It happened

Last night the card exchanging ladies met here. It was exciting. We always spend time chatting first. Then we check out each others cards. Sometimes we have an activity. Tonight we made a mini folding scrapbook. I first saw the idea on Dawn O'. blog. I am so glad I printed the idea out because when I went to find it last night I was unable to find it on her blog. Thanks for the idea Dawn. We had to work with inferior 12x12 paper, it was really 12x11something. Everyone did their own thing and seemed to enjoy the project. There is always some fear that your friends won't like your idea as much as you do. Since three of the ladies were unable to attend I made them each an album this morning so that when they get their stack of new cards they will have an album too. I tried to gear it to what I new about the ladies. Well enough chatter. Here are the cards that we shared. And here are the albums I made.

We can do it

In my church there is a women's organization. Last night we had a nice activity. We learned how to do all sorts of preserving foods, using stored foods, and other things that stretch our dollars as families. The ladies that organized this did a great job. So did all of the presenters. I made these two cards to give a personal thanks to the main organizing/planning women. I hope they pass on my thanks to their committee.

card group x2

Oh my it has been a while since I have written or shared anything. This is my card from last months card club exchange. I thought it was super cute. I figured it could be used for anyone's birthday. I got the idea from Dawn. This is my card for this month, July. It came together nicely. Since it is a bit bulky and will require extra postage I have added a quarter so the ladies don't have to pay the extra $ because of my design. This idea came directly from the 2010-2011 SU! Catalog pg.

A fun gift

I needed a birthday present for a family member this week. I have seen the idea of decorating tea lights by stamping on them. Well you really stamp on tissue paper and then heat it onto the tea light. I like how they turned out. I didn't do anything fancier since I needed to mail them today. Happy Birthday and Mother's Day together this year Brina. Love you.

Going again

The card group is going again! A few years ago some of us ladies from church began a card exchange group. We meet every month to exchange cards and do some scrapbooking. You know it really started as a scrapbook group and we added the card exchange. We have been inactive for a while since everyone was so busy and doing so many other things. A few of the ladies were talking and put out the word that we wanted to get going again. We had our first meeting on April 22. I made this card. I purchased the card blanks last year some time. They were on clearance at Michael's. I just added the stamped image and the ribbon. I think they are just fine. I like to have a place to share what I like to make. Being able to have girl chat time is lovely too. Thanks friends for getting this going again.

going again

I'm at it again. Some time ago. probably within the last year I decided that I would make a granny square afghan for my each of my grandchildren. I decided that the best time for them to receive it would be at High School graduation. Since my oldest grandchild is four I knew I had a few years to get these done. But I know they take a long time so I started. I think I have close to enough squares crocheted for one afghan. But I am not going to put one together yet. I have decided to keep making squares. If I make 5 squares a day it will take me five plus years to have enough squares for 35 grandchildren. You say 35? That number was derived my thought that if each of my children had five children that would be 35 grandchildren. If I have more grandchildren them I will have to make more afghans. Happy to do that. If I have less then I will donate the "left overs" to a worthy cause. I know. I'm weird. By the end of this year I should have 6 grandchildren. So that is a more workable goal for the moment. Make enough squares for the almost current six. For sure I'll have them ready in time. I hope.

wish big

My husband and I have been invited to a party for a lady we know through our church. The invite says no presents please. So I made a nice card instead. Well I think it is a nice card. Happy birthday Ellen! See you tomorrow.

The book

On Tuesday, April 13, I took the completed memories book to Bro. and Sis. Johnson. They invited me in. It was so special for me to be with them and to listen to them talk and express their thoughts and feelings on such a thing to have received. They thought it was very nice. He remarked that it looked they would get some crying in tonight when they had a chance to read the messages from their friends. They are going to add other cards and notes that have been delivered directly to them. The pages are quite nice and very creative. I am confident they will enjoy having it and that their children will enjoy it as well. The day is coming when he will no longer be on this earth. He's hoping for a few more weeks. What special people. Memories live on for us who stay on earth after our friends leave.

It's done

I did it. I finished the nine-patch quilt!! Well at least the quilt top is finished. I don't know what the traditional way of putting together this style of quilt is but this is what I chose. I decided to put the same color fabric squares together to give them a bigger presence in the quilt. The six pieces in the middle are the ones received from the FB quilt group. I am satisfied with the turn out of the quilt top. Hurray! I finished another project.

Pages for PJ

A dear man in our church ward is in hospice care for his cancer. He is loved by so many people here. We as a ward had planned a Celebration of Life for him. It was to be tonight. His health deteriorated so much since we began the planning that it will no longer be held. We, the organizers, decide to still make the memories book. We asked people to write their memories of Phillip and bring them to the event. Instead they have been sending them through email, and Facebook. Last night one of the ladies making the pages asked me if I would make some pages for the family to add pictures too. She is the page queen so I was a bit overwhelmed. I finished the eight pages at 10pm last night. I hope they fit the bill for her and the family.

Why 3?

I asked myself today why am I working on making three quilt tops at the same time. It is a good question. It seems that I have an attention disorder. Or maybe I should call it a completion disorder. I expanded my nine-patch sharing quilt talked about earlier into a queen sized one. I didn't have enough squares so I plowed through my fabric stash and made some more. Then I did some figuring and bought some fabric. That has all been sew and it isn't enough yet. So today I bought ten more pieces of fabric. Now I have run out of white muslin. So tomorrow off I go to buy some more of that. I made sure I purchased plenty of the fabric pieces so now I have more than I need.

