Family. Photos. Fabric.

In Praise of Aurifil's Wool Thread

2012-01-22T12:49:00.003-05:00

Among the plethora of giveaways by various blogs and manufacturer's during the weeks prior to Christmas, Aurifil ran the "safecracker" contest. The winner who guessed a 6-digit number correctly would win 200 spools of 12-weight Lana wool thread. The contest was held over the course of a few weeks, during which periodic clues were given out.

A few days before Christmas, I got an email from Alex Veronelli, the Product Manager for Aurifil, letting me know that I had won the contest.

*THUD*

I absolutely could not believe it, but he assured me it wasn't a joke, and a very large box of thread showed up at my house the week after Christmas.

I now live in thread heaven! Every color under the sun was in that box. And it was the large spools of thread, too. From their website, I learned that this wool thread can be used for hand embroidery and applique, but also in both long-arm and domestic sewing machines for machine applique and quilting.

I finally had a chance to give it a try this week. First, I pulled out a wool applique pattern I'd bought a few years ago - A Time to Plant by Threads That Bind (Shawn Williams).

I had traced the pattern pieces onto freezer paper, but hadn't cut anything out yet. Why? Because I really didn't want to use the same color brown floss for all the pieces, I wanted to color match each one. And I didn't have that much floss on hand. And I find that regular thread is a little too thin for wool applique work.

But now I had the luxury of having available every possible color I needed, and I got the colors selected and the pieces cut out quickly. I used the Lana thread to hand-applique the stripe onto the pig, the door onto the bee skep, the inside shadows on the watering can, the holes on the birdhouses, the white stripe onto the flag, and the pots into a stack. The Lana thread just melted into the wool, and blended perfectly into the background. LOVE! Here are a few detail shots:

I've got a ways to go, but a few nights' of TV watching should have this finished up in no time.

Then I decided to give the thread a try in my machine. I have to admit, that I was a little concerned about how thick it was, but it threaded easily. Using a sketch, I put together a highly-textured block of burlap with squares and rectangles of silk, scrim and organza. I zigzagged the edges down with the Lana thread, and it sewed beautifully, and due to it's heavy weight, sat on the surface and became a lovely design element.

At Christmas, my brother gave me some silk hankies by the Tentakulum group, and I wanted to play with them. (Examples can be found at the YLI website.) I needle felted them down onto a disk of wool, and got these lovely, dimensional flowers. To create the centers, I added some wool locks from Living Felt (my favorite online wool distributor), and added a few beads to give just a bit more sparkle. Aren't they gorgeous?

After blanket stiching down some wool stems and leaves (again using the Lana thread), I removed the flowers (they were not attached yet) to prep the top for quilting. I wanted to balance the quilting across the whole piece, so I added two "ghost" flowers to the left side of the panel, simply using green, turquoise, and purple thread to outline flowers comparable in size and scale to those with the silk and wool. The heavy wool thread sits beautifully on the top of the batik background fabric, providing a nice design element without detracting from those gorgeous silk flowers.

I used an elongated stipple for the background, and everything popped nicely. Here is the finished piece, which is 16x20. I used the faux piping binding technique that was so beautifully described by Trisha at TLC Stitches.

So, thanks to Aurifil for such a generous giveaway. To pay it forward, I will be doing a few giveaways here on the blog, and giving some to the members of my bees. Stay tuned!

Happy National Popcorn Day!

2012-01-19T09:47:00.003-05:00

They pretty much have a day for everything now, don't they? But this one - for me, at least - was fun. I read a blurb about it a few months ago in Paper Crafts magazine, and put it on my to do list. Because all of my guys LOVE popcorn.

Matthew has a particular thing for it. I did this page several years ago, but he hasn't changed since. If given the opportunity, he can down a large bucket at the movie theater with no problem.

To "celebrate" this important national holiday, I made envelopes containing a bag of microwave popcorn to give to my 3 guys, the boys' teachers, and my in-laws. The popcorn box was made using a Silhouette 3-D popcorn box template. I modified it to only present one face of the box. October Afternoon's Egg Basket paper from the Cherry Hill line made for perfect popcorn, don't you think? (Unfortunately, though I scaled the font to be large enough to read on the background piece of paper, ever since Epson "upgraded" their printer interface, my wide-format printer, which is supposed to give edge-to-edge printing, won't do so. It will no longer print pages larger than 8.5x11, which was the whole point of my getting that printer. And so the font printed much smaller than I'd like it to be.)

Make sure you have a bit of popcorn today!

Change, Art Journals, and Doodling

2012-01-14T08:29:00.002-05:00

When I was a girl, I loved drawing and sketching. As I began having more homework and and a part-time job in high school, I gave up those activities. This year, I'm trying to relearn these skills. I am also going to keep art journals, for practicing those skills, as well as mixed media art. To get started on drawing/sketching again, I'm taking a variety of online classes: two workshops (one on sketching, one on watercoloring) by Alisa Burke, and two of the free Strathmore online classes: doodling with Traci Bautista, and, later in the year, watercolor sketching with Carol Johnson.

To approach the journaling, I joined the Art Journal Caravan (AJC) with Tangie Baxter at scrapbookgraphics. This workshop provides a variety of weekly journaling prompts, guidance, and technique instruction, as well as a forum for group participation. While scrapbookgraphics is a digital scrapbooking site, the AJC is open to digital, traditional, and hybrid participants.

One of Tangie's first challenges was to choose a word of the year. "This a word that you will focus on for the WHOLE YEAR. Instead of setting so many overwhelming "New Year's Resolutions" for yourself, the idea is to find a word that inspires all your goals in one small word. A word that should be displayed prominently at your work space, in your journal, in your mental images. " I've been doing that instead of resolutions for several years now, but Tangie added a new spin - create a personal symbol for your word of the year, and incorporate it into your journal.

For a variety of reasons, my word this year is CHANGE. While a butterfly first came to mind, after thinking about it, I realized that the butterfly represented the final stage of a process of change, and was not really what I wanted as my symbol. But it still spoke to me as being appropriate for my word. As I googled butterfly images, a few chrysalis images popped up and i had an "aha" moment. A chrysalis is a self-created safe haven for growth and change, for internally-directed adaptation.

After googling a variety of chrysalises, I sketched and then watercolored this image. A fantasy chrysalis in my favorite color, purple, with some bright yellow and greens for high contrast. The creation of it lived up to my word of the year - twice I thought Iknew what I wanted, and executed the idea, and didn't like it. Instead ofletting myself get upset, I changed my approach again until it all gelled andresulted in this piece of mixed media art - which I love. It will reside to the left of my monitor where I can see it while I amworking and creating.

Supplies: Watercolor: Caran d'acheNeocolor II; Pastels: PanPastels/Sofft Tools;

Oil Pastels: Crayola WaterSoluble; Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin's India Ink,Tattered Angels

Glimmer Mist; Pens: Pigma Micron, atyou Spica; Paper: Pink Paislee, Strathmore

400 Series watercolor 140 pound; Charm, Rub-ons: Pink Paislee; Adhesive: 3M,

foam mounting tape; Other: sewing machine, thread,bubble wrap.

I wrote quotes having to do with change around the sides:

Nothing changes if nothingchanges. Anon.
Change does not roll in on thewheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. MartinLuther King, Jr.
If you don't like something,change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. MayaAngelou
Theneed for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind. MayaAngelou

Traci's doodling class began the day after New Year's. While I was watching the video for the first lesson, Matthew joined me partway through and was fascinated. He decided he wanted to take the class with me. As we were working on the first layer, Jeremy poked his head in and decided he wanted in on the fun. So we're all doing it together.

The first lesson is about layers of color building up to the final project: first, spray acrylic or watercolor paint over stencils, then adding layers of marks with different media (paint, oil pastels, sharpies, markers, and white out). It is not planned art, just free form marks and doodling. The boys are still working on their projects, and I'll post them when they're done.

Here are my first 2 attempts. I like parts of both of them. I used Glimmer Mist as the base layer on both pieces. There is also Lumiere paint on one of the top layers on the first piece, and as you can see it reflects a lot of light. These are meant to be used for other projects, and not used as art per se. I'm leaning toward notepad covers and bookmark backs, but have not made up my mind yet.

Birdhouse Christmas Quilt

2011-12-02T18:58:00.001-05:00

Here is a quilt I made as a Christmas gift for a dear friend at ScrapStreet.com Magazine, Ms. Linda. I really enjoyed putting this together, and will someday have to make one for myself because it looks even better in person than it does in a photograph. Fused applique, machine quilting. Love how bright the cardinals are!

Amaryllis Quilt and Christmas Gifts

2011-11-29T11:28:00.001-05:00

I decorated for the holiday over the Thanksgiving weekend. One of my favorite parts of decorating is pulling out my holiday quilts. I'll try to feature a few of them here over the next few weeks.

I made this amaryllis quilt several years ago, from a Susan Du Laney pattern. The flowers, leaves, and bulb are stuffed, giving wonderful relief from the background. (No, I *still* haven't embroidered the roots. I also plan to add a little shading with chalks or Copic markers to the bottom of the bulb and the stem/leaf areas. Someday.) It is hung at the top of the stairs, and quite lovely to look at every time I walk upstairs during the holiday season.

One of my bees, Cyberbee, will have our annual holiday party on the 10th of December. We only meet 4-6 times a year, several of which are all-day meetings. It's all about catching up, sharing both food and sewing projects, show and tell (and what a great show and tell this one is with all the holiday quilts and gifts being shown off!), and a gift exchange for those who signed up. The gift can be anything, store bought or hand made. This year, I'll be giving some fabric, chocolate, and two handmade items: a needle book and a notebook cover.

This is the needlebook. One nice thing about quilting and scrapping is the number of tools that can be used for both types of project. I used my die cutting machine and some QuikKutz and Tim Holtz dies to cut out the pieces for this needlebook. The flowers are attached with french knots, and the leaves (which I hand cut) with a simple vein down the center. All of the felt is from Papertrey Ink - they make a gorgeous range of colors and it cuts like butter. I used a white lining and a piece of the melon berry felt for the inner leaves of the needlebook. The recipient's name is embroidered in the upper right quadrant, but I blurred it out in case she reads my blog.

The lining:

The quilter who gets the needle book will also be getting this notebook and notebook cover:

I dyed dryer sheets with Dyna Flow to try to get green and teal colors that would coordinate with the background fabric. While the green turned out great, the teal was not as bright as I had wished. I pulled out the die cut machine again and cut a variety of circles and rings, then arranged them on top of 2 layers of un-dyed dryer sheets (to brighten the colors and reduce the transparency) below the colored circles. I fused on a very thin layer of angelina fibers to give it some shimmer. I layered the background fabric and a stabilizer, then free motion stitched the circles onto them and trimmed away the excess, undyed dryer sheets. Some beads and couching with a variegated yarn in green and teals finished it up.

I made one more notebook cover; this one will probably be for one of the boys' teachers, and I'll be making another one for my other son's teachers. I went simple with this just fused a beautiful peony blossom onto a green pinked square, and added them to a dark brown speckled fabric. A bit of stippling brightened up the brown fabric.

Seahorse Quilts

2011-11-13T17:28:00.001-05:00

So I finished Jeremy's seahorse quilt before the end of August, but just haven't managed to get pictures taken and posted. I made time to do so today. When I wrote about it last, he'd had me paint onto the partially-quilted surface - a new adventure for me. I then quilted in the water, using multiple shades of blue threads in the painted areas, and a slightly blued white thread in the unpainted parts of the background. In keeping with his preference for all things shiny, all of the threads were shimmery and glittery. I also added some hotfix crystals for "bubbles". I satin stitched the edges and couched a single frame of a multihued fiber (perfect for this little quilt, with blues, teals and browns) around the outer edge.

I brought it to Jeremy, showed it to him, and asked him if he liked it. Those of you who read this post are probably shaking your heads right now, thinking "she'll never learn." Sure enough, Jeremy did not agree with me that the piece was complete. He looked at it for a few minutes, told me how much he loved the paint and the crystals, and then informed me that it needed another row of the fibers along the outer edge, just a little bit apart from the first one.

"No, it's fine as it is", I insisted. It looked complete to me. But he turned on those baby blues of his and I added another row of the fiber. And I have to admit, that while it was just fine with one fiber border, the second border really added definition and set off the piece better. And here it is:

And a detail shot of the seahorse on the bottom:

This was a great piece for me to practice with new techniques before going onto the bigger piece. I also learned that Jeremy has a good, intuitive eye for balance and design, and is NOT afraid to share his opinion when asked for it.

So I moved onto the original piece I had intended to make before this little side trip. It is a beach-themed, mixed media piece called "Live in the Current".

The 3 main panels were cut from felted wool, in shades of blue, green, and purple, that was needle felted directly to batting. After the felting was done, I hand-stitched a variety of fibers on the top, and did some embroidery as well. I fused the needle felted sheet to timtex to give it some stiffness, added backing, and did light machine quilting to give additional texture. I then cut it into three panels, and did a double-layer of satin stitch in a variegated thread to finish them off.

The "library cards" are digital images by Katie Pertiet (Library Card Collection: Seaside) that were printed onto background fabric that I made in Susan Brubaker Knapp's class in June. The background fabric was painted with very dilute Lumiere paint, and it glitters slightly. I batted and back them, then stitched outline stitched the critters and the lines of the index cards with Monopoly thread. I inked the edges for a little more definition, and attached them to the felted cards with small clips.

The background has the same seahorse and seaweed used in Jeremy's quilt on the right, as well as a shell on the top-left corner. These were stenciled with Shiva paint sticks. I used two of the images from Katie Pertiet's Beachy Clusters to create the layers and cut stencils. I used a Silhouette America cut file to create a stencil for the seaweed.

To create the title, I used letter stamps (by Autumn Leaves), then filled in the letters using Copic markers. I added a little bit of sparkle to those letters by selectively outlining with a Spica glitter pen. After quilting it, I decided to add a little blue and purple color to the background with Faber Castel Gelatos, and using water and a stencil brush to dilute the color across the background in washes. I decided not to bind it, and instead, faced and turned the edges, so the design goes right to the edge.

Witches hats and acorn treats

2011-10-23T13:53:00.000-04:00

Do you pin? I'm talking about Pinterest, a digital pinboard site that allows the collection of themed pictures of your choosing. It's a total time sink, and I can spend hours there looking through the art, crafts, foods, decorating, and other images that are pinned to peoples' boards. My boards are here, if you're interested in taking a look or, even better, following my boards.

I've had fun the last few days making Halloween treats and some fall snacks, all thanks to Pinterest.

First up: witches' hats. The directions are found here. If you go to the recipe, you'll see that the professional's look much better than mine. I used cookie icing, instead of a thin frosting, to make the bows, and they got all melty. That didn't stop the kids from eating them, though!


Sweet witch hats.

