Pinwheel Quilt Progress

Here is the latest shot of the quilt! I have it "quilted" and now all I lack is the binding which is lying beside the quilt waiting for me to iron it and then sew it on! (The binding is my least favorite part!) I hope to finish this sometime today! And as you can see Mac is in the picture...he loves when I sew because he likes lying on fabric or quilt batting!

Quilt Progression:
June 25
June 9
February 7
October 24

Ribbon Memo Board

Today instead of my usual Sunday afternoon nap I had a little bit of creative inspiration! As I was looking through some of our pictures from dating and our wedding I realized I had a lot of good ones that I would like to have out but I didn't want to go and purchase picture frames for them all! Instead I took a cork board, fabric, and ribbon and made a beautiful memo board which cost me nothing!!

It wasn't hard at all...the toughest part was working the staple gun (I was afraid my fingers were going to slip and I would staple myself!!) The ribbons aren't perfectly straight but that is not noticeable with pictures on it!

Here it is with pictures! On the board is our very first picture (with me in the FFA jacket), our first picture after we were engaged (John David in the orange shirt), our wedding, and our first Easter (in front of the door)! All of the colors on the board are in my kitchen/dining room which is where this is going to go, I have blue cabinet tops, black appliances, white wainscoting & crown, and light green walls (which match the little home sweet home sign!!)

Here is my creative process:

Hammer, glue gun, upholstery tacks, staple gun, scissors, ribbon spools, and scraps of fabric, and ribbon!

I have a need to spread things out when I am being creative...pictures everywhere, cutting tools, fabric, and more ribbon!!

I just thought it would be fun to include pictures of the mess I created while creating something beautiful!! (Of course I did clean up the mess when I was finished!) :)

Under the Sink

When we moved into our home the under the sink cabinet was icky!! We pulled out as much of the damp wood, fixed the leak, & purchased white board to slide under there! My husband cut it to fit under there perfectly. This is a perfect solution, the white board does not absorb water in case of a spill and it is easy to wipe up any spills from cleaning products!

A New Dress

This past week my mom was on her Spring Break so she and my dad came to visit! The main purpose of this visit was teaching me how to read a pattern! Mom taught me how to use the machine and sewing basics but we have never made anything together. The aprons and skirt that I have made I have figured out on my own (& with the help of my amazing hubby who can do anything!!) We decided that we would make a dress, last month I went to Hobby Lobby when McCall's Patterns were on sale for $.99! The pattern I chose was the only one I found with a modest neckline!

So Monday we went to Hobby Lobby looking for the perfect fabric to make a cute dress. It was a hard decision but we were both pleased with the fabric we decided to go with!! We spent Monday evening working on the dress. She showed me marking the fabric and I followed along with the steps and tried to see what the illustrations meant. I sewed quite a bit on the dress and even helped with the gathering (somewhat challenging for me)!! It turned out beautiful!!

Me in my new favorite modest dress...how exciting that I don't have to wear an undershirt under this!!

The back view!

The full skirt makes it fun...I was even spinning around like a little girl!! :)

Soon I am going to make another dress on my own and see if I can make it look like this one...hopefully it will turn out good!

Thanks mom for your patience in showing me how to read a pattern and for answering my questions!! I love you!!

*I have had several questions about the cost of this dress. Here is the breakdown:
Fabric: (2 yards @ $3.60/yard) $7.20
Lining Fabric: (2 yards @$1.87/yard) $3.74
Zipper: $1.99
Interfacing: (not sure the price...I am going to guess $2)

Total: $14.93

The fabric was $.99 but I am not counting that because I will use it again & of course I used thread!

Bird Trinket Box

This bird trinket box was my great grandmothers (my dad's mom's mother). It has been at my parents house since she passed away in 2004 and I recently got it back. I thought it was pretty but knew it would be beautiful painted white.It turned out wonderful after a few coats of spray paint!!

It now sits on my nightstand & is a daily reminder of my great grandma!!

Cross-stitch Baby Bib

My latest creation! I just love making cross-stitched baby bibs as gifts! This is the first one that I have done like this with just the name and a border around it. I think it turned out beautiful and I really like the simplicity of it!

