Swap Gift and Graffiti Love Bots

Swap Gift and Graffiti Love Bots — what? Yep, that's right. Here's what I've been working on this past week.

I signed up for the GenQ Valentines Swap. Here's my Valentine surprise I'm working on for my swap buddy. I'm pretty excited, this is the first swap I've done and my partner looks pretty cool. Check out her blog. I hope she likes this little goody I'm working on. There's actually three different projects in the works in this picture. YIKES... I might need to just go take a clean-up break.

And.... I'm really digging the Spoonflower Fabric Design Contests. Putting together a fluid theme and repeat is way hard. It's much harder than I originally thought (all those gorgeous fabrics in the quilt shops make it look so easy!). I'm really enjoying the learning, and the reason to exercise my doodling skills— I get rusty if I don't draw for a while. Really rusty. The image above is my entry for the Graffiti/Street Art contest this week. I call it - Love Bots. Funny though, I don't really love it, but it was fun trying to come up with an idea and illustrate it based on the theme. What would you write if you had to graffiti up a wall?

Spoonflower & Wonky Stars

I've been wanting to join the fun of the Spoonflower Weekly Fabric Contest ever since I heard about Spoonflower. Have you heard of Spoonflower? It's so cool — custom printed fabric! You upload your own designs and have it printed on a variety of different fabrics. AND there's so many talented people uploading their own incredible designs on a daily basis. Inspiration overload! So anyway, they do a weekly contest where they pick a theme and ask people to submit designs based on that theme. This submission is for "Outdated Technology". They specifically said "think cassette tapes" and my mind went immediately to all my old mix tapes! Mix Tapes - I loved them (I also had an obsession with recording Rick Dees Weekly Top 40s every Sunday too)!! And then I remembered my high school BFF who was pretty fond of creating fun mix tapes and adding her own dose of quotes and worldly wisdom in between songs. She was wise and quirky beyond her years in high school. Fun memories.

Other than that I've been cutting and cutting and cutting..... and cutting. I cut over 600 3.5" stars for the Sparkle Punch Quilt-Along. That took me most of a Sunday. I actually watched 3 movies on my computer while I was working on the cutting. Then I started cutting my negative space squares last weekend another 300+ to go. Fun times (mostly).

After a while I decided to try and make a few stars. They are trickier than they look. Elizabeth mentions testing out the technique on some scrap fabric before starting on your quilt fabric. I thought "pssssshhh" that doesn't look too hard and started on my precious squares. Turns out she was right. Figuring out that wonky angle and getting the angles to line up for a straight cut when you square up the edges is tricky! I had a few oppsies and a few seam ripper moments (after I learned to stop cutting the fabric BEFORE measuring to see if the angle worked), but I think I finally got the hang of it. I have five stars done and A LOT more to go.  I'm learning quite a bit along the way on this one. Quite a bit indeed.

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. 

I made a Scoodie

I wanted to make a few gifts for the holidays, girls are easy to make gifts for.. skirts, bags, dolls — there's so many options (and with 2 girls of my own I have quite a few patterns collected).  But I have a sweet little nephew that I really wanted to make something special for this year. I was racking my brain trying to find something quick and fun and then I remembered... THE SCOODIE!! I saw it on Happy Zombie's blog this summer (BTW I love this gal's blog - her style, her humor, and she's uber talented!).

So I whipped this one up over the weekend (yay! instant gratification for a finished project). It's a really quick project. I added some extra 'mohawk' prairie points at the top for a rockstar effect (he's also getting a sweet Paper Jamz guitar - so it needed a little extra rock start touch). Then I had my girls model it before I wrapped it up for the nephew. 

Inspired by the Happy Zombie post, I also had Flora try out modeling. She was a little less enthusiastic about helping me out. Blog modeling might not be her thing, but she liked the cookie pay out at the end.

Oh Thank Cuteness!!