Next up: chocolate and peanut butter acorns. I loved this idea, and they are cute and easy to make. Matthew helped me make them, and it was a nice way to spend time together. Recipe is here.

Yummy!

And finally, a pin that showed gorgeous single-serve apple pies in a basket, with a link to Williams-Sonoma and their apple pocket pie mold. Here are mine. Jeremy absolutely loves any kind of pie, and had a ball helping me make a few of these today. They'll fit right into a sandwich bag and he can pack them in his lunch.

Mmmm... just needs a spoonful of ice cream.

I'm also going to make the oreo cookie mummy pops again (see last year's post), over the next evening or two. I have the correct eyes this time, so hopefully they'll look even better this year.

Jeremy's Seahorse Quilt

2011-07-17T18:12:00.002-04:00

I'm working on a mixed media piece. (Some of the background fabric was shown in yesterday's post.) It will be a tryptich-style for the main elements, in a sea theme, but on a stenciled, painted, and quilted background, which looks like sand.

Using my Silhouette and a seaweed cut file from the Silhouette studio, I created a vinyl mask for the seaweed, then adhered it to the fabric and applied Lumiere paint. However, it was too wet, and bled a lot around the stencil edges. My son Jeremy wanted it, though, so I decided to use it as practice piece for the background to the mixed-media piece, and to give it to him when it's done.

With the Silhouette and a seahorse cutfile, I used Shiva paintsticks to add two seahorses. Being a semi-solid, I didn't have trouble with the Shiva paint bleeding under the vinyl mask. After the paints had cured and been ironed, I was able to quilt the images today. Using Madeira Glamour threads to add more sparkle (because Jeremy loves all things shiny), I added detail to the seahorses and outlined the seaweed.

When I showed it to Jeremy and asked if he wanted wavy lines for the water, he told me I needed to paint a few areas with blue - not too much - and use that for the water. While he didn't realize it, it was a great, out-of-the-box challenge for me. I pulled out my Twinkling H2O watercolors to add the color and yet more shine. (These paints have mica flakes in them for added shimmer.) While it's not perfect, I like the way it came out and it was a great practice piece.

Now it's drying, and I hope to finish quilting in the water tomorrow, and get it bound (or perhaps edge finished with some fibers) and hanging in his room. And then to complete the mixed media piece...

Surface Design Madness

2011-07-16T17:07:00.002-04:00

Time got away from me and I'm finally posting about the surface design class I took with Susan Brubaker Knapp at the NC Quilt Symposium.

We started off playing with Tyvek - that plastic stuff they wrap houses in before putting on siding. It got painted with Lumiere paints, then you place it between parchment paper and heat it with an iron and it gets all bubbly and the colors intensify. Depending on which side (painted or not) is up, you get bubbles or craters. The fish below is 3 pieces; the fins were odd shapes that shrunk like that on their own. I did a little "surgery" on the fish body (the tail fins) to get the shape I wanted. These are 3 separate pieces, but can now be glued or sewn onto whatever base I want to use.

The beads to the left of the fish are tyvek beads, made by painting, wrapping around skewers, then heating. They were then wrapped with wire and beads. The bit up at the top is angelina, heated on an inked rubber stamp.

We did a lot with the Lumiere paints. In the next image, fusible web was painted with Lumiere and when it was mostly dry, ironed onto fabric. I had one large piece of fusible web, painted with blue and blue-green, and cut it in half. You can see how the background color makes it look bluer (on the white fabric ) and more silver (on the black fabric). The bits that peeled away were still wet when ironed, which could be used as a deliberate technique for making something look distressed. But I'll have to be careful to place parchment paper over them if I have to iron them, unless I want to glue my iron to the ironing board!

This is lumiere painted onto steam a seam fusible web that had been pre-wet. The pre-wetting helped the paint colors run together. It was ironed on wet. The left side of the image below is the painted fusible web - bright and shiny. However, I ended up liking the back side even more - some of the paint came through to the back, giving a subtle shine in organic shapes. I think it would be great for backgrounds.

We also played with diluted Lumiere. I took a bit of my plain white fabric and dipped into diluted purple paint. The shine remained, but I over-diluted it and it was a barely there lilac color after wringing out the fabric. So I added a few globs of teal and purple and smooshed the fabric all around and ended up with this. I'm currently using it as background fabric for some digitally-printed images.

We played with Shiva sticks too, using them on top of templates. I was boring and just did one color per plate. Some of the more adventurous gals mixed a bunch of images and created their own multi-patterned fabrics.

And here is, hands-down, my favorite piece of the day. We used Caran d'ache Neocolor crayons directly on the fabric to color an image, then used water and paintbrushes to paint them out. I am not practiced at drawing, but I do know (thanks to the inspiration wednesday videos that Donna Downey posts on her blog) how to draw a poppy. So I did that with purple crayons, and gave them a gold/orange background. I'll be quilting this piece and hanging it in my office/sewing room because it's just so bright and cheerful.

Susan is a fabulous teacher - she did a great job of explaining her techniques, the various modifications that could be made, and then stepping back and letting us "play". I'd happily take another class with her! Here is a link to her blog, Blue Moon River.

The Big Purse Alternative

2011-06-27T14:19:00.002-04:00

I'm in two local quilting bees, one of which is Cyberbee. We meet quarterly or so, and "talk" via email otherwise. At our meeting a few months ago, Barbara showed us some darling purses made from placemats. (Yes, you read that correctly.) (ETA: Barbara has been in touch and told me that she got the pattern from Threads magazine, if you're looking to try it out for yourself.) These little, 2-pocket bags, in which you could put your license, credit card, check book, and cell phone, are a perfect alternative to lugging a big purse. Great for quick errands, or kids' sports games/practices.

I ran out and picked up a few placemats, along with some pretty trims for shoulder straps and big, chunky buttons. When selecting placemats, I found that really heavy/thick ones don't work very well (hard to fold, hard to sew through). Placemats with pretty borders along one of the short sides worked best, as those borders become the flap and add a nice decorative touch.

Here are the 4 I made over the weekend (straps were tucked inside for the picture):

I made a minor change from Barbara's models - I sewed down a triangle of fabric on the outside of the front pocket so that it could be accessed more easily. Here's a picture of an open purse, showing the pocket and the strap:

Lessons learned (the hard way, of course :) )
Figure out placement and sew the buttons on FIRST.
Add the button loop and the shoulder straps BEFORE you sew the sides together.
Keep the seam ripper handy. (Not a lesson from this project, but one I learned a long time ago and of which I was rather strongly reminded over the weekend.)

These will be given to Mom, Margaret, Kitty, and Cat. Surprise!

Quilted and Needle Felted iPad Bag

2011-06-17T11:36:00.003-04:00

For our 10th anniversary, Ryan spoiled me with an iPad2, with a slick little magnetic cover. I love it, and it's been great for all the waiting-around time I have with the kids (carpool, games, practices, etc.).

At the NCQSI a few weeks ago, I got some fun fibers from the YLI booth - organic cotton, hand dyed lacings (think shoe lace like), which, if you pulled up one thread, ruched beautifully.

I pulled out my needle felter, some blue scrim, various wool pre-felts and wool rovings, and some silk carrier rods and had fun making this fabric. After the wools and silks were attached, I machine quilted it using variegated thread in a plaid pattern. I then ruched up some of the lacing and added it to the top of the piece.

Today I made it into a padded bag to hold my iPad. While I had picked out a glorious sunflower fabric to be the back side, Jeremy wanted something a little less "girly looking" for when he gets a chance to use the iPad. So I switched to this mosaic-style fabric instead.

I decided to use piping around the top edge, to give a more finished look, and a flap to make sure that the iPad doesn't fall out. I had recently picked up some of Nancy Zieman's Wrap 'n Fuse Piping and decided to give it a try.

I had two pieces of piping in about 2 minutes (cutting out the fabric strips and ironing it around the piping). I made a 3" wide flap, added the buttonhole, both miraculously BEFORE sewing the bag together.

End of the Summer Baseball Season

2011-06-15T13:45:00.000-04:00

Matthew was on the Defenders team this year, and they did great, ending the season with a 9-1 record. He missed 3 of the games due to a broken arm and the stomach bug, but really enjoyed being on the team. Here are a few pix from last night's game, one of him batting (just look at the determination on his face), and one of him in the "ready" position at shortstop (taken from behind first base, with a runner on the base).

Jeremy could care less about baseball, and either plays in the adjoining field or - when Ryan gives him his iPhone - spends the time playing video games, as he did last night.

In the fall, Matthew will begin machine pitch. Should be interesting.

NC Quilt Symposium

2011-06-06T08:55:00.025-04:00

I spent Saturday and Sunday at the NCQSI, the annual state-wide quilt show, which was held at Peace College in Raleigh this year. I had Saturday morning free to view the show, and it was a nice one this year.

This was Best of Show, Swamp Hibiscus by Judith Heyward. It was beautufully designed and the machine quilting was marvelous.

This appliqued bird quilt was a real showpiece. It was entirely hand-quilted. The corners between the blocks had birds quilted into them, and it appeared that no two were the same. I think that the applique patterns were used as the source for the quilting patterns for the birds.

This spectacular quilt, Daffodil O'Keefe by Katherine McNeese, had me making second and third walks through the section it was hanging in so I could see it again. So realistic you could reach out and pick it!

Maggie Trees a Coon, by my friend Jeanne

A marvelous miniature Baltimore album, and a detail of it. Just look at the hand quilting!

This beauty was made from an antique table cloth of the creator's husband's grandmother. It was gorgeously quilted.

The vendor mall enjoyed my visit, too. I got some wonderful wool roving from Annie's Keepsakes; to-die-for hand-died silk handkerchiefs, organic cotton ricrac (which will ruche automatically if you pull one thread from an unraveled end), and gimp from YLI; and a felting book from Schoolhouse. After that, I sat on this marvelous rocking-chair porch in the quad and relaxed for a bit before meeting friends for lunch and my afternoon class. More about that tomorrow!

Washington DC trip

2011-06-02T11:42:00.000-04:00

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Washington, DC. We took the subway (Jeremy's favorite) and walked around the National Zoo on Saturday. On Sunday, Matthew and Ryan headed to the Nationals-Padres game, including batting practice prior to the game. Here's Matthew after having his hat signed by Rick Ankiel. They had seats on the 3rd base line, right near third base, and enjoyed the game.

Jeremy wanted no part of the baseball game. He instead wanted to go to the Museum of Natural History and look at the gems in particular, and some of the other exhibits that interested him. Here he is in front of a huge slab of crystals found in Arkansas.

On the way home we stopped into Ikea so I could get a few storage items for my office/craft room. It was very hot here on Monday, and we were all glad for a swim in the afternoon.

It's hard to believe, but tomorrow's the last day of school for the boys. I've made these crayon monograms for their teachers to thank them for their hard work and creativity. (These have been a hot item on all the crafting blogs recently.)

Crocus Quilt

2011-05-06T12:01:00.000-04:00

After a year of nearly any sewing, my mojo has come back. I decided that instead of working on new items, to pull out UFOs and old patterns (bought ages ago) and get them finished up.

So in late February, desperate for spring, I pulled out Eileen Sullivan's Crocus pattern. It's a paper-pieced project. I'm pleased with the way it came out. I even got it up on the wall in late March and it really brightens my day to see it as I walk up the stairs.

In the Spring, a Young Man's Fancy Turns To...

2011-05-03T21:49:00.000-04:00

Climbing trees.

And then falling out of them.

And ending up with a broken arm and a fluorescent yellow cast. He can't play baseball or football until it's off. But he is allowed to continue in tae kwon do.

And hey, at least he can still play video games. :)

This last picture has nothing to do with broken bones, but it is the entrance to our back yard. We had a good spring with no late frosts, and so the the wisteria is in full bloom, lushly draped over the arbor. I really need to trim it back so you can walk through without having to duck, but I won't touch it until it's done flowering. Down on the right is a lovely spread of coreopsis. Ignore the fact that I badly need to prune back all of the abelia.

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T12:57:00.001-04:00

We've had a busy week around here. The boys were on spring break (and fortunately I was between work projects), so lots of time to have fun. My in-laws arrived on Wednesday, so more fun and spoilage for the boys.

Our pool is open and the boys have been swimming 20-30 minutes or so on warm days. (The water's only about 68 degrees, so they're only in for a short while.)

We all went strawberry picking on Friday morning - got some gorgeous sweet berries. Most have been frozen and put away, but we've been snacking on some, and I made a strawberry pie for our dinner tonight. We've learned to have the kids wear red shirts when picking to minimize staining. Jeremy was so proud of himself "because I finally broke my bad habit of eating ALL of the berries and I'm putting some in the bucket."

Of course, last night we dyed eggs. All the standard colors, plus the traditional "ugly" eggs made when you mix a bunch of dye together for a lovely shade of yuck.

I tried to add rub-ons to the eggs. It turned out that only one brand (Maya Road) of the half-dozen brands I tried would adhere. But the ones that worked sure came out cute!

I hope you all have a happy Easter.

Raspberry Lime (a baby quilt)

2011-04-19T11:40:00.000-04:00

One of my neighbors recently had a baby girl, and I've (finally) finished a little quilt for her. The pattern is "Giselle" and was published in Quilters Newsletter Best Weekend Quilts, a magazine that was published in the late fall of 2010. I only made 9 of the blocks (instead of the 30 in the pattern).

I fell in love with a bubbly dot print in lime, pink, and raspberry, and paired it with some coordinating fabrics. I haven't been fabric shopping in ages, and discovered the patterned Kona cloth, so picked up a bit of that in pale pink as one of the coordinating fabrics. The rest was from my stash.

I used a green dot minkee on the back. I just cannot make a baby quilt without using minkee on it. It is a "summer weight" quilt, with no batting. But the minkee gives it a lovely weight and drape, and the quilting lines just sink into it and give the back a lovely, almost sculptural, quality.

This is it on my porch, under the mound of pansies.

And 4 of the blocks so the fabrics can be seen:

Back in the Saddle

2011-03-23T09:42:00.000-04:00

Last year I struggled with creativity. The one thing I did rather well last year was read - I probably read at least 300 books, and countless magazines. But I had no mojo for any type of craft or hobby at all. I barely took any pictures. I really struggled when I had to complete something. It was frustrating and depressing, and created a negative feedback loop. When I look over what I did manage to get done last year, I can almost feel the complete and total lack of inspiration, imagination, and creativity in the work.

But the New Year brought back the creativity to my life! I've been non-stop making things since the holidays ended. Lots of sewing, quilting, needle felting, and scrapping. And I'm trying to take more pictures again. This past Sunday, I spent the day scrapping with paper and for the first time in over a year just enjoyed the creative process, playing with color and design, and truly finding joy in what I'm doing again. I was so happy and relaxed at the end of the day.