Here are two bibs I made last year!

Clothesline

We purchased a retractable clothesline last year at the FFA Alumni Auction but since we have lived in apartments we haven't been able to use it! Since spring is here and we want to save money on our electric bill we put it up!! We decided to put it on the back deck so the laundry will be just out the back door instead of down the stairs and in the yard.

John David putting the clothesline on the post!

The retractable end!

The other end!

My sweetie & me after a day of weeding, picking up rocks, and putting up the clothesline!

Of course we had a little helper outside with us! Here is Mac in his fence off the deck...when we leave the fence he can't stand it and tries to get out!!

Now, I've just have to purchase clothespins so I can actually use my clothesline!!

Crafting Supplies

I went to Hobby Lobby to pick up fabric for pinwheel quilt squares I will start after I finish the baby quilt I am working on. I already have red gingham & I wanted solid white to go with it! The white fabric was $1.87/yard and I purchased a yard and a half. I also picked up 2 baby bibs so I can cross-stitch them for shower gifts!

I made this sample patch to make sure it went with the quilt squares I already made! They look great together! My original intention when I started the baby blue pinwheels was a baby quilt but I have decided to do the red & blue and make a bigger quilt!

Baby Quilt

Last week I was able to take a little time to cut out patches for the baby girl quilt I am working on! I broke the cutting up so it wasn't too much of a job! I now have all the squares cut out so now it's just time to start sewing them together and watch a beautiful quilt take shape!

The 3 different patches on the fabric that will be the backing!

The stack of patches ready for me to start sewing!

Ready to start sewing...

I started making patches for a pinwheel quilt a month ago and then stopped! The past few evenings I have been cutting out triangles for the quilt! I am planning on starting back on it tomorrow!

Homemade Draft Stop

The temperatures are falling...and we are trying to be energy efficient this winter to save money! So with that in mind, tonight I made a draft stop for our living room door!

This was really easy and took about 15 minutes! I used flannel fabric that my mother-in-law gave me and cut it a little longer than the door. I sewed the long end together and made two small bean bags to weight the ends. I sewed a bean bag in one end and then turned it inside out and stuffed it! After stuffing it I sewed the other bean bag on the end and sewed the draft stop shut! A very easy project and a very useful project!


Here is the draft stop keeping out the cool air.


A close up of the beautiful flannel that matches my cream & blue curtains.

So now I feel very productive since I made something, especially something so useful!

My Latest Project: A Pinwheel Quilt

Last week I started on a new quilt! I decided to try something a little different than a plain patchwork quilt. I am making a pinwheel quilt! I am excited, the blocks that I have made so far look really good!

I am making this quilt from leftover fabric from my last quilt and fabric that we bought at an auction this summer.

I am planning to work on this during the next few weeks and hopefully have it done before too long!

...Make Cards of Course!

Once I finished my wedding album the natural and logical thing to do was to make wedding cards with the extra stickers! I absolutely love giving homemade cards but usually make them for specific occasions. After I was finished scrapbooking today I started making cards and finished with 22! Of course they didn't really cost me anything since I had all of the stickers and card stock already and even had extra envelopes from stationary.

Here are my creations:


My first wedding card that says "LOVE"


Another wedding card that says "I DO"

I made 7 wedding cards and then starting making all different cards!


These are two of my favorites! I will write "Thanks" or "Happy Birthday" or "It's a Girl" on these depending on who I am giving them to! I made 4 of these!


All of the cards!

I have:
7 wedding cards
5 blank cards
3 Christmas cards
4 sportsman cards
2 thank you cards
1 congrats card

So now I am ready to start sending cards!! And the best part, $0 out of pocket expense for me and de-cluttering my home in the process!

My Wedding Scrapbook is finished....finally!!

Well, 2 years, 3 months, and 27 days later I finally have finished our wedding scrapbook! I am so excited to be finished! I started it shortly after we were married and would work on it during Christmas and Summer break but had never completed it...until now!!

I pulled the book and pictures out yesterday determined to complete it but almost didn't even start because I had no yellow paper! Instead I found my scraps (with very little yellow) and one 12x12 sheet of black paper and I truly "scrap" booked 22 pages!! Since I didn't have much paper I put lots of pictures on each page, I am very happy with each page that I did and amazed that I was able to complete 22 pages with so little! Here are a few of the pages!


