Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas! We have around here! If you comment and wrote a Christmas blog as well, link me to your blog, I'm in the mood for Christmas stories! :)

For Christmas, part of my gift was kielbasa. Yup, my Mommers gave me meat for Christmas. It's just so delicious, I can't wait to cook it! I was ready to cancel the Christmas ham I want it that bad. This stuff smells so good, and I always sniff it through the butcher paper.

Mom: I got you kielbasa!
Me: MMMMMM thanks Mom! *sniff sniff OMG yum*
Mom: What are you doing?
Me: Huffing my sausage.
My Husband: I've got a sausage you can huff.

That was only the first of the awkward penis jokes on Christmas Eve.

Ahhh Christmas. I'm so blessed to be a part of 2 (ok, more like 5) wonderful (and hilarious) families!

Saw my Dad's side last Sunday. Lots of laughs and instead of the annual ham, we had BBQ Pork sandwiches! I love ham. But BBQ is even better! I hope this becomes tradition!

Today my Mom made us breakfast. Unfortunately my step-dad had to work so we didn't see him. :( We had french toast, pineapple, bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, oj, chocolate milk, coffee, AND coffee cake! It was a smorgasbord of yum. And unlike my childhood, my Mom was all about breakfast closer to 11am than the wee hours of the morning like she used to do. Proving the older we get, the better we are. (I have never been a morning person, Mom always was when I lived there. I thought she was crazy to be that awake and happy in the morning! 11am breakfast rules.)

David added 4 garbage trucks to his collection, officially forming a fleet of garbage trucks over here. Those 3 matching ones are possessed. All 3 make noise all day long and there is no off switch and you need a screwdriver to get to the batteries. So thank you for that Aunt Colie, Mom, and Doug's Mom, what'd we ever do to you guys? :) Come to think of it, this doesn't include the garbage truck ornament he scored, or the one his Dad bought for him. Or the recycling game my Mom got him that has a herbie-curbie. My kid really likes trash. He's made no secret of this obviously, since everyone knows and got him trash related toys! He sent my Dad on a different random mission this year. His request:

Me: Grandpa John wants to know what you want for Christmas.
D: I want that Transformers guy with the fire extinguisher on his back.
Me: A fire extinguisher? What color is he?
D: I don't know Mom. He has a fire extinguisher.
Me: Do you know his name?
D: Yeah, it's Fire Extinguisher Guy From Transformers.

And that's all the info. I sent along to Grandpa John as well. hehehe. I hear they got a kick out of it. Still don't know if he found that Transformer. I'd have been more helpful if I'd ever seen the cartoon or movie I'm sure.


We also got a really fantastic recycling game called "What's Rubbish?". Along with really liking garbage trucks and dumpsters, my son LOVES to recycle. He will sort everything into bins for paper, plastic, and 'liluminum', it's too cute! The game is a lot of sorting and it's great quality. I definitely encourage you to find this game for your preschoolers!

We had lunch/dinner at my inlaws. I love my inlaws, again, I'm a lucky gal. We had chili dogs. Chili dogs. On Christmas! Have I entered some sort of parallel universe where everything is awesome? Love it. Lost terribly at Simpsons Scene It and after my husband drew a very phallic gun in Pictionary and I proved my pervness to the family ("It's a penis! What's coming out of it? Ejaculation? That can't possibly be in Pictionary! Penis gun?") that game came to an end as well.

Guess what else?! My Mom got me a serger!! I can't wait to mess with it! I don't even know what to make! I was messing with it today and managed to knot the 3 threads together way up at the top. So what do I do? Snip them and prepare to rethread the serger. Exactly what my Mom said to not do. Ha! Nevermind that the only decent (or so I hear) directions are on a VHS tape. I spent 2 hours trying to rethread it using the pictures in the manual with little success. It's threaded, all the threads pull nicely through the machine, they just don't sew right. The rightmost 2 threads are turning out all loose and loopy. If anyone has experience with these things, let me know if you know how to fix that! I haven't given up yet.


I received the Martha Stewart Encyclopedia of Crafts today also! Pretty amazing book. I love Martha Stewart, she's so fabulous. I used to watch Martha everyday back when I had 2 babies that were easily pleased with using me as a jungle-gym while I watched Martha. I never see it anymore. I now need barstools. So I can cover the seats with rope. Doesn't sound terribly comfortable but it looks cool. I also want to try the rope rug. And the sailor knot bookends. I feel a nautical theme coming on!