This is a layout of Matthew, trying to learn to dive. He had the first parts of the dive pose down, but when it came right down to it he'd end up jumping into the water instead, arms and legs flying everywhere. I had created the framed bits and extraction sometime last year, but stopped at that point. They were technical steps, and I could manage that. But I was stumped at how to actually complete the layout. So I left it in my in-progress file. I came back to it yesterday and it all just flowed.

Summertime Boy. Supply list: Paper: Summer by Tracey Ann, Cabana Boy by Dani Mogstad; Labels (borders recolored): Pick-nics Alphabetized Summer Labels by Jen Wilson; Title: Pick-nics Sticker Wordy Titles by Jen Wilson; Overlay (modified to keep distressed edge only): Everyday Challenge 7/26/09 by Katie Pertiet; Brushes: Scriptease Summer 1 by Anna Aspnes; Staples: Something Springy by Anna Aspnes; Font: CK Ali's Writing.

Jeremy's been creating lately, too. His class took a virtual drawing lesson from Mo Willems, who creates the Pigeon books. He learned how to draw Pigeon and Cat. Here is his drawing of Pigeon eating a hot dog.

And now I'm finally updating my blog again, and will try to post at least weekly.

2010-11-25T10:00:00.000-05:00

May your Thanksgiving be filled with all the blessings that family, friends, and feast can bring.

Halloween Fantasy Land

2010-11-01T22:28:00.000-04:00

The boys love rich fantasy worlds. Jeremy tends to prefer tales of magic, while Matthew prefers game-oriented shows, and their preferences are reflected in their choices of Halloween costumes: Harry Potter for Jeremy and Dan (of the Bakugan series) for Matthew.

We had a great evening walking through the neighborhood with friends and neighbors. It was a beautiful evening, no full moon this year but plenty of bats swooping around to give that nice, spooky feeling.

A few pix of the boys:

Got Mummies?

2010-10-30T18:42:00.000-04:00

I do! I found a little tutorial for making these adorable mummy pops (candy covered oreos) at How Does She and decided to give them a whirl. I did order the eyes that were used in the tut, but they didn't arrive in time, so I substituted some small candies instead. I found it takes 2 14-oz bags of candy melts to make 25 mummipops.

And they came out just adorable! Here is a closeup:

And here's one of them in the spider clothesline basket I made last Halloween:

For Halloween this year, Matthew went as Dan (from Bakugan) and Jeremy as Harry Potter. Matthew's in that "don't take my picture stage" and it's driving me nuts to try to get a decent picture of him. But I keep telling myself that it will be good blackmail material in a few years...

We went to trunk-or-treat at the school last night, and the kids had a ball. This is a picture of one of the witches hosting a trunk - hands down, my favorite adult costume of the night!

Everything But the Kitchen Sink

2010-10-27T22:30:00.000-04:00

I've spent little bits of time playing with my craft machines in the last few months: sewing machine, felting machine, die cutting machine, and computer. Mostly just playing to try different techniques.

I wanted to do a small fall piece with the colors of the turning leaves. I used wool fleece and wool roving to make a mixed-colors sheet of felt, then cut the leaves out of it using some of Papertrey Ink's leaf dies. The digital images were layered and printed directly onto the canvas. For the tree and ground, I needle felted wool fleece and roving directly onto the canvas and burlap, then quilted it to batting and backing fabric. I attached the leaves last, using a single line of stitching as a vein to anchor the leaves to the surface but allow them to move a bit when there's a bit of a breeze.

Every Leaf. Digital Supplies: Word art: Fall WordTransfers
No. 1 by Anna Aspnes, Designer Spotlight Sept 2007 by Sue Cummings;
Paper: Autumnal No. 2 Paperie by Anna Aspnes; Dies: Leaf Prints Collection
by Papertrey Ink; Canvas: Sticky-back Canvas by Claudine Helmuth;

Other: wool fleece, wool roving (Living Felt), thread (Valdani, Superior),
sewing and felting machines (both Janome), die cutting machine (Provo Craft).

Potion Making

2010-10-24T08:54:00.002-04:00

My guys love all things Harry Potter right now, whether it's the books, the video games, or just make believe play pretending to be Harry and the other characters. Jeremy will be HP for Halloween. And the new HP Lego sets are some of the top items on their Christmas lists.

Since they're having such fun with it, I made these potion bottles to add to our Halloween decorations. The yellow bottle contains Petrification potion (will turn you into a stone statue), the green holds Aconitum (will turn you into a werewolf), and the purple has Time Freezing potion. The boys love pretending to drink the potions and acting out what would happen.

Supplies: Alcohol Ink (Tim Holtz/Ranger), ColorBox Fluid Chalk,
Silhouette SD Digital Cutter, Labels from Silhouette store,
glass bottles with cork stoppers (Michael's).

Other than getting costumes and preparing for Halloween, we've been getting necessary outdoor chores (like planting pansies, pruning and garage cleaning) done while we have some gorgeous fall weather. I guess planting pansies in October may sound quite strange to my northern readers - down here in the south, they just can't handle the summer heat. But they do quite well through the winter, and bring a welcome burst of color on dreary gray winter days.

NY Trip

2010-09-11T08:48:00.000-04:00

And finally I'm back with pictures of our trip to NY. We love going up there in the summer, not only to see all of the relatives, but to escape the heat - and this was an unusually hot summer in NC.

It was the weekend of the Spiedie Fest and Balloon Rally. Spiedies are a local type of kabob, with pork or chicken marinated, skewered, and grilled, then placed in a slice of bread. Yummy! They also have twice daily balloon lifts. We went down there Sunday morning. Walking into Otsiningo Park at 6:30 am, we could see two balloons filled up but not yet launched, just filling the sky over the trees.

We saw them from laid out on the ground, completely airless, through all stages of filling - first with cold air just to expand them, then with hot air to make them bouyant. The boys were allowed to be right near the baskets and really enjoyed watching the process.

Then we watched them float down the valley. It was a great morning!

Later that afternoon, we went to Great Grandma's 90th birthday party. Over 70 folks were there to celebrate with her. Here she is with 4 of her 6 children:

And here with many of her grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The next day we went down the street to the creek Ryan, his brother, and their friends played in when they were kids. During the summer, it's only ankle-deep in most spots, and you can walk all the way down to the river. The kids enjoyed playing in it, looking for 'mud bugs' and fossils, and getting wet.

On our way home, we took a detour into Washington DC. We spent the afternoon at the Museum of Natural History. And in the evening we went here:

Matthew has been really into baseball this year, and the Nationals' pitcher, Strasburg, is his hero. It was Stras' first game back after having been on the DL. Of course Matthew had to buy a Stras shirt, and insisted on the white one against my better judgment.

Jeremy is not so much into baseball, but he made it to the middle of the first before he asked to go to the playground. :) I took him there, then we got ice creams for all and went back to our seats. We stayed through the 6th, when the fun and excitement of the trip was catching up with the boys - they were clearly exhausted!

Appreciation

2010-08-30T19:05:00.000-04:00

The internet is a strange and wonderful thing. It brings people together who might not have otherwise met, creating friendships. It provides a seemingly boundless font of information. However, it has also eroded many of the social niceties. Consumers will air their customer service issues on public forums, and posting "flaming" threads that have no purpose other than to upset others.

To the lovely ladies at PTI, Jane, Julie, and Nichole: I was lured to PTI by Debbie Olson's blog, and the beautiful cards she makes. I purchased a few things, and lurked on the forums to get a feel for what PTI was about. I was impressed by the courtesy of the community members, and more so by the quality and customer service of the company. Thanks for all you do - beyond creating your wonderful products - to make the community a good place to hang with friends. And don't let the turkeys get you down.

I blinked and I missed it. Them, rather.

2010-08-03T17:23:00.002-04:00

June and July, that is. I've been crazy busy and just haven't made the time for my poor, neglected blog.

Did I mention that we've been busy? Ryan and I have been working a lot - not a bad thing in the current economy. Ryan's company was sold to another company, which gave us a few weeks of uncertainty, but luckily their jobs transferred over with minimal changes, at least through the end of this year.

The boys had 4 weeks of summer camp scattered in over the last 2 months. When they weren't in camp, they had "mom school" with me, as well as plenty of play time, video game, swimming, and reading time. My mom, sister, niece and nephew came to visit for about a week, and the cousins had a wonderful time being together.

Jeremy has had an eventful summer. He took part in the Lee Brothers Tae Kwon Do tournament in June (his first ever tournament), and to our delight took first among the white belts in his group. His favorite part was breaking a board with his bare hand! A week later he passed the test for his "high white" belt, his first belt elevation. And then just last Friday, he finally lost his first tooth! He really didn't want to start 1st grade being one of the very few children who still had all of his baby teeth, so this was a really exciting event for him.

Matthew has embraced Harry Potter this summer - really getting into reading the books and playing the new Lego Harry Potter game.

I spent last week at CHA (the Craft and Hobby Association's trade show), in Chicago, with the ScrapStreet team. Dora, who owns/edits ScrapStreet, lives in a suburb of Chicago and very kindly hosted 7 of us for the week. It was lots of fun, with late nights, story telling, and ogling of new scrapping products. We also picked the kits for the next 6 months of the kit club. The team tradition is taking a group picture in the marble bathroom.

We are heading to Ryan's hometown shortly for his grandmother's 90th birthday. Folks are coming in from all over the country to celebrate with Grandma, and we are looking forward to seeing everyone there.

School starts on August 18, so we'll begin the school year preparations soon. We got the kids' homeroom assignments today, and are pleased with the teachers and classmates they have been placed with. I am looking forward to this year, as both kids will finally be on the same schedule and I won't have to drive to/from school 3 times a day!

Signing off now with a promise to be back soon...

End of School Year Craziness

2010-05-22T10:38:00.001-04:00

One of the other moms in Jeremy's class compared May to Christmas - tons of running around, shopping, and trips to school for all the end of year activities: teacher appreciation week, recitals, field trips, learning who the next year's teachers will be, etc. Combining that with several work deadlines in the last 2 weeks has made me look like the proverbial chicken with it's head cut off.

I have managed to get a few digital pages done. This first one is of Jeremy, the weekend he got to bring his violin home and give us concerts. He was just beaming with pride each time he picked it up. (All images are clickable for greater detail.)

Weekend Concert. Digital Supplies: Paper: Flying South by Jesse Edwards,

Simple Classics No. 2 by Katie Pertiet, Flowers and Pinstripes by Jesse Edwards,

Journaling spot: The Good Earth by Zoe Pearn, Calendar: Pick-nics Lil Detail Card

by Jenn Wilson Designs, Staple: Staple Its by Pattie Knox, Brush: Date Strip Stamps

No. 2 by Katie Pertiet, Fonts: CK Ali's Writing, Elephant.

Journaling: Bringing home the violin is an exicting time for a Ravenscroft kindergarten student. Jeremy was thrilled to play concerts for us every day and show us what he's learned from Ms. Hitchcock. His favorite song is "See the Little Monkey" and his favorite note is C-sharp.

His class recital was on Monday the 17th. After the recital, there was a reception in his classroom. I made this layout to give to his teacher, who does a remarkable job with all these little ones.

Play. Supplies: Paper: Letter Box by Katie Pertiet, Sweet Mystery by Melgen

Designs, Little Creepers by Mindy Teresawa, Vintage Linens by Shabby Miss

Jenn Designs, Celebrate Paper Pack 4 by Baers Garden Designs, Frames: Classic

Curled Photo Frames No. 1 by Katie Pertiet, Swirled edge: Colorful Edgers

No. 2 by Katie Pertiet, Brush: Musical by Jesse Edwards, Alpha (recolored):

Katie's Jewels by Pattie Knox, Stitches: Double Straight Stitches by Tia Bennett.

And finally, a layout for/about Ryan. He's like me, and rarely in pictures. He prefers to be behind the video camera instead of in front of it. Baseball is his passion, and I think that this page captures it well.

Lifelong Romance. Paper: Peeking Baseball kit by Ronnie McCray, Take Me Out to

the Ballgame kit by Dana Zarling; Alphabet: White Felt Alpha with Red Stitching by Amy

Bleser; Frames: Stuffed Edge Frames and Journalers No. 1 by Katie Pertiet, Basic Bare

Chipboard Frames by Katie Pertiet, Border: Stuffed Edge Documents No. 1 by Katie Pertiet,

Journal Spots: Basic Journal Spots by Katie Pertiet, Ticket, Shoe Lacing: Peeking Baseball

kit by Ronnie McCray, Tab: Cardstock Tabs by Katie Pertiet, Tape: My Family Genealogy

Clippings by Katie Pertiet, Label: My Family Genealogy Flashcards by Katie Pertiet,

Software: Lightroom and Photoshop Elements 8.0 (both by Adobe),

Font: Plantagenet Cherokee.

Journaling: Do you see that glove sitting on the bench? It belongs to my husband, Ryan. It tells the story of his love of all things baseball. It bears the scars of a quarter-century of use. It holds the dreams and excitement of the teen-aged ballplayer. It has been and continues to go to ballgames, in case there is a foul ball to be caught. It is treated with love and respect. It is well cared for, soft from decades of use, but still strong and functional. It now accompanies us to little league games. It helps Ryan share his love of all things baseball with a new group of children, eager to learn. It sits on the bench, after the on-field practice, but before the game, holding one used and one new game ball, ready for the first pitch. It holds the dreams and excitement of the father teaching his sons about the game.

Teacher Appreciation Quilt

2010-05-07T22:30:00.003-04:00

We have been blessed this year to have wonderful teachers for both of our boys. I'm a room mom for Jeremy's kindergarten class, which means I've spent a lot of time with the class and with the teacher. She's become a friend, and I greatly enjoy talking with her.

After New Year's, my co-room mom and I began discussing Teacher Appreciation week. I volunteered to make a "crayon quilt", where each of the kids in the class would color anything of their choice on a piece of fabric. I would then make it into a quilt in time for the end of Teacher Appreciation week.

The kids colored their blocks in February. We asked them to keep it a secret.

Teacher Appreciation week was this week. We gave little gifts (flowers, chocolate, home made cards) during the week. This morning, the kids put on their Mother's Day program (more on that tomorrow). Afterwards, the moms returned to the classroom to watch the kids give their teacher the quilt.

EVERYONE helped deliver the gift to her. She's sitting on a chair way on the left of the picture. I was a little afraid the kids would knock her over in their zeal.

Then she opened it (and luckily, loved it). And was mobbed again by the kids, all shouting at the same time "That one's mine!" and "I made this one!". It was adorable to see how excited they were to share it with her.

I think it will be well loved.

Toothless and a Freebie

2010-05-05T20:20:00.002-04:00

Another one of my templates is up for grabs on the ScrapStreet blog today. I used to to make this layout about Matthew losing his top teeth. He's lost a good 8 teeth in total now, and has had a pretty much continual gap since these pictures were taken last summer. Jeremy's not been so lucky. He turned 6 a month ago and doesn't even have one wiggling yet. It looks like he'll be the only kid in his class to leave kindergarten without having lost a tooth.

