A Wedding Story...

Well, if you're getting married this year and I'm invited, chances are good you're getting pillows. I made this pair for Matt & Kim for their wedding gift this past Saturday. I asked Matt a bunch of random questions through email and found out his living room is brown and light blue, so hopefully these match! I think they look great!

The wedding was fabulous! I used to work with Matt and he is by far one of the nicest people I've ever met. Kim is beautiful and friendly and sweet as can be. It's almost sickening how cute they are together. There were a TON of TGIFriday's people at this wedding. People I hadn't seen in years! I had to quit working there unexpectedly when I was put on bedrest while pregnant with David, and many of these people kept me sane.

Look at that! Four generations of Friday's folk! Aside from the flashbacks of working there, the reception was a riot (hated working there, loved the people!) The Rumplemintz was flowing and the laughter was plentiful. With the exception of being seated between my husband and ex-boyfriend it was perfect! FYI, ex-bf's new fiancee is really nice and the seating arrangement was much less awkward than expected.

It was great to see everyone! Thought I'd pop in here and share the quick story... back to costumes for me!

October, please end already!!

Oh yeah, one more thing...

WELCOME TO THE WORLD KAITLYN MARIE!!

Born this morning at 8:45, baby #2 to my friend Michelle whom I've known since we were kidlets ourselves. I can't wait to meet and snuggle her! I hope she loves this quilt I made for her!

Oh October...

Brrrr.

I have been so busy! Tuesday I spent 10 hours on Halloween costumes. Seven costumes to make, and I waited till this week. My procrastination paid off a little since everything I needed was on sale this week, but why did I think this wouldn't take that long? They aren't even close to done yet, I just got the complicated part done. Mostly. The miracle I'm trying to work with felt on one of these is just not working out. I'm holding off on posting pictures only because of their sheer awesomeness, so I'm forcing myself to wait till they're finished....

Note to self: Next year, don't wait till late October to start making costumes. You don't have time for this.

Put Some Clothes On!

I finally got a picture of my alien with his new jacket and scarf! I wanted to make him a hoodie, but it turned into a really cute jacket instead. He's going to live in Wisconsin on Monday!

Soooooo.....

I deleted my last post talking about my kiddie-klepto. I found my camera and I was feeling guilt for all but accusing him of hiding it. *sigh* This mom stuff is even more exhausting when ya screw up.

And now that's off my chest. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

A New Commercial....

The Aliens Have Landed...

It's crochet season!

Every year when it starts getting cold, I stop sewing for a while and start crocheting more. This year I didn't get much of a choice since my sewing machine is broken again. I knew this would happen if I kept forcing quilts through it, I could just tell that stitching the binding with that machine would eventually be its demise. It's only injured as it still sews a straight stitch and will sew through 2 pieces of fabric just fine in a zig-zag also. But satin stitching? No way. I'm glad it's only halfway broken... however I managed that.

It's cold and I can't just sit here not making anything so I made this little guy. I could probably clean my house... oh well. I've got another one in the works also. One of them is going to Sheboygan, WI to live with Jen's (from jennadesigns) son Isaac. I hope he loves it!

I think he needs a hoodie. I've never made a hoodie for an alien before...

...but it's cold in Wisconsin!

Where's My Stuff?

I've been trying to keep track of where my items have been going since I started selling on Etsy, and since I recently made my 300th sale I thought I'd share! Each gray dot represents a sale in that state! Some states were too small to fit all the dots!!

Add to this 9 UK sales, 1 sale to Germany, 1 to Japan, 1 to Greece, 5 to Australia, 1 to Switzerland, and 8 to Sweden!! I'm worldwide! And that makes me very happy!

Now Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, where you at?! You're 3 of my all-time favorite states, don't you love me back? I once woke up screaming in North Dakota thinking I was in Hell, so maybe we just feel the same about each other. (Hey, you'd do it too if it was 75 degrees when you fell asleep and -15 when you woke up, and yes, my Hell is cold!)

Thank you all for your support! And thank you Etsy for the opportunity to share all my goodies with the world!

Chilly Chili Weather!

