I needed some accent pillows for my new sectional couch and found just what I wanted on Etsy. Seller, Posh Street Pillows makes pillow slip covers that are fun and modern. I chose one design in two different colors to go with my gray sectional.
I also caught a good sale at Joann's and found the insert pillows for half off ! I went with the 18" X 18" size thinking that would be plenty big enough. Since my couch is so large, I probably should have gone even a little bigger on the pillow size, but I'm still happy with my choice....
Old man Riley does not venture down to the other end of the sectional so he has not put his stamp of approval on the new pillows yet!!!
Next on my agenda is to repaint the living room. As of now, I'm leaning towards a gray/blue shade.......
Sheila's "Grandma Memory Quilt" is traveling across America this week to her home 1,200 miles away from mine. I hope it arrives safely !!!
Pieces of her grandma's clothes sewn onto 25 blocks to make a nice size throw quilt for snuggling under while watching t.v.
I saved some of the "RUSS" labeling from one of Grandma's shirts to put on Sheila's quilt since her dad's name is Russell. I also saved a piece to go on Kyle's quilt. Grandma had some surprises in the labels of her clothing.........Maxine of Hollywood was on of them!
Since Sheila has four young children I wanted to include something on the quilt for each of them. I took four pockets off Grandma's jeans and stitched each pocket to a square on the quilt.
My first thought was to find some small trinkets in Grandma's house that could go in the pockets. Maybe something that would remind the great-grand kids of their Grammy. But it was hard to find something they could relate too. My next thought was to find four small toys out of Grammy's playroom that could go in the pockets. That did not work out either. So the final idea was to find a picture of each great-grand child with their Grammy....
It should be exciting when Sheila's get the quilt in the mail and she can have each of her kids open up their own "Grammy pocket"..........
We had no luck finding a picture of just Travis with Grandma, so his picture will have to have his twin, Garrett in it as well.............
We have lots of memories to hold on to and lot of memories that took our breath away......
I've been wanting this "bugs in jars" fabric for months. It sells out fast and I've missed a couple of opportunities but not last weekend! I logged on www.hawthornethreads.com at just the right time when they got a new supply in. Today this was in my mail box. Wish I could have got more of the prints in this collection. I picked out my top four faves!
A few months ago I contributed these two blocks to a project to raise money for cancer research. Val at PinkPlease had asked her readers for help to make a quilt for the Heros Foundation Silent Auction. Well.........the auction was February 25th and the quilt closed out at $1000.00 !!!
Val took all the cards that she received with the blocks and taped them on a poster board that was displayed next to the quilt.........
What a great project. I would love to participate in more of these fundraisers.
The main reason we made the trek to Mississippi last weekend was to see Madison perform in her high school play. Her character was Ilona Ritter in SHE LOVES ME. It was a cute play set in Budapest in the 1930's about two people who are always at odds with each other at work but are unaware that they are each other's secret pen pals.
Madison had two solo songs in the play and I was mesmerized watching her. She did so good. The songs from the play are still in my head......
Especially the one that went "Thank you.....Madam.....please call again...........do call again..........Madam" where the cast members all did the same body movements with the chime. I think in the picture below, Madison might be singing "I Resolve", a funny song about how she will leave her boyfriend and not be so brainless........
And I think her other solo was "A Trip To The Library".
Great job Madison !
It's hard to believe that Luke is turning three years old in a few months. Time has gone by quickly since his birth. We went to visit Luke and the rest of his clan last weekend and I came home with these pictures. Luke is still fascinated with lights. He's had problems with his vision since he was born and has had several eye surgeries. Bright and flashing lights are one of his favorite things. I saw a t-shirt on another blog for Downs Syndrome that said, "Down Right Awesome". I think I'll be getting one of those made up for Luke for his 3rd birthday.....
He's a happy boy! During his lifetime he will stand at the bottom of some walls he won't be able to climb. He'll have some challenges that most of us have never had....
I wish him well, I hope he will be a free soul, a fearless dancer, a porch swinger and a fire fly chaser! And that he will always blow kisses whenever anyone ask him for one !
This past weekend while in Mississippi visiting family, Gabriella, Stephanie and myself made stuffed valentine hearts to send to Gabby's cousins in Arizona. We took candy message hearts and jolly rancher suckers and stuffed them in two sided hearts we strung together with ribbon.....
We had a few issues with candy hearts falling out between the punches but it was quickly resolved with Gabby's fast thinking of grabbing the stapler to close the holes!
Stephanie and I did the scissor work, paper punching and threading of the ribbon and Gabby did all the decorating......
She chose brads, puff stickers, glitter stickers and felt stickers........
We dug into my scrapbooking supplies for letter stickers........
They all turned out so good and hopefully will arrive in Arizona today!
Here is the second onesie going to Katie F. for Macyn's one year birthday party. Katie grew up with horses so I thought this would be perfect for her farm themed party for Macyn. I found a pattern by going to Google images and searching for "horse picture to print". I then reduced it on the copier to fit on the onesie.