Toothless. Digital Supplies: Template: Framework No. 2 by 4Two2 Frameworks, Paper: Hugs and Artfully Intense by Lynn Grievson, Work Hard Playhard by Anna Aspnes, Other: tooth cartoon downloaded from the internet, Fonts: Jefferson, Georgia.

Journaling: Matthew had already lost both bottom teeth, but he didn’t have a “gap” for more than a few days, as the new teeth were in a big hurry to fill the empty space. Now, however, he’s lost a top tooth, and he’s got a nice gap. He’s had an ear-to-ear smile since losing it.

ScrapStreet's May edition is out!

2010-05-04T06:51:00.001-04:00

Have you checked out the May edition of ScrapStreet.com Magazine yet? It's filled with lots of inspiration.

I've got 4 items in the Cuttlebug article: Hello card, Play layout, Beauty card, and a Thank You card.

The free kit this month is Hop and Skip - bright colors, balloons, jumpropes and paint splats - perfect for kids playing and birthdays! I did a layout about my guys hamming it up at the photo spots on Castaway Cay.

Check out the calls here.

A Few Cards

2010-04-24T17:13:00.002-04:00

Yep, two posts in one day. Go figure.

I have all sorts of new scrappy things to play with: paper, stamps, embellishments, markers... the list goes on and on and on. So since it's raining and kind of yucky this afternoon, I decided to to to my office/studio and play.

First up, a card for this week's 2 Sketches 4 You challenge. This is for Laura's sketch 50:

After rotating the sketch, I made this sweet hybrid card using BasicGrey's Green at Heart line, combined with Papertrey Ink's new Dotti Biscotti paper. (Editorial note: Even if you didn't like the paper [which I do], how can you resist that name!) These papers worked perfectly with the butterflies in Amy Wolff's Weekly Gazette pack; I just added a bit of bling for their bodies. The butterfly wings float over the surface of the card.

Hi: Supplies: paper: BasicGrey, Papertrey Ink,textured cardstock: Core'dinations,

border and letter stickers: BasicGrey, gems: Brenda Walton for K&Co., ink: Clearsnap, tool: Cuttlebug (Provo Craft), die: Spellbinders, adhesive: Scotch, Therm O Web.Digital supplies: , Butterflies: The Weekly Gazette by Amy Wolff Designs,

software: Photoshop Elements 8.0 (Adobe).

Next I did two cards for Cammie's challenge at the Papertrey Peeps blog. For the first time, I finally used (and won't admit how long it's been gathering dust) my Medallion stamp from Stampin' Up! It pairs beautifully with gems. I did one sympathy card and one thanks card, using different gem placement each time. The bottom one was embossed with Ranger's Distressed Embossing Powder, and has a really rough texture that nicely plays off the shine of the pearls.

Many Thanks and Deepest Sympathy. Supplies: Kraft paper: Stampin' Up!,

Stamps: Stampin' Up!, My Sentiments Exactly, Gems: American Crafts,

Ink: Vivid (Clearsnap), Versamark (Tsukineko), Embossing Powder: Ranger,

Tool: heat gun.

And finally, I used a sketch from the May/June issue of Paper Crafts magazine; in particular, I was inspired by Monika Davis' card using some magic mesh. That's a product that's been collecting dust in a drawer for too long. The Father's Day card follows the sketch pretty well, and I love the tree transparency.

Happy Father's Day. Supplies: paper: K & Company, other,
stamps: Papertrey Ink (Borders and Corners Oval, Daily Designs Sentiments), transparency: Deja Views,mesh: Magic Mesh, brads: American Crafts,
ink: Stampin' Up!, Fluid Chalk (Colorbox), tools: Crop-a-dile (We R Memory Keepers), oval punch (Marvy Uchida), adhesive: Scotch.

The Key card deviated away from the sketch, but had its origins there. It's actually a see-through card, with the brown frame highlighting the heart and key that are adhered to the inside back of the card.

Key to My Heart. Supplies: paper: BasicGrey, transparency: Deja Views,

mesh: Magic Mesh, tools: Cuttlebug (Provo Craft), dies: Spellbinders, adhesive: Scotch.

Storybook Stew

2010-04-24T06:55:00.003-04:00

Matthew's first grade school play was yesterday. The four classes put on Storybook Stew, and each did an adaptation of a different fairy tale. Matthew's class did The Sky Is Falling and he was one of the forest squirrels. They had two showings, one at 9:30am for the Kindergarten and pre-K classes, and one at 1pm for the parents.

Since I was way back in the theater, I bumped my ISO up really high (1600) and got some decent, if grainy, pictures of the kids on stage. Matthew's the one to the immediate left of the tree in the first picture, and directly in front of the tree in the second. He had a great time, and we could hear him from our seat. (Yes, he is the loudest human alive.) We were a little surprised, though, because he's always telling us he doesn't like to sing where people can hear him.

After the play they had a cast party. Here's a picture of all three of the play's squirrels.

Aren't they just the cutest?

Groovy Challenge

2010-04-18T22:01:00.003-04:00

A few years ago, I scanned a bunch of slides for my parents. Naturally I kept copies of all of them. Tonight I decided to do a layout of one of them. This was a lot of fun to create. My challenge to you is to pull out an old photo in similarly, uhm, attractive clothing, and post it on your blog, Facebook or in a card or layout, for all to see.

Groovy, Baby! Digital Supplies: Template: December Daily by Ali Edwards,

Paper: Summer Safari by Jessie Edwards, Classic Cardstock Christmas by Katie Pertiet,

Edge: Sand Scratched Photo Frames 1 by Anna Aspnes, Swirl: Flocking Christmas

by Anna Aspnes, Font: AR Christy.

Journaling: The early 70s were not kind to fashion. Bright, screaming yellow must have been “in”. Mom was dressed up for an evening out, and we were in our pajamas, ready for the babysitter.

Being Satisfied With Doing Less

2010-04-15T19:17:00.002-04:00

Many of you know I started back to work with a number of steady contracts in mid-December. I've spent that time enjoying working again - I truly love medical writing and getting into the data. But trying to re-balance my other household and child duties meant that my craft time suffered. I'm finally feeling a bit more balanced again, have learned to streamline some chores, and am getting more time for crafting.

The March 2010 edition of ScrapStreet.com Magazine highlighted BasicGrey's Origins paper line. Here are my projects:

Happy Birthday. Supplies: Paper: BasicGrey (Origins),Stamps: Papertrey Ink,

Twill: Stampin' Up!, Flower: Prima, Tools: scallop punch (Fiskars), acrylic block,

Specialty ink: Tattered Angels, Ink: Ranger, Other: leaves.

Friend. Supplies: Paper: BasicGrey, Rub-ons: BasicGrey, Stampin' Up!,

Pen: Copic, Specialty ink: Tattered Angels, Ink: Clearsnap, Ranger,

Twine: Stampin' Up!, Dies: Spellbinders, Sizzix,

Tools: circle punches (Marvy), Cuttlebug (Provo Craft), rub-on tool (BasicGrey),

Adhesive: ThermOWeb, Scotch.

Welcome, Little One (a layout of my sister's Christening). Supplies: Paper: BasicGrey,

Stamps: HamptonArt, Papertrey Ink, Ribbon: Making Memories, other,

Twine: Papertrey Ink, Tools: scallop punch (Fiskars), corner rounder (Creative Memories),

fingertip knife (Fiskars), glass cutting mat (EK Success), acrylic block, sewing machine,

Markers: Copic, Zig, Ink: Clearsnap, Ranger, Other: thread, button.

So my recent scrappy obsessions (when time permits) include Papertrey Ink products, Copic markers (and coloring pretty images with them), and hybrid projects. I have had this wonderful photo (ca. 1973) of my grandparents feeding the calves on their farm in a frame in my house for years. But a long time in the sun has taken its toll, and it's time to put the photo into an album or risk it fading to nothing. This Webster's paper, with its old-world feel, combined with some of Katie Pertiet's digital stamps (the cow one in particular), made for a fun layout.

La Vie Est Bonne. Supplies: Paper: Webster's Pages, Bling: Prima, Ink: Ranger,

Specialty ink: Smooch (Clearsnap), Pen: atyou Spica (Copic), Tools: finger tip knife (Fiskars),

glass mat (EK Success), minimister (Ranger), Adhesive: Scotch, EK Success, Digital supplies: Brushes: Countryside Clusters and My Family Genealogy Definitions by Katie Pertiet.

A few of the Street sisters and I entered a digital card-making contest. Alas, we didn't make it too far. My challenge was to do an easel-style card. Digital stamps of Alice and the mushrooms, paired with some Fancy Pants rub-ons and Cosmo Cricket papers, made a fun card to send to my niece.

Spring Wishes. Supplies: Stamps: Papertrey Ink, Paper: Cosmo Cricket,

Kraft paper: Stampin' Up!, Die cuts: Fancy Pants, Markers: Copic, Ink: Clearsnap, Ranger,

Twill: Stampin' Up!, Tools: acrylic block, Cuttlebug (Provo Craft), Die: Spellbinders,

Adhesive: Scotch, Therm O Web, EK Success, Glue Dots,

Digital Supplies: Stamps: The Greeting Farm.

Earlier this week, I decided to try out the Copics on some highly detailed digital stamps. I selected and sized them using Photoshop Elements, then printed them out and colored them in the evenings while watching TV. I really love how this card came out.

Spring Bird. Supplies: Paper: Webster's Pages, Cardstock, stamp: Papertrey Ink,

Markers: Copic, Ink: Ranger, Bling: Walmart, Cloud 9,

Digital supplies: Paper: Classic Cardstock: Cleansing by Katie Pertiet,

Brushes: Birdwatcher Silhouettes No. 2 by Katie Pertiet, Birdwatcher Clusters by Katie Pertiet, Software: Photoshop Elements 8.0 (Adobe).

And finally, I'm trying out a new venture. I've begun to make some digital templates and quick pages, under the name 4Two2 Frameworks. Grab the freebies on the ScrapStreet blog: Framework No. 1 and Castle Cutie Quick Pages.

I made the layout below with one of my quickframes: Jeremy's hands holding a frog. Can you tell I'm a mom to boys?

Spring Doings

2010-04-14T18:53:00.001-04:00

Spring blooms are nearly done here, but I thought I'd share what's around my yard:

The early season cherry trees were really beautiful this year:

And the lorapetalum put on quite a show as well. Here is a photo of the nearly 5-foot tall bush in front of the house...

and here is a close-up of one of the flowers. I think they look like exploding fireworks.

This is the later-season cherry tree that's in the backyard. When we moved in nearly 9 years ago, it barely reached the eaves of the roof on the shed next to it. Now it towers over that whole area.

And the phlox near that cherry tree is so pretty, nestled up in front of the day lily leaves:

The day before Easter, we went to the NC state zoo in Asheboro. They were giving "Easter egg" treats to a number of the animals. They blow up a ballon, cover it in paper mache and paint them to look like Easter eggs. Once it's dry, they deflate the balloons and put snacks into the eggs, and place them around the animals' enclosures.

The cougars were such fun to watch! They really went into hunting mode, and stalked their prey before pouncing on it and ripping it to shreds. Here's one climbing up a tree to get the egg:

The black bears weren't quite as observant as the cougars, and it took them a while to figure out food was available. But once they figured it out they had a ball getting their treats out.

The boys were on spring break last week, and it got into the low 90s on several of the days. We traditionally open the pool at Easter, and by Tuesday, when it hit 92 or so, the pool was ready to use. Ready from a balanced chemicals and clarity perspective, that is. The water couldn't have been more than 63 degrees. But that did not stop my boys from getting in.

They were freezing, but managed to submerge and have fun for a good 15-20 minutes before they were cold enough that the testosterone was no longer in charge of their brains.

Oh, and the dog went too...

I'll have a few scrappy creations for you tomorrow or Friday.

Buttons Everywhere

2010-03-23T16:31:00.002-04:00

This card was made to meet two challenges: ScrapStreet's weekly challenge and the first Papertrey Peeps challenge. For both of them, the challenge was to use buttons. Can you tell from the colors how happy I am that it's spring again?

Materials: Paper: Archiver's/We R Memory Keepers, Miss Elizabeth's, Pink Paislee, Bazzill Basics Paper, Stamps: MSE, Papertrey In, Ink: Ranger, Tsukineko, Clearsnap, Markers: Copic, Ribbon: Wright's, Fancy Pants, American Crafts, Buttons: Papertrey Ink, Tools: punch (Fiskars), Cuttlebug (Provo Craft), Dies: Spellbinders, Adhesive: Scotch, EK Success, Therm O Web.

Some Vacation Pictures

2010-03-22T20:35:00.002-04:00

So the last 6 weeks weren't all bad. We did manage to get a vacation in late February, during the kids' week off school. We headed to Florida and got on one of Disney's cruise ships, the Wonder. It sailed to Nassau and to Disney's own island, Castaway Cay, both in the Bahamas. Ryan's parents were able to join us, and it was great seeing the boys hanging out with them.

Of course, since my boys can make anything fun, they had a ball at the hotel, just riding on the baggage cart.

This is Jeremy at the "sail away" party, wildly waving the streamers around, and barely missing Bob and Kitty.

Both kids quite enjoyed the giant slide into the pool; this is Matthew with an ear-to-ear grin after his first ride. He pretty much only used the slide for the rest of the cruise.

For good or bad, cruise ships are known for their extravagant and calorie-free meals and desserts. Jeremy quite enjoyed eating - and wearing - his Mickey ice cream bar.

Castaway Cay is the private island that Disney owns. One of the ships from the Pirates of the Carribbean movies is sunk in the bay. The boys thought they were hot stuff getting to go to the beach in February.

I quite enjoyed Castaway Cay. In fact, I think that if the Wonder had been anchored there for the entire trip I would have been happy. Plenty of chairs and umbrellas, bright blue sky, sand, sea and palm trees. What more could a girl ask for?

Papertrey Peeps - Challenge #4

2010-03-21T16:30:00.003-04:00

This challenge was to CASE (that's copy and stamp exactly) Nichole, the owner of Papertrey Ink, with a few extra rules: you had to CASE one of her projects from the February or March release, and you had to use different stamp set(s).

I chose to CASE this adorable card (Capture the Moment blog by Nichole Heady):

Instead of a dog, I used a rabbit, and made an Easter card:

Materials: Paper: Stampin' Up!, scrap patterned paper, Stamps: Papertrey Ink (Through the Trees), Stampin' Up! (Wildlife Reserve, All Year Cheer I), Markers: Copic, Ink: Fluid Chalk, Ranger, Stampin' Up!, Tool: Copic Airbrush System.

Aren't my daffodils beautiful? Spring has just exploded here in the last week. We went from cold, raw weather, bare trees, and shoots barely coming up from spring bulbs, to low 70s, sunshine, and daffodils and phlox in bloom. The Bradford pear trees have gone from bare to fully bloomed - quite literally - in the last 2 days.

