Travel Pillows

I finished three travel pillowcases last night and that was "after" making dinner, doing dishes and visiting with my daughter and her boyfriend...and watching The Avengers!!! No, don't call me a stud. Call me "tired"! lol

I think they turned out pretty cute. I will try and get the matching blankies sewed up tonight. We'll see. I'm not usually "studly" two nights in a row!! Is there a little icon for bags under the eyes? No?  Okay, I'll keep the smiley face.  :o)

Baby Quilt and Busy Bees

I got to quilting on the baby quilt for my daughter's friend.  I took it in little spurts to see how my back would hold up from both the sitting and maneuvering a quilt under the needle.  It went fine with little 'get up' breaks.  I just stitched in the ditch on the sashing and did diagonal stitching through the blocks.  This makes it quilted about every 3" or so, so it should hold up to lots of washes.  You know how babies like to dirty stuff up!  lol

 

 

The back of the quilt is a cozy polka dot flannel.  Mmmm, good for snuggling little babies! 

I still need to trim the quilt and sew on the binding but during one of my 'breaks', I got out this fabric that I had picked up a long time ago for my friend's daughter.  She loves bees because her daddy used to called her "Bee Wee" when she was a little girl.  And you know daddies and daughters have those special kind of relationships so the name stuck.  Bee got married earlier this year but I had missed the bridal shower.  She was coming over Monday night to have me hem some pants so I thought it was perfect motivation to get this thing off my (this should have been done in February) to-do list!
 

I used a free pattern I found online here.  I only made them 8" so I didn't do too much quilting on them.  I found this adorable bee ribbon at Road to CA in January so I had the entire project ready to go, I just needed to do it!  (Dang, I need a new cutting mat! lol)

When I knew the shower was around the corner, I found these cute bowls at Home Goods.  They are perfect for a yellow and black kitchen.  The newlywed loved it all.

 



 

NOW....with that out of the way and before the next stamping party, I thought I would work on a few things for the upcoming craft show.  I cut some flannel I've had for a couple of years for blanket/travel pillow sets.  They should go together fairly quick and take up some space on the table.  I used to paint wooden items but don't really have that in my much anymore so sewing it is.

 

 

I don't have any blue flannel in my stash so I hope the boy-buying-public isn't offended.  lol  It feels good to be using up some of this stuff I bought so long ago.

Darn ol' Pinterest!!!

I saw the most adorable buttons on Pinterest made with printable Shrinky Dinks and a free pdf download from a blog.  I didn't think I would really try making my own but when I was at Michael's looking for some supplies, I saw the printable Shrinky Dinks and bought them using my trusty ol' coupon.  This photo is from the flikr album that was pinned.

 

The free download is from All Sorts and you can the pdf here. 

 

And here they are coming off the printer.  Aren't they cute???

I used my little tool kit from Stampin' Up to mark where the button holes would go.  The little dotted lines and holes really helped get the button holes even.

After getting the holes punched, I put them on brown paper like the Shrinky instructions said to do.  My mistake....doing so many at one time....

 Cuz I couldn't get them all uncurled.  There were some casualties.  :o(

 

 

But I have a success story.  I put smaller sets back in the oven and they straightened out.  They even shrunk a little more so I think I might've taken them out too soon.  I guess I'm not very patient.  lol

 

 

Now to figure out what the heck I'm going to do with these.  I think I might add them to some pincushions.  They make me happy just looking at them.  Anything that makes me happy really doesn't have to have a purpose, right?

 

Note to anyone wanting to do this.  Use a bigger hole punch for the holes.  I used a 1/8" punch but the next set I did, I used 1a bigger one.  Maybe 3/8" or 1/4"?  Anything bigger than 1/8" should be good.  I haven't shrunk those down yet but I think that will be much better.  I might have to drill these bigger to find an itttty bittty skinnnny needle for the first batch.

Mmmmm, pumpkin!!

