WIP

This week I am working on a few different projects.

I am working on a Big Picture Classes class called Happy Go Lucky:

It's not too late to sign up. Registration closes tonight, June 27 at 10pm Pacific Time.

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I am working on a project for an up coming OPUS GLUEI challenge:

I can only show this little sneak peek.

The big reveal will be on Sunday, July 15th.

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I finally decided on the block to make for my 3x6 Bee over on Flickr:

I'm only sending each Bee member one block. Of course I'll be using my Bee member's color choices. And Megan's purple, yellow, and a bit of black on gray. It's block #472 called "Galaxy X" in Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Vol. 5 by Deborah Johnson of inthedoghousedesigns.com. Now all I have to do is make them.

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I made a pincushion:

She's really friendly. And helpful.

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Well, that's it for me this week.

What have you been up to?


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I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Lee's place.

Pinnieasaurus Discovery

I have made a discovery. A new type of pinnie. A new type of dinosaur.

Please meet Penny the Pinnieasaurus:

At first glance, she looks like your everyday dino lady.

She's a bit shy, so approach slowly. And smile.

If she turns to face you, you're okay. Go ahead and approach.

And if she turns her side to you, you are GOLDEN. Means she wants to sew with you.

I am rather smitten with her. She loves to sew. But her little arm span makes it difficult, so she helps me.

(Sometimes I wonder about myself?!?!?!?!)

Happy Go Lucky Stitch Along

Getting ready for a little class I am treating myself to. It starts tomorrow.

There's still time to sign up. HERE. And now it's 50% off. A steal at $10.00.

New Obsession

I have a new obsession. And it isn't, well, you'd better sit down for this one. I'll wait.

Are you sitting safely now??? Good. My new obsession is NOT a craft. I believe it will be a short lived one. (My wallet hopes it will be a short lived one. So does DH.)

I found out that eBay really does sell HAPPINESS. I found some there. And bought a few pieces of it.

Wanna know what it is???



Just cast your eyes on these beauties:

This little golden gal was the first to my new collection. I am enamored with her combination lock. And those pretty little knobs. I remember playing with a suitcase my mother had. I would try every single combination I could think of to get it to open. I think she hid our presents in there.

Isn't this the most adorable green bombshell??? I love this shape. And it's GREEN.

Hello gorgeous.

This is my favorite one though. I know I am not supposed to have favorites, but come on. Look at her. She is so very classic.

Check out her backside. Isn't that hardware beautiful???

But this is the picture that made me do it. I just love this picture. That metal is just so yummy to me.

Well, there you have it. My newest passion. I won all of these on eBay in the last couple of days. Now the hard part: Waiting on the mail.

My plan is to refinish the interiors and turn them into sewing project holders.

One of them will house my Hexies.

Seems only logical that these two obsessions should enable each other.

Perhaps another will hold my zippers, D-rings, extra do-dads, etc...

And who knows what the last one will hold. Or IS IT the last one?

Only eBay knows for sure. LOL

(If you are interested, I searched on Vintage Train Cases to find these.)

Come on, drink the Kool-Aid. You know you want to!!!

Gettin' my grill on

Poobah Deena of the Order of the OPUS GLUEI has put forth the challenge of the GRILL and all things BBQ.

I am putting forth my all time favorite grilling recipe. I love it so much that sometimes I think my family wants to burn the recipe. They haven't yet. But I am keeping an eye on them. Anyways, I just used some beads I had leftover from some other project and some plastic coated wire. It's held on with glue dots under the butterflies. Pretty tricky isn't it. I used Versamark to stamp the cardstock with a citrus stamp that I have. I think I got it in a Club Scrap kit many, many years ago. Paper is DCWV. Don't know the font.

It's one that was found in a coupon circular in the Sunday paper many, many years ago. I don't even recall what the advertisement was trying to sell to me. I am pretty adventurous in the kitchen, so I tried it. AND I love it. I think you will too.

Next up is a little refreshment. This one is actually from a recipe swap I did a few years back. I made it for the Beverage round of a Disney recipe swap. (Yes, I didn't make it fresh. NO, it's not cheating. OPUS GLUEI isn't strick like that.)

I am particularly proud of the glass of lemonade. I used some very thin plastic wrap from some package of something I had at the time. (I'm very exact in these matters.) The ice cubes are hand shaped vellum. The lemons are Quickutz. I love my dies. Don't know who made the paper. Also don't remember what font I used. Sorry.

I have an 8x8 photo display stand that I got a few months ago at Michael's. I think it's from their line of product. I am using it in the kitchen for recipes.

It's one of the best idea's I have had in the kitchen in a long time. It holds the recipes up above the bowls/pots/pans. It has the plastic to protect the recipe. I tend to cook ALL OVER the kitchen.

This is another one of my recipes. The swaps that I was in wanted 6x7 recipe cards. I think they were putting them in a box or tin of some kind. I knew that I wanted to make mine into the 8x8 size to put them into an album. But this stand is WAY better. It even fits the 8x8 album refills.

Thanks for putting up with the drabble. And the crappy photos. It's late and I almost forgot to post. I will try to take better ones and replace these. (Figure the odds.LOL)

Head on over to OPUS GLUEI and check out the other Grillin' ideas. Maybe even add one of your own.