And on the down side, pollen season has begun. The boys have been sniffling for 3 days now, and have started their annual Zyrtec dosing. In another day or so, once the pine buds begin to swell, we'll have to keep the doors and windows closed against the green pine pollen explosion.

ScrapStreet Design Team Call!

2010-03-20T13:53:00.001-04:00

Read on to learn about a design team call! Scrapstreet is looking for a couple of new team members who LOVE to create and to write. We are looking for people who are active in scrapbooking--blogging, gallery uploads, trying new things. People who tackle scrapping with enthusiasm! Traditional, hybrid, digital, layout, card, and altered artists are all encouraged to apply.

The Job:
Our team publishes a monthly ezine with thousands of subscribers and a 5-year history. We love finding and showcasing talented scrappers and beautiful products. If you are selected for our team, you will write a monthly article which will include selecting and requesting the work of designers, combining the work into an interesting article, and meeting your deadline.

You will also receive products at least 6 times a year from a variety of manufacturers and will scrap several items to showcase their lines. It is an excellent opportunity to increase your visibility in the scrapping community while having fun.

To Apply:
Send the following to designteam@scrapstreet.com
contact information
a short statement of why you are interested in joining us.
3 of your favorite creations showcasing your style.
a link to your blog.
a link to your gallery.

We will accept applications until midnight April 10th. Announcements will be made on Monday, April 12th. We are so excited to add some talented new people to our family! Want to know who you would be joining? Peek at our current issue here and at the blogs along the side to get to know some of our team.

Apologies All 'Round

2010-03-18T18:41:00.002-04:00

To my friends, family and followers who like to catch up with me and the boys... for not posting in 6 weeks now! Between Jeremy's cheek wound not healing and nearly needing surgery, to working again and trying to re-balance my life so that work, play and house stuff all get a chance, I just haven't had much time.

To the Peeps... for not commenting on your wonderful and inspiring blogs, and your patience with my absence in the last 6 weeks.

To all of you who have stayed at our house and used the shower in the guest bathroom... Ryan's used it a bit and said it was fine. We recently had our sunporch tiled, and re-grouted the master bathroom. So for a few days I had to use the guest bathroom. And am embarrassed by how truly horrible that shower was. The shower head has been replaced and hopefully at your next visit you will have a better experience.

PTI Goodness... and Some Stitching Badness

2010-01-31T14:02:00.002-05:00

My PTI prize package arrived yesterday - it was like Christmas came again! The gals at ScrapStreet have a "swap meet" challenge going. I was inspired by this image that KT posted:

I love the combination of kraft, cream, dark brown accents and pastels. And you *know* I had to play with my new PTI goodies, so I created these baby announcement cards using PTI's Pretty Pastels paper and the Baby Button Bits stamp set. I have a friend who's due in February, so the timing was perfect.

Each bear and button is color-coordinated with the strip of paper at the top of the card. The materials were: paper, stamps, buttons: Papertrey Ink; kraft: Stampin' Up!;cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper, The Paper Company; ink: Ranger; tools: Cuttlebug (ProvoCraft); dies: Spellbinders; adhesive: Scotch, Glue Dots.

On Friday night/Saturday we got 5" of snow and sleet. The kids had a ball playing outside yesterday. Until they started playing with sticks. Matthew ended up accidentally hitting Jeremy with one, slicing his cheek open. The cut was deep and had jagged edges, so I took him to the ER for stitches. Luckily, the roads were better than they usually are in NC when it snows, and I was able to get there and home just fine. It was not fun to have to mummify him to keep him still during the stitching. Three of us were needed to hold him down, in addition to the wrapping. Once he realized that the anesthetic was working, he finally relaxed and we were able to leave very shortly thereafter. He won't let me take a picture of it yet, but I will. The stitches won't come out until Thursday.

Both he and Matthew had already had endless lectures about swinging sticks around. Hopefully this will finally have taught them a lesson.

Poppy thanks and small changes

2010-01-27T17:14:00.002-05:00

Over the weekend I got a little time in my craft room. I pulled out the scrap paper files and decided to make a bunch of thank you cards using only scraps. I had this great poppy paper, with 2" squares of poppies (buds, full flowers, leaves only) printed on it. I cut them all out, inked the edges and adhered them directly to the cream-colored card base. (I had enough to make 9 cards.) Then I stamped "thank you" on them using a sentiment from PTI's Vintage Picnic set. It still looked a little plain, and I wanted to make it a bit more elegant but still keep it simple. So I added two scored lines above and below the row of poppy squares. I really like the way they came out.

We all know that January is all about resolutions and fresh starts. I generally don't make resolutions, as I've found that if I decide to make big sweeping changes to my life that I fail. Usually miserably. Especially if the resolution had to do with weight loss. But in March of last year, I decided to make small changes, one at a time, and try to incorporate it into my routine, and see what would happen. When I felt comfortable with it, I'd add a new one.

So last March, I changed my breakfast to a protein-fruit smoothie (usually 2 fruits [whatever was on hand], milk and protein powder). And felt fuller in the mornings and found that the hungry horrors that hit me in the late morning largely disappeared.

In October I gave up diet Coke. May not seem like a big deal to most of you, but I was drinking a solid 2L (or more) a day. It went way better than I had expected, with very few headaches. And haven't had any diet Coke in the house since then.

By mid-year, I decided that I really need to incorporate some form of exercise into my life. Yup, there it is - the dreaded "e" word. Going to the gym was out - I know I'd never go. I waffled for months over whether to get a treadmill or not. (You know - would I actually use it or would it just become a glorified place to hang clothes.) By the end of the year, I'd lost 15 pounds - despite not having begun to exercise.

After Christmas I decided to get that treadmill. Ryan and I looked online for a used one and found it on Craig's list. He and a neighbor picked it up last night and wrestled it up the stairs to the guest room. I did a 25-minute walk on it today. A friend pointed me to a site that gave me some info on working into running. We'll see how it works into my routine. But it's a start.

Apparently I'm Ancient

2010-01-20T16:26:00.002-05:00

Matthew is 7 and in first grade. Part of his English homework is to write a specified number of sentences using the spelling words of the week. He came running into my office a few minutes ago, delighted to read his sentences out loud to me. And I nearly spit my drink all over the keyboard when he read:

"I hope my brother lives to be 20 years old."

Oh, to be young enough to think that 20 is old! He must think Ryan and I are ancient. Who knows what he thinks of the grandpeeps!

Congratulations and Thanks!

2010-01-17T15:37:00.002-05:00

My friend, Stacey Michaud, found out recently that she made the Pink Paislee design team. If you follow Stacey's work, or take a look at her blog (linked above), you'll see that she does amazing, intricately layered layouts with an emphasis on journaling. She also does a lot of intricate hand cutting. Her work is always inspiring to me. And a little bit discouraging as well, because I often have the exact same papers and goodies that she has and yet my pages with it, while not horrible, just don't have that flair that I've come to expect from Stacey.

To celebrate, the gals at ScrapStreet issued the "Stacey Challenge", with the idea to go make something with Pink Paislee products to help Stacey celebrate her new DT role.

So I pulled out my Pink Paislee, and my Everyday Button Bits stamp set from Papertrey Ink, and made this cute, spring-like card. It's being mailed tomorrow to thank my mother-in-law and father-in-law not only for all the gifts they gave this Christmas, but also for the time they spent here, sharing themselves with us and the boys. Since we live so far from our families, it is wonderful to have them visit often enough that they and the boys know each other well enough to tease and play and giggle together.

Winner, Winner...

2010-01-15T07:31:00.001-05:00

...but not a chicken dinner!

I discovered Papertrey Ink (PTI) late last summer, and fell in love with their products, particularly their acrylic stamp sets and templates. You've seen the gift house that I made from the Home Made template. And though I haven't posted a picture of them yet, for the holidays I made over 20 notepads for various teachers, friends and family members using the "Take Note" stamp set and their ingenious 2.5x8 inch notepads.

PTI releases new stamp sets and other goodies every month. And has a big party on the release night. All you have to do is comment on the blog post about the giveaway and you are eligible to win. Last night, by some miracle, my name was the one pulled from the electronic hat.

So, what did I win? The whole collection of new stamps and paper! I won the "I Want It All" prize from PTI. For this release, it was 8 stamp sets and a paper pad. The sets are just super, and I've been drooling over two of them in particular: Through the Trees and Baby Button Bits. There are several sentiment sets, and journaling set, and a through-the-year sentiment and images set.

Now to find some time to do a bit of cardmaking and scrapping again... I have a thank you card to prepare.

Catching Up, part 2

2009-12-31T09:12:00.001-05:00

And finally, a few more layouts I completed in December. They were done to give myself a short break from all the holiday preparation chaos.

This one so we can remember our trips to the flea market. We head down there every 3-4 months, and sporadically during the summer if it's not too hot.

This one, from the December 2009 edition of Scrapstreet Magazine. A group of us were asked to respond to Stacey's phrase "how can you not?" at our summer meeting. My response was to document things that I find irresistable. How can you not 1. sigh with pleasure as you slip into a bubblebath, 2. have a favorite color, 3. be passionate about something, 4. play with your kids’ toys, 5. decorate for the changing seasons, 6. want to cuddle a sleeping baby, 7. eat chocolate, 8. love finding the perfect pair of shoes, 9. sing along with the radio, 10. eat popcorn while watching a movie.

And finally, one that epitomizes both boys' dreams for the winter: snow and lots of it. (To qualify for the northerners reading my blog, "lot of it" here in the south means 1-6 inches, most of which is gone in 2 days.) These are pictures from last year's March snowfall. This layout ran in the Pixel Place column of Scrapstreet Magazine's December edition, and featured the digital kit Winter Shimmer.

Catching Up

2009-12-30T07:34:00.005-05:00

I thought I'd finish out the year catching up with some layouts I did at the end of the year and have not shared yet. It's a bit long, so grab a cup of coffee and get comfy.

In October and November, I was a participant in the Last Scrapper Standing contest over at Divine Digital. There were 6 elimination rounds. (I made it to the finals, but I was not the Last Scrapper Standing.) Each of the weekly challenges had 10 requirements, including extensive journaling and some advanced digital techniques. I'm going to post 4 of the entries here today.

First up, Who Are You, about Jeremy's love of all things costume in the past year. Since this was made, he has added Captain Rex (Star Wars Clone Trooper guy) to his costume box.

The journaling reads: Since he turned 5, Jeremy has been especially interested in costumes and make-believe. This year he’s been a superhero (in a glittery cape that I made for him with fabric he picked out), Batman, and Harry Potter (both birthday gifts from Grandma and Grandpa). In the last few months, he’s become, well, let’s say obsessed, with all things Star Wars. He loves getting out his light saber and working on his “Jedi Training”. This apparently consists of a variety of moves, coupled with a fierce expression and deep, glowering eyes. Oh! And killing bad guys, of course. He’s going to be Captain Rex, the clone trooper hero, for Halloween. I can’t wait to see who he turns into next...

This layout captures our T-ball season in one page. This challenge required use of a shadow box, and extracting an image (removing it from the background). Both the season and creating this page were a lot of fun!

Journaling: Baseball is our game, and T-ball was a family affair this year. Dad was the coach. Matthew and Jeremy were players. Mom was in charge of getting the kids into the batting order. Supplies at hand: helmets and bats, gloves and balls, cleats, and the tee.

It was Matthew’s second year playing, and he loved every minute. He made good contact with the ball, ran hard between bases, and made a valiant effort at fielding.

It was Jeremy’s first year playing and he was not so much in love. He exhibited great creativity at the “duck and cover” move when a ball was hit or thrown anywhere near him, kept his eyes closed while batting, and made faces at the coach (Dad) when getting batting advice. Oh, and who can forget him building sand castles in the infield?

I did another page about Jeremy. He is absolutely desperate to get the dog to obey him, and really worked hard at it this day. (She hasn't listened to him since...)

Journaling: Today, you were playing outside while Matthew did homework. Our yellow lab, Ribby, was running around the yard with you. You desperately wanted her to shake with you. “Ribby, sit!” And she ran this way. “Ribby, shake!” And she ran that way. Finally, you asked me to get her to sit. Once she did, you moved in front of her, held out your hand, and said “Shake!” And she did nothing. And you tried again. And still nothing. And again. And eventually she lifted her paw up, and you grabbed it. Success! You reached over to give her a hug and got nuzzled on the side of your head. “Mom! She liked it and kissed me!” At the tender age of three, you announced “I don’t like work,” and you really haven’t deviated from that position in the nearly 3 years since. But today, you worked hard to accomplish your goal.

I hope you remember this accomplishment some day in the future when you think you can’t do something. It is going to take hard effort - yes, work - on your part. You might need a bit of help from someone else to get started. It probably won’t work the first or second or maybe even the tenth time you try it. You are going to have to be persistent. But remember how great it felt for Ribby to shake your hand and give you that kiss.

And last of today's set, but not least, is Creative. It had to include three identical photos, one original version and the other two treated differently. My variations included a b/w old-fashioned look, and a sketch or woodprint looking version of the original (top in the layout) photo. It also required discussing a family trait.

Journaling: My father was a teacher and a jack-of-all-trades. He was a mason, woodworker (particularly cabinetry), and carpenter. In both of our houses, he built beautiful front steps (both brickwork and stonework) and various cabinetry pieces. In our second house (we moved when I was 10), he refinished all the original hardwood floors, as well as building storage units for the root cellar (yes, we had an actual root cellar!) and re-sided the entire house with clapboard. In this picture, I’m riding in a sleigh he designed, built, and painted. It’s pulled by our German Shepherd, Happy. My siblings and I, as well as a number of the neighborhood kids, had great fun riding down the street in this sleigh during the winter.

Dad knew not only the basic skills of these trades, but the craftsman’s tricks to make a job easier, faster, and/or more beautifully finished. As the oldest, I was his first pick as a helper during the summer months when he wasn’t teaching. He always had number of large projects scheduled. I got to learn why he selected particular woods, or rocks, and which nail sizes, and why those things mattered to the finished product. I learned to appreciate the need for a variety of tools, each to do specific jobs. (I also learned a lot of swear words, but that’s a different topic...) I began to understand the nuances that elevate simple work to an art form. While I never really grew to love any of these jobs, I can handle a lot of basic fixes around the house.

My creativity is expressed in cloth, paper, and pixels instead of wood and stone. I started sewing when I was 10 years old, and from the beginning I was hooked. I’ve spent nearly 35 years learning the sewer’s tricks to make a job easier or faster or more beautifully finished. About 20 years ago I was introduced to quilting, and shortly thereafter to scrapbooking. The use of color, pattern, and design make my heart and soul sing. I don’t know if my creativity is based on “nature” (a genetic inheritance from Dad) or “nurture” (due to the exposure I got to his creativity while I was a child). Either way, I’ll take it and celebrate it.