Mom, I really am turning into you!
I think I will skip the bathroom painted so it feels like you're crapping in an aquarium.

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 Boy Sheboygan!

Sheboygan you are so lucky. You're just across the pond (Lake MI) and I've never seen ya. But you have the coolest things. #1 is Jen from jennadesigns. And her cute kiddos. Someday I will go out there and meet them! I know I've said it before on here, but I'm saying it again. Jen is the bees knees. That was super nerdy, but I'm running out of ways to express this since I've probably blogged about her 4 times already. I can't help it, she's my favorite Twitter pal. And that's not just because she sends me awesome things like these:

It's like Christmas in my mailbox!! How great is that quilted List Taker?! I'm in love with the fabrics! Especially the yellow and brown one on the bottom right corner of the List Taker. She sent me a cool chunk of Robert Kaufman fabric with fun turtles on it too! I may make one of my Itty Bitty Snap Pouches with it today. I saved my very last frame for it! The card with the flower on it is a photo she took herself as well. I know it's basically a business card, but I'll probably frame the photo to add it to my collection. In the past year I have really expanded my collection of art from people I know. Every single piece in my living room was made by a local artist or good friend of mine.

And the best part of this awesome gift! 60 minutes of crafty music! When I opened this package I showed my son the CD. He insisted that I turn it on right then. Within the first minute it had his approval. "Oh Mom! This is a brand new song, thanks for giving it to me!" and then on to "Who sings this song?" whenever a new one started. So thank you Jen for the other gift that came with this, the great big smile on my beautiful boy's face :)

Check out this fantastic playlist! Get out your magnifying glass... I'm no computer whiz here.


This CD hasn't left my CD player since I opened the package! I'm looking forward to listening to it while I create today. Thank you so much Jen!! I love it all so much!!

What are you creating today? I've got the Ugly Quilt to bind and a dress to alter for a wedding on Saturday on my list . It's a former bridesmaid dress, so I'm crossing my fingers that the wedding party will not be in chocolate brown. A big pot of chili is on my list of to-do's today also. It's a perfect rainy and cold chili day here in MI!

Quilts!

I tried my hand at quilting! It's intimidating and at times frustrating. However, both quilts turned out beautiful! I used up a LOT of my stash of favorite fabrics. Lots of designer prints, a few vintage prints, and a few just random quilter's cottons.

On Wednesday I managed to cut out 300+ squares, using scissors NOT a rotary cutter. Proving I am insane. Took forever.

I was so hesitant to cut up all my favorite fabrics since I have a tendency to start projects that I never finish. I didn't want to waste them all! Luckily Quilt #2 is a gift to a very dear friend of mine, so I had no choice but to finish it. Quilt #1 is mine. There was no way I could make a quilt from all my faves and not keep one for myself. I'll attempt to keep #1 in pristine condition since #2 is going to spend the beginnings of its life being drooled and spit up on.

I made up the stitch pattern for the quilting. Just kinda haphazardly drew all over the back with dressmaker's chalk and started stitching with the longest straight stitch my machine would do. It took hours less than I assumed it would take! It's not as bunchy as this picture makes it look. I can't wait to wash and dry them and give them that crinkly cozy quilt feel. I may just have to make a queen size quilt after all. Of course, after all that work, there's no way I'd let anyone sleep with it.

I'm going to roll this beauty up and put it in the coordinating fabric basket I blogged about in my last post. I'm hoping to throw in a super soft and cute sock monkey from The Monkey Shop and a bib (at least) from MomNMiaQuilts as well. I'm sure I'll find plenty more goodies that need to go in there too! I ran out of binding, so I ordered some more. I hope it gets here very soon so I can give this to her when she comes to Michigan at the end of the month!

As you saw in my last post, I made 2 fabric baskets. One is for another dear friend of mine whose having baby #2 in November. Before her first was born, I made an itty bitty 'quilt' for him. It wasn't quilted really, more of a backed patchwork blanket that I did a horrific job of binding. I'm wayyy too harsh of a critic when it comes to my own work. "OMG a pucker! Why did I give this to her? I should've made it perfect!" I've known her so long, of course she deserves nothing but the best, right?