I have decide to made a series of four patches with the extra pieces. That will some day be a quilt.

Quilt top two is also a nine patch made with fabric from my son's wedding open house table cloths. It will be given to him and his wife for their first daughter.

Quilt top three. While I was waiting for the weekend to end I felt like sewing so I picked up some scraps left over from Julie and Debra's wedding gift quilts and began to piece them together. It looks like I will have enough to make another queen size quilt with them. Maybe I should actually finish Debra's and give it too her. The top is finished, the pillow cases are finished, the bottom fabric is pieced and the batting was purchased in Dec.

So many quilting ideas and options so little finishing getting done.

This post writing seems to be a mess.

Butterflies

Butterflies are quite in right now in decorating. I saw an idea somewhere and made the idea into a card. I kind of like it. I got a bit messy with the glue. Oops.

Bulletin board

Last year sometime I began a bulletin board decoration project with the ladies at my Church. I was doing well on it and had it almost finished when something stopped me from that goal. Just today I began to work on it again. I hope to have it finished this weekend. I like these colors alot and think it will be a nice addition to my "work" room.

My guys creating

This post is not about me being creative it is about my guys being creative. Last week they made a rail for the kid to practice rail riding with his skateboard. It was determined at that time that a sloped rail would be fine. After using it for a while the decision was changed. So tonight for a family night activity they changed it to a flat rail. I was the photographer. It is fun to watch them work together.

Church talks

Earlier this year there were two talks given in church that completely inspired me. One was by Mary about the gospel principle of love. It was the best ever. The other was begun with Phillip reading the words to the song "Consider the Lilies" Then his wife, Marilyn played the piece on the piano. She is a perfect piano player in my eye. It was inspiring and uplifting. I finally got around to getting thank you cards ready for them. Mary's was made at the scrapbooking/cardmaking night I have each month with some of my friends. The other one made for Phillip and Marilyn I made on my own. I wanted to make sure there was a lily on it. This stamp is the only lily one that I have. I think it turned out. The thank yous are written and I am ready to give out these cards.

New teacher

My friend Brandy has been called to teach the Gospel Doctrine class in our Church on Sunday's. I am sure she will be a great teacher because she is a great person. I wanted to give her some encouragement so I made her a card and gave her some "scripture power" foods (poweraide and power bars) to let her know I am thinking of her and am confident she will be just fine teaching us adults from the Old Testament.

approval

I went yesterday with my family to visit my youngest daughter and her husband. We had a nice visit with the newlyweds of 3 months. I took the Kodak Easy Share camera of ours to show her some of the cards I have made this year. She said "Oh i like that one" a few times. That made me happy. She is an artist and has an artists eye. So a compliment from her is very nice for me. Today I decided to make a card with a new corner punch that I bought from StampinUp. It turned into a Mother's Day card. It is OK. I also finished one with bees that I started yesterday.

Productive day

Today was a productive day in my life. For my creating side I straightened all of my boxes of fabric, had my son move a work table upstairs, and I made a card and updated our scrapbook from our annual pie night celebration held the night before Thanksgiving.

Look what I made. Years, and years ago you could buy a cloud template. On one of the blogs I follow I saw that the lady made her own template. I "stole" her idea and made one for me. And look at what I made it out of, scraps. This is what it looks like used for a card.

A note of thanks

Last month a friend of mine from church passed away. Our church choir was asked to sing at the funeral. We hurried around for a few days and finally got together to practice. There were just 6 of us and the director. The family said it was just what they wanted. Since I am the choir president I wanted to personally thank the choir members that were able to sing that day. I have had this idea in mind for a while but just got it together today. I think it is a bit clever to make the flowers out of sheet music. I have seen flowers similar to these on other blogs and with other kinds of paper like old story books and stamped words. I an very thankful that these people sacrificed their time to help a family in their time of need.

Vancouver 2010

The opening ceremonies last night for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver were inspiring. I liked the music. I also liked many of the countries team outfits. I took notes on some that I particularly liked to I could make some cards. I hope to get to that this afternoon. Stay tuned for the photos. Good luck to all athletes. My sympathies go to the country Georgia, and the family of the luge play that was killed while practicing.

A New Quilt

Earlier this month I joined a group through Facebook to make 9-patch quilt squares. Six people joined. I volunteered to do two squares so we would have more finished squares. Everyone else decided to do two as well. So when we swap we will each have two squares. That should be enough to make a crib size quilt. The fabrics chosen were white and a pastel print. I searched through my stash of fabric and chose a lavender print and a baby blue print. Each person sends two finished squares to all the others in the group. I mailed mine a week or so ago. Today I got my first set of two from one of the members. She used a green. It is super cute fabric. I am anxious to receive the other squares. They should be here with in the next two weeks. The deadline is March 1. I hope I get the squares sewn together soon so I have a quilt ready to quilt.

About this time last year, 2009, I decided that I needed to crochet an afghan for each of my children for Christmas. They were done in a single crochet pattern with each child getting a distinct color. I did Eric's first. I finished all seven of them before summer vacation in July. At the time I also decided to make one for me. Mine has seven bands of color. Each band is made with the same color and type of yarn that I used for that child's afghan. I am sure that it will always keep them in my mind. That was my intent on making one for me. I'll post a picture when I learn how to do that.