Summer In My Heart

2009-12-20T08:06:00.003-05:00

As we sit here in the cold, I can't help remembering our wonderful trip to the Cape this summer. I had a few minutes yesterday and scrapped this page. The photo was taken at dead low tide on the Brewster flats. It was an extremely overcast morning, so there was very little color to the sky, and what there was was an iron gray. So I ran the photo through a few filters in Adobe Lightroom and got this fabulous look.

The quote, by Rachel Carson, reads: To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of year, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

2009-12-19T13:01:00.000-05:00

OK, well, that's a bit of an overstatement. Actually, it's a complete and total lie. I really don't like snow, it's one of the reasons I live in the south now. The south generally has perfect snow: less than an inch accumulates, it looks pretty for a few hours, and is gone by lunch.

We did dodge the snow, though. We were just south of the snow line for this monster storm that's raging along the east coast. While we got a few hours of flurries - enough to put about a 1/2 inch thick layer on the deck and absolutely delight and excite the boys - it changed over to rain last night. The boys were decidedly not happy to find out that there was nothing left this morning. My former home of Charlottesville, VA (only a 4-5 hours' drive north of here) was not so lucky. Last I heard they had 16 inches on the ground there.

I take complete and total credit for the lack of snow here in Wake Forest. Last year, we had a few decent (for here, anyway) ~6" snowfalls, and the boys didn't have any winter boots. So, with the predictions of a colder and wetter than normal winter, as well as the immediate predictions for this storm, I went out on Thursday and bought a pair of boots for each of the boys. And thereby prevented any snow from falling.

You *know* that if I had not done so, we'd have plenty on the ground here. Right?

Quilting Secret Santa: House Gift Box

2009-12-13T19:09:00.000-05:00

I spent Saturday at an all-day meeting of my quilt group, Cyberbee. We meet 5-6 times a year, and several of our meetings are all-day events. We catch up with each other, do some sewing, have a fabulous potluck lunch, show and tell, and discuss future projects.

At our December meeting, we have a gift exchange. Last year we changed from doing a "dirty Santa", where each recipient in turn could pick either a new gift or one that had already been opened, to a Secret Santa, where you know for whom you're getting a gift. We keep a little spreadsheet on our website listing any preferences in color/fabric styles, as well as any new toys we'd like to have.

This year I drew my friend Jean. One of her gifts was some red and green silk thread for Baltimore applique. I decided to use this house as my gift box for it. I used the Home Made template at PaperTrey Ink. It's so easy to put together, and awfully fun to make the windows, doors and other decorations.

Here is the front. I used a bit of batting to look like smoke coming out of the chimney.

And the side and back, where I added a pine tree. ('Tis the season, after all.)

And, finally, a picture of the house with the roof off, revealing the gift inside.

Hopefully, Jean will be able to use this little house to store something for herself.

I'll be making a few more of these houses to hold Zhu Zhu pets for each of my boys. They will fit perfectly and give the hamsters a place to sleep each night.

New Look, and Check Me Out!

2009-12-02T17:45:00.003-05:00

I still have to decorate the house (and am hoping to start tomorrow), but I went ahead and decorated my blog for Christmas today. I hope you like the new look. That picture in the header is of the boys acting like Max in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Specifically, the shrug and wave he gives when he falls behind the sleigh and jumps up on the bags for a ride, and the Grinch catches him. It's the boys' and my favorite scene!

The new ScrapStreet Magazine is available! Check it out here: December 2009.

This was quite a busy magazine month for me, as I have eight creations in it! Click on the titles below to see them - you'll have to scroll down on some of them, as there are three images per page.

Check out the calls for the March 2010 issue here: March Calls, due December 31st.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T09:13:00.000-05:00

I am busy counting my blessings this morning, and wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving filled with food, family, and friends.

But among the happiness of the day, we have some sadness, too. My Uncle Jack, my dad's brother and my godfather, passed away early this morning. I have some fond memories of him. Here's a layout I did of him (on the right) and my dad (on the left) when they were young men.

Rest in peace, Uncle Jack.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

2009-11-23T16:09:00.001-05:00

It started raining last night, and did not stop until an hour or so ago. It's only in the low 50s, raw and cold. Ick.

So, I did a page to warm me up a bit. These were some of the hydrangeas that were in bloom when we were on the Cape in July. After tulips, these are my favorite flowers. Isn't the range of color amazing?

I'm off to finish getting ready for my Mom's visit. She's arriving in a little over an hour to spend the holiday with us. When I picked Jeremy up from school, he told me that he wrote a love note for her today. She is just going to melt!

Licking the Spoon

2009-11-21T15:53:00.002-05:00

I love to bake, but don't do it too often anymore because I really don't need the extra fat and calories. But nowadays I have a helper or two when it's time to bake. We made some Rice Krispy treats this week, and it reminded me of pictures I took of Jeremy the last time we made some (in March). I was in a mood to play with paper, and created a layout today with those pictures.

Jeremy likes to add ingredients and turn the mixer on and off. He enjoys the process to some extent. But really, his favorite part is licking the spoon. He anticipates the moment the whole time we're mixing the ingredients. Once he receives the spoon, he's quite intent and deliberate about it.

Do you spend a little time licking the spoon after you accomplish something? Or are you so busy with all those things life throws at you that you just move on to get the next item crossed off your list? Take a page from Jeremy's book: take the time to savor the moment and revel in it. Go lick some spoons!

Notes from the House of Pestilence

2009-11-14T20:18:00.001-05:00

"The House of Pestilence" is the label my friend, Jean, assigned to my home this week. "Why would she say such a thing?" you might ask yourself.

It all started on Friday, Nov.6. Matthew came home from school and "didn't feel up to" playing with his friends. You parents out there know that statement from a child is a big, red flag that something's wrong. Sure enough, when I checked, he had a fever. The only other symptoms were a mild cough and occasional loss of appetite. So we had a low-key weekend, and Sunday night at bedtime he was fever-free.

But by then Jeremy had started a fever.

Matthew stayed fever-free on Monday and on Tuesday was able to go back to school. But that evening his coughing really escalated, and when he got up on Wednesday morning he had a fever again. So off to the docs we went. They both tested positive for the flu,and Matthew had developed pneumonia as well. Jeremy was tracking exactly 2 days behind Matthew. Sure enough, on Friday he was seen at the doc and diagnosed with pneumonia as well.

So, for 8 days now the boys have been home sick. Matthew seemed just perfectly normal again today, and it looks like he'll be back to school on Monday. Jeremy was still feverish all day today, so unless he's normal tomorrow he'll miss *another* day of school. As I tucked him into bed tonight, he turned and said to me "Mom, I really miss my school." Me too, buddy, trust me!

We did manage some fun, though. They were both kind of bummed out Wednesday at dinner time, missing school and their friends. So Ryan and I offered up a special bath in our tub. We have an extra-deep garden tub in our bathroom, with nice jets. We put enough water in to cover the jets, then turned them on. Jets + bubble bath = bubbles nearly 2 1/2 feet high! The boys had an absolutely blast playing in it! And the cat, naturally, had to inspect the situation.

So far, Ryan and I have managed to avoid getting sick, and we're hoping it stays that way.

Belated Boo!

2009-11-10T16:59:00.000-05:00

So I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of the boys on Halloween. We had Captain Rex (from Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (the red one, whomever that might be) join us for trick-or-treating this year. And the kids had me make a (somewhat pathetic) attempt at a Darth Vader carving on the pumpkin.

Matthew is (still) in his fake-smile phase. Partly because he's got 4 missing teeth and likes folks to see his gaps. Partly because he's just in that phase. I'm really hoping it will end soon.

We trick-or-treated with our neighbors this year. Actually, it's the first year we've had neighbors with kids the same age to trick-or-treat with. It was rather toasty, in the mid-70s, and by the time we got half-way done all of the kids were soaked with sweat. It's a far cry from the Halloweens I remember in Boston as a child, when we'd have to struggle to get the costumes on over heavy clothes because it was so cold outside. (Wearing them over our coats meant people could see who we were. It would have been just silly to put coats over our costumes.)

For the last 4 days, I've been dealing with sick boys. Matthew popped a fever late Friday afternoon, and was able to go back to school today. Apparently 5 of his class of 18 were out sick yesterday. Jeremy started with the fever late Sunday afternoon, and was still 102 today at lunchtime. So he'll be out another day tomorrow. Hopefully, if it follows the same course Matthew's did, he'll be back in school on Thursday.

I'll leave you today with a picture of a greeting card I made using November's free kit at Scrapstreet, Thankful by Rachness Designs. The free kit is a digital kit, and all of the things on the card are printed from a digital creation. Don't those buttons look real, though?

Bad Blogger!

2009-11-06T17:11:00.005-05:00

Readers, forgive me for I have been a bad blogger... it has been nearly 4 weeks since my last blog post... Ooh, look at that, I feel like I'm in a confessional again... sounds like it, too. :)

What have I been up to?

Lots of school involvement for me in the last few weeks: classroom volunteering, field trip chaperoning, and unpacking and displaying boxes and boxes of books for the school-wide book fair to be held next week.

My in-laws came and visited for a few days, and we had a great time with them. They got to see one of Matthew's baseball games.

Finished up the baseball season. The team actually won their last game - giving them a 1-and-10 or so record for the season.

Parent-teacher conferences. Early dismissals from school for said conferences.

Lots of creating for Scrapstreet magazine; while I'm no longer an editor, I still help out by creating items for the monthly Showroom article and occasionally for other columns as well.

Some sewing: one of my bees has a Christmas tree block swap ongoing, and my 12 identical blocks are nearing completion.

Those of you who know me well know how much I love diet Coke, and that it was a 2L-a-day habit. Did you notice the past tense? I'm officially 4 weeks clean now. No caffeine in that time. An occasional fizzy drink like diet Sprite. (And by occasional I mean only about one a week.) Lots of flavored waters. (Love those, not so fond of plain water.) Amazingly, I did not get migraine-level headaches, only mild-to-moderate ones that were easy to cope with.

I also prepped two rooms and a hallway for painting, then had the painters here for a couple of days getting it done. It's all nice and fresh upstairs now. Well, if you don't look at the rugs. I could render down the playroom rug for soup stock. (Any David [and Leigh] Eddings fans out there may recognize that line...) So today I got an estimate on getting all the rugs cleaned. It's a bit pricey, but considering the state of the rugs... Well, DH and I will be making a decision over the weekend.

Oh, and if I'm going to come clean, I have to admit to a bit of an obsession with a Ratchet and Clank PS3 video game. Been spending lots of time shooting things up.

So, that sums up my last 4 weeks or so. Busy crazy life stuff. But I'm back on the blogging wagon. Type at y'all later.

Fall Quilt Festival

2009-10-10T08:01:00.001-04:00

Park City Girl is hosting a Fall Quilt festival. So I decided to join the party!

This is Midnight Sun/Polar Night. I took a Jan Krentz Lone Star class in March 04, in which I made the diamonds. I then put it away because Jeremy was born two weeks later. When Jeremy was three, I began having about 30 minutes here and there when I could actually *do* something, so I started quilting again. I decided to start with finishing up a few UFOs, and the lone star was the first quilt I thought of finishing.

I pulled it back out in Jan 08 and got it finished up. The animal patterns were traced, scanned and blown up from the batik print in the outer border. They are hand appliqued. The piece is machine quilted. Because the animals are all North American, and cold country animals as well, and because the colors are essentially sunlight and midnight, I named it for the endless day and endless night experienced in Alaska and Canada.

Just Add Water

2009-10-08T11:33:00.000-04:00

It's a nearly perfect slogan for the boys. Whether it's a sprinkler, bathtub, hose, or pool, they're happy if there's water. Even frozen water - the ice that collects around the backyard in the winter - can keep them busy for hours.

But the best is the water at the beach. We spent the weekend in Myrtle Beach, with Ryan's family. The weather was perfect - low 80s, sunny, no humidity. We walked on the beach at sunrise, did a lot of wave jumping, played mini golf, went to the water park, and had lunches and dinners out together. Here are a couple of the 540 pictures I took in the 2-day trip: Jeremy walking on the beach at sunrise, and Matthew leaping into a rather large wave.

It really was a relaxing weekend. Good thing we did it then, because it looks like summer's last gasp is happening here now. We'll be into the 50s and 60s next week.

Bikes, Jedi Training, Pampas and Scarecrows

2009-10-01T07:52:00.002-04:00

Most schooldays, the boys can't play with their friends because of late school bus times and homework. But on Wednesdays, the local schools dismiss an hour early, and so the boys get a chance to play with their friends. Yesterday they had an impromptu bike rodeo. Here's Matthew mugging for the camera - again! I can't get this one to give me a nice smile anymore.

The rodeo didn't last very long, but they all had a good time. Then Matthew was off to do his homework, and Jeremy decided to do his Jedi training. Apparently having an angry face with hard, staring eyes is part of the whole Jedi business.

It was a lovely fall day yesterday, temps in the low 70s and dry. The pampas grasses look really beautiful at this time of year.

And Ribby was - for once - willing to sit still and let me take her picture instead of bouncing around being excited by the attention. Love this shot of her - those deep, soulful, sad eyes make you forget that she's really a scarecrow (if she only had a brain).

Lazy Sunday

2009-09-20T17:29:00.004-04:00

Just enjoying a lazy Sunday today. We've all done some reading and played video games together. The boys played outside in the backyard with their friends for several hours, and I did some stamping. The dog decided that the screen door would be much better with a flap in it, and created her very own dog door to the sunporch. Ryan was not terribly happy about her decorating idea!

Ryan mowed the lawn, and when he was done let the kids drive the tractor a bit. Ear-to-ear grins on both of those boys' faces getting to drive for the first time! And they didn't run over any trees, or the garage, or the tool shed.

I've got a few more layouts of our trip to the Cape done in the last week or so. The first one of Jeremy running to catch up when he saw Uncle Bill showing Matthew his fishing gear. (Credits can be found here.)

And this picture of my niece, Tori. She's a lovely, confident girl and held her own with the boys. Not "tough", but secure in herself and able to stand her ground when necessary. (Credits here.)

And this layout of Jeremy, playing last February in Asia at the Animal Kingdom at WaltDisneyWorld. He's so good at entertaining himself and having fun! Over the years I've become used to how roughly the boys play, but I have to admit that him throwing himself onto the pavement at multiple points in the game he invented did get to me once or twice! (Credits here.)

Shelob's Lair - Bwa ha ha ha!

2009-09-18T09:37:00.000-04:00

Just when you thought it was safe to reach into the candy bowl on Halloween... not in my house! Shelob is guarding her web, down at the bottom of this delightfully scary treat bowl.

