Well, if you followed Kimberly the past few weeks you probably know that the shot on the bottom is definitely not hers! I need to take photos of my favorite palm-tree lined street when I get blue about living in California with the high real estate prices and living on the other side of the country from our family. And I take a look at that photo and remember, “Oh, yes. That is just one of the reasons I love living here.”
As for K’s, IN A ROW? I have no earthly idea what she has going on there. I’m heading over to figure it out.
Hello my fellow crafty peeps. I hate that I only seem to make it here to Chaos on Tuesdays or Thursdays lately – but I have legitimate crafts this week, so it was worth the stop, and thanks for hangin’ in with me. I promise to do a dump of all the ramblings rolling around in my brain in the very near future. It just has not been on the schedule lately.
But on to the crafty goodness.
Two out of three of our crafts today can be directly attributed to my new serger. How in the world have I existed for so long without a serger? And now nothing is safe in the house, I am quite enamored with it. I’m going to take a class this Thursday so I can become serger savvy – I can’t wait. The serger just makes all of my stuff look…well, professional!
Emma Grace has a ballet sweater/shrug that is knitted and she hates it because it is so itchy. So I used it as a pattern and made one for Emma Jean for her birthday this past weekend. I have material to make one for Gracie and Addie too, of course, and one for Audrey so all the ballet friends can be stylin’. It turned out really cool…and the seams are beautiful!
I also used the serger when I made some burp rags for a friend who is pregnant with a little boy. Usually I sew the flannels together flip them right-side out and then do a zig-zag around the edge for a little decorative touch. Instead, I just serged it and the edges look nice and it literally took me 5 minutes for each burp rag. Again. How did I do without this machine?
I also made a quilt for Leah’s new baby. I didn’t use the serger for this and it was my first foray into quilting. I guess I didn’t “quilt it” really – just sort of pieced the bits together, and then did a “in the ditch” seam on each of the squares. But I can definitely see the attraction in quilting. I already have some little study quilts cut out for Em and Ad and they have already asked when they are going to get theirs, so it definitely won’t be my last quilt I make.
So that is what I have today. I’ve got orders for more SuperCapes and more baby gifts due on Thursday so I had better go hop to that. But I’ll be back so share your crafty goodies, please!
Always the life of the party – that is our Papa!
Wishing you a fantastic, fun-filled birthday today, Dad – and a happy, healthy year too!
We love you,
J, C, E, & A
I’m working on a few baby projects for some upcoming baby showers, but there isn’t much to show this week. I’m trying very hard to actually work instead of look through my books I got for Christmas. But check these out. A little inspiration for a rainy day…
My Birdie partner found this gem for me. I cannot wait to try every single bag in this book. They are all phenomenal and a lot of them use pillow covers and unexpected fabric sources, so stay tuned for lots of bags this year!
And my brother-in-law just brought this one over and I have already read it cover-to-cover.
So many fantastic ideas. I’m itching to try a few of them. Maybe I’ll even get started on Christmas presents…for next year.
It has been awhile since I have participated, but as I was catching up with Tracey I saw that she is retiring Best Shot Monday. It is the end of an era, folks. I can’t believe that my very first BSM was nearly 4 years ago. The girls were mere babies…no, really – Addie was not even one yet!
It has been a very fun four years and although – like I said – I haven’t been joining in as much lately, I do have to thank Tracey and BSMs for making me pick up my camera and really look through the lens.
And so I leave you with one final Best Shot. My favorite of the past week.
I had high hopes for Christmas vacation. We were going to rest, relax and enjoy the last few days of our vacation with our family in Michigan. I was going to take lots of photos of the grandchildren for, and with, all of the grandparents. I was going to edit the hundreds of photos from December that are sitting on my hard drive. I was going to blog about a bunch of stuff so we at least have some sort of documentation of all of the busy-ness that has been happening around here. I was going to wrap-up the 2010 year and make some resolutions for 2011.
All good intentions.
So what really happened? We did travel back to Michigan – the girls and I. There wasn’t a ton of relaxing and no matter what I do, it is always hard to see and spend time with everyone. And then I fought the stomach flu and could only wave at some of our visitors (so sorry, Aunt Vicki and Uncle Dick!). And poor SasserElla had to give up a birthday trip to Chuck E. Cheese in favor of an eat-in lunch of Mickey D’s and cupcakes. Then I attempted to get my girls and our haul of Christmas goodies back to California while Em fought the same stomach flu. And I have proceeded to spend the first weekend in January trying to reset our house and lives and get back to “normal.”
Despite the good (failed!) intentions, I’m feeling very optimistic about what is in store for 2011. And I still might manage to get some Christmas photos blogged yet.
Looking forward to a fantastic 2011 filled with perhaps tackling those good intentions.
We are still dealing with the Aftermath of Christmas around here…rather our third Christmas. Funny how similar Kimberly’s and my pics are this week, and I’m sure there are many more photos just like it across the blogosphere. Hope you are all recuperating nicely.
Merry Christmas! We have obviously been on Christmas hiatus this past week. We had a lovely Christmas complete with lots of relaxation and fun, and then the girls and I sped off to Michigan to visit family. So we are here having an extended Christmas and will be back to California before the New Year.
I was only able to complete two new projects as Christmas gifts this year. I do have a few piles to complete when I return home…to my new serger! (Oh, yes Santa was good to me this year.)
So the first project was a new runner for my sister’s table.
The color in this photo is not great – but the middle fabric is a great gray/khaki brocade that was in the clearance bin at JoAnn’s. Love it when you find something like that.
The second project was for my crafty Mom. She needed a way to transport her markers to her scrapbook classes and dates with her crafty girls. So I used the idea of the crayon roll-up and adapted it to fit my mom’s copic pens.
I really like how hers turned out. I then made similar little roll-ups for the girls’ new DS’s. I haven’t taken photos of them yet to post, and I need to make some revisions to them now that we have used them for a few days. There are a few things that don’t seem quite right on them. All things to deal with next week.
I hope you all can share your Christmas goodies with us today, too! Have a great week.