I'm sitting in a very smelly hotel room right now watching the minutes tick by on the clock. Nothing much to do here. My boy is sleeping, hopefully for a while, and soon will get up and put on a tiny tuxedo and walk down the aisle hand-in-hand with his new buddy Lydia, doing his special ring bearer job for our friends Will and Amy's wedding this afternoon. I loooove to see my boys all dressed up. I personally would rather wear jeans, but I love to see them all decked out. Big Dave and Uncle Jon will be in their dress blues as well. I chopped up a former bridesmaid dress yesterday to make a pretty cute brown cocktail dress for myself also!

Now if only I had remembered a sweater...

Until about 5 minutes ago the rain had let up and some blue sky and sunshine peeked out. I hope this stops long enough for them to have the beautiful outdoor ceremony they spent so long planning out. It's a chilly day!

Speaking of chilly... there's been much mention of chili lately. I always break out the crock pot the first chilly week of fall. I made a half batch on Tuesday and had it for lunch, dinner, a snack, another snack. I figured since I'm sitting here at this boring hotel trying to be quiet, I might as well share my recipe for super-yummy beanless chili. You can always throw some beans in if you must I suppose, I just don't.

Here goes...

Super Yummy Beanless Chili
(hey, it's mine, I can call it whatever dorky name I want)

Ingredients:
2 12oz. cans of tomato sauce
1 jar of medium salsa (I prefer Meijer brand)
1 big onion, chopped
1 lb. of Bob Evan's Zesty Hot Sausage (I've tried others, this is the best! Comes in a roll.)
1 lb. of ground sirloin or ground beef (ground venison is even better, but I rarely have any)

Directions:
Brown the sausage. Drain and put in crock pot on low.
Brown the ground-whatever-you're-using. Drain and put in crock pot.
Add a can of tomato sauce. Add about 3/4 of the jar of salsa. Add chopped onion.
Stir.
If it doesn't look saucy enough, add some or all of the 2nd can of tomato sauce.
Cook in the crock pot on low for a few hours. All of the items are precooked, so it's pretty much done as soon as it's hot.
You can put it on high to cook it quicker, but I like to make mine in the morning and simmer it all day.
This is a family rule - Chili is to be eaten with Fritos. No spoons, no forks. Fritos.

Now I realllly want chili. Big Dave just took off to do his before wedding Best Man stuff, so I should probably get ready. Then I get to figure out all this tiny tuxedo stuff. Cuff links? Really? He's 4....

Snuggly Cheek-Pinchin Sillyness!

So this morning I found out that someone verrrry close to me is pregnant!! (NO it is not me!) I can't say who since they haven't told anyone yet, BUT OMG! I thought this would happen soon, they aren't the best at hiding the evidence of trying (no I have not been snooping their trash for used uh.. things, or the lack thereof), and it's happened!! I thought this would end up being not-great news for me for a few reasons I can explain when they spill the beans, but I changed my mind. I cannot wait to snuggle with a new baby!

Like I said before, I know far too many pregnant women right now. If I ever saw any of them I'm sure I'd be so overwhelmed by the hormones that I'd run like hell to get away (kidding, sort of, I love you all.) But this baby is super special because I'll get to snuggle him or her a lot. I wish I could say that about 2 of my best friend's soon-to-be-here new babies, but one lives far away and the other I only see if I visit her. (Booo, you know who you are!) So I'm very happy to have someone I'm so close with procreating, so I don't have to.

Proving again I can write 2 paragraphs that say relatively nothing aside from someone nameless being pregnant... I had to get that out since I'm not allowed to tell anyone. :)

...to be continued!

It's Done!!

Not the best picture ever, but I finally finished this quilt for my sister! She picked out all the fabrics and mailed them off to me. At first, I wasn't really crazy about it, I was even referring to it as The Ugly Quilt, but after all that work its grown on me. I hope she loves it! I really like it a lot more now that it is quilted, and I like the new way of quilting it that I tried. Looky here:

I'm pretty pleased with how straight most of my lines are without having marked them! It will go great with the asian theme in her house also. I threw in some extra goodies when I shipped it off too! One of them is a pirate-y tote bag for my sis's sis-in-law (hope she doesn't read this, not really sure if she does!). I'm even less into pirates than I am into asian prints, but I love the style! I think I'll make a few more of these soon! Plus, it's reversible!!