Ok, well, maybe it's more terminally cute than scary. But I love the new bowl I've finished for Halloween. Based on Susan Breier's It's a Wrap: Sewing Fabric Purses, Baskets, And Bowls, this bowl is made from clothesline wrapped in fabric strips. The white stars in the black and white fabric glow in the dark. And I could not resist pairing it with the neon lime green spiderweb fabric. You can see that Shelob's already caught a few critters who are bug-eyed wondering what's going to happen to them...

But for my money, what takes this over the top is the big furry spider with her glittery legs! I used a Crop-a-dile to punch holes at the end of each of the legs, then sewed them directly onto the edges of the bowl.

And yes, I'm a Tolkein fan and decided that she could be named for his famous (or is that infamous?) spider. Hmm, that reminds me, I haven't re-read LOTR in quite a while - maybe it's time to pull that out again...

My Military Month

2009-09-14T08:59:00.001-04:00

So mid-August through mid-September has been a military type of month for me. I have a great respect for members of our military, and their families. They all give up so much to secure and maintain our freedom. I figured that the least I could do was support our military, in one way via cards that go to our men and women serving overseas and in another way, to support a humanitarian effort spearheaded by one of our servicemen.

I spent most of the month making cards for the Cards For Heroes drive at ScrapStreet. On Thursday I packaged up and shipped the 154 cards that I made. Christmas, birthday, miss you, and other types.

And through my friend Michelle I learned of IBOL - that's Iraqi Bundles of Love. From the website created by Maj. Art LaFlamme:

Iraqi Bundles of Love is a short-duration project, set to last about six weeks, originally intended to surge fabric and sewing (and knitting!) materials into the area around which I live in Iraq. It is timed to coincide with both Ramadan, and the departure of my units from Iraq.

The general premise is this. I am in Iraq, and I can get mail through the US Postal System. Willing contributors can send to me a flat-rate box of sewing / quilting supplies, all bundled up. I’d open the box, pull out the fully-contained bundle, and hand it off (with others) to our counterparts in the Iraqi Security Forces (Army and others) or the local police, for them to distribute. Some of the bundles will also be delivered by US Soldiers. The stated intent of this operation is to put sewing and quilting and knitting supplies into the hands of two types of recipients: locals who desperately need such things, and local sewing co-ops and other small businesses who have received grants or loans (typically to purchase sewing machines, rent space, etc).

Maj. LaFlamme's original goal was to receive 50 packages and deliver them to folks who need them. As of this morning, his website count stood at 1921 packages received. One of them was from me. More are still arriving since the mailing deadline was last Tuesday and it takes a while for mail to get there.

Life Lessons

2009-08-29T18:35:00.002-04:00

It is ok to be a 5-year-old in WalMart and want everything you see.

It is not ok to throw a fit when you're told (reminded actually, as we told you before entering) that you're not getting anything, that mom and dad are just looking at tv stands before we go out to dinner.

It is appropriate for mom and dad to decide that you are not going out to dinner, that because your behavior is continuing to be unacceptable, instead you and mom are going home for pb&j sandwiches while dad and your brother go out to dinner.

It is appropriate for you to lose privileges, such as Playstation and Leapster, in response to your continued poor behavior.

It is not ok for you to run to the back of the van and try the old "I'll only come out if you give me my games back". Tthat meant you lost them for the remainder of the week, instead of just the next 24 hours.

It is not ok to have to be carried, kicking me for all you're worth, into the house. (I don't know if it's ok or not, but I had to suppress every instinct I had to not burst into uncontrollable laughter - for some reason this struck me as unimaginably funny.)

It is ok for you to slowly begin calming down. I appreciate that you apologized to me without having to be prompted. And no, your apology is not getting any privileges back.

Sometimes parenting sucks.

It would be very ok for dad to bring me back a very large ice cream when he and brother return. I could use that tonight.

Sneak Peek - Paper Trunk

2009-08-27T08:41:00.002-04:00

Each month, ScrapStreet.com Magazine has a column named Showroom. A sponsoring company provides the ScrapStreet Pit Crew with the product(s) they want to feature. September's sponsor is Paper Trunk. They sent us the Maybe Baby, Socialite and Wrangler lines to play with. Here's a sneak peek of what you'll find in the Showroom column in September's edition, which goes live on September 1.

A Bit of Silliness

2009-08-26T14:18:00.003-04:00

I made up a bunch of cards today for the Cards for Heros drive that ScrapStreet is conducting.

One of the paper lines I was working with is by Cosmo Cricket, and the name of the line is Mr. Campy. Sort of an earth-toned, camping/outdoorsy line of papers and embellishments. First I used one of my favorite Stampin' Up! stamp sets, Best of Cluck. The "just chicken in" stamp makes me smile every time I see it. I colored the chickens using Copic markers in shades that worked with the papers.

Then I moved on to using rubons, chipboard, and stickers that are designed to coordinate with the Mr. Campy papers. There are many kind of silly phrases, like "I love you s'more" that I used. I even did one card that says "you light up my life" above a (lit) flashlight. Go ahead, groan with me!

Lastly, I had a few Christmas images that I had stamped in black on kraft paper. So I used them to create these simple cards.

Off to get the mom taxi running - it's time to pick Matthew up from school.

Carpooling and the Bird Quilt

2009-08-25T09:00:00.004-04:00

This year, with Jeremy getting out at noon and Matthew at 3pm, I have three trips to school every day. It takes 20 minutes each way, except in the morning, when it takes 35-40 minutes to get there during rush hour.

Until today. Today I and another mom who lives about 5 minutes from our house begin carpooling for the afternoon pick-ups. She has the double afternoon pick-up like I do. So, one of us will do the noon run and the other will do the 3pm run. We'll switch every week or so. I am very excited about this, from a time perspective and because of the rising costs of gas.

I thought I'd show you my second applique quilt today. (I know, beat me up, but I don't have a picture of the first quilt I made with applique.) It's named "Birds Outside My Window".

This one was a present for my brother Bill, who loves birds and spent many hours of his childhood trying to catch them. I drafted the patterns from a Dover coloring book, simplifying as necessary to get the look I wanted. The birds are cardinals, chickadees, grackles, and blue jays, all frequent visitors in eastern MA where we grew up. The blocks are placed in the attic windows set.

There is hand and fusible applique and a very tiny amount of free-motion machine embroidery to make the buds on the branches on which the grackles are perched. The bird's egg fabric in the outer border was found in the Portland, Oregon area. (I traveled nearly 100% in a former job, and often had time to stop in local quilt shops.) I had just started working on the quilt and when I found that fabric I almost levitated - I knew it would be perfect for this piece.

I am one of those fortunate crafters whose family truly appreciates handcrafted items. They use and/or display them. I feel so blessed to have this kind of acceptance and appreciation for my work!

Boys and Trees...

2009-08-23T19:03:00.005-04:00

are inseparable! Mine love to play in the woods behind our house, and trees are endlessly fascinating playthings for them. Dead, alive - it's all good.

But Nana has the most amazing pine tree in her front yard, and the branches radiate from the trunk at perfect spacing for climbing. And so, for the first few days we were in MA for our vacation, if they were outside we knew we'd find them up the tree. I did this layout today so they'd remember the fun they had.

Journaling: The boys are more than a bit obsessed with the climbing tree in front of Nana's house. No, not the one in the main picture, but it's the same height as the climbing tree (of which a branch can be seen on the left), so you can get an idea of how large it is. The boys were allowed to climb about to the height of the second floor window. (And yes, I did worry about the broken arms, but let them do it anyway.) If they were outside, they were in the tree. Picking the bark off it, creating "rooms" to hang out in, they looked like little clothed squirrels.

And here are a few more pictures of them in the tree. They both loved posing and having their picture taken while in it, so you know I took full advantage of it.

First Day of School!

2009-08-19T13:47:00.005-04:00

And the boys are so excited! The were each the teacher's helper today (one benefit of having B as the first letter of your last name) and are excited to go back to school tomorrow. The little monkeys were quite unwilling to give me a "nice" picture this morning, and much preferred to be total goofballs. But I did get this one semi-decent one of their smug little smiling faces!

Since today was Jeremy's first day of Kindergarten, I made him a decorated Kindergarten box, filled with goodies like new crayons, pencils, a glue stick, tissues, etc. He was delighted with his new gift. (Matthew and my niece Tori got them too, when they started K, and my nephew Dylan will get one next year.)

And what did I do with my morning of freedom? I had 2 hours to myself. (They have early release all week and won't start on the normal schedule until next week.) I did some laundry and made 10 cards for the Cards for Heroes drive. I love these cute little chickadees from the Every Day Button Bits stamp set from Paper Trey Ink. I just added buttons and some paper and they are good to go!

Enterprising

2009-08-18T08:14:00.004-04:00

Both boys have become obsessed with Legos. They love looking at the Lego catalog as much as they love to create with the Legos. (I'm guessing Santa will have a Lego-heavy wish list from the boys this year.)

Jeremy has decided that he wants to get the Lego Deathstar set. It has 3,800 pieces and is "only" $400. Yes, that's right, four hundred dollars! So he's told us he's saving up for it. (Note to self: Congratulate self and husband for teaching the boys to save up for special items they want to buy instead of just asking mom and dad to shell out for it.)

But, at $4 per week allowance money, it's going to take a long, long time to save that much money. So this morning he became an entrepeneur. He created his own Lego set, and asked me if I'd like to buy it from him for only $10. When I declined, he checked to see if Dad would buy it. Another no. About 5 minutes later, he returned to me with a reduced-price offer: $2 for the set. I love so much about his spirit and creativity! Now if he'd only apply it to cleaning his room...

So, any takers on a 4-piece and one character Lego set for the bargain price of $2?

Cape Cod, the Book

2009-08-17T08:10:00.008-04:00

Well, the soon-to-be book. I have begun making layouts from the pictures from the Cape. I'm beginning to think of a bound book of them, that I can give to my mom, sister, and brother as a memoir of the trip. (All pictures can be clicked on to pull up a large version.)

This one is of Ryan (the hubby) showing Jeremy (ds#2) a hermit crab; I love the sandy hand!

Credits can be found here.

You've seen this picture before, of the kids watching the sun set. It's one of my favorite pics of the trip, and this layout may just become one of my favorite layouts of the trip.

Credits can be found here.

And last, but not least... Really not least, because I envision this becoming the cover of the book! A few pictures that I think captured the trip. My favorite is the one of my mom - you can just see how happy she was to have all her kids and grandkids together. It was taken the first night were were at the Cape.

Credits can be found here.

Tidal Pool Critters

2009-08-16T18:53:00.009-04:00

While at the Cape, we stayed in Brewster, MA. The Brewster Flats are pretty amazing. According to Wikipedia, "The Brewster Flats are tidal flats on on Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts, particularly near the town of Brewster, and are a unique environment. They are the widest expanse of tidal flats in North America, rivaled in the western hemisphere only by a similar expanse in Brazil."

At low tide, you could walk straight out from the beach for at least a mile. There were all sorts of critters out there for the boys to find. Some critters were alive, and some of the critters were dead. The dead ones contributed a nice little stink during low tide, though that attracted all sorts of sea birds. Easy meal, I guess.

It was a nice walk out. Some bare sand, some shallow (mid-calf at it's deepest) water, and a few sandbars with little tidal rivers beside them. The boys loved seeing and learning about the sea life. Here are a few of the animals we saw:

Green crab

Hermit crab

Sand dollar (I'd never seen a living one before!)

Jellyfish (picture courtesy of my friend Babs who joined us for a day)We also saw huge horseshoe crabs, sea snails, small shrimp, small fish who got trapped in the tidal pools (and then chased by the boys), clams, sea gulls (of course), sandpipers, and a variety of other shore birds. There were tons of shells, but mostly oysters, mussels, clams, and razor clams.

Cards for Heroes Mini Blog Hop

2009-08-13T07:37:00.003-04:00

I am participating in a mini blog hop with other talented crafters in honor of the Cards for Heros program. This amazing organization has sent over 170,000 cards to our military men and women in service to our country.

In the scrapping community, there are lots of military wives and military kids. I've learned so much about what they and their military spouses/parents go through to provide our protection and freedom. I am truly honored and humbled by their efforts. I love that CFH provides comfort to both the servicemen and -women overseas by giving them cards to send to their families, and also comfort to the families waiting back home when they receive that card.

I made this card using some scrap paper, a stamp, some ink, and a slide mount. To dress up the slide mount, I doodled a few holly leaves and berries with a Martha Stewart Crafts opaque pen, then put in the details with an American Crafts slick writer.

If you get a chance today, make a small Christmas card and send it in to CFH so that a solider can let his/her family know how much they mean to them from so far away. If you want, you can participate in our CFH Card Drive at ScrapStreet.com too, and not only get the chance to win some great prizes but truly make Christmas special for the "waiting families" at home. The deadline for getting Christmas Cards to CFH is November 1st and right around the corner! Make sure you get those holiday cards in soon!

Wowsers! Check Out This Prize Opportunity!

2009-08-12T13:16:00.005-04:00

Karen Russell, a military wife herself, has recently stepped back from teaching scrapbooking classes and designing scrapbooking products to focus on teaching photography classes full time. She has offered this AMAZING prize to one lucky winner in today’s challenge at ScrapStreet's Cards For Heroes contest:

a seat in her next photography class!!!!!

If you have not read anything about this class or seen the amazing photos that come OUT of this class, you need to check it out here: Snapshots of a Good Life.

So head on over to Karen’s blog and get involved in the challenge!!!! You will have from now until Sunday, August 16th at midnight to submit your cards!!! You may upload your creations to the CFH Gallery here.

Round Robin Quilts

2009-08-12T07:34:00.008-04:00

I belong to a quilting group called Cyberbee, and have for over 10 years now. Up until this year, we met quarterly. We've just changed our schedule to meet 6 times a year, at roughly 2-month intervals.

We routinely do challenges and exchanges together. Several years ago, eight of us decided to do a round robin exchange. For those of you who haven't heard the term, a round robin is a progressive quilt top. The group decides on the rules; in this case, the borders were to be triangles, curves, squares, 2" wide border (could be anything), applique (on a new border), embellishment (of any of the previous sections), and "anything goes".

Each member makes a center square, and puts together a package containing a note describing their likes and dislikes, perhaps the colors they do (or do not) want in the quilt, even the fabric, (all or some) to be used in the quilt, a preferred size, and often a disposable camera so pictures can be taken at each step. They then pass that package to the next person "in line", who adds the border in the agreed-upon style. It then gets passed to the next person, and so on and so on. The quilt top belongs to the member who made the center block.

Our group additionally decided that we wouldn't get to see the tops in progress - we actually kicked the member out of the meeting room while their top was brought out and ooohed and aahed over by the group, progress was discussed, and often opinions were sought on where to go next with the project. After 14 months, all the tops were done and we had the big reveal. This was 2 years ago, and the tops are in various stages of completion, from still contemplating how to quilt them, to partially done, to finished.

