Christmas Shopping - DONE!

 This past week I finished all of my Christmas shopping! It is glorious! I did most of it online this year because I live way too far away from any stores and when ever I go to them I always have a couple of kids with me. Now I just have to wait for all of them to show up! And I get to enjoy the rest of the holiday season without worrying about who still needs what!

This year I actually made our presents look cute! Instead of using a sharpie and just writing on them to/from I used my cricut and cut out letters for each of my kids, then taped that letter on the front of their package.

I love how simple and clean it looks. And notice that backwards J? My littlest was helping my husband wrap my present and he was in charge of taping the J on. He was so excited to help that My husband just let him do it his way!

I hope that you are all enjoying this wonderful holiday season!

Enjoy!

My Antique Singer!

My husband loves me, he really does. Today is my birthday and this is what he got me this year!! I've loved them from a distance for a while, but I had a friend get one recently and it has really made me want one! And thanks to craigslist we found one that was kind of close and we took an adventure and picked it up!

I just love it! I plan on sewing on it so I have to pick up a few things, a new belt and some needles and bobbins, but other than that it is in great condition! Isn't is just lovely?! And even all closed up it looks beautiful!!

I was just beyond happy! I could just look at it all day!! But instead I am going to go and sew!

Enjoy!

Super Hero Party!

 I did not get much sewing done this last week, because I was planning this fabulous party for my 4 year old. In our house when you turn 4 you get your first friend party - so my boy was super excited. He invited all three of his friends, and then a couple high school girls who taught him swimming lessons this summer. He really loved those girls and they were so sweet they even came to his party!

I am a lover of Pinterest for a ton of reasons, but one of them you can find some great party ideas on there. Which is where I got most of these!

We had some leftover cups with lids from another birthday and so I used those to make these super hero cupcake holders.

For the sucker I cut out a mask shape and just colored in the eyes. For the cape I took some of the leftovers from his super hero quilt and starched them so they stuck out behind. And my sons favorite was this superman one:

 I stuffed tissue paper in the bottom and then balanced the cupcake on top of it. Then put the lid on and stuck the sucker through the hole in the top of the lid.

 For games my husband drew this city (it is an aerial view) and we had the kids leap over building in a single bound. They thought it was pretty cool.

 We had this table cloth for them to color while they colored some masks.

 Here is the set up, the cupcakes to take home, some cupcakes to eat, a small jar of candy to use their super powers and guess how many where in it, and the bomb pinata.

 Conan was in charge of the pinata and he did awesome! Here is a close up of the ticking time bomb:

 We also had them balance across this tape with flames on either side, because super heros have to be able to walk across fire

Now the party is over and the kids have gone to school and I have plans to sew today! Hopefully I can make some progress on that super hero quilt since it was supposed to be for his birthday!

Enjoy!

Fabric Love

Happy Labor Day weekend! How did it get to be almost September?! But anyway, Conan has to work this weekend - but the world will be safer because of it. So what do I do - check out the sale at my local quilt shop, which is not too local, but works for me.

They were having a sale on fat quarters, so I picked up a couple, not sure what I am going to do with them, but I like them, and that is what matters!

Then I also found this 'scientific' fabric. My oldest has a quilt that was not made by mom, and that is a crime apparently! He has been asking me to make him a quilt. I don't know what I am going to do yet, but this fabric screams his name, so I got a yard of it and we will see what we do with it!

I also got a pack of hexi's. I love some of the stuff that I see on Pinterest made with these and have been wanting to make something to give them a try, and so I splurged and picked up a bundle.

I also have been sewing a lot, this quilt along that I did made we want to finish up some of those WIP I have floating around. So stay tuned and I will get around to sharing them!

I hope that you all have an relaxing long weekend!!

Enjoy!

Simple Job Chart

School is starting around here next week. For everyone else that is. I started my kids a week or two ago because I want to take some longer vacations during the year.

But I have a five year old that is starting Kindergarten this year. This boy is not very motivated when it comes to getting jobs done, but he loves to do school - go figure. But I am a person who likes to have the basics done every morning, so I knew that I needed a job chart or sorts to help him out.

I have seen a bunch of different ideas on pinterest and I am sure I saw this one as well, but I honestly don't remember. If you came up with this idea thank you for letting me steal it - I take no credit for it!

I did not want to buy anything to make a chart because I did not want to wait until the next time I am close enough to a store with something cool enough to use. So I went through all my stuff and found these awesome cardboard pieces left over from another project. I think these turned out pretty good.

We decided that Thing #4 needed the job chart, but we made one for Thing #5 as well because we knew he would want one too. I had Conan draw the pictures because he very talented that way. I then just wrote what the job was on a clip to help with learning our letters this year. All he has to do it move his clip from one side of the chart to the other.

Easy Peasy. The jobs my 5 year old has to do everyday are get dressed, make bed, eat breakfast (sometimes this one takes the longest!), brush teeth, morning job (we rotate through the different jobs that have to be done daily in the house), and read scriptures - he actually has Thing #1 read him a scripture story everyday from our scripture reader.

If he gets all of his jobs done in a certain time frame each day he gets a sticker, and after so many stickers a treat. Sometimes a sweet treat and sometimes an extra privilege.

I have to say that so far it is working great. We have gotten all our jobs done last week!

This is Thing #5's chart. He just has to get dressed, make bed, eat breakfast and brush teeth. I usually have one of the other kids helping him out and teaching him how to do the jobs correctly.

A couple of things that I like about these are they are sturdy and won't get bent too much, they can carry them around to help them remember what they we going down to their room to do, they can see from the picture what has to be done and don't have to keep asking me what other jobs they have and I let them color the pictures to help them be excited about the charts.

Like I said this has been great so far, I hope that it keeps us!

