Friday, July 20, 2012

Cute-o-meter is on the rise!

Cute, yes? A birthday gift for my oldest great niece, Emery. She is 3 years old today! Aunt Lori the Great (I gave myself a great aunt name, like a Grandma name) is ever so slow at getting things done. Emery's quilt from last year still hasn't been quilted. I waited until today to decide what to make and bought fabric and trimmings today. I actually made this apron & hat in about 2 hours from start to finish! It does cause the cute-o-meter to rise, but tomorrow when Emery and her 3 cousins are together (all girls so far, ages almost 2, 7 months and 3 months), the cute-o-meter might just break with cuteness!
 Look! It's reversible!
 Matching Chef's Hat


 It looks big, so I added some ribbon that can be tied tighter to make the hat fit better. Yes, I am hoping to have another family member who loves to cook!

Hopefully will have time to update with more fun things I'm working on soon. Just had to share this! I'll take pictures tomorrow and share those!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Is Mauve the New Avocado?

If you are a child of the 70's, you very likely had a kitchen with colors like this:
(used from the Charming Zebra website found HERE)

OR this:
(found at THIS website)

Or, as "Miss Charming" from the Charming Zebra site says, "There was a time when everyone had either brown, orange or harvest gold appliances. They were very stylish at the time--not so much now." 

We had harvest gold, but LOTS of decor in orange & brown. I'd forgotten that til I read Miss Charming's comment. I think I might be a bit nauseous now.

I thought we had moved past all these colors until a few years ago when I was at a Pampered Chef Leadership conference (back when I was a director, before I stopped being a consultant and then started again). They showed us this new "fun color cutlery line." FUN color. FUN???? See for yourself:
It is NOT a fun color, in my most humble opinion, however it IS a very sharp knife (and you can order one from me if you'd like!). I have scars to prove how sharp it is. I have a former host of PC shows who can also tell you how sharp it is. The first time I did a show at her house I caught my oven mitt on fire. The next time I sliced my finger open. She had to leave the room so she didn't see it while a former Army Medic, who happened to be at the show, bandaged me and I told someone how to make dessert! Clearly, there is NOTHING fun involved with something this color. 

Now, the next decade brought different shades. If you survived the 80's, you know the colors I'm about to mention. Country blue and.....everyone say it in unison...mauve! I'm pretty sure I had 2 mauve bridesmaid dresses. My wedding also had shades of blue & a rosy pink that were similar to country blue & mauve, but brighter. The country shades were just a tad to grey for me. And those of us who were children in the 70's and grew into young adulthood in the 80's vowed we would NEVER have harvest gold or avocado green (or brown with orange for that matter) in our homes.

Most of us who married and had kids in the 80's & 90's now have kids moving into adulthood or already there. What I want to know is this: Do kids of the 80's & 90's detest country blue and mauve as much as we detested harvest gold (not just any gold, of course) and avocado green? And did our parents vow to never use turquoise or pale pink in their homes? 

I stumbled onto this fantastic website with all kinds of color schemes called Color Schemer (click on it to get there). When I searched for 40's colors this page came up. I kind of like the colors there. By the way, what a cool site for anyone wanting to see colors put together for home decor, quilting, stamping, scrapbooking, or even cake decorating. 

What colors do you think will be the "harvest gold" or "mauve" of the future? I guess only time will tell.




Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Bells will be ringing

Wedding bells will be ringing, not for me, though! 22.5 years ago that happened. A dear friend's daughter is getting married and I was asked to make the dress. I'll show pictures after the wedding. It's a "hippie-boho" style (or so says the picture she showed me that we are recreating). I wouldn't call it hippie and I'm not sure what boho is, but there are no sparkles and it's almost all cotton! It's a fitted dress and let's just say she has shape. Dolly Parton-esque, you might say.

That's my project to finish this week. She's out of town and comes home Thursday, then leaves on the 19th for the wedding location----England! They will live there & he is English. Needless to say my needles will be flying before she does, so no blogging til this is done.

Ta-ta for now!

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Oh, Cherry, Oh!

My 3rd entry for the Moda Sliced Contest. You can see all entries HERE. Not feeling well today so I'm just going to upload pics. Details will follow another day.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Moda Sliced Contest

Moda Bake Shop is holding a competition. The "auditions" for the competition are this month and can be seen HERE. I have 2 entries completed and hope to finish one more before the 29th. Between selling Girl Scout cookies, planning a wedding dress I am making for a friend's daughter, and homeschooling, we'll see if I get the 3rd one done!

For the auditions, the rules were to use precut fabrics from Moda, a buckle, batting and create an item for an office or studio. Also, any additional fabric must be Moda fabric. For both of these projects I used Prairie Paisley 2 charm packs. Other info is with each project.

Project 1: Wall Organizer.

Wall Organizer

Clear pockets on top piece hold patterns, etc. Corkboard behind allows things to be pinned on. Striped Texas is a needle holder. Paisley Texas is a pin cushion. Pockets hold smaller items.
 


Second set has ribbons to hold papers. Bottom section is a scissors holder. Maybe now I can keep up with my scissors! 

In the center is the Heart of Texas!

Materials used:
  • Prairie Paisley 2 charm packs
  • Bella Solid Fig Tree Cream 9900-67
  • Clear Vinyl
  • Grossgrain ribbon
  • Plaid ribbon
  • Overall Buckles
  • Corkboards
  • Thin polyester batting
  • Fiberfill
  • Jeans Buttons

Project 2: Cushion for chair

The Buckle conceals the zipper underneath.

Cushion Back
Materials used:
  • Prairie Paisley 2 charm packs
  • Bella Solid Fig Tree Cream 9900-67
  • Bella Solid Christmas Red
  • Cotton Batting
  • Zipper
  • Grossgrain Ribbon
  • Metal Buckle
  • Foam Cushion

Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Sweethearts

Sweet Toddler Karis
Sweet baby Kynleigh



Couldn't you just eat them up? I didn't even notice the skirts because these girls are so sparkling beautiful! Note Karis' jewels in her hand. She is my niece's daughter. Baby Kynleigh is my almost niece's (niece-in-law's sister) baby. Can't wait to see Big Girl Emery in her skirt. I see more skirts in the future!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Valentine's Day Wall Hanging



Here are the details about the Valentine's Day Wall Hanging I recently made:
I used the basic idea of the wall hanging from Missouri Star Quilt Company in THIS VIDEO on Youtube. Jenny used charm packs for her darling quilt. I decided to cut my own squares since I didn't have a cute charm pack for Valentine's, but I DID have Valentine's fabric. I used my Sizzix Bigz XL 5" square cutting die, but you could cut them with your rotary cutter and ruler. When it came to the border, I wanted the word "LOVE" to show, and didn't have enough fabric to cut the long strips ensuring the word would show. I fussy cut some strips 5" x 9.5" and sewed those together for the side edges 9 (3 of those pieces). For the top, I also added some corner pieces to add a little contrast.

This was a lot of fun to make and really easy! You just have to make sure you have your triangle pieces turned the right way when you arrange them!

Let me know if you try this one, too!