Anyway. Since I've been really busy I made it a point to ask her what she'd like me to make for this baby, in case she had something in mind. She wants another mini-blanket! Her first son loved his so much, she said she took it everywhere since it was perfect size to lay him down on anywhere. He sleeps with it every night even now that he's bigger, and it's perfect because he does NOT like anything on his feet or he wakes up instantly, and the mini is now too small to cover them. Feels so good to know she/they like it so much. Makes me feel like a dumbass for doubting it so much though. Lucky for her I've got a ton of pink fabric scraps for #2's mini blanket. To be started right now...

Tags!

This post is dedicated to Jenna from jennadesigns. She is so sweet and talented, always inspiring, motivating, and sharing great ideas! She's one of my fave Twitter folks and I love her blog (even when she's not blogging about me haha!). She has a fabulous Etsy shop and a great eye for fabrics and detail. I think if there wasn't a big lake separating us, we'd probably hang out everyday. :) Go check out her shop... then come back so I can brag about her more.

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It was great wasn't it? I especially love her sachets with the little birds on them and her photography - it's absolutely stunning! She recently posted a great tutorial for fabric tags that I HAD to try! My tags turned out great! I was able to make 600 tags for a mere $6!! I've also developed a serious obsession with printable fabric. I'm even researching printers since mine is broken and I MUST make more tags and design my own fabric. I've always have a billion ideas for fabric I want, I just have never had the means to print it myself. I changed a few things when I made mine. I used Microsoft Word instead of PS, had a different brand of printer fabric, and didn't set it like I should have. Luckily it's not too late to set it! Also, it says on the back of the printer fabric to only use one sheet at a time. For whatever reason all of the printers I tried said they were out of paper with only one sheet in there. Seemed to work out fine with 2-3 sheets in there. So if you try this and have the same problem, stop following the directions on the packaging and do as I say. :)


The awesomeness doesn't stop there! She also pointed me towards a blog tutorial to make awesome fabric baskets. See Jenna's here. I've been wanting to make these since she first showed me, but just got around to it yesterday. I should really not be sharing this since they are both gifts to a couple wonderful pregnant friends of mine. I'm going to stuff them full of baby goodies. I changed the pattern a bit by enlarging the squares to 3"x3" and making 3 rows so they turned out more like tote bags than baskets, but oh well. I have to be able to fit a large gift I'm making (that I can't share quite yet) in there!

I just love how they turned out! So bright and cheery! I might make a couple of the smaller version for them too so they can serve the original purpose I had in mind. A basket for all those little baby things that tend to get lost if not kept in one place. Nail clippers, butt cream, extra pacis, thermometers, etc. I'd have lost everything without a basket for it all. Lack of sleep makes me forget where things are. Babies cause a lack of sleep. It's a downward spiral from there. lol.

Enough about me and what I've made lately...

I was lucky enough to meet my husband's nieces from TN last week. All 4 girls are so sweet, it was nice to meet them! The oldest is 15, and loves to draw. I didn't know she was drawing me till she was almost done, but she did, and it's AMAZING. I oohed and ahhed over her whole notebook for a while. I so wish I could draw!! Here is her version of my son and I:


It's pretty accurate too considering most of the time her family was here David was hanging on me and crying. I think she wanted to keep it in her notebook but I shamelessly begged for it. It's framed on the wall in my living room right now, I had to get a frame that night! I also realized that I don't have any art on my living room walls that isn't local. I know the creator of each piece I have and it makes me happy to know so many talented people that have given/sold me pieces that all mean so much to me. I am a lucky lady. :)

Come on Christmas!

I've been crocheting non-stop lately. I need to make something new, hats and legwarmers are getting way to monotonous. I did find a nice chunky yarn that works up fast though, instant gratification always makes things more fun for me! I'm just out of it for now. This is the beanie that I made with the last of it!

I'm so ready for Christmas to get here! I'm itchin to give Dave his present and then show it off to everyone! I don't want to give anything away... but I worked on it with an amazing local artist who's almost like family to me and it was SO much fun! I had to wrap it right away to control myself from showing everyone. It's a good feeling to give a gift that has so much meaning, especially considering the gifts I gave in recent years that included lots of socks, underwear, and slippers.

My sis and I's Christmas of family from all sides and wayward friends is on for sure :) I can't wait! Come onnnnn Christmas!