Happy Thanksgiving! Generation Q asked readers to share their cute blessings this Thanksgiving. So here are my FIVE awesome kids. I never thought I'd have five kids, but life has a way of working out a little different than a girl "thinks" sometimes and lucky for me it did. I LOVE having this big family!

For a few years it was just me and my sweet girls. Miss Charlotte who is always ready with a big smile when a camera is nearby. Seriously, ever since she was a baby she has a great big smile in every picture. That is definitely — Oh Thank Cuteness!!! 

And my other sweet girl, Miss Josie. She can be a real fire cracker but I just adore this spunky girl. So it was us three lovely ladies, 'til the one day when I met this fellow, and we knew it was much more than a hunch, that this group would somehow form a family....  (sound familiar?)

Anyway "POOF"... I end up with five kids. Kyle my oldest step-son who is so helpful and sweet. And just like his dad, he loves taking things apart and putting them back together. He even taught Josie to ride her bike without training wheels this summer. 

And Alex who is so funny and entertaining. Also one heck of a sweetheart and always ready to help out however I need him. Plus he is so clever, he's always coming up with a punchline. 

And little Jacob. Look at that smile!! Heartbreaker! That little guy is always smiling too, he's so easy going and funny. So there you go. Lucky me to have all of these blessings in my life this Thanksgiving, plus an awesome husband who's making an AMAZING homemade, New York style cheesecake for dessert tomorrow (HEAVEN!) 

There's rarely a dull moment in our house with all of these kids running around, and I'm so thankful that life worked out a little different than I planned.

Cool Stuff I Found at the Craft Bazaar

I went to a few craft bazaars this weekend. I love checking out crafty stuff other talented folks are making. It's inspiring and energizing. Plus I always bump into a few peeps I haven't seen in a while, or peeps like my awesome realtor -- I didn't know she was also a talented jewelry maker! Here's what I ended up taking home with me.

That's a Hello Kitty wallet made out of Duck Tape. It was made by Ben's World of Duck Tape - a 12 year old boy trying to save up some Christmas money. He was such a sweetie and Hello Kitty Duck Tape, I had to have it. The cute flower barrettes were also made by a couple of young ladies who started their own little business last Christmas to save up some spending money. I was so impressed by all these little entrepreneurs at the craft bazaar this year. Plus those barrettes are going to look darling in the girls hair for Christmas! And I really couldn't resist the Garlic Lady and her tasty treats - Spicy Margarita Mix, Garlic Jalapeño Olives, and Habeñero Garlic Cloves. YUM! The salesman promised if I ate a Garlic Clove everyday I'd never get a cold again, I guess it's worth a shot.

I finally finished up this lovely bright quilt for mom. The quilt label I made says Summer 2011.... oops! But at least we're still in 2011 and I did start it in the Summer of 2011. I took it to a longarm quilter to finish up. The girls helped me pick out a paisley quilting pattern. I'm looking forward to seeing it in a couple of weeks.

I wanted to share this gorgeous bag. I DID NOT MAKE IT. My friend Teresa made it for me. I picked out all of the fabrics and she whipped up the pattern from Kay Whitt's new book Sew Serendipity Bags. Isn't it gorgeous?!?!? Love the ruffles and bright colors.

Pinkalicious!!!

We went to Pinkalicious the Musical presented by Oregon's Children's Theatre last night. It was so cute! I got the girls and their cousin Cambelle all dressed up for the event. Pink! Pink! Pink!

I won tickets this summer from a local radio station. And we've been anxious to go ever since.

Pinkalicious is a children's book that I've read many many times to the girls. It's a cute story and I like how the artwork is done. It's a different style, sort of like a collage.

We met the cast afterward and had them sign our poster. And the girls told Pinkalicious they had all of her books (Pinkalicious, Purplicious and Goldilicious). So funny they were acting like long-time fans.

Dr. Wink did a tap dance routine which the girls really liked too.