Celebrations, cards and quilt sandwiches!

I guess when I don't show up for a while, you might know I'm off living life and being a 'BusyLiz'. :o) Since my last post ten days ago, I've been to two birthday celebrations, made a some birthday cards and prepared some parts for quilt sandwiches. Sounds pretty good (like I did a lot) when I say it all in one sentence. lol
My aunt had a birthday party on Saturday. A BIG one! She is my "Tia Ramona". Sounds like a brand name of tortillas, huh? LOL She turned 90 years old and we hadn't seen her for a while. She looked great! Actually, her birthday is on Leap Year and I think she actually only turned 22.5 years old but in 'real birthday years' she turned 90. She is my dad's sister-in-law. My dad, her husband and all the siblings are all gone now but the surviving women in the family are going strong. I wish I was in that gene pool because I have a lot of quilts to finish!!! ;o)


That is her DIL Lisa with her. I wonder if they coordinated their outfits. :o) Oh, and that cake....it was delicious. It was called Hawaiian Sunset something or other. YUM!!!

Then.....on Sunday, my daughter called at around noon and asked if we wanted to go to dinner with them to celebrate her boyfriend Jason's birthday. We went to some restaurant called Koji's Sushi and Shabu Shabu in Orange (CA). Uhhhh, sushi? Bleck. But it was okay. They also had food you could cook. "You" being the key word. :o) There was a boiling pot, white rice and two yummy sauces. Shabu Shabu means "swish swish" and that's what you do with your meat to cook it. There are spices like garlic, onions you put in your water for seasoning and get a plate of cut up veggies like cabbage, carrots, green onions, mushrooms, etc. Everything is ready for that pot of boiling water.

I survived cooking my own meal and I didn't even have a hot flash! :o) We did find our skin was remarkably soft and subtle after the steam facial. LOL

Afterward, we went over to Kelley and Jason's apartment for dessert. Kelley made a spice cake with cream cheese frosting. It doesn't look like anything you'd see on "Ace of Cakes" but it was delicious!! Thatsa my girl!

Enough about food. Onto the cards. I whipped up this card for Jason because his birthday kind of snuck up on me. I want to be better about sending birthday cards this year....and making them myself. Since redoing my room, I am enjoying the process. It was a simple card and almost not photo worthy but I'll show you anyway. I cut the balloons out with my Cricut and used a few background stamps. I don't do too well with boy cards. I never really made very many manly cards. I guess I need to practice to get the boy mojo. LOL

Then I did this card, which might be my favorite right now. I can only show you a tiny bit though because it's for my sister Isabel and she reads my blog. Her birthday is at the end of March and I don't want her to see it yet. Don't you love the colors? I copied a card I saw online. It's delicious!

Then last night I cut out a couple of cupcake cards using my cricut and some paper I got at Joann's in one of those big paper stacks. I got this card idea online too. I love the examples online to give the rest of us 'crafty, non-creative' people something to work with! *sigh*

It took me a little while to figure out how to cut the pieces so they would be attached on the fold but my Design Studio software came in handy for that.
And just so you don't think I sold my fabric and hung up my quilting tools, I have been doing this too!

I have been piecing backs to quilts and cutting batting. Getting my sandwiches ready for quilting on about 12 UFO projects. There are three on this chair. I cut and pinned two others last night. I'll sew those together tonight.

And then I spent some time "looking" at this top. It's from a class I took several years ago. I got the border on it another couple of years ago. The book is called Star Studded Quilts. I love this one and might put it on my bed but I need a little more 'quilt' for the drop on the sides of the bed. The quilt ends at the green border. I just laid the yellow fabric under it to see if I could get away with adding more fabric and it looking alright. I don't have any more green mottled fabric but have about a half yard of the green in the blocks. That might do for a small strip to break up the yellow or for binding. This one will require more playing..........which is why I put it away the last time!!!

And that's what I've been doing! What have you been doing?