More towels...

Here are two towels I embroidered for my dear friend Marina's daughters. Marla's favorite colors are lime green & turquois and Nikki's are shades of hot pink. This is the Vintage Chloe Font Set from Embroidery Boutique. This was the first time I used the Monogram Letters and not just the cursive. I love how they turned out.

The only suprise was how long they took to stitch, the Marla towel took 53 minutes and Nikki's took over 40. I think they were both worth the wait.

Thanks for stopping by.

PJs for Dad

Right after the news about my Dad and while making plans to fly down, I decided I NEEDED to make him something. The big question was "what do you embroider for an older man?". After much thought, I decided the best thing would to monogram some pajamas. I knew they would come in handy during the recuperation at home after his open heart surgery. So the day before we flew out of town, we went on a hunt to find flannel pajamas. Holy cow, you would think those would be easy to find 'during' winter but we actually had a hard time. Finally, after 3 stores we ended up finding some at JCPenneys! We got home and I immediately went to work.

Here are the three sets, Dad will be lounging & recuperating in style!

I had a difficult time taking these pictures, sorry they are not the best quality. Thanks for stopping by.

Crazy Ten Days

Right after posting about Micaela's Valentine Bubbles on the 11th, I received a call from my parents letting me know my Dad needed to have OPEN HEART SURGERY. Needless to say, Micaela and I were on a plane headed to South Texas on Sunday, Valentine's Day!

My Dad is nearly 80 and his Aorta valve was not operating properly. Long story short, his valve was replaced and two bypasses were done. Praise God, the surgery went very well and he is recuperating! We were gone for a full week and have been I am going through more than 1000 emails (I subscribe to alot of newsletters and blogs).

I've been skimming through all the emails trying to catch up on stamping, cooking and embroidery happenings and just got a wonderful surprise about an hour ago when I read the "You Can Make This" newsletter published by SWAKembroidery.com! Two of my projects were featured in the spotlight and I won the weekly contest!! Woo Hoo! I am so excited!

The projects I submitted were my first towel and the gardening apron shown here.

Thanks for stopping by.

Love Bubbles

These are the Love Bubbles Micaela will not be giving to her friends at her preschool Valentine's Day party tomorrow. Unfortunately tomorrow has been declared a snow day. The Dallas Fort Worth area has gotten more than 6 inches of snow, so basically everything has shut down. We actually got these done early, for once I am was not burning the midnight oil making treats the night before. All along, I could have waited an extra few days. Oh well... Micaela will enjoy handing these out on Monday.

Nothing to these, (I am all about simplicity these days)....just a strip of scrapbook paper around the bottle and a tag generated on the computer punched out with the Key Tag punch from Stampin' Up! We did have to reinforce the tag and paper with clear tape because not even red stick strip would keep the tags on the bottles. Hope you are staying warm!

Gardening Apron

As I have mentioned before, I am embroidering anything that will stand still. The other day I was at Michael's during my lunch hour and in their Bargain Bins they have a whole collection of gardening items including these cute aprons with pockets and other matching items. Of course I had to get a couple to try out. I think these aprons are a deal at $3! Here is an apron and matching shovel I made for Micaela.

This was pretty easy since I already had this "Micaela" saved on my machine from the previous towel project. The font is Vintage Chloe from Embroidery Boutique. Thanks for stopping by.

Teacher Valentine Favor

I am on the Teacher Appreciation committee at our daughter's school. We provide lunch for the staff meetings every other month. Since I work, it's really hard for me to contribute food because I would be dropping it off four hours before they eat. This month I volunteered to make a little favor.
These are Wilton tins from the bridal section of the craft store filled with Valentine M&M's. I purposely did not put Happy Valentine's Day on the labels so they could refill the tin with different candy and it wouldn't look "outdated" on their desks. The scallop and circle were both done with Stampin' Up! punches and I printed the white cardstock on the computer. These are super quick and easy!
Here they are on a heart tray. I literally took this picture with them on the hood of my car before walking in to deliver them! Thanks for stopping by...

One of my projects at work...

Here's an article from the Dallas Morning News about one of the programs I am working on.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/020610dnmetdaffodils.3dceb84.html

My First Towel

I am loving my machine. Here's my first appliqued towel! The M is the Valentine Applique Font from Planet Applique and the cursive font is called Vintage Chloe from Embroidery Boutique. The ribbon band is stitched grosgrain. I made this for Micaela's bathroom, as you can tell by the soap dispenser-- we have a princess theme in there. Isn't this so much cuter than a plain white towel?

Craft Room Organization

One of my goals for 2010 is to get a grip on my craft room which is usually the messiest room in the house. The main reason it is messy is because it's full. I am trying to do a little every few days. Here's one shelf that looks decent enough to share.I love putting things in jars because then I can see what I have. Since I am all about the 3R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) these are all repurposed. The small jars actually have some sentimental value-- would you believe those are the jars of our daughter's first (Enfamil) formula bottles from the hospital when she was born? Yep! I thought they were so cute and a perfect size for embellishments. The nurse actually looked at me quite strangely when I asked if I could keep them and take them home (my husband was a little --no, very- embarrassed). Anyway-- they work so who cares! The jars with the red lids are from Jiffy peanut butter and the ones with blue lids are from Lipton tea mix-- both work great for larger items. All are sitting on steps for spices from The Container Store.

The clear nesting tower boxes are from The Paper Lion, a local invitation store. Right now they are holding an over abundance of ribbon that I purchased on clearance. The little shelf above the jars is from IKEA-- that's my tiny collection of Martha Stewart punches.

Catching Up on Scrapbook Pages

Ever since I got my Cricut machine last year I have been scrapbooking alot more. I've become somewhat of a regular at SWARMS which are crops for people with Cricut machines. I go to a great store in Allen, called Personal Scrapbook. The owner, Tara sets aside one Saturday a month for a SWARM and you can go there from 10 am to midnight and scrap all day. It's great fun and I have made alot of friends there.

I generally take pictures of simple every day moments, therefore generate alot of work for myself because I want to scrapbook them all. I have given up on fancy pages that take hours to assemble, now it's just a title, a couple of pictures, short journaling and move on to the next page. What I am trying to say is there's nothing fancy here... Just posting for proof that I STILL do paper crafts. Here are two of my recent favorite scrapbook pages.

.

Soup for Teddy-- Using Alphalicious cartridge.

Elote (corn): Using Don Juan cartridge.

Sorry these pictures aren't great.... Thanks for looking anyway.

Tomorrow is Ground Hog Day

Tomorrow is Ground Hog Day and since I am all about seasonal books, here is one of the latest books we added to our growing collection.... Ten Grouchy Groundhogs by Kathryn Heling and Deborah Hembrook.
It's cute, rhymes- which is something I enjoy and Micaela enjoyed the count down. We'll see what the real groundhog tells us tomorrow-- 6 more weeks of winter or spring is around the corner! Now, we can move on to Valentine's Day books-- we've got a bunch of new ones to share. Thanks for stopping by!

A Bag for Katie

Since I have conquered flat items, I am now expanding to 3D things. My first thing to tackle was a totebag. You would think this would be simple, it is-- but the catch with a totebag for a little girl is that it does not fit over the machine (too small). So to embroider it, I had to take it apart, unsew one side-- embroider, then resew it all together. I sewed a little pompom trim to the top to dress it up. It's not super hard but it does take time. It was actually easier to make the whole totebag in comparison to getting the 3 year old recipient to sit still for a picture. Nonetheless, here it is...


My first embroidered totebag. Thanks for stopping by...