Someone's been painting.....

While I have been busy sewing this week, God's been busy painting in my yard! :) I noticed the hyacinths blooming yesterday, and my creeping phlox has lots of little buds, the johnny jump-ups are going crazy! I think I need to peek out of my sewing room more often! LOL I got out today and cleaned up the yard a little bit. I still need to rake and mow and put down fertilizer on the grass. Our grass is rather pitiful. We seeded it ourselves three years ago when we moved in and it is still patchy. Can't seem to get it to fill in. It isn't too bad considering that last year it got really really dry and all the neighbors who had sod originally, their yards all died. My next door neighbor's is really looking bad. Ours is at least green, LOL!

Happy Birthday Lexi!

My niece Alexa turns 6 today. Her party with us is not until Sunday. I finished her outfit on Wednesday afternoon. She is crazy about dogs, so I just sort of went with it. I made her a pillowcase top and denim capri pants. I left the hem of the pants raw so that they would fray and look like cutoffs. I also put little dog patches on the pants and left the edges of them to fray, too. I think after a couple more washings they will look more like what I intended. I embroidered some names next to the dogs in the patches, too. The bulldog in the bomber jacket I called Ace, Jason named the bassett hound Buford, and Alexa's real dog is a sheltie named Buddy, so I named one Buddy, too. These aren't the greatest pictures as I was in sort of a hurry when I took them, but here they are anyway. I might make her a set of shoe-bead-oos, too. We'll see what kind of timem I wind up with this weekend.

Oh and by the way, you like the little Etsy job at the top of the page? I thought it was kind of neat.

Woo Hoo!

Half day at work tomorrow! I worked last Saturday morning which means that I get to leave at 12:30 tomorrow. I SOOOOO love an afternoon at home during the week. It so rarely ever happens when I have a half day and I don't have a million errands to run and tomorrow, all I have is a quick stop at Walgreens and one at the post office and then it is home to sew! Hopefully I can get Lexi's pants done. I embroidered little patches to put on them this evening. Maybe I can even start on Mady's outfit, too. We shall see, I always seem to have grander plans than I can accomplish! LOL Wish me luck!

A little off topic, but.....

I work with a lady who just had a new grandson born over the weekend. Her daughter had him either Friday night or Saturday, I'm not sure which. He was born with only one kidney. They did some testing today and determined that this one kidney IS functioning, but they are uncertain what this means for his future. I'm sure they would appreciate a few prayers sent their way. A few years ago, this lady's other daughter had a baby girl that they lost to SIDS. I'm sure that that is fresh in their minds as well as they are worried about this little guy. So, if you have a minute, I'm sure they would appreciate it.

Happy Birthday Aeris!

My goofy booga magooga turns two today!

This video was taken the second day we had her ( I can't figure out how to add video clips, so just click the button). She was 8 weeks old, we should have known then that she would be a handful! LOL


You might not know that she can do tricks, too.

Holy cow.... has it been a week already?

I didn't realize that it had been a week since I posted last. Been busy this week. I started a new diet, we shall see how that goes. It has been beautiful here this week. I have started staying at work for my lunch time more often and taking a 25 minute walk every day during that time. We have wonderful walking paths near where I work, so it is nice.



I have also been working on birthday presents for little girls. One of which is my niece, Lexi. (Don't let the sweet picture deceive you, she is really more of a tomboy, LOL) She will be 6 on Friday. I made this dress for her a while back. I have the top done for her outfit for this year, but not the pants. That's the next step. Gotta get them in the works this weekend. They are having her birthday party on the 29th. The top went together in just a little over an hour, I don't think the pants will take long, either.



I am doing the same thing for my niece Mady who will be 3 on May 5th, too. Glad these are sort of quick, easy projects. I think they will be cute when I get them done. I am trying some new techniques and finishes, all of which should make them unique and also save me some time.

So, speaking of projects, I need to head to my sewing machine!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Today's IGP...

Kitty blankies... LOL I made these for my cats today. I have discovered that they LOVE to lay on polar fleece things, so I made these in an effort to try to cut down on the cat hair on my furniture and steps. These I can just throw in the washer. The one above is Sasha's.
Aeris's I tried to do the tie the edges thing and it didn't turn out quite right. It's kind of little for her, but apparently she loves it anyway! :)

Wooo Hooo!!! A second sale!

I got email notification last night after work that the little two piece reversible set sold! I was getting a little discouraged because nothing else had sold yet, but this makes me feel good! Now I gotta get busy and finish something else to list. Too busy! LOL (there's a girl at work says that a lot) Maybe I'll go dig through the stash again and see what I come up with, maybe another pillowcase dress since they are quick and easy. I have fabric to make another reversible dress in purple and orange floral, but not the time right now. That will come in June probably.