Graduation Memory Quilt

 I have not been on here in forever, but I am alive! I have moved to North Dakota from Colorado and it is taking some getting used to. Being in the middle of no where and having the closest Wal-Mart 90 miles away I really have been trying to get organized in my shopping and pretty much everything else as well. But I also have been enjoying the summer and spending days at the pool, vacationing with my family and just relaxing!

This quilt is something I made before we left Colorado, but I told the lady I would not post about it until she had given it as a gift to her niece. I made this for a graduation/college send off quilt. I was collecting shirt from her for a couple of months, as she slowly gathered them from her niece. But she has given it to her and so I am posting about it now!

In addition to t-shirts she also had a pair of tennis ball pants that she wanted me to use in the quilt. It worked perfectly because sometimes you need just a little bit of filler due to the size of certain shirts. Then I took this Orlando logo from the front of one of the shirts and put on the corner.

They liked the idea of a border to bring it all together and to make it long enough for a dorm room bed. It turned out beautiful and the gal just loved it and was so excited to take it to college and have all the memories with her!

I am going to try to post on here a little bit more often then once every couple of months. I have a few quilts that I have done already and will try to get them up. For those of you who are still reading my blog even with my absence THANK YOU!!

2011 Book

It came!!! I am so excited. It was an awesome mail week last week. I got my project 365 book from blurb. 52 scrapbook pages all in one nice little book. oh I just love it!

I know that it is almost the end of February, but in my defense, I was stumped on what to do for the front and back cover. But I got them done and ordered it at the beginning of Feb and it came last week! And my kids love it. They spent the afternoon looking through it and commenting on the photos with a remember this attitude.

Which makes me really regret that I am not doing it this year. I am doing something similar but just not the picture of the day. I did start taking more pictures of the kids after they loved this book so much.

And also last week in the mail I got my monthly scrapbook pages that I have done for the last two years. Yes I am a little slow with printing them, but I got them done. I printed them over at Scrapping Simply. They do great work and you should go and like them on facebook because they will have a sale here when they get around 20 more followers! And that means cheaper prints for everyone!!

Peacock Rag Quilt

Friday we had a snow day. They called it on Thursday afternoon before it even started snowing. But this was a big one. We ended up getting about 15 inches total and this is what it looks like out in my backyard from my upstairs window. I took this when I finished this quilt I am going to tell you about in just a minute - about 2pm, and it was still snowing this morning when we woke up.

I just finished up this beautiful 'peacock' colored quilt for a friend of mine. I was super quick and easy - which I love. I think it took longer for us to figure out when to get together and what exactly she wanted then it took for me to make this.

The back is the same purple as on the front. I added the purple to the front to help it tie in with the back.

She wanted a rag quilt, and I decided to use rectangles because I wanted to have as little waste as possible. She ordered the fabric and we did not have quite enough to make it a twin, so I tried to stretch this every way possible.

I was trying to decide to do a pattern for the fabrics or just do random. I asked Conan and he said the pattern was less like anything else I had done, so I went with it!

Anyway, now it is sitting on the bench by my door, just waiting to be picked up. It was a birthday present for my friend and I hope that she loves it!

Too bad all my snow days are not this productive. But Conan was home from work and we had put the kids to work on their rooms.

No more thread!

 I have been sewing like crazy lately trying to get a bunch of stuff done before the end of the year, and then this happened:

Now I am one of those people who usually have 2-3 extra spools of thread laying around close to my desk and then another one down in the basement on the quilting frame. But not this time. I am not sure what happened, but this is all the thread I have left! I have even used up my last bobbin as well!

And it would happen that all of my kids have been playing very well together and I have been able to sew a couple of hours a day - but now I cannot.

I am in the middle of this Christmas present for my sister - yes I am late, but I was shooting for the end of the year.

I came across the blog Sew Kind of Wonderful through pinterest, and I bought her curved ruler. It came with a free table runner pattern and that is what I am making for my sister. She is extremely talented and you will not regret checking out her blog!

Tomorrow I am heading out and buying 5 or 6 spools of thread! Unfortunately I have the rest of the day to kill; I guess my house will get clean! Hope you are all enjoying your Holidays!

Pardon my absence

I have been a bit busy this week and have not been on here.

This is what I have been up to however.

I have been trying to figure out what is wrong with my foot for about 2 weeks now. After an x-ray, MRI and a visit to the podiatrist, this is what fancy shoe I will be sporting for the next 6 weeks.

Turns out I have 2 stress fractures in my foot. No running or high impact activities - just weights. I now have a couple of extra free hours in the day, maybe I can get some crafting done!

End of Summer

I cannot believe that summer is quickly drawing to a close. I have no crafts or sewing projects to share with you, so I am sharing a little insight into my life and what I have been doing this summer instead of crafting. I have had so much fun this summer. But now it is just about over and we are getting everything ready for school. We have tried to do a lot of different things - but of course the pool was by far the favorite activity of the summer. Not that I expected anything else.

Look at how much fun these kids were having. They were all nice enough to stand there for me to take a picture - and no one tired to push anyone in for this shot! No all of these are not my kids, these were a lot of the same people that we hung out with this summer.

By far my favorite activity this summer was going on hikes with my kids. We only did this a couple of times, but I would have loved to do it every week. Even Thing #5 hiked almost every one - which was great, even if it was a little bit slow! :)

I just had to share this picture. Thing #5 is so tan - you cannot really tell by this picture, but he is darker than all of my kids, and he is the one I am most diligent with the sunscreen on! You can even see a vague sandal tan. You can really see the Hispanic side coming out.

To me this picture says everything about summer, bare foot tan feet, out in the grass. Not a care in the world. And that is what my summer has pretty much been all about, relaxing and enjoying each and every minute with my kids.

What was your favorite thing you did for summer break? And are you ready to get back into school ?