I found a recipe for a Pumpkin Sheet Cake and it looked pretty easy so I thought I would try it out for my daughter's stamping workshop she had yesterday.  Boy am I glad I tried it.  VERY tasty treat!  I found it on a website called What's for Dinner?  Here is the link for the post with the recipe.  

 

 

 

I had little bat and pumpkin sprinkles and since we were working on Halloween projects, I thought it was the right decoration!  It tasted very much like a carrot cake.  If there was room in the 10x15" pan for carrots, I would've added them but I had never made this cake before.  It's got two teaspoons of baking powder so it raises pretty good over the edge of the pan.  Yum!!  Make it.  You won't be sorry!

 



Mmmmm, watermelon!

Boy, we just cant get a break from this heat. I thought it was too good to be true when we had such a wonderful July. August....not so much. We've only had our a/c off one night in all of August and now, all days in September so far.

To try and get some relief, what is better than cool, sweet watermelon?  And I saw the slickest way to cut it...on Pinterest, of course.  If you are a genius and already thought of this, please move on to the next blog.  lol

Cut the ends off your watermelon, then slice it in half.  Take the first half and slice off the rind.  It might seem like you are wasting some but it is such a small amount, you won't miss it.

 

 

Cut slices straight down the watermelon one direction and then the other.  I did about 1" chunks.  And this was marked as a "seedless" watermelon.  I'm no expert but those look like seeds to me!  Grrrr.

 

 

Then slice across horizontally.  That's it!  Keep going until the entire half is cut.  Repeat with the other half.

 

 

I have done this with two watermelons so far and it takes maybe 10 minutes for start to finish!!  Yum!

 

 

Seeds!  Can you tell I'm still not over it?  lol

Roh Roh Relroy

It's not that I don't know my own strength or anything but I was crafting with my Big Shot on Saturday and I broke the handle off.  :o(  It had been making noise when I cranked it around but I was hoping it wasn't going, going, gone.  I put the die in with my paper, did a few turns, click, click, handle in my hand.



















My daughter Stephanie had the same thing happen to her so she knew how to take it apart to get the die out.  Since I bought my machine from Joann's, I called Sizzix directly to see what the warranty was.   Thank heavens it's a 3 year warranty.  All they asked was that I emailed a few photos of the sticker with the date on the bottom and the broken handle.  They aren't mailing me a new machine like Stampin' Up does but they are mailing me a handle and they emailed me a pdf with photos and directions to replace it.

Here's a picture of the handle broke off!  Just call me Popeye cuz I've got such big musckels.  Geh geh geh geh.  :o)

Clean, dust and a little sewin'!

I spent some time in my sewing room on Saturday and looked up at my very cluttered shelves.  I think a few of them are "leaning" from the earthquakes we've had.  It must have shook `em up.  lol

 

Dolls, pincushions, iron collection, etc., etc.  Oh, and dust!  I decided to move some things off the shelf and give the "girls" a cleaning.  I bought a vacuum accessory set a while back as my sister told me that's how she cleans her dolls.  It worked perfectly.  With my back surgery, I needed to reach the top shelves without stretching so I got my longer Swiffer duster and it was perfect. 

 

 

Look how nice everyone looks all cleaned up!  I used a few tins to bring up the "girls" in the back.  And I moved a few things off the shelf so it didn't look quite as cluttered although, it kind of looks the same.  lol 

 

 

I moved my little McDonald's Wizard of Oz pieces off the shelf because they were just so crammed in the corner.  I wanted to put them on the top of the shelf but they wouldn't fit standing up so they're having a sit in....or a picnic....without food!  LOL

 

 

I finished the top for my daughter's friend.  I worked up a simple design in EQ7 using just a few fabrics.  Her theme is Noah's Ark and it's a boy.  Ashley liked this little lion print so we found some coordinating fabrics and pulled a few pieces from my stash.  Sorry for the blurry photos.  I can't find my memory card so I'm using my iphone. 

 

 

I cut the batting and pieced the backing so tomorrow I hope to sandwich it. I will just grid quilt it but with my back, I'll probably have to work in small increments. I'm doing really good but not sure how much quilting will affect me. We'll see....