On another note, do you like the new look? I thought the place needed a spring makeover. I have sort of enjoyed revamping the templates here lately. I was really frustrated at first, but now I'm starting to get the hang of figuring out what things to change in the xml to get what I want. I am certainly no pro at it, but I have enough of it figured out to make some pretty siginificant changes to the original template. I have a graphics program that we downloaded for free called "the gimp" that I enjoy creating images with. If anyone who uses blogger wants me to revamp a template for them or create a banner or something, let me know, I'd love to do it, although I may not have time for another month or so. It's good practice for me. I can do striped, gingham, floral, solid, textured, or checked backgrounds. Or if you have an image that you want incorporated, I can usually do that, too you would just need to email it to me. You would need to have a place to store your images on the web, an image host. I would email you the xml in text format and then you just copy and paste it into the edit template section where it says edit html. Simple as pie. Below are some of the sets I have created.

Hard at work....

So I have been meaning to do this for a while now, but just was a little too busy. I have set up a second blog. I realize that not everyone who reads my blog for craft stuff is interested in our adoption journey, and vice versa, so I set up a second blog for that purpose. I have been hard at work modifying templates and creating images to use and finally have something that works for me. It still needs a little tweaking, but it is mostly finished. a red thread is the name of my new blog and I hope that some of you will stop over and let me know what you think. I may not post a whole lot over there right away, but I hope to chronicle our journey through the adoption world there.
Hmmm....looks around.... maybe this place needs an update for spring, too....

Picture...

Thought you might like to see this picture. It is of me, Granny (Grandma Shirley) and my niece Alexa (Lexi).

Flowers for Granny...

As promised here are the pictures of the flower arrangement that I made for Granny. Jason's grandmother did a lot for us when he was sick back at Christmas time and when he had his surgery. She let us borrow a vibrating seat cushion, without which J might not have made it through. When he wore one out, she gave us another to use. She also let us borrow her walker that she had from when she broke her hip a couple of years ago. That was rather comical because Granny is a tiny little lady. Her walker was actually pediatric size. My husband is 6 feet tall, so her little walker even adjusted as tall as it would go, was still too short for J. He did use it some around the house, though for the first few days after he was home. She also had a friend who let us borrow a shower seat for J to use, and she bought us a removable spray showerhead to use. Things we never would have thought of, but were really great to have. I made her this flower arrangement as a thank you for all that she did. She was wanting a new one when she saw the one I made for our SIL, Lori's birthday back in January.



On another note I got to have dinner with Amanda and her family on Wednesday night. It was such a blessing to be able to see them! We had a nice Chinese dinner at "The China" which is one of my husband's favorite restaurants. He has been going there since he was about the age of Amanda's oldest boy. The owners recognize him as soon as he walks in the door. It was nice to just be able to spend a little time chatting and catching up. Amanda made some super cute purses for me to give my nieces, Kayla and Allison for their birthdays this summer. Thanks Amanda!

I now have to get busy and finish the outfits for Lexi, and Mady. Lexi's birthday is the 27th of April and Mady's is the 5th of May. Those are the next two big projects. I have to mail Mady's to Texas, so I need to almost get hers done before Lexi's.

I have the machine quilting finished on the yellow and blue Winnie the Pooh quilt for my brother's new grandbaby due in May. All I have left for that is to cut the binding and do the machine part of that. If I can get it to that point, then I can finish the hand stuff later in the car to Illinois if I have to.

I'd also like to get my sister's quilt finished by the time we go, but I'm not sure if that will happen or not. Her birthday is June 15th. We will be going to Illinois to see them and attend Kayla's high school graduation from the 22-25th of May. My intent is to give my brother the quilt for his new grandbaby to take back to Texas with him when he comes for the graduation, to give my nieces their birthday gifts, and to give my sister her quilt all during the May trip to Illinois. I do have a couple of weeks leeway for my sister's quilt, but that would mean that I would need to mail it to her. :P Call me crazy if you want, I probably deserve it! LOL

I've been busy....

I have been so busy that I haven't had much time to post lately. I added some things to my Etsy shop. I have also been working on the machine quilting of the yellow and blue quilt. I ran out of thread last night, so I will need to go and buy more before I can do anything else. :P I have decided that I need to set myself some deadlines for the things that I need to finish in the next two months. I need to sit down with my calendar and figure out what needs to be done by what date in order to get things in the mail in a timely manner. I also need to finish up some things for Etsy. We will see how all that goes.

My MIL also wants me to teach her a crochet pattern so that she can make a baby gift for a friend of hers. That should be interesting. My MIL is a wonderful creative person, but she is very random, so following a crochet pattern is not really her thing. She isn't so good about counting her stitches and that sort of thing. Hopefully that will go ok.

I also made a flower arrangement for Jason's Grandma. Sort of a thank you for all she did while J was sick. She let us borrow quite a few things and bought a couple of things for us. I'll post pictures of that later as I am on my way out the door to work right now.

Have a fun day crafting!