This print is by Michael Miller and is called Sweet Horsey. Super cute. Scroll down to see who I have linked to this week.
Katie's friend, Katie F. asked me I could make a onesie for her daughter Macyn's first birthday party. She said the theme was farm animals and I could come up with my own ideas! So this is what became of my brain storming. Macyn will be the #1 farm chick at the party!
I'm also making a paint pony onesie but I have not received my fabric in the mail yet. Eight days till party time, hope I get the second one made in time !
Scroll down to see who I have linked to this week....
A lot of people have been coming directly to my blog in the last 24 hours and I had to figure out why!
Google put me in the number one spot for Crescent Cheeseburger Ring !!!
That totally makes my day !!!!
Katie introduced me to http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ 35 days ago and I've been hooked ever since. I set my personal goal at a conservative five pounds a month. And am very happy that the weight (so far) is falling off faster than I ever thought it would. The website is easy to navigate and making entries and finding foods in their data base is a breeze too. I'm liking it way better than Weight Watchers. I also love the fact that I can eat whatever I want as long as I stay in my goal numbers. Below is how your screen starts off for the day under the "FOOD" tab......
You enter the foods you eat under the corresponding meal and the My Fitness Pal program does the rest. I added Sodium and Fiber to my graph. I've always been conscious of my sodium intake since so many members of my family are on high blood pressure medications. So far by just watching my sodium I have avoided that problem!
I like to see what I have remaining for the day after I complete the entries for one meal. To make this program work for me, I had to make these three items be a staple in my kitchen.....
I should also add Ziploc baggies because I'm now bagging portions to make things easier!
Adding foods is easy, you just click on the "Add Food" button and start typing in what you ate. I always start with the brand name unless I'm entering a fresh fruit or vegetable. If the item is not already in the data base, then you can add it yourself on a separate screen. In 35 days, I've only had 2 items that I had to enter all the numbers for. I also like the "Quick Tools" feature. I often eat the same thing for breakfast a few days in a row, so I can click on "Quick Tools" and choose to copy the day before for my breakfast entry.
Here's how my page looked after breakfast and lunch..........
There is also an exercise tab where you can enter in whatever you have done in that department. I try to get to the fitness center 3 to 4 times a week and walk two miles on the treadmill and then do three reps on three different weight machines. When you add your exercise in, the program gives you additional calories for the day !
I love that it's FREE.
I also love that Katie and I can be friends on it and see each other's pages. That is great motivation.
But, my favorite part is the "Complete This Entry" button. When I've put the last bite of food in my mouth for the day (usually around 6 pm), I click the "Complete This Entry" button and it's liked I've locked up the kitchen. No more going back for nibbles of anything the rest of the evening. Water only from that point on. When you click on that button, the program will tell you if you have succeeded in coming in under your target for the day. And it will give you a message saying something like, "if every day was like today, you will weigh X amount of pounds in 5 weeks".
That is the best motivation of all !!!!
It also has an app for the I phone. I gotta get me one of those someday !
Kelly at Kelly's Korner Blog is hosting her weekly Show Us Your Life and this Friday the topic is, Show What You Make. She has this topic at least once a year and it is my favorite. Maybe because I have a lot to post about for this topic or maybe because I just like to recap things I've made in the last year ! It's my goal for 2012 to get an Etsy shop up and running. I already have my shop's name picked out, I just have to find the time to get it started. Most of the pictures in this post were items that I completed in 2011. The quilt above is my first paper piecing string quilt. I'm loving this technique and have plans for many quilts in this pattern.
Below is an idea I found on Pinterest last year and absolutely had to try it out. I made two of these for friends and then a couple for Stephanie's store.
I also make taggies/lovies. I use lots of different fabrics, lots of shades and prints of minky and tons of ribbons. Each one gets 25 ribbons!
Onesies are one of my favorite things to make. I've made probably over 100 of them in the last few years. Sister-in-law, Luann needed a University of Florida one this week, so I came up with this idea....
I made this one for baby Macyn when she was a couple months old...........Her mom paired it with baby sized skinny jeans and it was super cute!
I also make burp cloths. I'm sure I've made close to a thousand of these in the last 15 years....
Last year I made several sets of these matching giraffe onesies and burp cloths.....
Another quilt I made last year for baby Harper. Loving the straight line quilting technique...
Another project I did last year for baby Harper and big brother Owen were these Lil Sis, Big Bro shirts...........Harper got two sizes of onesies....
A circle quilt made with oranges and periwinkles.......
I've made several of these superman capes over the years.....
I also scrapbook and this book I made for my Mom and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary is my biggest scrap booking accomplishment. Click here to see all the pages.
And one last thing to show off !! I turned my 2010 blog into a book. It was a lot of work to narrow down my posts and my pictures to get it in the price range I could afford. Click here to see the blog post on it with a link to the website where I created it at. I've started working on my 2011 blog book and will probably get it sometime in April.
