Hello 2012

Sheesh... What happened to 2011?! And what happened to me in December? I haven't been great at posting to my blog this past month. Here's what I've been up to:

Making bags with Valori Wells gorgeous Wrenly Home Dec fabric (Valori is from Central Oregon and although I don't really know her, I sort of feel like I do because I grew up in Central Oregon too... I know weird but I was pretty excited to use her fabric because of the Central O connection). It's my favorite bag pattern - The Mail Sack by Pink Chalk Studios. This time I actually tried the smaller version and it works pretty good. I can still cram if full of all the stuff I need to pack around. It's hands-free and stylish - LOVE. I made one bag for me and one bag for a friend.

Then I started making these awesome fabric bowls/boxes. The pattern is in the Sewing In A Straight Line book. It's really easy and quick, plus they turn out pretty cute. We made some for teacher gifts with the teachers' favorite animals on the fabric and filled them with their favorite candies too (cow fabric with butterfingers and peppermint patties in cat fabric incase you were curious). Then I made some for home so Paul could put his odds & ends into fancy little fabric boxes instead of just on the counter. Fancy, huh? I think he likes them, he said he'd like some for work too, but in more "manly fabric". Apparently flowers and chickens are not manly enough for office use. I like it though, look at those chickens standing on little eggs. Those of you who know me well, know my fascination with chickens. The fabric is by Robert Kaufman but I'm not sure of the name. 

Then I started making these fabric headband. Cute!! I just love them and they work so well keeping the girls' hair out of their eyes. Check out the tutorial here. Josie enjoys modeling for me.

And here's Charlotte and me with matching headbands. We were running to catch the bus yesterday and I made her stop real quick to snap a photo.

I finished my mom's quilt. Just in time to wrap it up and give it to her for Christmas. It turned out really lovely. I love the bright colors.

Here's the back with my special label that says "A Bright and Colorful Quilt for My Bright and Colorful Mom". Love you mom!!

And then I made some more of my fun labels. A friend of a friend of a friend (related to Papa's Packing Heat) wanted to surprise her mom with a custom wine bottle for her mom. How cute! Nana lives in Alabama so they call her "Nana Bama". The friend had one of her mom's co-workers trick Nana Bama into bringing in a baby picture for some work contest. Little did she know she'd be seeing that picture on her custom wine bottle on Christmas morning! Isn't that picture ADORABLE? I just love old pictures and she looks like a sweet little southern belle. 

And this is another Christmas gift where I drew the caricature of the body builder and slapped it on a custom vodka bottle label. That happens to be THE BIGGEST bottle of Kettle One I've ever seen. And they liked the caricature so much they wanted to find an even bigger bottle to put it on. Pretty funny, but I'm glad the ended up liking their caricature.

Plus, we went to Disneyland for Christmas!! Lucky us, Santa dropped off the trip a week before Christmas. Check out the video above if you'd like to see our vacation video. 

Sparkle Punch Quilt by Elizabeth Hartman

So I guess that's about it. You get a super huge blog post after I've been missing for a while. Here's a quilt I'm hoping to complete this winter. Elizabeth Hartman is doing a quilt-a-long for her amazing Sparkle Punch Quilt. Go check it out! It's so pretty, but requires cutting 500 - 3.5" squares. Yikes! I better get off this blog and get to cutting.