My fun and creative husband was the mastermind behind most of these activities with a lot of input from Miss K herself.

Happy Birthday sweetie!!!

(Thanks Michelle for the Hermione costume...it was a great touch and really made her feel special.  I still need to get it back to you!!!  Hope you can use some of our ideas.)

Trisha's Gift

My sister Trisha's gift arrived yesterday, so she called me this morning.  She loved it, and I'm so glad.
I made one of Ayumill's fabric baskets for her and inside I tucked a matching sewing machine cozy/wall hanging mini quilt as well as a little photo album for pictures of her kids, and some gift certificates for knitting and quilting supplies.
 
It will go well in her home whether she decides to use it as a cozy for her sewing machine or just to hang it on her wall. (It's just a flat quilt with ribbons for ties.)

And here are a couple more baskets I've sewn up:
One for a friend, without the handles.  I love the fabric on this one!

And one for myself.  (love these fabrics too, of course!)

And one more project from 2009.  Miss K finally sewed up this little apron kit I got for her!  We both had our aprons on yesterday cleaning and organizing her room.  Yay!

Ready for the New Year

I love the week between Christmas and New Years.  It's such a quiet time after all the busyness of getting ready for Christmas.  Christmas has come and gone and left us with such a happy feeling of family and gift giving.

Everyone is playing with their new toys.  And I have time to get organized!  Something about that new year approaching that makes me want to clean up.

I haven't touched the Christmas tree and decorations yet.  No, I went straight to work in my sewing area. 

I've gone through every drawer, cupboard, and container and boy does it feel good to have everything where it should be and to throw things out.

I even got the little quilts that I have received from swaps out of the cupboards and hung on my wall where I can admire them. (other little quilts I have received are displayed elsewhere in my home)

I went the day after Christmas with a friend up to L.A.  Her best friend's Mom passed away and left an amazing sewing studio with an amazing amount of every type of sewing tool and supply.  Her daughter invited us to come and take whatever we wanted.  So I came away with tons of fabric and rulers and such.  So cleaning up my sewing area was also to make room for all the new goodies!

I am looking forward to bringing fabric and tools to our little local quilt group to share the wealth!  We have a lot of beginning quilters who could use some supplies.

And for Christmas my wonderful husband gave me a Cricut.  For those who don't know, it's an electronic paper cutter that cuts shapes (of all kinds...animals, flowers, letters, you name it!) out of paper from 1/4 inch to more than 12 inches tall! Miss K and I have been having a lot of fun with it already.  I've also heard you can cut vinyl (home decor) and fabric with it too (with a fusible we backing.

  Miss K's Design!

So I had to make a little room for the Cricut (seen in the first picture above) and clean out some drawers in my sewing cabinet for a paper cutting station next to my sewing machine.

Now I'm all ready to sew and craft in the New Year!

Wow, what a busy October!

You can tell by my lack of blogging that things have been crazy around here, and it's not over yet.  But I'm hoping that things will settle down in November.  (Did I just say that???  ...the holidays will be upon us...and that's always a busy time!)

Recently I've been working on some more bibs, and took some to a baby shower last night.

There were 2 events I needed cookies for on one day...so I made some sugar cookies.  Miss K and a neighbor friend helped frost them...

These are our family's traditional Christmas cookie (cut in Christmas shapes...of course!).  When I started frosting (before the girls showed up) I was listening to Christmas music as I got set up and started to frost the first few.  I had just grabbed a CD to test out a boom box and it happened to be Christmas music. It was strangely familiar decorating sugar cookies to Christmas music, and just strange since I was frosting pumpkins and ghosts!

The neighbor girl said she had never frosted cookies before, and never made or had homemade cookies.  Now that was sad to me! Glad she came over and got to participate!

I've also been sewing a vest for my son's vampire costume.  The vest turned out great and looks perfect with the store bought vampire cape.  But unfortunately it's really too small for my son.  He can wear it, and already has to one event, but it really is too short.  My lack of experience in sewing clothes stuck out with this one!

Miss K will be in her first play in November.  I took her to get her character shoes on Saturday.  She's practicing walking on them...she needs a lot of practice...she's pretty wobbly! But she looks so grown up in them!