The page on the left was already completed (all the "wasted" paper) but the page on the right was the first one I completed!




One of my favorites, the grandparents page. We were blessed that all of our grandparents were at our wedding!


Another favorite...the tractor page! We left on John David's tractor!!


I really like this page, these are my favorite dating pictures. They were used on the table where our guest registry was and I found the yesterday when I was cleaning out pictures, since they were already mounted on the yellow paper I knew they would make a great page!


This page was already completed but I had to share because I just like it so much!

John David and I just looked through the scrapbook together, I am so glad it is finished so we can remember our wedding day and our children will be able to look through the pages and see details of our wedding!

Latest projects

Well, it has been awhile since I last wrote! Our Sunday was uneventful and we left Monday at lunch for Louisville. John David was there for training until Wednesday and I tagged along! I did a little work, read, and went shopping while in Louisville. We arrived home Wednesday just in time for church.

Yesterday, I slept in! How nice! I left here around 11:30 and went to Penney's and Ross. I found several really great deals at Penney's! I bought John David a dress shirt and tie and two shirts for me for $13.90!! I was really excited!! At 1:30 I went to Jen Burns' house to sew!! She was teaching a lady from church how to sew and I brought my mending and a few projects to finish up! I had a really great time there! I got all of my mending done! And I finished this really cute bag that I began in March or April.



It is a canvas bag that I made. I hand stitched the recycling symbol on the front.





Close up of the stitching...it's not perfect, but that gives it character!!

Last night I had the desire to sew really bad so I decided to make myself a sun dress out of one of my cotton prints! I didn't get much done last night so my project today has been making this dress! I didn't have a pattern, I just used a little logic and measured myself as I went. I think it turned out pretty good, it is not perfect by any means but I like it!!



It really looks like a little girl's dress here!



Front view



Back view! I made the button holes by hand sewing them because my machine doesn't make button holes! It took a lot of time but they look pretty good and they work!

Well, tell me what you think, should I never wear it or should I wear it??

Our Saturday

We had a wonderful laid back Saturday! We had plans to wake up bright and early and go to a few yard sales but we slept in until 8:30! We did decide to go to a few yard sales. We didn't have any yard sale finds today! On our way home we stopped by the Farmers Market and bought 4 ears of sweet corn! I was so excited because I have been wanting fresh sweet corn! When I got home I made turkey and cheese sandwiches to go with our corn and we had an amazing lunch!



I spent some time finishing up my cross-stitching! They are for an upcoming baby shower! They turned out beautifully!!



The bunny for a baby girl!



The ducky for a baby boy!



Both of the precious bibs!!

We also spent some time stripping the chair! We made a lot of progress, I didn't know it was going to take this long though! The chair will be cherished once we finish because of all the time we are investing into it!!

4th of July!

We have had a wonderful, laid back 4th of July! We actually went to FFA Camp yesterday to do some filming for a promotional video for the state officers to take to chapter visits. We arrived there around 10:30 and spent yesterday filming all the fun things that go on at camp! We really had a great time there! John David ended up as the DJ for the camp dance last night and everybody had a blast...we even danced and he spun me! I am learning!! Camp ended this morning and we headed back home, stopping in Murfreesboro for barbeque.



Us at camp!! (This picture was taken on John David's Blackberry...it looks amazing to me!!)

When we got home we were tired from staying up late last night so we laid down and rested...how nice to climb in the bed and relax!! I spent some time on one of my most recent projects, cross-stitching a baby bib for an upcoming shower...I am almost finished!





He caught some of the exciting cross-stitching action!!

We also began working on another project, refinishing a chair! We got this chair from Mom B. and I absolutely love it. It has a crack in the seat and is missing a spindle but we are trying to make it into a beautiful dining chair!! We worked on stripping off all the paint tonight! I haven't decided if I want to stain it or paint it black.



The chair!!



John David hard at work...he is much better at these things than I am!!

So that was pretty much our 4th of July, no big party or cookout, just enjoying a day together doing the things we like to do and enjoying the simple pleasures of life!