L'Amour de la vie Tote

For the last eleven and a half months we have had the most fabulous intern at our office.  K is a graduate of one of our high schools here in McKinney, went away and got her Bachelor's degree and came back home for a year while she applied for graduate schools.  Over the last year, she has shadowed me, helped me and the rest of our staff on countless projects, worked countless early mornings, late evenings and weekends over the last year all for no pay!  She's headed to St. Edward's University in Austin for a Professional Science Master's Environmental Management and Sustainability in a couple of weeks and I am going to miss her terribly. 

I've been brain storming about making her something over the last few weeks.  The other day while looking for fabric, I came across the most perfect fabric for her.  This is L'Amour De La Vie by Hoodie and manufactured by Timeless Treasures

This fabric is perfect in so many ways.... First this fabric has cats on it... K loves her kitty.  Second, there's trees... what else could represent represent the environment and sustainability more than trees.  Then third are the Eifle towers, Sara is headed to France for her second year of graduate school.

After showing her the fabric, she said she wanted a tote so this is what I came up with. 

I used fusible fleece and then used my "darning" sewing foot to do some free motion quilting (first time to do that). 

I used a olive green polka dot to line the inside of the bag, added a small pocket for keys or cell phone.  This was such a nice break from the room swap we have underway.

I plan to make her a few other things to coordinate but it will be a week before I can sew again.  I am headed out of town for family funeral and will be gone for most of the week. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Room Swap in Progress

Didn't do any sewing this weekend. We've been busy doing some rearranging.   Micaela and I started the monumental task of swapping the paper craft room and her bedroom.  My paper craft room is stuffed to the gills and her room isn't far behind.  Believe it or not this was my idea.  I've needed to deal with the paper craft room for a long time and Micaela was ready for a complete color scheme change so here we go. 

We are about 15% so far... one wall and some of the closet.  Her room is going to be in transition for several weeks because I only have the evenings to work on  it with so much going on during the weekends. 

Here is the east wall with out her dresser.  I've always loved the wood picket fence flower border... so now I get to have it in the craft room.  Micaela wants a new color scheme now that she is seven, hot pink, lime green, and black & white; in her words:  "nothing spring".

Here is the same wall with some of the craft stuff in place.  That triple dresser is full of stamp sets. 

After much thought, I decided it was time to get rid of my beloved paper rack that held 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock.  I posted a picture on Facebook and it was spoken for in 15 minutes. 

This room transition is going to take us quite some time.  My goal is to get it done by the time school starts the 3rd week in August.   Thanks for stopping by....

Born to Deer Hunt Baby Sets

A couple weeks ago I was asked to make a baby set for a pair of twin baby boys... the theme I was given was camoflage & hunter orange because the Dad is an avid deer hunter.  Whis is what I came up with.

Here's the set for Micah, with the deer and turkey-- notice the scene on the burp cloth matches the scene on the bib.  I debated about embroidering the bibs but thought it might be to fru fru for deer hunting boys.

 Weston's set has the deer and a raccoon.

This was a challenge to say the least. The standard white burp clothes I use were too white for this so I slip covered them in a natural colored flannel then top stitched to make it look like a regular burp cloth.   The bibs I usually use were also too white so I made these using a premade one as a pattern.  The back is lined in the same natural flannel.  I found the fabric pretty quickly and then by chance stumbled across the Born to Hunt deer design when I was looking for something else.   Overall, I am pleased with how these turned out.  I hope the receiving family likes them as much as I do.  Thanks for stopping by! 



Finished Halloween Quilt

Ta Da... My first quilt. I started this on Saturday and worked on it several nights this week. It's not giant, about 45" square. Kinda did this lazy girl style, meaning it's not exactly quilted or bound the traditional way but most importantly it's DONE.

Troy suggested I add some buttons-- imagine that! I plan to just drape it over a table when we have our halloween party. Feeling inspired to make more of these-- perhaps one for each of my favorite themes!  Hope you are staying cool in this summer heat.  Thanks for stopping by!

First Quilt- Step 2

Here are the squares all stitched together.  This came together pretty quickly. 

Somehow between the floor and the sewing machine a few of the squares got moved but oh well. I am going to add a black & white dot border around this, then the binding.  I am so ready for Halloween, it's been between 105-110 here in Texas and I am really looking forward to cool October weather. 