WIP Wednesday

Bit of a late post today. Time just got away from me. It was a good day. A busy, good day.

I finally finished trimming the HST's for Aaron. They are 3.5 inches unfinished. What was I thinking. Anyhow, now on to the good part. I love piecing.

I pulled my reds and blues out to start working on the July 4th Mug Rug Swap. I have a couple of ideas floating around in my head...

Check out what everyone else is working on here.

RATZ - Magnets

No, not the rodent. It stands for RAPID AND TINY ZAKKA. It's a swap group on flickr.

Zakka is a Japanese term meaning "many things", is all about the little things that improve your home and appearance. The swap group was started to fill a gap between larger item swaps. The group focuses on small items. And just the item. No extras. Last month it was keychains. I missed out on that one. This month it's magnets. And the partners are secret. She has no idea that these are for her.

I decided to embroider a simple design onto linen. I love the feel of linen and it's just plain gorgeous. So I didn't want to hide too much of it. 

I think they turned out perfectly for this swap. I hope my partner does too.

ICAD 2012

I am a joiner. I will join. I will participate. This time, I blame the loverly Gina at Tyggereye Art. The girl has more talent in her little toe than I'll ever have. Go on, go take a look at her art. I love her style. It makes me want to create too. It gives me a warm fuzzy that I don't get in a lot of others' art. She's posted about ICAD - Index Card A Day for 61 days challenge. June and July you take a 3x5 index card and create on it. Your choice of decorations. Just do something on one of the cards everyday.

The loverly hostess, Tammy, is open to any medium on your cards. There are a few rule, and she answers questions here. Not many rules, not overly complicated, but rather to keep us creative with index cards. One of the rules is to use 3x5 index cards. I already had index cards, but they were 4x6. So I cut them down. Didn't cost me a thing. Just a few minutes of my time.

Each week she will present prompts that you can use for your cards. Or not. You don't even have to use any of the prompts in any order.

Anyway, I didn't start until 3 days ago, I have decided NOT to play catch-up, but to start now and go forward, which will put my 61st day into August. This is new for me. Usually I stress myself out and try to do it all. Not this time.

Here are my first 3 cards:

ICAD #1

ICAD #2

ICAD #3

I am not putting any restrictions on myself. The first day I only had access to pens. So that is what I used. The second day I had just found these wonderful tapes. And on day 3, I got a letter in the mail with this fabulous stamp on it.

I am really trying to accept my abilities as they are. I have a history of wanting to do things like other artists. BUT that isn't real. These 3 cards aren't as terrific as some I have seen, but they are mine. I doubt that everything Van Gogh did was a masterpiece.

I am really gonna like this challenge.

It's All Relative

The Fabulous Electra has challenged us with "It's All Relative: Make your project about family somehow this fortnight." With Father's Day coming up I decided that cards were in order AND the hubster was going to be out of the house with the kids for a few hours (with the kiddos). Score.

(I was kind of going for a frame on the wall look here.)



 Hubster has this annoying habit of getting a card for each of the girls to give to me on Mother's Day. I personally think this is a bad thing because then I am compelled to find a storage spot for each and every card. Anyway, because of this I KNOW that if I ever get just ONE card for all of the girls to give to him he will feel slighted. And we can't have that. Plus it has been a while since I played with paper and glue.

(I pleated the ribbon for this medallion. It doesn't look like it, but this card took me the longest to make.) 

Hubster is a very good daddy. He has started taking the girls to hockey games and now that it's warmer out, baseball. I am not a big fan of either one so when he takes them I get to stay home alone.

 (It's fun playing with stamps again. This little plane and banner had never been inked before. And I have had them for a while. Bad Jana.)

Hubster is an aviation fan. He also like motorcycles and now Mustangs, but I couldn't locate my motorcycle stamps and I don't have any Mustang stamps. So - a plane it is.

(This little card was made with scraps from the other cards. I'll give this one to him.)

I suppose we will be grilling on Father's Day. It's what he likes. After all, this is his day.


The Poobah's over at THE ORDER OF THE OPUS GLUEI would LOVE to see what you come up with for this challenge. The rules are very, very open to interpretation. If it's for or about a relative, it's in. The Poobah's pretty much just love to play.

TGIFF

I just stumbled upon this wonderful blog. Quokka Quilts hosts TGIFF.

Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday.

I already post to WIP Wednesday, so I think it only logical to follow up with TGIFF.

(Partly because I forgot to post Melissa's finished quilt.)

Melissa picked out all of the fabrics, including the background. She picked the pattern. She arranged all of the blocks. I did all of the sewing.

 There were a few blocks left over. She wanted a really long quilt. I had to intervene.
We compromised and put the extra blocks on the back.

I knew that I didn't want to do the quilting. I LOVE piecing tops. Not so much the quilting. SO, I took it to a local long arm quilter. We picked out a varigated thread and a circles pattern to contrast with all of the lines on the quilt.
(click on the picture to see the details - the quilting can really be seen on the back)

This is the first quilt that I sewed the binding on completely with the sewing machine. I picked out a decorative stitch and went to town. It went quickly and now my baby finally has a quilt. It only took a year. Once I got started. Her sisters each got a quilt when they were 4. Melissa is now 12. Bad mommy.