Lots of lessons were learned with this project. How difficult it is to put the first border on the center block - it can do so much to define the rest of the project. Embellishment and applique were a breeze for some gals, and for others of us, a real struggle. ( I personally had a really hard time with embellishment - just like I do on scrapbook pages.) We each tried to make our borders be in context and in scale with the rest of the quilt. Adding the final border was almost as hard as adding the first border! Another thing we learned is that the tops took on a life of their own. They "spoke" to each of us as we worked on them.

And they are spectacular and I want to share them with you today, even though we got them back in 2007. There were a lot of speechless moments and not a few tears shed as we saw our quilt tops for the first time.

This first one is Michelle's: she wanted to use peacock colors and had an actual, 3-foot long peacock feather in her package as inspiration for us. The appliqued peacock, and the use of actual peacock feathers as embellishment on each of the blocks in the wide border put this quilt over the top.

This one is Mary's - her center block was a spectacular applique. We all decided it looked like Mexican tiles and went with that theme. She originally wanted a wall-sized quilt that she could hang in her kitchen. This one really had it's own agenda though, and became a bed-sized top.

This is Holly's. In addition to being an incredible quilter, Holly is a beautiful singer. She was inspired by a brooch to make the her center block, which was a musical heart. She wanted to stick with a black/white/red/pinkish color scheme.

This is Jeanne's flower cabin. She and her husband have been building a log cabin home in the mountains for her retirement. It will fit in beautifully there!

Jenny's Elvis quilt - this might just have been everyone's favorite quilt to work on. It certainly was a ton of fun! What you can't see in this daylight picture is the LED flashing lights that go around the pale yellow colored edge of the jukebox! It really looks amazing.

Alice wanted somthing fun and funky, and I think this fit the bill. Many of us were calling it the Carribbean quilt when we were done with it because it reminded us of fun at the beach.

This is Tess' reproduction quilt. She provided all of the reproduction fabrics to be used in it, along with the stunning Mariner's Compass center block. Her mom passed away while the project was on-going and Tess decided to drop out. But we decided to do her borders for her until she was ready to get back to it. I can't remember who did the applique border, but what we found out at the reveal - through her tears - was that Tess' mom really liked eagles. It made a special quilt mean that much more to Tess.

And last but not least is my quilt, which I call Pomegranate Star. I spent weeks just staring at it after I got it, stunned by how wonderful it is. It's now quilted and hangs in my living room. I see it each time I use the stairs.

Sewing Room Organization

2009-08-11T08:43:00.006-04:00

I really, really like being organized. While my office/craft room turns into a creative mess during a big project, between projects I generally put everything back where it lives. My fabrics and papers are organized by color and type. I have a fabric-covered peg board to the right of my sewing machine - it holds scissors, templates, rulers, and a variety of other often-used items within arm's reach while i'm working. I have a variety of storage devices that I love.

Several years ago I saw an idea in a magazine (probably a quilting magazine) to keep track of your sewing machine needles that are used, but not yet at the point of needing to be discarded. They marked each section of a tomato-style puncushion with a needle size, and when you switched needles you just placed your used needle into the appropriate section. I gave it a try, but the marker I used bled into the tomato fabric and was quickly illegible.

I've been enjoying working with wool lately and have made a needlecase or two. And I realized that would work for my machine needles as well, but I wanted them on the wall next to the machine for ease of access. So, a little wool, a little batting and scrap fabric, a few grommets, and about an hour's time produced this little needle keeper. And now that I've purchased some of Superior's titanium needles, which last ages and ages, it will certainly get a lot of use.

The North Carolina Quilt Symposium show was hosted here in Raleigh by the Capital Quilter's Guild in May. I had a fine time talking with Vicki, the owner of Annie's Keepsakes, a wool shop based in Rockwell, NC. Her wool goods were beautiful, especially the bamboo wool - it was as soft as silk! But I really fell in love with her pincushions. Yes, I know, pincushion patterns are a dime a dozen lately. But what sets Vicki's patterns apart (IMHO) is her method of display that makes them more of a sculpture. She uses a variety of easily found items (spools, wooden wheels, metal coils) that both display the pincushion and are an integral part of the sculpture. I wanted many, but ended up buying and making the one that I thought looked like a coneflower. It has leaves that hold my seam ripper and small scissors. The flower petals can be up (like they are in this picture) or down. In this case, the base is a piece of bamboo.

A local theater is offering "free" movies on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. (I put free in quotes because while the tickets are free, by the time I buy the drinks and popcorn I will be out $20.) This morning is "The Bee Movie". The boys are quite excited to see it. Although, Matthew might just be more excited about having the popcorn. That child dearly loves his popcorn.

Funnies 1

2009-08-10T09:16:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned a few posts ago, one night at the Cape we went to see the sun set. The kids got there, talked about how orange the sun was, and proceeded to play on the jetty and pretty much ignore the beautiful skies.

After we'd been there about 15 minutes, Jeremy turned to us, somewhat irritated, and said "when are we going to see the sunset?" Mom and I couldn't stop laughing for a while, but finally did get to explain it to him.

Stepping Out of the Box

2009-08-09T14:49:00.005-04:00

I do not consider myself to be an "art quilter" or an "artist", but when I received some new toys a few weeks ago (silk and canvas that are ready to run through a printer), I decided to marry together my digital scrapbooking, regular scrapbooking, and quilting skills to create this mixed-media piece. It's way outside of my normal box, but it was such fun that I think I'm going to alter my normal box so I do more of it.

Several digital papers were used as the background for the digital alphabet. I printed these on silk, then quilted them onto batting (no backing) using various variegated threads. I then outlined each rectangle with chenille fibers.

I painted a 16x20 inch artist's canvas with acrylic and alcohol ink, then layered it with squares of digital papers that were printed, punched, and inked. I added a few gems for a bit more sparkle.

The large square is a mini-quilt, of sorts. It was made by printing another digital paper, framed with two digital frames stacked on top of each other, onto sticky-backed canvas. (I had to fool my printer a bit, but it worked!) I adhered the canvas to batting and quilted it using the motifs in the digital paper: longitude and latitude lines, the postmark in the upper right corner (now hidden), the leaf image, and the flower.

The frames were accentuated with a variety of fun fibers. I used photo hangers to string it onto shimmery ribbon, which is stapled to the artist's canvas frame (16x20 inches). I felt it still needed something in the bottom left corner, so i used letter stamps and some Staz-on ink to put some of my creative goals onto it. The spot above the word "layouts" still looks a little bare to me, and I think I'm going to add a thread-painted dragonfly I created in Susan Brittingham's embellishment class through Quilt University.

This piece lives in my office where I can see it while i'm working at the sewing machine or the computer. If you're interested in a complete list of materials, you can find it here.

Cards for Heroes

2009-08-08T09:58:00.003-04:00

Do you make cards? If so, please join in the Cards for Heroes drive and contest that's starting at Scrapstreet today! There will be three weeks of challenges (with prizes) and other prizes at the end for various categories, like most cards made.

Cards for Heroes provides hand-made cards to our servicemen and -women who are serving overseas, as well as free delivery of the cards back to the states. They can keep in touch with their friends and family back home. You can learn more about the Cards For Heroes organization here.

Here are a few that I've been making:

Please join us for this worthy cause!

The More Things Change...

2009-08-05T14:32:00.008-04:00

the more they stay the same. And that is a good thing when you're speaking of Cape Cod. I was so afraid that when I got there, after a 20+ year absence, that the Cape would be overdeveloped and ugly, like Myrtle Beach and so many of the Florida beaches. But development has been heavily restricted. The Cape is still mostly cottages, and very quaint looking. There are extensive bike trails all over it. And walking and biking are still the most common methods of transportation for anything local. I'm going to share a few highlights of the trip here...

I was fortunate to be there during the peak of the hydrangea season - the colors run mostly blues and purples there. Here is a typical Cape cottage with it's colorful front garden and weathered shingles. I got to see this, and many others like it, every day while walking to the beach.

My mom rented a cottage in Brewster, MA for 2 weeks. At it's craziest, 11 of us were there. My mom, me, my kids and hubby, my sister and her two kids and hubby, my brother and his friend. The beach was a short walk from the house, about 1/4 mile or so. Boats were anchored everywhere. I really liked this "old-fashioned" wooden one - it was just so classic looking.

The boys had a ball goofing off with each other and their cousins. Matthew lost his other front tooth, and really enjoyed his new "gap", and learning that he can, indeed, still whistle!

We went on a whale watch out of Provincetown (P-town), at the very tip of the Cape. We got lucky and got to see Finback whales, Humpback whales, and Minke whales. This Humpback looked like he (she?) was skipping across the water as he breached 4 times. It was called a "chin breach" and they think the purpose is to knock the barnacles off their chins. (The barnacle cluster is pretty large, the diamond-shaped section of grey at the top of the black part under his chin.)

And we made it once to see the sunset. I know, how can you see the sun set over the water on the East coast? Well, out on the Cape, you can look back west toward Boston and so you do get a beautiful sunset over the water! I don't normally do posed photos, but had to make the boys and their cousin Tori hold hands on the jetty while they looked at the sunset. Love how they are silhouetted against it!

The humidity reminded me why air conditioning is a very good thing.

One night Mom and I weren't paying attention to the street names and got turned around - but it was a happy thing because we found an Emack and Bolio's ice cream shop and all had a special treat. (Extra special if you're like me and don't get the "high test" ice cream anymore.)

The Brewster Flats will get a post all their own - truly an amazing sight (and stink, LOL).

More later. In the meantime, I'm off to continue unpacking and doing laundry and figuring out what else needs doing around the house. And to keep removing the cat from my lap, she's a little desperate for company!

This is July?

2009-07-23T16:10:00.006-04:00

Greetings from Massachusetts! That would be cold, wet, damp, chilly, rainy Massachusetts. Someone check their calendar - this is July, right? It might be in the low 60s out there right now, misty/drizzly, and due to begin pouring sometime late tonight. Apparently the rain will continue most of tomorrow. Thankfully, it's supposed to clear up and be a beautiful weekend.

We had a great flight up, and at 5 and 6 1/2, the boys love to fly and can carry their own backpacks and booster seats. They looked so grown up, sitting on their own on one side of the aisle, reading their books. We got to my mom's and they immediately began climbing the huge pine tree in the front yard, which is perfectly arranged for climbing. (Pix will be posted eventually.) Matthew has decided he's got 4 "rooms" in the tree, and Jeremy has two "rooms" and a science lab. They've also adopted a neighborhood cat, whom they've named Stinky. I figured it would be a mangy looking critter, but I saw it this afternoon and it's a big tom (at least 18 pounds), black and grey, sleek, and well cared for. Guess the name is just more evidence of testosterone poisoning.

Mom and I will get everything packed up for our trip to the Cape tomorrow, make a list of groceries we'll need to get down there, and visit with a few relatives that will be dropping by. We'll be leaving shortly after noon on Saturday. I'll get to visit with a college friend and a grad school friend during the week, as well as various other relatives who'll be popping down here and there. I'm looking forward to relaxing - and hopefully some warmer weather!

Capes, Cards, and Band-aids

2009-07-22T06:22:00.008-04:00

The boys and I are off to the Cape for a few weeks today. I haven't been to Cape Cod in at least 20 years, and my memories of it are largely those of a child. So it will be interesting to see the changes there. The boys are excited to see their cousins and get to spend lots of time with them. I don't have a beach-themed quilt (yet), but the trip just might inspire one!

I was inspired by a greeting card to make this quilt, which I call Ode to Joy. I received the card nearly 15 years ago and had always kept it on my bulletin board because I found it to be bright and cheerful. And I decided it needed to be bigger so I could enjoy it from across the room. So I used the card as a template and created a pattern. The pieces were fused in place, then heavily machine embroidered to complete the top. The quilting added additional thread work and dimension to the piece. And I took a technique from my good friend Michelle and finished the edge with a few layers of zigzag stitching, then couched on a bright and fuzzy fiber to top it all off.

As we head off on vacation, I have to wonder if my boys have managed to sneak emergency band-aids into their backpacks. What, you've never heard of one? I'll leave you today with this layout of one of their recent adventures, in which Jeremy starred.

The journaling reads: Once upon a time, two brothers were riding their scooters down the sidewalk to the front door of their house. Their mother told them to try to fall in the grass, and not on the sidewalk, because it would hurt less. But the younger brother fell on the sidewalk. He got all scraped up above his knee, and it bled and hurt a lot. The older brother, concerned, asked him if he needed a band-aid. The younger brother said “yes” through his tears. Then the older brother asked him where he stored his emergency band-aid. (The mother had never heard of such a thing!) The younger brother let him know it was under his pillow, and the older brother ran right off and got it for him. The mother got his scrape cleaned up and put on the emergency band-aid, gave him a hug, and helped him back up to the house. And that is the story of The Emergency Band-aid.

Toothless... and Proud of It!

2009-07-21T06:43:00.005-04:00

Matthew lost his first upper tooth last week. It was a bit wiggly, but he decided to take action and work it out instead of waiting for it to fall out. He's pretty much had an ear-splitting grin since then, and loves to show off his new gap.

He woke up the next morning and discovered... nothing... under his pillow! According to him, the tooth fairy came but couldn't find his tooth because it had fallen out of his bed and onto the floor. We made sure the next night to have the tooth easy to find under his pillow, and sure enough, the tooth fairy was able to find it and leave him his reward. He is quite proud of his crisp new $1 bill.

Celebrated the Fourth

2009-07-20T18:40:00.005-04:00

This year, I finally made a Fourth of July quilt. I used the Pinwheel Baby Quilt pattern provided in the Moda Bake Shop. I had some patriotic fabrics in a charm pack for the pinwheels and prairie points, a navy-on-cream print of the Pledge of Allegiance (which I've had forever!) as the background fabric, and flying eagle fabric for the outer border.

I didn't quite have it done by the 4th - the top was done, but it wasn't batted, basted or quilted. I had pretty much resigned myself to get it finished for next year. But my 6 1/2 year old son decided otherwise - he wanted it ready to take to the town's Fourth of July party that evening. Normally, I like to "quilt it to death". But since I only had a few hours, I ended up doing continuous curves for the pinwheels, and a medium-sized meander in the outer border. I sewed the binding on by machine, instead of finishing it by hand as I generally prefer. It came out great, and was taken to the party and used.

Am I really going to do this?

2009-07-20T11:34:00.004-04:00

Seriously, am I really going to have a blog that I update regularly (or not so regularly)? I've been thinking about it for a while. I'm not sure that I'm really interesting enough to have a blog that other folks will want to read. But I know it will be a good place for the boys' grandparents to keep up with our daily adventures (and mis-adventures). And it will be fun for me to be able to share my latest creations, whether they be of the scrapbook, digital, or quilt variety. And to share any items of interest that I happen across. So maybe, just maybe, this will work out.

And away we go...