Hope you are staying cool, thanks for stopping by!

First Quilt- Step 1

I've been bit by the quilting bug!  I've said that quilting something like a blanket was not for me for a long time but after going to the fabric & quilt stores on a weekly basis-- I think the quilt bug got me.  
Saturday Micaela and I were out and about.  She said, "Mommy you can do it!" when we spotted the Moda H"owl"oween line by Deb Strain and I thought well, I should try a small project.
So that is what we did, I purchased my first charm pack and Micaela and I spent well over an hour arranging the blocks on the carpet in her playroom during the evening.  It was fun listening to her reasoning for moving blocks around... "Mommy: spiders can be next to owls because they are friends and cats can be next to witch hats because they go together". 

Here's what we came up with.  In the next couple of days I will show you all the squares pieced together.  We'll see how all this comes together.  I don't usually embark on long projects that take more than a day or two to complete, thanks for joining me on this ride....

Another Pop Monkey Set

This has got to be my most popular item in my Etsy store.  I think I have made about 10 of these Pop Monkey Burp Cloth & Bib Sets.  It all started with one set I made for Micaela's preschool teacher 3+ years ago and I have been making these ever since.  I am glad this fabric is still available. 

This order was headed to California, not sure of the ethnicity of the family receiving it but this was the exact spelling they specified. 

I did something a little different this time on the raw edge, instead of a rolled edge with zigzag stitching, I  added binding made from the same fabric.  I like this look even though it's a little more time consuming. 

This set was a piece of cake, but last week I got a challenging request for a burp and bib set for twin baby boys with a deer hunting theme...  I am almost finished with that set and I will be posting it later on this week.  Hope you have a great Monday!  Stay cool in this summer heat.   

Double Rainbow

Yesterday was pretty hot.  By late afternoon a storm blew in with lots of wind and rain, then quickly after the sun was shining again.  We had a gorgeous double rainbow.  Here's a quick snapshot of Micaela and Oreo in the back yard, you can see the rainbows in the background.  Hope you have a great weekend!

St. Louis weekend

We spent the weekend in St. Louis.  It was a fabulous weekend, we visited a few places and spent lots of time with extended family.

Here we are at the Gateway Arch

We also went to Grant's Farm.

Anheuser Busch Clydesdale Stables

And, the Butterfly House in Chesterfield

The butterflies were incredible.  This is a collage of our best shots-- wish I could identify them! 

Thanks for letting me share!

Cousins Reuniting

While in Missouri for the weekend we were able to reunite Micaela with 5 of her cousins that were all born within a 12 week time span.  It was fun to see how grown up they all are now that they are seven!  All the kids looked at the camera, smiled, sat still and had their hands in their lap!  Look at the difference!

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July from my family to yours!

We started the day by attending the Hometown Parade in Beautiful Historical Downtown McKinney!  Be safe everyone!

I'm back!

Yikes, I did not mean to be away for 10 days plus! 

I had to attend the Keep Texas Beautiful conference in San Antonio all of last week and then I blinked and four days have gone by!
Can't believe it's already July 2nd!

Trying to be a hip Mom

This weekend we went to the Allen USA Celebration on Saturday.  This is a huge event in our neighbor city that draws 75,000+ people.  We went last year and loved it.  This year the big band before the fireworks show was The Bangles! I listened to The Bangles all through high school and loved them, I was so excited to share the music with Micaela-- our 7 year old.

I tried to prepare Micaela for the concert by downloading their most popular songs off iTunes so she could become familiar with them.  She loved Walk like an Egyptian, Manic Monday and Eternal Flame. 

When the concert started she begged me to take her closer to the stage. Trying desperately to be a hip Mom, I walked Micaela all the way to the stage to see The Bangles up close. We had to tip toe around thousands of people to work our way to the front.  In the end, we got about 15 feet from the stage.  Here's a picture snapped by someone in the crowd,  that's Vicki Peterson above our heads.   (you can see we are pretty close). 

Micaela was so excited to be so close but I burst her bubble when I had to say no when she asked me to put her on my shoulders. No way I could handle 50+ lbs!   I am hip but I am not that strong...lol.  Thanks for letting me share!